Roberto Abraham Scaruffi: Israeli and Sunni warmongers...

Tuesday 26 November 2013

Israeli and Sunni warmongers...

The European Union Times


Posted: 25 Nov 2013 01:58 PM PST

The deal with Iran is not a “historic mistake”, as claimed by Benjamin Netanyahu, but brings Iran in from the cold and puts the option of military strikes off the table, Gideon Levy, journalist and columnist for the Haaretz newspaper, told RT.
Israel and particularly Netanyahu now stands increasingly isolated, and as the peace talks with the Palestinians go nowhere, it depends on Washington if Israel’s attitude will be tolerated or if the US will push Jerusalem to end occupation, he said.
RT: What do you make of Israel’s comments, from the Prime Minister? He says this is an historic mistake, do you agree with that?
Gideon Levy: No I don’t agree at all, but I’m not sure that my opinion counts. I think that if you judge it in a very cold way, Israel’s security today is in a better position than two days ago, because this agreement as any other compromise was for the benefit of all parties. First of all a war was prevented and the potential bombing of the Iran facilities, either by the United Sates or Israel, this is not on the table anymore and this is for the benefit of peace, no doubt about it. Secondly the arms race, the development of nuclear potential in Iran will be from now on controlled and that’s an achievement and above all I think it’s very positive if Iran is back among the community of countries and not isolated. An isolated Iran is always more dangerous than Iran part of the west, part of the east part of the world.
RT: And in your opinion do you feel as if the Israeli Prime Minister reflects the mood of the country or from what you’re saying it sounds like the feeling on the streets could actually be quite different?
GL: I think as it became the ticket of Mr. Netanyahu for years now and today he stands in-front of what is in his eyes a failure, even a personal failure and an historical failure and I give him the credit that he’s totally genuine about it, because he really believes it is a dangerous situation. I think that his criticism will continue to be heard, quite aggressive, quite bitter, but I don’t think the military option is really on the table when the whole world said its word.
RT: Do you believe that the US now might try and persuade Mr. Netanyahu to tone down his rhetoric a bit?
GL: They will try, I’m not sure that he will listen. And you know the United States can live also with a barking dog. Netanyahu will continue with his attacks but Israel is so isolated about it. The world has said its word as I said. I don’t think that this will create a lot of problems even if it comes from Jerusalem.
RT: Do you think they’ll be any attempt at a reconciliation between the US and Israel over this?
GL: On a personal basis there is quite a lot of tension for months now between the two leaders, President Obama and Prime Minster Netanyahu, on the table is the Palestinian Israeli negotiations, which are totally stuck, and here Netanyahu is even in a worse position because he is directly responsible for the fact that these negotiations lead to nowhere. And the only question is now, what will Washington decide to do? If they decide to go along with the Israeli attitude, namely just to pull time and not move to anywhere in the peace process or will the Americans become more decisive and then it can really create a major crisis between the two countries. If the American president was really in the last years of his second term try to push Israel to put an end to occupation, but this time not only in words but in deeds, if this will happen we are facing a major crisis between the two countries, but it depends really about Washington much more than about Jerusalem.
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Posted: 25 Nov 2013 01:51 PM PST

Parents in Duplo, Ill., are up in arms over a book portraying white Americans as racist – required reading for their fourth-graders under the Common Core curriculum.
Students at Bluffview Elementary School were told they would be tested and graded on the book, “Barack Obama,” part of the Scholastic “Reading Counts” program, according to EAGNews. The author, Jane Sutcliffe, has written numerous books on other historical figures, such as George Washington, Ronald Reagan and Susan B. Anthony.
The book begins with Obama’s life as a child, referring to him as “Barry,” and frequently mentions that he was “the only black” in various settings, a situation that caused a bit of an identity crisis for him, according to this passage:
When Barry looked in the mirror, he saw a young black man. But he didn’t know how to be black. And no one was there to teach him.
He decided to act like the black characters he saw on TV. He started acting tough. He cursed. Was that what it meant to be black?
As he got older, he started smoking and drinking. He tried drugs. Was that what it meant to be black?
The biography refers to Obama’s candidacy in the 2008 presidential election this way:
But some people said Americans weren’t ready for that much change. Sure Barack was a nice fellow, they said. But white voters would never vote for a black president. Other angry voices were raised. Barack’s former pastor called the country a failure. God would damn the United States for mistreating its black citizens, he said.
Attention centered on the book after it was mentioned by a Facebook page,“Moms Against Duncan (MAD)” that organized earlier this month in opposition to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s comments about “white suburban moms” and Common Core. The group’s page says:
We are trying to be not only a pushback to Duncan but also a group of action. We are asking every mom (and the guys too!) to actively recruit parents to opt out of all testing. We only need 10% of students from every school to refuse Arne’s tests. This will corrupt the data, protect the teachers and begin the shut down of Common Core!! Moms, this can be done! Let’s show Arne what REAL mom pushback looks like!
The group has attracted over 4,000 members so far.
See an excerpt from the book at Google.
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Posted: 25 Nov 2013 01:44 PM PST

Angola has reportedly banned the religion of Islam and begun destroying mosques, becoming the first country in the world to do so.
On Friday, several newspapers in the South African country quoted the Angolan Minister of Culture, Rosa Cruz e Silva, as saying that “the process of legalization of Islam has not been approved by the Ministry of Justice and Human rights… Mosques would therefore be closed until further notice.”
Silva reportedly said the ban was necessary since Islam is “contradictory to the customs of Angola culture.”
As part of the ban, the Angolan government began a demolition program of mosques and other Islamic sites.
The decision is the latest in a series of efforts to ban what Angolan officials refer to as “illegal religious sects.”
The reports of the ban on Islam, however, cannot be independently verified as Angola’s constitution guarantees freedom of religion to all of its citizens.
On Monday, an unnamed official at the Angolan Embassy in Washington D.C. denied that the nation has banned Islam, saying “The Republic of Angola … it’s a country that does not interfere in religion.”
“We have a lot of religions there. It is freedom of religion. We have Catholic, Protestants, Baptists, Muslims and evangelical people,” the official added.
In October, Muslims living in the municipality of Viana Zango in the capital city of Luanda, were shocked to find out the minaret of their mosque dismantled into pieces. The authorities provided no proper explanation regarding the move.
The overwhelming majority of citizens in Angola, a country with a population of 19 million, are Christian. There are 80,000 to 90,000 Muslims in the African country and the number is growing.
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Posted: 25 Nov 2013 01:29 PM PST

US Secretary of State Kerry assured Israel will be safer over the next six months due to the agreement reached in Geneva concerning Iran’s nuclear program and uranium enrichment plan.
Though “Israel is threatened by what has been going on in Iran”, the deal brokered on Saturday will keep the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program under supervision and control, said John Kerry.
“But I believe that from this day – for the next six months – Israel is in fact safer than it was yesterday because we now have a mechanism by which we are going to expand the amount of time in which they (the Iranians) can break out (toward making a nuclear bomb),” he told CNN.
The remark comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had slammed the international deal over Iran’s nuclear program as a “historic mistake.” He said that after this agreement was reached, the world has become “a more dangerous place.”
In an attempt to reduce tension Kerry assured that from this day there will be “insights” into the program “that we didn’t have before.”
The much-anticipated agreement reached in Geneva gives Iran initial relief from sanctions in exchange for halting its enrichment of uranium to above 5 per cent for six months.
However Kerry stressed that “there’s very little sanctions relief here – that the basic architecture of the sanctions stays in place.”
The Obama administration pointed out that it has no illusions about the risks that the Islamic state might not follow through but the US entered the deal with eyes “absolutely wide open.”
The US and Iran secretly engaged in a series of high-level talks over the past year, according to an AP report. The negotiations were allegedly hidden even from America’s key ally in the region, Israel.
The talks were held in the Middle Eastern nation of Oman and were personally authorized by President Barack Obama, the report claims. It says that since March top US officials – Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and Jake Sullivan, Vice-President Joe Biden’s foreign policy adviser – have met at least five times with Iranian diplomats. The last four meetings were held after Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani was inaugurated in August and were very productive, three senior administration officials told AP on condition of anonymity.
The Iranian deal with P5+1 world powers caused a stir in the US Senate with many criticizing the decision of the Obama administration. Key Senate Democrat, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee Robert Menendez said that the US government body is likely to consider legislation that would impose new sanctions on Iran, if it breaches the interim agreement.
Expert in US-Iran relations Soraya Sepahpour Ulrich believes that lobby groups and congressional members at the moment are far more powerful than President Obama and there are various forces in the US which may want to derail the diplomatic process. “It’s taken 34 years to demonize Iran; it will not go away overnight. The US lobby groups, the media, the think tanks, they are not on board yet,” she told RT.
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Posted: 25 Nov 2013 01:17 PM PST

A new study shows nine out of 10 families occupying aging high-rises in Toronto’s low-income neighborhoods are living in inadequate housing and risk homelessness.
The University of Toronto study, released on Friday, showed half of those families live in overcrowded places and one third spend more than half their income on rent.
The results of the study were published on the same day that people staged nationwide rallies in Canada supporting the National Housing Day.
The findings are indicative of a crisis that is “very widespread and very serious,” researcher Emily Paradis said.
“I went into this knowing that the problem was huge,” said Paradis, who has studied homelessness affairs in the last 25 years. “I was struck, though, by the fact that nine out of 10 families are in housing that fails to meet basic standards of adequacy … That was, to me, just indicative of such a crisis in housing for low-income families.”
More than 1,500 families with children living in rental apartment high-rises were questioned and the data were collected from surveys. Their houses were built between 1950 and 1979 in low-income areas. Nearly half of the tenants in Toronto live in such buildings.
The researcher recognized “indicators” of homelessness risk as housing that is unaffordable, overcrowded, unsafe, insecure or in poor condition. Unaffordable housing is considered as that which costs over half of a family’s income.
According to the survey, half of the families lived in overcrowded houses and one third spent more than half of their monthly earnings on rent and other housing expenses. Almost one quarter lived in buildings that were unsafe or insecure. Nearly half of them reported living in ramshackle buildings, and 27 per cent had apartments that were in bad shape. One fifth were at risk of looming eviction.
Canadian families increasingly use shelters, but a large number of homeless families don’t go to shelters, said Paradis, adding, they live together with another family, relatives or friends, a situation referred to as “hidden homelessness.”
On Friday rallies, supporters of better housing conditions urged the federal government to protect housing subsidies, increase funding for inexpensive housing and develop a national housing strategy.
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Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 10:08