Posts from — June 2009

A friend and the individual most responsible for convincing me to blog, Andante of Collective Sigh, died on Tuesday, June 16^th, after a long battle with cancer.

Her voice will be missed.

Update: Her last post on May 1^st featured this performance of the Italian version of Taps.

The Big Table

Nom Nom — nom nom

[Editor: The 106° heat index Thursday reduced the appetites of the adults, so KT3 and KT4 get to eat all they want with none on the big cats around.]

Friday Ark

The BBC reports that Israel-UN spat over Syria ‘bias’

The IAEA chief has reacted sharply to an Israeli accusation of bias in his attitude toward Syria, in a rare public controversy at the nuclear watchdog.

The body has been examining the case of an alleged Syrian nuclear arms facility that Israeli jets bombed in 2007.

Israel’s envoy told an IAEA debate on the subject in Vienna that Mohamed ElBaradei must “avoid political bias”.

The Egyptian hit back accusing Israel of breaking international law and he added bluntly “stop preaching to us”.

Mr ElBaradei said Israel’s attack on the facility had hampered his attempts to unearth the truth about the site.

[Read more →]

Juan Cole provides some background for the day of mourning in Shi’ia society.

CNN provides a general article, Tehran ‘mourning’ rally proceeds without violence

Clad in black for mourning, Iranians took to the streets to protest last week’s presidential vote and grieve for those who died in post-election violence.

Supporters of Mir Hossein Moussavi — the country’s top opposition candidate — were turning Tehran into a sea of black as they marched in silence to express their displeasure. And he addressed the throngs, according to messages on Twitter from people who say they were at the rally.

Demonstrators started their rallies from mosques across the Iranian capital and planned to converge in a city square Thursday afternoon.

They were to march from the location, Imam Khomeini Square, near the city’s Grand Bazaar, along city streets in what is expected to be one of the largest protests since last Friday’s disputed election — which the government said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won by a huge margin.

CNN is threading a fine line to avoid being blacklisted by the government. People need to be reminded that the protesters are complaining about a flawed election, not about their government. This is not a revolution, unless the government screws up and overreacts. People are using the tactics of the Iranian revolution to remind leaders what the government was founded to do, not to alter their form of government.

CNN carries the latest complaints from Iran: Foreign media supporting ‘hooligans’

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) — Iran on Wednesday accused international journalists in the country of being the “mouthpiece” of “hooligans” who have created unrest at post-election rallies in Tehran.

“Hundreds” of international reporters were allowed into Iran to cover last week’s election as “a sign of the total transparency in the trends of the elections and the effective performance of the system of religious democracy,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

“But certain countries have rushed to judgment and have supported the illegal gatherings and the disturbances that a number of opportunists had created,” the ministry said.

“They have turned themselves into the mouthpiece for these hooligans, and have damaged and targeted the radiant face of the Islamic republic.”

This is what happens when their fearless leader hangs around with KGB officers. “Hooligans”?

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BBC Science reporter Victoria Gill explains the failure of Wall Street – the US financial sector lacks the intelligence of lab rats.

Now, I don’t expect them to be as altruistic as chimpanzees, nor as fair as dogs, but you would think they could calculate the odds well as a rat.

McClatchy reports on the biggest problem the authorities have faced to date: Iran’s senior ayatollah slams election, confirming split

TEHRAN, Iran — Supporters of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his main rival in the disputed presidential election, Mir Hossein Mousavi, massed in competing rallies Tuesday as the country’s most senior Islamic cleric threw his weight behind opposition charges that Ahmadinejad’s re-election was rigged.

“No one in their right mind can believe” the official results from Friday’s contest, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri said of the landslide victory claimed by Ahmadinejad. Montazeri accused the regime of handling Mousavi’s charges of fraud and the massive protests of his backers “in the worst way possible.”

“A government not respecting people’s vote has no religious or political legitimacy,” he declared in comments on his official Web site. “I ask the police and army personals (personnel) not to ‘sell their religion,’ and beware that receiving orders will not excuse them before God.”

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The CBC reports on the current state of the investigation, Hundreds of pieces of Air France plane recovered

More than 400 pieces of an Air France plane that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Brazil have been recovered, French investigators said Wednesday.

Speaking at a news conference near Paris, French air accident investigation agency head Paul-Louis Arslanian said the debris is from all areas of the Airbus A330. He didn’t provide any further details about the recovered wreckage or say how much of the entire plane has been found.
…

Arslanian said the search for the aircraft’s voice and data recorders is intensifying.

“We are at the first days of the research under water, research which is focused on the time being on the recorders and more precisely the beacon, the acoustic beacon which is fitted to the recorders,” he said.

Investigators are using manned and unmanned submarines to search the crash site, which is spread over more than 230 kilometres, located about 640 kilometres northeast of the Fernando de Noronha islands.

[Read more →]

The ABC reports a call for a Day of mourning amid Iran crackdown

Iran’s opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi has called for a national day of mourning as crackdowns on reformists and his supporters intensify, with dozens more detained in Tehran and outside the capital.

Mr Mousavi has urged supporters to stage peaceful protests or gather in mosques to mourn those killed after a disputed presidential poll set off Iran’s worst unrest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
…

“In the course of the past days and as a consequence of illegal and violent encounters with [people protesting] against the outcome of the presidential election, a number of our countrymen were wounded or martyred,” Mr Mousavi said.

“I ask the people to express their solidarity with the families… by coming together in mosques or taking part in peaceful demonstrations.”

Mr Mousavi says he will take part in the day of mourning, planned for Thursday (local time).
…

[Read more →]

The ABC reports that their coverage of Iran is about to decline: Time to go: ABC forced out of Iran.

The Independent Middle East reporter ignores the government of Iran, as he has ignored government edicts throughout the region: Extraordinary scenes: Robert Fisk in Iran.

What is interesting in both reports are the indications that the powers that be are softening their attitude towards the Mousavi demonstrators. The local media is starting to report on their existence, rather than ignoring them totally, and Fisk noted that units that he identifies as “Special Forces” actually kept the Basij and Ahmadinejad supporters from attacking the Mousavi people.

To date, at least 7 people were killed in the attack at Tehran University, in addition to the 7 or 8 people who died at the end of the massive demonstration yesterday. That is probably why the “Special Forces” were deployed.

When I said on Saturday that ballots were counted too quickly, that was based on the delayed reporting in the West. I had no true idea on how quickly the election was called, I assumed it was less than 12 hours from the polls closing.

Farnaz Fassihi of the Wall Street Journal in Tehran says in his article, Crowds, Calm and Then Gunshots:

When the state announced, less than two hours after polls had closed on Friday, that Mr. Ahmadinejad had won by a landslide, supporters of his rivals were shocked. When they found out about allegations of widespread cheating and rigging of votes, they were outraged.

The two hours was confirmed by Karim Sadjadpour in CNN’s Q & A: Was the Iranian election rigged?.

Almost 40 million hand-written, folded, paper ballots in boxes in a country the size of Alaska, and in two hours they know results of a four-way election – that is what you have to believe to accept this election as free and fair.

The BBC has consistantly led in Iran coverage

Iran’s powerful Guardian Council says it is ready to recount disputed votes from Friday’s presidential poll.
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The authorities announced sweeping restrictions on foreign media covering the protest and other “unauthorised events”.
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Dozens of people have been arrested since the protests began. Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a close aide of ex-President Mohammad Khatami, was detained at his home in Tehran on Tuesday.

Those detained also include prominent journalist and academic Ahmad Zeidabadi. His wife says he was picked up in the middle of the night on Saturday.

I assume that the authorities are covering CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, CBE like a carpet, as she hasn’t been able to say much from the scene. We’ll find out more once she’s out of Iran. The CNN coverage is unbelievably muted since yesterday.

Picking up Zeidabadi on Saturday indicates the authorities knew almost immediately there was going to be trouble over their crude theft of the election. I would guess that they started seeing the early results from Tehran and panicked, which would explain the unbelievable results that were reported. It was almost as if they issued an edict that every district would report the same percentage of the total votes cast.

The recount offer of the Guardian Council is really too little, too late, although it might be entertaining to watch the Ministry of the Interior attempt to create all of the ballots needed to justify the results they reported. The Council only offered a recount in specific districts, not a general recount.

McClatchy has reported that Iran expels many foreign reporters as more violence looms

TEHRAN, Iran — With at least seven people dead in street violence, Iran’s government Tuesday ordered foreign journalists to halt their coverage of demonstrations, and reporters with temporary visas to leave the country. More violence loomed as opponents and backers of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad scheduled rival demonstrations.

Backers of candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who says he won Friday’s election, had intended to converge on Tehran’s Vali Asr square at 5 p.m. (8:30 a.m. EDT). However, state-controlled media exhorted Ahmadinejad’s supporters to gather in the same spot an hour earlier. Iranian television showed tens of thousands of them filling the square and nearby streets, and it wasn’t immediately clear whether Mousavi’s crowds would show up.
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The orders affecting foreign journalists were an ominous sign, and could mean that a full-scale crackdown on the students and other protesters is coming. Foreign journalists who had visas to cover the elections were informed that their press credentials had been revoked and they should prepare to leave the country.

The regime has stepped up its allegations that forces outside the country are fomenting the unrest.

It is always “outside agitators” when conservatives “reap what they sow”.

Ahmadinejad is safely away in Ekatrinaburg, Russia as part of an observer delegation to the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization so he will have plausible deniability for what the security forces are trying to arrange.  They want the demonstrations to end, and they will brutalize as many people as necessary to make that happen.

I noticed that John McCain wants the US to take a forceful stand backing the demonstrators. John, these are the same Iranians that you keep saying should be bombed. Which is it? Do you want them all to gather in the city squares so they are easy to kill, or what? Make up your mind – are Iranians good or bad?

John, by the grace of God, king of England, lord of Ireland, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and count of Anjou in the meadow which is called Runnymede, between Windsor and Staines, on the fifteenth day of June, 1215, signed the Great Charter in the presence of assorted heavily armed peers of the realm, who assured him it was the right thing to do.

The British Library has pictures of the Magna Carta available, and Wikipedia has a nice discussion of the document.

The Magna Carta of 1297 is permanently residing in the US National Archives.

The Avalon Project’s translation of the 1215 version with an index and definitions.

John abided by the charter for several months, before he returned to business as normal, but the principle was established – no one is above the law.