Yesterday I posted wrong information about Aljazeera. The articles I posted where not from the real Aljazeera.net , they were from the scammers who run aljazeera.com. They abuse Alzajeera's good name to spread lies. I apologize for the mistake.
UPDATE The articles I posted below are not from the real Aljazeera.net I was a victim of the scammers who run the aljazeera.com. Sorry for posting wrong information
Often the western left portrays independent Arab media as an oasis of freedom and enlightenment in a world where corporate and political interests set the discourse in all the western media. After seeing two articles promoted at Aljazeera's English home page I won't be able to give any credit anymore to anything published by them.
The article Mousavi's big blunders by Kaveh L. Afrasiabi and another one called A realist's view of the protests in Iran by Muhammad al-Arabi have destroyed all Ajazeera's credibility.
Two quotes from the articles illustrate their style. From the first:
Initially, the ruling elite had no intention of any "election engineering" and, in fact, lowered its guards by allowing a fiercely competitive race that galvanized the public attention through the TV debates, unfettered campaigns, etc. but then as we got closer and closer to the June 12 appointed hour, it became patently obvious that the reformist camp was pushing the envelope to new, and from the vantage point of system coherence, intolerable heights that, in turn, required a stern reaction.
and from the second
there is a lot of pent-up frustration in Iranian society. About half the country's population of 71 million people are under 25, and nearly two-thirds are under 30. Many of these youths yearn for what they don't have or don’t have in abundance: a Western life style, the freedom to wear what they like, to drink alcohol freely,to go to discotheques, etc. Also, as with many other peoples in the Third World, they believe in what they see in Western, especially Hollywood movies, and they want to be part of it – the big houses, the flash cars, the huge incomes, the cloud cuckoo land.
So this guys believe, like I do, as well as the western progressives silenced at the polls both in Europe and North America, that Hollywood is and imperialist propaganda instrument that brainwashes the masses with the lies of unlimited growth and the dangerous ethics of consumerism. Fine. However, they also believe that democracy means that when the majority of the people are wrong it is necessary to steal the elections. This is the same message that the Imperialist USA has been spreading around the world since WW2 and it has clearly found an audience. Bravo!
Since these guy's "logic" is that "Ahmadinejad won the elections because the majority of voters who support the other candidates are wrong and immoral", I won't waste my time listing the factual errors on their articles. Guys like that who are on the good side don't let facts spoil a good article.
Last modified: 2009-6-24 (水) at 11:30 pm
First person account of yesterday's coup in Iran. In this audio interview (Persian) Mohsen Makhmalbaf, prominent filmmaker and Mousavi spokesperson, explains the coup. He reports from Paris before Ahmadinejad officially claimed victory.
Rough transcript up to minute 1:54:
Yesterday morning 20 men in plain clothes break into Mousavi's headquarters, break the communications equipment, beat some people up, and throw tear gas when confronted. Mousavi's supporters manage to capture and retain 7 of them in the headquarters. when the police come they ask that the 7 people be handed over to them, assuring that they will be given the proper punishment. Mr Aminzadeh (from the headquarters) requests a written report of the incidents from the police.
At this time Mousavi's staff receives a call from the interior ministry asking Mousavi to prepare his victory speech. They inform the supreme leader of Mousavi's victory which he approves of, and gives his permission to communicate the news to people. Right after this, all cell phones in the headquarters get cut off. The reformist newspapers are told that Mousavi has won but they are asked not to put the news out yet. The headquarters are closed down and they appoint him (Makhmalbaf) as the campaign's spokesperson. All this he reports from direct communication with the headquarters.
After minute 1:54:
From this he speculates some points, the most remarkable being that Ahmadinejad and Sepah (the Army of the guardians of the Islamic Revolution) might be doing a coup against the supreme leader and Rafsanjani (neither of whom has been seen since)
Last modified: 2009-6-23 (火) at 3:09 pm
Ahmadinejad has made a coup in Iran. After an election with a record tournout, the reformist Mousavi was declared absoulute winner with data from a foot box. Lastest rumors from Iran say that Ahmadinejad has arrested Mousavi and closed Korroubi's headquarters.
Impending revolution: the official election results are so implausible (65% to Ahmadinejad, Mousavi 32%, 1% Karroubi) and evidence of fraud so large (more than 2.5 million votes counted than ballots printed) that a revolution against the coup seems inevitable.
Before being arrested this morning Mousavi has asked people to be calm and not do anything until 2pm. Is speculated to have gone to ask help from the supreme leader and has been arrested on it's way.
Ahmadinejad is doing a show of force deploying the security forces across the country. Unfortunatelly violent classes seem imminent.
Compared with this, the election fraud against Iternacionalist Iniciative in the European elections looks like child's play. The refusal of the Spanish Kingdom's government to publish the final results on the web with the excuse that it's cheaper to send the final results on CDROM, seems a display of transparency compared to the Iranian government. Compared with Ahmadinejad Zapatero even looks like a good person.
This should be an easy one for wolfram alpha, since all the data is available: "cheapest flights from Barcelona". But it has no idea what I'm asking about.
The rational behind this query is that travel websites like expedia only tell you the price for specific dates and destinations. Places like lastminute they actually search among a range of dates but still, you have to specify the destination.
But, if you just want to get away, just get the cheapest flight that goes anywhere, you can't find it...