A. Loewenstein Online Newsletter

Few thoughts about Palestinian Authority spokesman Ghassan Khatib

Posted: 03 Aug 2011

 
I heard him speak yesterday at the New South Wales parliament (he’s in Australia trying to convince the madly pro-Zionist Australian government to view Palestinians as human beings, so good luck with that).
Khatib talked about the proposed UN vote on Palestine in September and spoke creatively about the alleged readiness of Palestine for statehood, ignoring PA forces abusing citizens and massive corruption. It’s a sad state of affairs that many in the world, including at the Sydney event, are fooled by the PA’s spin; they’ve benefited from occupation since the Oslo days.
 

Iran’s insecure mullahs attempt to cut off country from the web

Posted: 03 Aug 2011

 
Insane, unworkable and signs of autocrats who fear freedom of expression and their own citizens:

Communication and information technology minister Reza Taqipour Anvari announced at the start of July that the first phase of a “National Internet,” also called “Clean Internet,” will get under way at the end of August, offering an 8 Mbps speed broadband connection that will later rise to 20 Mbps and a national search engine called “Ya Haq” (Oh Just One) to be launched in early 2012. The project’s aim is to “better manage national emails and information gathering within the country and to improve security,” he said. Surveillance of dissidents’ email will inevitably increase.
Online social networks are used in Iran to resist government repression and circulate independent news and information, despite the severity of the censorship system. This new project will reinforce censorship and surveillance of netizens. It consists of an Intranet designed ultimately to replace the international Internet and to discriminate between ordinary citizens and the “elite” (banks, ministries and big companies), which will continue to have access to the international Internet.
The new project does not seem very advisable from the economic viewpoint as this technological step backwards could dissuade certain countries from investing in Iran. It shows that the regime wants to impose total censorship on all sectors involved in disseminated information.

The life of Iran’s Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei

Posted: 03 Aug 2011

American Muslims show deep tolerance (not that Murdoch and friends really care)

Posted: 03 Aug 2011

 
If only the bigots, haters, many politicians and media hacks took a deep breath more often:

Muslims in the United States express greater tolerance for members of other faiths than any other major religious group, according to a major new survey and report released here Thursday by the Abu Dhabi Gallup Center.
They are also more likely than any other religious group to oppose violent or military attacks against civilians, according to the survey, “Muslim Americans: Faith, Freedom, and the Future”.
Nearly four out of five (78 percent) U.S. Muslims say that military attacks against civilians can never be justified. That compares with less than two of five Protestants (38 percent) and Catholics (39 percent) and just over four out of Jews (43 percent) who take that position, the poll found.
Similarly, 89 percent of Muslims said attacks by “an individual person or a small group of individuals to target and kill civilians can never be justified”. Between 71 percent and 75 percent of Christian and Jewish respondents agreed.
The survey also found that Jewish and Muslim Americans shared many views, including how best to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Eighty-one percent of Muslims and 78 percent of Jews queried by Gallup said they supported a two-state solution.
Jewish respondents were also more likely than any other group, including Muslims themselves, to believe that Muslims face prejudice in the U.S.

Mubarak and his sons denying all charges against them

Posted: 03 Aug 2011