Hezbollah leader warns US of repercussions over anti-Islam filmSheikh Hassan Nasrallah makes rare public appearance to support protests that are continuing from Tunisia to Indonesia
Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanon's powerful Hezbollahmovement, has called for new demonstrations to express outrage at a film that denigrates Islam and the prophet Muhammad, as unrest triggered by it continues from Tunisia to Indonesia. "Prophet of God, we offer ourselves, our blood and our kin for the sake of your dignity and honour," Nasrallah told supporters who chanted "death to Israel" and "death to America" at a rally in the southern Shia suburbs of Beirut. "The US should understand that if it broadcasts the film in full it will face very dangerous repercussions around the world." Nasrallah, who fears assassination by Israel, appears in public only rarely. Political opponents suggested that anger over the film, Innocence of Muslims, was a useful diversion from the bloody crisis in neighbouring Syria, where the Assad government, along with Iran, is a patron of the Lebanese militant group. In Tunis, police surrounded a mosque where a Salafi leader was meeting followers. Sheikh Saif-Allah Benhassine is wanted by police over clashes at the US embassy last week, but he managed to slip past the cordon and escape. President Barack Obama called US diplomatic staff in Sudan, Tunisia,Libya and Yemen at the weekend, to reassure them that their security is a top priority for the US government. Reflecting nervousness about the protests in the region, the US embassy in Beirut has started to destroy classified material as a security precaution, the Associated Press reported. In Benghazi, Libya's second city, the Islamist brigade suspected of involvement in the death of US ambassador Chris Stevens last week said that America was to blame for allowing the release of the film. "We categorically deny we were there," said Youssef el-Gehani, spokesman of the Ansar al-Sharia brigade. "American policies target some of the most sacred elements of our religion so you should expect a reaction," he told the Guardian. "The embassy [US consulate] knew how sensitive it was to have that film, they should have evacuated the embassy." At the weekend, Libya's de facto head of state, Mohamed al-Magariaf, said Ansar al-Sharia members were involved in the night-long assault that left four US consulate staff dead. He linked the group to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. Gehani warned that the US would continue to face attacks in Muslim countries. "If America wants respect in the Arab world, it should avoid spilling blood in places such as Syria and Afghanistan, and avoid insulting the prophet." His comments came amid chaos within Libya's government, with the deputy interior minister, Wanis al-Sharif, being sacked after claiming that 50 suspects had been arrested in connection with the attack on the anniversary of 9/11. The interior minister, Fawzi Abdul Al, insisted only four arrests had been made. On Sunday a video was released showing Stevens was still alive when he was found after the attack. A Libyan witness told the Associated Press that Stevens was still breathing, though his face was blackened and he seemed paralysed. In Pakistan, the prime minister, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, ordered the suspension of YouTube over the "blasphemous" Muhammad film. Two protesters were killed as police used teargas and fired into the air to control crowds which have grown since last week. Thousands of people shouting anti-American slogans took to the streets in Peshawar, Lahore, and, for a second day, in Karachi. Violent rage also spread to Kabul in Afghanistan, with hundreds of people taking to the streets, burning tyres and a car, and attacking police and a US base with stones. Indonesian police fired teargas and water cannon to disperse hundreds of demonstrators who massed outside the US embassy in Jakarta, the capital of the world's most populous Muslim country. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was quoted on state TV as saying that western leaders must prove they were not "accomplices" in a "big crime". In Egypt, two prominent figures are facing legal action over broadcasting a clip of the film. Khaled Abdallah, an ultra-conservative television anchor, and Nader Bakkar, spokesman of the Salafi al-Nour party, stand accused of instigating violence that led to the storming of the US embassy in Cairo. Tony Blair, meanwhile, told the BBC that the offending film was "wrong and offensive but also laughable as a piece of film-making". He added: "What is dangerous and wrong is the reaction to it." The family of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula left their California home in the middle of the night on Monday and have been taken to an undisclosed location, a Los Angeles police spokesman said. Nakoula has been identified by US federal authorities as the key figure behind Innocence of Muslims.
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Anti-Japan Demonstrations Spread, Costs Rising, as the Japan-China Crisis Worsens; China Defining New Regional Order; Panetta Due in Tokyo this Week
6 comments, 2 called-out + Comment now Is there anyone who still believes that the Noda government decision to “nationalize” the Senkaku islands (claimed and by China as their “sacred territory” and Protesters (front) hold a banner reading 'Diaoyu islands belong to China' as people march down a street in Weihai, in eastern China's Shandong province, to protest against Japan 'nationalizing' the Diaoyu islands, also known as the Senkaku Islands in Japanese, on September 11, 2012. China has dispatched two patrol ships to 'assert its sovereignty' over islands at the centre of a row with Japan, state media said on September 11, as Tokyo completed its purchase of the disputed territory. (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife) called Diaoyudao) was not a gigantic blunder? I would venture that by now–as they watch the spreading anti-Japanese protests in China, recently including attacks on Japanese diplomatic missions and pillaging of Japanese businesses–defenders of the government’s move in Japan are a small and still diminishing minority. The Chinese official line going into the crisis was that majority Japanese public opinion was against the provocative nationalization decision. I suppose there were some opinion surveys to this effect. What may have been typical Japanese expressions of diffidence and unease with forthright action may have allowed this Chinese interpretation, even if it was a stretch at the time. It is no stretch now to say that the ferocious (but, sadly, wholly predictable) Chinese popular and official reaction is sending pangs of doubt and fear throughout Japan, from fields and factories in the provinces, to the central government offices in Kasumigaseki and the Prime Minister residence in Akasaka, Tokyo. The Japanese press reported demonstrations in 85 Chinese cities yesterday. Crowds marching past the Japanese embassy in Beijing swelled to thousands. Crowds broke into the Japanese consulate in Guangzhou. Offices and factories of Japanese businesses have been attached and damaged. Canon is stoping production and locking down three of its four Chinese manufacturing plants, those making digital cameras and printers, for two days, the 17th and 18th. Panasonic is also closing until the 18th three plants in Guangdong, telling workers to stay home. Lion Corporation has closed its toothbrush plant in Qingdao. Many other Japanese businesses in other cities are shutting down or curtailing operations. Many, if not all, Japanese schools in China are suspending classes and telling students to stay home until the situation calms. Many companies are thinking to send back to Japan dependent family members of their Japanese managers. Planned travel to China is being curtailed. The crisis over the weekend claimed one high profile life: that of 60 year old Nishmiya Shinichi, the senior ministry of foreign affairs official who just weeks ago was appointed Japan’s new ambassador to China. Nishimiya has been in Tokyo, preparing to take up his post, working to exhaustion as the crisis has escalated. Only officially appointed last Tuesday, Nishimiya collapsed in the street near his Shibuya residence on Thursday. He died in the hospital Sunday. It would be comforting to think that this crisis is close to an end. Such wishful thinking is unrealistic. Much more likely is that we are just at the beginning. So far the damage to Japanese business interests has been from “popular,” rather than official, acts. But Chinese government retaliation has been promised and will certainly be delivered. And it will not be small. As I have written before, the political and economic reality is East Asia is that China has become the dominant local power, and its relative dominance grows by the year. At the same time, economic integration in East Asia has broadened and deepened, such that the importance of China for the economies of all the countries in the region has multiplied. At this point, while all the countries benefit from ties to each other, China is the queen bee on which all others rely most. The stark truth is that the other countries (not least Japan) need China more than China needs any of the countries. (That this is the historically the Chinese world view, and is offensive to modern sensibilities, does not make it less true.) Situations like the present (also the scrap with the Philippines over the Spratly islands) provide China an opportunity to employ its leverage and to nudge regional relations toward what it sees as a more natural order. But I have left out one of the other regional powers: the United States. Or have I? It should not escape notice that the U.S. has been of no help to Japan (or, to be sure, to China) in the Senkaku/Diaoyu dispute. I would suggest, rather, that U.S. influence (and the abiding but wistful faith in Japan’s U.S. client status still held by old timers in Japan’s political-military establishment) was a factor in the Noda government’s hugely miscalculated decision. But of course the U.S. is involved, if only because of the U.S.-Japan military alliance and the chance that the now dueling patrols of China and Japanese ships around the Senkakus/Diaoyudao could flash into hot fighting, the escalation from which could engulf Japan, China, and the U.S. So it is no surprise that U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is dropping into Tokyo this week for talks with the Noda government, to prepare for his next stop, Beijing. But no one is promising or expecting a U.S. effort at shuttle diplomacy to resolve this crisis. Sadly, the time for diplomacy came and went. It will come again, but not until some lessons about the new Asian order are taught and learned. |
PTAH
GOT ISHD ON BY WHAT I CREATED AND REPRESENTED THAT IZ EVERYBODY .NOW I KNOW THAT EVEREYBODY TRULY AIN'T GOING,(MAYBE EYE MIGHT SEE WHAT THE END GONE BE).KNOW MATTER HOW THEY DO YOU JUST KNOW THAT SOME PEOPLE ARE STILL HUSTLIN BACKWARDS Archives
October 2012
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