The Impudent Observer - Global Liberal Issues Analyzes issues of liberal concern and gives readers a digest of what is reported in over forty newspapers throughout the world to engage them in critical thinking issues. Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 0 0 110 8518

Articles from The Impudent Observer - Global Liberal Issues

Is Israel Planning A Gaza Invasion? 2007-11-09 09:43:46 Reports are circulating that once the upcoming Annapolis Conference is concluded, the Israel army is ready to launch an invasion of the Gaza Strip in order to assume control of the Phladelphi Corridor through which Hamas has been smuggling weapons and money via tunnels that allow individuals to cross over from the Egyptian side of the border. Al-Quds-Al-Arabi reports this information has been given not merely to Palestinian authorities but to several nations, most probably to Egypt. President Abbas of Palestine is reported to be upset at the planned incursion which he fears will result in complete collapse of Gaz’s infrastructure and result in chaos and increased poverty to its inhabitants. Perhaps, prior to such an invasion, it might be worthwhile to invite Hamas to Annapolis and place on the agenda the issue of smuggling of weapons. Hamas would then be compelled before an audience of fellow Arab nations to justify allowing weapons to enter. There is a possibility some resoluti ...

“I Wish For New Shoes, A Bag, And Jobs For My Mother And Father” 2007-11-09 09:26:57 Mariannet Amper, aged 12, was alone in the shack while her mother and father were out trying to get jobs so they could have some money. She must have looked around at the pitiful few things in the shack wondering if this was to be her life forever. The Filipino girl most probably went to her diary, read some pages, perhaps a sob convulsed her body as she realized this was her life-poverty and hunger. At some point, she got some rope, and hung herself. When her mother and father arrived home, she was dead. Mariannet left a note addressed to the TV program, “I Just Wish.” The note told about her wishes, “I wish for new shoes, a bag, and jobs for my mother and father. My dad does not have a job and my mum just gets laundry jobs. I would like to finish my schooling and to buy a new bike.” These were the wishes of a 12 year old girl who wrote in her diary about not being able to afford fare so she could get to church and pray. I frequently hear angry comments from th ...

Marine Colonel Denied Right To Testify In Congress On Torture 2007-11-09 08:55:29 Marine Colonel V. Stuart Couch told Congress the Pentagon was denying him the right to appear before a congressional subcommittee to present his ideas on what is wrong with interrogation methods that violate the law. “The Department of Defense has decided that I cannot testify. Please be advised that I am willing to testify before the subcommittee in the event that I am allowed to do so.” Congressman Nadler was furious at the decision because Colonel Couch has already discussed his ideas to the press and in after-dinner speeches, but is being forbidden to tell Congress what he has told the entire world. Colonel Couch is opposed to use of waterboarding and other methods of torture and was upset such interrogation techniques were used in order to obtain information from Mohammedou Ould Siahi, accused of aiding the 9/11 attackers. According to Couch, “in our zeal to get information we had compromised our ability to prosecute him.” Republican Congressman Tent Frank ...

Turkish Meeting Charges Bush Ignores Their Nation 2007-11-09 08:29:12 At a recent roundtable discussion held at Instabul’s Bilgi University, a group of Turkish academics and the former US Ambassador to Turkey s well as American government experts examined Bush’s policies toward Turkey. The participants described Bush’s policies toward Turkey as “I want what I want when I want” was very counterproductive to establishing trusting bilateral relations between the two nations. The group felt Bush had an attitude that could best be described as “Turkey will always be there since Turkey has always been there.” Participants felt the Bush approach was a sharp divergence from Clinton’s policy of making Turkey a key player in strategic issues within the Middle East, and that channels of communication were always open to Clinton and Gore. A consensus was that Turkey must accept the reality that a Kurdish entity was now on its border because Bush will not back away from clamping down on Kurdish rebels. The group explo ...

Bhutto-Under House Arrest For Her Protection 2007-11-09 08:12:31 Benazir Bhutto, leader of the Pakistan People’s Party has been placed under confinement to her house according to Pakistan police for her own safety since there are reports terrorists intend to kill her if she appears before a public rally. Police Superintendent Aftab Nasir commented: “Only the general public do not have an access to her and it is for her security.” The Musharraf government has indicated it will not allow Bhutto’s planned march in protest against the state of emergency. The secretary general of the National Party has been arrested and may be charged with treason for daring to make speeches denouncing Musharraf. The Musharraf government is playing Orwellian games with keeping Bhutto confined to her home, but claiming it is not a house arrest, but simply a way to protect her against terrorists. Hundreds of lawyers are still in jail, there are restrictions on the media, and Musharraf somehow is claiming this is all being done in the name of democra ...

Pekka-Eric Auvinen, Finnish Student– Who Was he? 2007-11-08 19:06:30 Pekka-Eric Auvinen, an 18 year-old Finnish student wanted fame– he got his wish as he blazed away in a Finnish secondary school on Wednesday killing eight of his fellow students before killing himself. He used a 22 caliber handgun for the massacre and had learned to shoot at a shooting club. The first alarm reached police headquarters at 11:44 a.m. and by 11:54 a.m. police were at the Jokela school, located north of Helsinki. Parliament adjourned shortly after receiving information about the shooting, the same Parliament that went right along with its business after learning of the 9/11 attack. Who was Pekka Eric-Auvinen? Two days prior to the shooting he had posted a video on YouTube showing him in the forest shooting at an apple. The video was entitled, “Me Shooting With Catherine.” On Wednesday morning, shortly before heading to the Jokela School Centre, he uploaded a short video onto YouTube entitled “Jokela High School Masacre-11/7/2007″ Before bein ...

Belgium Disintegrating Over Language And Culture 2007-11-08 18:32:22 The country of Belgium has been without benefit of an effective government since parliamentary elections in June gave the Flemish speaking parties a majority. Belgium is essentially two separate areas - a Flemish speaking north and a French speaking south. Historically, the French speaking Walloon area was the economic dynamo of the nation due to its coal mines and factories. But, since Belgium became more of a high tech society, the more technology driven Flanders area has grown in wealth to the extent it pays a higher proportion of taxes and subsidizes Walloonia. A fight broke out when the Flemish tried carving out a Flemish speaking parliament district in Brussells where people of both backgrounds live. Neither side wants to budge and inch so the government is paralyzed. Belgium is an excellent example of what happens when a society containing diverse people fails to develop multicultural education programs. People are so caught up in being Flemish or a person from Walloon that neit ...

Benazir Bhutto’s Long March To Power In Pakistan 2007-11-08 14:04:08 Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, leader of the Pakistan People’s Party urged defiance toward President Musharraf over his imposition of martial law on the country. “The ball is now in the government’s court,” she said. “If General Musharraf wants to open the door for negotiations, he must restore the Constitution, retire as chair of army staff, and stick to the schedule of holding elections.” Even as she spoke with reporters, members of her party who were demonstrating outside of parliament were baton-charged and gassed by the police and military. Bhutto emphasized the importance of dealing with the crisis caused by Musharraf’s firing of judges who opposed him. “After the Constitution is restored,all judges will automatically be restored.” She insisted the Musharraf government must release imprisoned lawyers, judges and political activists. Ms. Bhutto asked members of all political parties to join with her on a long march on No ...

Annapolis Peace Conference: Did You Ever Get The Feeling You Wanted To Go, Stay, Go? 2007-11-08 13:34:22 The Bush legacy of posturing defiance at the world, insulting nations, and creating chaos is not readily shaken off when it comes to organizing peace meetings. Israel Defense Minister Ehud Barak is urging inclusion of Syria in the upcoming Annapolis conference, but the Syrian government has limited trust or confidence that anything worthwhile will come from a Bush initiative. According to its Ambassador to the United States, Imad Moustapha, “We don’t seriously believe that this is a peace conference that will lead to anywhere. Forgive us if we deduce that this is only about a photo opportunity and about people in Washington D.C. telling their electorate, ‘look don’t accuse us of only starting wars, we’re working for peace in the Middle East.” Syria wants the issue of return of the Golan Heights placed on the agenda but Secretary Rice has stated that only the topic of Palestine-Israel issues will be discussed. It may be unfortunate, but the prospects ...

Turkish Women Demanding End To Physical Violence 2007-11-08 12:50:15 In 1991, surveys of Egyptian women showed that 80% of them stated beatings by their husbands were justified by their behavior while 50% of Turkish women accepted this point of view. Switch to 2007 and the female world has dramatically changed in Turkey. Now, nine out of ten have the opposite viewpoint. “Women don’t think that violence is legitimate anymore,” says Professor Altnay who conducted a recent poll. A dramatic piece of evidence uncovered by the poll is that almost the same percentage of urban women will not accept physical abuse as is the case in rural areas where male chauvinism may be more apparent. Poll results indicated 40% of rural women were physically abused as against 35% of urban women. The poll revealed that if a woman earned more than her spouse, the likelihood of him using physical violence doubled and if a woman met a man on her won without having her family involved in determining marriage, the percent who were physically abused also rose. Many ...

Make Putin Our Leader Forever Urges United Russia Official! 2007-11-08 08:57:54 The United Russia web site of the party which now runs Russia under leadership of Vladmir Putin is urging that the current arrangement be made permanent. Abdul-Khakhin Sultgov in an article on the web site urges that after this year’s Duma elections (the outcome is already known since Putin has effectively blocked out other political parties from having any chance of winning)he wants all political parties, public groups, officials, and so on to pledge allegiance to Putin in a new Pact of Civil Unity. A Civil Unity Council would be established which Putin would then use to rule Russia. After all, claims Sultgov, “the country has no political system” and must retain their glorious leader or the nation will collapse. If Russia collapses because someone else is its president this suggests Putin has done a terrible job of preparing the Russian people for a democratic state. This type of hysterical groveling before the feet of the all powerful leader is reflective of Putin& ...

British Partliamentar Rebellion Against Suspect Detention Time 2007-11-08 08:42:38 MPs belonging to all political parties in the British Parliament rose in anger at proposals from the government to double the time terror suspects can be held without charges being levied against them. There are fears the government may well expand the number of suspects twelvefold in the coming decade. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith insisted: “There is a clear trend of growing complexity, growing numbers of people involved, of international links, that make it at least likely that at some point, longer than 28 days may be necessary for police and other investigators to investigate, interview, sift the evidence, make the international links to be able to charge somebody.” She sprang a surprise on the MPs by placing into the proposed legislation authority for the police to use the new power in dealing with any criminal, not just terrorists. David Dawes of the Conservative Party argued the proposal, in effect, meant England was now in a “permanent, undeclared state of emer ...

Iraq War Vets Becoming Part Of Homeless Group 2007-11-08 08:17:32 There is growing evidence an unanticipated outcome of the Bush war in Iraq is arising as reports indicate the increasing presence of Iraq War veterans among the homeless. Veterans of America’s wars in this century now total 194,254 of the 744,313 homeless people in this nation. The Iraq War has already generated 1,500 homeless veterans and many experts believe this is merely the tip of the wave. “We are going to have a tsunami of this eventually because the mental health toll from this war is enormous,” says VA official Daniel Tooth. Of course, these figures are only for those identified by the Veterans Administration and may not necessarily be the real total. From the beginning of its assumption of power, the Bush administration cut funding for mental health components of the VA although initiating a war in Iraq was bound to impact the mental health of those fighting. Many experts are shocked that America already has 1,500 homeless Iraq War veterans. The Vietnam War ...

Indonesian Forest Program Is A Climate Bomb! 2007-11-08 08:01:38 A report from Greenpeace suggests the burning of Indonesia’s rainforests and peatlands in order to build oil plantations is releasing massive amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Every year at least 1.8 billion tons of emissions are released by this practice and this amounts for 4% of global emissions. “Trade in palm oil by some of the world’s food giants and commodity traders is helping to detonate a climate bomb in Indonesia’s rainforests and peatlands,” says the report. Just alone in the province of Sumatra some 3 million hectares of forest are set to be slashed and burned over the next decade. The burning of Sumatra’s peatlands which stores 14.6 billion tons of carbon would result in the release of greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to a year’s total around the globe! We inhabit a global economy in which the devil of oil driven cars and industries is leading the planet toward incredible problems during the coming decades. Indon ...

Rise Of A New Class In China 2007-11-08 07:50:30 A “new social stratum” is emerging in China according to a study initiated by China’s Communist Party’s Central Committee. They are labeling businessmen and professionals as a new factor in the history of Communist China. “They want to participate in political affairs and realize their political ambitions so that their interests can be protected and voices head,” said the report The “new social stratum” includes private entrepreneurs, technicians, and managerial staff both in private and foreign-funded businesses. In a survey conducted in the province of Guangdong, only 19% of this group was satisfied with their participation in political affairs. Few of them have links to official Communist Party leaders and find difficulty getting across their views to the government. There are signs a few from this group are beginning to enter local politics. The emergence of the “new social stratum” offers China great hope for the developm ...