Japanese Prime minister Shinzo Abe opened up a trip to the US to meet President Barack Obama amid regional diplomatic tensions and domestic economic inconvenience.

Recently Prime minister Abe left Tokyo on his way to meet President Obama and arrived at Andrews Air Force Base outside of Washington, D.C.

Japan is currently crumbling by an ailing economy measured in terms of consistent deflation from the past 20 years, a territorial dispute with China and being disturbed by North Korean missile mission that automatically placed Japan under its axis.

PM Abe said after his White House visit at a Washington think tank, that “they (North Korea) have increased the range of their missile immensely and have attained the ability to reach even the mainland United States.”

Japan has been jammed into a dispute with China over sovereignty of islands located in the East China Sea and lost sleep over the situation as North Korean missile strength has expanded too dramatically.

Over the years, the North Korean missile program expansion became a major problem, terrifying its neighbours. During the picture session at the Oval Office with President Obama, PM Abe said, “We just cannot tolerate the actions of North Korea, such as launching missiles and conducting nuclear tests.”

President Obama’s Asia advisor, Danny Russel, said that the president “remains supportive of the peaceful efforts to diplomatic resolution to outstanding issues of territorial claims,” BBC reports.

The Japanese economy is the third largest in the world, but its currency is persistently declining in value against the US dollar.

Abe proposes to help set off the otherwise grounded economy with the help of Monetarist and Keynesian tools that may support growth in future. According to the BBC news, PM Abe has outlined two plans to revitalize the weak economy: firstly to print a lot of money and secondly to spend a lot of money. Plan A can be categorized under Monetarism and plan B is from the Keynesian School of Thought.

According to Keynesian economic thought, if the pace of economic activity is slow with falling investment rates and fading employment combined with decreasing consumer spending, then the only thing that can restart economy is public intervention through spending.

On the other hand, Monetarist believe that it is the supply of money that makes the economy move back and forth and not government spending. However, if both of these schools of thought can bring life to Japanese economy, then there may be a possibility of progress.

According to the BBC News, in an interview with the Washington Post, Abe said that improving ties with the US were at the top of his agenda and that their support is key. Both leaders are expected to discuss Trans-Pacific Partnership (Free Trade Agreement between North American, South American and Asian nations) among other issues during his visit.

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Leonard Cohen’s “Old Ideas” has reached unprecedented worldwide creative and commercial heights with debuts in the #1 position on the official Album Sales Chart in 9 countries.

Additionally, “Old Ideas” has smashed records with its debut at the top of the charts (official, iTunes or Amazon) in 17 countries (Austria, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Finland {trending to #1}, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, New Zealand, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, UK, USA).

The highly acclaimed 10-song collection of new material from poet/singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen was also Top 5 in an additional 10 countries. This makes “Old Ideas” the highest debuting album of Leonard Cohen’s career!

Both The Washington Post (U.S.) and The Telegraph (UK) declare Old Ideas ”a work of genius,” and worldwide praise continues to mount.  In his fifth decade of producing critically-acclaimed music, Cohen remains at the top of his game, a rare event for an older artist.

In TIME Magazine, Adam Kivel observes about Cohen, “…here he is…delivering material that matches the depth and power of that first solo record, covering the same tropes of mortality, sexuality, and religion, while remaining as vibrant and striking a poet as ever… Listeners have been relying on Cohen’s heartbroken yet grinning, world-weary yet hopeful voice to get through that night for decades, and this album should continue that for a whole new batch of souls.”

“Old Ideas” has earned four and five star reviews from the media around the world including Rolling Stone (U.S.), Irish Times (Ireland), London Evening Standard (UK), VG Nett (Norway), Uncut (UK), The Globe and Mail (Canada), New Zealand Herald (New Zealand), RTE (Ireland), The Western Australian (Australia), American Songwriter (U.S.), Mirror (UK), The Gazette (Canada), The Guardian (UK), Winnipeg Free Press (Canada), DeMorgen (Belgium), The Observer (UK),  Aftenposten (Norway), Rolling Stone (Germany), The Sun (UK), Gaffa (Denmark), Daily Express (UK), Bloomberg (U.S.), Calgary Herald (Canada), The Times (UK), The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), Rolling Stone (France), The Telegraph (UK) and The Mail on Sunday (UK).

“Old Ideas” comes on the heels of Leonard Cohen’s triumphant world tour.  Ann Powers of NPR (U.S.) suggests that the album “…throbs with that life, its verses rife with zingers and painful confessions, and its music sounds more richly varied than anything Cohen has done in years.  Its depth comes in the tenderness and refined passion Cohen brings to his thorough descriptions of being human…”

Cohen’s work has received literary recognition throughout the world.  In the past year, Cohen has received the Premio Principe de Asturias, the highest literary award granted by Spain, the PEN New England award for “Song Lyrics of Literary Excellence” and in Canada, the Ninth Glenn Gould Prize.

“Old Ideas” continues Leonard Cohen’s devotion to literary excellence.   About the album, Jesse Kornbluth of The Huffington Post writes, “The lyrics are something else: considered, bone-deep, precise.  And smart in a way that looks like his best work – a reach for what is eternally true…  He insists he has no answers…but we know he does something even more important: He asks the right questions.”  Bernard Perusse of The Gazette in Montreal says simply, “Lyrically, Cohen is at the top of his game.”

“Old Ideas” brought about a reunion of several players from Cohen’s past: Jennifer Warnes with vocals/arrangement on “Show Me The Place”; Sharon Robinson with vocals/arrangement on “Amen,” “Darkness” (with The Webb Sisters),”Banjo” and “Lullaby”; and the Unified Heart Touring Band on “Darkness.”

The band performed with Cohen on his sold-out world tour. Inspired partners, Patrick Leonard, Anjani Thomas, Ed Sanders and Dino Soldo, assisted with the arranging, engineering and recording on the majority of the album. These collaborations have proven most successful.

“Lush female harmonies still carry refrains and colour his monochrome tones, but they float on the organic pulse of a live band, that plays with gentle restraint, and weaves flowing violin, trumpet and harmonica melodies in among the glistening pearls of Cohen’s epigrammatic phrases,” writes Neil McCormick of The Telegraph (UK).

Finally, Geir Rakvaag of Dagsavisen (Norway) concludes, “The songs are rich and musically sophisticated… Those who yearn for a new ‘Hallelujah’ may also come to find new evocative favorites among the ten tracks.” “Old Ideas” is Cohen’s twelfth studio album with Columbia Records since 1967.

Image Courtesy of  Route66 / Shutterstock.com

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The US Committee for Camp Ashraf Residents (USCCAR) deplores Washington Post’s editorial – A U.S. plan to save Iranians who remain in Iraq – , endorsing a US plan for relocation of 3,400 residents of Camp Ashraf to an Iraqi-run de facto detention center near Baghdad’s International airport, formerly known as Camp Liberty.

The insidious piece, replete with double-entendre and mixing of absolutely no facts and lots of fiction, is effectively a farewell gift to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, on his way back to Baghdad, to set in motion the plan for the massacre of Camp Ashraf residents.

The Post is suggesting to have the lives of these Iranians under the control of Maliki, a man, who David Ignatius of the Post has described as “the conspirator turned chief executive” and a “backroom plotter,” whose “own Dawa Party bombed the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait in 1983.” The editorial’s case about relocation of the residents to such a detention center as the best plan to end this humanitarian crisis peacefully is at best wishful thinking.

It is an extremely dangerous suggestion that could prepare the ground for yet another Srebrenica-style massacre. Without any practical and actionable guarantees by the international community, nothing would deter the Iraqi forces of al-Maliki from repeating the massacres they perpetrated in July 2009 and April 2011, killing 47 residents – including eight women – and wounding 1070.

To cover its bloody tracks, the Iraqi government, with the help of the US Embassy, has blocked any investigation into these crimes – as UN had demanded – by the US and European Union parliamentary fact-finding missions.

In light of these killings and the three-year illegal and barbaric siege of Camp Ashraf, the Post’s blindness to volume of facts all pointing to Iraq’s systematic and deliberate breach of its commitment toward Ashraf residents, and to the equally abhorring United States’ inaction in the face of Iraq’s repeated violation of its so-called written assurances to the United States, is ominously suspect.

Astonishingly, in line with Iran’s thirty-year-old policy of blaming the MEK’s leadership for whatever atrocities Iran’s ruling tyrants have committed against the organization – a ploy widely used by Maliki following the July 2009 and April 2011 attacks – the Post’s editorial, in an ultimate act of falsification, sinisterly attempts to shift the blame for an impending massacre away from Maliki – and by extension from the Obama administration – to MEK’s leadership, accusing it of making “unrealistic demands.”

The following facts must be repeated:

Camp Ashraf residents were recognized by the United States as protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention and as such the US provided them protection until January 2009. According to article 45 of the Convention, that responsibility does not elapse if the new protecting power (Iraq since 2009) does not have the capacity and the intent to provide protection.

Iraq has failed on both fronts and thus from a legal standpoint the United States, as the original protecting power, is still bound to ensure the residents’ protection whether or not it has a presence in Iraq.

In 2003 and again in 2004, the United States gave written guaranteed commitment of protection to every individual in Ashraf as long as they remain in Iraq. America is, therefore, still morally and legally responsible for their safety and security. Last September, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) declared that Camp Ashraf residents have applied for refugee status and therefore, under international law as “asylum seekers” they must be able to benefit from basic protection of their security and well-being.

Against this background, the demand by Camp Ashraf residents and its leadership that “U.S. troops or U.N. peacekeeping forces provide security at the new camp,” is indeed completely “realistic” and in line with America’s promises and UNHCR’s declaration.

If the Post’s editorial finds the residents’ morally and legally justified and actionable demand “unrealistic,” then it is acting as a de facto voice of an administration that is dishonoring America by reneging on its commitment to a group of unarmed men, women and children, who in the words of Brig. Gen. David Phillips, former Commandant of U.S. Army Military Police Corps and former Senior Commanding Officer at Camp Ashraf, were vetted and completely investigated by several US agencies which were not able to find an iota of evidence linking any of them to any act of violence.

Furthermore, the Washington Post refers to some of the most patriotic Americans as a “stable of handsomely-paid” mouthpieces of the MEK. This is astonishing as the paper itself has never wasted any time to support the misguided policy of the US State Department to designate the MEK as a terrorist organization in 1997 for purely political considerations and appeasement of the mullahs of Tehran.

The designation, legally and factually discredited and revoked in the United Kingdom, France, and the European Union, and declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals as it violated the due process rights of the MEK, has been used by the Maliki government as a pretext to slaughter the residents.

Additionally, the editorial alleges that the MEK was responsible for killing Americans more than four decades ago when multiple credible independent sources have provided ample countervailing evidence that the current MEK in its entirety has had nothing to do with it.

The Washington Post is wise to remember that history may not judge kindly its expediency in support of an administration that seeks reelection by throwing a group of innocent men and 1,000 Muslim women, who have already been victimized by the barbarism of Iraqi soldiers, into the wolves.

Unfortunately, in this case of the impending humanitarian catastrophe of monumental dimension, the Post has opted to take the wrong side and has issued a license to murder the residents by blaming the victims instead of the butchers.

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Herman Cain, the Republican presidential candidate, said he would no longer answer any questions regarding the sexual harassment accusations towards him that deal with events from about ten years ago and he placed blame on the media for the claims that have followed his campaign.

When the reporters asked Cain questions about the harassment allegations during a debate with Newt Gingrich, he became angry and told them the questions they were asking were unethical. The reporters then asked him if he would never answer questions about the accusations, to which he vehemently replied, “You got it.”

The alleged incidents have created much doubt in regards to his candidacy. On Friday, a lawyer for one of his alleged victims said that his client filed a complaint “in good faith” during the 1990s. In the complaint, she accused him of “several instances of sexual harassment” for which she received a financial settlement.

Attorney Joel Bennett believes that Cain is not telling the truth about the incidents, though he has denied them repeatedly. Cain insists he respects women and has never sexually harassed anybody. His campaign said that it wants to “put this issue behind us”.

During the debate in Houston with Gingrich, Cain was given the opportunity to discuss the accusations brought against him and was asked what has surprised him during his run for president. Cain responded, “The nit-pickiness of the media. It is the actions and behavior of the media that have been the biggest surprise.

There are too many people in the media who are downright dishonest. They do a disservice to the American people.” His comments brought the room to their feet. Gingrich cannot gain anything by bringing up the allegations against Cain. He has been divorced three times and is now married to a woman with whom he had an affair during his previous marriage.

Cain blamed the media for letting the alleged incidents come to light. “If I were running this campaign the way the pundits thought I ought to be running this campaign, I would have dropped out in August. When people get on the Cain train, they don’t get off,’’ he said.

A Washington Post-ABC News survey showed that seven in ten Republicans do not care about the reported allegations when it comes down to choosing a presidential candidate. Republican women, however, have said they were less likely to support Cain because of the allegations. The questions about the alleged sexual harassment show no signs of ceasing.

Image Courtesy of  http://www.facebook.com/THEHermanCain

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