The Storm

Posted on October 13, 2017 by Muller

The transcript of Eminem’s remarkable freestyle rap dissing president Donald Trump can be read below. Trump continues mocking people of Puerto Rico, who have been hit by two disastrous hurricanes, with a series of disgraceful tweets.

Today, Trump wants to unilaterally “de-certify” the Iran Deal, which is one of the few successful international treaties in recent years and which has stopped Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons.

What Eminem seems to say is that this is in fact the calm before the storm … for Trump of being removed from the White House.

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Human Flow

Posted on October 9, 2017 by Muller

German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and head of the Bavarian CSU, Horst Seehofer, have agreed to cap the annual number of refugees at 200,000. As the Guardian comments, the “refugee cap deal is widely being interpreted as mainstream conservatives yielding to the demands of voters it has lost to the AfD [Germany’s right-wing, anti-migrant party which managed to get a considerable number of seats in parliament], largely over Merkel’s open door policy which saw Germany receive almost 1 million refugees and migrants in 2015.” According to the leader of the Green party, Simone Peters, with who Merkel seeks a coalition, “[t]he figure is completely arbitrary, fixed purely ideologically. As far as we’re concerned the fundamental right to asylum applies.”

Right now 65 million people worldwide are fleeing the various war zones, hunger and climate change; the largest number since WWII.

The above documentary by Ai WeiWei, who is presently guest professor at Berlin’s University of Arts, Human Flow, opens in a limited number of theaters on 13 October in the US and next month in Germany.

9 October 2017 @ 4:23 pm.

Last modified October 9, 2017.

 

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Nobel Peace Prize Goes to ICAN

Posted on October 6, 2017 by Muller

Okay, there was no slap in the face and we have still to wait whether president Trump will withdraw from the Iran Nuclear Deal. The Nobel Prize Committee in Oslo had apparently feared Trump’s scorn and awarded the Peace Prize 2017 to the International Committee to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), something which is not very much compelling but in fact seems to reflect the discussions in the Committee.

One may consider it as a halfhearted compromise as awarding the delegates of Iran, P5+1 and the European Union who had cut and dried the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in July 2015.

6 October 2017 @ 11:35 am.

Last modified October 6, 2017.

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A Slap in the Face Deserved

Posted on October 6, 2017 by Muller

Iran deal

When the Nobel Committee in Oslo will confer this year’s Peace award to the architects of of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (“Iran nuclear deal”) of July 2015 (who else would deserve it?), it at the same time does award current president of the United States of America, Donald Trump, with an alternative price, one of disrespect.

I have criticized the Committee’s hubris several times on this blog. In particular Barack Obama’s award had sparked strong negative reactions among many, in particular when he intensified George W. Bush’s drone war and went on a crusade against whistleblowers. Nice talks are not sufficient when it comes to the hard work for World peace.

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Political Symbolism

Posted on September 27, 2017 by Muller

When Saudi Arabia’s old and ailing King Salman decreed yesterday that women in the Kingdom are now allowed to get a car driving license, he might have had in mind that it won’t be happening anyway. Who can teach them driving a car as women have to be taught by women? Or do they expect husband or brothers to be present in the lessons?

It takes more to overcome bizarre gender segregation.

 

27 September 2017 @ 8:11 am.

Last modified September 27, 2017.

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