Double-plus-ungood

Brussels Journal is keeping us up-to-date on attempts to foist an EU-wide media code for reportage on Islam:

The term “Islamic terrorism” will no longer be used. Nor will words such as “Islamist,” “fundamentalist” and “jihad.” The latter, for example, is often used by Islamic terrorists to mean warfare against infidels, but according to an EU official “for a Muslim Jihad is a perfectly positive concept of trying to fight evil within yourself.” Hence, in order not to alienate young Muslims the term “Islamic terrorism” is to be replaced by “terrorism abusing Islam.”

So, does "American imperialism" become "imperialism abusing America"?

Simon Tisdall highlights one of Singapore's few political dissidents: Chee Soon Juan, who has, in ten years, been "jailed four times, fined, dismissed from his job as a university lecturer, sued by the country's "minister mentor" Lee Kuan Yew, bankrupted and barred from running in elections."

The Singaporean government continues its draconian police-state enforcements upon its people - and for what? Well, chewing gum is mighty dangerous...

Needless to say, the government defends the politburo style of governance:

"I hope we are improving by our standards. Whether we are improving by your standards or American standards is a different question," said the foreign minister, George Yeo. "Our responsibility is to Singaporeans, and what we do here should meet their approval. There are no universal prescriptions."

Hmm, wonder what this is, then.

The Acorn is keeping a wary eye on Saudi efforts to develop a nuclear program:

This could be posturing (for the benefit of Arab audiences), signaling (to dissuade Iran from going nuclear), indication of its nuclear plans or all of the above. It certainly has kept its options open — its facilities are outside international scrutiny, it has not signed the comprehensive test-ban treaty and it has the necessary scientific infrastructure in place. Despite all this, the decision to ‘launch’ a nuclear weapons programme is by no means straightforward. Saudi Arabia’s beneficial security relationship with the United States — which not only secures the kingdom but also secures the king himself — will come under tremendous stress. There is, in addition, the risk of preventive Israeli strikes, especially if the United States can keep a lid on the Pakistani nuclear angle. Not to speak, of course, of the havoc even the prospect of all this will create on international energy prices.

Of course, the factor that pours cold water over all this is the highly unprofessional nature of the Saudi military and the Saudi government's more immediate concerns with domestic radicalism, terrorist cells, unemployment and a restive Shi'a population.