http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=grip Tue, 18 Jun 2013 23:13:44 -0400 Liveleak http://edge.liveleak.com/80281E/u/u/ll2/logo.gif http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=grip Tue, 18 Jun 2013 09:12:37 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=9dc_1371560196 Lake8737 grip the baby mouse, 1st squeak dip it in sauce, 2nd squeak bite it, 3rd squeak. That's why it's called Three Squeaks. Google translate The raw material is preferably rat cubs, but recommended is alive, to be condiments epigenetic food. The so-called "three-squeak" ", Is when you use chopsticks to rat cubs, cubs mouse will issue a "squeak," the called out, and then when you put the Cubs hairless mouse gets spicy seasonings after rat cubs will "squeak" is called cry, and finally when you mouse cubs into the mouth, it will issue a final bang called; this is the famous "three squeak," the. Spices according to personal taste modulation, (salt and pepper, hoisin sauce, lamb spices, creative enough on the line.) However, pink hairless mice fed cubs use honey. Long tail of mice that bacteria and infectious diseases, so with the rats in captivity more comfortable. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=9dc_1371560196 Lake8737 Guy demonstrates eating &quot;Three Squeaks&quot; listed in Chinese cuisine china,chinese,food,dish,mouse,rat Tue, 18 Jun 2013 07:46:31 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d89_1371555899 juba776 Not so fast Mr. Hope and Change. Haven't you heard? There's a new Sheriff in town in the Middle East . President Putin reminded Barry that he's in charge. He already reminded Netanyahu recently after Israel fired into Damascus in early May. Afterward, Bibi sang a different tune. Putin's talent as a Judo expert is always useful in these situations. When Obama was continually arming Syrian rebels; declaring no fly zones and moving his Marines into Jordan Putin took quick action. Obama sang a different tune as well and even said, "and finally we compared notes on President Putin's expertise in Judo and my declining skills in basketball". The following video is in English and Russian: The weak eyed Obama went on further to say, "And we both agree as you get older it takes more time to recover. " He unbelievably even talked about the removal of the Jackson-Vanik Act. Obama nervously looked over his notes as Putin spoke clearly from his memory and intelligence. At meetings end Obama then went on to try and slap a handshake. It was met with President Putin's stone hand which withered Obama's smile away. Putin's firm grip declared who's top dog in this world. Obama got the message. Russia has a naval base in Tartus and Russia's fleet is continually growing in the Mediterranean. I'm sure all the loose change and hope fell out of Mr. Hope and Change during one of Putin's judo throws. Obama has now become aware of Putin's arms race . While Obama was having his many expensive vacations Putin had no choice but to increase military spending to halt US aggression. A Russian military having already an edge over the US as seen in this video . The US is broke and Russia is the world's largest oil producer with a growing economy. Russia is not backing down and they have China to back them up. Who will back the US? Tiny Britain? Americans are turning gay and Russian men are looking more like the Klitschko brothers. The US is the modern day Sodom and Gomorrah while Christianity triumphs in Russia . No ACLU in Russia suing Christians to be sure. The largest country in the world shows only contempt at the US Bomb &amp; Missile Diplomacy . The western media will warp the truth as usual. They will not show the entire video of Putin and Obama fearing that Americans will see things as they are and wise up. No mention of Christianity under attack in the Middle East and North Africa. Loud music and commanding voices will tell American citizens what to think and who to hate as they become mesmerized by their idiot boxes. Little is mentioned of Christians or priests murdered in Syria or the Christian Bishops that were kidnapped. Again the western cry is here reiterated, "What difference does it make! Assad must go!" Amerikan Demonocracy foaming at the mouth rabid with hate. Standing firmly against these maniacs is Putin with Christian Russia solidly behind him. There has been finger pointing between the West and Russia but the political rhetoric is ignored by President Vladimir Putin as he calmly directs stability in the Middle East. Obama said, "By working together we... also help lead the world to a better place." We know your record Obama and it stinks of death. The only leading going on is Vladimir leading you by the nose. Putin made sure there will be a follow up to this meeting in Geneva. Lest O'bomber forgets. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d89_1371555899 juba776 Putin throws down Obama putin,with,balls,obama,ww3,syria, Sun, 16 Jun 2013 13:31:56 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=19c_1371403746 BadNad Man saved the Pussy from a certain death http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=19c_1371403746 BadNad Cat Saved from the Boa's <span class="highlight">Grip</span> cat, jihad, alqaida, boa, snake , strangle Mon, 17 Jun 2013 17:02:32 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5d9_1371502771 english-patriot33 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10100943/Can-David-Cameron-explain-why-he-has-put-us-on-al-Qaedas-side.html Can David Cameron explain why he has put us on al-Qaeda's side? The longer a prime minister remains in 10 Downing Street, the more likely he or she is to go mad. Something of the sort happened to Gordon Brown and also, from 2003 onwards if not before, to Tony Blair. No prime minister has left office in full possession of his or her mental faculties since Jim Callaghan in early 1979. One of David Cameron's admirable qualities has been his sanity. He is unexcitable. He is not paranoid, does not conspire against his colleagues, sit up to the small hours of the morning brooding, or hurl pieces of crockery around the room when in a violent rage. He is not subject to sudden, irrational mood-swings. None of this can or should be taken for granted, and surely Samantha Cameron can take some of the credit. "My job is to get him out of here sane," she tells friends. But the Prime Minister has been in the job for three years (and Tory leader for nearly eight), and watching him answer questions on the floor of the House on Monday afternoon, for the first time I started to wonder. With Parliament back after the Whitsun recess, Mr Cameron made a statement that dealt principally with the civil war in Syria, and gave the belated parliamentary response to the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby. Many of his remarks were those of a man with only a tenuous grip on reality. What was missing was common sense. We have seen this many times before. Sir Peter Tapsell, father of the Commons, said that Syria was now enduring what is "fundamentally a religious war between the Shia and the Sunni, which has raged within Islam for 1,300 years". Mr Cameron would not accept this point. "When I see the official Syrian opposition," he replied, "I do not see purely a religious grouping; I see a group of people who have declared that they are in favour of democracy, human rights and a future for minorities, including Christians, in Syria. That is the fact of the matter." Then Jack Straw, a former foreign secretary, asked whether the Prime Minister agreed that Iran would have to be part of any peace deal. Mr Cameron failed to deal with this essential question. At the time of the Iraq invasion 10 years ago, something very like this happened to Tony Blair. A moment came when he too entered a virtual world. Like Mr Blair, Mr Cameron has come to advocate policy in a macabre vacuum, devoid of truth or understanding. He too displays a reluctance to accept the irksome realities of the human condition. Like Mr Blair, Mr Cameron had taken no interest in the world outside Britain before he entered No 10. They both learnt about foreign affairs as prime minister, and both are open to the charge that they treat the subject like a grand, theoretical abstraction. From the start, Mr Cameron (just like Mr Blair in Iraq) has been happy to entertain the proposition that this Syrian conflict is in essence a struggle between good and evil - benevolent democrats and liberals fighting a virtuous struggle against the murderous tyrant Assad. In fact, the rebels were not nearly as good (and President Assad not as evil) as Mr Cameron has thought. As a result of this, the Prime Minister has got it wrong from the start. He massively underestimated Assad's support and staying power. He was absurdly contemptuous of the Russians (who have outmanoeuvred us all along). Above all, he has failed to understand the rebels. Very much as Mr Blair and his American allies were duped by the impostor Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress, so Mr Cameron has made the mistake of taking the Syrian National Coalition seriously. They are intelligent, educated, well-intentioned men in suits - hotel guerrillas - and as such irrelevant to what is now happening in Syria. The Prime Minister would do well to read the mea culpa published last week in Al-Monitor, by a pseudonymous writer from Aleppo who calls himself Edward Dark. "So what went wrong?' asks Mr Dark. "Or, to be more accurate, where did we go wrong? How did a once inspirational and noble popular uprising calling for freedom and basic human rights degenerate into an orgy of bloodthirsty sectarian violence, with depravity unfit for even animals?" Mr Dark describes how the revolution has been captured by a collection of gangsters and fanatics. "This wasn't what we revolted for," he says in despair at the dreadful fate that has overcome the country he loves, "to replace one group of criminals with another." Mr Dark now says he has given up on the revolution. He says that he has seen that the only way forward is "through reconciliation and a renunciation of violence". Yet Mr Cameron wants to escalate the fighting by arranging military support to the rebels. He told Parliament on Monday that he hopes this will "tip the balance" in their favour. Iran - in reality an essential part of any solution - will not be welcome at the negotiating table, and in Mr Cameron's mind there is no future for Assad, which probably means that the war will drag on and on. I dare say that the Prime Minister is sincere when he asserts that Syria is in the grip of a civil war, with democrats and human rights activists ranged up on one side against an evil dictator. I have not been to Syria, but it is clear to me that Sir Peter Tapsell is much closer to the truth. Certainly, the liberal elite in which the Prime Minister places such hopes was involved at the beginning of the uprising. But armed elements funded and supplied by interested parties in Saudi Arabia and Qatar were also present from the start. Their fundamental aim was nothing to do with human rights and the protection of minorities. It was to destabilise and destroy President Assad, Iran's closest ally in the region, and therefore assert Saudi dominance. To what extent have Britain and America been complicit? It is hard to judge. What can be said with certainty is that over the past decade the Middle East, and to some extent the Islamic world, has broken down into two armed camps. On the one side are Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, backed by the United States and (quietly) Israel. To everyone's enormous embarrassment, al-Qaeda is very firmly in this camp. On the other side are Iran, Hizbollah and post-bellum Iraq, strongly backed by Russia and China. Viewed from this wider perspective, Mr Cameron's claim to be on the side of democracy and human rights, and against dictatorship, is not merely fraudulent - it is patently ridiculous. We are not on the side of democracy. As Sir Peter Tapsell hinted in the Commons, Britain has wholeheartedly backed the Sunni camp - Saudi, the Gulf States, and al-Qaeda - in its increasingly bloodthirsty and horrifying conflict against Shia Islam. There may be some very good reasons for this, but I do wish that the Prime Minister would re-engage with the real world, come out publicly, and explain what they are. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5d9_1371502771 english-patriot33 Can David Cameron explain why he has put us on al-Qaeda's side? islam, muslims, terrorists, spineless david cameron, Sun, 16 Jun 2013 01:32:54 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=77a_1371360329 AntiPropagaanda Made in Glasgow: Hassan Rouhani, the moderate who has become Iran's next president Saturday 15 June 2013 The man today declared as Iran's next president grew up in Glasgow, completing a degree and doctorate at Glasgow Caledonian University. Hassan Rouhani, an avowed reformer, urged to a wide lead in early vote counting today, and the country's interior minister declared him the victor at 5pm today. He studied at the old Glasgow Polytechnic (now GCU) in the 1970s and returned to undertake a law doctorate in the 1990s. He then went by the name of Hassan Feridon Mr Rouhani, 64, who is married with children, is a cleric who speaks English, German, French, Russian and Arabic. Earlier today, he had more than 51% of the more than eight million votes tallied so far, well ahead of Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf with about 16.6%. Hard-line nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili was third with about 13%. The strong margin for Mr Rouhani gave him an outright victory and avoided a two-person run-off next Friday. Iran has more than 50 million eligible voters, and turnout in yesterday's poll was believed to be high. Many reform-minded Iranians who have faced years of crackdowns looked to Mr Rouhani's rising fortunes as a chance to claw back a bit of ground. While Iran's presidential elections offer a window into the political pecking orders and security grip inside the country - particularly since the chaos from a disputed outcome in 2009 - they lack the drama of truly high stakes as the country's ruling clerics and their military guardians remain the ultimate powers. Election officials began the ballot count after voters queued for hours in wilting heat at some polling stations in central Tehran and other cities, while others cast ballots across the vast country from desert outposts to Gulf seaports and nomad pastures. Voting was extended by five hours to meet demand, but also as possible political stagecraft to showcase the participation. The apparent strong turnout - estimated at 75% by the hard-line newspaper Kayhan - suggested that liberals and others abandoned a planned boycott as the election was transformed into a showdown across the Islamic Republic's political divide. On one side were hard-liners looking to cement their control behind candidates such as Mr Jalili, who says he is "100%" against detente with Iran's foes, or Mr Qalibaf. Opposing them were reformists and others rallying behind the "purple wave" campaign of Mr Rouhani, the lone relative moderate left in the race. Officials did not say in which parts of the country the ballots were counted. But even Mr Rouhani's presidency could be more of a limited victory than a deep shake-up. Iran's establishment - a tight alliance of the ruling clerics and the ultra-powerful Revolutionary Guard - still holds all the effective power and sets the agenda on all major decisions such as Iran's nuclear programme and its dealings with the West. Security forces are also in firm control after waves of arrests and relentless pressures since the last presidential election in 2009, which unleashed massive protests over claims that the outcome was rigged to keep the combative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power for a second and final term. He is barred from seeking a third consecutive run. The greater comfort level by the theocracy and Revolutionary Guard sets a different tone this time. Opposition groups appear too intimidated and fragmented to revive street demonstrations, and even a win by Mr Rouhani - the only cleric in the race - is not likely to be perceived as a threat to the ruling structure. Mr Rouhani led the influential Supreme National Security Council and was given the highly sensitive nuclear envoy role in 2003, a year after Iran's 20-year-old atomic programme was revealed. "Rouhani is not an outsider and any gains by him do not mean the system is weak or that there are serious cracks," said Rasool Nafisi, an Iranian affairs analyst at Strayer University in Virginia. "The ruling system has made sure that no-one on the ballot is going to shake things up." Yet a Rouhani victory would not be entirely without significance either. It would make room for more moderate voices in Iranian political dialogue and display their resilience. It also would bring onto the world stage an Iranian president who has publicly endorsed more outreach rather than bombast toward the West. The last campaign events for Mr Rouhani carried chants that had been bottled up for years. Some supporters called for the release of political prisoners including opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi, both candidates in 2009 and now under house arrest. "Long live reforms," some cried at Mr Rowhani's last rally, which was awash with purple banners and scarves - the campaign's signature hue in a nod to the single-colour identity of Mr Mousavi's now-crushed Green Movement. "My mother and I both voted for Rouhani," said Saeed Joorabchi, a university student in geography, after casting ballots at a mosque in west Tehran. In the Persian Gulf city of Bandar Abbas, local journalist Ali Reza Khorshidzadeh said many polling stations had significant lines and many voters appeared to back Mr Rouhani. Just a week ago, Mr Rowhani was seen as overshadowed by candidates with far deeper ties to the current power structure: Mr Jalili and Mr Qalibaf, who was boosted by a reputation as a steady hand for Iran's sanctions-wracked economy. Then a moderate rival of Mr Rouhani bowed out of the presidential race to consolidate the pro-reform camp. That opened the way for high-profile endorsements including his political mentor, former president Akbar Heshmi Rafsanjani, who won admiration from opposition forces for denouncing the post-election crackdowns in 2009. This, too, may have led to Mr Rafsanjani being blackballed from the ballot this year by Iran's election overseers, which allowed just eight candidates among more than 680 hopefuls. Iran has no credible political polling to serve as harder metrics for the street buzz around candidates, who need more than 50% of the vote to seal victory and avoid a run-off. Journalists face limits on reporting such as requiring permission to travel around the country. Iran does not allow outside election observers. Yet it is clear that fervour remains strong for Mr Rouhani's rivals as well. Mr Qalibaf is riding on his image as a capable fiscal manager who can deal with the deepening problems of Iran's economy and sinking currency. Mr Jalili draws support from hard-line factions such as the Revolutionary Guard's paramilitary corps, the Basij. His reputation is further enhanced by a battlefield injury that cost him the lower part of his right leg during Iran's 1980-88 war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which at the time was backed by the United States. "We should resist the West," said Tehran taxi driver Hasan Ghasemi, who supported Mr Jalili. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has not publicly endorsed a successor for Mr Ahmadinejad following their falling out over the president's attempts to challenge Ayatollah Khamenei's near-absolute powers. Mr Ahmadinejad leaves office weakened and outcast by his political battles with Ayatollah Khamenei - yet another sign of where real power rests in Iran. The election overseers also rejected Mr Ahmadinejad's protege, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei ,in apparent payback. The usually talkative Mr Ahmadinejad gave only a brief statement to reporters as he voted and refused to discuss the election. Ayatollah Khamenei remained mum on his own choice as he cast his ballot. He added that even his children do not know whom he backs. Instead, he blasted the US for its repeated criticism of Iran's crackdowns on the opposition and the rejection of Mr Rafsanjani and other moderates from the ballot. "Recently I have heard that a US security official has said they do not accept this election," Ayatollah Khamenei was quoted by state TV as saying after casting his vote. "OK, the hell with you." Iran's state media hailed the apparently high turnout as a boost for the Islamic Republic's political system. "A great political epic has shocked the world," read a front-page headline in the hardline daily Kayhan today. Ayatollah Khamenei had called for a "political epic" on June 14, saying a high turnout would protect Iran against its enemies. By many measures, this election is far removed from the backdrop four years ago. Iran's security networks have consolidated near-blanket control, ranging from swift crackdowns on any public dissent to cyberpolice blocking opposition Internet websites and social media. Hackers calling themselves the Iranian Cyber Army disrupted at least a half dozen reform-oriented websites, including one run by well-known political cartoonist Nikahang Kosar. Prominent reformist politician Mostafa Tajzadeh, who was jailed after the 2009 disputed election, voted from his cell in Tehran's Evin Prison, the semi-official Isna news agency reported. The economy, too, is under far more pressure than in 2009. Western sanctions over Iran's nuclear programme have shrunk vital oil sales and are leaving the country isolated from international banking systems. New US measures taking effect on July 1 further target Iran's currency, the rial, which has lost half of its foreign exchange value in the past year, driving prices of food and consumer goods sharply higher. Outside Iran, votes were casts by the country's huge diaspora including Dubai, London and points across the United States. "I hope we take a step toward democracy," said Behza Khajavi, a 29-year-old doctoral candidate in physics from Boca Raton, Florida, as he voted in Tampa for Mr Rouhani. In Paris, a 25-year-old Iranian student, Sohrab Labib, voted at his nation's consulate while a small group of protesters gathered across the street. "It's our country. It's our future," he said. "In any case, even a little change could influence our future." http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=77a_1371360329 AntiPropagaanda Made in Glasgow: Hassan Rouhani, the moderate who has become Iran's next president Iran, President, America, Israel, Media, MSM, Demon Wed, 12 Jun 2013 21:55:52 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8c0_1371087405 CarpathianWolf Hi guys,I thought I would post again again though I got some pretty nasty comments about my last article. This article is from a Kurdish newspaper,so I'm just presenting their views on this matter. Here is an article written in a Kurdish Newspaper based in Iraq dated May,06 2013. I find it s quite interesting as it explains the Kurds viewpoints on this conflict with their desire to have a Kurdish Autonomous community free from Assad rule. It also explains somewhat the differences between extremist rebel groups like AL Nusra who have often engaged with bitter fighting against Kurds in part of the north. I believe most Kurds want to be free of Assad rule,yet they have too many differences with most of the rebels over how Syria should be run if Assad falls. Link:,source:https://www.kurdishglobe.net/display-article.html?id=03580A0DEC7E872EFAF9D688E8E993A8 Can the Syrian Kurds turn the tide against Assad? "Syrian Kurds have endured decades of repression and denial and in the case of thousands treatment as virtual foreigners in the lands of their very ancestors. If anyone should have a gripe against the Baathist regime of Bashar al-Assad it is the Kurds, yet the Kurds have remained largely on the side-lines of the two-year bloodshed in Syria. While much of the West is locked in debate about ways of ending the immense suffering and the protracted civil war in Syria and speeding-up by Assad?s demise, the Syrian Kurds remain a vital card in tipping the balance of war against the regime. Division and splinter groups are commonplace throughout the Syrian opposition and it?s no different in Syrian Kurdistan, with dozens of Kurdish parties in the political fold, but with the Democratic Union Party (PYD) continuing to orchestrate the greatest influence and military might. The Kurds with thousands of well-trained militia would be natural partners to court in the overthrow of Assad, yet ironically Syrian rebel groups, namely Jabhat al Nusra, have been battling Kurdish fighters in the north instead. Most Syrian Kurds, particularly the PYD with long alleged ties to the PKK, have distrusted Arab opposition groups, especially those with Turkish backing, fearing marginalisation in a post-Assad era or seeing their historic autonomous gains wiped away. It is for this reason that they have tried to remain relatively neutral in the conflict and facilitated indirect understandings with the regime in Kurdish-dominated areas. It was win-win at the time, as Kurds took historical control of most of their region while Assad was spared a further frontline and likely a further depletion of his forces in a confrontation with the Kurds. The Kurdish priority was to safeguard Kurdish gains, spare violence in Kurdish areas and to leave their fate in their own hands. The Kurdistan Region leadership succeeded in uniting the various Kurdish factions last year but animosity and distrust in Kurdish circles remains common-place. However, in recent weeks it appears that the Kurds are increasingly ready to end their neutrality and fight regime forces. This can be seen with the coordination between Syrian rebels and People?s Defense Units (YPG) in the Kurdish dominated Sheikh Makqsud district of Aleppo, where Kurdish fighters have helped to choke the vital supply routes of the regime. The regime retaliated for this apparent change of heart by the Kurds with a deadly airstrike on the district killing 15 people as well as attacking Kurdish units on the outskirts of Qamishli, with the Kurds launching their retaliatory attacks of their own. A bombing just this week of a Kurdish village in the oil-rich Hasaka province killed 11 civilians, which the Kurdish National Council called a "serious escalation by the regime". In addition, in recent days Syrian rebel groups have started attacking army positions in Hasaka and more importantly on Qamishli itself. It is not clear whether the recent Arab-rebel attacks in Hasaka is in coordination with the Kurds, but judged by recent events, the Arab rebels are unlikely to have a launched an attack that would have risked a Kurdish backlash as seen in the past. If the Syrian rebels and Kurdish parties can muster a workable and long-term understanding, the liberation of Qamishli and indeed all of north-eastern Syria would form a formidable enclave against the regime. The PKK is a card that Syria has effectively used against Turkey in the past, and unsurprisingly Syrian support increased for the PKK rebels after Turkey became key actors in the Syrian struggle and provided major support to the Syrian opposition. Assad successfully split the Syrian opposition and even the Kurds. But the recent change of Kurdish stance on the ground and a truce that has taken hold between Islamist rebels and the YPG forces is perhaps more linked to developments in the peace process in Turkey than direct changes in Syria. Turkey is on the verge of historic peace with the PKK and significant strides have been taken since the turn of the year to end the armed rebellion and find a long-term solution to the Kurdish question. The timing of developments in Ankara is noticeable. Turkey, seeking to became a major force in the new Middle East that is been laid, is facing the prospect of a de facto Kurdish state in Syria alongside the already strong and strategically important Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The Kurdish reality on its doorstep has expedited the quest for peace. A lack of long-term peace in Turkey would severely undermine stability in Turkey and its regional influence. The effect of the PKK peace process can be seen with a thawing of ties between Ankara and the PYD. If the PKK successfully ends its armed struggle, then for Turkey, the PYD and particularly a Syrian Kurdish region will be much more tolerable. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu recently put a list of conditions for any engagement with the PYD, a far cry from a previous stance of no dialogue at all. Although the idea of ?pre-conditions? has not gone down too well with the PYD leadership, a level of dialogue is inevitable and somewhat natural and the conditions set when studied are not real obstacles. These conditions include not siding with the Assad regime, avoiding ?fait accompli? until a parliament is formed and not supporting terror in Turkey. The Turkish stance is also linked to its increasing frustration with the prolonged nature of the Syrian war and Assad?s stubborn grip on power. The Kurds, whose areas includes much of the country?s oil wealth, have the strength to turn the tide against the regime and close the one-loop in the north-east of the country that has acted as a breathing space for the regime. All the while, the West continues to sluggishly ponder their next move in Syria with thousands of Syrian dying each day. While the Western powers have been far too slow to devise a strategy in Syria, Islamist groups who have proved the most coordinated and affective against the regime have filled the vacuum. As a result of the West?s inaction, there is now a race between Free Syrian Army moderates and the increasingly influential Islamist rebels to take Damascus. The Islamist groups will now have a seat at the Syrian table in the aftermath of the conflict whether the West likes it or not. Failing that, another civil war will mark the end of this one. As for the Kurds, who are also integral components to any future Syria, a more concrete outreach by Syrian opposition forces and Turkey as well as more recognition and support from Western powers could well mean the pendulum can swing against Assad. Kurdistan may well be divided, but increasingly the Kurdish borders are been eroded. Future harmony and the attainment of peace in Turkey are linked to Syria and beyond. For example, the PKK will likely maintain a condition that Turkey does not meddle in Syrian Kurdish affairs or adopt any policies against a future Syrian Kurdistan. Imagine if Kurdish autonomy or rights were not granted in a future Syria and a war broke out, would the PKK and Turkish Kurds stand idle? Could Ankara really intervene in such a situation without aggravating the Kurds? Either way, peace and stability cannot be achieved in any part of Kurdistan, if other parts prove volatile or restive." I usually don't post two news articles together in one post,but I also found this article by the Australian about the Kurds participation in the Geneva Peace Conference a good tie in as it describes their reasons for attending this conference, Syria Kurds want in on peace talks From:AAP May 27, 2013 3:30AM "Syrian Kurds, long oppressed under President Bashar al-Assad's regime, say they want to take part in a mooted Geneva peace conference. "A meeting of Syria's main opposition National Coalition in Istanbul remained in deadlock on Sunday over participation in the talks and the inclusion of new members. However Syria's Kurds, who make up about 15 per cent of the population, said they wanted to take part even if they did so independently. "We want to go, either as members of the Coalition or (independently) as representatives of the Supreme Kurdish Council," Sherwan Ibrahim, of Syria's PYD (Democratic Union Party) said on the sidelines of the talks. "We have suffered from the regime's oppression for decades. Our struggle began long before the Syrian revolt started," added Sherwan Ibrahim, also a member of the umbrella Kurdish Supreme Committee. Bahzad Ibrahim of the Kurdish National Council also expressed his desire to attend the talks. Since the beginning of Syria's uprising more than two years ago, the Kurds have mostly tried to stay out of the fighting, stopping both rebel and regime forces from entering their areas. However, in some areas, such as the Sheikh Maqsud district of Aleppo city, rebels and Kurdish groups have joined together to fight forces loyal to Assad. The National Coalition talks entered an unscheduled fourth day on Sunday, with members stalled by conflicting regional and international influences and unable to agree on key issues. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said on Sunday his government would take part in the Geneva peace conference, proposed by the United States and Russia to try and end a war that has killed more than 90,000 people. Syria's Kurds inhabit areas rich in resources but have long been marginalised under Assad's regime, accused by rights watchdogs of cracking down on the minority group." Source,Link: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/syria-kurds-want-in-on-peace-talks/story-fn3dxix6-1226651010700 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8c0_1371087405 CarpathianWolf Can the Syrian Kurds turn the tide against Assad? Syria.Kurds,Assad,Opposition,Peace Conference,Autonomy Mon, 10 Jun 2013 08:23:15 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=655_1370866191 Saladin_II DEBKAfile Special Report June 9, 2013, 10:53 PM (GMT+02:00) Syrian rebel forces attacked two Iraqi military positions at the southern tip of their common border Sunday, June 9. They failed to beat the Iraqi troops back although a number of Iraqi officers and soldiers were killed. Shooting incidents flared during the day near the Al-Waleed Syrian-Iraqi crossing, but the Iraqi forces held fast. This was their first engagement with Syrian rebels in the 28-month Syrian civil war - but unlikely to be the last. The Syrian Sunni rebels were anxious to break through the Iraqi lines which were blocking their access to supplies of weapons and fighters sent over by Sunni militias in the Western Iraqi Anbar region. The failure of the rebels' first assault set back their bid to loosen the grip of loyalist Syrian troops on this strategic border crossing. debkafile's military and intelligence sources report that while all eyes have been drawn in recent days to Hizballah's proactive military involvement in Assad's war, the Iraqi role has been under-reported an treated as scattered and sporadic military actions, whereas in fact, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has even outdone Hassan Nasrallah in the generosity of his assistance for propping Assad up. We have learned that he has advanced unlimited Iraqi credit for his war chest,, placing Iraq's multibillion-dollar oil revenues at his disposal. US, British and French importers may not realize they are contributing to Assad's war effort against the rebels with their purchases. A Western intelligence source told debkafile that al-Maliki is even footing the bill for Syrian government's imports, from flour to Russian weapons systems and arms bought on the international market for the Syrian army and Hizballah. Baghdad is also covering Syria's consumption of petroleum, benzene, fuel distillates and oils for the Syrian army's logistical systems. And as we reported in the last DEBKA Weekly, the Iraqi prime minister has detached 20,000 troops for the mission of sealing the Syrian border against the entry of rebel reinforcements and assistance originating in the Persian Gulf and from Iraqi Sunni militias. The Syrian rebel attacks Sunday battered the Iraqi lines ranged there but failed to force any gaps. Assad is therefore furnished with ample funds and soldiers by Iraq, fighting men by HIzballah, new and replenished weapons by Russia and Iran and aircraft, tanks and artillery for Syria's own stores. With hefty financial, intelligence and military aid from four allies, Bashar Assad is better equipped than ever before to rout an opposition that is divided and starved of assistance, arms and support. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=655_1370866191 Saladin_II First clash between Syrian rebels and Iraqi soldiers. Baghdad bankrolls Assad's war Syria, Iraq, Fsa, Al Qaeda, CIA, Petrodollar, Sat, 08 Jun 2013 13:01:14 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b73_1370710576 ttj1776 46 Years of Silence After Israel Kills 34 US Sailors It was a strange winter day, unusually hot and muggy at the beach in Los Angeles. I was early for a lunch meeting with a movie producer at a trendy restaurant on the Redondo Pier, a place where big dreamers go to discuss their big ideas. A smooth-talking producer was hiring me to write on one of the most controversial events in American history, an incident so shameful the U.S. government scarcely acknowledges it. The producer finally arrived and introduced himself as from South Africa, a man with ties to large international banks. He went on to say, with the hubris of a politician, "Hollywood is broken. The way they finance films is archaic! I have found a new way to make them." Sounded like the typical Hollywood hustle but I waited to hear more. "Have you ever heard of the USS Liberty?" he quietly asked, staring across the table. We're going to shake up the world with this story." I wondered if I was ready to shake up the world. This story was too raw, too sensitive, too explosive. I decided I should do a little research first by contacting some of the survivors. It wasn't long before I was drawn into a world that I never knew existed. I was moved by these men, some of them sobbing over the phone to a total stranger as they shared their experiences. One survivor in particular, seaman Richard "Larry" Weaver seemed to have the most chilling and gut-wrenching experience of all. An attack without warning Larry was a 21-year-old first bosun's mate, fresh out of boot camp when he set sail aboard a unarmed intelligence ship called the USS Liberty. This was 1967 and tensions were flaring between Russia and the United States over the Vietnam War - and now the stakes were escalating. The "Six Day War" was in full swing. Israel had just launched a massive assault on Egypt, Syria and Jordan. The Liberty, with its sophisticated spy equipment, was floating in the Mediterranean within earshot of the Sinai Peninsula. "So close I could I could hear the bombs exploding," Larry recalls. On the morning of June 8, the skies were sunny and clear. The ship was in international waters and everyone felt safe. So safe, that crewmen were sun-tanning and playing Ffrisbee on the deck. Larry was one of the first sailors hit. He was a lookout on the bow, going through his normal routine of checking instrumentation, when two unmarked Mirage fighter-jets came out of a blinding sun and attacked with lightning speed. They strafed the boat with armor-piercing bullets as Larry scrambled for cover. The jets crisscrossed and came back. This time Larry was unable to escape. A rocket blew a hole in his stomach and nearly tore him in half. Severely wounded and fighting to stay conscious, Larry crawled into a storage closet and watched in horror as his shipmates were obliterated with napalm, rockets and eventually a torpedo. The carnage so bad, there was a thick stream of blood flowing over the side of the ship. "I saw a lot of guys die," he says, "and I could never understand why." The assault lasted for nearly an hour. When it was over, 34 American sailors were dead and 171 injured, out of 294 on board. Larry was one of the most seriously hurt. Doctors counted 120 deep shrapnel wounds, he says. He was missing half his colon and his right leg was torn to shreds. No one expected him to live, but somehow he survived. Sometimes he wishes he hadn't. An admiral's threat Larry Weaver woke up a few days later in intensive care, after his fifth major surgery to repair his colon. The ferociousness of the battle still a blur to him, he was shocked to find out that it wasn't Egypt or Russia that had attacked the Liberty. It was America's ally, Israel. "This really blew my mind" he says, "I couldn't believe that it was true." A few hours later his mind was blown again, when he was visited by Adm. Isaac Kidd. Larry thought it strange that a three-star admiral would take the time to talk to him. The admiral shut the door behind him, Larry recalls, and began to take the brass stars off his sleeves. "All right now Larry", he said, smiling, "I'm no longer an admiral. I want you to tell me everything you saw." "So I told the admiral everything I saw," Larry says. Larry remembers watching as the admiral calmly snapped his stars back on. "All right, now I'm an admiral again." Then he became fierce and angry. "If you ever tell anyone what you saw - family, friends or anybody -you'll be court-martialed, thrown in jail or even worse." "That was probably the roughest day of my life." Larry recalls. "I was barely 20 years old and just went through the traumatic experience of almost dying and here I was being threatened by my own country." No one really knows the true reason Israel attacked the ship. Israel's explanation was that it was simply a case of mistaken identity. They didn't see a U.S. flag flying and mistook the Liberty for an Egyptian vessel that had fired on them the previous day. Larry says Old Glory was definitely flying that day and he should know: "I was laying right under it when the rocket hit me and catapulted me five feet in the air." Some of the survivors I spoke to say the flag issue is just a smoke-screen for a more sinister reason. They say there's good reason to believe that their own government set them up as a pretext for entering the war. They insist the unmarked planes prove that there was some form of collusion between Israel and the U.S. to make it look like the attack was from an enemy, such as Egypt or the Soviet Union. But is it possible? Would President Lyndon Johnson be ruthless enough to sacrifice the lives of 294 American sailors for a chance to enter a conflict with perhaps a bigger picture in mind? Control of the Middle East oil fields, perhaps, and a chance to break the Soviets' grip on its Arab allies? Facts and theories Over the years, countless theories have been spun about what may or may not have occurred that day. Books and Internet articles suggest clandestine operations and backroom deals. Truth, speculation and outright fiction combine in murky, confusing accounts. But the Israelis' story and official U.S. reports collide with a few facts that defy easy explanation. Among these are the communications showing that two rescue attempts to save the Liberty were called back by the White House. The accounts were corroborated by J.Q. "Tony" Hart, who at the time was a chief petty officer in Morocco assigned to handle communications between Washington and the Sixth Fleet. In the first conversation, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was informed by the commander of the Sixth Fleet, Rear Adm. Lawrence Geis, that four F4 Phantom jets had been dispatched from the USS Saratoga in response to a distress call from the USS Liberty, then "under attack by unknown forces." McNamara told Geis in no uncertain terms, "I want those Phantoms returned immediately!" Ninety minutes later another attempt was made. Adm. Geis sent jets from the Saratoga and another carrier in the region, the USS American. He received another call from McNamara with the same instructions. This time an irate Geis told McNamara he will not return the jets until he hears from the commander-in-chief himself. McNamara put Johnson on the phone. "Mr. President," Geis explained, "they're killing Americans." Johnson's response was, "I don't care how many Americans are being killed. I will not embarrass one of our allies." President Johnson went on national television the next day and delivered the news to the American people. Solemn and contrite, he said that 10 sailors were lost in a six-minute accidental attack - when in reality it was 34 sailors lost in a 40-minute attack. The following day, June 10, a Navy Court of Inquiry was hastily assembled to conduct an investigation into the disaster. The investigation was directed by Adm. John McCain, who at the time was commander-in- chief of naval forces in Europe. Adm. McCain (father of Sen. John McCain), with Adm. Kidd presiding and Capt. Ward Boston, a senior chief counsel to the Navy, were instructed to conclude their findings in one week, an unusually brief timeframe. It wasn't long before Capt. Boston found out why. In an affidavit written decades after the attack, Boston wrote that Adm. Kidd had been summoned to the White House and ordered by Johnson to "put a lid on it." Boston said Kidd also told him that both the president and McNamara ordered him to conclude that the attack was a case of "mistaken identity." Boston kept his silence for 36 years, but came forward in 2003, releasing his sworn affidavit at a Capital Hill news conference. When pressed by reporters on why he stayed silent for so long, he simply replied, "I'm a military man, and when orders come, I follow them." Capt. Boston passed away a few years later, but many tough questions still remain. Why did Johnson refuse to send air cover for the Liberty? This was the first time in U.S. history that a military commander refused aid to an American ship under siege, which could be considered an act of treason and an impeachable offense. It's hard to imagine that our president would allow an American warship to be deliberately attacked and American lives to be lost. Another lingering question: How did the White House know it was their own "ally" attacking the ship? There was only one distress signal that came from the Liberty (before its antennas were destroyed) to the Sixth Fleet. The call gave absolutely no indication of who was attacking, only that it was from "an unknown force." In 2004, a more thorough inquiry on the Liberty was conducted by Adm. Thomas Moorer, the navy's highest ranking officer and a former chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff. Moorer cleared Johnson of any "premeditation," but concluded through his own eight-month independent investigation that Johnson and his administration were guilty of one of the worst cover-ups in American history. The Israeli attack was deliberate, he said, perhaps intended to draw the U.S. into the Six Day War. A hero's pain Forty-six years and 32 surgeries later, the last one just six months ago to replace a shoulder, Larry Weaver is left still wondering. The emotional scars tear deeper than the physical. "The dreams and the nightmares, they never stop," he says. Doctors tell Larry he has one of the worst cases of PTSD they have ever come across. I remind him of another famous veteran who blazed a trail before him. Audie Murphy became the poster child for PTSD - back during World War II when they simply called it "battle fatigue." He was also probably one of our greatest war heroes, having won more medals for combat bravery than any American soldier in history. He wrote a best selling novel "To Hell and Back" and starred in a movie about his experiences. But it all came crashing down when the nightmares got the better of him. " I'm no hero like Audie Murphy," Larry says, "I never shot at anyone and I've never killed anyone." "No," I tell him, " but you sure as hell suffered like one." In fact, the pain became so unbearable that Larry twice tried take his life, once with pills and the other with a gun. "I was seconds away from pulling the trigger," he says, "but a call from an old friend at the last moment saved me from doing it." There are days when Larry feels like giving up again. He realizes his time may be short. His body, welded together with steel rods and mesh, is falling apart. He just wants one last chance before he dies to tell the world what really happened. I encourage him not to give up hope. "The money is coming to do your story. This big producer says he's in Europe right now raising millions of dollars. It's just a matter of time." There's dead silence on the other end of the phone as if he's heard that empty promise before. In fact, he has - all the long hours he stood in line at the VA office to speak to someone about his disability payments that never came. This went on for years until he finally had enough and hired his own private detective to find out why. It didn't take long for the investigator to discover the reason, Larry says. There was simply no record of a seaman named Richard "Larry" Weaver ever being on the USS Liberty. The investigator told Larry that someone high up in government who had access to confidential records was able to get his name scrubbed clean from the ship's manifest. It took Larry years to get his name and records restored so that he could collect his disability benefits. But why were they expunged in the first place? Larry believes it's because the U.S. government is afraid of what he knows. "I've been under surveillance for 46 years," he says. "I have information that could blow the lid off this thing." "So why now?" I ask. "Why come forward after all these years?" "It's time for the American people to know the truth!" More than a movie That truth won't be told in a Hollywood movie, at least not the one I was working on. The story of the USS Liberty has been hijacked over the decades by conspiracy theorists, extremists and anti-Israel, anti-Semitic hate groups. It's gotten too hot to handle, which may be why the producer bailed out on the project. Now the South African producer has become an entrepreneur and a real estate developer. His plan is to build a state-of-the-art movie studio on the site of a now-closed state hospital in Westborough. He's moved on, but Larry Weaver can't. Larry, like others in the dwindling band of USS Liberty survivors, still wakes in the middle of the night hearing the screams of his dying comrades. He still waits for someone to tell his story. Richard Julian is a screenwriter living in Los Angeles. He's currently working on a book about Larry Weaver's harrowing experience. http://tinyurl.com/lp6pnhb http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b73_1370710576 ttj1776 46 Years of Silence After Israel Kills 34 US Sailors McCain, USS Liberty, Israel, Egypt, Zionist, Lobby, War, Middle East, attack, military, US Navy, Sat, 08 Jun 2013 04:34:32 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=335_1370680219 herseyibuldum http://i47.fastpic.ru/big/2013/0608/5d/3734778770e80da0ed0f7d394da5a35d.jpg Much has been written about the protests in Istanbul and Turkey, which have unfolded since the initial occupation of Gezi Park by environmental activists on 28 May. In the attempt to make sense of the massive unrest which followed, several frames of explanation have emerged: The prism of the "Tahrir Republic" and the "Arab Spring" was fast at hand, so were the references to the "Indignados" of Spain the and the "Aganaktismenoi" of Greece, and increasingly also to the Occupy movement. The uprising in Turkey has many common features with these movements, above all a concern with the excesses of neoliberal restructuring and the dynamics of ad-hoc grassroots activism. Yet, none of these frames explain either why such large-scale protests could erupt under the conditions of rapid economic growth, decreasing unemployment and urban poverty rates, or the wide spectrum of the protesters. Nor do they help us understand why the well-off middle classes emerged and remained as the main driving force of the protests. As Taksim Square has been taken over by the demonstrators, and as battles rage on elsewhere in the country, it is a good time to take a step back and turn to Turkey's tormented past and its history of social struggles and political symbolism for answers. This essay is based on perspectives I first presented in my book, Angry Nation: Turkey since 1989 (Zed Books, London 2011), as well as a series of articles published in OpenDemocracy (" From Tahrir to Taksim ", and " End of Islamism With a Human Face ") and MERIP (" Return of the Turkish State of Exception "). The Historical Backdrop of Modern Turkey Emerging out of the ruins of an empire, Turkey's political and moral landscape has been shaped by violence and suffering, from the Armenian genocide, the uprooting of Muslim communities in the Balkans, and their flight to Turkey to the destruction of its non-Muslim people. The republic of 1923 was an attempt to break with this past and create an identity and historical narrative that denied all of these events. It was a republic based on a nationalist and exclusionary world view, but one that created a secular Turkish-Muslim middle class shaped in the cultural image of its European contemporaries and that forged a strong national identity based on a personality cult around its leading figure, Mustafa Kemal Atat"urk. Much of the country's history has been one of oppression and exploitation. Turkey's place in the international world order has helped its hegemons to uphold their grip on power. As front state during the Cold War, a pattern of military-bureaucratic tutelage evolved, which ensured that it remained a hybrid political system where regular elections took place, but brought to power politicians, who ultimately had only limited power outside the economic realm. This system allowed for the progressive economic inclusion not only of the urban elite, but also of rural migrants, who began to migrate to the more developed cities of Western Turkey from the 1950s. The cultural hegemony of the state founding elites, however, was rarely challenged. Despite this inclusive aspect of the Turkish political system, ethno-religious communities, from Kurds to heterodox Alevi communities and non-Muslims were subjected to assimilation, combined with policies of dispossession and state-sponsored pogroms. Entire neighbourhoods of Istanbul were forcibly cleared of their Greek and Armenian inhabitants during waves of violence, of which the events of 6-7 September 1955, also known as Septemvriana in Greek, were the most shameful. Indeed, almost all areas around Taksim, which are now slated for 'urban regeneration' and renovation as inner-city luxury residence, have already been appropriated once in the 1950s and 1960s from their original owners. It is one of those ironic twists of history that some members of the thriving middle classes, who are now buying these luxury flats may find out that their grandfathers were among those to benefit from this initial dispossession of the non-Muslim communities. Despite the hegemonic grip of this politico-economic system on society, opposition existed. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, it took a revolutionary socialist direction. The "bloody May" events of 1977 were a symbolical turning point. On the first of May, unidentified snipers shot dead thirty-four demonstrators on Taksim Square. Political violence between socialist and pro-government fascist groups spiralled out of control, and Turkey came as close to a Civil War as it has ever been. In the years leading up to the military coup of 12 September 1980, thousands of activists, public personae, and citizens were murdered by rival factions, which were driven against each other by what we know today was the deep state, the real centre of power in Turkey at the time. This was a policy of divide and rule that pitted one group against the other and made all a tool in the service the maintenance of regime power. Nevertheless and despite the violence, it was in these years that Turkey's civil society emerged, that trade unionism became the stage for the emergence of a self-confident working class, that Kurds began to organize democratically to demand their rights, and that society became, if polarized, also highly politicized and aware of capitalist exploitation. The Military Coup of 1980 and the Kurdish War The military intervention of 1980 destroyed all this, while it created the foundations of Turkey's neoliberal rebirth. The almost complete breakup of trade unions and the massive curtailment of labour rights removed organized labour as political factor. All former parties were banned, and the political system was re-organised around empty parties handpicked by the military rulers. A new constitution, drafted by pro-military legal scholars ensured that individual and human rights were heavily curtailed. And in order to crush any socialist mobilisation, the military dictated a turn to religious conservatism. The Turkish Islamic synthesis, an uneasy ideological mix between almost racist nationalism and Islamic conservatism replaced the secular nationalism of the Kemalist Republic. The slow rise of political Islam and the new conservative middle classes in the 1980s owes much to this initial endorsement by the military. Another policy of the military, the brutal oppression of any semblance of demands for Kurdish rights created the conditions for the emergence of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), and the Kurdish War, in which the cultural geography of the Kurdish provinces and the historical heritage of its cities were all but destroyed. The most important political leader of these years, Prime Minister and later, President Turgut "Ozal, was very much a product of this ideological environment, but he was able to tweak it towards a more global vision of liberal values and he personally attempted to negotiate with Kurdish leaders to end the war in Kurdistan. The causes for his death in 1993 have never been fully established. With "Ozal out of the way, the 1990s witnessed a brutal War of attrition in the Kurdish provinces. It killed more then 40,000, led to the burning and evacuation or more than a thousand villages, and caused a massive wave of refugees from the Kurdish provinces, to the cities, and to the West of the country. This second wave of (forced) migration significantly changed the ethnic setup of western Turkey. While most of the Kurdish refugees ended up in shantytowns around cities like Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Adana and Mersin, many of them began to flourish economically, and increasingly also academically, creating a Kurdish middle class and intelligentsia which has been shaped by this experience of state terror and brutality. Families in the rest of the country saw the same war through the lens of their dead and invalid children, many of whom came back deeply traumatized and broken. Their grief was exploited by extreme-right groups to create wide-spread anti-Kurdish sentiment, particularly in the West and the Aegean provinces. The Lost 1990s and the Marmara Earthquake Powerless coalition governments, a severe economic breakdown, the capture of the PKK's leader Abdullah "Ocalan, and a devastating earthquake in Istanbul and the Marmara region punctuated the violence-ridden years of the 1990s. A non-violent military intervention in 1997 led to the exclusion of conservative Muslims from positions of power and declared university students with headscarves as the symbolic enemy. Thousands of them were subjected to psychological torture and were excluded from higher education. Yet, just at the time, when Turkey's political system was about to perish in the morass of corruption, deep state politics, secularist exclusion and unfettered violence, a natural disaster in the country's most populous and heavily industrialized Marmara region shook Turkey. Killing probably more than 30,000, the earthquake saw an unprecedented outpouring of sympathy, solidarity, and collective social action to help the survivors. With the destruction of tens of thousands of homes, an exclusively rent-based urban development model lay in tatters, and so did the political class that had allowed it to go ahead. The international response made the narrative that Turkey was encircled by enemies and that Turks had only themselves to trust obsolete. The seeds of solidarity and self-regulating collective action had been laid and the tens of thousands, who rushed to the scene to help, have not forgotten the power they had vis-`a-vis the impotence of faltering state agencies and squabbling politicians. The AKP's Emergence on the Stage It was against the backdrop of these grave shocks to the system and the complete loss of legitimacy of established political parties that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) emerged as the largest party of the 2002 elections. It was a coalition of reformed Islamists, former centre-right politicians, and political liberals. Building on the good record of the municipal policies of their predecessor, the Islamist Refah Party of Necmettin Erbakan, the AKP embarked on an ambitious project for a less corrupt, less ideological, and more efficient state and a more democratic Turkey. A series of significant legal reforms paved the way for the start of accession negotiations with the European Union, a precious anchor for human rights and democratisation at the time. As the economy began to boom, an industrial class of pious, socially aware and globally acting 'Islamic Calvinists' took centre stage as the economy's growth machine and the AKP's strongest political support base. For the first time, a more prosperous and democratic Turkey seemed to be in reach. The AKP government under Prime Minister Erdogan had to fend off several attempts by remnants of the deep state and Kemalists within the state apparatus and the military to retake power. In the military's attempt to remove the government, it succeeded to enlist parts of the secular middle classes into so-called Republican Marches, and columnists into creating an atmosphere of imminent military intervention. The judiciary was employed to block the election of Abdullah G"ul as President in 2007. The Constitutional Court in 2008 went as far as attempting to outlaw the governing AKP, a step unheard of even in a country, which has a distinguished track-record of banning political parties of the left and right of the political spectrum. The closure was avoided with a margin of only one vote. At around the same time, a wave of murders of Christian missionaries and priests contributed to a rising nationalist fervour directed at undermining the government's EU reforms and at creating an atmosphere of fear and terror. They succeeded in both. We now know that they were carried out by rogue elements within the police force and the military. The most iconic person, who was sacrificed for reasons of statecraft, was the Armenian - Turkish journalist and human rights activist Hrant Dink, who had dedicated his life to bridge the chasm between Turks, Kurds and Armenians and to the promise of a future, in which the wounds of the past will be healed through recognition and reconciliation. The image of his dead body in front of the Agos newspaper, only a few hundred metres away from Taksim Square, has become yet another symbol of Turkey's grim political history, attenuated only by the fact that 200,000 thousand mourners at the funeral walked behind his coffin, chanting the slogan "We are all Armenians". While all of these attempts at manipulation and all campaigns of violence were ultimately unsuccessful to derail the democratic process, they galvanized the electorate into more rather than less support for the AKP, and increased the government's domestic and international legitimacy. Dismayed, the government pushed through legal changes to gain control over courts and independent regulatory institutions, and initiated a series of legal cases against members of the old ruling elites, the deep state and particularly the military. Applauded by AKP supporters, many liberals and democrats, and laying bare a number of plots to undermine the democratically elected government, however, these soon morphed into mass trials, where neither due process was granted, nor the search for truth appeared as the main objective. Despite these systemic challenges, the AKP managed to balance its version of a neoliberal growth package with the extension of better public services in health and education to a larger segment of society. In a short period of time, the country's infrastructure, its cities, and its countryside experienced impressive modernisation. That this model of growth was increasingly veering towards a neoliberal developmentalism that regards urban heritage and natural resources only through the prism of rent generation and profit maximisation for companies with links to the government was, up to a point, acceptable as long as the novelty of balance politics was maintained. Turkey's foreign policy, especially under Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu appeared visionary and pragmatic at the same time, casting Turkey as a pole for stability and good neighbourly engagement with its neighbours. That the media was experiencing pressures of censorship and dozens of journalists ended up in jail for their investigative work was a problem, but one that was not unheard of in Turkey and not something felt directly by the majority of the population. Coupled with Turkey's economic success story of these years in macro-economic terms -In the decade of AKP rule, the GDP per capita tripled, and both unemployment and urban poverty decreased significantly- the 2011 elections delivered an almost 50 per cent victory for the AKP. The 2011 Elections and AKP Hegemony While signs of overreach both at home and abroad had been simmering, liberals and realist politicians within the AKP were able to curb excesses and reign in more radical views on society and foreign policy, which should not be too surprising for a party rooted in political Islam. Yet, 2011 was a double turning point: With the Arab revolutions, the government's policy of incremental change through economic cooperation took a heavy blow, while it created the basis for Erdogan's recasting as model leader for the fledgling democracies of the Arab world. It was at this point, that the Prime Minister's conservative rhetoric began to spiral out of control and increasingly resembled that of an autocrat, who was lecturing his domestic and international interlocutors about the straight path ahead, increasingly resorting to religious rhetoric and symbolism. An insightful example of this mind set was his speech in February 2011 , in which he asked Egypt's Hosni Mubarak to heed the will of the people to resign: "When we die the imam will not pray for the prime minister or for the president, but he will pray for a human being. It is up to you to deserve good prayers or curses. You should listen to the demands of the people and be conscious of the people and their rightful demands." Yet, it was Turkey's engagement in Syria that crushed any pretence of Davuoglu's "Zero Problem Policy with Neighbours." Not only did Turkey become the conduit for Jihadi fighters as well as Saudi and Qatari arms for groups like Jabhat al-Nusra, its internal security was seriously compromised particularly in the province of Hatay (Antakya), whose ethno-religious composition mirrors that of Syria's. The hitherto unresolved bombings of Reyhanli, which killed at least fifty-one mostly local residents and some Syrian refugees, is a case in point. The second turning point is of an even graver nature. The Prime Minister has clearly misread the nation's fifty percent vote as a mandate for unfettered power. Not only is he now largely unrestricted by the judiciary, which has been manned with pro-government judges and prosecutors, or by the EU accession process, which has been all but derailed. He has also centralised all power in the party in his hands and he has used it to push liberals and centre-right figures out of positions of power. He is now encircled by a group of mostly second-rate advisers, who shield him from the discontent and criticism both within the AKP and the public. The mainstream media has been silenced in the last few years, by economic pressure on media barons, who have economic interests outside the media sector and are easily corruptible thanks to the promise of public tenders. More recently, the Prime Ministry's Office has repeatedly intervened directly with the editors-in-chief of newspapers and TV channels to dictate editorial policy decisions. And Now Taksim This is the backdrop, against which we need to read the current developments. There is a government that has only recently been re-elected with fifty percent of the popular vote. There is a prime minister, who was once the flag bearer of democratic reform and humane government, yet who has lost touch with developments on the grounds, and who is about to suffocate in his own delusions of grandeur. He is talking disjointedly about women who should have at least three children, about abortion as murder, about people who drink beer as alcoholics, and about the protestors as an immoral bunch of looters. He disregards anyone, who disagrees with his views and tries to brand mark them as enemies of the state. And he is not able to understand that the young activists, who began the occupation of the Gezi Park on Taksim Square, were not part of a deep state conspiracy in the fashion of the Republican Marches of 2007. These were environmentalists and students trying to prevent the destruction of one of the few inner-city parks so that yet another Shopping Centre could be built, and Taksim Square be recast as a space of consumption rather than as a meeting place for a democratic public. Had Erdogan not ordered the extreme police violence, with which the entirely peaceful initial protesters were removed from the park, the nation-wide protests would not have begun. Had the Istanbul police not brutally targeted demonstrators with teargas canisters and water cannons, had they not beaten up all those young people, who were detained in the last few days, had they not turned much of central Istanbul into a battle ground, the standoff could have been deescalated and the loss of lives averted. Had Erdogan not made a final speech, before his departure for a North African state visit, in which he incited the situation even further by announcing that not only the shopping center will be built, but that he will also demolish the Ataturk Cultural Centre on the square and build a mosque, had he not threatened that the protestors by mentioning that he "can hardly hold back the 50 percent, who are waiting in their homes to act" most of them would have gone home by now. But he has not. What he has succeeded in however is to bring people together, who had come to believe that in the AKP's neoliberal growth machine, no space had remained for solidarity and collective action. He has thereby unleashed the memories of social and political struggles, as well as the experience of state brutality and injustice, whose history I have attempted to chart in this essay. By targeting the symbol of resistance to injustice, Taksim Square, he has tried to belittle the memories of those who have stood up for their rights before. Yet, he has failed. Today, students, middle class professionals, Kurdish activists, LGBT organizations, trade unions, football supporter groups, many conservative Muslims, as well as Kemalists, nationalists, and small left-wing organizations are demonstrating all over the country. They are inspired by different moments in the country's history: Some see Mustafa Kemal Ataturk as their role model, others remember the socialist movements and the Taksim of 1977, some recall their uprooting from Kurdish villages and the hardships they faced when they were forced to start a new life without means in a foreign place, and yet others mourn their martyrs, be they families of soldiers or guerillas. Many conservative Muslim students, who were subjected to the so-called "persuasion rooms" where they were forced to take off their hijab, remember the solidarity of their fellow students. This may indeed only be a short window of solidarity, akin to the glorious days of the "Tahrir Republic," but it has demonstrated the possibility of overcoming the divides, that the country's rule have sown between different social, religious and political communities. It has united them in their quest for a life that promises more than motorways, shopping centers, luxury residences, social housing projects in distant suburbs, conservative family values and restricted labour rights. In this sense, the protests have clearly demarcated the limits of neoliberal growth and authoritarian conservative politics in Turkey. Whether Taksim Square will enter the annals of Turkey's long struggle for freedom, justice and solidarity as the place, where a new social contract was made now depends, above all, on the government. This time Taksim is not about revolution, but about the possibility of a mature democracy that restraints the extremes of the neoliberal growth machine and that curtails the concentration of power in the hands of a delusional Prime Minister. It is also about the possibility of bridging the many fault lines of Turkey's complex society. In the park and the square, Kurdish activists, Kemalists, Turkish nationalists, Socialists, and "Anti-capitalist Muslims" have been able to fight and celebrate together, despite occasional confrontations, which were resolved by immediate intervention of bystanders. There are reasons to believe that members of the government and the experienced elder statesman like President Abdullah G"ul will find a way out of the current impasse together with the representatives of the protestors on Taksim Square. They are well aware that prolonged unrest will harm the country's highly globalized economy and the reputation of its government. Should they fail, and should the Prime Minister return to his politics of hubris, Turkey will once again enter a period of sadness, of which it has experienced so many already. Yet the events today in Istanbul, and throughout Turkey and the outpouring of international solidarity will not be unmade, and nor will the sense of social solidarity and the moment of empowerment, which has changed everybody, who has joined the protests. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=335_1370680219 herseyibuldum Contours of a New Republic and Signals from the Past: How to Understand Taksim Square Turkey,new,message,write,newspapers,taksim,istanbul,geziparki Fri, 07 Jun 2013 05:16:00 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8d0_1370595756 Baron_Kaz Islam is a ridiculous cult... In universities across the Arab world, they actually research camel urine for its medicinal properties because Mohammed said so. And dogs are unclean in Islam, Mohammed actually ordered all dogs of Mecca to be killed when he finally conquered the city. In Los Angeles, at 3rd and Fairfax - there is the Grove. http://www.thegrovela.com. Literally 2 minutes walking from my residence, and unfortunately over the past couple of years, it has become a "mating ground" for Moslems, any day of the week in the evening you will find women straight out of an alladin comic strip ... literally dressed in those flimsy belly dnacer outfits (which passes for sexy) and enough make up that, if you scraped it off one, you could repair a crack on the hoover dam. Of course there are 'matrons' in their favorite all black garbage bag style burqas and plenty of men with mops, made of pubic hair, glued to their chins. You will find Lamborghinis and Ferraris belonging to rag heads who haven't worked a single day in their lives. And it is a pleasure for me to walk my dog here. See I have a 100 lb German shepherd pup, and whenever I am walking down the Grove, women yell "Allah!" and move out of the way, and men just step aside and give me nasty looks. ROFL. In normal circumstances while walking I always use the standard 2 hand grip on the leash, loop leash through right hand, with left hand actually holding the pup to the left of me - giving him about 8 to 10 inches of loose leash. He is super trained and he keeps close. But in the grove, I let the pup have all two and a half feet of leash, while I happily chat on the cell phone, oblivious to everything (like a typical LA person) especially about where the pup goes to sniff. Hahahaha. If looks could kill, my pup and I would have died a thousand times, but hey this is the US of A, and sorry Moslems, we don't live by your sharia bull shit. :p Enough of my writing, the article is herewith. Iran is again cracking down on people with pet dogs, viewed as unclean in Islam, but Soroush Mobaraki says sales are booming despite fears the pooches might be arrested and their owners fined. This veterinary pharmacologist, sitting in the small Tehran pet shop he owns, said there has been a sharp increase in demand for dogs in recent years. We sell 15 to 20 dogs a month, but I know some other traders who sell many more, said Mobaraki, aged 34. For decades, keeping dogs as pets was a rarity and thus tolerated in Iran, where the Islamic beliefs cherished by the vast majority of traditional Iranians consider dogs as najis, or unclean. Guard dogs, sheep dogs and hounds have always been acceptable, but the soaring number of pets acquired by a middle class keen to imitate Western culture has alarmed the authorities in recent years. They have now criminalized walking dogs in public, or driving them around the city. You see, for me, she is not only a pet but a family member, 28-year-old Nahal, who declined to give her full name, said of her two-year-old Pomeranian. Mobaraki says many Iranians today boast about their pets, and some even show off in style. They want to have a dog (to brag), like they want to have an expensive luxury car. Reports of lap dogs dressed in Western designer clothes and accessories being driven in fancy cars, or walked in parks in affluent Tehran neighborhoods has drawn the ire of hardline clerics. Fighting Western influence In June 2010 Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirzi labeled dog companionship as a blind imitation of Western culture, warning that such behavior would lead to family corruption and damage societal values. Many people in the West love their dogs more than their wives and children; the ayatollah was quoted in the media as saying. Those remarks, and a decree issued by Shirzi, gave ground to the ministry of culture and Islamic guidance forbidding all media from publishing any advertisements about pets. The restrictions, implemented in 2010, forced many breeders to keep their dogs out of sight. We are not allowed to keep them in pet shops, said Mobaraki, who spoke of his safe haven in a garden outside Tehran. I only bring them here when I have struck a deal in advance with the buyer. The popularity of this un-Islamic trend has also forced the police to reinforce its sporadic crackdown on dogs. Police will confront those who walk their dogs in the streets. Cars carrying dogs will also be impounded, deputy police chief Ahmad Reza Radan said in April, according to the Fars news agency. Animal rights activists question the legality of this. There are no laws that forbid dog ownership, or their transportation, said the Iranian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in an open letter to Radan's boss, police chief Esmail Ahmadi Moqadam. The society's complaint against what it called a widespread arrest of dogs, in which dozens had been taken to undisclosed locations, never received a police response. Bahman Keshavarz, ex-head of the National Union of Iranian Court Attorneys, said pets can only be legally taken away if the owner fails to observe hygiene standards. Confiscating pets without a judicial verdict is unacceptable, Keshavarz said in remarks reported by Bahar daily on May 4, arguing that owners can file for losses under the civil liability law if their pooch is taken away illegally. Previous crackdowns had seen dogs returned home after their owners paid a fine and signed a pledge to observe the moral code. But some say that is no longer the case. Owners are being told that their dogs will be killed, and no paper (confirming the confiscation) is given to them, a Tehran pet hospital chief, Payam Mohebi, was quoted as saying by Bahar. For now, the police warning seems to have effectively scared off dog lovers, forcing some to walk their dogs in secluded areas and ask for home calls by vets. Nahal said she walks her pooch at night to avoid confiscation, but some others are left with little choice. I don't dare to take my dog out with me anymore, said a middle-aged woman, who asked not to be named, at a family picnic in a park in western Tehran. So we left her home today. Online alternative The 2010 ban on pet-related advertisement, including pet food, has redirected some animal enthusiasts to the Internet. Most of our customers go on our web site to pick the dog they want, said Mobaraki, who refused to share the Internet address for fear of retribution. There they can even find useful information on different breeds, and on how to take good care of pets. The online practice picked up after lawmakers in 2011 proposed a law to ban dogs from public places and even private flats, saying pet ownership posed a cultural problem as well as a danger to public health. The bill, addressing a growing number of dog owners, specified that violators would be fined and their animal confiscated. But it was never put to a vote as some lawmakers, as well as animal rights activists, persuasively opposed the motion. Today Iranians can go online to find professional dog training schools, private trainers and even dog hotels, most of which boast international certificates and even experienced foreign trainers. Dedicated pages on popular social networking sites, including Facebook, are also common. But there can be a downside to the market. Breeder Amirhossein, 42, from the central city of Isfahan, said some of his competitors keep their animals in cramped, dirty conditions without sufficient veterinary care. And then there are instances of false advertising. The websites attract dog buyers with irresistible pictures and phony promises, he said. But the dog you get may not be the one you picked. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8d0_1370595756 Baron_Kaz Iran imposes new law to curb horrific crime! Islam, Dogs Wed, 05 Jun 2013 10:33:48 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0ea_1370442514 anglosaxonwarlord A hit-and-run driver killed a mother-of-three after deliberately setting out to hit her and her children like "skittles", Cardiff Crown Court heard.Matthew Tvrdon, 31, drove his van on a "journey of mayhem" for eight miles over 30 minutes on 19 October 2012.Karina Menzies, 31, died and 17 others were hurt at five locations in Cardiff. Tvrdon, who has paranoid schizophrenia, has admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and seven counts of attempted murder.During the sentencing the court heard seven children were among those hurt as Tvrdon drove his white three-tonne Iveco van into them.Tvrdon had deliberately tried to kill at least one adult in each of the five family groups he targeted, the court was told.Witnesses saw the van veer off the road and straight into the Menzies family. Ms Menzies pushed her children out of the way before the van hit her. Tvrdon, the court was told, turned around and ran over her again. Another witness described how Ms Menzies was semi-conscious and her children were calling out for their mother.A video was played of Tvrdon driving a Renault Clio car along another main road in Cardiff. It showed him speeding through red lights and into oncoming traffic. He also mounted grass verges.He was then seen driving to the car park of West End social club in Ely, where he stopped and got into the van. His ex-girlfriend Lisa Davies tried in vain to stop him.The prosecution said it was the start of a "journey of mayhem" covering eight miles and taking nearly half-an-hour. The court was shown CCTV footage which showed each of the attacks in detail: The first victims were at Crossways Road in the Ely area of the city. A woman, 29, and her two children - a boy, nine, and girl, eight, were injured. One child was dragged under the van but "eventually rolled from under it". In Cowbridge Road West, a man, 24, and woman, 22 walking their two-year-old daughter in a buggy near Ely Reptile Centre were targeted. The child was catapulted out of the pushchair. The mother thought the van was going to go over the overturned pram but it slowed and avoided it. Karina Menzies and her two children, eight and 23 months, were the next people Tvrdon drove at near Ely fire station in Cowbridge Road West. At Grand Avenue in Ely, a woman and her two children were hit on a zebra crossing. A statement from the mother said: "I saw a big white van coming towards me. By the time I saw this it was only a matter of feet away from us. It had reached the zebra crossing out of nowhere." A witness said the youngest girl was "crying for her mother" and complaining about her leg and arm after the incident. Tvrdon later attacked three people with a steering rack at the Asda petrol station at Leckwith retail park with the victims suffering minor injuries. He got back into his van and the court heard one woman, 49, tried to remonstrate with him but he ran her over and then her 27-year-old daughter and they were dragged under the van as he drove out of the forecourt. They suffered multiple injuries. The court was told that Tvrdon then left the scene and was stopped by police near the Baron's Court restaurant in Penarth Road. He attempted to resist arrest and tried to assault a policeofficer with a crook lock, before being sprayed with CS gas.Later, Tvrdon, who tested negative for drink and drugs, told police he was under stress at work and had split up from his girlfriend. He told police what he had done was a "horrendous" thing and in his version of events, he said he felt "hazy" and felt he had been personally threatened by others.Tvrdon said he had not been feeling "right about himself or his mind and this was not a feeling he had before in his previous mental health episodes".The court heard Tvrdon had been sleeping rough for a few days in the run up to the incidents and when he got into the van that day had intended to drive to a local industrial estate and go to sleep in it.But instead he began to drive erratically and targeted pedestrians, the court heard.During police interviews, Tvrdon said he experienced a "fit of fury" during the incident at the fire station where Ms Menzies was fatally injured. Tvrdon, who has no previous convictions, told police: "It felt like what I wanted to do was kill these people but in actually doing it, it felt really wrong," the court heard.The hearing was told that Tvrdon had spent time under psychiatric care in 2003 and 2007 after he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia but he had stopped taking his medication in 2011. The court heard he "behaved strangely and bizarrely in the days before the offences".One expert said after the Cardiff attacks Tvrdon was "in the grip of a severe psychotic illness," theprosecution said.Paul Keleher QC, defending, said Tvrdon was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic in July 2003 and had been treated for that illness.But in October 2011, he was discharged from psychiatric services because he was not considered a danger to himself or anyone else and was told to gradually cut his medication down before stopping taking it entirely.However it became apparent that his condition deteriorated, the defence added.Mr Keleher said Tvrdon's recollection of the hit-and-run incidents was a "blur" and he was said to have told police: "I couldn't believe what I had done... I just went for them, went for all of them".He added Tvrdon's mental state at the time was that he thought he was sane but believed everyone was trying to drive him out of his mind.The court was told in February this year he was still considered delusional by mental health experts.By March he was considered to be improving and was coming to a "realisation about what he had done" but this was causing him to be depressed.His lawyer said that when Tvrdon was not ill he was a "thoroughly pleasant, kind, thoughtful, even timid man".Written evidence from his ex-girlfriend Lisa Davies was read out. While intervening, she noticed Tvrdon looked "dreadful". He got into the van and did not seem to notice her and she had to jump out of the way. "I know that person that did this wasn't the person I lived with for the last 17 months," she said.And part of a letter from Tvrdon's parents was read out in court in which they said he was now "profoundly conscious" of what he had done and would have to live with his "terrible guilt" for the rest of his life.Last month, Tvrdon, of no fixed address, admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and seven counts of attempted murder.He has also pleaded guilty to two counts of grievous bodily harm, five counts of actual bodily harm, two attempted grievous bodily harm, one count of assault by beating and one charge of dangerous driving. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0ea_1370442514 anglosaxonwarlord CCTV Cardiff Hit And Run Mayhem Matthew Tvrdon on 'journey of mayhem' cardiff,hit and run,Murder,mayhem,uk,mental illness Tue, 04 Jun 2013 05:30:58 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2b4_1370337629 simply minded According to the NRK, police figures from Olso reveal that over the past three years, they have investigated a total of 41 cases of rape in that city. All of these assaults, reports NRK, were carried out by "non-western immigrants to Norway." According to the Norwegian police, the rapists terrorising the beautiful white women of Oslo are of "a Kurdish or African background" and all have one thing in common, "namely the use of gross violence." How about that. This news follows an earlier report in the leading Norwegian paper Aftenposten, that 33,000 asylum seekers have arrived in Norway without a passport or ID documents^A since 2005, and that most of them are still in Norway. According to the Aftenposten, police say there are "several reasons why a large number of asylum seekers dispose of their ID documents. "One is that many fear that it may be revealed that they have earlier applied for asylum in other countries." Who would have thought? All this reminds me of the section on Norway in my book, The Immigration Invasion: Chapter 6: Chapter Six -- Europe under Attack: Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland 3. Norway Norway, with a population of 4.7 million, has long had a liberal immigration and asylum policy, and as a result became home to increasing numbers of immigrants, foreign workers and asylum-seekers from various parts of the world. In 2006, immigration accounted for more than half of Norway's population growth. In that year, official statistics from Statistics Norway Bureau (SSB) showed a record 45,800 immigrants arriving in Norway -- 30 percent higher than 2005. At the beginning of 2007, there were 415,300 persons in Norway with an immigrant background (that is, immigrants, or born of immigrant parents), comprising 8.8 percent of the total population. Official figures claim that 350,000 of these were from a 'non-Western' background, including Pakistanis, Iraqis, Somalis and Vietnamese. At least 35,000 Pakistanis were congregated in Oslo, most of whom entered the country legally as workers or through family reunification programmes. At the beginning of 2005, 32 percent of first-generation immigrants had lived in Norway for less than five years, while 16 percent had lived in Norway for 25 years or more. A high proportion of immigrants from Iraq and Somalia have lived in Norway for less than five years -- 57 and 55 percent respectively. As of January 2005, Norway's refugee population was more than 107,000, or 2.3 percent of the population of that country. Refugees from Iraq, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Somalia, Iran and Vietnam made up the largest groups. The non-white immigrants continue to have much higher birth rates than native Norwegians, with the result that the youth demographics show a large preponderance in favour of the non-Norwegian population. This will, like all European countries, make itself felt within the next two generations, once all these immigrant children reach adulthood. In 2005, 64,000 children were born in Norway of two foreign-born parents, compared to only 13,800 people born to parents of European origin. At current rates of Third World population growth, Oslo will have a non-white majority within two and a half decades. The primary driver is the higher immigrant birth rate which combines with a far lower native Norwegian reproduction rate. During 2004, the immigrant population increased by 17,000, distributed between 3,800 people born in Norway of two foreign-born parents and 13,200 first-generation immigrants. By 2008, Third World immigration had ensured that at least 25 percent of Oslo's population had a non-Norwegian background. Data from the city and state statistics bureau shows that of Oslo's 560,484 residents, 137,878 were immigrants. The largest single immigrant group continues to be from Pakistan, with 20,313 living in Oslo. Next in line is Somalia, with 9,708 immigrants and Sweden, with 7,462. Other countries with relatively large immigrant groups in Oslo include Sri Lanka, Iraq, Turkey, Vietnam and Iran. This ever increasing Third World population is reflected in the country's crime rates. In 2004, a report by the NIBR (Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research) warned that "ethnic gangs can give Norway the kind of immigrant-related organised crime that accompanied waves of migration to the USA." Author of the report, Dr. Inger-Lise Lien, wrote: "If we look at youth under the age of 19 charged with crimes in Oslo, immigrants are unfortunately largely overrepresented. In certain Oslo districts -- Furuset, Stovner and Gamle Oslo -- gang criminality has a grip. Criminal gangs becoming solid organisations is a sign in international research of an incipient mafia structure being built." Read more here: http://www.arthurkemp.com/?p=105 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2b4_1370337629 simply minded 41 rapes in Norway by non indigenous Norwegians, blacks and muslims norway, rape, ganks ,blacks , muslims , islam ,