AMSTERDAM 2012 - Euro Thriller

[kayakruthie]

"Amsterdam 2012" got nominated for in the Gatekeepers Post for mystery/thriller ebook of the year.

Please vote for me!!  I've never been nominated for anything.

http://www.gatekeeperspost.com/book-lover-reviews/ebooks-of-the-year-vote/

Winners will be listed in the Huffington Post, which recently merged with AOL, so this could be a big deal.

[kayakruthie]

Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Yemen, Iraq, Iran.  It's all very exciting to watch.  The fear is that Islamic theocracies will be the only group organized and powerful enough to fill the vacuum.  Let's hope democracy will prevail!

[Neekeebee]

I read your book a couple of weeks ago.  Could not put it down.  I still think about it whenever I watch the news.  Great job!

N

[kayakruthie]

Thank you, Neekeebee.  It is alarming that so much of what I wrote about has come true.  Wish I had the same prescience when it comes to the lottery.

[kayakruthie]

Interesting report from WikiLeaks: "Montreal mosque 'is a top Al Qaeda recruiting zone,'" from the Daily Mail, April 27:
   
"A mosque in Montreal has been ranked in the world’s top nine Al Qaeda recruiting zones and linked to a terror cell planning attacks on Los Angeles airport, new released documents claim.

    The WikiLeaks files, written by U.S. military chiefs, list the Al Sunnah Al Nabawiah mosque among nine houses of prayer worldwide considered as a place ‘Al Qaeda members were recruited, facilitated or trained’.

    The leaked ‘Matrix of Threat’ documents, designed in the early days of the Guantanamo detention centre to assist intelligence officials, rank the Canadian mosque alongside sites in Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

    The Al Sunnah Al Nabawiah Mosque in Montreal is considered by the U.S. military to be among places where 'known al-Qaeda members were recruited.'

    The mosque, which was also linked to the September 11 attacks, is the only Islamic prayer house in North America listed as a threat in the leaked report."

[kayakruthie]

I had so much hope during the Arab Spring.  But will Egypt follow?

"Bashir says Sudan will adopt Islamic constitution," from Reuters, October 13:

    KHARTOUM - Sudan will go ahead with plans to adopt an entirely Islamic constitution and strengthen Islamic law, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said on Wednesday, three months after its former civil war enemy South Sudan became independent.

    Juba seceded on 9 July after a referendum agreed under a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war between the mainly Muslim north and the South where most follow Christian and traditional beliefs.

    Bashir had said in December that Sudan would adopt an Islamic constitution if Juba seceded but many southerners had hoped he would not deliver on this.

    His comments will add to uncertainty for more than a million southerners who still live in the north and are now treated legally as foreigners. Khartoum has given them until spring to leave or obtain the legal right to stay, a complicated process.

[kayakruthie]

With 2012 coming up, it is astonishing to see how much of my book has already come true.  With the Republican party having such a hard time finding a suitable candidate, I can see a third party candidate appearing, just like I predicted in Amsterdam 2012!

[kayakruthie]

Amsterdam 2012 is FREE for December 26 and 27.  Get a copy before the sequel comes out in 2012!

[kayakruthie]

I still not sure the Amazon Select is working for me.  I did give away a lot of books, but it did nothing to boost the sales of my New Release, "Sunshine Highway", which was my aim.  Live and learn.

[Neekeebee]

There's going to be a sequel?  When?

N

[kayakruthie]

Yes, I've been tossing about ideas for a sequel for a year now.  But I am committed to a writing workshop in Amsterdam in March, so I'm going over there with a rough outline and some chapters, and will probably have a sequel by the end of the year, probably a much more involved book than the first one.  It will be called Amsterdam 2020, and will involve a group in Europe much like the French resistance, that fights for freedom.  I'll also continue with Anne's story in Mexico and her fight in the U.S.

Thank you for your interest.  I went on about it, but I'm excited.

[kayakruthie]

This cracked me up: Iran Bans Barbies; Disgruntled Little Girl Calls Replacement Dolls 'Ugly and Fat'

http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2012/01/iran_bans_barbies.php

[kayakruthie]

No chocolate for you!

BANDA ACEH (Indonesia),14 Rabi al-Awwal/6 Feb (IINA)-Ulema in Aceh have warned Muslims, the younger generation in particular, that observing Valentine’s Day is not allowed in Islam and against Sharia law that is in force in all of Aceh province.

“It is haram for Muslims to observe Valentine’s Day because it does not accord with Islamic Sharia” Tgk Feisal, general secretary of the Aceh Ulema Association (HUDA), said on Monday.

[kayakruthie]

FREE, Feb 16-17.   Pick up a copy before the sequel comes out.

[kayakruthie]

So much for the Arab Spring...and the pluralism and western-style democracy we'd hoped for.

"Islamists win 80% of Egypt's upper parliament vote," by Oren Kessler for the Jerusalem Post, February 26:

    "Islamist parties won more than 80 percent of seats in Egypt's upper house of parliament, the country's election board announced Sunday.

    The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party took 58 percent of the seats in contention, while the harder-line Salafist Al-Nour party came in second with a quarter of all seats. The nationalist Wafd party came in third with just 7 percent of the vote....

    Islamists also dominated voting for the lower house of parliament, with the Brotherhood taking 38 percent and Al-Nour 27 percent."

[kayakruthie]

Freedom of speech is the fundamental protection against tyranny.  The Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks lives with death threats daily.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/03/death-threats-its-something-you-get-used-to-interview-with-swedish-muhammed-cartoonist-lars-vilks.html

[kayakruthie]

Looks like Egypt will fall to the Muslim Brotherhood.  Again, so much for the Arab Spring.  From the NYTimes, April 1.

CAIRO — The Muslim Brotherhood nominated its chief strategist and financier Khairat el-Shater on Saturday as its candidate to become Egypt’s first president since Hosni Mubarak, breaking a pledge not to seek the top office and a monopoly on power.

The Brotherhood’s entry into the race also turns the election into a debate over the future of the Islamist political movement that is sure to resonate in the region. Mr. Shater faces Islamist rivals to his left and right — one a more liberal former Brotherhood leader, the other an ultraconservative Salafist. Indeed, the Brotherhood may have entered the race in part because a strong showing by either rival could undercut the group’s authority as the predominant voice of Islam in Egyptian politics.

[kayakruthie]

"100,000 British women mutilated," from the Telegraph, April 22:

    As many as 100,000 women in Britain have undergone female genital mutilations with medics in the UK offering to carry out the illegal procedure on girls as young as 10, it has been reported.

    Investigators from The Sunday Times said they secretly filmed a doctor, dentist and alternative medicine practitioner who were allegedly willing to perform circumcisions or arrange for the operation to be carried out. The doctor and dentist deny any wrongdoing.

    The practice, which involves the surgical removal of external genitalia and in some cases the stitching of the vaginal opening, is illegal in Britain and carries up to a 14 year prison sentence.

    Research suggests that every year up to 6,000 girls in London are at risk of the potentially fatal procedure, and more than 22,000 in the UK as a whole.

[kayakruthie]

Kindle Deal for first anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death, .99 cents today.  Read what's predicted for the future.