In The News

Britain

A British pensioner and former boxing champion beat up a knife-wielding burglar who broke into his home, leaving him battered and bruised. Frank Corti, 72, said he felt compelled to defend himself after the drunken man threatened him and his wife. "As I saw it, it was a matter of do or die. Fortunately the element of surprise was with me, so I adjusted my position and hit him with my right hand", he said. Gregory McCalium forced his way into the couple's home armed with a knife. McCalium, who was left with a black eye and bloodied lip, has been jailed for 4-1/2 years after Oxford Crown Court found him guilty of aggravated burglary. "I was scared when he first threw the knife, but most people would have reacted in the same way", added the former soldier and schoolboy feather-weight champion. Agence France-Presse

Sometimes targeting what appears to be the most vulnerable in society turns out to be a mistake of quite sizable proportions; this man learned some kind of lesson. Whether it remains with him throughout life is another question altogether.

United States

A Two-year-old girl in Florida was strangled to death by a 3.6-meter-long python that had escaped from its cage, police said Thursday. Sumter County Sheriff's Lt. Bobby Caruthers said the albino Burmese python escaped from an aquarium owned by the girl's mother's boyfriend. The police official said the snake owner discovered the python was missing when he woke up. "He went straight to the infant's room, a two-year-old girl, and in the crib was this python wrapped around this poor little girl", Caruthers said. "He took a knife and stabbed and stabbed and was able to take the girl away." There were snake bite marks on the girl's head and arms, Caruthers said. Burmese pythons usually eat their prey alive. Agence France-Presse

Stupidity among people incapable of imagining the consequences of owning animals that should never be taken from their natural surroundings, posing a risk to themselves and above all to the children in their care, is unbelievable, and tragic.

Iran

Moderate former president Mohammad Khatami yesterday criticized the outcome of Iran's disputed election and called for the release of people arrested since the June 12 vote. He was the third leading pro-reformer to publicly denounce the vote since Iran's top legislative body confirmed the victory of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Two moderate candidates - former prime minister Mirhossein Mousavi and pro-reform cleric Mehdi Karoubi - say the election was rigged and want it annulled. "If you want to calm the atmosphere, why are you carrying out mass arrests? Oppressing people will not help end the protests", Mr. Khatami said. Reuters

And while the Iranian people waited for encouragement from abroad, support for their courageous stand against the tyranny of the senescent clerics whose social and political agenda has turned increasingly repressive and threatening, silence reigns and Iranians cower, abandoned by those who could and should offer them moral support.

Hong Kong

Tens of thousands of people took to the sweltering streets of Hong Kong yesterday for an annual pro-democracy march, as the city marked the 12th anniversary of its return to China. Despite temperatures nudging 32-C, many people gathered at Victoria Park more than an hour before the march. Protesters sang the anthem We Are Ready and held banners to demand universal suffrage for the city's chief executive and legislature in 2012. Beijing has said universal suffrage would not come before 2017 at the earliest. Last month, 150,000 people turned out for a candlelight vigil marking the 20th anniversary of the bloody crackdown on protests in Tienanmen Square. Agence France-Presse

China is not prepared, and may well never be prepared to offer Hong Kong the kind of political autonomy it seeks, much as it intends to retake Taiwan, reluctant as it is to surrender one centimeter of Chinese hegemony of its entitled geography.

Honduras

Deposed President Manual Zelaya yesterday delayed his return to Honduras after the Organization of American States gave the country 72 hours to reinstate him. In a communique, the OAS said Honduras faced suspension from the organization if it did not return Mr. Zelaya to power, in one of several mvoes by foreign governments and organizations ratcheting up pressure on the country. The Pentagon also suspended all military activities with Tegucigalpa, saying the government in Washington, where Mr. Zelaya met U.S. officials, is "assessing the situation". Meanwhile, Mr. Zelaya visited Panama for the inauguration of conservative millionaire Ricardo Martineli as the country's new president. Agence France-Presse

The outrageous interference by Honduras' neighbours, all adhering to Venezuela's democratic deficits, and the incomprehensible alliance of the the UN, the EU, the U.S. Russia and Canada in bullying Honduras in its legal democratic right to unseat its executive administrator on the basis of his illegal attempts to overturn the constitution is unconscionable.

Tokyo

Ban Ki-moon, the UN chief, said yesterday he was determined to achieve a nuclear-free North Korea amid tension over new sanctions against the isolated communist regime. "I spare no effort in facilitating the achievement of verifiable denuclearization of the Korean peninsula", he told a news conference after talks with Taro Aso, the Japanese Prime Minister. Pyongyang has warned that "dark clouds of nuclear war" are gathering after the United Nations strengthened sanctions against it following its atomic test in May. The North has responded defiantly to the UN move, by vowing to build more nuclear bombs. Agence France-Press

And where is the 'spare-no-effort' attempts on the part of the distinguished Mr. Ban with respect to Iranian nuclear weaponization?

Canada

An executive member of the Canadian Arab Federation is under fire for posting "F--k Canada Day" and accusing the country of genocide on his personal Facebook page. Omar Shaban, vice-president of the federation's western region, posted the comments on Tuesday. "Might as well kill more natives... as a token of support for this genocidal state", he went on. He also wrote "Peace Keeping my ass..." Yesterday, he posted, "Happy Genocide Day Canada." The comments raised the ire of Tarek Fatah, founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress and author of Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State. "It's hateful. He's acting like a parasite", said Mr. Fatah. He called on the Canadian Arab Federation to oust Mr. Shaban. "If they would have any sense of decency, they would fire him immediately", Mr. Fatah said in an interview. He and Mohamed Boudjenane, the federation's executive director, did not return requests for comment yesterday. National Post.

The Canadian Arab Federation has been sufficiently incautious to air its true agenda from time to time, which most definitely is not in defence of Canada's aboriginal population, but in defiance of everything that Canada holds true, just and dear. Their anti-Semitic, anti-democratic, anti-Canadian values are more in tune with subverting democracy and egalitarianism.