Yemeni journalist Nasser Arrabye keeps a dairy of his coverage on Blogspot. Last August, he wrote about the military actions between the Yemeni government and the Houthi rebels:

The Yemeni government said Thursday it would take a military actions to liberate schools and government buildings used as barracks by Al Houthi rebels in Sa'ada, north of the country.

He then continued:

The statement came after information about fierce battles between the rebels and government troops in which dozens were killed and injured from both sides over this week.
“Since President Ali Abdullah Saleh ordered the halt of the military operations, the saboteurs and terrorists continued their attacks on the citizens and security forces, committing heinous crimes against everyone including elders, children and women, in addition to kidnapping, cutting roads, destroying houses,” the statement added.

But it seems that the Houthi rebels had a different point of view:

The Al Houthi rebels said, however, they were only defending themselves and they do not want a new war.

A few months later, no one was able to stop the ongoing war. But a new question was raised: Is it a civil war taking place in Yemen, or are there other parties participating in this war as well.

The Houthis claimed that the Saudis are participating in the on going war, and their troops are there to help the Yemeni government. The government, on the other hand, denied this. Nasser Arrabyee wrote:

A Yemeni military official denied Monday Al Houthi rebels' allegations that the army used a Saudi base to attack them.
The Saudi authorities have “allowed Yemeni army to use a Saudi base in Jabal Al Dukhan from which it launched attacks,” said Al Houthi in statement sent through emails.
The military official, who asked not to be named, said Al Houthi tries only to cover his defeats by speaking about Saudi interference. “Jabal Al Dukhan is Yemeni not Saudi lands,” he said. This is not the first time Al Houthi rebels accuse Saudi authorities of intervening in the war.

But few days later Nasser Arrabyee wrote another post in his blog:

At least 5 Saudi soldiers and 15 Al Houthi rebels were killed in fierce confrontations between the rebels and Saudi forces in Al Khuba and Jabal Al Dukhan in Jaizan area south of the Kingdom, local sources said Thursday.
The leader of the rebels Abdul Malik Al Houthi said in a statement Thursday that the Saudi army is bombarding his fighters' posts in Al Malahaid frontline far west of Sa'ada, “with all kinds of weapons”.

So the Houthi claims about a Saudi intervention were true, and that's what forced Gregory to raise the following questions:

I get the impression that the idea of wading into the muck that is the northern revolt is not something that has been well thought out in Saudi Arabia, which also gets at something else I have been asking for a while: who exactly is running Saudi Arabia's Yemen portfolio? It certainly is not Sultan. And although Muhammad bin Nayif clearly has charge of the AQ section, Saudi Arabia is not the US and is not only focused on al-Qaeda. It has a multi-faceted relationship with Yemen.
My impression is that no one individual is in charge, but that different individuals are taking turns steering the thing with little idea of where they are going besides bouncing from crisis to crisis trying to keep the crazy Yemenis and their problems from flooding across the border.

Sapphire then left a comment on Gregory's post, and tried to elaborate why Saudi Arabia decided to enter that war:

Now, why did the Saudis decide to step in with their military into Yemen? Word has it that after loosing Iraq on their northern border to the Shi'ats of Iraq, they cannot and will not tolerate another Shi'at state on their southern border too, assuming that is, that the Huthis defeat the central Yemeni government and win their independence.

The Egyptian blogger Zeinobia wasn't pleased with the Saudi intervention:

Officially Saudi Arabia has declared war on the Houthi rebels , I will not discuss if its right or not or if it a battle in a bigger regional war but I will discuss the fact that Saudi Arabia mostly will not win this war easily or hardly as it hopes with all that multi-million gadgets they have simply because this is a guerrilla war in the mountains!

She then continued:

I do not know why the Saudis are heading to the same swamp we went to in mid 1960s , of course it is an irony because they used to back up the Yemenis against us !!! In fact I read some news claiming that KSA used White phosphorus against the civilians there !! Is this a deja Vu ??!!??

But was it only the Saudis who have been involved in the war? An Iranian ship was seized near the Yemeni coasts. And that's what made Nasser Arrabyee write the following:

An Iranian ship laden with weapons believed to be on its way to Al Houthi rebels was seized on October 26th, 2009, off the coasts of the Midi harbour in the far north west of Yemen. The 6-member crew, five Iranians and Indian, are now under investigations in the Yemeni capital Sana'a. The Iranian embassy in Sana'a denied at the time that the ship was carrying weapons.

And hence Gregory wrote about a possible proxy war taking place in Yemen:

“So it is a Saudi-Iranian proxy war,” he said. (The he being: Simon Henderson, director of Gulf and energy policy at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in Washington.)

The involvement of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sunnis and Shi'ats, rang a special bell in Abul Maali Fayek's head as it seems that what he was afraid of has happened:

And finally Zeinobia was wondering here if the Arab League of Nations still existed and why it wasn't taking any actions to stop this war:

I do not know if it is ironic or sad ; Arab and Muslim blood should not be spilled like this by the hands of another Arab and Muslim blood !! We are one by the end of the day.
I do not know where the role of the Arab league when you need it , Amr Moussa seems out of town , well guess out he is losing points as possible presidential candidate !!

***Also on Global Voices Online: Saudi Arabia: We'll Defend Ourselves - For The Right Reason

The National Geographic aired a documentary which named Bhutan, the tiny Buddhist kingdom as the world's last Shangri-La. It celebrated its mountains, glacial walls, alpine highlands and misty forests and mentioned “Bhutan is a Living Eden where respect for life, in all its many incarnations, endures like the land itself”.

Landscape of Bhutan. Image by Flickr user Jmhullot, used under a creative commons license

Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar at Real clear World said:

Bhutan has done many things to deserve its Shangri-La reputation. Its forest cover is a very high 72%, and it has pledged to keep this above 60 % for eternity.

Meanwhile, Nanda Gautam at Ex Ponto countered:

A new trend in the sphere of human rights violations is flourishing! In contrast to Bhutan’s development philosophy called ‘Gross National Happiness,’ which many delegations visiting Bhutan are proclaiming a ‘good lesson’, Bhutan also offers a bad lesson: strategic violence in the form of ethnic cleansing, a lesson the world powers will find difficult to deal with. The ordeal of Tel Nath Rizal reflects how the state’s violation of one person’s rights spilled over to affect an entire minority. The minority population has already been reduced dramatically.

Most of these writers, if not all, were not Bhutanese. So how is it that they came to view this small country – the size of Switzerland and a population of 600,000 – in such extremes?

The first group, the admirers, usually came from the west where capitalism has led to a way of life that may have equipped them with material contents, but left many with a gaping spiritual void. They are people seeking for things they do not find in their own cultures; yet find it elsewhere. Often in places like Bhutan – largely mysterious, exotic and peaceful. So when they find it, they tend to see only the things they want to see and find only the things they want to find.

But this also applies to the second camp, the ones who hate Bhutan. They have little or no understanding of the country’s geo-political situation. They don’t understand the history or the complex nature of the refugee problem; and they are either sympathizing with the cause, or they just need a cause.

For the first camp, the search for Shangri-la didn’t just happen; it has been ongoing since 1933 when James Hilton depicted a Shangri-la in his novel, Lost Horizon based on an article by Joseph Rock about his travels to the Tibetan borderlands. But more often than not, it is Hilton’s version that they are after thus refusing to see Bhutan as a country like any other – inhabited by human beings, with its share of problems.

Bhutan is far from being the Utopia despite its largely tranquil history. As a poor country Bhutan has its share of social problems and challenges and the biggest blight to its good reputation so far has been the issue of the refugees.

A nation-wide census in the 80’s found thousands of illegal settlers along the country’s southern borders. Most of these people were Nepalese people from Nepal and India who came to Bhutan seeking economic opportunities and utilize the large tracts of free agricultural land along porous borders. Free health and educational facilities were also an added attraction. At around this time, some Lhotsampas (Ethnic Nepali-speaking Bhutanese) who were educated by the Bhutanese government in overseas universities like Harvard and Cambridge returned to Bhutan nursing their own political ambitions.

Bhutanese refugees in Nepal. Image by Sudeshna Sarkar, ISN Security Watch

The problem came to a head when the Bhutanese government demanded all illegal settlers, leave the country. This decision was opposed by the ambitious Lhotsampa leaders who sympathized with the settlers and so mobilized protests against the Bhutanese government demanding democracy and overthrow of the monarch. The environment to nurse their political ambitions was extremely favorable. They galvanized the southern people’s discontent with violent protests in which they decapitated heads of two Bhutanese and planted them at a government office. The Bhutanese government who had never experienced anything like this cracked down and arrested many of the leaders while some escaped to Nepal.

What resulted was a situation where both sides accused the other of what unfolded. Lhotsampas claim that anybody who was Nepali-speaking was forced out of the country. As the Bhutanese Community of South Australia blog mentions:

From 1988, the human rights situation aggravated, when Royal Government enacted discriminatory policies to depopulate the Lhotshampas - Southern Bhutanese of Nepalese origin, predominantly Hindus.

The Royal government treats Lhotsampas as second class citizens. They are persecuted, discriminated and denied the most basics like access to education and health facilities. They are deprived of their cultural rights and are forced to adopt the cultural tradition, costume and language of the ruling elite. In the late eighties, the Royal Government adopted retroactive citizenship legislation and started to disenfranchise and depopulate the Lhotshampas. Tens and thousands of them were forcibly evicted, who ended up in the United Nations established refugees camps in Nepal. [..]

Having failed to see the possibility of repatriation, a vast number of Bhutanese refugees have accepted the offer given by Australia, Canada, Denmark, Netherland, New Zealand, Norway and United States for third country resettlement.

The Bhutanese government claimed that while some were asked to leave, many citizens left voluntarily under threats from their own leaders. Bhutan’s first democratically elected Prime Minister Jigme Y. Thinley wrote at Bhutannica:

The situation in the south is not a simple problem. Its causes are complex and perplexing as the resultant human drama that is unfolding before us. Just who is the victim or villain is a valid question. The answer must be sought with a deeper understanding of the problem. [..]

Among the villagers in' the south, every day is a nightmare. But their voice is not heard by the media, and their human rights appear not to be of any importance. Explanations by the Government are dismissed as propaganda and plain untruths. Even concrete evidence is seen as fabrications.

The Bhutanese feel that they have been betrayed by a people they had welcomed, in whom they had placed their trust and with whom they were willing to share a common destiny. But the general attitude of the Bhutanese toward their southern compatriots do not indicate any rancour.

The adoption of human rights is a convenient banner that the dissidents and the Nepalese supporters have raised before the international community. But their greater aim is to generate international sympathy for the dissident cause, which is to grab political power.

The story got complicated as the refugees arrived in Nepal. UNHCR set up camps for the Bhutanse refugees in which free food and stipend was given and in a few years the numbers rose from 5000 (1991) to 100,000. The handouts attracted many people other than Bhutanese to those camps as more than half of Nepal's population live on less than a dollar a day.

Ethnic cleansing is a very serious charge. People who make that accusation about Bhutan should visit the country and see that thousands of Nepali-speaking people still live and work there; that even before the crisis the Fourth King encouraged integration of the ethnic groups through inter marriage with special cash incentives. Many even hold very senior positions in the government.

So what is Bhutan? A ‘Shangri-La' or ‘ethnic cleanser'? Neither, is the answer. And it would be nice if people really stopped imposing their dreams of an Eden, or their disillusionment of failed political causes and ambitions, on this little Country.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) should be used to support and encourage cultural diversity and to preserve and promote the language, distinct identities and traditional knowledge of Indigenous peoples, nations and tribes in a manner which they determine best advances these goals. The evolution of the information and communication societies must be founded on the respect and promotion of the rights of Indigenous peoples, nations and tribes and our distinctive and diverse cultures, as outlined in international conventions. We have fundamental and collective rights to protect, preserve and strengthen our own languages, cultures and identities.

But can ICT truly preserve and protect distinct identities and culture? Does ICT by its very intervention introduce an element of westernization amidst the indigenous culture that it purports to preserve and protect? What is the optimum balance between preserving traditional knowledge and embracing remix culture? The cultural debate surrounding deployment of ICT in the field of indigenous/ knowledge and culture simply refuses to die down.

According to Mark Oppenneer, “the implementation of ICTs in service to indigenous peoples in development settings is a double-edged sword”, as both the critics and proponents of ICT4D have seemingly irreconcilable perspectives.

Questioning the cultural neutrality of the ICT medium, Charles Ess, in his paper “Questioning the Obvious? Ethical and Cultural Dimensions of CMC and ICTs” states that

[..]. Far from serving as value-free or morally-neutral tools, CMC (Computer mediated Communication) technologies themselves appear to embed and foster the cultural values and communicative preferences of their Western designers. As a first example: South Africa has attempted to establish Learning Centres intended to empower indigenous peoples by helping them take advantage of the multiple potentials and capacities of ICTs. A series of observers have noted, however, that these Centres repeatedly fail – in part, because of basic cultural conflicts. Briefly, the Centres reflect their designer’s Western emphasis on individual and silent learning – in contrast with indigenous preferences for learning in collaborative and often noisy, performative ways (Postma 2001). This conflict is also captured in Edward T. Hall’s distinction between high and low context cultures (1976). In this schema, contemporary societies such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Germanic countries show a preference for literate (i.e., textual), high content (but low context) information transfer – while societies such as Arabic cultures, indigenous peoples, and many Asian cultures prefer instead more oral, low content (but high context) modes of communication.

[…] Similarly, Western Group Support Systems (GSS) that favor anonymity as a feature intended to encourage open and direct communication proved disastrous in the Confucian cultures of South Asia, as this indeed succeeded in encouraging subordinates to make comments that were culturally interpreted – and condemned – as attacks on one’s “face” (Abdat and Pervan 2000). These and multiple other examples make clear that CMC technologies carry and further a specific set of cultural values and communicative preferences - ones that, far from being universally shared, are indeed limited to specific cultural domains.

Secondly, because these technologies thus clearly embed and foster specific cultural values and communicative preferences - the initial enthusiasm for these technologies inadvertently but powerfully only aids and abets a form of “computer-mediated colonization” that threatens to override diverse cultural values and communicative preferences with those defining the dominant economic and political powers of the West.

While Ess, worried about the medium defeating the intended purpose of preservation, calls for a more culturally-aware framework, others have pointed out that such concerns are not entirely correct.

In response to a query by David Sasaki, director of Global Voices' Rising Voices section, as to whether or not helping under-represented communities join the online global conversation inevitably leads to their westernization/Americanization,  Álvaro Ramírez and Diego Gomez, co-founders of the HiperBarrio project, spoke of the community adapting Western culture to their own needs, infusion of new knowledge and broadening horizons.

Citing the example of hip-hop music, Alvaro pointed out that for the community, while there was definitely some US influence, the issue was not so much Americanization as adapting something western to their own needs. So it was not only about getting influenced but exerting influence as well, giving birth to something new, new knowledge or culture. Diego noted that the project had also opened up other doors of communication beyond westernization.

I think that in this project especially they have been influenced not just by Americans they now begin to think about India, Dubai, and other cultures that they didn't know existed before. Or they didn't have much reference.

Projects such as the E-Bario project in Malaysia, Community project of the indigenous Ngalia and Badimaya people of Western Australia, the Alan - Gluban project in Taiwan are a few cases in point.

In the final analysis, as Mark Oppenneer points out

…the critics are right: misguided ICT4D implementation that doesn’t take into consideration a wide range of cultural factors and explicitly or implicitly imposes Western processes or structures upon indigenous recipients does constitute a new form of computer-mediated colonialism. And yes, the proponents of ICT4D are right: ICTs, when implemented thoughtfully and respectfully – keeping the needs of the recipients at the fore – can be powerful agents of change in the fight to reduce poverty and improve the lives of marginalized peoples in developing nations.

In his 2008 presentation, UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples - The Role of ICTs, Jesse Fidler listed various possibilities for ICT to actively engage the indigenous communities and realize their visions.

And as far as preserving the pristine, isolated local culture is concerned, Professor Amartya Sen perhaps summed it up best in his talk at the 3rd IDRC/ Harvard Forum on the future of information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) when he said that there is “no such thing as ‘unaided culture”, or ”culture that exists in isolation”.

TrueXinjiang.com, launched Jul. 13, 2009, less than a week after unrest left 197 dead in the region’s capital Urumqi, features articles about the recent unrest and ensuing judicial aftermath, as well as opinion pieces by unnamed Han residents, glorifying their homeland.

Creators of the Web site describe it in the “about us” feature on the True Xinjiang homepage:

The site is the largest portal on Xinjiang in English language and aims to present everyone a true picture of this autonomous region in Northwest China.  Through this portal, aspects of Xinjiang rarely known to the outside world have a chance to highlight their charms. It covers culture, religion, travel and latest developments in Xinjiang with voices from both authorities and individuals.

Information on the “July 5^th incident”, in which Xinjiang’s most populace minority, the Uighur, killed 197 Urumqi residents, is in abundance.  A column dedicated to news on the unrest sits at the top of the homepage.  There’s no lack of information on Rebiya Kadeer either.  Kadeer, chairwoman of both the World Uighur Congress and the Uighur American Association, is accused by the Chinese government of orchestrating the violence on Jul. 5 via her home in the Washington, D.C. area.  Kadeer denies the charges.

Keeping in line with all other Chinese media, debate as to the nature of Kadeer’s intentions is non-existent in articles at True Xinjiang:

[Kadeer] was colluding with leaders of terrorist, secessionist, extremist, and criminal organizations. She was organizing and plotting activities that aim to split China.

In response to Kadeer’s claim that the Uighur’s situation resembled that of African-Americans before 1955, an article titled “Piercing Through Rabiya’s Veil” seeks to paint a picture of harmony among ethnic minorities:

…in no way have the Uygurs experienced these kinds of things, or any similar discrimination. Anyone who does not believe this can just go around China and will see the Hans and the Uygurs rubbing shoulders with each other, especially in Xinjiang.

Many of the articles at truexinjiang.com, all of which give no credit of authorship, give the reader the sense that Xinjiang is not the region of ethnic tension that Western media have made it out to be.  The term ‘Han’ refers to Chinese largest ethnic group.  The Han, who make up 92% of the population, dominate most aspects of Chinese society.  Often compared to the situation in Tibet, ethnic tension in Xinjiang is commonly attributed to the influx of Han into the region since its formal incorporation into the People’s Republic of China in 1955.  Han now compose 40% of the population in Xinjiang, up from less than 10% before 1949.

A shuffling photo display on the True Xinjiang homepage shows China premier Wen Jiabao embracing an elderly Uighur farmer who lost family in an earthquake in 2003.  Another photo demonstrates the leisurely demeanor of weekends in Urumqi: two Uighur women pedal a buggy down a park lane. 

One columns featured on the site sheds the formal drape of newsworthy information and gives readers a sense of what life in Xinjiang is really like—for Han Chinese, that is.  Xinjiang: My Hometown provides a few quick opinion pieces about Han residents’ sense of home in the region—again lacking authorship:

I come from Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. But when I told it to my new friends, most of them was very surprising, ‘what? You are from Xinjiang. But you didn't look like a girl who comes from Xinjiang.’ Yes, it is true. Of course, I'm a Han nationality. However, I cannot understand why I must look like a Xinjiang's girl?

Another column, Xinjiang in My Eyes, depicts the region as a safe destination for travel and business in the eyes of foreigners.  In this article titled “Japanese Bar Owner: Bar example of Ethnic Unity”, a Japanese bar owners explains how his kitchen is a kettle of inter-ethnic harmony:

‘Our kitchen is a good example of unity. Our Han chefs are learning from Uygur colleagues how to make Uygur dishes while the Han chef is teaching our Uygur staff how to cook Sichuan food. We call that very beneficial,’ said [the bar owner], who said he was attracted by the mixed culture in Urumqi and he is learning the Uygur language.

One feature not to be taken as blatant propaganda is the addressing some hot issues on the minds of Xinjiang residents.  The Internet blackout, enacted by the government since the unrest in July, has taken heavy tolls on business in the region.  Truexinjiang.com gives voice to the issue, and not necessarily at the behest of the government.  Two businessmen describe the inconveniences of running a business without internet access in an article titled “Missing Link”:

‘To carry on my business, I had no choice but to set up a new office in Dunhuang, which is the closest town to Urumqi in Gansu province and has added to my costs. No Internet means no income for me,’ said Li Nan, who sells dried fruit online. ‘Dunhuang has become a holy place for businessmen like me, although it takes 14 hours to get here from Urumqi by train.’

“‘Xinjiang needs the Internet. The region is already less developed (than other parts of the country) and cutting off the Net only make things worse. Imagine how many businesses could be lost because of the ban,’ said Jurat Hamiti, a 30-year-old businessman. ‘The region's economic development is just as important as stopping terrorists.’

An interview with Jiang Zhaoyong, a current affairs commentator based in Beijing, sheds some light on Han-Uighur ethnic tensions:

Undoubtedly, tensions and grudges exist between the two ethnic groups. Each has its own internal identity, and there is an division between the two ethnic groups… In recent decades, the sense of frustration, deprivation and hatred among Uygur is actually caused by China’s development mode, characterized by an overly rapid modernization process and pace of social change. 

Yet for a site that claims to represent the reality of the autonomous region, one would expect some editorializing from the native ethnicities’ perspective.  Unfortunately truexinjiang.com hasn’t given a voice to the Uighur population, or any other of the 13 native ethnic groups who call the province home.  These voices are inseparable from a clear representation of the region.

Bikya Misr, wrote about the case:

After nearly four and a half months, the Marwa el-Sherbini saga has come to a conclusion of sorts after a German court sentenced the man who stabbed the “veiled martyr” 17 times inside the court in July to life in prison without possibility of early release. Egyptians, Arabs and Germans alike have welcomed the verdict and hope Europe and the Middle East can begin to heal the wounds of the killing and move “toward a better future.”

Hicham Maged wrote about how glad he is for the ruling, and that he has real trust in the German justice system:

The judge was aware about various tricks from the killer's defence team and here I quote the words according to this article: “ He killed … not out of fear but out of revenge. He consciously exploited her innocence and defencelessness. ” I agree with this and do not forget that he also tried to kill her husband.
I am glad that the courtroom where betrayal took place has been washed up physically and morally by applying justice. Consequently, my trust in the German justice system was needless to mention because this crime was shocking for all of us not only Germans. For that matter, only today Marwa and her unborn baby can rest in peace after compensating from the killer.

Zeinobia was happy with the verdict, and she also wrote in response to those who believed that it is a political verdict, and that the German court ruled in favour of Marwa in order to please the Egyptians, and Arabs:

Now I want to say something, some racists “and they are not few in the world now”, will say that this is a political verdict ; the court had to take to win the hearts and minds of Muslims around the world and to save the German interests is the Islamic world.
Well with my all respect I said it before and will say it again; do not think of Marwa as a Muslim woman; think of her as a Pregnant woman and a mother who was brutally stabbed 18 times in front of her little boy. He killed two souls, innocent souls because of blind hate and racism. He deserves to be behind bars for the rest of his life for taking the life of innocent souls and take the life of a mother from her child

Aam Mina on the other hand wrote a post, making fun of those who believe in conspiracy theories and were expecting the Germans to rule in favour of the murderer:

He then wrote about many the lessons we are supposed to learn from this incident:

Finally, Hicham Maged wrote:

What happened to Marwa should be a ‘wake-up’ call that make people work for achieving this both by criticising extreme actions taken against people because of their faith or race and understanding our differences and this simply means to quite stereotyping from whoever against whoever.

Moments after Major Hasan was announced as the suspected shooter, there was clear discomfort among newscasters and commentators regarding his religious and ethnic background. It's also been widely reported that Muslim service members have sometimes faced attacks from fellow services members.

Howard M. Friedman, Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Toledo, says in his blog ReligionClause:

“The military has been actively recruiting Muslims with the linguistic skills and cultural understanding needed to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. However Muslims in the service face suspicion by some of their officers. “

Whatever suspicions of Muslim service members existed before the shootings, one can only fear that they may have been heightened by the mass murder in Fort Hood. Questions are still being raised as to whether Major Hasan was an extremist who carried out the attack based on religious ideology or he was simply mentally ill.

In Canada, writer Gwynne Dyer, at Vancouver weekly free paper Straight.com, argues that pointing out the murderer's religion overlooks some very serious issues:

“After a few days while the commentariat hesitated before competing narratives, the media are settling on the explanation that it was ethnic/racial/religious abuse that drove Nidal crazy. Bad people doing un-American things were ultimately responsible for the tragedy, and there’s an end to it.

The one explanation that is excluded is that America’s wars in Muslim lands overseas are radicalizing Muslims at home. Never mind that the homegrown Muslim terrorists who attacked the London transport system in 2005, and the various Muslim plotters who have been caught in other Western countries before their plans came to fruition, have almost all blamed the Western invasions of Muslim countries for radicalizing them. Never mind, above all, that what really radicalized them was the fact that those invasions made no sense in terms of Western security.”

Fox News, often criticized for its bias on issues related to immigration and conservative politics, is reportedly calling for the “screening of Muslims” in the army. At the Veterans Today website, a retired officer of the United States Coast Guard, Tom Barnes, says the news channel is playing up the stereotype to create “us versus them” tensions:

“… the news channel is being very “unhelpful” to say the least if this initially reasonable question soon turns into another Fox Channel crusade against “them”. This stuff is not only getting old, it is dangerous. The story is here.

As I have previously pointed out, this kind of thing has happened before in the U.S. Armed Forces. I am getting tired of Fox News telling me who my enemies are. All the time. Non stop. I had no idea there were so many “thems” out there!”

A number of newspapers are now examining how Major Hasan's actions will affect Muslims serving the in US army, and Muslim residents around Fort Hood.

Here is a video report by euroamericannews on YouTube about how some Fort Hood Muslims view the events.

As the investigation of the massacre continues, the spotlight on Muslims serving in the army will likely continue.

According to the Danish People's Party, a coalition partner of the two ruling right-wing parties of the Danish government, paying immigrants to leave Denmark will save the state money on social services and “problems” [da] in the long run. “It costs quite a lot to have maladjusted immigrants in Danish society,” said financial spokesperson of the party, Kristian Thulesen Dahl. Funds have also been set aside for campaigns by local authorities who wish to encourage immigrants to leave the country. The government have not yet calculated how many people can be expected to accept the offer.

Around 10% of the population in Denmark are immigrants or descendants of immigrants including from neighboring countries, as well as the rest of the world. The primary issue in politics and the media for the past many years has been the “integration” of Muslim and other non-western immigrants and the tension arising from a perceived clash of cultures. Danish politicians have created some of the most stringent immigration laws in all of Europe, and continue to score high for it in polls.

How much, to leave the country?

In response, a sarcastic public Facebook group [da] protesting the law has been set up to collect 100,000 kroners to pay the leader of the Danish People's Party, Pia Kjærsgård to leave the country.

The group has over 16,000 members, and the tagline says, “100,000 kr. dear friends - and maybe she'll do it”. The group creators pledge to offer any additional money collected to the minister of integration, Birthe Rønn Hornbech from the governing Liberal Party, in case she should be amenable to leaving the country as well.

The debate on the Facebook group page is heated. Some offer witty comments about who else should be kicked out of the country or what else should happen to them, while others counter that the offer from the Danish government is a generous offer and should be welcomed by immigrants who are unhappy in Denmark and would prefer to leave. One commenter disagrees with the hype, and reminds everyone that a similar policy has been in place for several years, but the amount of money on offer was only 10 times smaller.

Facebook commenter Dan Cornali Jørgensen says [da]:

Jeg har måske misforstået konceptet?
Drejer det sig ikke om et lovforslag som giver ikke-integrerbare udlændige mulighed for at sige ja-tak, til en check på 100.000 kr. mod tilsagn om frivilligt at rejse hjem til deres oprindelsesland? Umidelbart virker det storsindet og absolut humanistisk, da vi må formode at 100.000… kr. er en anseelig formue i det pågældende land, og nok til at starte en anstændig tilværelse i det land som de tilsyneladende har så stærk tilknytning til…

Pensioners must report travel of more than 2 months

Another initiative negotiated this month by Danish People's Party is a law that requires all pensioners and early retirees in Denmark [da] to report to their city government if they plan to leave Denmark for more than two months at a time. Ostensibly, the goal is to stop people “for instance, Iraqis” from receiving pension payments in Denmark while they may be collecting wages in another country at the same time. The most popular example is that of an Iraqi-Danish politician, Samia Aziz Mohammad, who was discovered to be collecting pension funds while she was earning high wages from the Iraqi parliament. She has since paid the money back [da] to the Danish government. Another pensioner was discovered by the Danish press to be earning wages from the Kurdish parliament.

Members of parliament of both the Liberal Party and the Danish People's Party have argued that the new restrictions will also cut down on holiday visits by fake refugees to their home countries, and repatriation of family members who spend too much time abroad.

The fact that all Danish pensioners wil in effect will become suspects of fraud is something the biggest association of the elderly in Denmark, DaneAge, is vocally angry [da] about. Many comments on newspaper articles [da] support the government's attempt to cut down on fraud, while others draw comparisons to East Germany (GDR) travel bans of the past.

One Danish blogger, Erik Bentzen on Dette og Hint, says [da]:

Enhver kan sige sig selv, at meldepligten ikke dæmmer op for noget som helst, da den ikke indebærer nogen form for effektiv kontrol.

Det er ren chikane og tom signalpolitik, som øger kommunernes administrative arbejde til ingen verdens nytte.

Reglen er så amøbeintelligent, at den forhåbentlig giver bagslag, næste gang pensionisterne skal til stemmeurnerne.