Archive for February 5th, 2015

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05/02/2015

Boko Haram Facing Mounting Regional Military Pressure

Human Wrongs Watch

By Obinna Anyadike*
 
ABUJA , 4 February 2015 (IRIN)* – Nigeria and its neighbors have launched a major military offensive that has retaken a string of border towns from Boko Haram. The move comes just ahead of talks in Cameroon to agree details of the 7,500-strong taskforce proposed by the African Union to tackle the militant Islamist group.
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**Photo: K.aksoy/Flickr | Nigeria’s aged T-55 tanks on parade | Source: IRIN

Chadian troops have crossed into northeastern Nigeria and re-captured at least three border towns, including Gamboru, Ngala and Malam Fatori.

“They [Chad and Cameroon] are acting out of their own national interest, to push Boko Haram back into Nigeria,” political scientist and columnist, Jibrin Ibrahim, told IRIN.

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Posted in Africa, The Peoples, War Lords | Leave a Comment »

05/02/2015

‘Crucify them!’ Muslim Leaders Condemn ISIS Execution of Jordanian Pilot

Human Wrongs Watch

4 February 2015, RT* —  Secular and religious leaders in the Middle East expressed rare unity in roundly condemning the execution of captured Jordanian pilot Moath al-Kasasbeh, who was apparently burned alive in a cage by the Islamic State.

NordNordWest, Spesh531

Areas controlled (as of 3 February 2015) | Author: NordNordWest, Spesh531 | Wikimedia Commons

Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of the al-Azhar mosque in Cairo, and widely considered the world’s most influential Sunni Muslim cleric, condemned the “satanic” Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), calling for its members to be “killed, crucified or to have their limbs amputated” in revenge for the gruesome execution.

The Qatar-headquartered International Association of Muslim Scholars, another leading light of Muslim thought, joined the chorus.

“The Association asserts that this extremist organization does not represent Islam in any way and its actions always harm Islam,” it said in a statement.

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Posted in Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords | Leave a Comment »

05/02/2015

A Theory of China

Human Wrongs Watch

By Johan Galtung*, TRANSCEND Media Service

Penang Institute, Penang, 5 February 2015 – A theory serves comprehension, prediction and identification of conditions for change. Seven such historical-cultural pointers will be indicated for China; using the West in general, and the USA in particular, for comparisons. The presentation draws on countless dialogues in China over 40 years, since 1973.

**Image: Beijing | Author: "北京国贸CBD夜景" by 网友的作品 - http://bbs.photofans.cn/thread-419083-1-1.html. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

**Image: Beijing | Author: “北京国贸CBD夜景” by 网友的作品 – http://bbs.photofans.cn/thread-419083-1-1.html. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

* China: in time, as dynasties; West: in space as empires.

Look at a histomap combining world history and geography, time and space: China shows up through 4,000 years as relatively coherent dynasties with complex transitions–and the West as empires–birth-growth-peaking-decline-fall, like the Roman, UK and now US empires–duration vs bubbles that burst; as China-centric vs hegemonical.

* Chinese space: Barbarian; US time: to create, past irrelevant.

China marginalized space peopled by South-West-North-East barbarians– outside the “Chinese pocket” between Himalayas-Gobi desert-Tundra-Sea–except for Silk roads and Silk lane East China-East Africa, destroyed by Portugal and England from 1500, colonizing Macao-Hong Kong.

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Posted in Asia, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples | Leave a Comment »

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