Friday Post

In the news...


Iran is helping Syria ship oil to China:

Iran is helping its ally Syria defy Western sanctions by providing a vessel to ship Syrian oil to a state-run company in China, potentially giving the government of President Bashar al-Assad a financial boost worth an estimated $80 million.

Iran, itself a target of Western sanctions, is among Syria's closest allies and has promised to do all it can to support Assad, recently praising his handling of the year-long uprising against Assad in which thousands have been killed.

China has also shielded Assad from foreign intervention, vetoing two Western-backed resolutions at the United Nations over the bloodshed, and is not bound by Western sanctions against Syria, its oil sector and state oil firm Sytrol.

"The Syrians planned to sell the oil directly to the Chinese but they could not find a vessel," said an industry source who added that he had been asked to help Sytrol execute the deal but did not take part.

The source named the Chinese buyer as Zhuhai Zhenrong Corp, a state-run company hit by U.S. sanctions in January.

We trade with China. Discuss.



North Korea fires a missile, thereby breaking (again) a promise not to:

North Korea fired two short-range missiles off its west coast on Thursday believed to be part of a test to upgrade capabilities, said news reports published on Friday, quoting South Korean military officials.

North Korea has raised tensions in recent weeks by announcing it would launch a rocket to put a satellite into orbit, but regional powers are urging Pyongyang to drop the plan, saying it would violate U.N. Security Council resolutions.

North Korea launched two short-range missiles believed to be surface-to-ship missiles from its west coast Thursday morning, South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper quoted government officials as saying.

"The launch is believed to be to upgrade missile capabilities and not related directly to the North's long-range missile launch," the newspaper quoted a military official as saying.

Not surprised.



Related:

China has installed a silent alarm system inside every house in a border town as part of its strengthened crackdown on fugitives from North Korea, a report said on Friday.
 
The system is designed to let residents secretly send a signal to police if North Korean escapees come to their houses and ask for help, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said.

It can transmit dialogue between the owner of a house and visitors, and Chinese authorities plan to expand it into other areas bordering the North, the agency said.

“If you push the red button on the wall, a signal goes directly to a police station,” Yonhap quoted one man as saying.

The man said he saw the device during a recent trip to his relative in the Yanbian border area in northeastern Jilin province.

Yonhap said China had stepped up a crackdown in border areas since South Korea criticised its repatriation of dozens of North Korean refugees in February and this month.

Almost all those fleeing the North cross first to China, where they face repatriation if caught. Many hide out and then travel on to Southeast Asian nations before flying to the South for resettlement.

Seoul has repeatedly urged Beijing to treat fugitives from the North as refugees and not to send them back, saying they face harsh punishment. China says they are economic migrants and not refugees deserving protection.

We trade with China. Discuss.



(with thanks)




Murderer Omar Khadr is set to return to Canada:

Omar Khadr is just a few steps away from returning to Canada.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said he will soon be signing papers that would clear the way to return the convicted terrorist.

“I don't have a specific timeline for signing it, but once those arrangements have been made, we will approve the transfer to Canada,” Panetta told an international press conference in Ottawa on Tuesday.

“It's an important step. We have others there that we would like to be able to move as well, but the steps we've taken here and the precautions we've taken are an example we would like to follow in the future.”

Khadr was taken to Guantanamo Bay, an American military detention camp, after he killed a U.S. medic in Afghanistan when he was 15.

He pleaded guilty last October to murder, attempted murder, supporting terrorism, spying and conspiracy.

The 25-year-old signed a plea deal and is supposed to serve eight years behind bars, but he's allowed to serve seven of them in Canada.

It is expected Khadr will serve only a short time in a Canadian prison before being released.

Once the American officials sign the papers, it will be up to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews to repatriate Khadr.

This could be awesome:

As the saying goes, “If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.” Only in this case, things really heated up between edgy neighbors India and Pakistan when professional chefs from both countries competed in Foodistan, a first of its kind cook-off show which concluded Wednesday night following its 26 episode run.

Foodistan brought together 16 professional chefs from India and Pakistan to face off in a battle of national cuisines. Think Iron Chef with a geo-political edge.

The show, which aired simultaneously on India's New Delhi Television's lifestyle channel NDTV Good Times and Pakistan's GEO TV network, has been well received. On NDTV Good Times it drew between eight and 10 million viewers, making it one of the niche channel's bigger shows, according to NDTV Lifestyle CEO Smeeta Chakrabarti.

But the significance of Foodistan goes beyond audience figures and market share. India and Pakistan have fought three wars since independence from British rule in 1947 and tensions between the two nations are notoriously high. In this context, Foodistan can be seen as a pop cultural attempt to bring the two nations together. As the show's tag line put it, in the land of Foodistan "borders cease to exist and food emerges as the winner in this Indo-Pak clash."

“When we were developing the show, we looked at what brought the two countries together and realized that, like cricket (which has a long tradition of fierce rivarly between the two nations), food was integral to both cultures,” Chakrabarti told The Hollywood Reporter.

The eight member teams from both countries were given challenges to create dishes in a limited time frame which were then awarded points by the judges, with Foodistan pushing both sides to prove who could really serve a better kebab or biryani.

If we could put down our guns and eat biryani, the world might be a better place.