#1
If you enjoy Bergman's films, there was a comedy short made in 1968, a parody of his films, called "De Duva"
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0062906/
which Bergman himself thought was hilarious. It was filmed in 16mm, though can be found on the Internet. It includes a young comedienne, Madeline Kahn, who later hit it big.
#3
Bergman is certainly one of our era's great directors. Who can forget the drama and symbolism of his famous scene where the protagonist and Death play a game of Twister?
What's nice is to think that Europe is a beacon for africans emigrating from their sweet homeland, bringing their cultural habits along them, including violence toward wimmen (compounded by the perceived lack of virility of white men and the "white women are easy" sterotype); one famous example is the infamous "black demolition" gang (from the Congo area) in Brussel/Belgium, with its spree of recreational gangrapes. By Robert Evans
GENEVA (Rooters) - Extreme sexual violence against women is pervasive in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and local authorities do little to stop it or prosecute those responsible, a U.N. investigator said on Monday.
Rape and brutality against women and girls are "rampant and committed by non-state armed groups, the Armed Forces of the DRC, the National Congolese Police, and increasingly also by civilians", said Turkish lawyer Yakin Erturk.
"Violence against women seems to be perceived by large sectors of society to be normal," she added in a report after an 11-day trip to the strife-torn country.
Erturk, special rapporteur for the United Nations Human Rights Council on violence against women, said the situation in South Kivu province, where rebels from neighboring Rwanda operate, was the worst she had ever encountered.
The atrocities perpetrated there by armed groups, some of whom seemed to have been involved in the 1994 Rwandan massacres in which 800,000 people were killed, "are of an unimaginable brutality that goes far beyond rape", she said.
"Women are gang raped, often in front of their families and communities. In numerous cases, male relatives are forced at gun point to rape their own daughters, mothers or sisters," she said.
After rape, many women were shot or stabbed in the genital area, and survivors told Erturk that while held as slaves by the gangs they had been forced to eat excrement or the flesh of their murdered relatives.
Widespread sexual abuse in the various conflicts racking the republic -- which last year held elections hailed as marking a new era -- "seems to have become a generalized aspect of the overall oppression of women", Erturk said.
Her report followed charges from U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour last week that soldiers and police used excessive force, including summary executions, in quelling opposition protesters in the west of the DRC earlier this year.
In the central Equateur province, the police and army often responded to civil unrest "with organized armed reprisals that target the civilian population and involve indiscriminate pillage, torture and mass rape", the report found.
Although the DRC parliament outlawed sexual violence in July 2006, "little action is taken by the authorities to implement the law and perpetrators continue to enjoy immunity, especially if they wear the state's uniform," Erturk said.
Erturk said Congo's justice system was corrupt and in "a deplorable state", while conditions in prisons were "scandalous".
Senior army and police officers shielded their men from prosecution, and when some were arrested they escaped easily, probably "with the complicity of those in charge".
In a few cases courts had ordered the state and individuals to compensate victims. But "to this day the government has not paid reparations to a single victim who has suffered sexual violence at the hand of state agents", said Erturk.
Awami League chief and detained former Prime Minister Hasina Wajed has challenged the legality of the extortion case filed against her by the interim government. Hasinas lawyers filed a petition signed by her in the Dhaka High Court yesterday. The court is expected to take up the petition today. We have lots of grounds to challenge the government and we hope we will win, Sahara Khatun, a lawyer for Hasina, told reporters before filing the petition.
Hasina, leader of the Awami League, was arrested on July 16 and sent to a house converted into a prison inside Dhakas sprawling Parliament compound. Charges of extorting money from a businessman were formally filed against her a week later. The court has accepted the petition, and it is likely to fix a time for hearing it soon, a court registrar said. A senior police officer said yesterday formal charges against Hasina will be filed soon for prosecution in another extortion case. Police filed two cases against Hasina in June for extorting 80 million taka ($1.16 million) from two businessmen.
Meanwhile in response to Hasinas request the powerful anti-corruption commission has extended the deadline for submitting her wealth statement until end of the next week.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/30/2007 00:00 ||
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Gordon Brown today flies to Washington for his first summit with President George Bush, after issuing a ringing endorsement of Britain's 'special relationship' with the US. As he prepares the Labour party for a possible election next spring, the Prime Minister attempted to neutralise the divisive issue of the transatlantic alliance with a declaration of where Britain's interests lie.
'It is in the British national interest that the relationship with the United States is our single most important bilateral relationship,' the Prime Minister said in remarks that are designed to make it clear that Brown will not abandon the Atlantic alliance for cheap electoral gain.
Reality always sets in, doesn't it?
Brown's unequivocal declaration, as he prepares to hold his first talks as Prime Minister with President Bush over dinner at Camp David, is a strong signal of his determination to maintain the Atlantic alliance, after Washington had been alarmed by what it saw as mixed messages from London.
Lord Malloch Brown, the Foreign Office Minister, had said that Britain should no longer be 'joined at the hip' with America.
And now he's been set straight.
While Brown sends warm signals to Washington, he is unlikely to personally align himself so closely to Bush in the way Tony Blair did. The Brown camp knows that the perception of Blair as Bush's 'poodle' was a key factor in undermining the former Prime Minister, which in turn damaged Labour in the polls.
Brown has spent the past month attempting to wipe out such negatives as he prepares the ground for the next election. At a special political session of the cabinet at Chequers on Thursday ministers agreed that Douglas Alexander, the election co-ordinator, would place the Labour party on an election footing.
Ministers discussed the possibility of calling an election as early as this autumn to exploit the 'Brown bounce' in the polls. The Prime Minister believes it would be wrong to call a snap election because he feels it is important to prove to voters that he can deliver change. But a spring election next year looks increasingly likely after ministers heard a glowing report based on Labour's private polling. There is also concern that Brown should act quickly before a feared economic downturn.
The cabinet was told that all the negative aspects about Brown - that he was seen as scruffy, a plotter after last September's mini coup, as well as a divisive figure - have now been replaced by positive views, as he is seen as a serious figure who is uniting his party and who dresses well.
However, David Cameron's ratings have headed in the opposite direction, according to Labour's polling. Positive views about him - that he was likeable, young and energetic - have been replaced by negative views that he is shallow and addicted to spin. Ministers were told that these views are beginning to harden.
Brown made clear he is an ardent Atlanticist when he said no major global problems could be solved without the US. 'We know that we cannot solve any of the world's major problems without the active engagement of the US. And just as Britain and America have always stood side by side in tackling the great global challenges of the past, so we will continue to work very closely together as friends to tackle the great global challenges of the future.
'The relationship between an American President and a British Prime Minister will always be strong, and I am looking forward to my meeting with President Bush to discuss how we can work together to meet many of the great challenges we face.'
Brown and Bush will meet over dinner tonight at the presidential retreat of Camp David, where they will discuss Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, the Middle East peace process and climate change. Brown is also set to meet Ban Ki Moon, the UN secretary-general, tomorrow in New York.
LONDON - More than a third of people of South Asian ethnic origin in Britain hardly feel British, according to a BBC survey out on Monday. Some 38 percent of South Asians said they felt only slightly or not at all British, in a poll for BBC Asian Network radio marking the 60th anniversary of the partition of India.
You don't act so British, either.
Almost half felt they were not treated as British by white Britons and three-quarters felt their culture was being diluted by living in the kingdom.
Your culture is supposed to be diluted by living in Britain: if you want to live in an 'undiluted' culture, go back to South Asia!
More than a third of South Asians surveyed said they agreed that in order to do well in Britain, they needed to be a coconut -- a sometimes derogatory term for somebody who is brown on the outside but white on the inside.
If you're going to live in Britain you have to be British. It's a given. British culture is broad and deep, and it's accomodating to a large degree. You can bring to it the best of the parts of South Asian culture. But you have to be British in the end.
Twelve percent said they considered themselves to be coconuts.
However, 84 percent of South Asians said they were satisfied with life in Britain and nearly half thought they had more opportunities in Britain than in their countries of ethnic origin.
Which is why you came in the first place. Quid pro quo.
Half of South Asians and nearly two-thirds of whites surveyed agreed it was too easy for immigrants to enter Britain.
The 2001 census recorded that 2,331,423 people, or four percent of the British population, classified themselves as being Asian or Asian British. That included 1.8 percent of the population who said they were of Indian origin, 1.3 percent who said they had Pakistani roots and 0.5 percent who said they were of Bangladeshi origin.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/30/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
--Half of South Asians and nearly two-thirds of whites surveyed agreed it was too easy for immigrants to enter Britain.--
#2
This has been evident for quite some time. When does the House of Lords start discussions of mass deportation of traitorous louts who have no intention of becoming loyal British citizens and only want to undermine the country ?
#6
Since they have agglomerated all South Asians together my guess is that it was for hiding that the proportion was noticeably higher (probably over 50% between Muslims). Remember this is the BBC.
Keep also in mind that this is what they are saying to Kaffir interviewers. Take takiyah into account and you will end with over two thirds of disloyalty.
#9
Here is the means of showing that the immigrant communities can organise to consolidate their members, to agitate and campaign against their fellow citizens, and to overawe and dominate the rest with the legal weapons which the ignorant and the ill-informed have provided.
As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see the River Tiber foaming with much blood.
That tragic and intractable phenomenon which we watch with horror on the other side of the Atlantic but which there is interwoven with the history and existence of the States itself, is coming upon us here by our own volition and our own neglect. Indeed, it has all but come. In numerical terms, it will be of American proportions long before the end of the century.
Only resolute and urgent action will avert it even now. Whether there will be the public will to demand and obtain that action, I do not know. All I know is that to see, and not to speak, would be the great betrayal.
Enoch Powell was right. Only the blood flowing in the Tiber is from the dismembered bodies of English men and women blown to pieces on their way to work.
XIWANZI, China, JULY 29, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Four priests have been arrested and detained for refusing to join the Patriotic Association, the government body that oversees religious practice in the country.
Three of the priests were arrested July 24, at the home of Catholic faithful in the Ximeng region of Inner Mongolia, the Cardinal Kung Foundation reported. Father Liang Aijun, 35, Father Wang Zhong, 41, and Father Gao Jinbao, 34, were hiding in order to avoid arrest, but were finally caught by eight plainclothes men.
During the initial phase of the arrest, the priests were locked up in a cage, prohibited from talking to anyone and refused water. They have now been transferred to an undisclosed location. The fourth priest, Father Cui Tai, 50, of Shuangshu Village, Zhuolu County, was detained after a minor motorcycle accident in early July. He has been detained at the public security and religious bureau since the accident.
Father Cui, of the Diocese of Xuanhua, Hebei, has also refused to register with the Patriotic Association.
According to the Cardinal Kung Foundation, at least five bishops are in jail and others are under house arrest and surveillance. About 15 priests and an unknown number of laypeople are also jailed.
President General Pervez Musharraf and PPP Chairwoman Benazir Bhutto are likely to meet in Abu Dhabi again in September to formally conclude a full-fledged deal ahead of the presidential elections expected in the same month, Daily Times has learnt. Government and PPP sources claim that Musharraf and Benazir had settled most of the contentious issues in Fridays meeting in Abu Dhabi and the remaining would be decided in mid-September in the UAE capital when the president would be flexing his muscles for re-election.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/30/2007 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
By Robert Evans
Awami League chief and detained former Prime Minister Hasina Wajed has challenged the legality of the extortion case filed against her by the interim government. Hasinas lawyers filed a petition signed by her in the Dhaka High Court yesterday. The court is expected to take up the petition today. We have lots of grounds to challenge the government and we hope we will win, Sahara Khatun, a lawyer for Hasina, told reporters before filing the petition.
Gordon Brown today flies to Washington for his first summit with President George Bush, after issuing a ringing endorsement of Britain's 'special relationship' with the US. As he prepares the Labour party for a possible election next spring, the Prime Minister attempted to neutralise the divisive issue of the transatlantic alliance with a declaration of where Britain's interests lie.
LONDON - More than a third of people of South Asian ethnic origin in Britain hardly feel British, according to a BBC survey out on Monday. Some 38 percent of South Asians said they felt only slightly or not at all British, in a poll for BBC Asian Network radio marking the 60th anniversary of the partition of India.
XIWANZI, China, JULY 29, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Four priests have been arrested and detained for refusing to join the Patriotic Association, the government body that oversees religious practice in the country.
