Why this web log concerning Ayaan Hirsi Ali? I have set up this blog as a result of the cowardly assassination on Theo van Gogh and the death threats to Ayaan Hirsi Ali. In a country like the Netherlands it is unthinkable and intolerable that she cannot do her work because she is threatened with death and was forced to go into hiding.
On these pages I will post as much objective news as possible and publish information concerning Ayaan Hirsi Ali and her work.
I will also report on the events concerning the response to Theo van Gogh's assassination.
Your opinion regarding all subjects on this web site is welcome.

CBS 60 Minutes occasionally justifies it's existence and tonight they managed that for me. I was disgusted but not surprised when a deranged jihadi shot, cut the throat of, and pinned an Islamic screed to the chest of Theo Van Gogh with a knife. Van Gogh's transgression was creation of a film called "Submission" in conjunction with a female Muslim who was also a member of Dutch Parliament, Ayaan Hirsi Ali. This film looked at many toxic portions of radical and mainstream Islam and Sharia law in a very provocative way. This could not be more important to Dutch society.

The goal of the summit, hosted by the Club of Madrid (an elite society of 55 former presidents and prime ministers of democratic countries, including former President Clinton), was to formulate the "Madrid Agenda." Positioned as an alternative "soft power" strategy for fighting terrorism, the agenda is set to be delivered to the U.S. Senate later this year. The summit was also used by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to outline his institution's plan for a more multilateral approach to fighting terrorism.

The summit also served as a symposium for critics of the Bush administration and the U.S.-led war on terror. Disturbingly, a virulent strain of anti-American ideology ran throughout much of the summit's proceedings and the events afterwards. One of the most outspoken critics of the war on terrorism was former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

As a participant in the plenary on democracy and terrorism, Secretary Albright eschewed any recognition of the recent wave of Middle Eastern democracy. She made it clear that, in her view, the Bush administration's post-September 11 war on terror has been a failure. [. . .]

THE SUMMIT was the brainchild of wealthy Argentinean entrepreneur and philanthropist Martin Varsavsky. (Besides being the founder of several successful telecom and internet content companies, among Varsavsky's "plethora of non-business activities," he is a member of the Board of Trustees of the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation.)

Varsavsky's foundations also organized the post-summit Atocha Workshop on Global Terrorism, which began on the last day of the summit. Its stated purpose was to serve as "a forum to promote creative thinking in the fight against terrorism."

To spur on the attending experts' creative thinking, the Varsavsky foundation published 36 "proposed topics for debate and policy promotion," which the experts whittled down to roughly a dozen issues. Not surprisingly, many of them evinced strong anti-American sentiments based on crude caricatures of American society.

The most boorish discussion topics concern America's religiosity. For example, the first suggested discussion topic explains,

. . . the most lethal terrorist acts seem to be carried out by terrorists who blend both, nationalism and religion. The same appears to be true of the responses to terrorism as the 100,000 estimated dead in Iraq show. Nations that combine a heavy dosage of nationalism and religion, as the United States seem to have a tendency to be more ready to accept the use of force. What is it about this combination of nationalism and religion that makes actors feel more entitled to violence?

Another discussion topic, titled "The Unholy Alliance Between Red States and the Muslim world," asks, "do we have an unholy alliance between people from the Red States and the Muslim world as these individuals are driven more by religion than other values? Are the people in the Blue States and Europe their hostages?" [. . .]

Attacks on American society were not limited to its religious aspects; they also focused on the war on terror. For example, another discussion topic is called "Freedom Fighters or Terrorists? How to Shape the Debate." Here the Varsavsky Foundation asked the puerile Michael Moore-style question, "is violence by Iraqis against US Troops terrorism or a war of national liberation?"

Still other discussion topics asked loaded questions such as: "Why is bombing acceptable while placing bombs is not?"; "Can democracies continue to justify bombing civilians from the air and ground as a valid terrorist fighting tactic?"; "How can Western democracies validly criticize the responses of Putin to Islamic terrorism while at the same time invade Iraq?"; "Traditionally American Foreign Policy has been what was good for business. Is this the case in the Iraq invasion and the New World Order?"

When the Madrid Agenda is delivered to the U.S. Congress later this year, its recipients should remember the proceedings that forged the document.

India, the source of inexpensive drugs for AIDS patients in many poor countries, passed a new patent law Wednesday that activists say will eventually choke off that supply.

The new law, amending India's 1970 Patent Act, affects everything from electronics to software to medicines, and has been expected for years as a condition of India's joining the World Trade Organization.

But because millions of poor people in India and elsewhere — including, by some estimates, half the AIDS patients in the Third World — rely on India's industry of generic drugs, lobbyists for multinational drug companies as well as activists fighting for cheap drugs had descended on New Delhi to try to influence the outcome.

The law, which passed by a voice vote in Parliament's upper house Wednesday after days of wrangling over amendments in the lower house, was in the end not as restrictive as the drug activists had feared.

"It's very disappointing, but it could have been worse," said Daniel Berman, co-coordinator of the global access campaign for the medical charity Doctors Without Borders. "All generics could have been removed from the market."

Instead, all the generic drugs already approved in India can still be sold, though sellers must now pay licensing fees. There are also provisions allowing companies that make generics to copy drugs in the future.

But there are relatively tough criteria for such copying, and activists predicted that prices for newly invented drugs will be much higher because drug makers will have the same 20-year patent monopolies they do in the West. As AIDS patients develop resistance to old drugs, new treatments will become less affordable, they said.

In addition, it seems unlikely that makers of generic drugs in other countries, such as Brazil and China, will be able to fill any increasing demand for cheaper medicines.

But India's governing Congress Party, which sponsored the bill, disputed the contention that prices would soar. "The government will have enormous powers to deal with any unusual price rise," said Commerce Minister Kamal Nath.

All Western countries grant "product patents" on new inventions. Since 1970, India has granted "process patents," which allow another inventor to patent the same product as long as it was created by a novel process. In pharmaceuticals, that has meant that a tiny tweak in the synthesis of a molecule yields a new patent. Several companies can produce the same drug, creating competition that drives down prices.

Before 1970, India's patent laws came from its British colonial days, and it had some of the highest drug prices in the world. Process patents on medicines, fertilizers and pesticides are credited with boosting Indian life expectancies and ending regular famines.

In Africa, exports by Indian companies, especially Cipla and Ranbaxy Laboratories, helped drive the annual price of antiretroviral treatment down from $15,000 per patient a decade ago to about $200 now. They also simplified therapy by putting three AIDS drugs in one pill. Dr. Yusuf Hamied, Cipla's chairman, called the new law "a very sad day for India."

But some other Indian drug makers, along with multinational companies, praised it. The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations, a Geneva-based lobbying group, called the law "a significant step" that would let India "take a leading role in global pharmaceutical research and development."

S. Ramkrishna, chief lobbyist for Pfizer India, a subsidiary of the world's largest drug maker, said the bill's passage abandoned "the utopian concept that every invention should be as free as air or water," according to the International Herald Tribune.