A new beginning

Hope you like the new blog. The T&P on wordpress will be maintained as it is and its archives will be linked as background. It is much more comfortable to post in:

1. it is possible to embed other files, without using vodpod.
2. it supports plugins, so there are much more functionalities added to it.
3. it is also free, but with ads (I hope no one gets angry because of them).

I have to learn how to manage some things here, but they are not really important. 🙂

And so…. the posting continues.

PS: If someone wants his/her blog to be listed here, just add a comment here. Every blog that was already linked in T&P will be added.

(Have updated the post link. Tx Karen for the note).

Somalia: half of UN aid sent is stolen

Image via Wikipedia

The Guardian:

Up to half the food aid meant to feed hundreds of thousands of hungry people in Somalia is being stolen, according to a leaked UN security council report.

The report, seen by the New York Times, says the food is being diverted to corrupt contractors, radical Islamic militants and local UN workers. It advises the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, to open an independent investigation into the organisation’s world food programme operations in Somalia.

The losses are blamed on improper food distribution and the country’s war-ravaged infrastructure.

The bags of food have to be driven through roadblocks manned by a bewildering array of militias, insurgents and bandits.

Not only are kidnappings and executions common, the country’s insecurity also makes it difficult for senior UN officials to travel to the country to check on procedures. Investigators who do go there run the risk of relying for protection on the same people they are examining.

The worst of it all is that the own UN workers are stealing it. We will see what Ban Ki-Moon does about this, but remember that UN budget is paid with our own taxes, so these guys are stealing us too.

In the end, there is only one question that is important here: what’s going to do the UN with this?

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• UN: Most Somalian Food Aid Goes To Islamic Militants, UN Workers And Contractors (riehlworldview.com)
• Contractors ‘divert Somalia aid’ (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Half Somalia food aid is stolen, UN report says (telegraph.co.uk)

March 11th bombings anniversary

NEVER FORGET.

NOTE: We’re doing some changes to the blog, so some posts perhaps get lost or something. Before the end of the week, the changes will be annunced. Thanks.

"God is a Bolivarian"

Chávez’s idiot ranting of the day…

“The squalid ones are hoping it won’t rain,” Chavez said late on Tuesday, using his usual term for the opposition. “But it’s going to rain, you’ll see, because God is a ‘Bolivarian.’ God cannot be squalid. Nature is with us,” the socialist leader added during an event with athletes

(via).

technorati tags: Venezuela, Chávez, Bolivarian_Revolution

Google denounces censorship in Spain

Image by bfishadow via Flickr

Before the US Senate, Google executives have complained about blog censroship in Spain. Nicole Wong, the company’s lawyer, explained that is has been one of the countries with other democracies such as Pakistan or China, who have censored blogs on its platform.

Spain is included in this list for preventing two blogs from being published. Both blogs were published with Google’s Blogspot platform and both of them were asking for a cava and other catalan products’ boycott back in 2007.

What is remarkable is that both of those bloggers were blogging freely, while there are other platforms such as Omnium Cultural, who are receiving public money to support boycotts towards other products coming from other regions outside Catalonia.

Wong added that Google considers it’s necessary that the Governments “work harder to reduce censorship in Internet and to support freedom of expression in the net”.

Prominent Spanish blogger Prevost has noted something of interest:

From this blog, I have been supporting socialist blogs who could have been silenced by (center-right) PP. Since 2004, I have not seen once, only one post from Spanish left defending right-wing bloggers against censorship when they have been accused by the Totalitarian hand.

I’m not surprised by this. Not the least. Zapatero has insisted on his talante for years. Despite the number of times, he mentioned that word, he never said it was good talante.

Saudi King awards Erdogan

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan via last.fm

AP:

Saudi King Abdullah presented Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan with one of the country’s most prestigious prizes on Tuesday for his ‘service to Islam’.
Erdogan earned the King Faisal International Prize for having “rendered outstanding service to Islam by defending the causes of the Islamic nation, particularly the Palestinian cause and the just rights of the Palestinian people,” said Abd Allah al-Uthaimin of the prize-awarding group.
“At the international level, he was a leading Muslim founder of the call for rapport between civilisation and a passionate advocate of constructive dialogue, openess, and principles of international understanding and cooperation.”

It’s clear, isn’t it? The worst theocracy now existing is giving an award to a president of a democracy for “services to Islam by defending the causes of the Islamic nation“. Islamic nation is what they call Umma.

Whatever our ideas about Islam, it’s worrying Saudi Arabia (a supposed Western ally) considers Muslim people as a Nation, because this is an entirely political concept which has nothing to do with religion. It’s not worrying that Saudi Arabia gives a prize, it’s worrying the reason why King Faisal has given it to Erdogan, a man who was charged in the past for religious hate.

technorati tags: Erdogan, King_Faisal, Saudi_Arabia, Turkey

Before:

The Fethullah Gullah movement strenghens.

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