Hasina among top female leaders

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina seventh in a list of top 12 female leaders in the world in 2011. Newly elected prime minister of Thailand Yingluck Shinawatra topped the list published on the popular magazine's website on Aug 5. The leaders are Yingluck, chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel, president of Argentina Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, president of Brazil Dilma Rousseff, prime minister of Australia Julia Gillard, president of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Hasina, prime minister of Iceland Johanna Sigurdardottir, president of Costa Rica Laura Chinchilla, president of Finland Tarja Halonen, president of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaite and prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago Kamla Persad-Bissessar. About 63-year-old Hasina, the US-based magazine says she has a history of surviving brutal attacks including one in 1975 when her father independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated along with most of her family members. She lost 17 family members on Aug 15, 1975 during an army coup it says. , Hasina, then 28, survived as she was abroad, it adds. She later survived a grenade attack that killed more than 20 people, dodging the bullets that sprayed her fleeing car, it says. Hasina, also the president of Awami League party, was first elected prime minister in 1996. In a late 2008 election, her party won 230 in the 300-seat parliament, and the consummate survivor found herself prime minister — again, it says.

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Beck and the Real Hitler Youth

 

When American news entertainer Glenn Beck, the ever popular ultra-reactionary fundamentalist, claimed that the diverse and inclusive political summer camp on Norway's Utoya Island, where 68 youth were recently gunned down by an anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim extremist, was "a little like the Hitler Youth," it was obvious he had not done his research.
Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party believed the Third Reich's "one-thousand years" depended on the education of the youth. "A violently active, dominating, brutal youth," said Hitler, "that is what I am after. Youth must be indifferent to pain...I will have no intellectual training. Knowledge is ruin to my young men."(1) To achieve this, Hitler established two state-controlled youth organizations: the Hitler Youth and League of German Girls.
Both Hitler Youth and League of German Girls offered something for everyone, like arts, crafts, hiking, camping, journalism, and music. Above all, they provided camaraderie and self-worth. But these youth groups also popularized physical violence, racial superiority, narcissistic behaviors, ultra-nationalism, and German Exceptionalism. They did this by monopolizing every free and waking hour of group members.(2)
German Cinema and mass media contributed to the "group think" of Hitler Youth and League of German Girls. Public Nazi spectacles and the German Army, along with demonizing enemies and the glorification of war, became permanent "pictures-" and "images in the head" of German youth.(3) Weaned from families and churches, youth became informers by notifying the police of those who objected, even their own parents.
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Much has been said about the negative integration and character of Nazi ideology, but there was also a positive, parallel build-up of a novel utopian vision based on radical regeneration and remaking of modernity and future.(4) In 1942 at a congress of European youth movements, Hitler stressed Germany's strength, its military might, and a spirit of revivalism. He made youth believe they were important, part of a great and futuristic plan.
"The rescue of Europe," declared Hitler, "began at one end of the continent with Mussolini and Fascism. National Socialism continued this rescue in another part of Europe...in brave triumph over the Jewish international attempt to destroy European civilization."(5) Hitler encouraged positive integration and immersion into Nazism by making German youth believe they were destined for greatness: German Triumphalism.
Eventually, and because it was considered a violation of civic duty not to participate, the Hitler Youth and League of German Girls took precedence over any kind of formal education.(6) During World War II, youth contributed by collecting food, clothing and supplies for German troops by writing them letters. At Christmas and other yearly holidays, they sent presents and special packages of food to Nazi soldiers.
Hitler gained the attention of the youth by making sure propaganda was entertaining. Famous singers and movie stars were featured in Nazi movies and on radio stations and posters. Preemptive wars, brutal aggression, and genocide was softened with euphemisms, like "police actions," "secured," and "final solution." Nazi slogans, such as "Fight with Us" and "Join Our Struggle," set the agenda which is important in maintaining power.(7)
Nazism and perpetual mobilization for wars became a twenty-four-hour schooling for German youth. In an atmosphere of defensiveness and of highly charged emotions of fear, along with being estranged from families and civic and religious institutions, Hitler was very successful in telling youth not only how to think, but what to think and what to always think about.(8) Nazism dominated emotions, preventing intellectual growth.
Since Hitler was always invading other territories and was always at war, and due to a lack of finances and economic and educational opportunities, many members of the Hitler Youth and League of German Girls, after being conscripted for two years, joined the military. They received more indoctrination on who the enemy was. Others, mesmerized by modern high tech weaponry, were taught how to kill-and they killed millions.
Some youth, like Kurt Mobius, served in the Nazi Chelmno death camp. He considered Jews to be a breed apart, less than human, even demonic and powerfully malevolent to the core. He explained his thinking by saying: "It did not at all occur to me that these orders could be unjust." It made sense to him, sense he was prepared, like many of his country men, to kill and exterminate the enemies of Germany.(9)
Other youth became like Hans Frank. After watching a dazzling military parade and hearing Hitler speak, Frank exclaimed, "Formerly we were in the habit of saying: 'This is right or wrong.' Today we must ask the question: 'What would the Fuhrer say?'" Since the German army seemed to be winning, at least in the beginning, he believed Hitler's authority came from God and that God was with Germany.(10)
One extermination camp, Auschwitz, was only a few miles away. Even though he passed by it every day on his way to work, after World War II he professed to have no idea as to what happened there. "One passed it on the train," said Frank, "it was a huge camp. One could always see the barbed wire." When asked about the horrendous atrocities that occurred at Auschwitz, he said, "I don't know about that...one passes a lot of things."(11)
Still, others of the Hitler Youth became powerful political and economic opportunists by manipulating reactionary, fascist ideologies and peoples fears. Nazi politicians warned that their enemies were Germany's and the peoples enemies and that they must be despised. They demanded justice for Germany and that one should only be proud of Germany. They also lauded millions of German veterans who were sacrificing their lives for freedom.(12)
Politicians exaggerated events, circulated false statements and misinformation about Germany's wars, and censored defeats. Any assassination attempt against a Nazi politician was proof of a global conspiracy to destroy Germany. Grown Hitler youth amassed wealth through Germany's armaments industries and by removing "less desirables" off their land. Their businesses became either property of the state or of industrial monopolists.
A few members of the Hitler Youth and League of German Girls attempted to resist by issuing anti-Nazi and anti-war leaflets. Other rebellious or economically impoverished youth became a German subculture, sometimes fighting pitched battles with Nazi forces. But German resistance, including acts of industrial sabotage, ultimately failed because it never extended beyond a small circle of dissenters. It was also too late to be effective.(10)
Like Hitler, who committed suicide, and Nazism, which was soundly defeated and exposed as a ruinous ideology, both the Hitler Youth and League of German Girls found they too were not god-like, invincible, or destined for greatness. But when German wars and death became unbearable, there was always the escape from the everyday privations of war through mass entertainment, just like today with "The Glenn Beck Show."

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Clinton says Syria's Assad has lost legitimacy

• A Syrian refugee boy shouts slogans against Syrian President Bashar … 

 Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has lost legitimacy and is "not indispensable," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Monday as tension soared over an assault by Assad loyalists on the U.S. and French embassies in Damascus.

Clinton condemned the Syrian attacks and said Washington did not believe the long-time Syrian ruler would follow through on his promises to reform in the face of escalating protests against his rule.

"From our perspective, he has lost legitimacy, he has failed to deliver on the promises he's made, he has sought and accepted aid from the Iranians as to how to repress his own people," Clinton told reporters in an appearance with European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton in Washington.

Clinton's comments marked a significant sharpening of U.S. rhetoric on Assad, whose security forces have waged an increasingly brutal crackdown against protesters inspired by pro-democracy movements elsewhere in the Arab world.

Several Assad loyalists broke into the U.S. embassy in Damascus on Monday and security guards used live ammunition to prevent hundreds from storming the French embassy, Western diplomats in the Syrian capital said.

They said the attackers tore down U.S. embassy plaques and tried to break security glass in protests fueled by the government against a visit by U.S. and French ambassadors to the city of Hama, focus of protests against Assad's rule.

One of the diplomats said: "This is a violent escalation by the regime. You do not bring busloads of thugs into central Damascus from the coast without its consent."

watch now the above video about syrias president

A French foreign ministry official said the Syrian authorities had done nothing to stop the assault.

"(France) reminds (Syria) that it is not with such illegal methods that the authorities in Damascus will turn the attention away from the fundamental problem, which is to stop the repression of the Syrian population and to launch democratic reform," foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said.

France has led Western attempts to pass a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Syria's hierarchy for cracking down on protesters. It says the president has lost legitimacy because of the number of killings to try to quell the protests demanding political freedoms after 41 years of Assad family rule.

"Four buses full of shabbiha (Alawite militia loyal to Assad) came from Tartous. They used a battering ram to try to break into the main door," a resident of Afif, the old district where the French embassy is located.

The United States, which sees Syria as a fragile but crucial element of any lasting Middle East peace equation, had been reluctant to take that step, but Clinton's comments on Monday indicated Washington's patience had run out.

"If anyone, including President Assad, thinks that the United States is secretly hoping that the regime will emerge from this turmoil to continue its brutality and repression, they are wrong," Clinton said.

"President Assad is not indispensable and we have absolutely nothing invested in him remaining in power."

The United States condemned Syria for "refusing" to protect the embassy from an assault it said had been encouraged by a pro-government television station, and called in a senior Syrian diplomat to deliver a formal complaint.

EMBOLDENED OPPOSITION

Human rights groups say at least 1,400 civilians have been killed since an uprising began in March against Assad's autocratic rule, posing the biggest threat to his leadership since he succeeded his father 11 years ago.

Assad loyalists also attempted to attack the U.S. ambassador's residence in Damascus on Monday after assaulting the embassy compound but failed to gain entry.

A businessman whose office overlooks the residence said about 50 youths carrying posters of Assad on sticks stopped traffic and started smashing two U.S. embassy cars parked outside with sticks and climbing the walls of the compound.

"One of them stole the headlights as if they were war spoils. The street was full of secret police and military intelligence personnel. They stood just looking and some joined the thugs in shouting abuse directed against the ambassador," the Syrian businessman said.

A U.S. official said U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford was at the embassy compound when the assaults occurred, not at the residence several blocks away.

Emboldened by the spreading demonstrations, leading Syrian opposition figure Haitham al-Maleh said an opposition conference in Damascus later this month would form a shadow government of "independent, non-political technocrats" to prepare for when Assad loses authority.

The former judge was among 50 leading opposition figures who refused to accept Assad's invitation to enter what the authorities termed a 'national dialogue' that mostly brought handpicked Assad supporters. He issued a statement earlier this month announcing plans for a "National Salvation" government.

Maleh said the conference would take place in Damascus on July 16 and would choose the shadow ministers.

"It won't be an actual government, it will be a shadow government. It will be a regional government. Each minister will operate as a leading figure for his region," Maleh said.

Its aim would be to guide opposition movements and anti-Assad protests, and ensure the country had an alternative administration ready for what Maleh said he saw as Assad's inevitable removal.

While using military assaults in towns and cities to try to crush the protests, Assad has also called for talks on reforms. But the opposition refused to attend a two-day conference in the capital this week, saying it was futile as long as violence continued. Mostly Assad supporters were taking part.

Vice President Farouq al-Shara, whose role is ceremonial, told the conference's opening ceremony on Sunday the authorities would 'turn the page', hinting that political parties other than the ruling Baath party would be allowed to operate.

In other violence on Monday, security forces killed one civilian and wounded 20 in machinegun fire on Homs, Syria's third city, and went house-to-house arresting suspected opponents in Hama, human rights activists said.

Mostafa Abdelrahman, a preacher at a mosque in Hama, met Assad on Sunday to demand the release of 1,000 political prisoners and offer to remove makeshift roadblocks if given guarantees there would be no more assaults, they added.

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