The chengguan urban management officers are meant to enforce non-criminal administrative regulations. Numerous cases of beatings and illegal detention suggest it’s time to rein them in.
Street vending in many Chinese cities has become a risky business due to the chengguan Urban Management Law Enforcement, (城管执法) a para-police organization to enforce non-criminal administrative regulations.
Human Right Watch interviewed victims and witnesses to attacks by the chengguan and found that in some circumstances, chengguan enforcement of those regulations, which range from traffic rules to environmental and city beautification ordinances, has made the agency a threat to, rather than a guarantor of, public safety. The absence of effective official supervision, training, and discipline has contributed to assaults on suspected administrative law violators leading to serious injury or death, illegal detention, and unlawful confiscation of property. 
Britain said Tuesday that Prime Minister David Cameron is free to meet with anyone he chooses, after China said the premier's meeting with the Dalai Lama was an "affront to the Chinese people".
___________________________________ The Britons are still under the mistaken impression that the 'Empire" still lives ! ___________________________________ 
Women in Afghanistan are worried that the freedoms they have won since U.S. forces toppled the brutal Taliban regime 10 years ago will be squandered if the Islamic hard-liners return to power through a U.S.-led peace process. __________________________________ Doe: The women of Afghanistan have been screaming at the top of their voices but who hears them? Obama ? No. Obama does not understan that this is not the Korean War or the Vietnammes offensive. It is Much much bigger than Vietnam and Korea Combined. __________________________________
A real war on women is brewing in Afghanistan. Women there are worried that the freedoms they have won since U.S. forces toppled the brutal Taliban regime 10 years ago will be squandered if the Islamic hard-liners return to power through a U.S.-led peace process.
“Dark days are in Afghanistan’s future,” said Manizha Naderi, who heads the civil rights group Women for Afghan Women. U.S. and Afghan officials and the Taliban have been engaged for several months in an effort to initiate peace talks that could lead to the militants playing a role in government.
“If there are negotiations with the Taliban, women’s rights will be the first to go, and women will be forced to stay at home all over again,” Ms. Naderi said in a phone interview from Kabul.
Afghan women bore the brunt of the Taliban’s strict enforcement of Islamic law until U.S. forces overthrew the regime for sheltering al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The Taliban regrouped as a militant force and claimed credit this week for coordinated suicide bombings in Kabul and other cities.
Under the Taliban regime, girls were banned from going to school and women’s educational institutions were closed. Many women were forced to quit their jobs and required to wear burqas.
Taliban fighters perpetrated egregious acts of violence against women, including rape, abduction and forced marriage, according to a 2001 report by the State Department.
Unmarried women who were caught with unrelated men were whipped in stadiums full of people. Married women in similar circumstances were stoned to death.
Now schools across Afghanistan brim with girls. Access to health care has reduced the female mortality rate. Women play a role in politics and public life, and the Afghan Constitution criminalizes violence against women.
Dangers remain
The Taliban still routinely threaten women who have taken on public roles in society. In some instances, female politicians and social workers have been killed.
In an attack Tuesday that officials blamed on extremists opposed to female education, about 140 Afghan girls and teachers were poisoned by contaminated drinking water at a high school in the northern Takhar province. Some remained in critical condition at a hospital, while others were treated and released.
“We all are afraid of the Taliban coming back in any shape, whether in power in government or as an independent political party,” said Nilofar Sakhi, chairwoman of Women’s Activities and Social Services Association, based in Afghanistan’s western city of Herat. Story Continues → Via Women's Action Group CHELSEA 
Iran is promoting a fundamentalist cleric close to its supreme leader as a possible successor for the aging spiritual leader of Iraq’s Shiites in a move that would give Tehran a powerful platform to influence its neighbor, according to sources...
The 81-year-old spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is one of the most influential figures in Iraq, revered by its Shiite majority as well as by Shiites around the world.
In the years after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and fall of Saddam Hussein, he was strong enough to shape the new Iraq, forcing American leaders and Iraqi politicians to revise parts of their transition plans he opposed.
The man Iran is maneuvering in hopes of eventually replacing him is Grand Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, a prominent insider in the clerical hierarchy that rules Iran.
He was the head of Iran’s judiciary for 10 years until 2009, playing a major role in suppressing the country’s reform movement, and sits on one of Iran’s main ruling councils. 
The shocking images of Jamphel Yeshi’s self-immolation have provided a rallying point for Tibetan exiles and an expression of the anger and frustration Tibetans suffer over Chinese rule. 
CPJ Press Freedom Online (blog)How to stop rumors in China: Stop censorshipCPJ Press Freedom Online (blog)The Chinese government blames the international media, not its own lack of transparency and comprehensive censorship apparatus, for the... 
A Tibetan exile lit himself on fire and ran shouting through a demonstration in the Indian capital Monday, just ahead of a visit by China's president and amid a series of self-immolations done to protest Beijing's rule in Tibet... 
Home ownership is meant to be part of the Chinese dream. But for many, real estate has become a nightmare. 
Iraq’s former prime minister says the United States is ignoring an “emerging dictatorship” in his country, telling The Washington Times that Iran is “swallowing” Iraq and dictating its strategic policies.
Ayad Allawi, who served as prime minister from 2004 to 2005, accused Iran of meddling in Iraqi politics to the point that Tehran “is becoming the dominant feature of Iraq,” and claimed that some U.S. officials “concede secretly” that “Iran won, got the best advantage of what happened in Iraq.”
Mr. Allawi made the comments amid political and civil upheaval in the wake of the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in December. At least 52 Iraqis were killed Tuesday in bomb attacks across the country, and Iraq’s vice president is eluding arrest on terrorist charges that are widely seen as politically motivated.
Meanwhile, al Qaeda attacks like those Tuesday have raised questions about Iraq’s internal security as Baghdad prepares to host a long-delayed Arab League summit Tuesday that is expected to address the threat of a civil war in Syria and messy transitions in Egypt, Libya and Yemen. 
The Tibetan people continue to defy Chinese rule as large scale protests and incidents of dissent are taking place on a daily basis, including at Bora (RT @MandieTibetNet: Tibetan ‘Tsampa revolution’ gathers pace http://t.co/6ANzHrNL...)... Via Tsering Dhondup
It sounds a lot like the old, military-run Burma, and not much like the reform-minded new one... 
Tens of thousands of Iraqi Shias hold a large rally in the southern city of Basra demanding better living conditions.
Supporters of the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr used the protest to demand better living conditions.
They shouted slogans criticising government corruption and held electric cables to highlight power cuts.
Meanwhile, at least three people were killed in bomb attacks east of Baghdad.
Dozens others were injured in the bombings in Diyala province, Iraqi officials said. 
Syrian security forces clashed Monday with gunmen in an upscale neighborhood of the capital Damascus that is home to embassies and senior officials in one of the worst confrontations in the tightly-controlled city center in the country’s yearlong...
The clash deep in Mazzeh district in west Damascus shows the shifting nature of the conflict in Syria, and suggests that rebels might be trying to offset government morale gains from recent successful offensives against opposition strongholds areas in the north and center of Syria by striking close to where senior regime members live.
Damascus has been largely free of the daily shootings and deaths reported across the country since the uprising against Assad began in March last year. But in addition to gunbattles in Mazzeh and in the suburbs, the capital has witnessed several major bomb attacks targeting security facilities, most recently on Saturday. The government blames “terrorists” for the bombings but the opposition says that the regime itself may be carrying them out to discredit the uprising.
Monday’s fighting broke out when security forces stormed an apartment used as a hideout by an “armed terrorist” group in Mazzeh after evacuating the building of all inhabitants, the state-run news agency SANA said. |
DO not miss the Video ____________________________________ "The Taliban are basically Pakistani military without uniform. They started beheading westerners after 9/11 but we were being beheaded by these religious butchers long ago."
Hyrbyar Marri is the fifth son of Nawab Khair Baksh Marri, a veteran national leader and the head of the largest Baloch clan.
In the late 1990s Hyrbar Marri went into exile in Britain. In 2007, he was arrested under a warrant issued by former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and held in Belmarsh - a maximum security prison in southeast London. Prominent British human rights advocates such as Peter Thatchell campaigned for Marri and accused the British executive of collaborating with Musharraf's regime. Marri was eventually acquitted in 2008 by a British jury and remains in Britain where he has recently been granted asylum. 
The West doesn't need to lift an arms embargo to help arm Burma. Lifting investment restrictions will do the job.
The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday announced a relaxation of financial sanctions against Burma for non-profit and humanitarian-related activities. It’s a significant move, and smarter than the action taken by the U.K., Australia and Norway.
Last week, during a trip to Burma, British Prime Minister David Cameron declared his support for the suspension of sanctions. Norway and Australia soon followed suit and said they were dropping sanctions against Burma, too. An arms embargo is therefore virtually all that will be left of these countries’ sanctions, and the European Union is also likely to support the U.K. position in its annual review of Burma policy next week.
If the European Union decides to suspend crucial measures such as an investment ban and visa and financial restrictions on members of the regime, then European policy on Burma will depart dramatically from U.S. policy. Yet given the reality of the situation in Burma, the U.S. caution on the issue seems a much more sensible response to unfolding events. 
China has stated it was the "correct decision" to launch a probe into Bo Xilai after his wife was arrested in connection with the death of British businessman Neil Heywood.
An editorial in the People's Daily, the newspaper that the Communist party uses to communicate to its cadres across the country, said Mr Heywood's death was a "serious criminal case" and that "Bo Xilai's actions have seriously violated the party's discipline, caused damage to the party and to the country, and harmed the image of the party and the country".
QUETTA: A strike was observed in parts of Balochistan on Tuesday against accession of the province to Pakistan on March 27, 1948. 
Spiritual guru of the ‘Art of Living (AOL)' fame Sri Sri Ravi Shankar on Tuesday offered to engage with the Taliban to help resolve the ongoing conflict. Speaking to his followers in the federal capital after opening the first AOL Peace Centre in Pakistan, he said: “I want to talk to the Taliban, understand them; give them my opinion, my piece of mind.”
This was his refrain through his interactions here; both with his followers and the media. Asked how AOL could be used to deal with the situation facing Pakistan and Afghanistan, he said: “AOL should engage in conflict resolution wherever possible. We can make a difference. We should keep trying and not give up.”
A Tibetan exile lit himself on fire and ran shouting through a demonstration in the Indian capital Monday, just ahead of a visit by China's president and amid a series of self-immolations done to protest Beijing's rule in Tibet... 
Over the last twenty years, the PRC has gradually implemented policies to erase Tibetan identity and promote a national, overreaching Chinese identity. It determined that the rights of ethnic minorities granted in a 1984 law on Minority Regional Autonomy seriously threatened the authority of the central government and, in 2001, new and changed laws were passed that "downplayed the role of minority languages and cultures while promoting...Mandarin as the super language". Now, "everyone is a member of the Chinese nation, a category that supersedes the separate ethnic nationalities". Thus, Tibetan ethnicity has been reduced to a personal identity, a matter of choice rather than a defined status under Chinese rule.
The central leaders have attempted to address the continuing "Tibetan problem" with the solution of development and assimilation. Yet, development theory is inherently flawed because it assumes all subjected cultures desire the consumerist culture of the West. But evidence suggests strongly that six decades of the Soviet model only strengthened Tibetan identity, revalidated Tibetan culture, history, values, language, and solidarity. Via Committee of 100 for TIbet 
The authorities in Beijing, alarmed about the threat to stability in a region seething with discontent over religious and cultural controls, have responded with heavy-handed measures. 
China's Internet has been abuzz with rumors of a coup. It's unlikely, but still highlights real tensions in Beijing.
Fresh from creating headlines around the world with rumors of the demise of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un last month, Chinese microblog users have been at it again, with the Internet in China lighting up yesterday with rumors of a coup. _________________________________ and the chatter on the Weibo microblog that tanks were rolling through Beijing was almost certainly nonsense. _________________________________
The Kim rumors proved unfounded (he has since been photographed alive and well at military exercises), and the chatter on the Weibo microblog that tanks were rolling through Beijing was almost certainly nonsense. (Indeed, images of the military that appeared in the Epoch Times that were purportedly taken this week were later found to have been taken from a military website, and dated back to 2010, when parade preparations were taking place.)
But in both cases, there were understandable reasons why the rumors took off. In North Korea, with talk of Kim Jong-un struggling to assert his authority following his father’s death (which itself was only discovered by the outside world when it was announced on an official news bulletin), the idea that Kim Jong-il’s son had been assassinated didn’t sound so outrageous to many. 
For the first time the UN Security Council viewed the results of the Mission in Libya operation after it was established in September last year. The report of UN Secretary General was submitted for the Council’s consideration to convince its members that the prolongation of the Mission’s activities was necessary. That’s what was done. The UN Security Council took decision to extend the operation of the Mission for a further period of up to 12 months and specified a new mandate. As it states the Mission is to aid the Libyan authorities to define national requirements and priorities throughout the whole country; to promote the rule of law, to monitor and protect human rights, to restore public security, to fight illegal proliferation of all types of arms and related material (shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles known as man portable air defense systems are of particular concern). ... 
Myanmar's ongoing liberalization and its normalization of relations with the outside world have the possibility of profoundly affecting geopolitics in Asia – and all for the better. ... 
An explosion struck near a Syrian government security building in the northern city of Aleppo on Sunday, while a harsh security crackdown prevented opposition rallies marking one year since the first nationwide protests of the uprising against...
The Syrian state news agency called the Aleppo explosion a “terrorist bombing” and said one policeman and one female civilian were killed, and 30 were injured. It was the second attack in two days on regime strongholds.
Three suicide bombings in Damascus on Saturday killed 27 people. Two of them also targeted government security buildings, and the regime accused the opposition, which it claims is made up of “terrorist” groups carrying out a foreign conspiracy.
Aleppo and the capital, Damascus, Syria’s two largest cities, have been struck by several suicide bombings since December. Both are critical centers of support for Mr. Assad and have remained relatively insulated from the unrest shaking much of the country for the past year.
No one has claimed responsibility for any of the weekend attacks.
Mohammed Saeed, an Aleppo resident, said a car bomb exploded in the early afternoon about 200 yards from the Political Security Directorate. Security forces started shooting in the air and cordoned off the area to prevent people from approaching. |
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