By Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times, April 10, 2012

Mohammad Fahad Al-Qahtani is a busy man with a dangerous passion.

A human rights activist and relentless writer of letters and legal briefs, he challenges a kingdom that demands unquestioned authority. He slips videos onto the Internet and fires off missives to King Abdullah, calling for the freeing of political prisoners and the arrest of the king's half brother and heir apparent.

He smiles at such audaciousness at a time when Saudi authorities are trying to contain calls for change encouraged by Arab rebellions, but turns somber when pondering the consequences. Hours earlier, Al-Qahtani was interrogated by security forces, clicking off his cellphone beforehand and handing his car keys to his lawyer in case he was imprisoned.

When the questioning was over, he drove across a city where religious police ensure that women are hidden by veils and the foreboding monolith of the Interior Ministry rises at the desert's edge.

"They don't like this and they keep coming after us," said Al-Qahtani, with the air of a man accustomed to surveillance. "I'm afraid they'll raid my home. The regime is very nervous. Since the 'Arab Spring,' the population is no longer passive. So what can the ruling family do? Suppress us or let the phenomenon grow?"

secures the kingdom's equilibrium. In a recent interview, a newspaper editor complained about the regime's reach and power; the following day his office called to ask that his name not be mentioned for fear of reprisal.

Al-Qahtani has no such reservations. A former talk show host, he believes, on his good days, that a high profile offers a degree of protection.

"I tell the interrogators: 'I want you to send me to prison. I want to see what's happening inside,' " he said, adding that such publicity could increase international pressure. "If I went to jail it would raise awareness. The authorities don't want to do that. It might be too costly for them. Yet they have to do something. I really think they want to understand me. I have another interrogation tomorrow."  READ....

March 03, 2012, RT.com

While Beijing is proudly leaking more images of J-20 fifth-generation stealth fighter jet, China continues to buy Russian military jet engines and spare parts, which might indicate China is in a technological deadlock.

­China is making an attempt to catch up with world leaders and develop hi-tech vehicles in the absence of crucial military know-how and technology, like engines for ultrasonic cruise flights and active phased array antennas.

 “As of now, it is too early to say that China is capable of creating a fifth-generation jet from start to finish,” told RT Vasily Kashin from the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies.

In 2009, General He Weirong, Deputy Commander of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force estimated that the J-20 would be operational no earlier than in 2017-2019. Now it appears Chinese engineers have done a great job and the jet is much closer to being ready than expected. READ....

By JIM YARDLEY, March 9, 2012, New York Times

Sponsored link: Recondition Old Batteries And Save Money

MUZAFFARNAGAR, India — Along the narrow lane known as Khadar Wallah, Muslims and low-caste Hindus have lived side by side for years, bound by poverty, if not religion. Yet recently, Muslims like Murtaza Mansuri have noticed a change. Their neighbors have become better off.

Many of the Dalits, the low-caste Hindus once known as untouchables, have gotten government jobs, or slots in public universities, opportunities that have meant stable salaries and nicer homes. And to Mr. Mansuri the reason is clear: the affirmative action quotas for low-caste Hindus, a policy known in India as reservation, which is not explicitly available to Muslims.

For decades, the issue of affirmative action for Muslims has been a politically fractious one in India. Many opponents, including right-wing Hindu groups, have long argued that affirmative action policies based on religion violate India’s Constitution and run counter to the country’s secular identity. Quotas, they said, should be strictly reserved for groups that have suffered centuries of caste-based discrimination.

But Badruddin, an older Muslim man who uses one name, wanted the benefit. He said affirmative action had enabled many lower-caste Hindus to secure government jobs that provided stability so that their children could remain in school. In many Muslim families, he argued, children must often drop out of school to earn money.  READ FULL STORY.....

Sponsored Link:

by Pranay Sharma , Debarshi Dasgupta , Pushpa Iyengar , Lola Nayar, Outlook India, March 12, 2012 Edition

“The world has changed, and the country must also change,” Manmohan Singh famously said on becoming finance minister two decades ago, in June 1991. The man who welcomed foreign investment into India has now, as its prime minister, invoked that old chestnut of a “foreign hand” working via civil society organisations (NGOs) to dismiss opposition to the Koodankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu. This has attracted (for the large part) criticism, concern, even wry chuckles at the irony of it all. For starters, a man who has always had to battle a pro-US image is pushing for a nuclear plant being built by Russia and, in the process, accusing US-funded NGOs (though not naming any) of blocking it. If that wasn’t enough, Outlook learns there is also a Russian ecological group, EcoDefence, somewhere at work here.

Sponsored link: Canada Immigration Made Easy!

Civil society is clearly upset. Many say Manmohan’s statement reflects a disturbing trend of government tackling genuine dissent by means more foul than fair. They stress the government reacted the same way to the Anna Hazare campaign, imputing motives to the NGOs that led it rather than meeting them on the turf of ideas. So the recent CBI and police action against four NGOs for alleged violation of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (and reported plans for action against several more) has hardly been a PR coup for the Centre. But it’s evidently a carefully thought-out strategy. In an interview to American journal Science last week, Manmohan blamed US- and Scandinavian-funded NGOs for not being “fully appreciative of the developmental challenges that our country faces”.

Was the PM trying to give out a signal to a wider audience that would be heard well beyond the country? What is the significance of invoking the “foreign hand” bogey—well-worn through use by successive generations of Indian PMs—at this juncture? Clearly, the pressure, both personal and external, to deliver on the nuclear deal (the only big feather in Manmohan’s cap) is showing. The failure to push through the deal on the ground—there have been protests at proposed reactor sites—undermines his, and indeed India’s, position. READ.....

Sponsored Link: 

By Devorah Lauter, Los Angeles Times, March 1, 2012

Mingling with extras in historical costumes and fans who called him "His Imperial Highness," Charles Napoleon sipped from a plastic cup and said matter-of-factly: "I gave my spit to be analyzed."

The affable businessman was referring to a recent study by a French scientist that matched his DNA to that of his great-great-grand-uncle, Napoleon Bonaparte I.

Yes, that Napoleon Bonaparte.

The study, part of an effort to reconstruct the genome of the 19th century emperor, may eventually help solve the mystery of whether the remains preserved in Napoleon's tomb in Les Invalides museum in Paris are really his.

Napoleonic DNA was just one focus of avid discussion at recent festivities here marking the 198th anniversary of one of Napoleon's last military victories.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy had just declared his candidacy for reelection, and comparisons were made between the emperor and today's similarly height-challenged and ambitious leader. There was also chatter about the new exhibit of lesser-known Napoleon battle paintings at Versailles. READ....

February 27, 2012. by Jahanshah Rashidian (First published May 19, 2008)

"We recall in this days with shame that 75 years ago - not just here in Berlin, but in all of Germany – people, in tens of thousands, applauded and cheered as the books of Erich Koestler, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Kurt Tucholsky and many others were thrown into the fire by the Nazis", said the German President, Horst Koehler, in a speech at Berlin's Academy of Arts, on the occasion of (Bücherverbrennung) “book burning” of the Nazi regime.

The Nazis were neither the first nor the last book-burners in history. Christianity has a longer history of defending an all-powerful deity by shielding the mind from strange ideas. The “Dark Ages” of the Middle Ages in Europe is full of religious atrocity , many scientists were burnt with their ideas and books: Jean Calvin was probably the most efficient: in 1600, when he burned Michael Servetus at the stake for heresy, and around his waist were tied a large bundle of manuscript and a thick octavo printed book. Another notorious illustration of this was in July of 1562, when Bishop Diego de Landa burnet five thousand idols and many thousands of their written works.

Several decades after the event of Islam in Arabia, Muslim invaders galloped in new territories. They brutally destroyed great civilisations and of course libraries, the symbol of knowledge and wisdom of these culture. This book-burning of early Muslims paved the way for 1400 years of darkness and backwardness in the Middle East.

Recalling not only the book-burning of 1933 by the Nazis, but also the early invasion of Islam in Iran, the regime launched in 1980 a cultural revolution to alienate Iranians from their pre-Islamic great civilisation by islamo-arbising the whole Iranian culture. Following the cultural revolution, bands of Hezbollahis and Islamists attacked, destroyed and burnt libraries in Iran. Millions of books were destroyed, and thousands of allegedly readers of such books were imprisoned or executed. READ....

Sponsored Link:  History of Burning Books; Will They Burn Internet in Near Future?