Iranian Insanity

The Onion is satire as the piece below shows. Above is a screen shot from Al Jazeera .

" CHARLESTON, WV—According to the results of a Gallup poll released Monday, the overwhelming majority of rural white Americans said they would rather vote for Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than U.S. president Barack Obama. “I like him better,” said West Virginia resident Dale Swiderski, who, along with 77 percent of rural Caucasian voters, confirmed he would much rather go to a baseball game or have a beer with Ahmadinejad, a man who has repeatedly denied the Holocaust and has had numerous political prisoners executed, than spend time with Obama. “He takes national defense seriously, and he’d never let some gay protesters tell him how to run his country like Obama does.” According to the same Gallup poll, 60 percent of rural whites said they at least respected that Ahmadinejad doesn’t try to hide the fact that he’s Muslim."

The full Al Jazeera article

" Iran's semi-official Fars news agency has apologised to its readers for republishing - as fact - a fake news article by the US satirical website the Onion.

Fars on Friday picked up the story about a supposed survey showing an overwhelming majority of rural white Americans would rather vote for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, than Barack Obama, the US president.

But the story was made up, like everything in the just-for-laughs newspaper, which is headquartered in Chicago.

Are we living on totally different planets ? Well yes. Nothing to argue about with regard to the stereotyped rural American other than to note it is a stereotype. That the stereotype is total fiction is actual the basis of the satire. What is ironic is that Fars are so ill informed that they ran with the story. That says a lot about Iran.  

The English-language service of Fars republished the story several days after it appeared in the Onion.

"Unfortunately an incorrect item was released on our website on Friday which included a fake opinion poll on popularity rate of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and US President Barack Obama,"  the news agency’s editor in chief was quoted as saying on the Fars website.

"The news item was extracted from the satirical magazine, the Onion, by mistake and it was taken down from our outlook in less than two hours.

"Although it does not justify our mistake, we do believe that if a free opinion poll is conducted in the US, a majority of Americans would prefer anyone outside the US political system to President Barack Obama and American statesmen," he added.

Oh... really ? I guess that would be like the free opinion polls conducted in Iran. Or is Fars being satirical are they talking about  Obama  Ahmadinejad ? Sedition comes in many forms. I actually suspect that is not the case  and Fars will look like total idiots after the US election. Lets face it they are total idiots right now. 

'Other blunders'

The Fars apology article then continued by citing a number of blunders by other news outlets.

The Iranian version of the Onion article copied the original word-for-word, even including a made-up quote from a fictional West Virginia resident who said he would rather go to a baseball game with Ahmadinejad because "he takes national defence seriously, and he'd never let some gay protesters tell him how to run his country like Obama does".

Oh dear....copied word for word. That sort of screws the other media outlets argument.  

Homosexual acts are punishable by death in Iran, and Ahmadinejad famously said during a 2007 appearance at Columbia University that "in Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country".

The Iranian version of the article leaves out only the Onion's description of Ahmadinejad as "a man who has repeatedly denied the Holocaust and has had numerous political prisoners executed".

The story appeared to have been taken down by about mid-day, Chicago time.

The Onion reveled in the fact that it had been taken seriously.

Well not quite word for word I guess the editor had enough of a brain to know what would end up with him getting a bullet in the head. Yet he ran with the story and I struggle to believe that he could be so naive. 

Will Tracy, the editor of the Onion, put out a tongue-in-cheek statement that referred to Fars as "a subsidiary of The Onion" that has acted as the paper's Middle Eastern bureau since it was founded in the mid-1980s by Onion publisher T Herman Zweibel.

Why not it is comedy gold.

"The Onion freely shares content with Fars and commends the journalists at Iran's Finest News Source on their superb reportage,'' Tracy said in jest.

It is not the first time a foreign news outlet has been duped by the Onion.

In 2002, the Beijing Evening News, one of the Chinese capital's biggest newspapers, picked up a story from theOnion that claimed members of Congress were threatening to leave Washington unless the building housing them underwent a makeover that included more bathrooms and a retractable dome."

I guess what is worrying is that they can't distinguish between a genuine news story and a piss take even worse one published in a site known only for piss takes. Is it any wonder we have issues with the muslim world view when it is so out of touch with the west. 

Updated Have a read of Kiwipolitico.

Jacob Zuma resign.

Al Jazeera reports

" Al Jazeera has learned that some of the South African miners who were shot dead at the Marikana mine last month may have been trying to surrender.

At least 34 men died when police opened fire on striking workers at the platinum mine, 100km north of Johannesburg.

A key human rights organisation in South Africa launched an independent investigation into the police shootings on Sunday.

The Legal Resource Centre (LRC) said that it had obtained multiple witness testimonies that blame police brutality for the killings of strikers who were calling for pay raises."

Something that the SA Government should have initiated on day one 

" Some witnesses have said that police shot protesters who were either trying to escape confrontations with police by hiding behind rocks, or while surrendering to authorities. 

The LRC also said it has forensic evidence that suggests a police cover-up of the killings. "

This account  is fairly comprehensive. 

'Allegations of torture'

Police opened fire on a crowd of miners engaged in a strike at the Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana on August 16.

Video showed a densely packed crowd of miners, some armed with clubs and machetes, approaching heavily armed police, who claimed self-defence in the shooting."

Like fuck it did I linked in this blog to the video and it shows nothing of the sort, it shows panicking  miners desperately trying to escape and running into armed police who gunned them down.

" The incident was the climax of an escalating stand-off between rival unions that had already killed 10 people, including two police officers.

Government officials and police officers have repeatedly rejected Al Jazeera's request to comment on the allegations, saying they would not speculate until a judicial inquiry into the incident was complete. 

Danny Titus, a representative of the South African Human Rights Commission, told Al Jazeera that the organisation was very concerned with allegations of human rights violations. 

"We are really concerned about the allegations coming from the miners, really giving us so much detail about what really happened," he said. 

Titus added that if the allegations were proven to be true, it would suggest that the workers were shot "out of vengeance".

I have very little doubt that this was the case.

"There was not a crowd-control approach [by police]. These police already went before parliament to explain themselves, and one of the first kind of defences they put forward was the fact they did not have training in crowd-control very high in their priority, which is very strange."

"And beyond that there are further allegations of torture [of striking miners]."

Meanwhile, striking mine workers say they will not return to work until their demand for more pay is met, the leader of a key union said.

Workers are facing a Monday deadline to return to the Lonmin PLC mines, paralysed by a four-week strike that has sent company shares plummeting, raised world platinum prices and stoked worries of labour unrest spreading through the mining sector of Africa's largest economy. "

Lonmin PLC will become synonyms with brutal employment policies I am not in the least surprised their stock has crashed. I would not want to own this outfit.

"When the employer is prepared to make an offer on the table, we shall make ourselves available," Joseph Mathunjwa, president of Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), told a news conference on Friday.

Peace accord
Mathunjwa was responding to his union's decision not to sign a "peace accord" with its rival National Union of Mines (NUM) and the mine's management on Thursday.

While AMCU says it represents about 7,000 workers, Mathunjwa, told reporters that he supported the workers but could not speak on their behalf, according to local media reports.

Negotiations on the wage demand will begin on Monday. Gideon du Plessis, general secretary of Solidarity, one of the unions that have signed the accord, said that all parties involved, including AMCU and representatives of the striking workers, have been invited to the negotiations.

“Solidarity now appeals to the striking workers to comply with the requirements for the negotiations, namely to lay down their arms and to return to work by Monday, so that their demand could be addressed.”

On Friday, Lonmin said two per cent of shift workers reported to their posts. Miners have said they have been threatened by striking miners with death if they go back into the shafts.

About 3,000, mostly rock drill operators, of Lonmin's 28,000 South African workforce walked off their jobs. They were demanding a monthly base pay of 12,500 rand ($1,500), which is double current wages, an amount analysts said the financially strapped company cannot afford.

Cannot afford  

From Wikipedia we have some Lonmin renumeration data

	role	salary	bonus	total
Ian P. Farmer[19]	Chief Executive Officer	£351,538	£213,990	£565,528
Alan Ferguson[20]	Chief Financial Officer	£422,500	£366,344	£788,844

But this tells an interesting story  $120 a month or 912 pounds per year for an underground miner at Lonmin as opposed to 788,844 pounds a year for their chief financial officer. Interestingly  a SA Police officer gets a minimum pay of 381 pounds per month.

Don't you love outfits that send men into dangerous occupations where their lives are at risk for $120 per month whilst paying massive salaries to senior management and then organise with the ANC to execute them. 

Even George Orwell couldn't have come up with this. Zuma resign. 

DR Congo. Give the UN forces the power they need

Al Jazeera reports 

"The Democratic Republic of Congo has called for boosting the UN peacekeeping force in the central African country to "neutralise" a rebel group known as M23, and accused neighbouring Rwanda of backing the group.

Raymond Tshibanda N'tunga Mulongo, Congo's foreign affairs minister, on Friday called on the Security Council to impose sanctions on those named in a UN report in July that accused high-ranking Rwandan officials of helping to create, arm and support the M23 rebel group within the country - as well as the rebel movement's leaders."

He held a news conference after discussions this week with the Security Council and the panel that wrote the July report."

I am surprised he has spoken out actually.

"We believe that all the consequences must be drawn from the conclusions in the report of the group of experts and that sanctions should eventually be envisaged," Tshibanda told the news conference at the UN on Saturday.

Mulongo said there was still a "war situation" between the two neighbours over the rebellion even though tensions have eased."

Well not according to Rwanda.

"The report accused Rwanda's Defence Minister James Kaberebe; Chief of Defence Staff Charles Kayonga; and General Jacques Nziza, a military adviser to President Paul Kagame, of being "in constant contact with M23".

Louise Mushikiwabo, Rwanda's foreign minister, who has denied the accusations, was also at the UN headquarters this week meeting with the panel and council members to protest the report's findings.

M23 rebels, who have links to Bosco Ntaganda, a warlord wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges, have been fighting government soldiers in North Kivu province since April, displacing some 470,000 civilians."

This is established by the evidence collected to date.

"Upsurge in violence

The fighting escalated in Congo's mineral-rich east when army deserters calling themselves the M23 Movement launched a rebellion to demand better pay, better armaments and amnesty from war crimes.

Rwanda blames Congo for the upsurge in violence, but Mulongo said the evidence in the panel's report clearly points to Rwanda's involvement.

The conflict in the east is a spillover from the 1994 genocide. Hundreds who participated in the mass slaughter escaped into Congo and still fight there. The M23 rebels are an embodiment of a group of Congolese Tutsi set up to fight Rwandan Hutu rebels in Congo.

Mulongo said that all of Congo's borders are quiet except for the border with Rwanda.
Instead of trying to introduce a second foreign force to help bring peace to the volatile east, he said his government wants the Security Council to beef up the mandate of the 22,000-strong UN peacekeeping force to address the escalating violence."

I fail to see what an all Africa force can achieve that the UN can't other than open the door to more African crocodiles as has happened in the past.

'Eradicating negative forces'

Kigali has repeatedly rejected the allegations and accused the UN report's authors of failing to verify their information or consult Rwandan authorities.


Major donors the US, Britain, the Netherlands and Germany have all suspended some of their financial aid to Rwanda over its alleged backing of the rebels.

Rwanda has repeatedly backed armed movements in its eastern neighbour during the last two decades, citing a need to tackle Rwandan rebels operating out of Congo's eastern hills."

Rwanda has real territorial ambitions for the DR Congo and needs to be stopped now. Invasion is little more than an armed home invasion on an international scale at this stage, it needs to be stopped in its tracks now.

"Tshibanda also echoed earlier calls by Joseph Kabila, Congo's president, for a new mandate for the country's UN peacekeeping mission that would include stamping out the armed groups that have destabilised the east for nearly two decades.

The UN mission, known as MONUSCO, has more than 17,000 troops, but the force is stretched thin across a nation the size of Western Europe and already struggles to fulfill its current mandate of protecting civilians.
"It is important that the mandate of MONUSCO be amended and be strengthened," the foreign affairs minister told reporters."

I have been saying much the same for some time now the forces rules of engagement need to change. 


"Right now it does not have the mandate of monitoring and protecting the border, it does not have the mandate of neutralising, eradicating the negative forces," he said.

UN helicopter gunships frequently back up outgunned government forces but even that firepower failed to prevent rebels from taking several towns last month."

It wouldn't if the UN were allowed to engage and attack rather than defend only, if a rebel dies  at UN hands it is an accident. That needs to change if the UN are to shut this insurgency down.