June 24, 2009
Four of the six Iranian soccer players who were brave enough to wear green armbands during the World Cup qualifier in Seoul a week ago have been forcibly retired from playing soccer. When they returned to Iran after the game, their passports were taken from them, and they have been banned from media interviews.
One of the players, Ali Karimi, is widely regarded as Iran's best footballer. Karimi refused to take off his green armband through the entire game, despite being ordered to do so. Karimi joined Persepolis FC in 2008 because of his love for Iran, despite international attempts to recruit him to more prestigious teams. Karimi previously played for Bayern Munich. He is an amazingly fast midfielder with a lightning foot.
Two of the other banned players currently play for other Bundesliga teams. The fourth plays for Leicester City, an English FC.
Bundesliga and The Football League should step up immediately and demand the release of these fine players. I normally wouldn't encourage sports leagues to get involved in government, but the government had to go and stick their noses into soccer.
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There has been a scramble for oil assets in Iraq's Kurdish region, which is more open to foreign investment than Baghdad. Heritage Oil, also a London listed explorer, agreed to buy Addax's partner in Kurdistan, Turkey's Genel Energy, for £1.5bn earlier this month.
Addax and Genel both produce oil at Taq Taq, with the intention of increasing its production from 40,000 barrels a day to a peak production of 180,000 barrels a day.
Sinopec's offer represents a 47pc premium to the closing price on June 5, the day before Addax announced it was in preliminary discussions with Sinopec and others about a potential deal. Its shares rose 282, or 12pc, to £26.50 in London
The offer from the cash-rich Sinopec, an abbreviation of the China Petrochemical Corporation, does not rely on outside financing. It will have to pay a termination fee of C$300m if it withdraws from the acquisition, which needs the approval of the Chinese government by the end of August.
Jean Claude Gandur, chief executive of Addax, said he hoped Sinopec would increase investment in the business and accelerate exploration plans.
"We are pleased that Sinopec has recognised the highly attractive asset portfolio and exceptional team that we have assembled at Addax Petroleum," he said.
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June 23, 2009
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June 22, 2009
I know that everyone is looking for the match to the tinder. This may be it. It reminds me of how the Chicoms supposedly bill families for the bullets used for executions. It's so heartless. It's so cruel. It's so indicative of who and what the mullahs are.
God bless the people of Iran.
Further thoughts below the fold.
more...
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June 17, 2009
Via Twitter (username redacted), members of the Iranian national soccer team wearing green arm bands to show solidarity with the protestors on live television.
I'm not sure we can fathom how tough their lives are about to get.
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The vid claims that the Basiji are shooting at civilians. Basiji are Iranian volunteer paramilitary that are subordinate to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
In other words, they're a civilian corps.
Update: another vid, purportedly of nighttime home raids.
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June 16, 2009
Update: added another video, again, extremely graphic. more...VIDEO FROM IRAN
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A man is dragged across the ground in front of crowd, then beaten while the police yell into the croud to scare them.
brought to you by the ANONYMOUS IRAN PROTESTORS
http://iran.whyweprotest.net/
JOIN US IN HELPING THE IRANIANS TO ACHIEVE FREEDOM!
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I would never ever ever advocate or suggest participation in a DDOS. Which is why I'm not going to tell you that there's a handy Firefox extension called ReloadEvery, which will allow you to refresh a page automatically every five seconds.
I also won't mention that some of the resistance in Iran has requested lots and lots and lots of visits to the following sites, at least until cell phone and internet service has been restored:
http://www.khamenei.ir/
http://www.iribnews.ir/
http://www.irib.ir/
Update: and here's another site you absolutely shouldn't leave open in your browser while you go have a cup of coffee, since DDOS attacks are wrong wrong wrong.
Another update: vid below the fold. Graphic content.
more...
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June 15, 2009
In slightly more positive news, Twitter's hosting provider has agreed to postpone maintenance activities until the middle of the night in Iran. Iranian protesters are using Twitter as a means of communicating how to obtain medical care, as police have started arresting protesters who show up at hospitals.
In less positive news, Spiegel.de is reporting that 5,000 Lebanese troops have been dispatched to Iran, presumably to help with crowd control. @IranElection09's take on the troop presence is that Iranians refuse to kill Iranians.
And in some worrisome news, twitterer @Change_for_Iran has not been heard from for fifteen hours.
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From IranElection09's twitterfeed, where you can find the latest updates on the Iranian election protests. Rodrigomx of BNONews is assembling a collection of photos from various sources. Excitable Andi has a post up saying that professors at the University of Tehran have resigned en masse to protest the militia raid of the boys' dorm. (Link is safe per douchebag policy, it's pictures of the dorm raid.)
Imagine how different this might all be if Saddam Hussein were in a position to send over troops to help support Ahmadinejad.
Even if Ahmadinejad succeeds in pulling off this farce of an election, he's been put on notice, and the rest of the world is now on notice to help insure that Iran has a truly fair election next time around. It's a shame we don't have a president in office right now who sees Ahmadinejad for the dictator that he is, and who is interested in truly helping democracy achieve a foothold in Iran, or we might be seeing a different election outcome.
Update: Rottengods has heard a rumor that eight people have been killed in the latest protests, but does not have confirmation.
more...
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June 11, 2009
I don't put too much stock in any of the organizations involved in this piece but the material itself is rather promising:
"No Taliban should go unharmed," agreed Asma Arshad, 23, a college student in the central city of Multan. "The killing of Taliban is good for Islam and it is good for Pakistan."
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June 07, 2009
"I voted for reform and change," said Laure Khoury, a 32-year-old schoolteacher, after casting a ballot for Hezbollah's Christian allies in the Byblos district north of Beirut. "We tried the others for four years and we got nothing but promises and corruption. Enough is enough," the Christian woman said.Despite the fact that I'd love to see Lebanon tell Obama, "Screw you and your fancy-pants brown-nosing condescension!", I'd rather not have a terrorist organization running the show in yet another Middle East country.
Update: Haaretz is reporting that Hezbollah is projected to lose. Yay!
Update 2: NYT and WaPo are both reporting that the pro-US coalition is winning.
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June 03, 2009
I suppose the question is, is Obama behaving this way out of a love of Islam or out of a hatred of Israel?
Posted by: Alice H at
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May 21, 2009
Speaking on "Al Jazeera" (how convenient and sycophantic) she firmly stated US President Obama's policy:With friends of Israel like this, who needs Iran?"We want to see a stop to settlement construction - additions, natural growth, any kind of settlement activity - that is what the president has called for"Natural Growth?
Since when does one country interfere with another's natural growth? Who does Obama and Hillary think they are?
I'm reminded of the decrees of Pharaoh in Egypt millennia ago, who demanded the cessation of Jewish births, and decreed that all Jewish male babies had to be thrown into the Nile River.
And speaking of Iran...
In a poll released this week, 71 percent of Americans say the United States won't be safe with a nuclear Iran. Seventy-nine percent said if Iran acquired a weapon, it was likely to provide it to terrorists to attack an American city. A slightly larger number, 80 percent, said Iran was likely to fire a missile at Israel.Obama's concern over Iran is unimpressive.
Under pressure from a visiting Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, to explain the latest White House position on Iran, a relaxed Mr Obama remarked: "We should have a fairly good sense by the end of the year as to whether [the Iranians] are moving in the right direction."I suppose I should wait until the guys that kicked in my front door are done with whatever they're raping and pillaging before I decide what their intent is. Obama's aiming to be historical in more than one way - if he continues on his current path, he's going to aid in the next Holocaust.
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April 23, 2009
I'm not an expert on foreign policy or politics (or anything, really, come to think of it) but when a significant part of the country thinks you're a wee bit soft on the "Death to America" crowd, well, this might not be a wise move...
The Obama administration has asked a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit against Iran filed by Americans held hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran 30 years ago.The request comes in a $6.6 billion class-action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington. Fifty-two American diplomats and military officials were held captive for more than a year at the end of Jimmy Carter's presidency by a group of Islamist students who supported the Iranian revolution.
[...]
In court papers filed Tuesday night without any announcement, the Justice Department argued that the agreement to release the hostages, known as the Algiers Accords, precluded lawsuits against Iran.
I'll be the first to admit that I know jack shit about the Algiers Accords, but why have the DOJ step in and ask the judge to throw out the lawsuit? If it has no merit under the terms of the accords, the plaintiffs would likely lose, right?
Why, it's almost as if there was some other rationale at work here. Some kind of "smart diplo-something-or-other" rationale, perhaps. No, that's just paranoid wingnut nonsense. Racist, too, probably.
Oh, and this is just awesome:
"The gratitude of the United States for the service and dedication of these brave individuals cannot be overstated, nor can the suffering and abuse they endured on behalf of this country be exaggerated; these matters are beyond dispute," the Justice Department wrote in its filing.
The article doesn't go on to mention the massive "but" (heh heh heh) that likely follows that statement, but it does mention that the lawsuit claims that the hostages were beaten, threatened with death, and tortured. I'm guessing that torture probably didn't involve putting panties on their heads or smearing them with fake menstrual blood. But again, I'm not an expert.
(Via Jeff G.)
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April 20, 2009
It's no secret that I'm not exactly a fan of Barack Obama, but at least he made the right call by deciding to boycott this ridiculous anti-Semitic freakshow. Unlike some other countries that really should have known better:
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad smiled as European diplomats left in protest over his opening address to a controversial UN summit to fight racism.President Ahmadinejad, speaking as Israelis prepare to commemorate the Holocaust on Tuesday, described Jews and Israel's creation as the "ugly face" of a Western conspiracy.
"They sent migrants from Europe, the United States in order to establish a racist government in the occupied Palestine," he said.
"The word Zionism personifies racism that falsely resorts to religion and abuses religious sentiments to hide their hatred and ugly faces."
EU diplomats launched a walk out when Mr Ahmadinejad claimed that the "pretext of Jewish suffering", a reference to the Holocaust, had been used to create Israel.
The "EU diplomats" included representatives from Britain. What the fuck were they thinking he was going to say? "Perhaps we've been a little hard on the Jews in the past, what with all the stuff about them being the 'descendants of pigs and apes'"?
Oh, and I just loved this little detail (with my emphasis)...
Mr Ahmadinejad has previously described the Holocaust as a myth and called for Israel to be "wiped off the map". His speech at the UN conference coincided with the 120th anniversary of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's birth.
I'm sure that was just a coincidence. Yeah.
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April 10, 2009
I've figured out what Obama was doing here, all you wingnuts looking to find fault with every move Our President makes can shut the hell up.
It's really obvious - President Obama, in all his testosterone-filled glory, was overcome with the urge to headbutt King Abdullah and see him *poof!* into a cloud of dust. At the last moment, President Obama, in his magnificent wisdom, recognized that annihilating another country's head of state would be a poor diplomatic move and restrained himself.
Oh, and here's an interesting tidbit:
(h/t Jossip for the pic and the Walters interview - I went looking for the picture and got more than I had hoped for. I think their take on the incident is blurred by Obama glasses, though.)BARBARA WALTERS: I understand that now that you are king, you prohibited your subjects from kissing your hand. Were you embarrassed to have your hand kissed?
KING ABDULLAH:I have tremendous distaste for such matters because I believe that one only bows before one's God, not before another human being.
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April 04, 2009
"As long as the husband is not traveling, he has the right to have sexual intercourse with his wife every fourth night," Article 132 of the law says. "Unless the wife is ill or has any kind of illness that intercourse could aggravate, the wife is bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband."There's a strange sort of incongruity that Hillary Clinton is being called upon to put pressure on the Afghanistani president to repeal this law. She did such a wonderful job with an American president's sexual harassment, I'm sure she can channel that experience into her dealings with Hamid Karzai.
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February 19, 2009
Can he be charged with treason for this?
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