California Libertarian Alliance

Germany’s recent elections saw a big drop in vote for the Social Democrats, and the emergence of The Left Party as a growing force of ex-Communists and left Socialists. In Brandenburg, the Social Democrats and the Left Party have formed a coalition government.

Now the coalition is rocked by revelations that many Left Party members of the state parliament were informers for East Germany’s secret police – the Stasi. Spiegel reports on the scandal @ http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,665059,00.html

“Few would deny that Muslims too are victims of Islamist terror. But a new study by the Combating Terrorism Center in the US has shown that an overwhelming majority of al-Qaida victims are, in fact, co-religionists.”

“In the battle against unbelievers, can one also kill Muslims? Even the terror network al-Qaida is troubled by this question.”

Germany’s Spiegel magazine reports on a surprising study by the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at West Point @ http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,660619,00.html

The Center’s Study is online @ http://www.ctc.usma.edu/Deadly%20Vanguards_Complete_L.pdf

“Germany’s pro-business Free Democrats were deemed the big winners on election night, increasing their vote to almost 15 percent. Yet almost a week later, there are concerns that the party and its leader Guido Westerwelle may not be capable of pushing through their demands in a future coalition with Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats.”

Spiegel Germany’s leading newsweekly, looks at reaction to the Free Democrat surge in Germany’s late September election http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,652848,00.html

The Free Democrats received nearly 15%; the Social Democrats declined to about 23%. Left-wing Social Democrats voted for The Left Party while other ex-SDP voters opted for the Liberals. This dynamic should continue as the Free Democrats emerge as a viable alternative in future elections.

Reporters Without Borders is appalled by the sentences of 12 years of “reform through labour” which a North Korean court passed today on American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee after convicting them in a sham trial of an unspecified “grave crime” and illegally entering the country.

“These 12-year sentences are a terrible shock for all those who have repeatedly insisted on their innocence,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The sentences are much more severe than anything we had imagined. The authorities in Pyongyang must urgently reverse this decision and allow Ling and Lee to rejoin their families.”

Complete statement from Reporters Without Borders @ http://www.rsf.org/American-reporters-get-very-severe.html

James Dorn, Vice-President of Cato Institute, issued this statement on the 20th Anniversary of the Tienanmen Protest:

“After 20 years China has made substantial economic progress, but the ghosts of Tiananmen are restless and will continue to be so until the Goddess of Liberty is restored.”

“The Chinese Communist Party’s “Human Rights Action Plan” (2009-10) addresses several human rights abuses, but it fails to establish a well-defined boundary between the individual and the state that protects rights to life, liberty, and property. Until China limits the power of the CCP and allows people to exercise their natural rights, there will be corruption, and the goal of “social harmony” will be elusive. The lesson of Tiananmen is that the principle of nonintervention (wu wei) is superior to the heavy hand of the state as a way to bring about true harmony. “ 

Source: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/06/04/tiananmen-square-20-years-later/

“PYONGYANG—Here is the locked ward of the political asylum, the place where politics has actually become an official state religion, and power is worshipped, directly and literally, in the form of a colossal bronze idol to which the people come and bow with every sign of reverence. Nothing in the modern world compares with North Korea, though it gives us some clue about how life must have been under the pharaohs, in Imperial Japan before Hiroshima, or in the obliterated years—conveniently erased from memory by blushing fellow travelers—when Josef Stalin was revered as a human god.”

“Pyongyang is the most carefully planned and also the most mysterious city on the planet. You cannot, unless you escape from the warders who accompany foreigners everywhere in North Korea, walk inquisitively along its surprisingly green and spacious streets.”

Peter Hitchens reports from North Korea’s socialist Hell @ http://www.amconmag.com/article/2007/nov/19/00010/