By BRETT ZONGKER
Source: Associated Press

Lebanese dancers, a Shakespeare production from Kuwait portraying Saddam Hussein as “Richard III” and incredible wedding dresses from the Arab world are showcased in an unprecedented arts festival opening at the Kennedy Center.

The $10 million, three-week festival, “Arabesque: Arts of the Arab World,” began Monday. It will feature 800 artists from 22 different countries including Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Somalia and Sudan. Organizers say that makes it the largest presentation of Arab arts ever in the United States.

The hundreds of visual and performing artists, hailing from well-established theaters and more isolated places, “are excited that America is going to take their cultural work seriously,” said Michael Kaiser, president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The goal, he said, is “to get to understand Arabs as people, as opposed to Arabs as political entities.”

A 120-member children’s choir from Syria struck Kaiser during some of his travels as the perfect fit for a U.S. audience, which may hold negative political images about Syria.

“When you see beautiful little children singing,” he said, “it’s very hard to think of those children as being evil.”

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Sunday 1st March At 2pm

Discussions:

Blaming Foreign Workers For The Crisis

The Latest Developments In Nepal

The US/UK Attack On Afghanistan

Come and discuss people’s struggles around the world

Venue: 100 Flowers Cultural Centre, above 24 Stoke Newington Road, Dalston, N16 (side entry)
Close to Dalston/Kingsland
(Submitted by WPRM)

A scene from the 1998 movie Dil Se (From the Heart). Manisha Koirala is a suicide bomber from the North eastern region of India and Shahrukh Khan is an All-India Radio journalist from Delhi. The occasion is India’s 50th Independence Day celebration (1947-1997). Mani Ratnam is the writer/director. Music is by A. R. Rahman, singer is Sonu Nigam, and poet is Gulzar. The couplet means:
Let me sleep in the lap of death
Let me drown my body in your soul

The film’s website
The film’s website describes that the film’s progression is similar to the seven shades of love enumerated in ancient Arabic literature: attraction, infatuation, love, reverence, worship, obsession, and death. (ed.)

By Richard Tanter

Summary
By virtually every measure, the war in Afghanistan is getting much worse for both the western coalition and for the Afghan civilian population. The strategic benefits are minimal to non-existent, the risks of a widening war alarming, and the moral and humanitarian consequences appalling. Strategic confusion, institutional inertia and self-interest provide most of the answer as to why the US remains in Afghanistan. Australia’s commitment shares the same strategic confusion, mixed with a diffuse paternalistic enthusiasm not too far distant from a nineteenth century imperialist ideal of civilising the natives. The US, and its allies, will leave, without any definable or honourable victory. The Afghans will stay. If the current logic of expansion of the war engulfs Pakistan, withdrawal and defeat will take place eventually, but later, and after an infinitely more catastrophic and dangerous war. Could a new US administration transform these outcomes?

Introduction
On September 22, the UN Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1833 (2008) extending the authorization of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan for a further year until 13 October 2009.[1] Yet the matter was barely mentioned in the Australian press, and no peace organisation put its head above ramparts to note the legal extension of the war. This resolution and its predecessors, invoking Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, binding on all member states, provide the legal basis for the deployment of Australian military forces in Afghanistan, and those of its partner countries operating as part of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) or in the parallel United States-commanded Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). This overwhelmingly western military coalition now fields 52,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, up from 36,000 at the beginning of 2007, including almost 1,100 from Australia.[2]

Defence officials of Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, Britain and the United States regularly cite three reasons why their troops are still fighting and dying in Afghanistan, in increasing numbers and with increasing numbers of civilian casualties.[3] Two of those reasons are essentially arguments about strategic interest: preventing the return of safe havens for international terrorist networks in Afghanistan, and ensuring that country does not become a narco-state. In the language of UNSC 1833, like that of both the Howard and Rudd governments, coalition forces are mandated to combat the increased violent and terrorist activities by the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, illegally armed groups, criminals and those involved in the narcotics trade, and the increasingly strong links between terrorism activities and illicit drugs.

The third rationale for the continuing western presence in Afghanistan, seven years after the destruction of the Al Qaeda bases and overthrow of the Taliban government, is based less on strategic interests than a claim of moral or humanitarian responsibility for Afghan democracy and protection of human rights. This now amounts to unquestioning support for the Karzai government in Kabul, elected under UN auspices in 2004.

By virtually every yardstick, the war in Afghanistan is getting much worse for both the western coalition and for the Afghan civilian population.[4] The number of districts under Taliban influence[5], the number of “security incidents”[6], the number of suicide attacks[7], the number of regions that are “No Go zones” for UN and aid workers[8], the number of coalition dead[9], the number of civilian dead and wounded[10], the number of insurgent attacks on civilians[11], the number of coalition air strikes[12], the number of insurgent roadside bombs attacks[13], the number of insurgent attacks on government officials, especially police, the size of the opium crop[14], the number of households involved in opium production[15], the size and sophistication of transnational heroin production and export networks[16] – all have increased or worsened markedly in the past two years.

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By CHRISTIAN WRIGHT

If ever you find yourself in a debate with an evolutionist, be aware that your opponent might attempt to seduce you with “facts” and “science.” He* will point toward a variety of “evidence,” and state that the community of “real” scientists around the globe overwhelmingly believes that the theory of evolution is a fact.
You must resist!

Instead, commit yourself fervently to spreading the truth of Creation—even though most evolutionists obviously don’t want to hear it. That’s okay. Remember that every minute you can keep an evolutionist busy in a debate is another minute in which he can’t be spewing his foul mistruths to those who might believe him. In that sense, even though it might appear to be a waste of time, you are, in fact, doing God’s work.

Of course, before you enter into this sort of discussion, it pays to be prepared. You have a duty to present the case for Creation in a sensible, logical manner. To that end, below are a few talking points that can help you achieve a resounding victory.

However, before we continue, a quick aside: there are some Christians who insist that Creation and evolution are somehow compatible, that they can coexist peacefully, side by side, in a melding of God and science. If you buy into that misconception, you are certainly entitled to your opinion. But keep in mind that this view is akin to denouncing Genesis altogether, and, as a result, you will burn for eternity in the fire of a thousand suns.

Now that we have that unpleasantness out of the way, here are several rebuttals that will help you prove the case for Creation.

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By Allan Tacca

On at least two occasions, we have learned from Gen. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni’s humorous assessment of himself that he is next to God. And if, like me, you have incurable doubts about the existence of God, then President Museveni must be just about the top honcho in the universe. In a manner of speaking, he is the Acting God.

It was therefore not surprising that when the Ministry of Public Service announced the new allowances for Uganda’s big public officials, those for the President were not indicated. Presumably, the President gets what he wants more or less at will; he does not need allowances in the strict sense that we would understand.
If, for instance, the President heard worrying rumours about Uganda’s milk and wanted a glass of fresh clean Rwakitura milk at an odd hour, someone at State House would make frantic telephone calls, until the relevant official in Rwakitura got hold of the First Herdsman and ensured that the latter had identified a cow that had never drank water from a dirty pond.

The cow will be milked, and (of course!) no water from a dirty pond will be added to the milk. A high speed vehicle will be availed, and in a couple of hours the President would have his milk.

If it is something less eccentric and less troublesome, like a new Gulf stream jet, the plane would be ordered – indeed one has been ordered – and the formalities examined and streamlined later.

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By Mirela Xanthaki

“An AK-47 is not made for a kid. It is not made for a human being, let alone a kid,” said Kon Kelei, a former child soldier from Sudan. Kelei was taken to a camp when he was four or five years old — he is not precisely sure — and trained to fight in battle.

“What we need is to focus and advocate for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation made me who I am today and what I am saying today,” he stressed.

Kelei and other former child soldiers, along with youth leaders who have firsthand experience in conflict zones, this month launched a new Global Network of Young People Formerly Affected by War (NYPAW) at U.N. headquarters in New York.

The group is led by UNICEF advocate Ismael Beah, who wrote the international bestseller “A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Child Soldier”, where he describes his experience as a child soldier in Sierra Leone. Beah served in the Sierra Leonean army for almost two years — a reminder that it is not only rebel groups which recruit children.

The objective of the network is to demand accountability and to promote rehabilitation and empowerment of young people who are affected by armed conflict.

“The reason why we believe that change is possible is not because we are idealists but because we believe we have made it, so other people can make it as well,” Kelei said.

With an estimated 250,000 children around the world recruited to serve in armed conflicts as soldiers, messengers, spies, porters, cooks, for sexual services or even as suicide bombers, this is a pressing social issue that needs to be better addressed by the international community, advocates say.

“From the Democratic Republic of Congo to the Gaza Strip and from Afghanistan to Somalia, too many children are suffering from the consequences of conflict,” said Radhika Coomaraswamy, special representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict.

“War violates every right of the child. Everybody has a role to play to stop these violations. We cannot let war continue to destroy childhood,” she said, adding that, “The power of resilience of these children should give us the strength to continue to mobilise the international community to do more to stop this terrible phenomenon.”
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Latuff superman Iraq imperialism

By Ajit Sahi

YOU WOULD bet on any screenshot of Singaram village to clinch a picture postcard contest. There is a surfeit of National Geographic moments here. As the sun warms up behind the thick forested hills, sinewy village acrobats glide up the toddy trees to tap their day’s white poison; someone hurries to the monthly cockfight 12km south, a throaty fat bird with an angry frown pinched tight in his underarms; the tireless granny shifts cots about and noisily sweeps her mud hut’s porch. Teenagers here guess their ages by when they broke their moustache or began menstruating. Older, they forget even that. Asked for a past event’s time, people wave at the sky to show where the sun had been that moment. As night falls, a hushed darkness cloaks the village, which has never known electricity. Embers of firewood glowing in faraway huts round off the idyllic picture. For backpacking trekkers ever on the lookout for an off-the-beaten track, this should be it.

It isn’t. Singaram’s tragedy lies in the ruins of its school that no one has entered in years, in the abject terror of forest officials who turned their backs on its development a decade ago, in the roads destroyed by the raging Maoist insurgents, the Naxals, to stop the “others” from coming in ever. It seems utterly unbelievable on a visit, but the singular truth about Singaram and hundreds of such villages across thousands of square kilometres in south Chhattisgarh is the overwhelming and brutal violence that rules them, matching some of the worst militia-ravaged parts of the world such as in Colombia, Sudan and Iraq.

If anything, this is CNN country twentyfour seven, not that India’s news organisations are much interested in the rural violence here. Locals say heavily armed Naxal women and men boldly roam the region in battle fatigue and freely swoop on villages for nightly rests and daytime meals, but especially for their signature monthly meetings. They levy taxes on trades such as on the tendu plant leaves used for rolling bidis. They also kill “traitors” — anyone they think is a police informer or an ideological opponent, or the worst: a double agent — often by beating them for hours and slashing their throats in full view not just of hundreds of villagers but even the dying woman’s or man’s spouse, children and parents.

THE NAXALS control 40 percent of Dantewada, basically its remote areas,” says Rahul Sharma, Superintendent of Police (SP) of this district in south Chhattisgarh. “The government controls a similar size. Both are fighting on the rest 20 percent.” Human rights activist Himanshu Kumar, who runs the NGO Vanvasi Chetna Ashram in Dantewada’s villages, laughs at Sharma’s figures. “The Naxals control everything except the few towns in this region,” says Kumar, whose organisation helps those it believes are innocent victims of police brutalities or are falsely accused as Naxals. To be precise, says Kumar, the Naxals control three-quarters of the 1,350 villages in Dantewada and the adjacent Bijapur district, which was carved out of the larger Dantewada in August 2008.

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“Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) a paramilitary force responsible for policing the borders of bangladesh and maintenance of internal security affairs. has mutinied and the rebellion is currently underway. Gunfire and casualties have occurred The BDR Hq in Peelkhana is located in the city centre of Dhaka adjacent to Dhanmandi and Azimpur areas.
“For Photos and live stream go to the Shahidul Alam’s blogspot. Mr. Alam is an internationally renowned photographer based in Dhaka.”

(The above comments and the following submission are by a reader.)

BDR Rebellion

By Shahidul Alam
Am at Zia International Airport heading for Amsterdam. My main attackers here are the numerous mosquitoes that liven up the long wait at immigration. Will hopefully post more pictures when I arrive in Amsterdam. Made a small detour on the way to the airport. The soldiers at the junction of road 8A and 13A in Dhanmondi weren’t there this morning. However truckloads of soldiers and what looked like Ak Aks were positioned in Satmasjid Road nearer the BDR gate. The junction of rd 13A and rd 15 (old road 27) had RAB on standby. Further along rd 16 were more truckloads of army personnel (no heavy artillery this time). Things looked quiet. No further violence appears to have taken place. Surviving hostages are said to be OK. Their mobile phones have been taken away. Probably no further updates from me after this (I will try and post the pictures I took this morning if I can), until I return to Dhaka on 8th March.
With LOTS of help from Michel, am slowly migrating this blog to shahidulnews.com Most of the material is already up there. Wasn’t familiar enough with the new system to quickly blog last night, but it is a much more easily navigable site. See you at http://www.shahidulnews.com
Shahidul
http://shahidul.wordpress.com/breaking-news