I don’t like what I’m seeing across the pond. The rioters are running wild. And even worse, the authorities are acting with far too much restraint.

The Home Secretary appeared to rule out sending water cannon or the Army onto the streets of the capital, despite a third night of violence.

Speaking on Sky News, she said that police intelligence and the support of local communities would help quell the disturbances.

“The way we police in Britain is not through use of water cannon,” she said. “The way we police in Britain is through consent of communities.”

That seems… insane. I am not arguing that London needs to unleash its police force to do something like cracking skulls, but the response to this level of civil disobedience can’t be the usual business.

It’s unacceptable that a major, modern, capital city like London isn’t doing more to reign this in. In order to have a functioning society, some level of order has to be maintained. You can’t let thugs and fear of thugs run your city like this.

An Other Mother is a man or woman who “mothered” you when your own biological parent could not. These unsung heroes are sometimes grandparents, sometimes uncles, aunts, family friends, neighbors, teachers or even distant acquaintances who took it upon themselves to help you when you most needed support.

The story behind this:

At the heart of each SOS family is the SOS Mother who dedicates her life to raising a generation of orphaned and abandoned children as if they were her own. Worldwide, there are more than 5,250 SOS Mothers who care for 80,000 children in over 500 SOS Children’s Villages. They live with their children, care for their children, comfort their children and celebrate with their children. They do all the things a mother would do. Between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, we want to recognize the many men and women in America who do the same.

Go. Check it out.

Two political parties that led demonstrations in Baghdad over the past two weeks said on Monday that security forces controlled by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki had ordered them to close their offices.

The actions came amid growing concerns that Mr. Maliki, who is backed by the United States, is using force and other measures to stifle this country’s democracy.

Officials for the Iraqi Nation Party and the Iraqi Communist Party said in interviews that dozens of armed security forces had come to their offices in Baghdad on Sunday, two days after nationwide protests calling for better services.

What often builds up international opposition to America is our habit of propping up really bad guys who promise to keep things in check for us. It isn’t a big stretch when people then blame the way they’re abused on the American money and power that kept the abuser in office.

President Hosni Mubarak left the Egyptian capital for his resort home in Sharm el-Sheik on Friday and was expected to make a statement, state television said, amid indications that a transfer of power was under way.

We don’t know where this all will lead, but its clearly a new day for Egypt.

Via Boing Boing, this video is from this group – Mama Hope.

We’ve had enough of the tragic impressions of Africans that flood the media and nonprofit campaigns. We aim to break these stereotypes by releasing a series of captivating videos that show the light of the people we serve in Africa. We aspire to introduce our communities to you with the integrity and brilliance that we witness everyday.

In the first video of our series meet Alex! He is a happy, healthy, 9 year old boy from Tanzania. He is intensely enthusiastic, has a wild imagination and loves action movies. Does this sound like any 9 year old boys you know?

Yesterday’s Daily Star broke new ground by publishing a political splash. Over a picture of flag-waving marchers was the headline English Defence League to become political party.

As this reproduction of its front page shows, it was anything but a neutral presentation. It is a clear piece of propaganda on behalf of the EDL, a group that opposes the supposed spread of Islamic extremism in Britain.

The story cannot be read as anything other than a cheer-leading, uncritical piece on behalf of the EDL. Triumphalist in tone throughout, it required no between-the-lines deconstruction to grasp its intention – to build support for the group among its readers.

It should be noted that the EDL has tried to link arms with the Tea Party movement.

Statement from White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on violence in Egypt

The United States deplores and condemns the violence that is taking place in Egypt, and we are deeply concerned about attacks on the media and peaceful demonstrators. We repeat our strong call for restraint.

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As we monitor the situation in Egypt, we urge all parties to refrain from using violence, and expect the Egyptian authorities to respond to any protests peacefully.  We support the universal rights of the Egyptian people, including the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly.  The Egyptian government has an important opportunity to be responsive to the aspirations of the Egyptian people, and pursue political, economic and social reforms that can improve their lives and help Egypt prosper.  The United States is committed to working with Egypt and the Egyptian people to advance these goals.
 
More broadly, what is happening in the region reminds us that, as the President said in Cairo, we have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things:  the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and free of corruption; and the freedom to live as you choose – these are human rights and we support them everywhere.

Background:

Lanny Davis, corporate tool and so-called “Democrat” was on international television attacking the United Nations on the behalf of Gbagbo. Davis was doing his best to spin atrocities like the following:

A United Nations official says more than 170 people have been killed over the past week in Ivory Coast, which remains locked in a post-election crisis.

Diplomats discussed Ivory Coast at a meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva Thursday.

The U.N. deputy human rights chief, Kyung-wha Kang, said the U.N. has substantiated at least 173 killings, 90 cases of torture, 471 arrests, and 24 cases of people disappearing in a five-day period beginning last Thursday.

Here is what PJ Crowley, spokesman for the US State Department said about this situation yesterday:

And finally, regarding Ivory Coast, yesterday President Gbagbo held a news conference, I believe, where he called for an independent body to review the election results. In fact, this has already been done by Cote D’Ivoire’s own Independent Electoral Commission, and the United States under its certification mandate has already done what President Gbagbo proposes. These certified results irrefutably show that President-elect Ouattara was the winner. Credible, accredited, and independent election observers have declared the election to be fair and reported no incidences of fraud that would change the outcome as announced by the Electoral Commission. And so Mr. President Gbagbo must accept the results of the election. From our standpoint, this is not negotiable.

President Gbagbo also claimed that the current situation in Cote D’Ivoire has been peaceful. This is untrue. The international community is documenting widespread human rights abuses occurring in the country from home abductions to a feared mass grave in Abidjan. The International Criminal Court is monitoring the situation. The United Nations Human Rights Council also announced that it will hold a special session to address these abuses tomorrow.

For some time, we’ve known Lanny Davis is willing to chase a dollar no matter how much manure it’s soaked in. Turns out, if the dollar is also covered in blood, Davis is willing to pocket it any way.

Since first appearing last year, their protests have been directed at not only Japan’s half million ethnic Koreans, but also Chinese and other Asian workers, Christian churchgoers and even Westerners in Halloween costumes. In the latter case, a few dozen angrily shouting demonstrators followed around revelers waving placards that said, “This is not a white country.”

…

In interviews, members of the Zaitokukai and other groups blamed foreigners, particularly Koreans and Chinese, for Japan’s growing crime and unemployment, and also for what they called their nation’s lack of respect on the world stage. Many seemed to embrace conspiracy theories taken from the Internet that China or the United States were plotting to undermine Japan.

“Japan has a shrinking pie,” said Masaru Ota, 37, a medical equipment salesman who headed the local chapter of the Zaitokukai in Omiya, a Tokyo suburb. “Should we be sharing it with foreigners at a time when Japanese are suffering?”

…

Mr. Sakurai says the group is not racist, and rejected the comparison with neo-Nazis. Instead, he said he had modeled his group after another overseas political movement, the Tea Party in the United States. He said he had studied videos of Tea Party protests, and shared with the Tea Party an angry sense that his nation had gone in the wrong direction because it had fallen into the hands of leftist politicians, liberal media as well as foreigners.

About 700 protesters from a far-right group have clashed with hundreds of riot police in northern England.

The English Defense League activists threw bottles, rocks and a smoke bomb at the riot police after the authorities penned in the protesters to keep them away from an opposing demonstration by a leftist group, United Against Fascism.

As in America, the neo-fascists of the English Defense League are on the right side of the political spectrum.

If ever there were a case for the importance of good urban planning that includes mass transit, this is it: a 62-mile traffic standstill on a road leading to Beijing is now in its ninth day, with individual drivers caught in it for as long as three days. The cause of the jam — beyond the skyrocketing number of drivers in China — is heavy use of the route, the Beijing-Tibet expressway, by trucks bringing construction supplies into Beijing.

It seems to be going around…

Australia’s political future hung in the balance last night after neither of the two main parties was able to claim outright victory in Saturday’s election.

In what is shaping up to be the first hung parliament in the country since the Second World War, the British-born candidates began wooing a handful of independents.

Labour prime minister Julia Gillard, 48, who lived in Wales until she was five, believes she will be in a position to form a government with the support of a Green MP and one of the four independent candidates.

Taking away milk. From babies. Really.

China has surpassed the United States to become the world’s top energy consumer, a report said Tuesday, citing an official at the International Energy Agency.

The Asian giant took over the top spot more quickly than expected, but still uses far less energy than the United States on a per capita basis, and is less energy-efficient, the Financial Times reported.

China consumed 2.252 billion tons of oil equivalent of energy in 2009, from sources including coal, nuclear power, natural gas and hydroelectric power — about four percent more than the United States, the IEA said.

North Korea’s health care system is in shambles with doctors sometimes performing amputations without anesthesia and working by candlelight in hospitals lacking essential medicine, heat and power, a rights watchdog said Thursday.

North Korea’s state health care system has been deteriorating for years as the country’s economic difficulties worsen. Many of the country’s 24 million people also reportedly face health problems related to chronic malnutrition, such as tuberculosis and anemia, Amnesty International said.

The New Yorker had a good piece this week on North Korea’s internal distress, but most of it is behind a paywall.

The investigation, which was headed by Maj. Gen. (Reserves) Giora Eiland, found that while high-level officials had committed errors in judgment, no one in the military had behaved negligently. The report avoids recommendations that would have led to the demotion of military personnel or other strong actions.

‘We found that there were some professional mistakes regarding both the intelligence and the decision-making process and some operational mistakes,’ Eiland said.