• The United States and the three European countries - Britain, France and Germany - have agreed with Russia and China on a compromise proposal to report Iran to the UN Security Council over its nuclear programme.

He said Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, had gone into dinner with the five other nations feeling "that Iran had to be referred to the UN Security Council, that temporising had gone on for too long".

• A polémica dos cartoons ofensivos na Dinamarca (clique para aumentar):

• Family Guy: todos os domingos na SIC Radical, às 22.30

• Conan O' Brien e Tarja Halonen: separados à nascença?

Observers think it possible that Ahmadinejad could try to replace Khamenei with Mesbah Yazdi. While there have only been two supreme leaders in Iran's history, Ahmadinejad could make the switch if he's able to stack the powerful Assembly of Experts with figures loyal to him.

The mullahs may also have gone beyond character assassination. On January 9, a military plane crash killed 11 top commanders in Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which has been a key source of support for Ahmadinejad. General Ahmad Kazemi, the commander of IRGC's ground forces, died in the crash, as did a number of other military notables.

The United States needs to be keenly aware of these divisions within Iran so that it can exploit them. (...) The right approach is exemplified by State Department undersecretary for political affairs Nicholas Burns's recent speech to the School of Advanced International Studies, in which he launched a stinging attack on Iran and Ahmadinejad, and stated, "There is a clear struggle underway between the reactionary Iranian government and the moderate majority."

From a local perspective, two events caused Hamas's strategic shift that brought it to run in Wednesday's elections: Arafat's death at the end of 2004 and Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and northern Samaria last summer. Arafat's death left Fatah without a charismatic, popular leader able to rally Palestinian society behind him and his party. Israel's decision to withdraw from Gaza and northern Samaria without first reaching a peace accord with the Palestinians gave credence to Hamas's view that there is nothing to be gained by recognizing Israel's right to exist, even on the declarative level.

Aside from events in Egypt, Hamas's leaders are deeply influenced by events in Syria and Iran. Today both countries are led by men who have rejected the traditional policies of terror sponsors such as the late Hafez Assad, former Iranian president Muhammad Khatami and Arafat. Unlike Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syria's President Bashar Assad, those men practiced the art of dissimulation. They hid and denied their active support for terrorism and their strategic aim of destroying Israel.

The fact that Ahmadinejad and Assad Jr. are managing to survive even as they daily challenge the West and Israel, demonstrated to Hamas that a Palestinian government under its leadership will be able to survive for the long haul even if it retains its public rejection of Israel's right to exist and enacts policies that openly advance its jihadist, terrorist agenda.

Political activities within the PA have also put the lie to the notion that Fatah is in any measurable way more peaceful in its intentions than Hamas. Differences between them are mostly illusory, in any event, and the participation of Hamas in the political fray has strengthened a militant agenda across the board. Conciliation with Israel is out. Fatah ads during the campaign have featured militaristic themes, with young men holding rifles and stones. One ad reads: "The first with the gun. The first with the stone. The fight and building will continue."

While a great deal is made of the significance of a Fatah victory, in real terms it is not likely to offer substantial benefits over a Hamas victory.

Soraida Hussein, head of research for Jerusalem's Women's Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling said, "Honor killing is nothing new... what is new is the whole wave of killing in 2005."

Recently in Gaza and the West Bank, Hamas has defined a new role for itself in guarding the morality of young Muslim women. A group of men who identified itself as a Hamas "morality squad" attacked 19-year-old Yousra al-Azam after she had sat at the beach with her husband-to-be and another couple. She was shot in the head and died in the street as her murderers beat her with batons. The growing influence of Hamas with its fundamentalist interpretations of Islamic law is concerning women's groups, which fear it will gain power and moral legitimacy in the coming elections.

• Insurgentes iraquianos unem forças para lutar contra a Al Qaeda
  

BAGHDAD: Iraqi insurgents in the Sunni city of Ramadi have turned against their al-Qa'ida allies after a bomb attack killed 80 people, sparking tit-for-tat assassinations.

Residents yesterday said at least three prominent figures on both sides were among those killed after local insurgent groups formed an alliance against al-Qa'ida, blaming it for massacring police recruits in Ramadi on January 5.

"There was a meeting right after the bombings," one Ramadi resident said, speaking anonymously for fear of reprisals.

"Tribal leaders and political figures gathered to form the Anbar Revolutionaries to fight al-Qa'ida in Anbar and force them to leave the province.

• O desabafo de Hirsi Ali:
  

"The transition from, let's say, pre-modern to modern, is something that Judaism and Christianity have gone through and that transition is something that Islam is experiencing right now.

"I have come to the conclusion that Islam can and should be reformed if Muslims want to live at peace... that's why I need the freedom of expression... for other Muslims to think that through."

Today, in America, the unborn baby is the obvious victim of the abortion holocaust. But there are other victims. Vulnerable young women are deceived by manipulative counselors and unscrupulous "health professionals" into believing their unborn babies are not human, only to find out too late, in the recovery room or shortly thereafter, that they ended the lives of their own children. What crueler trick could one play on a mother? In truth, millions of people who think of themselves as "pro-choice" are victims of sophisticated marketing campaigns, designed to appeal to their deepest feelings about freedom and equality, while simultaneously hooking them through powerful appeals to their selfishness.

In Afghanistan, 70% say their own circumstances are improving, and 57% believe that the country overall is on the way up.
In Iraq, 65% believe their personal life is getting better, and 56% are upbeat about the country's economy.
The experts at polling firm Globescan, who conducted the survey, venture the guess that war may have created a "year zero" experience of collectively starting again.

LOUÇÃ PODERÁ PEDIR EMPRÉSTIMO

A candidatura de Francisco Louçã poderá recorrer a um empréstimo bancário ou a uma nova angariação de fundos entre os militantes do Bloco de Esquerda para pagar os custos da campanha eleitoral. Isto porque a subvenção pública que o Estado deverá atribuir à candidatura fica aquém das expectativas. No orçamento entregue no Tribunal Constitucional, a candidatura esperava receber 425 mil euros de subsídio, no entanto, feitas as contas, Francisco Louçã deverá receber cerca de 318 mil euros. Confrontada com a discrepância de valores, a candidatura afirmou ao CM que, caso seja necessário, recorrerá a um ?empréstimo bancário?. CM

Devemos indignar-nos com a morte de qualquer criança e não apenas com aquelas que são mortas por estranhos . Se queremos acabar com a morte de crianças devido a abusos, as atitudes para com as crianças e a família devem mudar

A «arruada» desta quarta-feira de Cavaco Silva em Coimbra, uma das melhores de toda a campanha, foi marcada por um incidente envolvendo jovens apoiantes e três manifestantes com uma faixa negra chamando «fascistas» aos «cavaquistas».

O incidente aconteceu já no final da iniciativa, durante o discurso de Cavaco Silva às largas centenas de pessoas concentradas numa das principais praças de Coimbra.

De repente, começaram a ouvir-se assobios quando três jovens tentaram erguer uma faixa negra onde se lia: «Todos os porcos capitalistas votam Cavaco porque são fascistas». DD.

Fonte

Ah, success. Instead of being years away from the point of no return for an Iranian bomb, as we were before we allowed Europe to divert anti-proliferation efforts into transparently useless talks, Iran is probably just months away. And now, of course, Iran is run by an even more radical government, led by a president who fervently believes in the imminence of the apocalypse.

Ah, success. Having delayed two years, we now have to deal with a set of fanatical Islamists who we know will not be deterred from pursuing nuclear weapons by any sanctions. Even if we could get real sanctions. Which we will not.

The only sanctions that might conceivably have any effect would be a boycott of Iranian oil.

The threat works in reverse. It is the Iranians who have the world over a barrel. On Jan. 15, Iran's economy minister warned that Iran would retaliate for any sanctions by cutting its exports to "raise oil prices beyond levels the West expects." A full cutoff could bring $100 oil and plunge the world into economic crisis.

Which is one of the reasons the Europeans are so mortified by the very thought of a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. The problem is not just that they are spread out and hardened, making them difficult to find and to damage sufficiently to seriously set back Iran's program.

The problem that mortifies the Europeans is what Iran might do after such an attack -- not just cut off its oil exports but shut down the Strait of Hormuz by firing missiles at tankers or scuttling its vessels to make the strait impassable. It would require an international armada led by the United States to break such a blockade.

Such consequences -- serious economic disruption and possible naval action -- are something a cocooned, aging, post-historic Europe cannot even contemplate. Which is why the Europeans have had their heads in the sand for two years. And why they will spend the little time remaining -- before a group of apocalyptic madmen go nuclear -- putting their heads back in the sand. And congratulating themselves on allied solidarity as they do so in unison.

The director of the Saudi football league said Saudi authorities had made an exception for Swedish women football fans who live in the ultraconservative kingdom to attend the game between Sweden and Saudi Arabia on Wednesday night.
Normally women are not allowed to mix with men in public places in Saudi Arabia, which follows a strict interpretation of Islam.

It is this fourth school (Democratic Globalism) that has guided U.S. foreign policy in this decade. This conservative alternative to realism is often lazily and invidiously called neoconservatism, but that is a very odd name for a school whose major proponents in the world today are George W. Bush and Tony Blair--if they are neoconservatives, then Margaret Thatcher was a liberal. There?s nothing neo about Bush, and there?s nothing con about Blair.

Yet they are the principal proponents today of what might be called democratic globalism, a foreign policy that defines the national interest not as power but as values, and that identifies one supreme value, what John Kennedy called ?the success of liberty.? As President Bush put it in his speech at Whitehall last November: ?The United States and Great Britain share a mission in the world beyond the balance of power or the simple pursuit of interest. We seek the advance of freedom and the peace that freedom brings.?
(...)
Democratic globalism sees as the engine of history not the will to power but the will to freedom. And while it has been attacked as a dreamy, idealistic innovation, its inspiration comes from the Truman Doctrine of 1947, the Kennedy inaugural of 1961, and Reagan?s ?evil empire? speech of 1983. They all sought to recast a struggle for power between two geopolitical titans into a struggle between freedom and unfreedom, and yes, good and evil.
(...)
Today, post-9/11, we find ourselves in a similar existential struggle but with a different enemy: not Soviet communism, but Arab-Islamic totalitarianism, both secular and religious. Bush and Blair are similarly attacked for naïvely and crudely casting this struggle as one of freedom versus unfreedom, good versus evil.

Now, given the way not just freedom but human decency were suppressed in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the two major battles of this new war, you would have to give Bush and Blair?s moral claims the decided advantage of being obviously true.

Nonetheless, something can be true and still be dangerous. Many people are deeply uneasy with the Bush-Blair doctrine--many conservatives in particular. When Blair declares in his address to Congress: ?The spread of freedom is . . . our last line of defense and our first line of attack,? they see a dangerously expansive, aggressively utopian foreign policy. In short, they see Woodrow Wilson.

Now, to a conservative, Woodrow Wilson is fightin? words. Yes, this vision is expansive and perhaps utopian. But it ain?t Wilsonian. Wilson envisioned the spread of democratic values through as-yet-to-be invented international institutions. He could be forgiven for that. In 1918, there was no way to know how utterly corrupt and useless those international institutions would turn out to be. Eight decades of bitter experience later--with Libya chairing the UN Commission on Human Rights--there is no way not to know.

Democratic globalism is not Wilsonian. Its attractiveness is precisely that it shares realism?s insights about the centrality of power. Its attractiveness is precisely that it has appropriate contempt for the fictional legalisms of liberal internationalism.

Moreover, democratic globalism is an improvement over realism. What it can teach realism is that the spread of democracy is not just an end but a means, an indispensable means for securing American interests. The reason is simple. Democracies are inherently more friendly to the United States, less belligerent to their neighbors, and generally more inclined to peace. Realists are right that to protect your interests you often have to go around the world bashing bad guys over the head. But that technique, no matter how satisfying, has its limits. At some point, you have to implant something, something organic and self-developing. And that something is democracy.

But where? The danger of democratic globalism is its universalism, its open-ended commitment to human freedom, its temptation to plant the flag of democracy everywhere. It must learn to say no. And indeed, it does say no. But when it says no to Liberia, or Congo, or Burma, or countenances alliances with authoritarian rulers in places like Pakistan or, for that matter, Russia, it stands accused of hypocrisy. Which is why we must articulate criteria for saying yes. Where to intervene? Where to bring democracy? Where to nation-build? I propose a single criterion: Where it counts.

Call it democratic realism. And this is its axiom: We will support democracy everywhere, but we will commit blood and treasure only in places where there is a strategic necessity--meaning, places central to the larger war against the existential enemy, the enemy that poses a global mortal threat to freedom.

Where does it count? Fifty years ago, Germany and Japan counted. Why? Because they were the seeds of the greatest global threat to freedom in midcentury--fascism--and then were turned, by nation building, into bulwarks against the next great threat to freedom, Soviet communism.

Where does it count today? Where the overthrow of radicalism and the beginnings of democracy can have a decisive effect in the war against the new global threat to freedom, the new existential enemy, the Arab-Islamic totalitarianism that has threatened us in both its secular and religious forms for the quarter-century since the Khomeini revolution of 1979.

Establishing civilized, decent, nonbelligerent, pro-Western polities in Afghanistan and Iraq and ultimately their key neighbors would, like the flipping of Germany and Japan in the 1940s, change the strategic balance in the fight against Arab-Islamic radicalism.

Yes, it may be a bridge too far. Realists have been warning against the hubris of thinking we can transform an alien culture because of some postulated natural and universal human will to freedom. And they may yet be right. But how do they know in advance? Half a century ago, we heard the same confident warnings about the imperviousness to democracy of Confucian culture. That proved stunningly wrong. Where is it written that Arabs are incapable of democracy?

Yes, as in Germany and Japan, the undertaking is enormous, ambitious and arrogant. It may yet fail. But we cannot afford not to try. There is not a single, remotely plausible, alternative strategy for attacking the monster behind 9/11. It?s not Osama bin Laden; it is the cauldron of political oppression, religious intolerance, and social ruin in the Arab-Islamic world--oppression transmuted and deflected by regimes with no legitimacy into virulent, murderous anti-Americanism. It?s not one man; it is a condition. It will be nice to find that man and hang him, but that?s the cops-and-robbers law-enforcement model of fighting terrorism that we tried for twenty years and that gave us 9/11. This is war, and in war arresting murderers is nice. But you win by taking territory?and leaving something behind.

A Castelmaia, Centro de Formação organiza no próximo dia 10 de Fevereiro uma palestra dedicada ao tema «Violência Doméstica» O debate terá lugar no auditório da Quinta da Gruta, no Castelo da Maia, entre as 9h00 e as 17h00 e contará com a presença de vários representantes de instituições públicas, como é o caso da APAV - Associação Portuguesa de Apoio à Vítima, do Hospital Maria Pia, e outras organizações. Actualmente, a Castelmaia está a levar a cabo um curso EFA (Educação e Formação de Adultos) denominado «Agentes de Geriatria». Daí a pertinência desta palestra, uma vez que analisará os vários tipos de violência: infantil, na terceira idade e contra as mulheres. PJ

1. I don't consider myself an A-Lister.

No, but I turn up for speaking gigs at all the big conferences anyway. Uh-huh.

2. I don't care about traffic.

Of course I don't. Even though I'm a freelance consultant, and my blog is my primary way of marketing myself. Rock on.

3. I've read your blog.

Yeah, well I read the "Musings of an unemployed tech consultant" bit on the title bar, before clicking off. That counts.

4. I started blogging back in 1999.

Of course, back in 1999 a Flash-animated, brochureware homepage was considered a blog. Kinda sorta.

5. My blog has no commercial agenda.

I'm far too sexy to care about money. Exactly.

6. I only have advertising on my blog as an experiment.

That explains why the adstrip is right under the "Musings of an unemployed tech consultant" bit. Indeed.

7. I've never liked the unegalitarian term, "A-Lister".

Even though I am one. Oh, the irony.

8. I'm proud to be a D-Lister.

Even though I spend 7 hours a day writing the thing. Right.

9. He's a big hero of mine.

He's got more traffic than downtown Mexico City and I'm hoping to God he links to me one day.

10. I really admire what she's doing for the blogosphere.

I've noticed that she's currently single.

O Presidente da República revelou aos portugueses, esta sexta-feira, as razões que o levaram a decidir dissolver a Assembleia da República e a convocar eleições legislativas antecipadas, oficialmente marcadas para o próximo dia 20 de Fevereiro. Jorge Sampaio declarou que o governo de Pedro Santana Lopes caiu numa "grave crise de instabilidade" e que o País não podia "perder mais tempo". CM.

O Presidente da República revelou aos portugueses, esta sexta-feira, as razões que o levaram a decidir dissolver a Assembleia da República e a convocar eleições legislativas antecipadas. Cavaco Silva declarou que o governo de José Sócrates caiu numa "grave crise de instabilidade" e que o País não podia "perder mais tempo".

Filibuster Cartoons

- Bem, podiamos lancetar, mas isso daria muito trabalho.
- O nosso conselho é o de tentar viver com ele.

• O perfil de Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

• Permanent Security Council Members Agree on Iran

• Depois do suicídio do Ocidente

The Islamofascists have a fanatical belief that theirs is a holy mission, that incinerating infidels is their bounden duty. For them suicide is a gateway to paradise. For us suicide is just that: suicide. Although we began by calling this symposium "Threats to Democracy," it became clear in the course of our proceedings that the threat was larger, more encompassing than that title suggests. As the succeeding essays make clear, what we are dealing with is the real culture war, a war, as Burnham said, "for survival". In "It's the demography, stupid," Mark Steyn writes about the West's survival in the most elemental sense: much of what could once upon a time have been called Christian Europe is simply failing to reproduce itself. "A society that has no children," he notes, "has no future." But the demographic timebomb, as Douglas Murray, Roger Scruton, and Keith Windshuttle note, is only part of the story. As Scruton puts it, a kind of"moral obesity" cripples much of Western culture, "to the point where ideals and long-term goals induce in them nothing more than a flummoxed breathlessness."

• Carta aos Europeus:

On the home front, a single, though bloody, attack in Madrid changed an entire Spanish election, and prompted the withdrawal of troops from Iraq although the terrorists nevertheless continued, despite their promises to the contrary, to plant bombs and plan assassinations of Spanish judicial officials. Cry the beloved continent.

The entire legal system of the Netherlands is under review due to the gruesome murder of Theo van Gogh and politicians there who speak out about the fascistic tendencies of radical Islam often either face threats or go into hiding. Cry the beloved continent.

Unemployment, postcolonial prejudice, and de facto apartheid may have led to the fiery rioting in the French suburbs, but it was also energized by a radical Islamic culture of hate. In response followed de facto French martial law. All that remains certain is that the rioting will return either to grow or to warp liberal French society. Indeed, so far has global culture devolved in caving to Islamism that we fear that only two places in the world are now safe for a Jew to live in safety, and Europe, the graveyard of 20th-century Jewry, is tragically not among them. Cry the beloved continent.

• Zapatero e a sua guerra sensível ao terrorismo

• Freedom Fighters contra Freedom Fighters no Iraque:

According to an American and an Iraqi intelligence official, as well as Iraqi insurgents, clashes between Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and Iraqi insurgent groups like the Islamic Army and Muhammad's Army have broken out in Ramadi, Husayba, Yusifiya, Dhuluiya and Karmah.

In town after town, Iraqis and Americans say, local Iraqi insurgents and tribal groups have begun trying to expel Al Qaeda's fighters, and, in some cases, kill them. It is unclear how deeply the split pervades Iraqi society. Iraqi leaders say that in some Iraqi cities, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and local insurgent groups continue to cooperate with one another.

Morocco's 42-year-old King Mohammed VI has discovered religion as a means of modernizing his society -- and progress through piety seems to be the order of the day. By granting new rights to women and strengthening civil liberties, the ruler of this country of 30 million on Africa's northern edge, which is 99 percent Muslim, plans to democratize Morocco through a tolerant interpretation of the Koran.
(...)
Now all Moroccan women, even those who are illiterate, know that they are protected by law, says civil rights professor Fatna Sarehane, who is working on a study about the implementation of the new law. Although many jurisdictions still lack family courts, says the Casablanca attorney, the new legislation is an enormous step forward. For the first time in the country's history, discrimination against women is as punishable an offence as sexual harassment. Even if the Islamists come into power one day, says Sarehane, it's a step that can "no longer be reversed.

Nenhum desses telefones terá sido investigado ou analisado no âmbito do processo, com o âmbito referenciado. Nem aliás, o poderia ser, atena a lei que temos.
A PGR disse que isso era falso e acredito no que a PGR disse, ao ponto de ter sido confirmado pelo próprio advogado Ricardo Sá Fernandes. Este advogado de quem se fala pouco a propósito deste caso, segundo o Expresso de hoje, terá sido o único advogado que teve acesso às disquetes e as descodificou com ajuda de um técnico de informática, segundo declarou ao mesmo jornal. Ponto final, neste primeiro assunto. Parágrafo:

O período em causa, ou seja o tal " durante um ano e meio", segundo o mesmo jornal, nas "coisas que tem de saber" foi afinal de "seis meses em causa".
Na realidade, terá sido de 10.12.2001 a 7 .5. 2002, o que nem dá seis meses..., mas sim quatro meses e 28 dias! Logo, a mentirola fica logo com o rabo felpudíssimo de fora! Um ano e meio para nem sequer cinco meses...

Para além dessas mentirolas, avulta o facto, confirmado pela PT, de que forneceu números e não nomes, ao processo. Logo, quem identificou os nomes que o jornal publica e quem viola impudicamente a privacidade dos visados, será o próprio jornal. Seria caso para amanhã, outro jornal tablóide publicar: "24 Horas investiga por conta própria nomes da lista!" E ainda outro, à "24 Horas": "Souto e Pedroso tem o mesmo fornecedor de pizzas ", o que aliás o jornal publicita. COmo publicita que tomou conhecimento do cabeleireiro e da depiladora da mulher do procurador.
A par desta devassa da vida particular de certas pessoas, feita pelo jornal, podemos ler no mesmo número, de ontem, a indignação farisaica que consiste em vituperar a existência destes elementos no processo, como constituindo um atentado à privacidade dessas figuras públicas! Pasme-se! Pasme-se! E não é a primeira vez que tal acontece.
(...)

A única verdade que o 24Horas revela, seria uma verdade sem notícia: que existiam no processo casa Pia, algumas disquetes contendo registos detalhados da facturação de um único telefone fixo atribuido a um dos arguidos.
E outra verdade ainda, poderia ter sido desvendada e publicada: para além disso, havia outros registos de altas individualidades cuja existência o jornal apurou ter sido remetida por lapso, desconhecendo se o MP delas tomou conhecimento.
Sendo esta a verdade, onde estará o muito mentiroso?!

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Panda Platinum 2005 Internet Security warning:

The file AlbertoJoãoJardim-Lutador1.wmv.wmv was potentially dangerous and was moved to quarantine.
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O Presidente da República, Jorge Sampaio, admitiu, esta quinta-feira, que a protecção de dados pessoais não pode impedir o cruzamento de informações que permitam detectar situações de evasão fiscal. CM

«Vim a Belém falar com o Presidente da República que se mostrou preocupado com aquilo que foi divulgado no 24horas de hoje», disse Souto Moura após cerca de meia hora de reunião.DD

• Culpa sem castigo

• Seis crianças maltratadas por dia em Portugal

• The Iranian and Syrian Regimes are Fascist

"The common denominator defining an ideology or policy as Fascist or Nazi is discrimination among human beings for reasons that the victims can do nothing about... After all, I inherited my affiliation from my parents and from the environment in which I was raised; I did not choose it...

"Since both the Iranian and Syrian regimes discriminate among the various groups within their peoples on the basis of religion and ethnicity, they are no different from any other fascist or Nazi regime. These two regimes are therefore fascist in the true, literal sense of the word, not metaphorically...

• Iraq: Our Iranian Policy

• Saddam's Terror Training Camps

• Islamofascism

• Zarqawi v Iraqis: Conflict of interest?

• Neighbouring nations offer Iraq help

• Iraqi Leader Predicts New Government

F1: f(frente),u(cima),d(baixo),2(triângulo) (c)(perto)
F2: f,d,b,f,2 (s)

Iranians were among the casualties, he said. Iranian pilgrims have recently started to return to Shia holy sites in Iraq.