Censored Report on Darfur

It is up to you to take a position, or not. My co-blogger, Drima, posted on a documentary prepared by Nabil Kassem, from Al-Arabiya News Channel two years ago but never broadcasted it, not to my knowledge at least.


Watch part 1

Watch part 2

Pound Sterling, Orange Revolution and FSB

Litvinenko, God bless his soul, died in November 2006 under allegations from the British authorities that the Russians poisoned him. If you ask me, I advocate capital punishment for treason, if it were.

Recently, an overt espionage war has begun between the Russians and the Brits. The Brits, enthusiastically continues to throw accusations at Russians (Andrei Lugovoi) of killing the former KGB agent, which he in turn assures would not have been achieved without assistance from the MI-6. The Russian bear, on the other hand, continues its attempts at recruiting former FSB agents for counterespionage.

Enough with the introductory remarks. I read this article [Russian] which confirms what the International Herald Tribune also published. Vyacheslav Zharko (photo above), a Russian citizen and a former employee of the FSB, resorted to his former employer seeking protection as he feared for his life, he claimed.

Allegedly and according to the state-owned NTV channel, Zharko worked both with the tycoon Berezovsky and MI-6. What a coincidence! He revealed being recruited by the MI-6 since 2002 to gather important economic as well as intelligence information for the Brits.

The Russian addendum is that Vyacheslav Zharko revealed the missing link. According to him, Berezovsky (who has a Phd in embezzlement, and not math) was actually supported by the Brits to finance the Orange Revolution in Ukraine based on the information Litvinenko provided him with.

The Pound Sterling is still a strong currency, I reckon.

Anti-War

Last week I have watched two foreign films that if made compulsory in educational institutions we would be living in a peaceful world.

1-Иди и смотри [Idi i smotri] (Russian 1985) translated Come and See. This is the last movie directed by the late and renowned Elem Klimov. The film portrays the psychological deterioration of a youngster , Florya, from a Belorussian village during WWII (or as we dub it in Russian, the Great Patriotic War) as the Nazis began encroaching on the borders of Soviet Union. The protagonist, Alexei Kravchenko was an incredible actor who himself declared he wasn't sure he was able to mentally survive the shooting of the film. The scenery is very realistic both physically and psychologically.
Highly recommended: to people interested in history, psychology, war ethics and human rights. Not recommended: to the weak-hearted.

2- Rachida (Algeria, France 2002). A much milder civil war film which narrates the life of a school teacher in Algeria in the 1990s. It is directed by Yamina Bachir and in it she creatively combines the modern and the traditional in the daily life of a young Algerian woman. This woman is Ibtissem Djouadi (a pretty green-eyed newbie) who played the character, Rachida, with a complete devotion and talent
Highly recommended: to all
Not recommended: to all those who don't try to understand our Muslim way of living.