Friday, November 28, 2008

Mumbai Attack - 印度的恐怖分子是谁?

孟买的恐怖分子是谁?

目前在印度积极活动的恐怖组织达176个,比较激进和具有恐怖色彩的有以下4类:第一类是“锡克宗教委员会”、“卡利斯坦突击队”、“全印锡克学生联合会”和“锡克宗教委员会”等;第二类是印度教徒和伊斯兰教徒围绕克什米尔争端而成立的如“查谟和克什米尔解放阵线”等;第三是以少数民族为主体的极端组织,如“阿萨姆联合解放阵线”、“博多保安军”、“特里普拉民族解放阵线”和“全特里普拉猛虎军”等;第四类是反政府的极左组织,如“人民游击军”和“人民战争集团”等。

但是印度的外交部长说:孟买恐怖袭击事件与巴基斯坦恐怖分子有关。巴基斯坦的政府从来回答:全地区的恐怖分子是从阿富汗来得。


2008年9月28日:巴基斯坦


2008年7月6日:巴基斯坦




This morning, further hostages have been freed by special forces from occupied Trident Hotel in Mumbai. [NHK TV, Tokyo, November 28]

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

CUBA - China Breaking the Blockade
古巴—中国突破封锁


胡锦涛主席探望古共中央第一书记菲德尔·卡斯特罗。胡锦涛出席了金融市场和世界经济峰会、亚太经会组织会议并访问古巴。

November 18: Chinese leaders sign a trade deal with Cuba.

Chinese President Hu Jintao on a two-day official visit to Cuba. In the same aircraft that brought the Chinese president and China's trade minister Chen Deming, humanitarian cargo for the victims of recent hurricanes was delivered. [Radio Habana / People's Daily online]

There are two aspects making the visit of high-ranking Chinese leaders to Cuba a profitable enterprise for China :

1) The sentimental value of Hu Jintao and Fidel Castro deliberating on the good old days of a Cuban-Chinese friendship that is dating back to Mao Tsedong and Deng Xiaoping, and that is coming together with badly needed humanitarian aid. A sentimental value that pays in terms of an increasing prestige for China.

2) The economic value of a trade deal that enables China to exploit Cuban sugarcane and nickel, both commodities belonging to the few material values Cuba has to offer. An economic value that has to be seen before the background of an outdated U.S. embargo and at a time of "interregnum" when a new and more liberal U.S. president elect is forced to wait for his official inauguration and for the very first opportunity to do his job.

Nevertheless, this is a win-win situation for both, Cuba and China. One partner is gaining political and economic influence, while the other is being helped to survive the hardships of recent natural disasters and a (steadily crumbling) political discrimination. Its the U.S. that is losing this match !


Further information on an international community opposing the economic blockade of Cuba can be found in my blog post: Obama and Change that is Needed

UPDATE November 21: Report by U.S. intelligence agencies projecting U.S. decline and global unrest [Al-Jazeera]

Sunday, November 16, 2008

NORTH KOREA - A Zombie's Life 死人的活动

On October 11, 2008, North Korean TV published a set of ten images that should prove Kim Jong Il being alive. All images show the North Korean leader while visiting troops. It should be his first public appearance after August 14,2008. [Source 环球日报]


朝鲜中央电视台播放金正日视察朝鲜女子炮兵部队的照片
Kim Jong Il visiting a unit of female artillery soldiers on October 11, 2008. Could it be that the North Korean leader has received a severe burn ?


Since October 3, 2007, when the South Korean president met with his counterpart, we didn't receive any reliable image of Kim Jong Il at all.


Finally, on November 6, 2008, the North Korean "Worker's News" / 劳动新闻 published a report on Kim Jong Il visiting the military units 534 (above) and 2200 (below). [Source人民网/新华网]


We can therefore suppose that "Zombie" Kim Jong Il is still alive and might have recovered from a kind of "disease" that goes without any further comment.

When it comes to analyze North Korea's desolate situation with all its aspects, two points should be considered:
1. The days of the North Korean leadership are obviously counted, and whatever might happen to that country, it will happen very soon.
2. As it is difficult to imagine any essential change coming from the inside, Chinese and South Korean support will be needed to ensure the country's transformation into a modern state, fully accepted by the international community.

Sunday, November 09, 2008

GERMANY - On Chasing the Jews

Anniversary "Reichsprogromnacht" November 9/10, 1938
When in 1938 most German synagogues were torched and jews were chasen from their houses, separated from their families, their property being robbed or destroyed, this was nothing else but a first test for the organized liquidation of the jewish race under Nazi rule. Looking back to those days, it should be mentioned that ordinary German citizens did not really react upon the proceedings of that night. Daily life continued as if nothing had happened. New jobs were created for the common people as jews disappeared, and some seemed to get rich overnight.

In the days of my youth, we often heard from the elder generation that "only few" actually knew about the cruelties that happened to the jews. Of course, there were only a few people who got an insight of the concentration camps and were able to tell about it afterwards. Nevertheless, many others must have remarked the new laws that discriminated the jews, laws that had already been created in the years before. They must have seen burning synagogues and prayer rooms and must have heard the shoutings of hatred in their neighbourhood in the night of the progrome. They must have seen lots of people being driven through the streets of Berlin or Munich to the great railway stations from where they were sent to the concentration camps. It wasn't fear alone that held ordinary citizens back from protest but rather mere indifference towards the cruelties they didn't like to see, an indifference most Germans had to pay for during the following years of war.

Therefore, I dare predict that any discrimination within a modern society could lead to the same results again. As people are forgetful when it comes to learn from history, and because it is easy to stir up the animosity of ordinary people against any social group that has been elected as the "jew of the year", even the consequences of a social crisis could easily lead to that devastating mechanism. Unfortunately, there is a global economic crisis comprising Germany as well. Let's therefore remember a social law, called Hartz IV and that is depriving the long-term unemployed from exercising some of their constitutional rights, such making them potential victims of blackmail attempts by potential employers or by their spiteful middle-class neighbours who are trying to disguise a right-wing attitude yet being sensitive about their own reputation. That law alone, feared by the unemployed as well as by those who might loose their jobs, could be a nice pretext to trigger off a nasty hunt for the scapegoat, the so-called "lazy unemployed", while the real problem is situated somewhere else in the structure of society.

Of course, the victimization and annihilation of a social or ethnic group is not a German invention at all, but nowhere else had it been organized better on behalf of its national leadership. Additional laws, created to enforce a tighter grip on each citizen and based on the false pretext of a "fight against terrorism", are already available or being prepared. And we have become used to similar laws on other fields of daily life. Who then would find anything unusual in the private hunt of some self-righteous middle-class type for "terrorists" or other "suspicious elements" in his neighbourhood, in that time where snoopers and informers are easily to be found. A steadily decreasing level of education, already effecting German economy, and the undemocratic attitude of blockheaded remnants from the former East-German state party or state security (*) will then enhance a climate where everything might become possible.

As already indicated above, the middle-class of our society seems to be the decisive source of fascistic thinking, - that part of society, deeming itself superior to the working class and simultaneously knowing that its access to influence and public power is only restricted, due to its medium level of education. Scared by any economic or political change, this group of citizens is tending to counteract such changes and resort to extreme positions. As the left-wing orientated politicians are traditionally related to the despised working class, they prefer to rely on right-wing orientated groups and their leaders. Such, it is easy to understand that about 60% of the fascistic National Democratic Party's voters belong to that middle class.


The first concentration camp, established by Nazi leader Himmler, a typical middle-class type without any special abilities and who had been estimated by his father as a "useless weakling in a bad company". Throughout the years of Nazi rule, Himmler's father, a well-reputed highschool teacher, refused to speak in favour of his son (source: documentation on Himmler's father on a German national TV channel, some years ago).

(*) Annotation:
The activitiy of former East-German security types after the reunification is a specific German aspect when it comes to evaluate fascistic resources in the Federal Republic of Germany. Once the most important extension of a fascistic state and its true base of power, some former state security men and women, together with their uniformed counterparts of the former People's Police, have found ways to resume their used activity under the roof of powerful Western companies like Siemens, Telecom and parts of the armaments branch. Companies that suddenly longed for "professional advice" on works security, at the same time when thousands of employees were going to be dismissed because of a degrading economy. Thus, it became a question of survival again to guard one's words and to watch out who was listening. This new wave of "security enhancement" finally led to cases like that of Munich Airport where former state security men already were on the brink of taking over control. Now, the authorities became alarmed, and it was the former Bavarian prime minister Stoiber who ordered to replace all of the security companies involved. The German media had the facts.

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

U.S.A. - Obama New President

5:00 CET
3:00 CET
3:00 Central European Time / 8:00 Eastern Standard Time:

I. The vote ratio in favor of Obama is now 174:49 after the Democrate's candidate winning over Pennsylvania and Ohio.

II. Democrates have just reached a majority in the Senate.

5:00 Central European Time:

Obama elected president of the United States. Vote ratio 297:139 (270 needed to become president).

=> Click to the images for a better resolution !

Monday, November 03, 2008

U.S. Election Countdown


The above image has been composed by Ulysses / Wolfgang Wiesner, the editor of BLUEPRINT magazine. It is intended to express the personal opinion of its author and may be distributed in the frame of the actual presidential election campaign. Click to this image for a higher resolution !