The EU wins Nobel Peace Prize! Seriously?!

Peace and human rights EU-style

Sorry, I didn't know it was April Fools Day today. Just announced was that the EU has been award the joke that is the Nobel Peace Prize. Not since Barack Obama being awarded the prize just days after winning the presidency in 2008 (only to go on and start more wars) has there been such an undeserving winner. The Nobel Prize committee's grounds for the EU's award was the non-elected body's work in advancing 'peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights'. Of course, this is chilling and blind-sightedness when considering that the EU consists of members such as Greece where human and minority rights are systematically violated, or that the EU's blinded and haphazardly applied concept of solidarity has given it tacit support for Greece's aggressive and anti-peace foreign policy towards neighbouring countries like Turkey, Albania and Macedonia. The EU has always been quick to criticise human rights violations in other countries, however it turns a blind eye when those same violations occur within its own boundaries. Russia in particular receives its fair share of EU criticism, however not only does the EU not criticise the exact same authoritarian and sham-democratic system in EU members like Bulgaria, it even gives them its blessing! Or how about the many EU countries who routinely ban LGBT Pride parades and propose laws 'against gay propaganda'? Sorry, but the EU as an organisation should not have been given this piece of false advertising. Meanwhile, true peace activists, like the Bahraini doctors and nurses who treat wounded democracy protesters, are completely side-lined. All this is part of the charade of the humane, caring and democratic world we supposedly live in.

Googoosha is back! What have we done to deserve this??

Move over Lady Gaga! After chucking in the towel a few years back after her initial, though fortunately brief, foray into the glittery world of Uzbek pop, here is the long-awaited video clip for the comeback pop song by none other than the Uzbek President's daughter, Googoosha (Gulnara Karimova). This is what happens when she gets bored from designing jewellery, having her own fashion line, doing 'charity work', getting PhDs, being the Uzbek ambassador to Spain as well as a UNESCO goodwill ambassador, appearing with celebrities at parties in Monte-Carlo, and bleeding her father's fiefdom dry by having her hands in every profitable company in Uzbekistan.
The YouTube comments are ... erm.. interesting, especially the ones by Uzbeks lauding the fantastic efforts by the first daughter. However, judging by the music of this 'dance floor stomper' from an 'exotic potpourri of sounds and a personal testimony to the power of deeply felt emotions', it appears that Gulnara's taste in dance music is firmly 1990s. Hey, if her father has been in power since the 90s, then she can stick with the stagnation and keep Uzbek dance music firmly to the time of M People and Everything But The Girl. But all is not at a loss. For all you connoisseurs of kitsch, best make a beeline to Gulnara's website realgoogoosha.com for some true fun.