3. mai 2006

No death penalty for Moussaoui Life for Zacarias Moussaoui. I think the jury reached the right decision. 10:52:07 PM    comment []  trackback []

Did Iran's president threaten to wipe Israel off the map? Christopher Hitchens digs into Juan Cole, the resident Khomeini apologist: However, words and details and nuances do matter in all this, so I was not surprised to see professor Juan Cole of the University of Michigan denying that Ahmadinejad, or indeed Khomeini, had ever made this call for the removal of Israel from the map. Cole is a minor nuisance on the fringes of the academic Muslim apologist community. Read on. Some years ago, I was quite a bit involved in various Biblical debates, and it stuck me how people could always say that some Hebrew or Greek word meant something entirely different from what any normal translation would say, thus this particular pet verse meant the opposite of what everybody else believed. Obviously, if any word can mean anything including its opposite, translation and even communication is really impossible. It is interesting that such a strained apologetics has taken hold in the anyone-but-America fringe. PS: Slightly embarrassing to misspell "Israel" in the headline, and just before going to work so I was in no position to correct it. 2:27:33 AM    comment []  trackback []

Iran: China and Russia will veto sanctions Iran is convinced Russia and China will stand by it: Iran's foreign minister was quoted on Tuesday as saying that Russia and China had officially informed Tehran they would not support sanctions or military action over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. U.N. ambassadors from the United States, Britain and France are expected to introduce a resolution this week to legally oblige Iran to comply with U.N. Security Council demands it halt all uranium enrichment work. When asked how far Russia and China, veto-wielding permanent members of the council, would support Washington, Manouchehr Mottaki told the Kayhan newspaper: "The thing these two countries have officially told us and expressed in diplomatic negotiations is their opposition to sanctions and military attacks." "At the current juncture, I personally believe no sanctions or anything like that will be on the agenda of the Security Council," he said in the interview. That is probably what is going to happen. Russia has a cold war mentality, and China has its own oil-related motives. 2:20:13 AM    comment []  trackback []

© Copyright 2006 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.06.2006; 21:15:11.