Happy Thanksgiving

Happy thanksgiving to my american readers!

Iron lady comes, iron lady leaves

It´s quite ironic that the new leader of Germmany, Angela Merkel, enters her journey as Germany´s first Kanzlerin , exactly 15 years on the day after the departure of Margeret Thatcher. Die grosse koalition, the second time in modern post world war II history after the 1966-1969 Kiesinger government, was in my view the worst possible scenario. The 143 page document regulating the relationship and issues within the government does not bode well. It will probably only increase the apathy for politics among the German public. The unspoken question of the day is probably , for how long will the forced marriage last?

Angela Merkel

Sharon goes Ben Gurion

It seems Ariel Sharon has decided to leave the likud, and create a new party. The party wil be a a centrist party, It will probably include some of the current Likud ministers like current minister of Finance Ehud Olmert and minister of Justice Livni, as well as Dan Meridor if he choses to make a comeback into politics once again. The move comes after a long split in the party, regarding the unilateral Gaza pullout and the continuing peace process. Ariel Sharon, once called the bulldozer, and known for his tough stance against the peace process. A former hawk and former ultra likudist, is actually aiming for the center in Israeli politics. In the process he´s doing something that the father of the Israeli state, David Ben Gurion made in 1965, when he decided to leave Mapai and formed the Rafi party togheter with Moshe Dayan and Shimon Peres. The decision to leave Mapai was prompted by the Lavon Affair.

The Likud is likely to have an interesting month ahead, with electing a new party leader and contender for the premiership as it´s imidiate priority. Bibi Nethanyahu is probably the first choice, but others likely to run for the party leadership position is Silwan Shalom , and Uzi Landau.

On the other side of the political divide, Amir Peretz has become the darling of the media, since becoming Labour party leader in a surprise party election a week ago. This is a candidate , that has a new vision for the israeli society, under the slogan ¨another Israel¨ He will focus on closing the gap between rich and poor in Israel, as well as direct dialouge with the palestinian leadership, as opposite to Ariel Sharon´s unilateral withdrawel from the Gaza strip and some small parts of the West bank. He has also followed in Ben Gurions footsteps by first becoming the Histadrut(Israels largest trade union) chairman and then carry on to be the labour party leader.

Bibi Nethanyahu dosen´t seem to keen on changing the status quo.

So Bibi is likely to win the internal Likudpartyleadership and taking the right of center votes, Ariel Sharon going from the 1982 Ultra Likud Sharon to the Likud light of 2006, and Amir Peretz is going back to the party´s old socialist roots, suddenly there seems to be an abundance of ideological and political choices for the Israeli people in February or March of 2006. Will the israelis rise to the occasion this time around

UPDATE

Transforming the revolution ?

This Independent article about transexuals in Iran. The fatwa issued in 1983 by Ayyatollah Khomeini radically changed the situation and the stigmatization of the transexuals, while this single fatwa, probably one of the most liberal fatwas ever written, perhaps togheter with a few of Grand Ayyatolah Sistanis fatwas concerning sex within the marriage.

A soundbite : Milad says "I did not want to have to wear a chador. Now I can pray in boxer shorts if I feel like it, and I never miss prayers,". But perhaps my favourite is Amin, who now happens to be a revolutinary guardist, the ultimate protectors of the revolution and it´s values. The story behind the issuing of the historic Ayyatolah Khomeini fatwa was also quite interesting.

Iran

10th anniversary of murder of Israeli PM Rabin

Today it´s 10 year´s on the day since the Israeli Prime minister Yitzak Rabin was murdered by Yigal Amir, after attending a peace rally in central Tel Aviv, i remember that night like yesterday, i felt devestated, what looked so good, was not to be. Rabin had just signed Oslo 2 a few days before, and the dream of peace didn´t seem that far away. My thoughts went to my Israeli and Palestinean friends, who visited us in Sweden , and that we in turn visited just after the signing of the Oslo accords on the White house lawn in September 1993. I remember sitting glued to the tv-set at the funeral, watching Leah Rabin, and seeing the concrete legacy of the man, in the arab statesmen who participated in the funeral, among them King Hussein and Hosni Mubarak, who´d never been on a state visit to Israel.

Now it´s 10 year´s on and King Hussein and Rabin´s nemesis Hafez al Assad are both dead, as are Rabin´s partner in the peace of the braves.
Those who are left from that time, Peres the third partner has long proven not to be able to deliver on his grand words. Soon after the death of Rabin, the combined forces of Hamas suicide bombers and the rising star of the Israeli right, brother of the Entebe war hero, Bibi Nethanyahu kicked Shimon Peres, the statesman and Nobel laurete, out of office, and derailed Israel of the peacetrack.

The rest is history, but Yitzhak Rabins memory is still with us.

To read more about Yitzhak Rabin and here

Yitzhak Rabin

Shedding some light on wherabouts of black site prisons

In today´s Financial Times the WaPo story that broke yesterday continues. According to Human Rights Watch , two of the Eastern European countries likely to have provided facilities are Poland and Romania. Flight records from prisoners flown out of Afghanistan suggests that. The spokesperson from Poland´s ministry of Defence denied the existence of any facilities on polish soil, and a spokeswoman for the Romanian president declined to answer. Russia,Bulgaria and Thailand issued statements denying that any kind of facilities for that purpose exists.

The European Commission stated on thursday that they will look into the matter. The Un special rapporteur on torture, Manfred Novak is also preparing an investigation on the same subject.

In an editorial in today´s NYT, the prison Puzzle, the argument goes a bit furter, it´s the new congress legislation that was passed by 90 to 9, but an attempt to block by the White house, because of ¨vague¨ language in the Geneva convention, vague in the negative sense, to much protection, in other words , to clear for Dick Cheney and ¨Scooter¨ Libby´s replacement, MR ¨Torture¨, David Addington, one of the men behind ¨the torture memo¨ in 2002. Pentagon also preferes a change back to using the pre 9/11 legislation, including applying the Geneva convention in full. The US is loosing to much of it´s moral high ground in continuing on this path. State department seems to prefer the same, so left is only the vice president and his office, and it seems that the President is willing to stake his military budget on this question. WELL ONLY THREE YEARS LEFT OF THIS MADDNESS, and i could see John McCain becoming the Republican candidate in 2008, for the sane republicans.

Ai´d Mubarak !

Aíd Mubarak to all Muslims in the world !!

CIA black site prisons

Read this story in today´s WaPo, It dosen´t seem to be an end to all this.