Why should western governments terrorize Islamic women!

Why should western governments terrorize Islamic women!
-Dr. Abdul Ruff
_________

 

Those Muslims who seriously practice Islamic faith, uphold Islamic values and follow practices are known as Islamic Muslims.
While anti-Islamic nations terrorize Muslims with terror goods the Muslims who practice Islamic way of life are being terrorized by denying them basic religious rights. The trend is devastatingly very acute in so-called western democracies where Islamic women face state restrictions of serious nature with regard to religious practices.

It is most unfortunate as western countries, claiming to be democracies, speak very high of women rights and unnecessarily shed crocodile tears about the poor fate of Muslim women and Islam not treating well the women folk.

The powerful anti-Islamic forces both in the west and east that operate against humanity globally impose their terms on Muslims. Islam and its elders are unable to satisfactorily defend Islamic faith.

Denial of basic rights

Sept-i1 hoax gave the enemies of Islam enough stuff to spread Islamophobia and target Muslims, their resources, especially in energy rich Arab world. Already millions of Muslims have been slaughtered by these anti-Islamic forces led by Americans and Europeans in Islamic world on fake pretexts.
Most Muslims world over, targeted by Islamophobia and terror forces of fascism, do not wish to hide their faith and other Islamic identity but anti-Islamic regimes do not appreciate that as they Islamic faith being against their own regions.
For quite some time now, the Western governments and media networks shamelessly continue to target Islam and forcing the Islamic women to give up Islamic practices. Islamic women are being denied the right to practice life in Islamic way and forced to imbibe uncultured semi-dress patterns of life making exhibitionist trends their way of daily life.
Excessive dosage of anti-Islamism from the side of the regimes has harmed the genuine interests of global Muslims, especially the women who are eager to live according to Islamic faith. Western powers try to control Muslims by restricting their religious practices.
Consequently, Islam, Muslims and Islamic faith are under siege and attack for years.
Following Sept. 11, 2001 hoax, engineered in USA to gain legitimacy to invade an Islamizing Afghanistan by blaming it for the Sept- hoax and, destabilizing the nation of brave Afghans, and invade Iraq to kill a brave President of Iraq Saddam Hussein for his anti-American stance and hi efforts to protect Arab oil to flow into USA and EU freely. USA achieved its objectives- Afghanistan has been destabilized and President Saddam Hussein was assassinated in a cold blooded manner. Not just that. USA and NATO destabilized many Arab nations, killing Libyan President Col. Qaddafi.
In doing so, the western governments and media lords derive dirty sadistic pleasures and care a damn about the rights of minority religions.
There could be some women who are under state-private surveillance throughout who seeks favors form the Christian governments and officals, might go out without wearing hijab. But the media make this a big show to force all Islamic women to walk in the street without minimum cloth on them, showcasing their body in ways that please the perverts.
It has become a practice for the governments and media outlets scorn Islamic practices and try to link the practices with terrorism, thereby terrorize those who practice Islamic way of life. The governments are keen to make as many Muslims as possible the anti-Islamic people to aid the Islamophobic elements.
Most Islamic women have has worn a headscarf, both as an expression of her traditional Muslim faith and her commitment to its requirements for public modesty. They wear it throughout their years as professionals like doctors in cities. In Colorado, Dr. Elmadhun, for instance, proudly wears hijab as the chief surgical resident at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a top trauma center and affiliate of Harvard Medical School. But media outlets resent the Islamic practice as “uncivilized”.
Dr. Elmadhun was wearing it on April 15, 2013, when her husband texted her. A bomb had exploded near him at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. That day marked a turning point, however. Though she had been acutely aware of the fact that her headscarf made her stand out, Elmadhun says, she always felt confident and strong wearing hijab, both as a Muslim and as an American who felt, in a deeply personal way, her country’s promise of liberty and religious freedom – even after the difficult days following Sept. 11, 2001.
Instead of second glances, she became the object of America’s angry stares. Instead of folks assuming she’s from another country, or expressing surprise she speaks without an accent, they began to openly associate her with the Tsarnaev brothers, who perpetrated the Boston bombings, or other Muslim extremists.
American media lords and their state bosses are so cool- they plant terror moles and coolly blame their terror attacks on Islam and terrorize global Muslims.
Very cool anti-Islamic guys. Interestingly, these are highly educated with backing of intelligence wings.

Drone attack on Islam
The US drone war routinely kills thousands of noncombatants in Syria and Iraq, most recently this week, when “at least 36 civilians, including 20 children, in a village in eastern Syria” were killed. “Do Americans notice? Of course not!
The US government has conducted war by remote-controlled drones since 2001 in a variety of places, including Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan. Do Americans have a clue what it must be like to live under the drone threat? You know the answer is no. But many Muslims do, and many others can sympathize,” he continued.
Obama has claimed that the drone war kills few noncombatants, but this is rejected by many authoritative sources, including a team of NYU and Stanford law students who found that “CIA-operated drones were nowhere near as discriminating toward noncombatants as the agency’s leaders have claimed.”It’s the US foreign-policy makers, whose daily atrocities make targets of Americans at home.
It is also true that Islam has, since its founding around 1,400 years ago through the Holy Prophet SAS, been continually under attack by all anti-Islam forces, led by Jewish-Christian varieties to destroy Islam and kill Muslims and the trend continues even today. They resent any counter move by Islamic nations. Today, the failed anti-Islamic forces led by NATO and Israel-India twins, and they defend themselves by saying that Muslims are waging a “jihad” war against all other people in an attempt to spread that religion by force.
No religion can survive for centuries if it grows by forceful conversions. Other religions are shaky that notwithstanding all their joint operations against Islam and Muslims, Islam has survived to stay forever, though some Muslims have been weaned away for Islamic faith and spread the word of anti-Islamism
Anti-Islamic jihad has spread by violent conquests through the Islamic world, especially energy rich West Asia following regions in chronological order: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt the Middle East, North Africa, and the Near East.

Faith vs. hatred
It’s a theology that is shared by some Orthodox Jewish women, who often wear wigs to cover their heads in public. In some Orthodox Christian, Roman Catholic, and Protestant traditions, too, women are sometimes required to cover their heads in places of worship – a practice common in the USA just decades ago. “It would be a tragedy to us here in the USA if Muslims felt like they had to hide their faith, if Muslim women felt like they had to take off their hijabs, or Sikh men their turbans, or anyone who felt they could not identify who they are in public,” says Imam Omar Suleiman, president of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research in Irving, Texas. “So I think that it’s important that we collectively challenge these attacks on people that are identifiably Muslim,” he continues. “It’s important for us to challenge all of that, and to stand tall and firm, because at the end of the day, bigotry is not something that can be reasoned with. And bigotry should not force us to change the way we live our lives Islamic way.”
Such incidents led Aguilera, the daughter of a former professional boxer, to organize a self-defense class for women who wear hijab. She and her colleagues expected 50 or so women to respond for a class scheduled after the election. Posted on Facebook by her sponsor, New York’s Muslim Community Network, the self-defense class got about 2,700 people expressing interest in a class accommodating 40.
For Elmadhun, wearing hijab for most of her life was “a positive and powerful message, allowing me to recognize that I am not just what I appear to be, but I’m a human being who should be valued for who I am and what I have to offer.” And though she does feel relieved in many ways, and feels safer with her son outside, “I’m also sad that I was driven to this,” she says. “I’m sad about what it means about our religious freedoms in general in our country, I’m sad that I had to give it up. I was kind of forced into this. It wasn’t really a choice.”
The class includes a time for women to share their experiences and fears and discuss how to respond, both physically and emotionally. “Our knowledge about how to manage that fear is very vital,” says Aguilera. “Eventually these are going to take a toll, because once you start denying who you are, that takes a toll on your personality, and that’s not healthy.”
The attack on the Christmas market in Berlin that killed 12 brings more unease as Muslims are the target of angry officals. . Both women say that anytime a Muslim terror attack occurs, they feel they are being held personally responsible for actions occurring hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away – and which they emphatically deny represents the religion they hold dear. “Last year, after the Paris attacks, it was like every time something like that happens, there’s the aftermath, and people who have nothing to do with it, we have to take the heat for that,” says Aguilera. “And the first people targeted, the most vulnerable, are Muslim women.”
At the same time, however, many advocates have been frustrated by recent fabrications. In November, police discovered a student at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette lied about having her hijab ripped off. And in New York, a young woman who lied to police and the media, alleging that two white Trump supporters attacked her on the subway, was arrested and charged with filing a false report. In the young woman’s court appearance, she was uncovered, and her head had been shaved.
What do “Barack Obama and Donald Trump have in common?”—and then answered the question by saying that “Among other things, they have—or pretend to have—no clue why some Muslims hate us.” Most of the world’s major religions are made up of multiple sects or denominations, and Islam is no different. Islam’s two major sects are the Sunnis and the Shiites, and the division and interplay between the two is a major factor in the geopolitics of the Middle East.
Donald Trump’s call for a ban on Muslim immigration to the US “until the country’s representatives can figure out what’s going on,” is little more than a deliberate cop out by almost all the “mainstream” political figures as to the real cause of the “clash of civilizations.”
The real dual reasons for the conflict—which even Trump dares not broach—is the inherent nature of Islam and its adherents, and the ubiquitous Israel/Jewish lobby which serves to incite the entire Islamic world against the West.
The CIA’s subversion of Iranian democracy in 1953, the US government’s systematic support of compliant autocratic and corrupt Arab monarchies and dictatorships, its empowering of Iraqi Shi’ite Muslims, and its “unconditional backing of Israel’s brutal anti-Palestinian policies.” US ‘experts’ dare not mention Israel, and, of course, in an omission similar to the one of which he accuses Trump, he also pretends not to know why the US government “unconditionally” backs Israel—or at the very least, just ignores it completely.
In the ten years prior to the September 11 attacks, the George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations bombed Iraq while maintaining an embargo, especially on equipment for the water and sanitation infrastructure the US Air Force had destroyed during the Gulf War.
Half a million Iraqi children died as a result, something which the then Secretary of State, Jewish Madeleine Albright, said on TV was “worth it” just to get at Saddam Hussein for his mere anti-Americanism stance
Democracy means anti-Islamism, Islamophobia, hatred for Islam and Muslims?
Many western people who hate Islam oppose the Muslim women covering their head by wearing hijab. A court in Europe even stipulated Muslim women from not wearing hijab or any other cover over the face. “Over the last several years, the trend has been growing, causing unease, feeling uncomfortable Elmadhun a female Muslim surgeon living in USA, world’s highly democracy, says. “And that is something that’s new…. I was feeling less and less welcome in my own community, and more and more like there was a target on my back.”
And so, like a number of Muslim women, Elmadhun made the wrenching personal decision to stop wearing her headscarf. “You feel fear, its human nature,” says Mariana Aguilera, who converted to Islam 10 years ago and now runs The Demureist, a Brooklyn-based website that celebrates conservative lifestyles and fashion, especially for Muslim women wearing hijab. “But this is more than about our fear,” says Ms. Aguilera, who has decided to keep wearing her headscarf, despite receiving verbal threats this month. “There’s a reason why we have this religious freedom in our country, and if we don’t do something – this climate is destroying our values, and that’s dangerous.”
Elmadhun and Aguilera point to 2015, when armed protesters were marching in front of mosques and candidate Donald Trump was calling for a ban on all Muslims entering the country. That year, hate crimes against Muslims were becoming more and more common – up 67 percent, according to the FBI. That also was the year Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted and sentenced to death for the Boston Marathon bombings. During the trial, Elmadhun says she was walking her son in a stroller in Brookline when a man stopped his car, got out, and yelled, “Go back to your expletive country, you expletive terrorist!”
American officals crate ugly scenes to insult Muslims. Earlier this month, a man at Grand Central Terminal in New York pushed a New York City transit worker down a staircase, yelling “You’re a terrorist, go back to your own country!” In Brooklyn, another man threatened an off-duty police officer with his pit bull, also telling her and her son to “go back to your country.” On the steps of a municipal court in New Jersey, too, a man spit in the face of an advocate with the Muslim American Society’s Immigrant Justice Center, after she testified in a domestic violence case, according to the Religious News Service.
Indeed, if Muslim women wearing hijab across the country have been feeling especially vulnerable during the current political climate in which few can recall such open hostility, for many of them harassment and violence has also cut to the core of their faith – a chill on their freedom to remain true to their visible acts of worship and what they see as a theology of modesty.
President elect Trump’s anti-Islamic rhetoric essentially to w woo the Christian votes in the presidency, caused problems for Muslims, including the women. However, Trump revised his anti-Islamic thoughts.

 

Islam means peace

 

Ideology behind targeting Muslims for blood and insult is to unite the majority nation by dividing and punishing the hapless minority Muslims. The state and media lords justify attacks on minorities by legitimizing the situations created by anti-minority miscreant.
Anti-Islamic nations consider the existence of Muslims and Islam a serious threat to their own religions and they encourage the media lords and fanatic majority sections. They fail to gauge a simple fact that even after 1400 years, Islam could not replace Christianity and there is no possibility now that the weakened Islam or terrorized Muslims could do it any time in future as well.

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Islam is one of the world’s great religions. Islam has brought comfort and peace of mind to countless millions of men and women. It has given dignity and meaning to drab and impoverished lives. It has taught people of different races to live in brotherhood and people of different creeds to live side by side in reasonable tolerance. It inspired a great civilization in which others besides Muslims lived creative and useful lives and which, by its achievement, enriched the whole world. As a religion of peace and tranquility Islam never inspired in its followers any mood of hatred and violence. And when Islam was under attack, Muslims may have resorted to retaliatory measures angering the enemy of Islam but never preach violence or terrorism. And people from other faiths and non-faith have embraced Islam on the strength of Islam and what it stands for. A lot of propaganda – as a perfect mischief to fool and mislead the world – is being circulated by the anti-Islamic forces and media that people have come to Islam forcefully. If so that were the case, they should have renounced Islam but that never happened, but on the contrary, they strengthened Islamic faith. Also, notwithstanding the strenuous efforts by other religious leaders to wean away Muslims to their side, Muslims have remained steadfast faithful. However, politics have converted some Muslims into unfaithful to the religion.
US led NATO terror war have complicated the life of Muslims and their faith. It is our misfortune that, though most of the Muslim world is now going through such a traumatic period, instead of compassion, hatred is directed against Islam. Fear for anti-Islamic governments and media forces cannot force Muslims change their religion because their faith is unshakable. .
Muslims share certain basic cultural and moral, social and political, beliefs and aspirations but there is an imposing Western presence and influence — cultural, economic, and diplomatic — in Muslim nations, some of which are Western allies. Certainly nowhere in the Muslim world, in the Middle East or elsewhere, has American policy suffered disasters or encountered problems comparable to those in Southeast Asia or Central America. American position is weak in Islamic world, however. Target of Islam and Muslims resulted in hatred from Muslims and the surge of hatred that distresses, alarms, and above all baffles Americans. Pakistanis who were pro-Americans are now anti-Americans because NATO operations destabilized the nation, killed thousands.
The idea that God has enemies, and needs human help in order to identify and dispose of them, is a little difficult to assimilate. The Zoroastrian devil, unlike the Christian or Muslim or Jewish devil, is not one of God’s creatures performing some of God’s more mysterious tasks but an independent power, a supreme force of evil engaged in a cosmic struggle against God. Muslims have to view their misfortune as being one of these. The Holy Quran is of course strictly monotheistic, and recognizes one God, one universal power only. There is a struggle in human hearts between good and evil, between God’s commandments and the tempter, but this is seen as a struggle ordained by God, with its outcome preordained by God, serving as a test of mankind. since God is in principle the sovereign, the supreme head of the Islamic state — and the Prophet and, after the Prophet, the caliphs are his vicegerents — then God as sovereign commands the army. The army is God’s army and the enemy is God’s enemy. The duty of God’s soldiers is to dispatch God’s enemies as quickly as possible to the place where God will chastise them. The struggle of good and evil very soon acquired political and even military dimensions. The ISIS is supposed to fight for God on these lines.
The leaders of a widespread and widening religious revival in Islam sought out and identified the enemies of God as their enemies and vice versa. Anti-Islamic media nuts call the Muslim believers who wear Islamic dress and caps as Mullahs, as a degrading human dignity. Now in place of using the term mullahs, Muslims are called the terrorists.
War is not an option for Islam but only in retaliation for attacks on Islam and Muslims – and not a voluntary policy, Repeated attacks on Muslims and Islam breed the radicals among Muslims.. Planned attacks on Muslims have led to a situation that the faith of Islam has been undermined and the law of Islam has been abrogated.
The advent of Islam in the seventh century has continued virtually to the present day. For a long time now there has been a rising tide of rebellion against the Western Paramountcy, and a desire to reassert Muslim values and restore Muslim greatness. Since anti-Islamic nations and forces are stronger, naturally the Muslims have to suffer successive stages of defeat. The first was his loss of domination in the world, to the advancing power of Russia and the West. As Arab world was quietly advancing its economy and security, the West enacted the Sept-11 to invade and destabilize Afghanistan and energy rich Arab nations. Then the undermining of his authority in Muslim nations by coups and west sponsored anti-Islamic movements, and through an invasion of foreign ideas and laws and ways of life and sometimes even foreign rulers or settlers, and the enfranchisement of native non-Muslim elements.
The Second World War, the oil industry, and postwar developments brought many Americans to the Islamic lands; increasing numbers of Muslims also came to America. Cinema and later television brought the American way of life that contradicted Islamic faith and way of life. The Islamic faith and practices, as a result, got weakened.
At first the Muslim response to Western civilization was one of admiration and emulation — an immense respect for the achievements of the West, and a desire to imitate and adopt them. This desire arose from a keen and growing awareness of the weakness, poverty, and backwardness of the Islamic world as compared with the advancing West. Muslim writers observed and described the wealth and power of the West, its science and technology, its manufactures, and its forms of government. Several generations of reformers and modernizers tried to adapt these and introduce them to their own countries, in the hope that they would thereby be able to achieve equality with the West and perhaps restore their lost superiority. But now the West expects Islamic anions to disown Islam.
In our own time of state terror operations targeting Islam and Muslims, this mood of admiration and emulation has, among many Muslims, given way to one of hostility and rejection. In part this mood is surely due to a feeling of humiliation — a growing awareness, among the heirs of an old, proud, and long dominant civilization, of having been overtaken, overborne, and overwhelmed by those whom they regarded as their inferiors. Islamic faith gets eroded.
All infidels are not enemies of Islam as many Muslims are not faithful. But those who target Islam and Muslims are indeed the enemies of Islam. Like every other civilization known to human history, the Muslim world in its heyday saw itself as the center of truth and enlightenment, surrounded by infidel barbarians, polytheists and idolaters whom it would in due course enlighten and civilize patiently.
Though most Muslim countries promote capitalism and fund NATO fascist operations in Islamic world, the western imperialist world hates Islam. West now denies secularism and democracy for Muslims. Destructions, genocides and destabilizations have become order in Arab Mideast.
How far anti-Islamic attempts to go on in Europe and USA?
Muslims are in minority in USA and Europe, except in Turkey. Muslims are in minority in India and Israel. So, these anti-Islamic majority communities in the West and Indo-Israel do exactly with Muslims what pleases themselves- even against their own Constitutional guarantees for the minority communities.

That is shameful. In order to hide their ugly sides of fanaticism and racism, they always insult Islam, target and inure Muslims.

European target of Islamic women and forcing them to shed the Islamic practices like regular prayers and wearing veil, etc, and imbibe degraded western culture is shameful to humanity,

Efforts are afoot form the anti-Islamic forces to reduce Islamic populations and deny them even minimum rights, let alone Islamic practices.

The enemies of Islam say Islam in Spain and the Ottoman Turk Empire (Turkey) were defeated and driven out after centuries of war and resistance by Europe. That is exactly anti-Islamic, Zionistic, Hindutva forces in India say how “cleverly” they destroyed Islamic Mosque Babri Mosque by way of defeating Islam. They want to destroy Islam and Muslim nations if they don’t promote Christianity. For the time being they have been operating along with Judaism and Israel to defeat Islam. Once Islam is routed fully, the Christian militaries would raze down Israel in a matte rof hours. A entirely Christian empire would be established without any other religions surviving to challenge ti prowess
Unless it not disproved the stated views are real and going to happen.
The chief objectives of anti- Islamic jihad include slashing the Islamic populations to promote rise in Christianity, loot the energy and other valuable resources from Islamic world, forcefully convert as many Muslims and nations into Christianity. The leaders of both Judaism and Christianity believe arrival of Islam cut into their conversion operations globally as Islam became very popular and a religion of the poor.
When Spain was finally liberated in 1492 from the last of the Moors, the Jews were expelled from that country along with the Moors—and large numbers fled to Istanbul, the Ottoman capital. It was only with the advent of Zionism—when the Jews demanded Palestine as a homeland—that the Muslim-Jewish alliance against Europe finally fell apart.
In summary then, the real reason why Muslims hate the West can therefore be traced to two factors: the long-standing order to jihad contained within Islam, and the Jewish lobby’s control of US and Western foreign policy which incites Muslims across the world through its unconditional support of Zionist atrocities in Israel.
These are the reasons which Trump, the mainstream politicians, and far leftists like Richman, all ignore, either unconsciously because they really are ignorant, or, even worse, consciously because they do not want to admit the true nature of the threat facing the West.
Islam is not against secularism and modernism but they cannot be allowed to overrun the faith, cannot derail Islamic values. The so-called Islamic fundamentalism has given an aim and a form to the otherwise formless resentment and anger of the Muslim masses at the forces that have devalued their traditional values and loyalties and, in the final analysis, robbed them of their beliefs, their aspirations, their dignity, and to an increasing extent even their nations and livelihood, peace prosperity.
Pseudo secularism and ultra modernism are not healthy trends. There has been a dangerous trend world over to a new phenomenon of the seizure of Mosques in the name of an imagined clash of civilizations. The Babri Mosque in India by state sponsored Hindu criminal elements and the Great Mosque in Mecca stand as examples.
It should by now be clear that we are facing a movement far transcending the level of issues and policies and the governments that pursue them. It is crucially important that we on our side should not be provoked into an equally historic but also equally irrational reaction against the rival, weak or strong. .
It should by now be clear that we are facing a mood and a movement far transcending the level of issues and policies and the governments that pursue them.
No Muslim today is safe, no Muslim feels free to live even in Muslims nations because of anti-Islamic regimes and their faithful media controlling the freedoms of Muslims.
Muslims are under severe surveillance systems.

UN should debate the issue of Islamophobia and anti-Islamic conflictual situations and wars elaborately and undertake punitive measures against the arrogant anti-Islamic nations and parties.

Meanwhile, USA and Europe, the leaders of cultural and civilizational standards should behave as truly democratic and civilized, treat the fellow Muslims as humans; respect their religion, faith, practices.

 

Western governments terrorize Islamic women!

Western governments terrorize Islamic women!
-Dr. Abdul Ruff
_________

 

While anti-Islamic nations terrorize Muslims with terror goods the Muslims who practice Islamic way of life are being terrorized by denying them basic religious rights. The trend is devastatingly very acute in so-called western democracies where Islamic women face state restrictions of serious nature with regard to religious practices.
It is most unfortunate as western countries, claiming to be democracies, speak very high of women rights and unnecessarily shed crocodile tears about the poor fate of Muslim women and Islam not treating well the women folk.
The powerful anti-Islamic forces both in the west and east that operate against humanity globally impose their terms on Muslims. Islam and its elders are unable to satisfactorily defend Islamic faith.
Denial of basic rights
Sept-i1 hoax gave the enemies of Islam enough stuff to spread Islamophobia and target Muslims, their resources, especially in energy rich Arab world. Already millions of Muslims have been slaughtered by these anti-Islamic forces led by Americans and Europeans in Islamic world on fake pretexts.

Most Muslims world over, targeted by Islamophobia and terror forces of fascism, do not wish to hide their faith and other Islamic identity but anti-Islamic regimes do not appreciate that as they Islamic faith being against their own regions.

For quite some time now, the Western governments and media networks shamelessly continue to target Islam and forcing the Islamic women to give up Islamic practices. Islamic women are being denied the right to practice life in Islamic way and forced to imbibe uncultured semi-dress patterns of life making exhibitionist trends their way of daily life.

Excessive dosage of anti-Islamism from the side of the regimes has harmed the genuine interests of global Muslims, especially the women who are eager to live according to Islamic faith. Western powers try to control Muslims by restricting their religious practices.

Consequently, Islam, Muslims and Islamic faith are under siege and attack for years.
Following Sept. 11, 2001 hoax, engineered in USA to gain legitimacy to invade an Islamizing Afghanistan by blaming it for the Sept- hoax and, destabilizing the nation of brave Afghans, and invade Iraq to kill a brave President of Iraq Saddam Hussein for his anti-American stance and hi efforts to protect Arab oil to flow into USA and EU freely. USA achieved its objectives- Afghanistan has been destabilized and President Saddam Hussein was assassinated in a cold blooded manner. Not just that. USA and NATO destabilized many Arab nations, killing Libyan President Col. Qaddafi.

In doing so, the western governments and media lords derive dirty sadistic pleasures and care a damn about the rights of minority religions.

There could be some women who are under state-private surveillance throughout who seeks favors form the Christian governments and officals, might go out without wearing hijab. But the media make this a big show to force all Islamic women to walk in the street without minimum cloth on them, showcasing their body in ways that please the perverts.

It has become a practice for the governments and media outlets scorn Islamic practices and try to link the practices with terrorism, thereby terrorize those who practice Islamic way of life. The governments are keen to make as many Muslims as possible the anti-Islamic people to aid the Islamophobic elements.

Most Islamic women have has worn a headscarf, both as an expression of her traditional Muslim faith and her commitment to its requirements for public modesty. They wear it throughout their years as professionals like doctors in cities. In Colorado, Dr. Elmadhun, for instance, proudly wears hijab as the chief surgical resident at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a top trauma center and affiliate of Harvard Medical School. But media outlets resent the Islamic practice as “uncivilized”.

Dr. Elmadhun was wearing it on April 15, 2013, when her husband texted her. A bomb had exploded near him at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. That day marked a turning point, however. Though she had been acutely aware of the fact that her headscarf made her stand out, Elmadhun says, she always felt confident and strong wearing hijab, both as a Muslim and as an American who felt, in a deeply personal way, her country’s promise of liberty and religious freedom – even after the difficult days following Sept. 11, 2001.

Instead of second glances, she became the object of America’s angry stares. Instead of folks assuming she’s from another country, or expressing surprise she speaks without an accent, they began to openly associate her with the Tsarnaev brothers, who perpetrated the Boston bombings, or other Muslim extremists.

American media lords and their state bosses are so cool- they plant terror moles and coolly blame their terror attacks on Islam and terrorize global Muslims.

Very cool anti-Islamic guys. Interestingly, these are highly educated with backing of intelligence wings.
Drone attack on Islam

The US drone war routinely kills thousands of noncombatants in Syria and Iraq, most recently this week, when “at least 36 civilians, including 20 children, in a village in eastern Syria” were killed. “Do Americans notice? Of course not!

The US government has conducted war by remote-controlled drones since 2001 in a variety of places, including Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan. Do Americans have a clue what it must be like to live under the drone threat? You know the answer is no. But many Muslims do, and many others can sympathize,” he continued.

Obama has claimed that the drone war kills few noncombatants, but this is rejected by many authoritative sources, including a team of NYU and Stanford law students who found that “CIA-operated drones were nowhere near as discriminating toward noncombatants as the agency’s leaders have claimed.”

It’s the US foreign-policy makers, whose daily atrocities make targets of Americans at home.

It is also true that Islam has, since its founding around 1,400 years ago through the Holy Prophet SAS, been continually under attack by all anti-Islam forces, led by Jewish-Christian varieties to destroy Islam and kill Muslims and the trend continues even today. They resent any counter move by Islamic nations. Today, the failed anti-Islamic forces led by NATO and Israel-India twins, and they defend themselves by saying that Muslims are waging a “jihad” war against all other people in an attempt to spread that religion by force.

No religion can survive for centuries if it grows by forceful conversions. Other religions are shaky that notwithstanding all their joint operations against Islam and Muslims, Islam has survived to stay forever, though some Muslims have been weaned away for Islamic faith and spread the word of anti-Islamism

Anti-Islamic jihad has spread by violent conquests through the Islamic world, especially energy rich West Asia following regions in chronological order: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt the Middle East, North Africa, and the Near East.
Faith vs. hatred

It’s a theology that is shared by some Orthodox Jewish women, who often wear wigs to cover their heads in public. In some Orthodox Christian, Roman Catholic, and Protestant traditions, too, women are sometimes required to cover their heads in places of worship – a practice common in the USA just decades ago. “It would be a tragedy to us here in the USA if Muslims felt like they had to hide their faith, if Muslim women felt like they had to take off their hijabs, or Sikh men their turbans, or anyone who felt they could not identify who they are in public,” says Imam Omar Suleiman, president of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research in Irving, Texas. “So I think that it’s important that we collectively challenge these attacks on people that are identifiably Muslim,” he continues. “It’s important for us to challenge all of that, and to stand tall and firm, because at the end of the day, bigotry is not something that can be reasoned with. And bigotry should not force us to change the way we live our lives Islamic way.”

Such incidents led Aguilera, the daughter of a former professional boxer, to organize a self-defense class for women who wear hijab. She and her colleagues expected 50 or so women to respond for a class scheduled after the election. Posted on Facebook by her sponsor, New York’s Muslim Community Network, the self-defense class got about 2,700 people expressing interest in a class accommodating 40.

For Elmadhun, wearing hijab for most of her life was “a positive and powerful message, allowing me to recognize that I am not just what I appear to be, but I’m a human being who should be valued for who I am and what I have to offer.” And though she does feel relieved in many ways, and feels safer with her son outside, “I’m also sad that I was driven to this,” she says. “I’m sad about what it means about our religious freedoms in general in our country, I’m sad that I had to give it up. I was kind of forced into this. It wasn’t really a choice.”

The class includes a time for women to share their experiences and fears and discuss how to respond, both physically and emotionally. “Our knowledge about how to manage that fear is very vital,” says Aguilera. “Eventually these are going to take a toll, because once you start denying who you are, that takes a toll on your personality, and that’s not healthy.”

The attack on the Christmas market in Berlin that killed 12 brings more unease as Muslims are the target of angry officals. . Both women say that anytime a Muslim terror attack occurs, they feel they are being held personally responsible for actions occurring hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away – and which they emphatically deny represents the religion they hold dear. “Last year, after the Paris attacks, it was like every time something like that happens, there’s the aftermath, and people who have nothing to do with it, we have to take the heat for that,” says Aguilera. “And the first people targeted, the most vulnerable, are Muslim women.”

At the same time, however, many advocates have been frustrated by recent fabrications. In November, police discovered a student at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette lied about having her hijab ripped off. And in New York, a young woman who lied to police and the media, alleging that two white Trump supporters attacked her on the subway, was arrested and charged with filing a false report. In the young woman’s court appearance, she was uncovered, and her head had been shaved.

What do “Barack Obama and Donald Trump have in common?”—and then answered the question by saying that “Among other things, they have—or pretend to have—no clue why some Muslims hate us.” Most of the world’s major religions are made up of multiple sects or denominations, and Islam is no different. Islam’s two major sects are the Sunnis and the Shiites, and the division and interplay between the two is a major factor in the geopolitics of the Middle East.

Donald Trump’s call for a ban on Muslim immigration to the US “until the country’s representatives can figure out what’s going on,” is little more than a deliberate cop out by almost all the “mainstream” political figures as to the real cause of the “clash of civilizations.”

The real dual reasons for the conflict—which even Trump dares not broach—is the inherent nature of Islam and its adherents, and the ubiquitous Israel/Jewish lobby which serves to incite the entire Islamic world against the West.

The CIA’s subversion of Iranian democracy in 1953, the US government’s systematic support of compliant autocratic and corrupt Arab monarchies and dictatorships, its empowering of Iraqi Shi’ite Muslims, and its “unconditional backing of Israel’s brutal anti-Palestinian policies.” US ‘experts’ dare not mention Israel, and, of course, in an omission similar to the one of which he accuses Trump, he also pretends not to know why the US government “unconditionally” backs Israel—or at the very least, just ignores it completely.

In the ten years prior to the September 11 attacks, the George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations bombed Iraq while maintaining an embargo, especially on equipment for the water and sanitation infrastructure the US Air Force had destroyed during the Gulf War.

Half a million Iraqi children died as a result, something which the then Secretary of State, Jewish Madeleine Albright, said on TV was “worth it” just to get at Saddam Hussein for his mere anti-Americanism stance

Democracy means anti-Islamism, Islamophobia, hatred for Islam and Muslims?

Many western people who hate Islam oppose the Muslim women covering their head by wearing hijab. A court in Europe even stipulated Muslim women from not wearing hijab or any other cover over the face. “Over the last several years, the trend has been growing, causing unease, feeling uncomfortable Elmadhun a female Muslim surgeon living in USA, world’s highly democracy, says. “And that is something that’s new…. I was feeling less and less welcome in my own community, and more and more like there was a target on my back.”

And so, like a number of Muslim women, Elmadhun made the wrenching personal decision to stop wearing her headscarf. “You feel fear, its human nature,” says Mariana Aguilera, who converted to Islam 10 years ago and now runs The Demureist, a Brooklyn-based website that celebrates conservative lifestyles and fashion, especially for Muslim women wearing hijab. “But this is more than about our fear,” says Ms. Aguilera, who has decided to keep wearing her headscarf, despite receiving verbal threats this month. “There’s a reason why we have this religious freedom in our country, and if we don’t do something – this climate is destroying our values, and that’s dangerous.”

Elmadhun and Aguilera point to 2015, when armed protesters were marching in front of mosques and candidate Donald Trump was calling for a ban on all Muslims entering the country. That year, hate crimes against Muslims were becoming more and more common – up 67 percent, according to the FBI. That also was the year Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted and sentenced to death for the Boston Marathon bombings. During the trial, Elmadhun says she was walking her son in a stroller in Brookline when a man stopped his car, got out, and yelled, “Go back to your expletive country, you expletive terrorist!”

American officals crate ugly scenes to insult Muslims. Earlier this month, a man at Grand Central Terminal in New York pushed a New York City transit worker down a staircase, yelling “You’re a terrorist, go back to your own country!” In Brooklyn, another man threatened an off-duty police officer with his pit bull, also telling her and her son to “go back to your country.” On the steps of a municipal court in New Jersey, too, a man spit in the face of an advocate with the Muslim American Society’s Immigrant Justice Center, after she testified in a domestic violence case, according to the Religious News Service.

Indeed, if Muslim women wearing hijab across the country have been feeling especially vulnerable during the current political climate in which few can recall such open hostility, for many of them harassment and violence has also cut to the core of their faith – a chill on their freedom to remain true to their visible acts of worship and what they see as a theology of modesty.

President elect Trump’s anti-Islamic rhetoric essentially to w woo the Christian votes in the presidency, caused problems for Muslims, including the women. However, Trump revised his anti-Islamic thoughts.

How far anti-Islamic attempts to go on in Europe and USA?

Muslims are in minority in USA and Europe, except in Turkey. Muslims are in minority in India and Israel. So, these anti-Islamic majority communities in the West and Indo-Israel do exactly with Muslims what pleases themselves- even against their own Constitutional guarantees for the minority communities.
That is shameful. In order to hide their ugly sides of fanaticism and racism, they always insult Islam, target and inure Muslims.
European target of Islamic women and forcing them to shed the Islamic practices like regular prayers and wearing veil, etc, and imbibe degraded western culture is shameful to humanity,
Efforts are afoot form the anti-Islamic forces to reduce Islamic populations and deny them even minimum rights, let alone Islamic practices.
The enemies of Islam say Islam in Spain and the Ottoman Turk Empire (Turkey) were defeated and driven out after centuries of war and resistance by Europe. That is exactly anti-Islamic, Zionistic, Hindutva forces in India say how “cleverly” they destroyed Islamic Mosque Babri Mosque by way of defeating Islam. They want to destroy Islam and Muslim nations if they don’t promote Christianity. For the time being they have been operating along with Judaism and Israel to defeat Islam. Once Islam is routed fully, the Christian militaries would raze down Israel in a matte rof hours. A entirely Christian empire would be established without any other religions surviving to challenge ti prowess

Unless it not disproved the stated views are real and going to happen.

The chief objectives of anti- Islamic jihad include slashing the Islamic populations to promote rise in Christianity, loot the energy and other valuable resources from Islamic world, forcefully convert as many Muslims and nations into Christianity. The leaders of both Judaism and Christianity believe arrival of Islam cut into their conversion operations globally as Islam became very popular and a religion of the poor.

When Spain was finally liberated in 1492 from the last of the Moors, the Jews were expelled from that country along with the Moors—and large numbers fled to Istanbul, the Ottoman capital. It was only with the advent of Zionism—when the Jews demanded Palestine as a homeland—that the Muslim-Jewish alliance against Europe finally fell apart.

In summary then, the real reason why Muslims hate the West can therefore be traced to two factors: the long-standing order to jihad contained within Islam, and the Jewish lobby’s control of US and Western foreign policy which incites Muslims across the world through its unconditional support of Zionist atrocities in Israel.

These are the reasons which Trump, the mainstream politicians, and far leftists like Richman, all ignore, either unconsciously because they really are ignorant, or, even worse, consciously because they do not want to admit the true nature of the threat facing the West.
No Muslim today is safe, no Muslim feels free to live even in Muslims nations because of anti-Islamic regimes and their faithful media controlling the freedoms of Muslims.
Muslims are under severe surveillance systems.
UN should debate the issue of Islamophobia and anti-Islamic conflictual situations and wars elaborately and undertake punitive measures against the arrogant anti-Islamic nations and parties.
Meanwhile, USA and Europe, the leaders of cultural and civilizational standards should behave as truly democratic and civilized, treat the fellow Muslims as humans; respect their religion, faith, practices.

 

Russia’s rising role in the world

Russia’s rising role in the world
-Dr. Abdul Ruff
______

 

Steady march

The end of Cold war and dismantling of mighty Soviet Union along with dissolution of Socialist system in East Europe, Russia, having lost the Cold War to USA, was forced to lay down for years as its allies began dropping the Kremlin and joining the USA and Europe through NATO and EU, one by one. Further, dismantling of anti-West military alliance Warsaw Pact increasingly weakened Russia as it gradually lost its influence globally.

Over years since the Sept-11 hoax, Russia and its strong leader President Vladimir Putin have gained in international importance in the comity of nations, notwithstanding the occasional reverses they were subjected to by US led western nations.

In recent times Russia has raised its role and prestige first with its annexation of Crimea and then by sending its military to Syria, where USA is helping the anti-Assad forces, to defend President Assad and his autocratically illegal regime. Fall of Aleppo has considerably added to the prestige of efficacy of Russian military operations

By confrontation and cooperation as effective tool Moscow played its card rather too well for alliance particularly with USA so that the west cannot operate without Russia.

Notwithstanding economic sanctions of USA and Europe, Russian economy is not shrinking because of its natural resources, oil output and arms sale.

As such, one thing is plain today: the world cannot ignore Vladimir Putin’s Russia and America has to take into consideration the views of Russia in world affairs. Twenty-five years after the humiliating collapse of the Soviet Union, President Putin is well on his way to making Russia the “ubiquitous state and indispensable partner” of his dreams, expect Russia to be very active on the diplomatic, military, and cyber fronts.

Syria offers the most dramatic illustration of Russia’s ambitions. It was the Russian Air Force’s brutal bombing campaign that turned the tide in Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s favor.

Syria offers the most dramatic illustration of Russia’s ambitions. It was the Russian Air Force’s brutal bombing campaign that turned the tide in Syrian President Assad’s favor.

Strategy

And the week before Christmas, Putin hosted Turkish and Iranian officials for political talks on how to end the civil war in Syria. US Secretary of State John Kerry was nowhere to be seen as he busy with Mideast peace process by shoring up support for the UNSC vote for Palestine state. Nor is he expected to be invited to Russian-planned talks in Kazakhstan between the Syrian government and opposition.

Maybe, Moscow thinks USA is sincere about peace in Syria and other Arab nations. Now the Kremlin has made no secret of its intention to thwart the USA, and the West more broadly, whenever it sees fit. In a foreign policy “concept” document published this month, Moscow framed its view of the world as a “competition in the form of dueling values,” and announced it intended “to prevent military interventions or other forms of outside interference” justified on humanitarian grounds. Russia “reserved the right to react very strongly to unfriendly actions, including retaliatory or asymmetrical measures.”

True, Russia’s oil-dependent economy is weak, its state structures inefficient, its soft power limited. But it has a strong military that is getting stronger, and Putin is ready to use it. Russian troops have intervened in Georgia, Crimea, eastern Ukraine, and Syria. Those operations have boosted Russia’s military confidence. They could be tempted to use military force more easily than before, if they think that will give them influence.

Especially nervous in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Crimea are the three Baltic States – Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia – NATO members neighboring Russia, which has been bolstering its military forces in the region. According to the NATO treaty, an invasion of Estonia, Lithuania, or Latvia would mean war. But US President-elect Trump hinted on the campaign trail that he would not necessarily feel obliged to come to their aid. And there is much speculation about the prospect that Trump would be more conciliatory toward Moscow than has President Obama.

However Trump and Putin get on, Russia and the West will remain divided over fundamental issues, not least Washington’s plan for a global missile defense system. Moscow considers the scheme a threat to its national security, the foreign policy document made clear. If the USA goes ahead with it, Moscow “reserves the right to take adequate retaliatory measures.”

Split

In the USA, a conservative split over Putin is emerging as the old guard clashes with rising hard-right nationalists over the direction of foreign policy under a president Trump. Traditional Republican hawks like Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona continue to view Putin as a danger to the West. Based on standard conservative objections to Putin’s disregard for personal freedoms, human rights, and his challenge to the West in Europe, Senator McCain says the Russian leader is a thug and a murderer and a killer. He cites shadowy killings of Russian dissidents, Russian undermining of Estonia, “dismembering” of Ukraine, and precision Russian airstrikes on civilian hospitals in Aleppo, Syria.

Some close observers of the Trump transition speculate that Mitt Romney was ultimately passed over in the search for a secretary of State in part because of his perspective from the 2012 presidential campaign that Russia is America’s chief geopolitical foe – a view in line with a traditional Republican national-security outlook but at odds with the Trump camp’s perspective on Putin. But Pat Buchanan wrote in 2013 that instead of seeing Putin through an old “Cold War paradigm,” conservatives should see Putin as a defender “against the militant secularism of a multicultural and transnational elite.”

More recently, some of Trump’s closest aides – including Steven Bannon, named Trump’s chief White House strategist, and Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who will be national security adviser – extol the Russian leader for his strong defense of national sovereignty, his promotion of traditional values, and his war against radical Islam. Bannon told a gathering of European conservatives that the “Judeo-Christian West” should focus more on Putin’s promotion of “traditionalism” and values that support “the underpinnings of nationalism.” In August, General Flynn, a campaign adviser to then-candidate Trump, said Putin should be considered a partner in the global war on “radical Islamism.”

There’s no doubting Putin’s opposition to sexual minorities and his deep disdain for what he sees as a decadent West. In his often-cited 2013 state-of-the-nation speech, the Russian leader defended Russia’s “traditional” values against the West’s “so-called tolerance,” which he condemned as “genderless and infertile” and for promoting “the equality of good and evil.” But Putin holds very strongly that anything blurring the line between men and women is something to be fought. But he’s not a racist, he leads a vast country of diverse cultures, he’s proudly built mosques in Moscow. However, experts warn, anyone seeing Putin as some kind of crusader for white, Christian, European culture is misreading the Russian leader. Some of these other crusades being assigned to the Russian leader are part of a white-supremacist narrative that has little to do Putin

Gaining in popularity

When last week the United Nations Security Council proposed a resolution praising outgoing Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for supporting the world’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community, Russia stood up to its Western colleagues to oppose it. The wording about sexual minorities, whom Russian President Vladimir Putin disdains, was replaced with a benign reference to the “most vulnerable” and “marginalized.” The Security Council’s split on Ban’s promotion of LGBT rights may be a small thing at the UN. But it offers a partial clue as to why Putin, once roundly condemned in Western circles as a dangerous authoritarian, is increasingly viewed in a positive light by conservatives across the West – by the Trump wing of the Republican Party, but also by right-wing leaders in France and other European countries. They consider Putin as an ally, though may not be reliable one. The turnaround in the Russian leader’s image in the USA can be ascribed almost completely to Trump’s repeated contrasting of Putin’s strong leadership and President Obama’s weakness. The result is that people who admire Trump’s rhetoric and style now see Putin in a positive light as a man of action. They see Putin as a leader who was dealt a weaker hand than the president of the United States, but who has somehow been able to play it better.

A new poll released this week by YouGov shows that in the US, self-identified Republicans viewing Putin as very or somewhat favorably rose from 10 percent in July 2014 to 37 percent today. Even the uproar this week over Russia’s hacking of the presidential campaign and reports Putin signed off on the operation are taken as a mere gimmick and do not seem to be spawning universal condemnation of the Russian leader and his tactics.

However, none of them think the sanctions on Putin’s country could be lifted. Now instead of facing near universal rejection in the West over his oppressive governance at home, his seizure of Crimea, and his intervention in Syria on behalf of a despot, Putin is for some a hero. Nationalist conservatives see Putin as defending sovereign nationhood in the face of globalization, and traditional values against an onslaught of threatening forces: from multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism to nontraditional sexual identity and radical Islam.

Putin does not promote white supremacy

The revalorization of Putin as a Hero may be most visible in the Trump camp of Putin admirers, but there are signs the more positive image of the Russian leader is trickling down to Republican voters. The YouGov poll released this week not only shows an uptick in support over the past two years, but also a decline in antipathy. Nearly half of Republicans – 47 percent – still view Putin somewhat or very unfavorably – but those seeing him “very unfavorably collapsed from 51 percent in 2014 to 10 percent now. “If you look at public opinion in the United States, there were pretty universal negative views of Putin up to this summer,” Darden says. “Then we had the Republican nominee sounding very pro-Putin, and the public shifted shockingly quickly.”

Actually, that shift came only among Republican voters – surveys like YouGov’s show that Democrats have as negative an opinion of Putin as ever.
Putin’s rising favorability in the US has more to do with politics than with the Russian leader’s “values” now touted by some Trump nationalists. It’s really the people who are opposed to Obama who are revising their view of Putin. It’s pure partisanship that says, ‘Putin was the enemy of Obama, therefore he must be a pretty decent guy.’

In spite of all strenuous efforts by Washington, Russia could not be made a US satellite nation to serve its global interests like many third world powers and even a few Europe nations do.

Putin cannot be pro-America leader.

 

Russia’s anti-satellite weapon readiness

Even while trying to notionally reset relations with the West, Russia has also been continuously improving its military capability. Russia’s latest anti-satellite weapon launch makes I the point amply clear.

Once more, Russia has conducted a successful test of an anti-satellite weapon on December 22. It was the fifth time the weapon, a PL-19 Nudol missile, had been tested. Some military analysts have expressed concern over the test, saying that it was a provocative demonstration of Moscow’s might on a relatively new military frontier: outer space. But they suggest that it’s more about Russian posturing than an imminent threat.

Over the past few years, the United States, Russia, and China have been gradually beefing up their space-based weapon capabilities, focusing on anti-satellite defense strategies and technology. With modern militaries and much of the world’s economy dependent on the information and communication systems supported by satellites in orbit, it has become a higher priority than ever to protect assets outside of the Earth’s atmosphere. If a direct conflict were to break out between space-capable powers, it seems likely that the battle front lines would be drawn thousands of miles above the surface of our planet.

The latest test of the Nudol missile took place on December 16. The launch originated from a facility near Plesetsk, about 500 miles north of Moscow, and was apparently successful, despite CNN reports that no debris was detected by US monitoring stations, meaning that no test target was destroyed. “We monitor missile launches around the globe, but as a matter of policy we don’t normally discuss intelligence specific to those launches,” Strategic Command, overseer of US space operations. “We remain concerned with growing space capabilities around the globe, particularly those of China and Russia, since both countries are developing or have developed counter-space capabilities.”

Both Russia and China have conducted successful anti-satellite weapons tests in recent years. Russia may have also developed kamikaze satellites designed to disable other satellites by crashing into them, and China’s military-run space program has also seen massive development in multiple areas at the orders of Chinese President Xi Jinping. “We have demonstrated ASAT [anti-satellite] capabilities in the past. And we have very high accuracy capability to monitor the threats.”

Concerns over Russia’s recent antagonism toward the West in the form of Syrian intervention, invasion of Ukraine, and the alleged hacking of the Democratic National Convention in order to influence the outcome of the recent presidential election, suggest that USA is likely to remain committed to ensuring there are no warlike surprises coming from the Russian space program. The Pentagon’s budget for space-based programs currently stands at $22 billion per year, which includes considerable funding for defense against emerging orbital threats.

Russia has flexed its muscles in orbit even during the cold war, the space race between the US and the then-Soviet Union helped to define worldwide politics during the second half of the 20th century. But after the cold war ended and Russia down, the USA became the only space-faring superpower for years, with most subsequent conflicts occurring between non-space capable countries and non-state organizations, leaving the possibility of satellite attacks by powers like Russia remote and unrealistic until only recently. Just wanting to let everyone know they are back to being a world power to be reckoned with, under Putin and clearly due to his leadership and standing up to the USA.

But while Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to reestablish Russia’s position as a global superpower may be worrying to the Western powers, this test is mostly hot air. “It’s just posturing.”

Today, Russia is a new military power even with less economic prowess. There is no way the West could utilize it for advancing its capitalist or imperialist goals.

 

White House eager to save Middle East peace process!

White House eager to save Middle East peace process!
-Dr. Abdul Ruff
______________

 

 

Obviously, Israel has tasted its first ever bitter pill from UNSC when it voted on December 23 to end the illegally built Zionist Semitist settlements, meant to oust the Palestinians and confiscate their lands for further proliferation of illegal colonies there.  With the vote, time is indeed running out for Israeli fascist regime to mend ways and try to become a normal nation by allowing the much delayed Palestine state to come into being. Israel needs to shed provocative terror schemes targeting Palestine and other Arab nations, and eventually become a democracy.

Terror alliance with world’s super power USA and  getting  the US terror goods for  fascist operations in Palestine and entire  Arab world,  does not just make Israel a democracy. With irrational terrocractic behavior, Israel can only be a terrocracy and not a democracy.

The US’ shocking and momentous abstention during a vote at the UN Security Council on Friday enabled the adoption of the first UN resolution 2334 on the December 23 since 1979 to condemn Israel over its settlement policy by a 14-0 vote. Israel has accused the Obama government of playing a part in formulating and pushing through the landmark measure.

Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu have played out their games but ultimately the former has the final say. Both have, since 2009, contributed to a chronic deterioration in US-Israel relations and the wider Middle East meltdown and Israel’s usual stubbornness has let to USA refusing to use its veto to shield Zionist crimes this time. The process of polarization and mutual alienation culminated last Friday with Obama’s active connivance in the passing of a landmark UN Security Council resolution. The resolution condemned all Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory as a flagrant violation of international law that imperiled a future two-state peace.

US-Israeli relations have reached their lowest point in decades. The government of the Israeli and PM Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Washington of conspiring against it when the UN Security Council vote on Friday the 23rd December demanded an end to settlement building in the West Bank.

 

USA pushes ahead with the resolution vote

The landmark vote came despite intense lobbying efforts by Israel and calls from US President-elect Donald Trump to block the text. Unhappy with Obama, Netanyahu is believed to be attempting to “recruit” to the incoming Trump team but the brakes on an attempted bid by the outgoing government to have the Security Council approve principles for a Palestinian state.. “They are spitting at us,” Netanyahu told colleagues, according to Channel 2. “We will respond forcefully.”
Netanyahu rejected the UNSC resolution as a “shameful blow against Israel,” repeated the Israeli claim that Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry were behind the resolution. Netanyahu told the media that Israel has “ironclad information” of the US government’s involvement in the resolution and even Trump is behind it. .

Clearly, America is struggling to reset its Israeli policy which has hitherto been decided by Israeli government. Possibly encouraged by President elect Trumps’ assertion for a new approach to resolve the Israeli-Palestine conflict and achieve two state solution by establishing the much delayed Palestine state to exist side by side with Israel as a legal entity, President Obama, by asking the US ambassador to UNSC to abstain from voting, supported the UNSC resolution to end illegal settlements inside Palestine.

Apparently, US Secretary of State John Kerry, following the UNSC vote, is preparing a document which will form the basis for final negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians to be presented next month before President Barack Obama leaves office on 20th January. John Kerry is laying out a US framework for an Palestinian-Israeli agreement as the Obama government and its international allies scramble to protect what is left of the peace process before Donald Trump takes office. The document will outline the establishment of a future Palestinian state according to the internationally recognized 1967 borders (Arab Peace pan 2002) , with land-swaps leaving approximately 75 to 80 percent of Israeli settlers living in the West Bank under the sovereignty of Israel- a proposition that won’t be accepted by the Palestinians. The principles will probably set out requirements for US recognition of Palestine and Israeli recognition of Palestine and Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish State, and Israel’s required recognition of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

The Kerry speech at the state department is expected to restate the Obama government’s continued faith in a two-state solution to the chronic impasse. It is a parting shot after eight years in office, during which there has been a dearth of diplomatic progress. It is not expected to lead to any new initiative but rather lay down a marker on a longstanding US and international approach to the region before the US president-elect, whose commitment to such a solution is in doubt, assumes office. “What secretary Kerry will be doing is he will give a speech in which he lays out a comprehensive vision for how we see the conflict being resolved – where we see things in 2016 as we unfortunately conclude our term in office without there being significant progress toward peace, the deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, told Israel’s Channel 2 television. On the same day as the Kerry speech, Jerusalem authorities are expected to discuss the issue of more than 600 building permits for settlements in historically Palestinian east Jerusalem and have raised the possibility of issuing about 5,000 more.

The parameters outlined by Kerry are expected to draw international endorsement at a meeting of foreign ministers on 15 January, just five days before Trump moves into the White House. The meeting is supposed to reinforce a strategy of isolating Netanyahu in the hope it will push him towards reviving stalled negotiations with the Palestinians. Netanyahu has said his government will not attend.

Israel responded furiously to the UN Security Council resolution passed on Friday that demanded an end to settlement building, threatening diplomatic reprisals against the countries that voted in favour. Israel feels now fully exposed and isolated internationally. The Israeli government is reportedly fearful that any guidelines agreed in Paris would be turned into another UN resolution before Trump’s inauguration, and it has ratcheted up its rhetoric, presenting itself as the victim of an international conspiracy. Meanwhile, Israel’s military minister, a prominent illegal settler leader in the government Avigdor Lieberman, portrayed the Paris conference as a new “Dreyfus trial”, referring to an outburst of French anti-Semitism more than a century ago, and urged French Jews to move to Israel.

A French official denied there was any intention to pass a new Security Council resolution on the basis of the Paris conference. A foreign ministry spokesperson said the meeting would “give the participants an opportunity to present a comprehensive incentive package to encourage the resumption of negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians. Only they will be able to conclude a peace deal directly.”

In excessive expectation of a more supportive government in Washington next month, Netanyahu has reacted to the diplomatic maneuvering in the last weeks of Obama’s term with defiance. Netanyahu has vowed to resist a peace framework imposed on his government, and observers warn that a threatened Israeli backlash in the form of thousands of new settler homes in east Jerusalem, combined with Trump’s plan to move the US embassy to the disputed city, could trigger a fresh wave of violence.

Netanyahu claimed to have “ironclad evidence” that the Obama government had plotted behind the scenes to promote the UN resolution. Israel has said it will present evidence against the Obama government to the incoming Trump team and ask Trump to just abide by the mutual understanding in terror operations and help Israel retain all illegal settlements in Palestine.

Egyptian media published a document purporting to be a transcript of a meeting in which Kerry and the US national security adviser, Susan Rice, discussed the UN resolution and US proposals with Palestinian officials, who agreed to give the Kerry framework immediate support.

In order to appease the Jewish community in USA and Israel, Trump criticised Friday’s UN resolution, saying it would make it harder to negotiate a peace agreement. He described the UN as “just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time” but has not dwelt about how the UN as well as US veto has been misused by USA and Israel all these years. Trump’s designated ambassador to Israel, his own bankruptcy lawyer David Friedman, has actively supported settlement building.

If the highly emotive issue of Jerusalem’s status became the focal point of Israeli-Palestinian friction once more, then the prospects for a serious, significant confrontation are high. Trump knows it.
The US withdrawal from Iraq left a political vacuum in Baghdad that Iran and its Shia allies filled. Then, in partial reaction, came the Sunni jihadists of Islamic State which ensured the US support . The Arab spring revolts of 2011 left Washington nonplussed. In Egypt it fretted over the toppling of Hosni Mubarak and welcomed his eventual replacement by another pro-American military dictator. In Syria, Obama prematurely anticipated the demise of Bashar al-Assad, only to back away when the going got tough, letting in the Russians and the Iranians (again) and squandering US leverage.

The UN resolution could save the government from itself by bringing closer an end to forceful and illegal settlement construction inside Palestine. The passage of the resolution won’t result in the immediate dismantling of any West Bank settlements, but the world is beginning to come to the rescue and try to save Palestinians from Israel military and Israel from itself.

 

What makes this particular resolution important?

Palestinian leaders hope the UN resolution 2334 and the Paris conference will offer some degree of international protection against the encroachment of settlements in the Trump era. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said he hoped the Paris meeting would establish an international mechanism to end Israeli settlement building once for all and start the work on the promised Palestine state.

It is the first decisive and clear condemnation of Israel by the UN Security Council in nearly eight years — almost the entirety of President Barack Obama’s terms in office. The vote was cast despite extraordinary Israeli pressure on the current US administration, on the forthcoming administration of Donald Trump and successful pressure on Egyptian President Abdul Fatah Al Sisi.

For the first time in history, the USA neither vetoed the resolution nor threatened to use its veto power; nor did it even seriously lobby among the world powers, big and small, as it often does, to defeat the resolution. In fact, Egypt delayed the vote, which was scheduled a day earlier, so New Zealand, Senegal, Malaysia and Venezuela stepped up and put the resolution to a vote, a day later.

Though the UN resolution remains rather symbolic as long as there are no practical mechanisms to ensure the enforcement of international law, the vote is historic and a major step towards the freedom and independent state.

Not only Israel does not respect the United Nations’ will, it is, in fact, already accelerating its settlement activities in the Jerusalem area, in defiance of that will. The Jerusalem Municipality announced that 300 housing units will be built in the illegal settlements of Ramat Shlomo, Ramot and Bit Hanina, while the Security Council members were preparing for the vote on the “legal invalidity” of the Jewish settlements.

Obviously for the Palestine who are being terrorized and brutally attacked by Israeli military with American terror goods, the vote is a major achievement

The UN resolution was, indeed, keen on ensuring that the Palestine state comes into being as part of the two-state illusion is further perpetuated, which is all that the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas needs to continue to push for an unattainable mirage. With all this in mind, there is a lesson, and a valuable one, that must be registered at this moment: without US backing, Israel, with all its might, is quite vulnerable and isolated in the international arena.

The outcome of the vote was quite telling: 14 Security Council members voted yes, while the US abstained, making vote possible. The vote was followed by a rare scene at such meetings: sustained applause, with countries that hardly agree on much agreeing wholeheartedly with the justness of Palestinian aspirations and the rejection of Israeli practices.

The relentless efforts by Israel and the US to intimidate, coerce and as usual bribe UN members, so as to sideline the international community from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has failed utterly. All it took was a mere US abstention from the vote to expose the still solid international consensus regarding Israel’s illegal actions in Palestine.

In an emblematic sign of hope, the vote brings to a close the year 2016, which has been harsh for Palestinians. Thousands of Palestinians, mainly civilians and children, were killed during this year in clashes in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza; hundreds of houses were partly or wholly demolished and damaged; thousands of hectares of land were confiscated by Israel, and countless olive trees cut.

The next year could promise the Palestinians new horizons in their struggle for freedom and sovereignty, depending on humanitarian concerns of the new US administration under Trump though his language is confused to suggest that the US support of Israel will remain steadfast. The appointment of pro-settlement hardliner David Friedman as the new US ambassador to Israel carries with it terrifying prospects. One is not sure if Trump is indeed an insane Zionist like Madam Hillary Clinton has been. Friedman and his ilk have no regard for international law and no respect for US current foreign policy regarding the Israeli occupation and the illegality of the settlements (considered an “obstacle to peace” under various administrations), and is eager to relocate the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

All of this is quite ominous, and the freshly passed resolution should not advance the illusion that things are changing. Of course things can change only if follow-up actions are forthcoming form UNSC and ICC. Criminals cannot be given choices to change the world, they should only be punished for their crimes against humanity.

Nonetheless, there is hope. The resolution is a further affirmation that the international community is unconditionally on the side of Palestinians and, despite all the failures of the past, still advocates respect for international law. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is moving from strength to strength, galvanizing civil societies, campuses and trade unions all over the world to take a stance against the Israeli occupation.

In 2009, Netanyahu, newly re-elected, described his “vision” of a historic peace, “of two free peoples living side by side in this small land, with good neighborly relations and mutual respect, each with its flag, anthem and government, with neither one threatening its neighbor’s security and existence”. Although he appeared to renege during last year’s election campaign, Netanyahu still claims to support a two-state solution. Now the international community’s message is unequivocal: you were right in 2009. So stop undermining the prospect of peace. Honour your promise.
Not only should USA scrap all military aids to Israel but also impose sanctions of Israel so that the Zionist regime could come to its senses.

Palestinians, now unite!

As the UNSC is making strenuous efforts to punish Israel for its crimes against humanity and for the proliferation of illegal settlements in Palestine, there has been world cry requesting US President Obama to recognize Palestine before he goes out of office. For different but related reasons, Jimmy Carter made a similar plea last month.

Israel can be blamed for much of problems the Palestinians face, but Palestinians deserve much of the blame, too, for their disunity, infighting and corruption. They must not expect their efforts, however sincere, to yield freedom and liberation when they are incapable of forming a united front. This should be done by overhauling the Palestine Liberation Organisation and bringing all Palestinian factions under one single platform that caters to the aspirations of all Palestinians, at home and in Diaspora.

The Palestinian leadership needs to understand that the age of ineffectual American leadership is over. No more lip service to peace and handouts to the PA, while bankrolling the Israeli military and backing Israel politically. The next administration is pro-Israel, absolutely. This may be the clarity Palestinians need to understand that pleading for American compassion will not suffice. If a united Palestinian leadership does not seize the opportunity and regain the initiative in 2017, all Palestinians will suffer. It is time to move away from Washington and embrace the rest of the world.

One of the arguments often heard is that Israel cannot survive as a Jewish state if it annexes all of the West Bank, since it will ultimately acquire 4 million Palestinians (West Bank & Gaza residents) as citizens in that case.

Israel does not have a Jewish majority even by accelerated births as Hindus in India have been busy doing.

The USA in 1789 was mostly British and had a population of 4 million. Now it is 8 times as big, and has large Italian, Latino, German, African, Muslims three million Jewish and Irish populations. All those groups have brought gifts to enrich the nation. In an age of globalization, trying artificially to maintain one ethnic group as a majority is probably a fool’s errand, anyway. Israel is importing Thai agricultural workers and initially was welcoming African refugees..

So what is called a “one-state” solution is a farce but as long as all the citizens of that one state has equal rights and it was a genuine democracy people would be happy. .

It would be fairly easy to set up two states, Palestine and Israel, since the basic framework of the two states already exists. It is entirely possible that the Israeli squatters on Palestinian land, as their usual practice in the West Bank will at some point engineer a civil war, and try to expel the Palestinians, making them stateless refugees all over again.

What is wrong with the present arrangement is that the Palestinians do not have citizenship in a real state. Israel state controls the water, air and land of Palestine territory. The Palestine Authority controls none of those things. In fact nothing, not even the taxes. A state needs a judicial system that can protect the basic property and human rights of a citizen. Palestine has none of those things. Important cases are kicked to the Israeli judiciary, which, like police stations and military units, tends to rule in favor of Israelis. And, a lot of decisions are made for Palestinians by the Israeli army or by colonial administrators.

People, who are stateless, in the phrase of Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren, do not have the right to have rights. It is unacceptable that millions of Palestinians should be kept stateless at the insistence of Israel. PM B. Netanyahu has even vowed that he will not allow a Palestinian state as long as he is in power or alive (a violation of the Oslo Peace Accords).

The reason that all these decades of negotiations have proved fruitless is that the Palestinians, as stateless, don’t really have standing to negotiate. You can renege on agreements with stateless people at will, as Netanyahu has repeatedly done, without fearing any consequences and without the stateless having recourse. So you can’t start with negotiations. You have to start by addressing Palestinians’ lack of citizenship.

The government in Germany stripped the Jews of their citizenship, in preparation for committing a Holocaust against them or driving them out of their homes as refugees. Jews are doing the same with Palestinians now. The Nazis understood very well that you can do with Stateless people what you will, and that no one will effectively so much as object. For the Zionist right wing, Israel comes as a solution to the problem that Jews are always in danger of losing their citizenship rights when they are citizens of other states. Moreover, in a nuclear-armed world, the idea that a state can protect you from another holocaust is a false messiah; ask the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In any case, solving the artificially created problem of Jewish statelessness cannot come at the price of creating Palestinian statelessness.

The chair of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Saeb Erekat, said that the Palestinian leadership was invigorated by the UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli colonization of the Palestinian West Bank. As a result, it would redouble its efforts to achieve full membership in the UN for the State of Palestine. The Palestinians would take their case to the International Criminal Court at the Hague, charging Israeli officials with various crimes against the international law of occupation, chief among them flooding their own citizens as colonizers into the Occupied Territory. Erekat recognizes that the Palestinian cause will go nowhere until Palestine has some of the perquisites of a state, such as UN membership and ability to take cases to the International Criminal Court.

Just as he established diplomatic relations with Cuba, so President Obama could do the same with regard to Palestine. It would be one step toward resolving the decades-old problem of Palestinian statelessness.

Observation: welcome soverign Palestine!

The historic US abstention from voting on ending Zionist illegal settlements from Palestine territories and UN vote are not lacking in significance. But Netanyahu’s smug suggestion that he need only wait for the advent of a Donald Trump presidency is misleading. It is likely Trump may give him a sympathetic hearing. But he already committed himself to peaceful solution to the vexed issue in and establishes Palestine state to exist along with Israel. He may not even move the US embassy to Jerusalem as that would be a gratuitously inflammatory gesture. US Jews still hopes they can arm-twist Trump as well.
This was the world telling Netanyahu, with one voice, that the expanded settlement policy he has encouraged and justified is wrong – wrong legally, wrong morally, wrong politically, and wrong in terms of Israel’s future peace and security. The odd thing is, he knows this.

There is no doubt that the UN Security Council condemnation of Israel on December 23 was an important and noteworthy event as it readily paved the way for the creation of Palestine after a long struggle. True, the United Nations’ main chambers (the Security Council and the General Assembly) and its various institutions, ranging from the International Court of Justice to the UN cultural agency UNESCO, have repeatedly condemned the Israeli occupation, illegal Jewish settlements and mistreatment of Palestinians.

Today there are at least 430,000 Jewish settlers currently living in the West Bank or the 200,000 in east Jerusalem which would be the capital of Palestine. .But Israel feels upbeat that Resolution 2334 is unenforceable and cannot dismantle the structures or evict the criminal Jews form Palestine territories and this can be done only with NATO help. Israel says nobody can force Israel to embrace John Kerry’s recycled ideas about a two-state solution, although the US secretary of state is expected to spell them out one more time before he leaves office next month.
Resolution 2334 joins UN resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973) in the theoretical, consistently bypassed legal canon of the Israel-Palestine issue. It says what should happen. It does not say how.

There are up to 196 illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land, in addition to hundreds of settler outposts. These settlements house up to 600,000 Jewish settlers who were moved there in violation of international law and, in particular, the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Israel must respect the opinion of international community in favor of establishing the much delayed Palestine state as they voted to end the Zionist Semitist settlements in Palestine. Israel needs to accept the pro-peace option now available for it to save its spoiled face and come forward for final peace talks and accept the Arab Peace plan to resolve the conflict once for all.

Unlike the December 23 UNSC Resolution 2334, past UN condemnations were far stronger; some resolutions did not ask just for an immediate halt of illegal Jewish settlement construction, but for the removal of existing settlements as well.

Arabs will assure Israel of not attack Israel or force Jews to resettle themselves in Europe or convert to Islam or Christianity for that matter. Palestinians will ensure that no more toy missiles would be fired into vacant spaces in Israel.

Israel now being isolated by its close terror ally USA, must recognize International Law and dismantle all Zionist structures inside Palestine.

Although insecurity, aggression and paranoia are their shared characteristic, Trump would like to make decisions independent of Israel or US Jewish community that hitherto decided the policies of USA. Moreover, Trump administration cannot simply reverse the stated will of the UN Security Council – backed in this case by permanent members China, Russia, France and Britain; not will unilaterally scrap last year’s multinational nuclear deal with Iran. These are policy decisions of USA and not Israel
The resolution 2334 will accelerate existing moves to prosecute Israel at the international criminal court. The UN vote has highlighted the extraordinary extent of Israel’s international isolation under Netanyahu. Even he cannot persuasively dismiss the unanimous opinion of countries as diverse as Japan, Ukraine, Malaysia, Venezuela, Angola and Spain. It takes a lot to make an enemy of New Zealand, but Netanyahu has managed it.
Obama has not been much help. He, too, made a big speech in 2009, shortly after taking office, pledging a “new beginning” for the Middle East. But he could not do anything as his foreign minister Hillary Clinton supported Israeli regime and its criminal operations and his actions led to ME regional disintegration and growing American detachment.

Israel is annoyed, nervous and feels isolated for its arrogant posture on Palestine. But as usual Israeli leadership wants to put up a brave face. “We will do all it takes so Israel emerges unscathed from this shameful decision,” Netanyahu said. Now many in Israel also talk about “betrayal” by USA and many Jews feel USA should not have propped up a fascist regime in the first place with full military backing from the Western powers. Interestingly, Israel receives huge sums from abroad as aid but now it cuts aid to small countries. Not only Israel barked at USA, but Israel has also withdrawn its ambassadors from two of the countries that supported the resolution, New Zealand and Senegal, and cut aid assistance to the latter. Planned diplomatic exchanges have been cancelled, future Israeli cooperation with UN agencies placed under urgent review, and civilian coordination with the Palestinian Authority suspended.

Obama realized that pressurizing the risk-averse Netanyahu into peace talks with the Palestinians is useless, especially when Israel’s Arab neighbours fell prey to civil disorder and Islamist insurrection supported by USA, Israel and EU. Obama did not push nearly hard enough for peace in both terms when the regional climate might have allowed it. In 2011, he vetoed a similar UN resolution, arguing US-brokered talks would find a way forward. Cautious to the end, even Obama’s UN demarche on Friday was half-hearted. If he really believes settlements are undermining peace, why abstain? Why not go the whole hog and vote to condemn them?
Obama’s Middle East legacy is not one to be proud of. But his final axe on ending Israeli illegal settlements at UNSC has earned him the name he missed for 2 terms. Only now Obama knew how criminal minded Israeli leadership is and the defeat of his Democratic candidate Hillary has eye opened him to realize his presidential duties towards humanity. .
Future of Palestinians looks promising as the UNSC can impose sanctions on Israel if it refuses to respect the resolutions to end Israeli expanding settlements on occupied land and possibly annexations, as mooted by Netanyahu’s rightwing allies.
President Obama has to make all recent decisions on Palestine tenable in future so that the Neocons and other promoters of Israeli fanatic fascism won’t be able to arm-twist politically novice Trump.
While the rights of Palestinians do not register in the slightest in the radar of US foreign policy interest (which sees its alliance with strong Israel as far more important than the needs of disjointed and confused capitalist Arab countries), Palestinians can still forge a new strategy that is predicated

 

Tennis: Ana Ivanovic, former world No. 1 retires from Tennis aged 29

Tennis: Ana Ivanovic, former world No. 1 retires from Tennis aged 29
-Dr. Abdul Ruff Colachal
_______

 

Serbian Tennis ace and former world number one Ana Ivanovic has retired from tennis at the age of 29. Ana Ivanovic was 2008 French Open champion. The Serb, always with a nice smile on her face, has been out with injury since August and dropped to 63 in the world rankings, having won just 15 matches in 2016 – the most recent in June. “I was ranked number one in the world and won Roland Garros in 2008. I’ve seen the highs I never dreamt of achieving,” said the 29-yr-old Serb. Any professional sport requires top physical form and it’s well known that I’ve been hampered by injury. I can only play if it is up to my own high standards. I can no longer do that so it is time to move on,” she said.
Charming Ivanovic spent 12 weeks as world number one in 2008 and won 15 career singles titles. She reached the French Open semi-final in 2015 and was runner-up at Roland Garros and Wimbledon in 2007 and at the 2008 Australian Open.”It has been a difficult decision but I have so much to celebrate.”
Ivanovic’s last outing was a first-round loss at the US Open in September, a result that saw her drop out of the top 50 for the first times since 2010. After suffering a fifth straight loss in the opening round of the US Open in August, Ivanovic insisted she was not thinking of retiring, saying: “I just need to really see why is this happening. “I had struggles throughout my career. I had some tough times. This is not the first time I’m going through this. It just hurts because I know what I invested.”
A few days later Ivanovic, who married Manchester United midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger in the summer, announced she was calling time on her season in a bid to allow wrist and toe injuries to fully heal.
She announced at the time that she had taken the decision to stop playing until 2017 on medical advice over a recurring wrist injury, with a problematic toe also needing surgery.
There has been speculation in recent years about Ivanovic’s future in the sport, with the Serbian struggling to replicate the form that brought her only grand slam title at the French Open in 2008. So for myself, for all my fans, and for all those young girls and boys may have been watching me, I can only play if I can be up to my own high standards. “And I can no longer do that, so it’s time to move on.”
Unfortunately for Ivanovic, she retires after a 2016 to forget in which she won just 15 matches all year, the most recent in June, and slipped to 65th in the rankings.

Ana Ivanovic has announced she is hanging up her racquet, bringing her illustrious tennis career to an end at the age of 29. The Serbian former world No.1 chose to deliver the news to her fans on Facebook on Wednesday night. She had promised to reveal “important” news the day before. “I have some big news I want to share with you. I have not announced it anywhere else because I think you deserve to hear it first. There is no other way to say this. I have decided to retire from professional tennis,” Ivanovic said. “It was a difficult decision but there is so much to celebrate. Don’t be sad, be optimistic alongside me.
Ivanovic added. “I began dreaming about playing tennis when I was five and saw Monica Seles playing on TV.”I have seen heights I never dreamt of achieving.”
Ivanovic, who married Manchester United midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger earlier this year, said she will explore opportunities in business, beauty and fashion in retirement and said it will allow her more time for her work with UNICEF, with whom she holds the position of National Ambassador for Serbia.
Ivanovic posted pictures of herself back in training in November and was one of the highest-profile players to compete in this year’s International Premier Tennis League in Asia. She was due to begin the new season at the ASB Classic in Auckland, starting on January 2, and was also on the entry list for the Australian Open. Ivanovic’s career highlights include reaching the Australia Open final, also in 2008, and the 2007 Wimbledon semi-finals. She won 15 WTA titles with career on-court earnings totaling US$15,510,787.

”My love and my greatest thanks to all of you!”
Ana Ivanovic’s retirement announcement came as a rude shock to her fans worldwide.

Fellow tennis ace Caroline Wozniacki ‏said of Ana Ivanovic: “Will miss you on tour, but excited for you and what your new chapter has to bring see you soon!!” You should be very proud of your achievements!
Respect for AnaIvanovic decision to retire from tennis on her own positive terms!
Best wishes for her future endeavors. Once a champion, always a champion! Her pure smile even at the time of reversals is indeed remarkable. You should be very proud of your achievements!
In sports, smile is a rare thing on the courts as players only show their anger lavishly.
Generally, tennis players are known to showcase their arrogance when win matches as if they have achieved the impossible on earth.

 

 

Can President Trump end unrelenting repression in Kashmir?

Can President Trump end unrelenting repression in Kashmir?
A sovereign Kashmir: Random thoughts- 279)
-Dr. Abdul Ruff
_________

 

World today is facing a lot of serious problems for which USA is the chief cause and even instrumental. Two major issues- Palestine in West Asia and Kashmir in South Asia – continue to derail peace momentum globally. Of these, genocides of Kashmiris in Jammu Kashmir, being perpetrated by India, remain the crucial problem that has not received the attention it does deserve.
Like Israel, India also puts pressure n world powers not to interfere in Kashmir issue.
Similarly, Indian sources do not let any news paper or media publish anything that supports the Kashmir cause or against Indian occupational crimes.
Clearly, upon enduring constant repressive and fascist methods by Israel for decades of its occupation and proliferation of illegal settlement construction operations in Palestine, Palestinians are on their way to gain full and complete sovereignty from Israel by legal means as the UN has approved Palestine as a defacto member and now all-powerful UNSC passed a resolution to remove and end further Jewish settlements in Palestine.
For the first time in years since 1948 when Israel was imposed on Mideast, USA as refused to use its veto to protect increasingly fascist Israel and defend its occupational crimes and expansionist operations.
The establishment of Palestine sooner than later, thus, is a foregone conclusion. President Trump, though plays politics not to offend America’s close terror ally Israel, is reportedly supporting a soverign Palestine state and two-nation solution in Mideast.

 

Probe of Indian occupational crimes

A recent civil society’ fact-finding report notes that the concentration of security forces in JK is among the heaviest in the world. An estimated 700,000 Indian Army, paramilitary and state police forces watch over a population of just 14 million. Literally every Muslim in Kashmir is under Indian military surveillance and terror cum fake encounter target.
Trump needs to address the problems Kashmiris face under Indian brutal occupation as Kashmiris face very similar problem as of Palestinians as its neighbor occupies their nation Kashmir and keeps attacking and killing Muslims there. Soon after the establishment of Palestine, USA should also take up the issue of Kashmiri struggle for sovereignty back and ensure security of Kashmiris Muslims as India, its military and media care only about security of Hindus living in JK, supporting Indian case in Kashmir. Indian media want every Muslims in Kashmir is killed if they don’t accept Indian brutality occupational crimes in Kashmir as their ill-fate. India simply cannot accept any protest in Kashmir.
The population of Jammu Kashmir, now India’s only Muslim-majority state, confronts unrelenting repression by heavily-armed central and state government security forces, including indiscriminate pellet-gun barrages, arbitrary and repeated arrests, and deliberate blinding and killing of unarmed protestors.
As Kashmir is reeling under continuous demonstrations and regular curfews imposed b the JK government to make life very difficult for the Kashmiris, last month a volunteer group, led by Medha Patkar of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) and Anuradha Bhasin of the Pakistan-India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy (PFPD), visited Muslim dominated Jammu and Kashmir, formerly a soverign nation but now India’s northern-most state for 10 days to study real situation in the most militarized zone on earth.

The expert report extensively documents widespread and shocking human rights violations by the Indian state and blatantly criminal behavior by security personnel.
For years, both the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party as ruling dispensation alternatively play mischief with Kashmiris. India’s Hindu supremacist BJP government and its local partner, the J&K People’s Democratic Party (PDP), responded with ferocious violence to the mass protests that convulsed the Kashmir Valley during much of the summer and fall.
While India targeted Muslims only in its occupied Jammu Kashmir, it never bothered about Azad Kashmir, the portion that is occupied by Pakistan, but of course without nay brutality meanly because Kashmiris do not oppose Pakistani occupation as a crime but a boon to protect themselves from Indian atrocities. In late September, the BJP government in India, seeking to increase its Hindu vote banks, plunged South Asia into its gravest war crisis in at least 15 years. Wanting to showcase its military prowess, New Delhi ordered illegal and highly provocative cross-border raids inside Pakistan-held Kashmir ostensibly in reputed retaliation for the September 18 attack on the Indian military base at Uri, then vowed it would continue to impose an ‘unacceptable’ price on Pakistan until all attacks on India from Pakistan ceased.

When the 25-member fact-finding group visited Kashmir between November 11 and 20, the Indian and Pakistani armies were mounting massive military barrages across the Line of Control that separates Indian- and Pakistan-held Kashmir, effectively blowing apart the shaky truce that has prevailed between the rival nuclear-armed states since 2003. Kashmiris on both side of LOC feel heavily terrorized.

 

Turning point

India for years has adopted different strategies to silence Kashmiris from raising objections to Indian military misrule of Jammu Kashmir but has failed. New Delhi could not successfully  use its government in Sri Nagar to work for Indian cause  in the region. But military misadventures have harmed Indian cause of continued occupation of Jammu Kashmir.

Even after seeing the secret graveyards in Kashmir, revealing what has happened to those Kashmir Muslims who fought against military of India and imposition of extra military laws to give a free hand to  the state killers  in Kashmir, Kashmiris continue their struggle for sovereignty.

The worst and strongest ever Kashmiri national protests erupted following the July 8 ‘encounter killing ’by summary execution by India, which cannot tolerate any opposition from Muslim leaders for state repression and murders, of a 21-year-old leader of an Islamist, Kashmiri separatist insurgent group, the Hizbul Mujahideen. Rattled by the size and tenacity of the protests, the BJP government blamed them on “Pakistan-supported ‘terrorists” and ratcheted up pressure on Washington and Islamabad.
Its aims were two-fold: to draw attention away from the popular protests in J&K and their brutal repression at the hands of the India state forces and fanatic media and to compel Pakistan to end all logistical support for the quarter-century long insurgency in Indian-held Kashmir.

The ‘civil society’ fact-finding report notes that the concentration of security forces in JK is among the heaviest in the world. An estimated 700,000 Indian Army, paramilitary and state police forces watch over a population of just 14 million. The fact-finding volunteers traveled to the Kashmir Valley districts where the recent protests have been most widespread and gathered much evidence of the violence and humiliations that the Indian military and state police have imposed on the local populace. Moreover, because of the legal immunity granted the state police under the JK Public Safety Act (1978) and the army and paramilitary forces in Kashmir under India’s notorious Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, they can and do act with impunity.

The report states ‘unarmed and symbolic protests in Kashmir have been met with sustained attack by the Indian army, police and paramilitary, including with the use of pellet guns, (chili-based) PAVA shells and firearms. Several deaths have been caused by targeted killings of unarmed civilians by armed forces even in the absence of protests or demonstrations.
The volunteers further found that most pellet-gun wounds have been above the waist, indicating that security forces have deliberately sought to blind and kill protesters. ‘Most deaths we came across’, say the volunteers, ‘have been caused by injuries waist-above, without any warning fire. Deaths and injuries caused by pellet guns too are all above the waist and preponderantly at eye level causing blinding or long-term ophthalmic damage.’
Indian security forces invariably justify their violence by dubbing its victims as ‘anti-national.’ In fact, this is a catch-all phrase that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP government routinely employ against persons or organizations expressing even sympathy with the victims of the state repression in Kashmir. The report documents how families that pursue legal remedies against the security personnel responsible for the killing of their loved ones are subjected to raids, repeated arrests and even torture from the out-of-control security establishment.
Casualty counts vary, as the government is trying to cover up the scale of its repression and families often fear informing authorities that a member has been injured for fear of reprisals. But close to a hundred civilians have been killed since the protests erupted in early July. Many thousands more — the J&K daily Greater Kashmir claims 15,000 — have been injured.

Collective punishments, including destruction of property and animals and revenge attacks, akin to those Israel’s security forces mete out to the Palestinians, are the norm in Kashmir. The fact-finding report bears witness to this: ‘In the towns and villages where there were killings by the Indian Army, police and paramilitary, we met with ordinary people who narrated a cycle of search and seizure raids following killings, and of indiscriminate firing, including at funerals and memorial gatherings. In several of these instances the Indian Army, police and paramilitary broke windows and destroyed household goods, livestock, and food rations in peoples’ homes.’
In several villages and towns they visited, the armed forces, during their search and seizure operations, routinely destroy the local electricity transformer or sub-station, denying the entire village or locality access to electricity.’ The mass character of the protests in the Kashmir Valley have given the lie to the Modi government’s claims that the opposition to Indian rule is simply or mainly the product of Pakistani intrigue and ‘Pakistani-sponsored terrorism.’ The Kashmiri separatist groups supported by Islamabad were in fact taken by surprise by this summer’s eruption of mass protests.

The report describes the widespread popular disaffection with an Indian state that has repeatedly violated JK’s special autonomous status within the Indian Union, imposed ‘presidential’ or central government rule, rigged elections, and for decades resorted to mass repression, including ‘disappearances’, torture and summary executions. ‘From common people’, says the report, ‘we heard articulate accounts of what they have faced from the Indian state and, in particular, of the sustained attack on their democratic rights from 1989 onwards. The failure of the Indian state and every government since independence to address the political sentiments of Kashmiri people is a source of both hurt and enormous resentment.’

Indian parties speak in one voice against Muslims

The Modi government’s violent repression of the popular protests in JK has been politically aided and abetted by the opposition parties, including the Stalinist Communist Party of India (Marxist) and its Left Front.
Interestingly, all of them unequivocally defend the right of the Indian bourgeoisie to rule over Kashmir, have helped in the cover-up of the atrocities being carried out by Indian security forces in Kashmir, and have hailed the provocative military strikes that Indian Special Forces troops carried out inside Pakistan in late September.
India bases its claim not on the support of the Kashmiri people, but on the document of accession to the Indian Union signed by the last member of the British-backed Hindu princely dynasty that ruled Jammu and Kashmir.

India claims its prerogative to kill every Muslims in occupied Kashmir who refuses to accept Indian occupation. The reactionary character of the false Indian-Pakistani dispute over Kashmir is exemplified by the legal basis of their respective claims to ‘undivided’ Kashmir i.e., to all of the territories that had belonged, prior to Partition, to the British Indian Empire princely state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Pakistan’s claim is based on the reactionary ideology that underlies the Pakistani state: Kashmir is rightfully Pakistan’s because it is a majority-Muslim area contiguous to the Muslim ‘homeland’ in the subcontinents northwest.
Kashmiris, besieged between these two illogical claims, have been the target of both Indi and Pakistan.
Shockingly, the ruling as well as opposition parties are together when it comes to attack Muslims either in India or Kashmir or anywhere in the region.

Observation

As a mere formality, India continues to claim ownership of Jammu Kashmir and reiterates that Kashmir is an integrate part of India.
The Kashmir tragedy and the reactionary military-strategic rivalry between India and Pakistan with which it is inextricably enmeshed are the outcome of the reactionary communal Partition of South Asia. In 1947, South Asia’s departing British imperial overlords and the rival factions of the ‘national’ bourgeoisie divided the subcontinent into an expressly Muslim Pakistan and a predominantly Hindu India.

While the India ruling class and its state machinery have repressed the people of Jammu Kashmir, the Pakistani corporate lords have run roughshod over the basic rights of the people of Pakistan-held Kashmir and systematically sought to manipulate the Kashmir question for its own profit ends.

The democratic rights of the Kashmiri people will be secured and the threat of a catastrophic nuclear war between India and Pakistan lifted only through a joint struggle of the common masses of the subcontinent to put an end to capitalist rule and establish genuine the Socialist regional system. That could help end blood bath in the region, in Kashmir, end terror attacks, open the way for the improved governance for the causes of people.
Notwithstanding the pressure tactics from Indian government being applied directly and through its former rulers UK and US government directly as a so-called strategic partners in terror machinations, and through the Zionist criminal regime, one hopes President Trump would rise to the occasion to help and save the remaining Kashmiri Muslims by forcing both India and Pakistan to allow the Kashmiris to have rebirth of Kashmir to exist as a soverign nation in South Asia.
Meanwhile, Indian and Pakistani governments and political calls need to consider the normalcy of the region that is being harmed by the nuclear race and LOC conflict, usually fanatic Indian media mischief to promote state arrogance towards Muslims and Kashmir.

 

Historic step: UNSC votes to end to Israeli settlements in Palestine!

Historic step: UNSC votes to end to Israeli settlements in Palestine!
-Dr. Abdul Ruff
_____

 

The process of establishing a soverign Palestine state is being supported by UN vote for defacto Palestine and the UN agencies doing all possible help for the Palestinians to move forward to get Palestine by legal means. Now a historic action by UNSC has legally binding Israel for the consequences of its illegal settlements in Palestine and asked Israel to remove all settlements illegal in Palatine- impediments for credible talks and for peace. .
UNSC can vote resolution only if no veto member disagrees on it and that has happened now. USA has abstained from voting in order to clear way for the resolution to sail through. Israel stand isolated legally, internationally.
Despite unusual diplomatic maneuvering involving President-elect Donald Trump, Israel, and Egypt on December 22, the United Nations Security Council passed a historic resolution on December 23 Friday demanding an end to Israeli settlements. As a positive step, the USA abstained, effectively allowing the measure to be approved- the first ever positive step b y the superpower in years ever since Israel was forced into Palestine and made a full UN member in 1948.
UN resolution that’s become such a controversial issue the last couple of days only asks Israel to adhere to international law. The draft resolution demands Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem”, and says the establishment of settlements by Israel has “no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law”.
Egypt withdrew the original resolution on 22 December afternoon, reportedly “under pressure” from both President Barack Obama and President elect Trump —who tweeted on the matter Thursday morning. —and Israel. Had this move worked, it could have punted the measure to the incoming Trump government, which is seen as more friendly to Israel than that of President Barack Obama—especially after Trump’s nomination last week of conservative Zionist hardliner David Friedman to serve as US ambassador to Israel. It was expected Trump would choose a pro-Palestine diplomat to be sent to Tel Aviv to bring about credible peace between Zionist terror victim Palestine and Israel, an arrogantly positioned and occupier of Palestinian territories with US backing.
But the Security Council members New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela, and Senegal stepped in and the vote took place after all on Friday afternoon.
The US abstention, which was expected as the Obama government has given up pro-Israeli stance for the time being, was described as a relatively rare step by Washington, which usually uses it UN veto to shield Israel from such action, and as a parting shot by US President Obama who has had an acrimonious relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and who has made settlements a major target of peace efforts that have proven ultimately futile.”
In response to the vote, pro-peace organization the Jewish Voice for Peace executive director Rebecca Vilkomerson declared: “There is an increasing understanding among US political leaders, thanks to ongoing grassroots pressure, of the need to hold Israel accountable to international law. The US abstention from this resolution is a welcome sign in that regard.”
However, she added, “with President-elect Trump urging a veto of even this mild resolution, as well as his nomination of an extreme right-wing Ambassador to Israel, we are deeply concerned by increasing US support for Israeli incitement, annexation, and control under his administration and will redouble our efforts to organize resistance to policies based in Islamophobia, racism, and disregard for even the most basic rights of Palestinians.”
Earlier, Trump wasn’t the only one who called on the USA to veto the measure; a number of hardcore Zionist US senators serving Israeli terror interests in Mideast on Friday joined him by issuing aggressive statements to that effect, making loud that the money they receive from Israel is worth the trouble
And interestingly Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who serves as chairman of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations of the Senate Appropriations Committee, threatened to reduce US to the United Nations” if the body moves forward with the ill-conceived resolution to upset Israeli straggly to expand illegal settlements in Palestine

Relations between Israel and Palestine have been wrecked for decades, as Palestinians have been seeking diplomatic recognition for their independent state of Palestine on the territories of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, which is also partially occupied by Israel, and the Gaza Strip.
Israel brutally occupies Palestine territories and attacks Gaza strips, now targeting women and children. UN is just watching the Zionist terror shows as Palestinians conti8neu to bleed and yet they are called the terrorists by leading US Zionists like Madam Clinton. Peace has not been the motto of Obama as he intensified the wars launched by roguish Bushdom leaders on the pretext of Sept-11 hoax.
Ignoring intentional law stimulations, Israel brutally occupies Palestine territories with illegal Jewish settlements and attacks Gaza strips, now targeting women and children. UN is just watching the Zionist terror shows as Palestinians conti8neu to bleed and yet they are called the terrorists by leading US Zionists like Madam Clinton.
When Israel attacks Gaza Strip, killing even children or cancels the talks with Palestinians, USA admires and supports Israel mainly because US leaders do not seek peace or regional normalcy anywhere in the world, especially in energy rich West Asia. The most recent round of peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians was initiated by the United States in mid-2013 but ended in an impasse almost a year later. USA plays mischief in the name of diplomacy with Palestine and world. President Obama, like his predecessors had done before him, just could not push the arrogant Israeli regime to come to terms with reality and agree for peaceful resolution of the Mideast conflict that makes the world vulnerable to tensions and wars.

President elect Trump is expected to choose peace in order to wind down all terror wars. Hence his views on Palestine gains importance. Following the presidential poll, US President-elect Donald Trump assured the global community of the serious approach of USA in changing political atmosphere and said he wants to put an end to the Israel-Palestinian conflict and thereby bring to the Mideast region. “That’s the ultimate deal,” Trump said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, referring to the complex conflict as the “war that never ends.” Just one day after winning the election, Trump has asked hawkish Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to meet with him in the USA.
Trump noted that any deal should be directly negotiated between Israel and Palestine, but that his government would play a “significant role” in helping the parties to achieve a just, lasting peace,” according to the Times of Israel.

In an interview with “Israel Today”, a free daily owned by Republican super-donor Sheldon Adelson, Trump said he believed his government can play “a significant role” in helping the Middle East parties reach an agreement. Netanyahu, however, had ordered his Cabinet and lawmakers to avoid speaking to the media about the election while the incoming US administration formulates its policies and told his Cabinet on November 13, 2016 that he would soon be meeting Trump.

A senior Israeli Cabinet Minister Naftali Bennett on November 14, 2016 said the election of Donald Trump has helped create an opportunity for Israel to abandon its stated commitment to the establishment of a Palestinian state. The remarks by Bennett reflect sentiment in the nationalist Israeli right wing that Trump’s election many Zionists believe could usher in a new era of relations with the United States.

While these two capitalist countries are close allies, relations were sometimes tense between US President Barack Obama and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu because of their vastly different world views.

Bennett last week welcomed Trump’s election, predicting that “the special relationship” with the US would grow stronger and noting that the Republican campaign platform had no mention of a Palestinian state. In fact many in USA and Israel are happy that Trump has chosen a hard core Zionist as US envoy for fascist Israel. They believe for Trump “The era of a Palestinian state is over”.
Bennett leads the Jewish Home party, a coalition partner that is affiliated with the West Bank settler movement. He is one of the most influential voices in Israeli politics, and both his party and most members of Netanyahu’s Likud oppose Palestinian statehood on either religious or security grounds. Bennett has called for annexing parts of the West Bank and granting the Palestinians in other parts expanded autonomy, with new roads, office parks and economic opportunities, with Israel retaining overall security control.

Israel and its media kept themselves away from Is US elections, not siding with Trump. . Speaking to foreign reporters on November 14, 2016, Bennett was more cautious, citing an order by Netanyahu for his Cabinet not to talk about the election in public. But he made it clear that Trump will push his government to rethink its commitment to Palestinian independence. Bennett said that the combination of the changes in the USA, in Europe that the region provides Israel with a unique opportunity to reset and rethink everything. “It’s no secret that I think that the notion of setting up a Palestine in the heart of Israel is a profound mistake. I believe that we have to bring alternative new ideas instead of the Palestinian state approach”.
Now the Cabinet Minister Ofir Akunis, a close Netanyahu associate, called for a renewed wave of settlement construction. But such sentiments may have been premature.
This explains the Zionist petrified mindset with regard to Palestine state and Palestinians. .
For two decades, the international community has been pushing for a negotiated peace deal that would include the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip – areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

Though Bennett said he did not know whether Trump would support that view, he said it is critical that Israel now clearly define its own vision. After many years, the Israeli government has to decide what we want”. Bennett’s comments were also an indicator of the pressure Netanyahu could soon face to abandon his commitment to the “two-state solution” favored by President Obama, President elect Trump and the international community.

The thinking was that Israel’s continued occupation of millions of Palestinians would create a demographic time bomb, threatening Israel’s status as a democracy with a Jewish majority.
After opposing Palestinian independence for most of his career, Netanyahu, like his predecessors had done, reluctantly endorsed the idea shortly after Obama took office in 2009. Critics, including Obama, have said that continued Israeli settlements on occupied territories have undercut the goal, and the Obama government has at times questioned Netanyahu’s commitment to seeking peace.
Though never supported Trump’s campaign, Israeli hard-liners welcomed Trump’s election late, noting the support for Israel in his campaign platform and the many pro-Israel officials who advised him during his campaign. Their spirits were further boosted after a Trump adviser, Jason Greenblatt, told an Israeli radio station that his boss does not think the West Bank settlements are an “obstacle to peace.”

But that is now history.

Trump’s unpredictability has raised concerns that he might change his attitudes once in office. For instance, Trump told the Wall Street Journal that he would like to help broker a solution to the conflict “for humanity’s sake”.

All sensible people and powers around the globe hope that the Trump regime will not give vent to his unexplainable hatred for Muslims in depriving the Palestinian people – who have been driven forcefully away by USA-UK-Jewish people from their motherland more than seven decades back in 1948 to carve out an illegal and fascist Israel – in realising their genuine rights of a free Palestine state.
UNSC vote to end to Israeli settlements in Palestine is indeed a historic step to further easy the movement for establishing Palestine as a full UN member sooner than later. .

 

India: Income Tax raids on Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary Rao’s home and office, Girija IAS takes charge as new CS

India: Income Tax raids on Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary Rao’s home and office, Girija IAS takes charge as new CS
-Dr. Abdul Ruff
_____________

 

The demonetization drive of the Modi government, driving the common people run for money for their daily living, is taking a new turn with IT officials searching houses and offices of the suspected asset holders across the nation and in Tamil Nadu IT has arrested the Reddy gang and searched the house and office of state Chief Secretary Rama Mohana Rao and found huge sum of what appears to be illegally gotten money and gold.

Indian Income Tax department on 21 December conducted a raid on the premises of Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary P. Rama Mohana Rao. I-T officials are conducting raids at Tamil Nadu Secretariat as well.

Sources said the name of Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary P Rama Mohana Rao cropped up after officials questioned Shekar Reddy, a businessman and former member of Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam Board in Tirupati, Telengana. Crores of money and gold bars were recovered from Shekar Reddy recently and led the investigation to the house of TN chief secretary and office at Madras Fort – the state’s power house,

Further, the Income Tax department today conducted searches at over a dozen locations in connection with its tax evasion probe against the son and few other relatives of Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary P Rama Mohana Rao. The searches that began as early as 6:00 AM are on at various places in the state and neighbouring state of Andhra Pradesh. “A total of 13 premises are being searched,” a senior official said, adding the premises connected to Rao’s son and other relatives are part of the operation.
Reports suggest, I-T officials were also seen at the Tamil Nadu Secretariat. A team arrived in three cars along with paramilitary security.

Reddy gang has been very active in their home state Andhra Pradesh/Telengana, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu with close links with the governments and top officals, including IAS and IPS officers, in illegal deals, minting huge sums in such operations.

The Tamil Nadu government was not aware of central paramilitary forces being deployed at the residence of Rao, according to a senior police officer, who preferred not to be quoted.

In other news, Shekar Reddy has been arrested and produced before the Madras High Court.

Central Reserve Police Force personnel were seen posted outside Rao’s house to protect the officals.

DMK treasurer M.K. Stalin and other opposition leaders expressed concern if the state is being looted by the fence itself then how the common people could be served. Stalin tweeted that such a raid is “shameful. Authorities who are corrupt should not be allowed to escape.”

Mamata Banerjee questions Modi action

However, expressing her displeasure to the raid, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said while corruption needs to be condemned strongly, such a move “devalues the institution of head of the civil service”. The Trinamool Congress (TMC) chairperson, who, since November 8 when PM Modi announced demonetization, has been most critical of the demonetisation exercise by the Centre, asked why the Central agencies were not raiding the house of Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah.

Why this vindictive, unethical, technically improper action? Is it only to disturb the federal structure? Why don’t they raid Amit Shah and others who are collecting money? Rebutting West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s criticism of the Income Tax raids on Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary P Ramama Mohana Rao, BJP said Wednesday’s raids prove the agency was working without any discrimination and had carried out a “usual procedure.” BJP state President Tamilisai Soundararajan said I-T authorities had been conducting searches in the state of late, with lot of seizures being made from a private contractor, Shekhar Reddy. “And today, searches are being conducted at the Chief Secretary’s residence. This is a usual procedure undertaken by the Income Tax department. So how is it acceptable if those like Mamata Banerjee call it vindictive action,” she said. “The taxmen raid a place on suspicion or on information of ‘movement of money’ and “they will say there was nothing (incriminating available) if that is the case,” she told reporters. “The raids are done to see if any illegal cash is present.

BJP said that the tax sleuths just don’t go about conducting searches but gather all relevant information before doing so. Today’s searches were also proof that the I-T department was “working without any discrimination”, she said and pointed out that cash, gold and documents had been seized in earlier I-T searches in the state. Recalling PM Narendra Modi’s statement, she said ‘honest people need not fear’ as the tax evasion and black money probe was targeted against those indulging in irregularities. “Therefore, today’s searches are an action in support of people,” she added.

Even as the raid was on at Rao’s residence in the morning, a senior investigating officer told the media that the Chief Secretary had been under the scanner for quite some time now.

 

Corrupt Chief Secretary

 

Rao was appointed Chief Secretary in June this year. He also holds full additional charge of Vigilance Commissioner and Commissioner for Administrative Reforms.

In June 2016, in a surprise move, he was appointed as the Chief Secretary by CM Jayalalithaa superseding some seniors and replacing K. Gnanadesikan (since suspended), when Jayalalithaa retained power. On May 16, the day late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa assumed office after returning to power in 2011, P Rama Mohana Rao was appointed as her secretary -I in the Chief Minister’s Office. Five years later, after she won the re-election, Rao was made the chief secretary in a shock reshuffle of the brass.

As the head of Tamil Nadu’s bureaucracy and also in terms of power and influence, Rao is among the most important persons in the administration who was found standing at Jaya’s feet after her demise. No wonder then that the IT officials’ visit early on Wednesday morning has caused more than a flutter in the State. It has to be noted here that Rao has only seven months left for retirement.

Hailing from Andhra Pradesh in Chittur district, Rao belongs to the 1985 batch, and joined the service as additional collector in 1987. He was appointed as chief secretary on June 8, just a fortnight after Jaya’s AIADMK government assumed office, removing the incumbent, K Gnanadesikan, abruptly. Gnanadesikan, who wielded considerable influence till then was even suspended from service.

Rama Mohana Rao has never been on a Central deputation to serve in union ministries or departments in Delhi. But he worked as vice chairman of Gujarat Maritime Board between 2001 and 2003. Rao has worked in departments including health, water resources, transport, social welfare, housing and urban development among others. He also headed the Teachers Recruitment Board in 2007, was the CMD of Tamil Nadu Newsprint and Papers Limited, and Commissioner, Land Reforms. He has also been functioning as the Vigilance Commissioner and Commissioner for Administrative Reforms, another key portfolio in the state government. On deputation, he had also served as Vice Chairman of Gujarat Maritime Board between August 2001 and October, 2003.

Former Chief Secretary among 8 officials suspended

Tamil Nadu administration at all levels is filled with corrupt officals. Interestingly, former chief secretary was suspended for his illegal deeds. On 31 August, Senior IAS officer and former Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary K. Gnanadesikan and Commissioner of Geology and Mining Atul Anand were suspended along with six other government officials, pending an inquiry into certain charges allegedly linked to “beach sand mining” in the southern districts.

While three of the suspended officials belong to the Geology and Mining Department, three others were working in the Environment Department, including the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board. Mr. Gnanadesikan, who was Chief Secretary for about one-and-a-half years till early June when P. Rama Mohana Rao replaced him, was holding the post of Chairman and Managing Director of the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO) in the rank of Additional Chief Secretary. One IAS officer claimed that action was taken against them for reportedly endorsing a report of a panel of the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, which gave a clean chit to beach mining firms during a joint inspection in April 2015.

The joint inspection report came into focus when leading beach sand mining baron S. Vaikundarajan of V.V. Minerals cited it in his defence in a statement released to the media against the backdrop of his brother V.S. Kumaresan alleging massive illegal mining by the firm at a press conference a day earlier. A delegation of officers of the IAS met the then Chief Secretary, P. Rama Mohan Rao, in Chennai and expressed their “concerns” over the suspensions.

Bribes to PM Modi and BJP?

Meanwhile, Congress party Vice President Rahul Gandhi today alleged that Narendra Modi as Gujarat Chief Minister had taken money from Sahara and Birla groups and demanded an independent inquiry into it, a charge BJP rejected as an attempt to divert attention from the AgustaWestland probe in which the names of Congress leaders and the “family” were coming up.
Addressing a rally here in the prime Minister’s home state, he alleged that in the I-T records there are notings of Sahara officials’ claims that they had paid 9 times to Modi between October, 2013 and February, 2014. Gandhi said the documents in this regard were with IT department which had raided the company when Modi was Gujarat Chief Minister. Similarly, as per documents with Income Tax department, the Birla group also paid Rs 12 crore to Modi when he was Chief Minister. Wondering as to why there has been no probe in the matter so far, Gandhi demanded an independent inquiry.

Rahul Gandhi said he was raising the issue on behalf of the country which needs answers over the questions raised against the PM Modi. Reacting to Gandhi’s allegations, senior BJP leader and Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said in New Delhi that the charges are “baseless, false, shameful and mala fide” and an attempt to divert attention from the AgustaWestland probe as names of Congress leaders and the “family” are coming up.

 

Meanwhile.  the searches in the residences and offices  of  suspected  people with illegal wealth have been intensified and in West Bank the IC officals are  searching  the houses of a few important peruses.

 

TN Chief Secretary Rao sacked, new CS takes charge  

 

As the news about Rao’s illegal cash and gold reserves, and  the demand of  TN Opposition parties to replace Rao,  the TN cabinet met to decide the matter.   According to the latest news, Tamil Nadu government of O Panneerselvam has sacked the Chief secretary Rao and appointed Mss Girija Vaidyanathan IAS as the new Chief Secretary.

Vaidyanathan now is the senior-most IAS officer working in Tamil Nadu at the moment. Only Economic Affairs Secretary in the Government of India, Shaktikanta Das of the 1980 batch who is looking after the entire demonetisation exercise, is senior to her. In going by the rule book and avoiding whimsical arbitrariness, Tamil Nadu has done the right thing. What’s more, Vaidyanathan at 57 has another two and a half years of service left.

The new chief secretary hails from an illustrious family from Nagercoil in south Tamil Nadu. She is the daughter of S Venkitaramanan, who was Reserve Bank of India governor from 1990 to 1992, in charge of India’s central bank when liberalisation began. A PhD in health economics from IIT Madras, Vaidyanathan’s forte has been the health and environment fields. Her colleagues in the bureaucracy give her credit for the fact that Tamil Nadu does very well on indices of fertility rate, infant and maternal mortality rate.

With Vaidyanathan’s posting, the first step towards flushing out the muck has been taken. Things had gotten so rotten in Tamil Nadu’s political and bureaucratic ecosystem that corruption had become a joint venture. Vaidyanathan’s tenure is significant because this is an officer with honest reputation, and she now has the responsibility to win back the Tamil Nadu bureaucracy its badge of honour.

A look at the track record of Vaidyanathan’s two predecessors would give you a sense of the rot in the system. It is not just Rao who is seen as having sullied the reputation of babu-dom in the state. Gnanidesikan was suspended after being removed as chief secretary, on charges linked to beach sand mining in southern Tamil Nadu. The fact that Jayalalithaa chose two allegedly tainted officers for the top job, reflects poorly on her judgement and the kind of government she ran.

Because Vaidyanathan’s brother-in-law is BJP leader and popular actor S.Ve.Shekher, it is being speculated that the NDA government at the Centre may have had a hand in her appointment. Votaries of this theory say this is because Vaidyanathan never got plum postings during AIADMK regimes. But that would be belittling Vaidyanathan’s abilities.

“Girija Vaidyanathan’s appointment is a balm for the wounds of honest bureaucrats in Tamil Nadu. We have had too many of the pliable and wheeler-dealer appointments that operated like a mafia,” says M G Devasahayam, former IAS officer.

Senior bureaucrats point out that many of Tamil Nadu’s problems arise because the chief secretary also holds the position of the Vigilance commissioner. This means a corrupt chief secretary and officers who obey his diktat can get away with murder because there is no one to challenge them within the Tamil Nadu administrative system. The state, in the interest of transparency and to clean up the dirt, would do well to appoint another senior officer to the vigilance post to facilitate independent probes.

 

Over the years in Tamil Nadu, especially under Jayalalithaa, the post of the chief secretary was sought to be devalued with the Advisor to the government having a decisive say in matters of governance. Vaidyanathan has her task cut out to restore to the chief secretary’s office its rightful place in the administration instead of being reduced to a mere post office between the chief minister’s office and other departments.

Admittedly, Vaidyanathan takes charge at a difficult time. The state is in a state of political flux after Jayalalithaa’s demise and the AIADMK’s attempt to prop up VK Sasikala, not just as party chief but even as chief minister. O Panneerselvam is not seen as an assertive CM, even though he is seen to have New Delhi’s backing. Vaidyanathan will have to hit the ground running.

 

The winds of change are beginning to blow in Tamil Nadu. And one thing is clear, it is a very good sign. In appointing Vaidyanathan, the Tamil Nadu government has corrected the wrong that was committed in June when Rao, a 1985 batch IAS officer was appointed, superseding 17 officers. In fact, Vaidyanathan, who belongs to the 1981 batch, was superseded even when K Gnanidesikan of the 1982 batch was appointed as chief secretary before Ramamohana Rao. Gnanidesikan had superseded 12 officers when he was appointed in December 2014..

DMK treasurer and opposition leader MK Stalin has demanded a special assembly session to debate, among other issues, the IT search of TN chief secretary’s office at Madras Fort.

The writing on the wall was clear after the income tax raids on chief secretary Ramamohana Rao’s residence and 12 other locations in Chennai, Bengaluru and Andhra Pradesh. That it was time for Tamil Nadu to clean up its act. Within 24 hours, Girija Vaidyanathan, an officer with a no-nonsense work ethic, was appointed as his successor. The political class reportedly wanted to wait till an FIR was filed but was advised that the raid had already dented the image of the government and any delay would only reflect poorly on the AIADMK.