Og igen: Der er ingen overbefolkning

Det kan ikke siges for tit. Overbefolkning er ikke et problem. En nation skal have bæredygtighed, hvad folketallet anbelanger. Arbejdskraftens reproduktion. Et stabilt fødselstal hos landets oprindelige befolkning må være målet – ungefær 2,1 barn per kvinde for Danmarks vedkommende:

Five Myths About the World’s Population

By Nicholas Eberstadt | November 6, 2011

1. The world is overpopulated.

Sure, 7 billion is a big number. But most serious demographers, economists and population specialists rarely use the term “overpopulation” — because there is no clear demographic definition.

For instance, is Haiti, with an annual population growth rate of 1.3 percent, overpopulated? If it is, then was the United States overpopulated in 1790, when the new country was growing at more than 3 percent per year? And if population density is the correct yardstick, then Monaco, with more than 16,000 people per square kilometer, has a far greater problem than, say, Bangladesh and its 1,000 people per square kilometer.

Back in the 1970s, some scholars tried to estimate the “optimum population” for particular countries, but most gave up. There were too many uncertainties (how much food would the world produce with future technologies?) and too many value judgments (how much parkland is ideal?).

Mere HER hos AEI eller her i The Washington Post.

Andre kilder: djøf-bladet,

Iran frigiver amerikanske gidsler

Fjolserne var på vandring – hike – langs den iranske grænse, da de blev pågrebet. Iranerne påstod, at de spionerede og har holdt dem fængslet i 2 år:

U.S. hikers Bauer and Fattal are freed by Iran, arrive in Oman

By Thomas Erdbrink – September 21, 2011

Tehran - Two American hikers jailed in Iran since 2009 were freed from prison Wednesday and flown to Oman, where they were reunited with joyful family members.

Shane Bauer and Joshua Fattal, both 29, were released Wednesday evening local time after spending more than two years in prison on charges of illegal entry and espionage since they and a companion, Sarah Shourd, were arrested on the border between Iraq and Iran while hiking in the mountainous region. Shourd, who was freed last year and is engaged to Bauer, was on hand in Oman to greet the two as they ran down the stairs from the private plane that picked them up in Iran and flew them to freedom.

Mere HER i The Washington Post. Tidligere blogget om gidseltagningen:

• Fire vesterlændinge i islamisk fangenskab

Andre kilder: DR, Wikipedia,

Islam overalt i Spanien

Det virker mest sandsynligt, at Spanien går tabt:

Muslim Countries Financing Jihad in Spain

by Soeren Kern – August 4, 2011

Muslim countries in the Persian Gulf and North Africa are funnelling large sums of money to radical Islamic groups in towns and cities across Spain in a competing effort to exert control over the estimated 1.5 million Muslims in the country.

A newly leaked secret report prepared by Spain’s National Intelligence Center (CNI), excerpts of which were published by the Madrid-based El País newspaper on July 31, says the Spanish government is struggling to stop the flow of tens of millions of dollars to Islamic groups in Spain from Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and above all Saudi Arabia.

Mere HER hos Hudson New York.

Walter Laqueur om revolutioner

Another Revolution Betrayed

Walter Laqueur | May 16, 2011

It is Difficult to predict revolutions. George Rude, the leading left-wing historian of the French Revolution once wrote that an intelligent observer of the French scene, native or foreign, would hardly have predicted in 1787 the coming of the revolution despite a variety of straws in the wind. There was probably no closer student of France at the time than Arthur Young, the leading British expert on agriculture, who visited France three times for extended periods on the eve of the revolution. While he saw a number of things that were wrong with the country, he certainly did not realize that a great revolution was coming.

Not as unusual as one might think. In Russia, there was no more ardent a protagonist of the revolution than Vladimir Ilich Lenin, who had devoted his whole life to the cause. And yet Lenin, in a lecture in Bern in January 1917, was quite pessimistic about the prospects of the masses rising up, telling his audience that the great event might not even happen in his lifetime. But it did happen just one month later. And by the end of the year, his party, the Bolsheviks, had taken power.

Mere HER i The National Interest. Det ligger en kopi i et forum på The People’s Daily her.

Opdatering – endnu en artikel om revolutioner:

Arabs and the long revolution

A talk by Brian Whitaker at the Centre for Applied Human Rights, University of York, 18 May 2011

The Popular Uprising that began in Tunisia last December came as a surprise in one sense, but in another sense it was no surprise at all. Rather like an earthquake, we could be pretty sure it was going to happen, though nobody could say exactly when.

It was obvious, or ought to have been, that at some point something would have to give – and the same can be said of all the Arab countries. If the regimes don’t transform themselves radically over the next few years, eventually they are going to fall.

Mere HER i  Al Bab.

Opdatering: Den 95-årige Bernard Lewis har lige udgivet endnu en bog, skriver Enhanced Online News:

• Hoover Institution Press Today Releases Book Highlighting the Future of the Middle East in the Postimperialist Era – “The End of Modern History in the Middle East” by Bernard Lewis

Opdatering 25. juni 2011 – endnu en artikel om revoutioner:

Arab Youth Rising & Europe’s Entitlement Kids: Contrasting Portraits Of A Generation

The young people on the two shores of the Mediterranean each have demands, but the sense of possibility embodied in North African and Arab quest for freedom is utterly absent in European youth protests.

By Gerd Held – June 23rd, 2011

Amidst all the uncertainty surrounding the rebellions in North Africa and the Middle East, one thing is sure: these are uprisings of young people. A new, questioning generation is manifesting, breaking away from the narrow confines imposed by their families and religion. And despite the precariousness of their situation, they have succeeded in making themselves heard.

When the late American political scientist Samuel Huntington spoke of an Islamic youth boom, he was assuming that the huge numbers of young people in the Arabic nations would necessarily turn towards fundamentalism. The assumption wasn’t at all far-fetched: cases abound of restless youth seeking answers in totalitarianism.

Mere HER i Worldcrunch.

Lee Smith om venstrefløjen og Gaddafi

Committed

Western public intellectuals have a bad habit of supporting unsavory regimes like Muammar Qaddafi’s not for money or intellectual rigor but because of vanity

By Lee Smith | Mar 23, 2011

Contrary to President Barack Obama’s remarks, the European and American bombs that are falling on positions held by Col. Muammar Qaddafi’s forces in Libya do not herald a war of humanitarian intervention. No one really knows who the Libyan rebels are. These are not the peaceful men and women of Lebanon’s Cedar Revolution. They are not even like the members of the Muslim Brotherhood who will likely come out of Egypt’s uprising as the biggest winners. Some of them appear to be the same Islamic militants who made their way into Iraq to kill American soldiers and who are now being encouraged to fight by senior al-Qaida field commander Abu Yahya al-Libi. Even weirder, champions of this war are members of the same Western intellectual class who appeared to be in love with the nutty Libyan dictator only a few months ago.

The Obama Administration was compelled to join its European allies in going against Qaddafi, but what forced the Europeans to act were the scandals surrounding the British academic institutions—like Leeds University, Glasgow University, the School of Oriental and African Studies, King’s College London, and the London School of Economics—who’d enjoyed unseemly ties with Qaddafi. Most famously, Howard Davies was compelled to resign this month as director of the LSE, to which Qaddafi’s International Charity and Development Foundation donated £1.5 million (about $2.5 million), and which admitted to its doctoral program his son Saif al-Islam, now best known not for his academic endeavors, or even his expensive suits, but for exhorting his allies to “fight to the last man, until the last bullet” in a rambling speech that more closely recalled his father’s tirades than polite London dinner-party chatter.

Mere HER i The Tablet.

Caroline Glick om Irans nye rolle

Iran Wins No Matter How the ‘Arab Spring’ Turns Out

by Caroline Glick Mar 5th 2011

A new Middle East is upon us and its primary beneficiary couldn’t be happier.

In a speech Monday in the Iranian city of Kermanshah, Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Politburo Chief General Yadollah Javani crowed, “Iran’s pivotal role in the New Middle East is undeniable. Today the Islamic Revolution of the Iranian nation enjoys such a power, honor and respect in the world that all nations and governments wish to have such a ruling system.”

Iran’s leaders have eagerly thrown their newfound weight around. For instance, Iran is challenging Saudi Arabia’s ability to guarantee the stability of global oil markets.

Mere HER i Big Peace. Kan også læses her i Canada Free Press under en anden titel. Jerusalem Post har den her – Caroline Glicks blog her.

Andre kilder: Commentary Magazine,

Robert D. Kaplan om Oman

Ikke et land, man hører meget om:

Oman’s Renaissance Man

As reform protests grow in the Sultanate, it’s worth remembering that its ruler doesn’t deserve to be mentioned among the worst of the Arabian autocrats.

By Robert D. Kaplan | March 1, 2011

The democratic upheaval across the Arab world has now become so profound and overwhelming — so unstoppable — as to engulf arguably the least oppressive and most competent autocracy in the region: that of Oman. Compared with other Arab countries, Oman has scored comparatively well in recent years in human rights reports compiled by the U.S. State Department. Although there is no political freedom when it comes to choosing the country’s ruler, citizens have participated in free and fair elections for the Majlis al-Shura that advises Sultan Qaboos bin Said. Reports of arbitrary killings and arrests and politically motivated disappearances are rare. In the four decades since he overthrew his reactionary father, Sultan Said bin Taimur, Qaboos has single-handedly brought the country from the throes of anarchy and rebellion to being a strong and modern country with the minimum of repression. I have never encountered a place in the Arab world so well-governed as Oman, and in such a quiet and understated way.

Mere HER i Foreign Policy.

Opdatering 12. marts 2011: Lidt kritik af Kaplans artikel her i Asia Times.

Søren Kern om muslimske overgreb på Vestens værdier

Europe’s Fatwa Factories

by Soeren Kern – February 3, 2011

Britain will have more Muslims than Kuwait in 2030, while France will have more than Jordan; and Germany will have more than Oman and the United Arab Emirates combined, according to a new study titled “The Future of the Global Muslim Population.” The sobering projections (which are highly conservative estimates) about the exponential increase of Europe’s Muslim population over the next 20 years will fuel the growing controversy over Muslim mass immigration to Europe, and also add pressure on European policymakers to find ways to ensure that Muslim immigrants are better integrated into European society.

Efforts to improve the integration of Muslim immigrants in Europe will, however, be fiercely resisted by influential figures from within Europe’s Muslim community itself, many of whom, instead, are actively working to build parallel societies that keep Muslim immigrants isolated in exclusivist communities, and thus socially separated from their European host countries. Critics say these Muslim mini-societies are undermining not only European social cohesion but also European democracy.

Mere HER i Hudson New York.

Ibn Warraq om oprøret i Tunesien

Fra 20 januar 2011:

Opinion: The Tunisian Revolt – is it contagious?

Events in Tunisia have prompted a mixed reaction in Morocco. While the overthrowing of the corrupt dictatorship has brought smiles to many faces, there are some who express concern that the troubles of Tunisia might be contagious. Even more mixed has been the reporting by the international media.

Ibn Warraq investigates.

For the New York Times, the notable thing was that many female demonstrators were not wearing veils. Really? Haroon Moghul, Executive Director of The Maydan Institute, a consulting and communications project devoted to enhancing understanding between Muslims and the West, writing in Religion Dispatches, takes issue…If, instead, it had been veiled women calling for democracy, would their protests have been any less meaningful? If so, we’d probably make this calculation: If their governments had stifled their society, that’s the fair trade we make to keep the bearded barbarians and headscarved hordes in check. I say “probably” because indeed we did: Tunisia was a close American ally in the war on terror, much as we cozy up, time and time again, to vile leaders who use the Islamist bogeyman to crack down on human rights for those human types.

Mere HER i Lonely Planet – kan også læses her i The View from Fez. Robert Fisk, der citeres af Ibn Warraq, fremsætter sine udtalelser i en video, der kan ses hos Euronews.net her.

For the record the countries where head covering is optional include; Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Yemen, and Bahrain.

Ibn Warraq

Video: Robert D. Kaplan om landene omkring Det Indiske Ocean

Robert Kaplan er en travl mand for tiden, - han er overalt. Her er noget at vælge imellem:

Author Robert Kaplan discusses new book and the rise of the Indian Ocean

Robert Kaplan, author of “Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power” sat down in October 2010 with Nicholas Burns, director of the Belfer Center’s Future of Diplomacy Project, to discuss the growing importance of the Indian Ocean in international affairs.

Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power with Robert Kaplan

On October 25, 2010, Robert Kaplan visited the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs to discuss his new book, “Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power.” Kaplan current serves as a senior fellow at the Center for New American Security and as national correspondent for The Atlantic.