Yacimovich 1st woman since Golda to lead Labor party

Peretz - Yacimovich's former mentor - defeated by nine percent in run-off race for party's chairmanship; Yacimovich's election comes after contentious election rife with personal attacks.

The Labor party elected its first female leader since Golda Meir on Wednesday when MK Shelly Yacimovich bested her former mentor, MK Amir Peretz, in a run-off race for the party's chairmanship.

Yacimovich was expected to give a victory speech at the party's headquarters at Beit Berl Teachers' College in Kfar Saba, in which she would call upon Peretz to remain in the party and lead it together with her. She explained that a number of party members had called to congratulate her, including Peretz, MK Isaac Herzog and Amram Mitzna.

"We've won," she told supporters at Dizengoff Center in Tel Aviv on hearing news of the victory. "I promise that we will work together to bring about change. This is just the beginning of a new start for Israeli society."

Yacimovich won handily by nine percentage points over Peretz. Although not all the votes were tallied, not enough ballots remained for Peretz to make up the differences.

Yacimovich's victory came after a contentious election which saw the candidates launching personal attacks and claims of impropriety against one another.

On Wednesday, election observers representing Peretz refused to remain at four polling stations while votes were counted, but Labor's election committee did not disqualify the votes there.

Late Wednesday morning, a Peretz supporter named Dov Shemesh was punched by a Yacimovich supporter outside her headquarters and had to be hospitalized. Yacimovich was present and video of the incident indicates that she must have seen it, but she said she was unaware of what happened, because she was giving interviews. Yacimovich called Shemesh and condemned the incident, but when she said she didn't see it, he called her a liar.

Peretz said Shemesh "had no connection to violence," and was "truly the salt of the earth." He called on all Labor Party members to prevent further violence. "The day after the election," he said, "we'll need to unify against the Likud."

Yacimovich filed complaints with the Labor elections committee against a Peretz organizer who she said set up a table inside a Haifa polling station, and against Peretz's sister and brother-in-law, Flora and Sammy Shoshan, for allegedly threatening voters at a polling station in Mitzpe Ramon, where Flora Shoshan is mayor.

Earlier, Yacimovich complained that polls at several Kibbutzim and large cities were prevented from opening on time Wednesday morning due to the delayed arrival of Peretz's election observers. She noted that Peretz's observers only came late to polling stations in sectors where she had an advantage.

Neutral observers urged Peretz and Yacimovich to do everything possible to keep the party united following the primary. MK Isaac Herzog, who finished a strong third in the first round of voting last Monday said he was concerned that Labor could split again as it did when Defense Minister Ehud Barak and four allies left the party on January 17.

"The party is not the personal property of anyone," said former Labor candidate Erel Margalit, who like Herzog did not endorse anyone in the run-off race. "We all must unite behind our leader. From today, there are no adversaries in this house."
(h/t Docs Talk)
GIL HOFFMAN AND JPOST.COM STAFF
09/22/2011

Troy Davis Executed After Stay Denied by Supreme Court

WASSAAA!! Troy Davis Was executed at night after the U.S. Supreme Court denied a last-minute stay of execution. Davis died at 11:08 p.m., according to a Georgia Department of Corrections official.The execution was delayed more than four hours as the U.S. Supreme Court weighed last-minute arguments from Davis' legal team and the state of Georgia over whether his execution should be blocked. WASSAAA!!

Arabs throw ROCKS at a Baby

(EYE on WORLD) Sadly, I blame Israel. They should have showered the Arabs with bombs, as a repercussion. Even a fool learns from experience.

(INN) Arabs threw rocks Wednesday at an Israeli car between Migdalim and Tapuach Junction in Samaria. A 20 month old girl was injured in the face.
The baby girl received treatment from Samaria Regional Authority medics and evacuated to a hospital. The Authority Head Gershon Mesika said: "The 'men of peace' of the Palestinian murder authority provide yet more proof, to those who still need it, as to just whom we are facing. We face low life terrorists who try to murder babies."

"They hold an olive twig in their mouths and murder weapons in their hands. To these barbarian terrorists they want to give a state. The Nation of Israel is strong, the government needs to learn from it and be strengthened by its spirit – no to folding and surrendering, yes to construction and stamping out terrorism."
An Israeli citizen was lightly wounded from rocks hurled by Arabs as he drove near Halhoul. Three Arabs were arrested Wednesday afternoon in confrontations with security forces near the Kalandiya checkpoint. Earlier, they threw rocks at IDF forces and burned tires.

Several dozen Arabs threw rocks at Border Policemen near Har Adar, not far from Jerusalem. No one was hurt. The policemen used riot dispersal gear to scatter the rioters.

Assange: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned

Assange didn't call back the ladies he was sleeping with... oops. I believe him.

According to the book Mr Assange had been warned that the US government wanted to set him up. He admits to sleeping with two women but says their allegations that some of the encounters were not consensual are either part of a conspiracy or motivated by his failure to return their calls.

The autobiography of Julian Assange is published today despite attempts by the WikiLeaks founder to keep information from coming out... um... yeah... Did I mention this hypocrite is not a supporter of Israel? I wonder if he is pissed that the truth did nothing but spare Israel from Obama's lies and ruined any chance of Diplomacy with Islam. I should thank him. Ironically his downfall is something this blog is dedicated to protect men from, but considering his hypocrisy in secrets I won't shed a tear. So many righteous government informants and whistle blowers were not spared his idealism.

"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned,"
spoken by Zara in Act III, Scene VIII by William Congreve

Has the UK's New Conservative Party Ceased to Exist?

(A. Millar) Former shadow Home Secretary David Davis said last week that the Conservative Party's "conservatism" has been "significantly diluted" by its alliance with the country's third party, the Liberal Democrats.
In power just over a year, the Conservative-LibDem coalition Government has more or less continued the policies of the much-detested former Labour Government. It is not worse, perhaps; it is simply that there has been no discernable positive change. Yet, to blame the LibDems is merely to shift the blame. The Conservatives dominate the coalition. They would also have won a historic number of seats in Parliament had they discussed the substantive issues, and promised essentially conservative measures, during the election campaign.
A coalition was necessary only because, as far as possible, the big issues – Islamism, immigration, the European Union – were kept off the table, and because David Cameron had already entrenched the worst aspects of political correctness in the party ideology and its hierarchy. Notably, the "army" of community organizers he promised to create if he were elected Prime Minster was credited to the work of Marxist Revolutionary, Saul Alinsky.
It is true, of course, that during the election campaign of early 2010, David Cameron – now the UK Prime Minister – was forced, finally, to address the issue of immigration. He promised to cut it dramatically, from several hundred thousand a year to "tens of thousands." Since the election, however, immigration has risen 21%. No less significant, while 400,000 new jobs have been created in the UK, 87% - that is to say, nearly nine out of ten – have gone to immigrants. The proportion is even higher than under the previous New Labour Government. It is perhaps no surprise, then, that Britain saw the highest rise in unemployment claims in two years this May, 2011.
Uncontrolled immigration has created serious problems that will affect Britain in the short and long term. In 2006, Rear Admiral Chris Parry claimed that mass immigration could ultimately lead to a situation for Britain comparable to "the 5th century Roman empire facing the Goths and the Vandals." Uncontrolled immigration, he predicted, would mean a "reverse colonization" of European states, with those from other countries using the internet and cheap flights to retain a distinct identity and an allegiance to their own group. "When you combine the lower prospects for communal life with macho youth and economic deprivation you tend to get trouble, typified by gangs and organized criminal activity," Parry observed. "When one thinks of 20,000 so-called jihadists currently fly-papered in Iraq, one shudders to think where they might go next."
Gang culture and immigration have been back in the news in recent weeks. Documents recently published by Wikileaks show that in Sweden, "immigrants or Individuals with at least one immigrant parent perpetrated about 45 percent of all crimes during the period 1997-2001. In regard to the most serious felonies - murder, manslaughter, assault and rape - the percentage was even higher."
According to a study, funded by the University of Nottingham's Integrating Global Society group, "following the [recent] riots [in England] people felt more threatened in specifically two ways. First, people were more likely to feel that their safety was threatened, i.e. they were more fearful of increasing violence and vandalism in their neighbourhood. Second, they were more likely to feel that wider British culture and society was under threat, i.e. they were more fearful that British culture is threatened."
From video footage and photographs, the perpetrators, sadly, seemed to be almost exclusively Black. Areas were also "defended" by groups that were of one ethnicity and/or religion – Turkish and Middle Eastern Muslims, Sikhs, and Whites. If this was not an illustration of how the country could split along racial and religious lines at some future point, with the potential for inter-group conflict, then one wonders what might be.
It is not only on immigration that the Conservative Party appears not to be in any way conservative.
Under Prime Minister Cameron, the party has abandoned its long-standing support of Israel, and has instead become one of its louder critics. Notably, Cameron himself stood on stage in 2010 with his Turkish counterpart, in Ankara, and denounced Israel for turning Gaza into a "prison camp," even though it has been wholly autonomous for over five years, ever since the Israelis forcibly removed their own citizens from it -- and for preventing a weapons-loaded flotilla from reaching Gaza.
This only one area in which the Conservatives appear to have relinquished their conservatism to the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), whose leader, Nigel Farage, had earlier publicly attacked Israel-bashing and anti-Semitism.
Perhaps Cameron is a pacifist. While the tax payer-funded, but anti-British, politically correct and appallingly tendentious BBC television and radio broadcasts operate on an annual budget of more than $4 billion annually, both the armed forces and the police are facing huge budget cuts, introduced by the coalition Government. The country's aircraft carriers are likely to be scrapped, leaving the Falkland Islands vulnerable to potential Argentine aggression again; and thousands of troops will also be made redundant. Similarly, large cuts in the police force ironically came in the aftermath of the worst rioting Britain has ever seen, and which, in many areas, the police seemed unable to control.
Then there is the questionable alliance with the European Union. In 2007, Cameron wrote an article for The Sun newspaper, giving a "cast-iron guarantee: If I become PM a Conservative government, we will hold a referendum on any EU treaty that emerges from these negotiations." Cameron's signature was even printed along with his article, giving it the look and feel of a contract. Having become Prime Minister, however, Cameron has reneged. There will be no referendum on membership of the EU, or any further relinquishing of British sovereignty, so long as the word "treaty" can be avoided – which it will be.
There are also significant issues relating to "Englishness" and devolution. In Scotland's Parliament, dominated by the Scottish National Party and Labour, the Conservative Party barely exists, and there has been much talk of the Scottish Conservatives disbanding and forming a new center-Right Party for Scotland which would be allied to the Conservative Party elsewhere. If the Scottish Conservative Party does fold, it will add even more weight to calls from Scotland for the nation to leave the United Kingdom.
England has also seen a rise in nationalism in the last decade, due to institutional hostility, and discrimination against the English. Unlike other regions of the UK, England does not have its own Parliament, and English taxpayers have been forced to subsidize Scotland to keep the issue of independence off the table.
****After more than a year in power, the verdict on the Conservative Party is damning. For those who support Israel; who believe the UK should withdraw from the EU; who believe in law and order and strong military deterrence; who want to see immigration cut and the English treated fairly, there is simply no possibility of supporting the party as it currently exists under David Cameron.
This is something that the United Kingdom Party's leader, Nigel Farage, understands. He believes that his party will not only pick up the protest vote (which has previously gone in large part to the LibDems), but will continue to pick up more Conservative votes, as the party's faithful realize that they have elected merely a version of New Labour.
In his speech at UKIP's recent annual conference, Farage railed against Cameron, the Conservatives, and the political class as a whole, which he aptly described as being "so hidebound by the European Union and political correctness that they simply refuse to stand up for the nation." Among UKIP's most noteworthy positions, Farage suggested that it was now the party of the working class. There had, he said, been a "betrayal of working class people in this country by [the] Labour [Party] by pursuing an open door immigration policy depriving British workers of jobs." Clearly, the situation has only become worse under the Conservative-dominated coalition Government.
While Farage announced that UKIP will campaign for an English Parliament, he also suggested that the issue was bigger than that. "There is a growing feeling in England – and certainly I feel it," said Farage at the conference, "that our leaders are ashamed of the very word 'England'. We are discouraged from describing ourselves as English. Our leaders seem to reel in horror at the idea of [the flag of England,] the cross of St. George."
Neither of these positions seems to be on UKIP's natural ground. Like the Conservative Party, UKIP has a largely middle class base. Interest in England specifically also appears myopic for an anti-EU party with "United Kingdom" in its title. Farage, however, knows that this is precisely the territory that his party – or any up-and-coming center-Right party in England – needs to occupy. Earlier in the year, a Populus poll found that 48% of the population would consider supporting a new party committed to cutting or stopping immigration; tackling Islamist extremism; and that "would support policies to make it statutory for all public buildings to fly the flag of St George or the union flag."
Although Farage's message will resonate with some former Labour and LibDem supporters, it is clear that he has set his sights on disgruntled conservatives who had naively looked on Cameron as the last best hope to revive England. Many had already realized that, under his leadership, the Conservatives had turned into little more that a version of New Labour, and had defected prior to the election.
In 2010 the UKIP vote cost the Conservatives ten seats and an outright majority. Farage is clearly aiming for more than that in the next election. He wants to win seats and to replicate the success his party has had in EU elections, and in local and UK national elections. "If you're a patriotic, Euro-skeptic, Conservative voter," Farage announced at the annual conference, "under David Cameron you're party has now ceased to exist. If you want to vote for what you believe in, you must come and vote UKIP."
If Cameron wants to prove Farage wrong, time is running out.

via hudson-ny.org

The 1954 Miss World pageant was won by - Miss Egypt

(EOZ) Al Arabiya has an interesting article: More tolerance prevailed, linking religion to state never seemed that necessary, and the Muslim Brotherhood were the only Islamist group in 1954, whereas in 2011 moderation is quickly diminishing, fanatical interpretations of Islam are gaining ground, and another religious faction emerged as the Brotherhood’s rival and has become more popular in the Egyptian street: the Salafis.

A 1954 beauty pageant is a simple, but important, example of the absence of religious fanaticism at the time. In that year, Egyptians chose Antigone Costanda, an Alexandrian of Greek origin, to be Miss Egypt, and in the same year she was crowned Miss World and appeared on stage dressed in a bathing suit in the ceremony held in London. (MORE)

Chinese Primary Schools Sponsored by Tobacco Firms

(Libra Bunda) THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: More than 100 primary schools in China are now sponsored by tobacco companies on the hunt for the next generation of smokers, according to antismoking campaigners.

The schools often bear the names of Chinese cigarette brands, such as Zhongnanhai or Liqun, over their gates and in some cases have slogans in the playground.

"Talent comes from hard work – Tobacco helps you become talented," says one slogan, in foot-high gilt letters, on the front of the Sichuan Tobacco Hope Primary School.

The school, which was built by the local tobacco company after a deadly earthquake in 2008, also bears the green leaf logo of China Tobacco, the country's all-powerful state-controlled monopoly, on its parapet.

China Tobacco is the world's largest manufacturer of tobacco products, with over 900 brands, and is owned by the Chinese government. China is the world's largest tobacco market and as many as 60 per cent of its men smoke.

Regulations to prevent smoking in public places, including schools, have been widely ignored and the World Health Organisation estimates that two million Chinese will die each year of smoking-related diseases by the end of the decade – accelerating the need to find more young smokers. » | Malcolm Moore, Shanghai and Stephen Adams | Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Obama tries to make Netanyahu part of his reelection bid

(Israel Matzav) For President Obama. Wednesday's meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly went a lot better than May's joint press availability (pictured).

It should be clear by now that President Obama has told Prime Minister Netanyahu in no uncertain terms that he had better be nice to the President in return for American support at the United Nations. He has been told to praise Obama personally because Obama is in trouble with the American Jewish community which despite its relatively small electoral vote controls a lot of Democratic campaign contributions. And Netanyahu is playing along.

NYTimes is LOSING MONEY AGAIN

I guess their readers didn't like the years of attacks on Israel

Echo Valley

Already an old story, but being the sick guy that I am... I'm going to post it, because it amused me! ...and I'm a horrible mean spirited shallow person.

Valley was not wearing a seatbelt, thus she was ejected from her car as a result of the collision. She died at the scene. According to a friend, she did not wear seatbelts while driving because of her large breasts. The irony is she died by being rear ended. She was married to James C. Stone, the former president of Alpha Health Services in Post Falls, Idaho. Stone was sentenced to a three-year term in prison and ordered to pay $170,000 in restitution in 2007 for stealing money from his employees’ pension plan. Believe it or not she was 57 years old when she died.

France Breaks With Obama on Palestinian Statehood Issue

(NYTimes) "Each of us knows that Palestine cannot immediately obtain full and complete recognition of the status of United Nations member state," Sarkozy said. "But who could doubt that a veto at the Security Council risks engendering a cycle of violence in the Middle East?"

How do you know that violence is inneivitable regardless of any vote? Palestinian Authority representatives in the United Nations are handing out maps of "Palestine" that show it in place of all of Israel, including Tel Aviv

The Palestinians currently have the status of an observer “entity” in the United Nations."Why not envisage offering Palestine the status of United Nations observer state?” said the French leader. “This would be an important step forward. Most important, it would mean emerging from a state of immobility that favors only the extremists.”

but the extremists are the ones from the Palestinian Authority handing out maps

Recognition as an observer state would not mean much here except for some procedural changes, but it would allow the Palestinians to join subsidiary bodies and treaties of the United Nations. Most Israeli concern has focused on the possibility that making the Palestinians an observer state could enhance their ability to join the International Criminal Court and pursue Israeli leaders through “lawfare.”

I had not even thought of that. Obviously the NYTimes is already planning their use of this upgrade

Hitlers Jewish Soldiers

(Brian Cuban): Adolf Hitler was aware of this and for a while allowed Jews to serve.  In most cases these soldiers had no knowledge of the Holocaust killing machine.  From their point of view they were simple German patriots fighting for their country. Many did not even consider themselves Jewish. Some were unaware of their “Jewish blood”.  According to his book, at least 20 soldiers of “Jewish blood” were awarded The Knights Cross.  Included in the ranks were two field marshals and fifteen generals. The most prominently known of these commanders of Jewish descent was General Erhard Milch who had one Jewish parent.  He was deputy to Herman Goring, the head of the Luftwaffe(German Air Force). While most of Jewish descent were ordinary Wehrmacht soldiers, some rose to very high ranking positions of authority in the Nazi Regime. Some either directly or indirectly participated in the Jewish killing machine. ...Finland was not under Nazi rule. Finland, from its perspective, was fighting for its independence from Russia rather than to support any anti-Semitic ideology or German persecution. Finland as a nation refused to endorse the Nazi anti-Semitic policies and refused to deport, persecute or discriminate against its Jewish population. It is quite the paradox that despite this policy their fighting alongside Germany certainly helped Germany achieve military goals and indirectly aided in the Jewish persecutions. The Finnish-Jewish soldiers were not blind to what was going on. It caused quite a bit of internal conflict and tension with the German soldiers. This was also not a racial classification issue. Finland did not discriminate against or classify their Jews. In this situation, full, practicing Jews were fighting alongside the Nazis against the Allies, fighting predominately at Leningrad. (MORE)

Ugly Female Candidates 'Repel Voters', Says Former Polish Prime Minister

(Libra Bunda) THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A former Polish prime minister has angered feminists by saying unattractive women candidates "repel voters", just weeks before the country's general election.

During a television interview Leszek Miller, once leader of the left-wing and officially pro-women Democratic Left Alliance, said parties should avoid fielding less-than-beautiful candidates."If the parties revolve around unattractive women, then this is something anachronistic and will repel voters," he said as Poles prepare to vote on the October 9 election. The comment riled women, who have often complained that conservative and old-fashioned attitudes in Polish public life hold women back. »Matthew Day, Warsaw

Obviously the Polish like their candidates attractive, I wish the rest of the world could learn from this. ;^)

Kissinger, in Just-Released Tapes: Gassing Jews Would Not Be U.S. Problem

This might be very hard for much of the Jewish community to understand, but Kissinger was doing his job and attempting to protect American Interests first. In some ways he did us a favor. He proved that a Jew could be in a top position in a Christian nation and not have loyalties to Israel and the Jewish community. These are the kind of decisions that a Secretary of State must make... and I have tremendous respect for Kissinger. While I admit I was upset when these tapes first came out, the more I think of it... the more I realize that in the long run because the truth came out (and Kissinger is integral to Israel's early history)... that Kissinger proves there was no Zionist fifth column undermining Christian American interests. Thank you for your service Henry.

(Forward) Henry Kissinger is heard saying on newly released Nixon tapes that the genocide of Soviet Jews would not be an American concern. The tapes chronicle President Richard Nixon’s obsession with disparaging Jews and other minorities. Kissinger’s remarks come after a meeting he and Nixon had with Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir on March 1, 1973 in which Meir pleads for the United States to put pressure on the Soviet Union to release its Jews. Nixon and Kissinger, then the secretary of state, dismiss the plea after Meir leaves.“The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy,” The New York Times on Saturday quotes Kissinger, as saying on the tapes. “And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.” Nixon replies, “I know. We can’t blow up the world because of it.”
Six months later, during the Yom Kippur War, Nixon rejected Kissinger’s advice to delay an arms airlift to Israel as a means of setting the stage for an Egypt confident enough to pursue peace. Nixon, among other reasons, cited Israel’s urgent need. The American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants in a statement called for an apology from Kissinger, who is still consulted by Democratic and Republican administrations and by Congress on matters of state. “Henry Kissinger’s comments are morally grotesque and represent a disgraceful perversion of American values,” said the statement. “He owes an apology to all victims of the Nazi Holocaust.”
Nixon secretly recorded his White House conversations. After this was revealed during congressional investigations, the tapes became government property and have been released over the years in intervals.Elsewhere on the batch of tapes recently released by the Nixon Library, the late president repeats many of the ethnic and racial slurs that had appeared on earlier such releases: Irish are “mean” drunks, he says; Italians “don’t have their heads screwed on tight”; Jews are “aggressive, abrasive and obnoxious”; and it would take blacks “500 years” to catch up with whites.

Pre Taliban Afghan Leader killed in Suicide Terrorist Attack

For future reference to any Afghanistan politicians: The former president of Afghanistan – Burhanuddin Rabbani, a major figure who was leading peace talks aimed at ending the war – was killed in his home Tuesday by a suicide attacker wearing an exploding turban.(I bet THAT was messy.)
(english.aljazeera.net) Burhanuddin Rabbani, a former president of Afghanistan, has been killed in a suicide attack in the country's capital, Kabul.
Rabbani, who served as president in the 1990s, was recently made the head of the High Peace Council, tasked by Hamid Karzai, the current president, to reach out to the Taliban.
Mohammad Zaher, Kabul's criminal investigations chief, said two men "negotiating with Rabbani on behalf of the Taliban" arrived at his house on Tuesday, one with explosives hidden in his turban.
"He approached Rabbani and detonated his explosives. Rabbani was martyred and four others including Masoom Stanekzai [his deputy] were injured".
Fazel Karim Aymaq, a member of the High Peace Council,  said the men claimed to have come with "special messages" from the Taliban and were thought to be "very trusted."
When Rabbani appeared, the man shook the former president's hand and bowed in a sign of respect, Aymaq said. "Then his turban exploded.''
The blast broke windows in Rabbani's home and shook nearby houses.
Initial reports said four bodyguards had been killed but Zaher said this was incorrect.
The latest in a series of targeted killings, Rabbani's is the most high-profile political killing since 2001.
He was president of the Afghan government that preceded the Taliban, a period of civil war that saw thousands of people killed.
After he was driven away from Kabul by the Taliban in 1996, he became the nominal head of the Northern Alliance, which swept to power in the capital after the Taliban's fall in 2001.
Failure
President Karzai, who cut short a trip to the United Nations in New York after hearing of the attack, called on Afghans to remain unified in the face of Rabbani's "martyrdom". An emergency cabinet meeting was called for on Wednesday.
The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also condemned the killing and underscored the UN's commitment to "supporting Afghanistan and its people attaining peace and stability and to working in close co-operation with them," his spokesman said.
Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan's president, and Yousuf Raza Gilani, the prime minister, also condemned the attack.
Amrullah Saleh, a former intelligence chief who fought against the Taliban under Rabbani, told Al Jazeera the attacks showed the government's failure in protecting high-profile figures.
"These attacks tell us that the policy of appeasement and deal making with the Taliban and Pakistan is not going to lead to peace.
"By adapting a vague policy of so called reconciliation, [the government] has created confusion in our society
and weakened the government to the extent that they can't even protect high-profiled leaders in the capital."
Rabbani's death could also unleash the resentment building up among some senior Northern Alliance members, who have criticised Karzai for his peace efforts with the Taliban.
"If Karzai wants to keep Afghanistan united, he has to launch massive massive investigations and bring the culprits to justice."

Restrictions on rabbis from conducting weddings removed

I'm not sure what the details of this are. Can a Reform, Conservative, or even a Reconstructionist rabbi perform a wedding? How would this apply to say a Gay Marriage?

(JPost) Tzohar rabbis authorized as long as they supply proof of rabbinic ordination, know laws of marriage, currently serve as rabbi, teacher.

The religious-Zionist rabbinical group Tzohar, which provides rabbis free of charge to perform weddings, announced on Tuesday that it has succeeded in gaining approval from the Council of the Chief Rabbinate to conduct wedding ceremonies.
Executive Vice-President of Tzohar, Nachman Rosenberg, said that Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar in particular was critical to advancing the necessary changes for this reform.
“Tzohar praises this decision and especially the work of Rabbi Amar in succeeding to bring about this dramatic change, despite the opposition of some of the extremists on the Council of the Chief Rabbinate who oppose us,” Rosenberg told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
“Rabbi Amar’s efforts will help many young people and allow them to marry in a Jewish wedding and not run away to get married in civil ceremony in Cyprus,” he added.
Tzohar established a project in 1996 to reach out to secular Israelis who had negative experiences with the Chief Rabbinate and provide them with the opportunity to have a rabbi more sympathetic to their level of religious observance marry them without charge or expectation of any other kind of remuneration.
According to Rosenberg, this led the rabbinate to enact a series of restrictions making it virtually impossible for a rabbi to marry a couple who registered for marriage in a particular city without the permission of the rabbinate of that specific city or a rabbi on the Chief Rabbinate’s payroll.
Opponents of Tzohar claim that the group is too lenient regarding the numerous Jewish laws surrounding marriage ceremonies, and so rabbis from the organization would invariably be refused a license to perform weddings.
On Sunday, the Council of the Chief Rabbinate decided to remove its restrictions and will now instruct local rabbinates and rabbis to permit Tzohar rabbis to perform wedding ceremonies as long as they supply proof of their rabbinic ordination, demonstrate knowledge of the laws of marriage, and currently serve as a rabbi or teacher.
Due to a number of exceptions and ongoing pressure, Tzohar has nevertheless managed to perform 3,000 weddings a year, approximately 20% of all secular weddings.
“There’s no reason why Zionist rabbis in Israel should have to fight so hard to help secular couples interested in a Jewish wedding to get married,” Rosenberg said.
“We hope that this victory will help thousands of secular Jews to get married according to Jewish law and allow many other rabbis to volunteer for Tzohar to further this goal.”

I'd appreciate if someone could leave me a comment and inform me what is going on here.