Democrats

He (Berlusca) did it again: a couple of years ago he had declared that Putin was a real democrat. A couple of weeks ago, in launching a new satellite TV channel he owns, declared in Tunisia that President Ben Ali, well known for his repression of any opposition, is a "sincere democrat".

Possibly his press agents and his little dog Frattini, so-called Minister for Foreign Affairs, had forgotten to draw his attention to the 2008 Human Rights Watch Periodic Review of Tunisia which said, among others, " The government uses the threat of terrorism and religious extremism as a pretext to crack down on peaceful dissent. There are continuous and credible reports of torture and ill-treatment being used to obtain statements from suspects in custody. Sentenced prisoners also face deliberate ill-treatment." ( http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/04/06/universal-periodic-review-tunisia ).

Who will be the next dictator crowned by Berlusconi as a real democrat? All the bets are for al Gaddafi Berlusconi just honoured with a visit and the sending of the
Italian Air Force acrobatic team.



Photo: iltempo.ilsole24ore.com

Apologies

(received via Email from Hungarian friend)

Dear World,

We, the United States of America, your top quality supplier of ideals of democracy, would like to apologize for our 2001-2008 interruption in service. The technical fault that led to this eight-year service outage has been located, and the software responsible was replaced November 4. Early tests of the newly installed program indicate that we are now operating correctly, and we expect it to be fully functional on January 20. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the outage. We look forward to resuming full service and hope to improve in years to come. We thank you for your patience and understanding,


Sincerely,
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Burma and the Bejing Olympics

Big debate these days as to whether the Olympic games should be boycotted or not. Only Ms Merkel so far stated, to my knowledge, that she will not attend the opening ceremony. Sarkozy is playing his games: he wants to go, he needs to go for economic reasons (and possibly also promised it to his wife….) but he was also elected on a program placing human rights at the top. So far he did not deliver in this area either.

To my recollection, President Bush stated that he would attend the opening ceremony: guess what, he wants to offer his smiling wife a last gorgeous trip before retirement in "bloody" Texas.

The Department of State publishes every year the report on human rights where the only country missing is the US ! This is called Transparency. And possibly Mr. Bush's cabinet does not read that report which sounds more as another window dressing excuse to hide the fact that the USA are far behind in this area.

Now we are facing the scandal in Burma, where the military regime does not allow relief workers and food etc. to come in. If ever there has been one, this is a situation which justifies a foreign intervention. But China will block it, and possibly also Russia and some other “freedom” lover countries in the UN Security Council such as Libya and Vietnam.

Is then China going to help Burma on its own ? China is the main ally (and more) of the military regime there. China is supporting Norh Korea, a regime starving its people. China supports Sudan in its war in Darfur. China sends arms to Mugabe to crash the democracy.

But President Bush, the defender of Human Rights, will go to Bejing for the Olympics...And possibly Berlusconi, and Sarkozy and plenty of other Heads of State and Government.

Trade is worth more than hundreds of thousand of lives. Thanks to Trade and Liberalism, people get the human right to die like animals while the Heads of State get fed by China and enjoy games.

God bless China and the US for their fight for Human Rights.

Pictures: Burma =Reuters for Repubblica, 9/5/08; Stadium = Official Bejing web site