Author: Mick Hartley

should have been referred to the Security Council at that time. The Europeans rejected American demands to that effect and decided to forgive Iran for its past sins.

In exchange, they asked Iran, in the words of then French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, to give them “something with which to silence the Americans.” De Villepin had devised the scheme as a means of exposing what he called “the follies of American policy” as had been manifested in Iraq. He suggested that Iran be dealt with “the French way,” which meant negotiations and compromise rather than knuckle-rapping or worse.

The Iranians welcomed the European offer because it did three things for them. First, it removed the threat of military action which, at the time, appeared to be serious. Second, the deal isolated the United States. Finally, it gave Iran time to speed up its nuclear program, whatever its ultimate goals. […]

European-style appeasement, partly motivated by a desire to pull faces at Washington, has encouraged the most radical faction in Teheran and helped to bring Ahmadinejad to power. All the diplomatic gesticulations that are likely to follow will only compound that effect. The Islamic republic has had three years in which to prepare for whatever sanctions the Security Council might impose. It has also signed oil and gas contracts worth more than $70 billion with China, and arms and industrial contracts with Russia exceeding $30 billion, to make sure that at least one if not both would veto any harsh resolution against Iran.

hat the parasite changes the rats in one subtle but vital way.

Normal rats stay away from anything that smells of cat, sensibly enough. But infected rats don’t.

Rats carrying the parasite are for the most part indistinguishable from healthy ones. They can compete for mates just as well and have no trouble feeding themselves. The only difference, the researchers found, is that they are more likely to get themselves killed. The scent of a cat in the enclosure didn’t make them anxious, and they went about their business as if nothing was bothering them. They would explore around the odor at least as often as they did anywhere else in the enclosure. In some cases, they even took a special interest in the spot and came back to it over and over again.

The scientists speculated that Toxoplasma was secreted some substance that was altering the patterns of brain activity in the rats. This manipulation likely evolved through natural selection, since parasites that were more likely to end up in cats would leave more offpsring.

It gets creepier: humans are not so different from rats (apart from the whiskers and long tails). It’s estimated that about half of all people on Earth are infected with Toxoplasma, and one study (admittedly controversial) claimed to find psychological differences between those infected and normals, in terms of an increased tendency to be more self-reproaching and insecure. Just the kind of traits that might make you want to surround yourself with….nice cuddly pussy cats.

Well I, for one, welcome our new cat parasite overlords.

do not want to be represented by fundamentalist Danish imams or others who preach the Sharia laws and oppression of women. “There is a large group of Muslims in this city who want to live in a secular society and adhere to the principle that religion is an issue between them and God and not something that should involve society,” said Bünyamin Simsek, a city councillor and one of the organizers…

In Copenhagen, too, moderate Muslims are speaking out. Hadi Kahn, an IT consultant and the chairman of the Organization of Pakistani Students in Denmark (OPSA), describes himself as a modern Muslim living in a Western society. He says that he does not feel he is being represented by the Muslim groups. When he goes to the mosque for Friday prayers he says the imam does not say much that is useful for him. “We have no need for imams in Denmark. They do not do anything for us,” he says. According to Mr Kahn the imams are not in touch with Danish society. He says too few of them speak Danish and too few of them are opposed to stoning as a punishment.

As the article notes, this must be seen as something of a vindication for the Danish government’s firm stand, and makes a sad contrast with the UK, where the government’s shown itself only too keen to accept groups like the Muslim Council of Britain as spokesmen for the whole Muslim community.

llors. With some tea and biscuits.

[Yes, I know, this is horribly unfair to Glenys Kinnock, who offers a number of other suggestions and is to be applauded for her efforts in bringing this to people’s attention…..]

At Sudan Watch, meanwhile, they report on a “strange initiative by Libyan leader, Colonel Gadhafi”, to deploy African Union soldiers along the Sudan-Chad border, to calm down the escalating conflict between the two countries.

Gadhafi makes his thinking clear:

Regarding Darfur, the Libyan leader said “it is a Sudanese internal problem” which “has no connection with the problem outside Sudan”.

In the meantime, we [the Sudanese?] work for the enforcement of security in Darfur, in exchange for the withdrawal of these number of AU forces from there into the borders. Libya would be leading in this matter for peace in this region.

So the proposal is in effect an opportunity to weaken even further the already woefully inadequate AU forces inside Sudan, and leave the government-backed forces to do what they want with the women of Darfur.

After his mystery tour, it looks like the Great Leader’s now back home. The DPRK’s Central News Agency reports on a successful trip:

Hu Jintao said that the WPK and the Korean people have made big achievements in building a great prosperous powerful nation, overcoming manifold difficulties in the spirit of self-reliance and fortitude under the leadership of Kim Jong Il in recent years and made steady fresh success in the aspect of improving external environment, adding that he is sincerely rejoiced over this.

Hu Jintao supported the Party and the people of the DPRK in maintaining the orientation of socialist development and Korean comrades in seeking a path of development suited to the actual conditions of their country. He expressed conviction that under the leadership of Kim Jong Il the whole Party and country would unite close and work hard to achieve new successes in the cause of building a great prosperous powerful nation.

Kim Jong Il said that under the leadership of the Communist Party of China the PRC has achieved great successes in the socialist modernization drive with Chinese characteristics and that the progress made by China was ascribable to the line and policies suited to the actual conditions of China including the important thought of the “three represents” set out by the CPC, the view on scientific development and harmonious socialist construction. He expressed the belief that the Chinese people would attain the goals of the 11th 5-year plan under the leadership of the CPC with Hu Jintao as its general secretary to build a comprehensively well-off socialist society and achieve fresh success in the efforts to accomplish the cause of complete reunification of the country.

Both sides had an in-depth exchange of views on international and regional issues of common concern.

Well, that’s nice.

There’s more at the Korean Central News Agency, including the full speeches of Kim Jong-Il and Hu Jintao, plus a report on a “march on a snowy road to Jong Il Peak” by members of the Pyongyang Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League:

The march group, consisting of officials of the youth league and its members of middle schools from at least 10 districts of the city, laid bunches of flowers before the statue of President Kim Il Sung at Changdok School on the morning of Tuesday and made bows to him in humble reverence before marching toward Mt. Ryongak associated with the immortal revolutionary history of the peerlessly great persons.

After arriving in the mountain, the marchers conducted contests of songs “Song of Anti-Japanese War”, an immortal masterpiece, “The Patriotic Song”, “The Country I Am Defending” and “For the Only One Country”, and poems “Mt. Paektu”, “Mother” and “My Country”, vowing to prepare themselves to be reliable successors to the Songun revolution, single-mindedly rallied around leader Kim Jong Il.

More Holocaust discussion, from MEMRI, on Iranian TV. Iqbal Siddiqui, editor-in-chief of Crescent International, London, comes across in the circumstances as a moderate:

“I think it’s very important to recognize the political uses to which the Holocaust has been put by the Zionist movement since the Second World War. It is undoubtedly true that the Jews suffered very greatly under Adolph Hitler. There was genocide of Jews along with the genocide of gypsies and other crimes committed by Hitler.

“That was the culmination of centuries of European anti-Semitism – a long tradition of anti-Jewish sentiment in Europe in particular, but in the West in general. But whatever the Jews suffered at the hands of the Nazis – it does not and cannot justify what the Jews have done in Palestine, what the Jews have done in other parts of the world, and, basically, the attitude of the Jews and the Zionists that as a result of the suffering in Europe under Hitler, for the rest of history, the rest of the world owes them a living, and that they must be treated now as a special people, the chosen people, who are entitled to do whatever they like.

“This is the image of the Jewish people that is being promoted, and the Holocaust – the supposed Holocaust – is being constantly used and mythologized, in order to serve this political agenda, which ultimately means, of course, the interests of the State of Israel.” […]

“What happened to the Jews was a matter of immense evil, whether six million died, or five million, or four million, or three million. What is the issue is not the numbers. It is the use to which these events have subsequently been put, by Jewish and Zionist leaders, to justify acts of equal and equivalent evil on their part against the Palestinians.”

Norman Finkelstein couldn’t have put it better.

Political analyst Dr. Majid Goudarzi’s take is more in line with the thinking of president Ahmadinejad:

“A country like Israel… Its flag has two colors: blue and white. The upper stripe represents the Nile, and the bottom stripe the Euphrates. It says that its reign stretches from the Nile to the Euphrates. It puts the Star of David in the middle, and demonstrates its aggressive character daily, by raising this flag. I hope that one day humanity will reach the conclusion that the only solution for this cancerous tumor is surgery.”

Following Mohammed Al Fayed’s extraordinary letter to the Guardian last week, Richard Webster looks back to Neil Hamilton, the cash-for-questions scandal, and the close relationship that the Guardian used to have with Al Fayed.

and vulgar?

I can see them right now, right now in my head.

I can see them ask if I remember having spread lies about them, about their efforts to fight the war against terrorism.

And then I can hear them, those two men, demand that I accompany them, just for a few hours, they’ll say, just for some routine questioning.

And I am left to wonder if this new ending to my story is really so unbelievable, if it is, after all, so absolutely, totally, impossibly unbelievable?

Isn’t it wonderful, this art business? The title of an earlier interview with Dorfman, Telling The Truth Through Lies, says it all. Come up with any old load of rubbish, and if you’ve got the right audience it turns out you’re telling a deeper truth.

ing to the student reporters.

The reporters uncovered their first clue when they read the entry for the Duke of Cleveland on Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia that takes submissions from readers. The entry was written by Joshua Gardner, a name that also turned up on the National Sex Offender Public Registry.

On the ball as always, here are the Wikipedia entries for the Duke of Cleveland, and Joshua Gardner.

These words are plastered over the front page of the Independent today:

A suicide bomber yesterday rode into town, killing at least 20 in the deadliest insurgent attack since the US invasion. More than 1,600 were killed in 2005, and the murder rate is rising. The rule of law has collapsed. The government is trapped in its own fortified compound in the capital. Soon, Britain will commit another 3,500 troops to a dangerous mission with no clear goals or exit strategy…

Underneath, in large bold type, “Remember Afghanistan?“

The article continues inside:

At least 20 people died in a suicide attack in Afghanistan when a motorcyclist detonated his explosives-packed vest. In a separate strike, five Afghan soldiers were killed when a 15-year-old suicide bomber threw himself in front of their convoy. On Sunday, a Canadian diplomat was among three victims of a similar blast.

It was the bloodiest 48 hours in what is turning into the most violent month in Afghanistan since the country was “liberated” during the US-led invasion in October 2001. And it is into this increasingly savage insurgency that up to 3,500 more British troops will be sent from March.

Don’t you love that “liberated“? The Independent says, Bring Back the Taliban!!

The reason Independent readers might need reminding about Afghanistan is, of course, that there are so many obvious signs of progress and hope there that the Indie hasn’t felt it necessary to keep its readers informed, preferring to concentrate on Iraq. But as soon as there’s a setback it hits the front page.

It’s difficult to escape the conclusion that this latest tragedy was greeted with glee by the Indie editors: now there’s a story we can use!

What a great newspaper.