Syria Trumpets UN Election to Senior Post

UN Watch today called on Ban Ki-moon, US Ambassador Susan Rice and EU representatives to condemn the world body’s “revolting and absurd” decision to unanimously re-elect the Assad regime to a senior post on a decolonization committee charged with upholding fundamental human rights in opposing the “subjugation, domination and exploitation” of peoples — a propaganda victory now being trumpeted by Syria’s state-funded SANA news agency.

Iran’s ‘Plan B’ for a nuclear bomb

Iran is developing a second path to a nuclear weapons capability by operating a plant that could produce plutonium, satellite images show for the first time.

Iran: 45 executed in 5 days

The mullahs’ regime, in the midst of an unbridled infighting for power and fearing an outburst of popular uprisings especially with the sham presidential elections approaching, has resorted to increasing executions and setting up gallows in public. This inhumane regime, with at least 45 counts of executions in just five days, has set a new record in crimes and brutality.

Gilded Class Warriors

Today’s leftists like the high life as much as their demonized conservative rivals do. The more they damn the bad “millionaires and billionaires,” apparently the less guilt they feel about living it up in Palm Beach or Aspen — paying no taxes, offshoring their profits, or wearing Rolex watches.

The vast growth of the federal government has splashed so much big money around New York and Washington that even muckraking progressives can’t resist. Loud redistributionist rhetoric offers the necessary vaccination shot that makes privileged leftists immune from any criticism — or guilt — over indulging in tax avoidance, billion-dollar speculation, or aristocratic tastes.

George Orwell long ago noticed the same thing: In Animal Farm the pig elite loudly damned reactionary humans even as they sought to copy them by walking on two legs.

Video: The Real Source of Pali Oppression

The first part discusses how Palestinian “refugees” are treated in Iraq. The following two segments deal with Syria and Lebanon.

The real problem here is calling these people “refugees” at all. Most of these people didn’t flee their homeland, their grandparents and great-grandparents did.

The potato famine happened in the 1840s, when nearly a third of Ireland’s population fled to the United States. Imagine if instead of granting them citizenship the US had labeled them “refugees” who had to live in specific areas called “refugee camps”. Now imagine if this continued until the early 1900’s and the children and grand-children and even great-grandchildren of these refugees were still denied citizenship. That’s exactly what’s going on in the Arab world.

When burqas become accessories to crime

“By my count, the Philadelphia region has had 15 robberies (or attempted robberies) of financial institutions in the past six years in which the thieves relied on an Islamic full-body cover. These took place in January 2007, June 2007, May 2008 (two), October 2009 (two), November 2009, February 2011, June 2011, December 2011, January 2012, March 2012 (two) and April 2012 (two). The most violent one took place on May 3, 2008, when Police Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski was killed in a shootout following a robbery by perpetrators wearing burqas. One of the criminals also died in the exchange.

As David J. Rusin points out in his detailed survey of these crimes, Muslim garb holds two great advantages over other forms of disguise. First, plenty of covered women walk the streets of Philadelphia without criminal intent, thereby providing cover for thieves; the more head coverings around, the more likely it is that head coverings will facilitate criminal activity. Second, the very strangeness and aloofness of these garments affords their wearers an extraordinary degree of protection. As in other cases (notably a farcical purchase of alcohol in Toronto liquor stores by a 14-year-old boy in a burqa), clerks so fear being accused of racism or “Islamophobia” that they skip established methods, such as asking a niqabi to establish her (or his) identity.”

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FSA and Hezbollah inch toward war

Recent clashes between members of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and Hezbollah militias across the Syrian-Lebanese border have raised the specter of a regional spillover of the Syrian war, with Lebanon once again being caught in the crossfire.

The threat of war was raised Wednesday by FSA Chief of Staff Brigadier General Salim Idriss. In an interview with Al Arabiya Idriss gave Hezbollah 48 hours to cease its military operations in Syria or face attacks on its installations inside Lebanon.

Quebec language cops say there is too much Italian on Italian restaurant’s menu

Mamma Mia! The word “pasta” is a little too Italian for Quebec’s language cops.

They’d prefer something more in the language of Moliere than Michaelangelo when it comes to menus, even in Italian restaurants.

“Pasta” wasn’t the only word that left a sour taste when they recently chewed over the menu at Buonanotte, a trendy Italian restaurant in Montreal. There were several other words that didn’t have enough of a French flavour for the Office Québécois de la langue française.

For example, the agency says “bottiglia,” which is Italian for bottle, should be “bouteille” on the wine list. Using “calamari” instead of the French word for squid is also a little fishy.

The restaurant’s owner couldn’t believe it when he got a letter from the agency pointing out the transgressions.

“Palestinians” pushing Ahava products

“While the international pro-Palestinian boycott movement has been actively promoting a boycott of Ahava skin care products for the last couple of years, in Jericho, under the auspices of the Palestinian Authority, Palestinians are not only not boycotting the Ahava products, they are vigourously promoting sales of such products.

In Canada, in the fall of 2011 the boycott movement tried to convince Hudson’s Bay in Toronto to take the products off the shelf and took credit for the fact that Ahava products disappeared from the shelves for a while. ( by June 2012, the products were back at the Bay and the Bay claimed that the line was taken down as it was in the process of being rebranded, not due to the boycott). If the boycott movement tries such antics again against Ahava products, they should be asked why it is that a Canadian company ought not carry the products, when the Palestinians themselves in Jericho are selling them?

When I was in Jericho two weeks ago, the first thing that my Palestinian driver Faisal, wanted to show me in Jericho was the store selling “Ahava products.” He was going to take me to see the old city of Jericho, and stopped just outside the entrance way where there is a large store called “Ahava Temptation” in English. The store was filled to the brim with Ahava products with prices that are all marked in American dollars for tourists to buy. Virtually every tour bus that comes to Jericho is directed into that store.”

Is Abbas the last Palestinian Authority president?

It is about time those concerned with peace and regional stability start considering contingency plans for a West Bank without Abbas, and possibly even without the Palestinian Authority.

Musical Interlude

Stop the Commodification of Israel and the Jews

It’s no secret that some Jewish organizations pay their staff very generous salaries that enable them to live a more than comfortable life in America, along with benefits such as trips to Israel, dinners and parties at prestigious restaurants and venues, and the opportunity to hobnob with celebrities and public officials who love Israel and the Jews.

Jewish professionals today are able to create good lives for themselves in the US, sending their children to the best schools and colleges, buying a two-story home with a nice garage—all the while feeling great about the good they are doing in the world. And who can blame them?

These organizations sell wonderful products which ignite Jewish passions and Zionist sentiments of Jews all over the world: love for the Jewish people, Jewish tradition and, of course, the state of Israel. They entice donors and constituencies with promises to engage in good deeds that befit Jewish tradition, whether they are helping the needy, sending much-needed money and supplies to Israel, writing letters to politicians in support of Israel, or organizing social gatherings where Jews can network and, God-willing, find a mate, so that one day they can raise upstanding members of the Jewish community in America, and so on, forever.

However, from my observations, it seems that maintaining Jewish comfort and stature in America has become to many Jewish leaders a goal even more worthy than the causes they promote: meaningful and true safety of the Jewish people wherever they are and particularly in Israel.

What happens if Jews are asked to put their comfortable Jewish lifestyles on the line? What if standing up for the Jewish people involves taking a controversial position with regards to Israel’s defense that could offend a potential financier or “network” opportunity? What would be the higher value: Jewish principle and long-term Jewish safety, or present-day comfort and prestige?

Terror alert declared in Jerusalem

Security forces declared a state of increased readiness on Tuesday evening in Jerusalem in response to intelligence received by the Shin Bet security service indicating the possibility of a terror attack in the city.

Magen David Adom ambulance service declared a “Level C” alert, the second-highest level of readiness. Local firefighters were also on standby.

A police helicopter was patrolling the skies above the capital, and other units were deployed. There were also roadblocks at entrances to the city, and vehicles leaving nearby Arab villages were being checked.

The fear was of a terror attack, possibly by a suicide bomber, but the alert was “general, rather than specific,” security sources said.

Living out of wedlock in Iran

More and more couples in Iran are living together despite the fact that they are not married – in face of law and tradition. Conservative Islamic groups are trying to push the government to reverse this trend.

Iranis a theocracy. Islamic law is omnipresent and the government treats offenders harshly. But the draconian laws often collide with the realities of people’s lives. Many young Iranians are looking for ways to live a live more of their own choosing.

It is illegal for unmarried couples to live together in one apartment. But there are more and more young people who are defying the law – especially in larger cities and among those with a university education. According to the Iranian news agency IRNA, a member of the Tehran city council has already spoken out against “that new trend that is not good for society.”

Atefeh is a 22-year-old engineering student in Amol, a small city in the north of the country. For about two years she’s been living together with her boyfriend. “Of course not everybody knows about that,” she told DW. “Our friends know it, but most of them also live together with their partners.”

How to deal with partners living together out of wedlock is not clearly defined by Iranian law. But sexual relations between unmarried people are illegal and are punished. It is, Atefeh said, “a risk that we’re taking.”

In most cases it’s neighbors or pro-regime citizens who keep an eye on who is living in their building. If they are suspicious, they inform parents or authorities. But Atefeh is not concerned about her parents. “They know about it, which is why I am much less concerned about them then many of my friends where the parents do not know.” But there always remains the fear of being told on. “We are always very careful. When we leave the building, we take care that no one takes notice.”

Damascus on Edge as War Seeps into Syrian Capital

Unkempt government soldiers, some appearing drunk, have been deployed near a rebel-held railway station in the southern reaches of this tense capital. Office workers on 29th of May Street, in the heart of the city, tell of huddling at their desks, trapped inside for hours by gun battles that sound alarmingly close.

Soldiers have swept through city neighborhoods, making arrests ahead of a threatened rebel advance downtown, even as opposition fighters edge past the city limits, carrying mortars and shelling security buildings. Fighter jets that pounded the suburbs for months have begun to strike Jobar, an outlying neighborhood of Damascus proper, creating the disturbing spectacle of a government’s bombing its own capital.

On Sunday, the government sent tanks there to battle rebels for control of a key ring road.

In this war of murky battlefield reports, it is hard to know whether the rebels’ recent forays past some of the capital’s circle of defenses — in an operation that they have, perhaps immodestly, named the “Battle of Armageddon” — will lead to more lasting gains than earlier offensives did. But travels along the city’s battlefronts in recent days made clear that new lines, psychological as much as geographical, had been crossed.

Iran and Hezbollah Build Militia Networks in Syria

Iran and Hezbollah, its Lebanese proxy, are building a network of militias inside Syria to preserve and protect their interests in the event that President Bashar Assad’s government falls or is forced to retreat from Damascus, according to U.S. and Middle Eastern officials.  The militias are fighting alongside Syrian government forces to keep Assad in power. But officials believe Iran’s long-term goal is to have reliable operatives in place in the event that Syria fractures into separate ethnic and sectarian enclaves.  A senior Obama administration official cited Iranian claims that Tehran was backing as many as 50,000 militiamen in Syria. “It’s a big operation,” the official said. “The immediate intention seems to be to support the Syrian regime. But it’s important for Iran to have a force in Syria that is reliable and can be counted on.”  Iran’s strategy, a senior Arab official agreed, has two tracks. “One is to support Assad to the hilt, the other is to set the stage for major mischief if he collapses.”

A madhouse called York University

Imagine a place of higher learning, where a student shares publicly her dream to open Toronto’s first masturbation bar… where a Jewish cheerleading team captain with a goatee and dreadlocks runs for a student office on the platform of providing cheap halal burgers… where a multicultural flag display includes the flag of a notorious terrorist group… where Israeli apartheid anti-Semites (oops, “anti-Zionists”) rally to kick out the crime-investigating police from their campus…

Muslim terrorists kill at least 9 women giving polio vaccines

The suspicion surrounding polio vaccinations in Nigeria exploded in 2003, when a Kano physician heading the Supreme Council for Shariah in Nigeria said the vaccines were “corrupted and tainted by evildoers from America and their Western allies.” That led to hundreds of new infections in children in Nigeria’s north, where beggars on locally made wooden skateboards drag their withered legs back and forth in traffic, begging for alms. The 2003 disease outbreak in Nigeria eventually spread throughout the world, even causing infections in Indonesia.

Today, Nigeria remains one of only three countries where polio remains endemic, the others being Afghanistan and Pakistan.

 

Full documentary: Dogs Decoded

Dogs Decoded reveals the science behind the remarkable bond between humans and their dogs and investigates new discoveries in genetics that are illuminating the origin of dogs – with surprising implications for the evolution of human culture.

Other research is proving what dog lovers have suspected all along: Dogs have an uncanny ability to read and respond to human emotions.

Humans, in turn, respond to dogs with the same hormone responsible for bonding mothers to their babies.

How did this incredible relationship between humans and dogs come to be?

Barry Rubin’s books available for free

“Today, we are launching a new and innovative project, which you might find of interest. The GLORIA Center is putting 13 of my published books on our site, free and full-text to be read online or easily downloaded. The books are available in HTML and PDF and will soon be available for download in all other formats.

Naturally, we’d be glad if you tell others and perhaps even give a tax-deductible contribution (in the United States, UK, or Israel) by clicking the donate button on the page. But I decided that sharing these stories, ideas, and research is more important than a priority on trying to make money. That is the philosophy that has always directed the GLORIA Center.
We invite you to take advantage of this free service, designed to promote education on Middle East, U.S. foreign policy, and other issues. I hope you find this material useful in your work, research, study, and analysis.”

The hangman of minors is now the guardian of children’s rights – worldwide

Via U.N. Watch:

Iran’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Mohammad Khazayee was elected as one of the five presiding members of the Executive Board of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Khazayee was nominated by the UN body’s Asian subgroup for membership at its Executive Board.

The first meeting of UNICEF’s Executive Board is slated for February 5-8 in New York.

The Executive Board is the UNICEF’s governing body which provides intergovernmental support and oversight to the organization, in accordance with the overall policy guidance of the United Nations General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

The Executive Board reviews UNICEF activities and approves its policies, country programs and budgets. It comprises 36 members, representing the five regional groups of Member States at the United Nations. Its work is coordinated by the Bureau, comprising the President and four Vice-Presidents, each officer representing one of the five regional groups.

JDL presents: An Evening With Gavin Boby, from the Law & Freedom Foundation, U.K.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

7:30 p.m. sharp

Toronto Zionist Centre

788 Marlee Road (just south of Lawrence Avenue)

Lawrence West subway station (University Line)

$10.00 at the door, students free

Gavin Boby is a British lawyer who specializes in town planning law.

He runs The Law and Freedom Foundation, dedicated to preserving a lawful society that protects freedom.

Their first project is a legal effort to assist community groups, on a pro-bono basis, if they are faced with inappropriate planning applications for more mosques in their neighbourhood.

They focus on legal procedure but also on the nature of Islamic doctrine and as a result have won 16 out of 17 cases.

Click here for more info.

2nd monkey volunteers to be sent into orbit by Iran

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday he was ready to be the first human sent into orbit by Iran’s fledgling space program, Iranian media reported.

The inside story of Jason Kenney’s campaign to win over ethnic votes

Jason Kenney scans the dense crowd of roughly 20,000 Sikh Canadians in traditional dress and multicoloured turbans here to mark Vaisakhi—the annual celebration commemorating the foundation of this community originally from India’s northeast. Sitting cross-legged on the thin grey carpeting covering the enormous stage, the minister is inwardly cringing.

He doesn’t like what he sees. In front of him, a dozen yellow and blue Khalistan flags are splitting the crowd near the podium, held by men fighting the hot early May sun in T-shirts. The man at the mic, speaking Punjabi, suddenly speeds up and radicalizes his tone. He speaks of genocide, of violent clashes and of the independence of Khalistan—a country that a faction of Sikh nationalists would like to carve from India. It’s too much. Kenney, who’s picked up some Punjabi since becoming minister of citizenship, immigration and multiculturalism in 2008, stands mid-sentence, crosses the room and exits as three baffled Conservative MPs look on, unsure whether or not they should follow.

At the bottom of the steps, Kenney puts his shoes back on and raises his hand as if to rip off the orange bandana that all visitors wear inside Rexdale’s Sikh Spiritual Centre. He takes a deep breath, and restrains himself. A Sikh organizer approaches, looking contrite. “You are trying to exploit my presence here,” Kenney shouts, his stare fixed on the man in a white turban. “This is not a civilized way to behave. I warned you, and you did it anyway. I am aware that you would like to entertain the Prime Minister next year. You can forget it. He won’t be coming.” The minister makes his way to the exit, the Sikh organizer fast on his heels, apologizing profusely.

It had all started so well 25 minutes earlier. The party was in full swing. People sang and danced in all corners to a traditional Indian beat. Hundreds of children played in inflatable games erected along the four-lane street. Smells of spices and roast chicken tickled the nostrils.

Kenney took the stage with compliments reserved for a guest of honour. At the microphone he shouted a well-timed greeting: “Bole sonai hai? Sat siri akal!” Thousands of people responded: “Sat siri akal!” (The Sikh greeting roughly translates to: “Who stands up for truth?,” to which the crowd responds, “We stand up for truth, God is the ultimate truth!”)

The minister had bragged of the government’s achievements, including the creation, at the heart of the ministry of Foreign Affairs, of an office of religious freedoms to promote and defend all faiths. He highlighted that Vaisakhi is now a Canadian tradition because it is celebrated every year on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. It was after his speech, once he was seated, that the Khalistan flags suddenly appeared.

At the entrance, several long minutes pass before the minister’s driver pulls up in his black Nissan SUV. As we sit down, Kenney turns to me. “I am so sorry,” he says in French.

He finally pulls off his bandana and explains that Sikh nationalists are now waging their war in Canada. They hope to convince the roughly 450,000 Canadians of Sikh origin, the majority of whom live in the suburbs of Toronto and Vancouver, to put pressure on their families still in India, but also on the Canadian government, to support their demands. They want Ottawa to recognize a genocide in which Sikhs were victims, in 1984 in India.

“It was an extremist speech,” he says. “I had to leave the room, otherwise the community would think I endorse such a campaign. Certain groups have sometimes tried to wield my prominence to advance their cause. I have to be vigilant at all times. They shouldn’t be encouraged to reproduce, in Canada, the tensions of their homelands.” It’s a message he reiterates to new immigrants from China and Tibet, Greece and Turkey, Israel and Iran.

He glances out the window and sighs. “Welcome to my world.”

Iran’s opposition gathers in Paris, calls for regime change in Tehran

Iran’s exiled opposition figures gathered in Paris on Saturday said 2013 will be a year of change in the Islamic Republic and urged the boycott of the June presidential election that will choose a successor to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The international opposition conference — hosted by the French Committee for a Democratic Iran — came ahead of the 34th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

“This election whose only candidates are criminals implicated in the torture, massacre and looting of the Iranian people for 34 years, has no legitimacy in the eyes of the Iranian people and must be boycotted,” the National Council of Resistance of Iran said in a statement.

“Our nation is on the eve of a great leap forward, a change to end this morbid period of dictatorship,” NCRI president Maryam Rajavi told the conference.

Musical Interlude