[Guest post by DRJ]

The BBC reports that, just days before the Beijing Olympics begin, Islamists in China’s Xinjiang region attacked and killed 16 policemen and wounded 16 more at a border post:

“Two attackers reportedly drove up to the post in a rubbish truck and threw two grenades, before moving in to attack the policemen with knives.”

Reports state the attackers have been captured.

Xinjiang is described as a Muslim region on the border of Tajikistan, home to the Uighur people who have waged a “low-level separatist campaign” against the Chinese government. Although Xinjiang is 2,500 miles from Beijing, the BBC reporter indicated that “the very fact that it happened, and the fact that it happened this week, will make the organisers of the Beijing Olympics nervous.”

Chinese military officers have previously warned that Islamic separatists are the greatest danger to the Beijing Olympics.

– DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

The Chinese government confirmed today that, despite previous assurances by it and the International Olympic Committee, the internet will be censored during the games:

“Since the Olympic Village press center opened Friday, reporters have been unable to access scores of Web pages - politically sensitive ones that discuss Tibetan succession, Taiwanese independence, the violent crackdown of the protests in Tiananmen Square and the sites of Amnesty International, Radio Free Asia and several Hong Kong newspapers known for their freewheeling political discourse.”

The report states that the IOC “quietly agreed” to some of the limitations but will press the Chinese government to reconsider.

– DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced today he would step down in September and would not run in the Kadima Party primary. The AP described Olmert as angry as he criticized the corruption investigations that forced him to:

“… defend myself against relentless attacks from self-appointed ‘fighters for justice’ who sought to depose me from my position, when the ends sanctified all the means.”

At times, Olmert’s popularity in the polls has sunk below 20% causing some political analysts to predict he would resign. The AP report states that Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is the early favorite to replace Olmert, which would make her and Golda Meir the only female Israeli prime ministers.

My knowledge of Israeli politics is limited so I don’t have any meaningful insights to add to this story but I’m sure there are readers and commenters who have valuable thoughts to share. However, I couldn’t pass it up because of the statement by Dan Margalit, “an Israeli political analyst and longtime friend of Olmert,” who described Olmert’s resignation as “a sad end to a miserable career.”

With friends like that …

– DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

It’s been all politics and law around here recently, and it’s time for something different. Today’s news has a reminder that Chinese espionage is alive and well in America:

“A U.S. citizen from Taiwan and longtime southeast Louisiana resident pleaded guilty today to conspiring to pass American military secrets to the Chinese government.

Tai Shen Kuo, 58, a businessman who made a name and a lot of money for himself over more than three decades in Houma and New Orleans, is being held up by the U.S. Justice Department as representative of a new spying threat from China.”

Kuo agreed to a plead guilty to “one count of conspiracy to deliver national defense information to a foreign government.” The maximum penalty is life in prison.

The original charges and parties are set forth in this February 2008 FBI press release. In brief, Kuo was one of 3 Chinese nationals charged with a civilian U.S. Defense Department analyst in connection with the release of classified information concerning weapons systems sold to Taiwan.

Prosecutors have repeatedly emphasized how aggressive the Chinese are in trying to penetrate American military and economic secrets. They described Chinese espionage programs as reaching levels that have not been seen in the U.S. since the Cold War with the former Soviet Union.

Thus, while Kuo’s network may be closed, there are many more still out there.

– DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, sustained devastating damage from Tropical Cyclone Nargis that may have killed over 100,000 people. Myanmar leaders have refused to allow aid from the US and today’s LA Times reports that Myanmar is continuing to export rice while it feeds its citizens the remnants of spoiled food products.

The government also confiscated initial UN aid shipments, causing the UN to suspend further shipments although it now says the shipments will resume.

This is a horrible situation and, given the antipathy at home and abroad to U.S. military intervention, there’s nothing we can do.

UPDATE 1: The Pentagon has announced that one aid shipment will be allowed. A US spokesman hopes it will lead to permission for more assistance.

UPDATE 2: Myanmar’s junta is now distributing aid with generals’ names plastered on the boxes in an effort to turn the relief effort into propaganda for the junta. Elections scheduled for today went forward in all but the hardest hit areas, and pictures of the leaders handing out aid packages is running continuously on state-run television.

– DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

Two stories from the Middle East caught my attention that I hope are early signs of a Middle East Awakening. The first was an AP story from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, recounting the first public mixed-gender concert permitted by the government:

“It’s probably as revolutionary and groundbreaking as Mozart gets these days. A German-based quartet staged Saudi Arabia’s first-ever performance of European classical music in a public venue before a mixed gender audience.

The concert, held at a government-run cultural center, broke many taboos in a country where public music is banned and the sexes are segregated even in lines at fast food outlets.”

The second story from the New York Times concerns Turkish efforts to establish Islamic schools in Pakistan that teach co-existence with the West:

“The Turkish schools, which have expanded to seven cities in Pakistan since the first one opened a decade ago, cannot transform the country on their own. But they offer an alternative approach that could help reduce the influence of Islamic extremists.

They prescribe a strong Western curriculum, with courses, taught in English, from math and science to English literature and Shakespeare. They do not teach religion beyond the one class in Islamic studies that is required by the state. Unlike British-style private schools, however, they encourage Islam in their dormitories, where teachers set examples in lifestyle and prayer.

“Whatever the West has of science, let our kids have it,” said Erkam Aytav, a Turk who works in the new schools. “But let our kids have their religion as well.”

Some parents like the Turkish schools because they produce students who are good Muslims and have good educations. Others are suspicious because the Turkish teachers are clean-shaven, wear ties, and look like “math teachers from Middle America.” Still others, like Hakan Yavuz, a Turkish professor at the University of Utah, view the schools as a Turkish attempt to acquire power by shaping the Muslim world.

I hope Pakistani parents will awaken to the rest of the world the way Abrar Awan, whose son attends a Turkish school in Quetta, apparently has:

“[Awan] said he had grown tired of the attitude of the Islamic political parties he belonged to as a student. Now a government employee with a steady job, he sees real life as more complicated than black-and-white ideology.

“America or the West was always behind every fault, every problem,” he said, at a gathering of fathers in April. “Now, in my practical life, I know the faults are within us.”

– DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

Britain’s Conservative Party picked up 256 council seats in Parliament and Labor lost 331 seats, putting it in 3rd place among the nation’s parties. In addition, Conservative candidate Boris Johnson won an upset victory in the Mayoral race beating incumbent Ken Livingstone, a powerful politician who has been vilified “as a ‘loony left’ pariah within his own party.”

Except for the mayoral race, the Conservative victories are viewed as largely symbolic and a resounding public rebuke to the Labor government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The voters are displeased “with the economy, with 11 years of Labor rule, and with Mr. Brown himself.” Brown and his cabinet promptly acknowledged it was a disastrous election for Labor and pledged to listen to the voters and improve.

New Mayor Boris Johnson has been described as “funny, engaging and untested.” Educated at Eton and Oxford but born in the United States, Johnson has been a columnist for the Daily Telegraph, editor of the Spectator magazine, and served as an M.P. He often appears unkempt and is known for his politically incorrect statements:

“In his colorful career, the new London mayor has survived public airing of an extramarital affair whose existence he originally denied as an “inverted pyramid of piffle”; has apologized to whole cities, like Liverpool, that he offended in one way or another; and has been prone to saying things like: “Voting Tory will cause your wife to have bigger breasts and increase your chances of owning a BMW M3.”

He has developed a reputation for having a fearsome but un-serious intellect and for wading into and out of embarrassing scrapes. But a man who has previously poked fun at the political process, saying: “I can’t remember what my line on drugs is. What’s my line on drugs?” and “I’m backing David Cameron’s campaign out of pure, cynical self-interest,” has been kept under a tight rein this time around, sticking to issues like crime and transportation.”

The Labor government has to stand for election by 2010 and this election is not necessarily a harbinger of future results. The thing to watch is whether PM Gordon Brown makes any policy shifts as a result of these election results.

– DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

From Fox News:

“Whether he was up to no good or simply desperate to play BrickBreaker, a Mexican press attache was caught on camera by Secret Service pocketing several White House BlackBerries during a recent meeting in New Orleans, FOX News has learned.

Sources with knowledge of the incident said the official, whose first name is Rafael, took six or seven of the handheld devices from a table outside a special room in the hotel where the Mexican delegation was meeting with President Bush.

Everyone entering the room was required to leave their cell phones, BlackBerries and other such devices on the table, a commonplace practice when high-level meetings are held. American officials discovered their missing belongings when they were leaving the session.

It didn’t take long before Secret Service officials reviewed videotape taken by a surveillance camera and found footage showing “Rafael” absconding with the BlackBerries.

Sources said “Rafael” made it all the way to the airport, where the Mexican president was preparing to leave New Orleans, before Secret Service officers caught up with him. He was forced to return the BlackBerries.”

Rafael claimed he accidentally took the devices and he was allowed to return to Mexico.

It’s possible Rafael saw a chance to score some high-tech devices and took advantage of it, but this could be a case of diplomatic spying. If so, Rafael used his position as press attache as a cover.

UPDATE 1, 4/24/08 - From the Houston Chronicle:

“Was it a case of bumbling espionage? Just what was a Mexican press officer thinking when he reportedly swiped U.S. dele-gates’ BlackBerrys at the North American summit this week?

Mexican officials didn’t wait to find out. On Thursday, Rafael Quintero Curiel was dismissed as deputy director of press logistics for Los Piños, the Mexican White House.

“He was removed in order not to obstruct the investigation,” said Gladis Boladeras, spokeswoman for President Felipe Calderon.

She said her office learned about the incident from a report on the Fox News Channel. Video cameras, Fox said, captured Quintero pocketing the devices left outside a room where Calderon and President Bush met.

Dana Perino, White House spokeswoman, said it wasn’t clear whether the BlackBerrys belonged to White House staffers or whether they held sensitive information.

Fox said Secret Service agents tracked Quintero down. At first he denied having the devices, Fox said, but after he was shown the video footage he handed over the phones.

Then he invoked diplomatic immunity to avoid detention.”

UPDATE 2, 4/25/2008: Rafael responds that he’s been unfairly portrayed by the media and the reports “unfairly cast doubt on my honor.”

– DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

Jimmy Carter is meeting with representatives of the Hamas terrorist organization and, at the same time, Hamas is sending homicide bombers to attack Israeli troops:

“Hamas bombers attacked an Israeli-Gaza border crossing under the cover of fog Saturday, detonating two jeeps made to look like Israeli military vehicles and packed with hundreds of pounds of explosives.

The twin blasts, just hours before the Jewish Passover holiday, wounded 13 Israeli soldiers in what Hamas said was an attempt to break the nearly yearlong blockade of the territory. Four Hamas assailants died, Israeli officials said.

Meanwhile, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter met with senior Hamas leaders in Damascus, Syria, for a second day to hear their views, defying U.S. and Israeli warnings that doing so would grant the group legitimacy. The U.S. and Israel have labeled Hamas a terrorist organization.

An Israeli army commander said the Hamas operation was the most ambitious since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, even though another planned attempt at the border was averted Saturday. The attack was the fifth on a crossing by Gaza militants since last week, and Hamas threatened to target the passages again.”

I can’t believe I need to say this but some people have no common sense: President Carter - It’s hard to keep clean when you negotiate with people who spit at you.

– DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

Iran’s Ahmadinejad is a 9/11 truther:

“Ahmadinejad called the 9/11 attacks a “suspect event” in a speech at a public rally in the holy city of Qom.

“Four or five years ago a suspect event took place in New York,” Ahmadinejad said, in an address carried live on state television.

“A building collapsed and they said that 3,000 people had been killed, whose names were never published.”

“Under this pretext they (the United States) attacked Afghanistan and Iraq and since then a million people have been killed,” said the Iranian president.

This was the third time in just over a week that Ahmadinejad has publicly raised doubts about the September 11 airborne attacks on New York and Washington carried out by Al-Qaeda militants which killed nearly 3,000 people.”

It’s tempting to ignore Ahmadinejad’s rants but we do so at our peril.

– DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

Pope Benedict XVI arrived in America today for a six day visit, and he answered pre-submitted questions including one about the clerk clergy sex abuse scandal:

“It is a great suffering for the church in the United States and for the church in general and for me personally that this could happen,” Benedict said. “It is difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betray in this way their mission … to these children.”

“I am deeply ashamed and we will do what is possible so this cannot happen again in the future,” the pope said.

The leader of the world’s 1 billion Catholics pledged that pedophiles would not be priests in the Roman Catholic Church.

“We will absolutely exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry,” Benedict said, speaking in English. “It is more important to have good priests than many priests. We will do everything possible to heal this wound.”

Absolutely right.

[Edit: I corrected "clerk sex abuse scandal" to "clergy sex abuse scandal." I've been a lawyer way too long. My fingers type legal words no matter what my mind thinks.]

– DRJ

[Guest post by DRJ]

Early results show the coalition headed by conservative leader Silvio Berlusconi is set to win Italy’s general election:

“The projected results showed Mr Berlusconi’s coalition ahead for both the lower house and the Senate.

The 71-year old told Italian TV difficult months lay ahead. His main rival, the centre-left leader Walter Veltroni, has already conceded victory.

The vote was held three years ahead of schedule after the collapse of Romano Prodi’s centre-left coalition.”

So … America-supporting parties and leaders have been elected in France, Italy, and Canada, while sympathetic moderates control Germany, Britain and Australia. Not bad for a President who has alienated most of the world.

– DRJ