News Feed 20111001

Financial Crisis
» Greece: Economic Crisis Also Hits Archaeological Sites
» Italy: Time to Go, Silvio
» Italy: Business Elite Issues Call for Action on Economy
» Schäuble Says Greece Will Need a Decade to Recover, Criticises Italy
» Suffering Portuguese Seek Work in Switzerland
 
USA
» ARPA-e Attacks Rare Earths, Biofuels in Latest Funding
» Spacex Unveils Plan for World’s First Fully Reusable Rocket
» Super: CCSD Will Take 2nd Look at Mideast Material
 
Canada
» New Mosque Coming to Markham
 
Europe and the EU
» Cyprus: The Massacre of Migratory Birds
» French Police Stoned and Driven Off While Trying to Book Burka-Wearing Woman
» German Federal Republic Funded Doping Studies Before 1990
» Italian Scientists Help Spot Particles Faster Than Light
» Italian Singles Rising
» Italian Tourists in Split Say They Follow Berlusconi’s Example on Paid Sex
» Italy: Iceman Has Anniversary Bash
» Italy: Pope’s Farm to Host 500 Thousand Bees
» Italy: Berlusconi: ‘We Will Block’ Barbaric Phone-Tapping
» Italy: Pope Calls for ‘Ethical Renewal in Italy’
» Mount Vesuvius Gases Accused of Painting the Town Red
» Netherlands: Single Women Want Their Eggs Frozen
» Pope Asks Milan Not to Lose Sight of God and Faith
» Pope Oversees a Dwindling Church
» Stone-Age Toddlers Had Art Lessons, Study Says
» The Killing of Anwar Al-Awlaki is a Hammer-Blow to Al-Qaeda, And a Reminder of How British Campuses Host Extremists
» UK: ‘If I Was Interested in Money I Could Make a Lot More’: Tony Blair Blasts Accusations of Profiteering Over Phone and Gas Deals
» UK: Ali Dizaei: Unfinished Business
» UK: Assurances Made Over Temporary Mosque Bid
» UK: Black PC Who Used Race Card 14 Times Rebuked by Judge for ‘Unjustified Claims’
» UK: Dizaei to Appeal Against Suspension
» UK: Former Council Leader’s Mosque Offer Sparks Anger
» UK: Police Forced to Give Ali Dizaei His Job Back
» World’s Earliest Christian Engraving Shows Surprising Pagan Elements
 
Balkans
» Bosnia: Film Diva Penelope Cruz Arrives in Sarajevo to Play Italian Widow
 
Mediterranean Union
» Deals Signed Between Tunisia and Sicily Region
 
North Africa
» Egypt: Muslims Burn Part of Aswan Governorate Church
» Egypt: Muslims Attack Egypt Coptic Church as Sectarian Violence Continues
» Libya: Gaddafi Tanks Camouflaged With Sheepskins
» Muslim Mob Torches Coptic Church in Egypt
» UK Minister: ‘Prepare to Work With Islamists’
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» PNA Buys Anti-Riot Gear From Israel
 
Middle East
» Iranian Pastor Sentenced to Death for “Crimes Against National Security”
» Iraq: Three Christians and a Turkman Kidnapped Near Kirkuk
» Qatar Builds Largest Waste Treatment Plant in the Area
» Turkey Compiles List of 174 Responsible for Marmara Clash
» UAE: More Investments Into Renewables
 
Russia
» Book Review: Russia’s Tug-of-War With Its Asian Soul
 
South Asia
» “High Strangeness” In Afghan Ambush
» Afghanistan Holds Enormous Bounty of Rare Earths, Minerals
» Global Islamic Group Rising in Asia
 
Far East
» China-Hong Kong: Cardinal Zen: Beijing National Education a Form of “Brainwashing”
 
Australia — Pacific
» Oz Insect Attempts to Mate With Bottle, Wins Ig Nobel
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
» French Woman Kidnapped From North Kenyan Coast
 
Latin America
» Cannibalism Confirmed Among Ancient Mexican Group
 
Immigration
» Bosnian Family Earning Over $121,000 on Welfare in Ireland
» Interior Ministry Reports Repatriation of 604 Tunisians
» Revolt Over EU Benefits Diktat: 12 Nations Join UK Fight to Curb Welfare Tourism Free-for-All
» Switzerland: Sommaruga Discusses Migration in Rome
» UK: Banned Activist Sheikh Raed Saleh Wins in Detention Case
» UK: Eleven Foreign Terrorists on the Streets and Not Deported
» UK: Failed Asylum Seeker Strangled and Drowned Bakery Worker Who Refused to Marry Him So He Could Stay in the UK
» UK: Hate Preacher Wins Human Rights Payout… Even Though He Shouldn’t be Here at All
 
Culture Wars
» Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist — But It’s Not Our Fault: Blame TV and Magazines Instead, Say Scientists
» Serbia: Gay Pride: Mayor of Belgrade Wants it Cancelled
» UK: Fury as Prayers Are Banned at Council Meetings
» UK: Right and Left May Not Matter So Much in the Post-Cold War World. Right and Wrong Do.
 
General
» Five Things That Internet Porn Reveals About Our Brains
» Ig Nobel Prizes Honor Wasabi Alarm, Odd Beetle Sex, More
» Meet the Obscure, Useful Metals Lurking in Products All Around You

Financial Crisis


Greece: Economic Crisis Also Hits Archaeological Sites

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, SEPTEMBER 26 — The severe economic crisis that has crippled Greece for the last two years has not spared even the most previous archaeological sites in the country. One of the victims is located in Athens and is the Keramikos cemetery, a small part of the ancient area bearing the same name, one of the most important zones of Athens in ancient times, situated in the northwest part of the capital. In ancient times, as its name suggests, it was an area inhabited by artisans who used to produce terracotta vases and other objects, whose patron was Keramos, the mythological son of Dionysus and Ariadne. The artisans established themselves in the area because of its clay-rich soils well-suited for ceramic production and abundant on the banks of the nearby Eridanos River. This watercourse disappeared centuries ago, covered by many layers of subsequent constructions, and was revealed through excavations conducted in the 1960s. Back in 1300 BC (while some tombs date back to the early Bronze Age, 2700-2000 BC), Keramikos was used as a burial ground and maintained this function until the 4th century AD, turning into the city’s main cemetery. The burial stones of the most important individuals of Athens at the time are found here. According to Ilias Margiolakos, an Archaeology Professor at Athens University, the precious monuments (burial stones, statues, columns and walls) of Keramikos are “bombarded” each year by rain, wind, frost and heat. The result is that the material used to build them is being destroyed. “We must take adequate measures to defend these ancient and precious monuments,” said the professor. “Hopefully — like they are saying at the Antiquities and Fine Arts Office — restoration work on several of these, like the 100m-long wall, will begin soon, before the start of the rainy season.” For nearly a century since exactly 1913, excavations at Keramikos have been conducted by the German Archaeological Institute, which conducts research at other Greek sites, like ancient Olympus. The most recent finds date back to 2003, when several ‘kouros’ (youth) statues were uncovered, as well as two lions and a sphinx. Based on agreement signed with the Greek state, the institute is required to guarantee the preservation and restoration of the monuments. Ultimately, however, it has not been receiving the necessary funds from Berlin and therefore it is not able to honour its agreements. Until now, the outstanding collaboration between Greek and German archaeologists has not resulted in any problems. But the issue was recently discussed by the Archaeology Executive Council. The Antiquities Department for Attica says that “it is doing what it can” for a site that is visited by over 130,000 tourists per year, and says that no systematic restoration has been carried out a Keramikos for years. German archaeologists are defending themselves, explaining that their institute gives them 25,000-30,000 euros per year for Keramikos and also pays a Greek restoration expert who looks after the site’s monuments every day. Evidently, however, these resources are not sufficient.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Italy: Time to Go, Silvio

Corriere della Sera, Milan

Following in the footsteps of the international markets and the ratings agencies, the major daily papers in Italy have come to the realisation that the weakness in the credibility of the country and the principle obstacle to its economic recovery is Silvio Berlusconi. Even moderate newspapers, like Corriere della Sera and Il Sole 24 Ore are now demanding his resignation.

Sergio Romano

Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s downgrade of Italy’s credit rating, which is not devoid of political motivation, explicitly refers to the international credibility of the country and the stability of its government. However, I believe that its criticism is mainly based on the fact that Italy has entered into a period of recession and is having to raise taxes to reimburse its debts. Unfortunately, this is a recipe that does not bode well for the future, which will likely be worse than the present.

However, there is judgement of Italy that is even more important: the judgement of its own citizens. Without a doubt, the main problem identified in this judgement is the Prime Minister. For a large number of Italians, Berlusconi represented their hopes for political stability and economic dynamism. Today these hopes have died, crushed by a jumble of broken promises, hitches in implementation, a slew of diverse scandals, inappropriate behaviour and a worrying lack of prudence. Today the main problem for Italy is the end of the Berlusconi era.

Everyone knows — including the close friends of the government leader — that his time has come to an end. Berlusconi will have to leave the stage, but no one yet knows how to turn a new page. Some are hoping that Il Cavaliere’s story will come to a close in court, in the wake of a trial for corruption, fraud and immorality. Others are expecting a decisive message addressed to parliament by Italy’s President Giorgio Napolitano.

However, both of these solutions will only serve to highlight the powerlessness of Italian democracy, and its inability to tackle this issue with the tools of democracy. Yes, Berlusconi has to go, but in a manner that does not undermine the constitution and one that will rescue the aspects of his political adventure that are worth preserving…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Italy: Business Elite Issues Call for Action on Economy

Rome, 30 Sept. (AKI) — Italy’s main business lobby Confindustria on Friday unveiled a manifesto backed by Italy’s banking association to re-launch the ailing Italian economy, warning that the country is “running out of time”.

“We’re running out of time, we need courageous reforms, immediately,” said Confindustria’s head Emma Marcegaglia, unveiling the detailed manifesto.

The manifesto identifies taxes, pensions, privatisation, market liberalisation and infrastructure investments as critical areas for action.

Italy’s business elite demanded rapid and bold action by the government to avoid what they called an “ineluctable slide into economic and social decline,” amid fears that debt-laden Italy could follow Greece and be the next victim of the eurozone crisis.

“The situation is complex and worrying. We are ready to play our part, but we need new economic policies, “ said the industry chief.

Marcegaglia stopped short of demanding the resignation of Italy’s 75-year-old prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, however. His government has been widely criticised for its recent austerity budgets seen as heavily reliant on tax hikes and lacking structural reforms and robust measures to boost Italy’s chronically low growth.

Italy is the eurozone’s third largest economy, but is burdened by 1.9 trillion euros of public debt combined with near-zero growth.

“It’s not up to us to tell a government if it must go or what it has to do, but we are at a delicate juncture and there is grave urgency for action,” she said.

Responding to growing calls in Italy for a one-off wealth tax to reduce the public debt which is running at 120 percent of national income, Marcegaglia said Confindustria would support a tax of 0.15 percent on households with net worth of 1.5 million euros or more.

In exchange, taxes on companies and their employees must be lowered, she said.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Schäuble Says Greece Will Need a Decade to Recover, Criticises Italy

Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said he expected Greece would need a decade to get over its debt crisis, and that it was clear there was no way it would return to the capital market in 2012.

“Greek will certainly need a decade rather than a year to return to full competitiveness,” he told weekly business magazine Wirtschaftswoche.

Much depended on the Greeks’ acceptance of harsh economic measures, he said.

“We cannot spare the Greek people the necessary adjustment measures. At the end, the people decide whether they can, and will, take the burden,” he added.

The Greek government was at least clearly in favour of doing all that was necessary to remain within the euro, although this made significant demands of the people, said Schäuble.

“We should have respect for the enormous adjustment burdens which are being demanded from the Greek people. Although it does not always seem to be fair, if one can believe the media reports of yachts in Piraeus or Mykonos and other places.”

He said if Greece was not rescued during the current euro crisis, the European Union itself could collapse.

“There is a real danger that the currency union could fall apart. The EU would lose enormously in terms of political credibility and ability to act in the future,” he told the magazine.

Schäuble also criticised the Italian government for its lack of consistency in the financial crisis and called for it to make more effort to win over the trust of the financial markets.

“Those responsible in Italy — and in all other countries — have to know that it is problematic to announce measures or promises and then not to keep to them. That is no way to win the trust of the financial markets.”

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Suffering Portuguese Seek Work in Switzerland

The beleaguered Portuguese economy is forcing thousands of nationals to move abroad. Many are seeking work in Switzerland, but have to leave their families back home.

Austerity measures + low wages + recession + unemployment = massive emigration. The Portuguese are all too aware of this painful equation.

“In Portugal I was slowly dying; I had to leave,” explained José Rabacal, who arrived in Gruyère from Portugal last April.

He knows the picturesque western Swiss region well as he worked there for 15 years until 2004. That was when his wife’s uncle offered him a taxi driver job in Moncorvo in northern Portugal.

Rabacal moved back and took out a loan to buy a taxi but things started to go downhill after only two years.

“Many firms began to see their earnings slowly dry up,” said the 46-year-old taxi driver. “What’s more, taxes and the prices of consumer products went up. I lost €200 (SFr244) a month due to the increase in diesel.”

Rabacal’s mortgage shot up, consuming almost half his salary.

“At the end of the month I had nothing left so we stopped going out,” he said. With just €700-1,000 a month the family had to tighten its belt.

“In Portugal they say you need a belt with lots of holes to be able to tighten up even more.”

He finally decided enough was enough. Switzerland offered a better working option — but without his wife and two children.

After six years as a freelance taxi driver he has exchanged his taxi for a delivery van, working for a drinks company in Bulle in canton Fribourg. But he now lives on his own after staying briefly with his brother in Vevey.

With a salary that is “much more than what he earned in Portugal” he plans to stay in Switzerland for as long as necessary to meet his family’s needs.

“I miss them but I am here to ensure my 17-year-old daughter can continue her studies. But I don’t know how long I can last without them,” he said…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

USA


ARPA-e Attacks Rare Earths, Biofuels in Latest Funding

The new agency aims to re-invent how energy is produced and used

“This is great news for us,” said Jian-Ping Wang, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Minnesota. His $2.5 million proposal under REACT was selected to develop strong magnets without the use of rare earth elements. Currently, the United States imports the majority of its rare earth magnets, most coming from China. These magnets are used in wind turbines and electric vehicle motors. Wang said his research could yield the “holy grail” of magnets, having very high energy density but made with common materials.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Spacex Unveils Plan for World’s First Fully Reusable Rocket

A reusable rocket and spaceship could open the gates of Mars for humanity, company CEO Elon Musk announced

The private spaceflight firm SpaceX will try to build the world’s first completely reusable rocket and spaceship, a space travel method that could open the gates of Mars for humanity, the company’s milionaire CEO Elon Musk announced Thursday (Sept. 29).

A fully reusable rocket would dramatically decrease the cost of lofting cargo and humans to space, making the exploration and colonization of other worlds such as Mars more feasible, Musk said in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Musk did not guarantee success, acknowledging the daunting task his SpaceX team has taken on.

Musk has said repeatedly over the years that he founded SpaceX in 2002 with the primary goal of helping humanity establish a lasting presence beyond Earth. Such expansion is necessary to ensure our species’ survival, according to Musk, since a catastrophic asteroid strike or other calamity could one day wipe out life on our home planet. Mars is a prime candidate for human settlement, and Musk has said he hopes SpaceX can send astronauts to the Red Planet within 10 or 20 years. Colonizing Mars — or any other world — would require ferrying thousands of people and millions of tons of cargo through space. That’s just not feasible with today’s launch costs, Musk has said. But a fully reusable rocket could change the equation dramatically.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Super: CCSD Will Take 2nd Look at Mideast Material

MARIETTA — Cobb County’s superintendent said there might be some changes system-wide to the curriculum after complaints from the community about Middle Eastern study materials, but also agreed the issue has been blown out of proportion. Cobb parent Hal Medlin complained to the district in late August about a homework assignment sent home with his Campbell middle-school student, saying that it “slanted positively towards Islam.” Dr. Michael Hinojosa said Thursday, “I think that we’ll have to relook at (the curriculum). We don’t need things to be this heated over unintended consequences, so obviously we’ll look at it again and see if there are any changes we need to make.” An unidentified teacher who asked students to outline the pros and cons of school uniforms assigned the homework. The material used for the comparison was a fictitious letter from a woman who is explaining why she is “proud and happy” to be Muslim and a list of seven conditions for women’s dress in Islam. When asked the appropriateness of the material, Hinojosa said that the district likes to give teachers autonomy when given supplemental materials approved by the state. “We feel that if they’re provided by the state, they ought to be pretty legitimate,” he said, adding that he was surprised by Georgia superintendent Dr. John Barge’s statement in Thursday’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution saying that he didn’t agree with the lesson. “Someone has to vet those, if they put them in the hands of our schools. … We don’t want to tell the teachers yes or no,” Hinojosa said. “We leave that up to the teachers and the principals to handle that.” Hinojosa did say that he thinks the issue has been blown out of proportion. “I’m glad it was brought to our attention because we always want to address concerns, even if it is just one parent who has the concern. On an issue like this one, the amount of media coverage isn’t consistent with the level of public interest,” he said. “Fewer than 10 people in total have contacted me about this, two from different countries, others from out of state — and one of them was to thank us. I think most people in our community saw right away that the issue was raised and it was handled, so let’s move on.” Following board approval, if a parent objects to a textbook or some material used in a classroom, a parent/guardian can ask for a “re-review” of the material by the curriculum review committee by submitting form IJK-3, which can be downloaded from the district’s website

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Canada


New Mosque Coming to Markham

Hello Islamic mosque, bye-bye Taoist temple? A Taj Mahal-like mosque is in the works for Markham’s 16th Avenue after the town’s development services committee gave the project a green light Tuesday. The proposal from the Islamic Society of Markham is to build a 28,000-sq. ft. mosque just east of St. Brother Andre Catholic School. The mosque will accommodate more than 500 worshippers and will include 188 parking spaces. It measures 34 feet in height for the main building, 70 feet for the top of the dome and 135 feet for the minaret (the tall spire).

The overall design of the mosque was well received by town councillors. “It resembles the Taj Mahal in India,” said Regional Councillor Joe Li. The mosque, estimated to cost between $6.5 million to $7 million, will be the second in Markham after the Islamic Society’s Jam’e Masjid on Denison Street, said Shafique Malik, president of the Islamic Society. Mr. Malik said the new mosque is needed because the current one is at capacity with about 400 members and because more Muslims are living in northern Markham. He said a group of about 50 regulars has been gathering for daily prayers at Markham Museum for the last two years.

“All the Muslims in Markham should be very excited about this, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build a mosque,” Mr. Malik said. “It’s a big achievement for the community. It’s in the middle, a historic area of the town.” Mr. Malik said while there are concerns about potential traffic congestion and future parking overflow during big events like Ramadan, a new traffic light has been proposed to be erected at 16th Avenue and Williamson Road and the Catholic school has agreed to help accommodate parking if there is overflow. Mr. Malik said they have been renting the school space for various events and that they have a good relationship with the Catholic school board.

Meanwhile, during the same meeting, an award-winning architect’s design of a proposed Taoist temple in Markham was ruled out of character with the community by town councillors. The contentious proposal three years in the making had from the outset drew opposition from the public largely because it would also offer Taoist tai chi classes as part of the religion. While that issue is still a concern for some, the application to build the Fung Loy Kok Institute of Taoism on Steeles Avenue between Bayview Avenue and Leslie Street was rejected in a 11-2 vote based on a built form that many residents say is incompatible with the neighbouring residential area.

Designed by Brigitte Shim of Shim-Sutcliffe Architects in Toronto, the elevated one-storey, flat-roof temple measures less than 3,500 sq. ft. in size and 26 feet in height. The cantilevered (fixed end beam) building is supported by seven sets of columns to allow for 30 parking spaces and circulation beneath the structure. “We see this as a sacred space, a place for worship in a neighbourhood,” said Ms Shim, who has been on the University of Toronto’s architecture, landscape, and design faculty since 1988. As an architect, Steeles Avenue is a neighbourhood in transition … this project is oriented to Steeles Avenue, it does not impact the residential neighbourhood,” Ms Shim added. She said three years for this scale of project is “really unbelievable”.

While the town’s development services commissioner Jim Baird has indicated the proposed form is in compliance with the existing building setbacks, height, lot coverage standards of the residential zoning and that there are several examples of other modernistic buildings in the community, many believe a building “on stilts” doesn’t fit in to a residential area.

“Many residents feel it’s a square pig in a round hole, that they are trying to squeeze parking underneath,” said Thornhill Ward 1 Councillor Valerie Burke, who moved to deny the application and was seconded by Thornhill Ward 2 Councillor Howard Shore. Ms Burke said most residents are not convinced there won’t be traffic overflow on their streets.

But Adam Brown, the applicant’s lawyer, argued that just because people don’t appreciate the architectural design doesn’t mean it isn’t compatible. Plus, cantilevers aren’t stilts, said Chris Farano of Fung Loy Kok Institute. “Built form, to us, is irrelevant here,” Mr. Farano said. “They don’t want us there.” Asked why they wouldn’t consider relocating the project elsewhere in Thornhill or Markham — something Mayor Frank Scarpitti hoped the applicant would agree to — Mr. Farano said it’s about a point of principle for Fung Loy Kok. “If we are out of sight, we are out of mind,” he said. “It’s a classic case of nimbyism.”

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Europe and the EU


Cyprus: The Massacre of Migratory Birds

(ANSA) — NICOSIA, SEPTEMBER — At least 400,000 small migratory birds (mostly blackcaps, chaffinches, robins, but also hoopoes and streaked fantail warblers) were illegally killed in Cyprus during the first two weeks of September, in order to be cooked as delicacies in the island’s restaurants at prices rocketing to up 80 euros for a portion of 12 birds. This cruel habit has already generated an illegal market worth millions of euros every year, but also an environmental disaster which neither Europe nor the local government seem to be willing to stop. This bloodshed of nearly biblical scale (last year, the number of “victims” was estimated at 1,400,000) was exposed once again by Martin Hellicar, the head of Cyprus environmental protection organization “BirdLife Cyprus”. The environmental protection organization has just published its last report, written jointly with the Royal Society for the Protection of birds. The report was, as usual, sent to the Council of Europe Environment Committee, to the European Commission and to the Government of Cyprus. (The report can be found on the website: www.birdlifecyprus.org/) Migrating birds fly over Cyprus twice a year (between March and April and between August and September). Hunting them is officially forbidden by law but poachers (who are mainly hunters and previous offenders) can act undisturbed, using large, thinly-knitted nets placed on trees or sticks or branches soaked in sticky liquid and hidden in bushes. These cruel devices cause the birds’ slow death: the bird is caught in the net and dies of either thirst of starvation. These birds are known in Greek-Cypriot kitchen as “ambelopoulia” (little wine-yard birds); they are one of the island’s most controversial traditional dishes. Theoretically, this food is forbidden by law; actually, local authorities tend to pretend not to see when it comes to the little birds. The birds are usually fried and eaten as finger food or wrapped in grape leaves and then kept in vinegar to be eaten later on. Some even maintain that “ambelopoulia” is an aphrodisiac, although this was never proved. “These levels of poaching-Hellicar maintains-are indeed an environmental disaster, because in order to provide the illegal ambelopoulia market with birds, hunting is carried out indiscriminately on a vast scale”. BirdLife Cyprus activists have found birds of 122 species (58 of them are in European and international lists of endangered species) caught in the sticky nets and tree-branches of Greek-Cypriot poachers. The poacher gets 3-4 euros per bird; however, many caught birds are not even edible, so they are simply thrown away. Ambelopoulia lovers maintain that this dish is one of the most ancient Cypriot traditions and must not disappear. However, as stated by the Under Secretary of the Justice Ministry Petros Kareklas , “In the past this used to be a mean of support for Cypriot families.

Today, it is only a huge illegal market”. Last July, the European Conference on Illegal Killing of Birds was organized-not by chance-in the city of Larnaca. More than 100 experts from several European countries took part in it. The works were closed by the request of “zero-tolerance” for poaching and an appeal to all European and local competent authorities to act in order to put an end to the massacre.

Unfortunately, according to figures just provided by BirdLife Cyprus, no one seems to get the message.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



French Police Stoned and Driven Off While Trying to Book Burka-Wearing Woman

Earlier in the week I posted about an incident in Belgium in which two police officers were attacked by a man while they tried to book his wife for wearing a burka. Now we have a similar but even more disturbing incident from Lyon in France.

Delicate situation on Friday evening for the police in Vaulx-en-Velin [suburb of Lyon]. Around 7.30 pm, on Corbusier Way, they see a woman wearing a burka, accompanied by her children. The team heads towards her to record the offence, and asks for her papers. Problem: the woman has to take her veil off for her identity to be confirmed. Not necessarily simple to do in the open street in districts where the police are not well regarded by certain people.

The woman, aged 34, lives close by and refuses all proposals: identification by a police woman in the street or in the police station, located just a bit further away. She makes hostile remarks, declares firmly that she doesn’t give a damn about the law on burka-wearing, adopted last April. In situations like that, time is against the police. Bit by bit, the inhabitants encircle the small group. There are soon several dozen of them. The woman harangues them, demanding that they help her. Tension mounts rapidly, and the first stones, or other projectiles, start to fly.

Before the check turns definitively into a riot, the police prefer to withdraw. While handing the woman a summons to appear at the police station. During the incident, fortunately, no public official was injured.

The woman should have presented herself at the police station this morning. She didn’t come. The prosecutor has now decided to send her directly in front of the police tribunal.

           — Hat tip: Steen [Return to headlines]



German Federal Republic Funded Doping Studies Before 1990

(AGI) Berlin — The German Federal Republic funded research on doping substances for sport using state funds until the fall of the Berlin Wall. The German weekly “Der Spiegal” has published the results of research carried out by two historians from the universities of Berlin and Munster, revealing that the Interior Ministry in Bonn had issued a directive ordering that all means should be used to win medals at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games .

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Italian Scientists Help Spot Particles Faster Than Light

Discovery challenges fundamental law of physics

(ANSA) — Rome, September 23 — Italians are among the group of international scientists who recorded neutrino particles travelling faster than the speed of light, researchers said Thursday.

In what appears to be a contradiction of one of the fundamental laws of physics, measurements over a three-year period showed neutrinos moving 60 nanoseconds faster than the speed of light over a 730-kilometer distance between Geneva and the Gran Sasso underground particle physics laboratory in Abruzzo.

“We were convinced we would find negative results,” said Antonio Ereditato, coordinator of the team of international scientists who made the discovery. “To find out that was not the case was a huge surprise”.

Ereditato, from Naples, said his team was confident in the results but needed more experts from the scientific community to weigh in.

If confirmed, the finding would call into question a central thesis of Albert Einstein’s 1905 theory of special relativity which says that nothing in the universe can travel faster than the speed of light.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Italian Singles Rising

Up 39% from 2000 to 2010 says CENSIS

(ANSA) — Rome, September 23 — The number of single Italians of all ages rose by 39% in the ten years from 2000 to 2010, research institute CENSIS said Friday.

The number of couples with children fell by more than 7% over the decade, said CENSIS President Giuseppe De Rita.

Almost seven million Italians live alone, or 13.6% of the population over the age of 15. Of these, almost two million are aged between 15 and 45, 1.7 million 45-64 and 3.3 million 65 or over.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Italian Tourists in Split Say They Follow Berlusconi’s Example on Paid Sex

Italian tourists in Croatia were trying to use their Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as their example, when explaining to police in the Adriatic port of Split why they were aiming to use the service of prostitutes.

Three tourists from Ancona, Italy, were detained in Split after police found them trying to pay three prostitutes from Romania.

“What’s wrong with it? That’s what our Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi does,” the Italians explained to the investigative judge, news website Index has reported.

According to the same source the Italians had not had sex with the prostitutes as their pimp first wanted 500 Euros and then the Italians realised the pimp had taken the girls’ passports. The Italians allegedly wanted to save the prostitutes from the organised prostitution ring and brought them to the police station.

The pimp was soon arrested too.

The Italians in the end became only witnesses in the case.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Italy: Iceman Has Anniversary Bash

Kids play with prehistoric bows, visitors eat ‘Neolithic’ food

(ANSA) — Bolzano, September 20 — Italy’s famed Iceman mummy had an anniversary bash this week as his purpose-built museum celebrated 20 years since two German tourists spotted him peeping out of a northern Italian glacier.

“Oetzi has been great for us, the city and tourism in the entire region,” South Tyrol Archaeology Museum Director Angelika Fleckinger said after the Copper Age man, 2,000 years older than Tutankhamen, welcomed kids to play with prehistoric bows and arrows and offered ‘Neolithic’ food for visitors.

An ongoing row over whether to turn on an expensive new liquid-nitrogen-fed chamber for the mummy slightly dampened the fun at the foot of the Similaun glacier.

Researchers are unsure whether some bugs recently found on his body are able to survive without oxygen and thus might thrive on the new system, which is similar to those used in the Royal Chamber in Cairo and to preserve the original copy of the US Constitution.

So the new refrigerated locker, commissioned in 2007 and costing 80,000 euros, is still waiting to be turned on. But the anniversary celebrations still had a special resonance for Fleckinger.

“Sometimes I think it is so strange. He died 5,000 years ago yet this person, this Iceman, has become an important part of my life”.

Forensic science has made great strides since the Iceman was found in the Oetzal Alps — hence his name, Oetzi — by a couple of German hikers on September 19, 1991.

“We know so much about him, that he had blue eyes and a few diseases, was getting on a bit at 46, and died from an arrow wound.

“But we will maybe never know what really happened in the last hours and minutes of his life”.

The Iceman may still be something of a mystery but his generosity to his adoptive home town is no secret.

According to the most recent figures, the refrigerated man earns a total of four million euros each year for restaurants, hotels and souvenir-sellers, Fleckinger said.

Year round, except for Christmas Day, New Year’s Day and May Day, he also raises 3.5 million in ticket fees at the restructured bank that houses him.

That means he pays about half of the Bolzano Archaeological Museum’s costs, drawing in over one thousand people a day.

This compares to the average of 15% which other Italian museums defray out of visitors’ pockets.

The Iceman’s status as a global star — even Brad Pitt is rumoured to have a tattoo of him — is reflected by the 26 documentaries made about him by the world’s TV companies.

He is perhaps the world’s most famous mummy outside Egypt.

The body, which dates back to 3000 BC, has spawned a global cottage industry of studies.

There have been discoveries about what he ate and what illnesses he suffered from, as well as a keen debate on how he died from the arrow wound found in his body — initially, it was thought, in a fight with rival hunters.

One theory says he was assassinated in a tribal power struggle.

Another suggested he was the victim of ritual sacrifice.

Another study — fiercely contested by patriotic residents of this formerly Austrian region who see Oetzi as their proud forefather — reckons he was cast out from his community because a low sperm count rendered him childless.

An eerie aura has also grown around the Iceman because of the allegedly mysterious deaths of seven people who came into contact with him soon after he was found.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Italy: Pope’s Farm to Host 500 Thousand Bees

(AGI) Rome — The Italian farmers’ association, Coldiretti, gave the Pope a beehive with eight honeycombs and 500 thousand bees to ensure pollination and the production of honey on the “pontifical farm”. Coldiretti president, Sergio Marini, together with other members of the association brought the Holy Father the gift on the occasion of the Day for Safeguarding Creation in Castel Gandolfo.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Italy: Berlusconi: ‘We Will Block’ Barbaric Phone-Tapping

(AGI) Rome — The limit has been reached and surpassed as well.

That is enough, we will block the abuse of phone-tapping.

Silvio Beruluscooni, speaking with a number of PDL representatives at the close of voting in the Lower House, has repeated his opinions with regards to wire-taps and their distribution, calling current events (according to the same sources) acts of barbarism which must be halted. Afterwards, commenting on several of his phone conversations reported in the press, the PM minimized. “I like to joke, as I did when I said I was Prime Minister in my spare time…But if I work all day and only sleep 3-4 hours a night,” his listeners repeated, “does it seem truly possible that I do it part time?” .

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Italy: Pope Calls for ‘Ethical Renewal in Italy’

Plea resonates amid Berlusconi sex scandals

(ANSA) — Rome, September 22 — Pope Benedict XVI called for an “ethical renewal” for the good of Italy as Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi confronts mounting scandals including sex with a minor, prostitutes and showgirls.

“I hope for an ever-more intense ethical renewal for the good of beloved Italy,” said the pontiff in a telegram to Italian President Giorgio Napolitano ahead of a visit to his native Germany.

While the pope’s wish was adressed to “all Italian people,” his comments resonated amid Berlusconi’s judicial woes including alleged sex with an underaged prostitute and a potentially embarrassing stream of wiretapped conversations with a southern Italian businessman who allegedly acted as a pimp for him.

In one recording, 74-year-old Berlusconi allegedly brags about “doing eight girls” in one night.

Berlusconi’s boastings of lavish trysts has fueled a growing anger among some Italians who perceive the political class as corrupt and unwilling to share in sacrifices as average citizens bear the brunt of austerity measures meant to stave off a Greek-style economic collapse.

The pope made similar pleas in January when Milan prosecutors first announced they were investigating allegations Berlusconi paid to have sex with a Moroccan belly dancer who goes by the name of Ruby and was 17 at the time of her alleged relations with the premier.

“Society and public institutions should rediscover their soul, their spiritual and moral roots,” said the pontiff.

The Vatican is currently battling accusations of moral failing itself.

Last week, a coalition representing the victims of clerical sex abuse asked the International Criminal Court in the Hague to investigate Pope Benedict XVI and three top cardinals for what the group called “widespread and systematic torture, rape and sexual violence committed by priests and others associated with the Catholic Church”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Mount Vesuvius Gases Accused of Painting the Town Red

Many of the well-known red frescoes in Pompeii were once yellow, according to a new study conducted by Italy’s National Institute of Optics. “I am always a bit suspicious of these claims. We know that some of the red was once yellow, but I’m not sure that we can be certain about the proportions. What is certainly true, though, is that the heat had some effect on the colors: it’s another case in which we can see that Pompeii was not the time capsule we sometimes imagine it to be,” cautioned Mary Beard of Cambridge University.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Netherlands: Single Women Want Their Eggs Frozen

Having eggs frozen is particularly popular with single women, according to figures released on Thursday by Amsterdam’s Academic Medical Centre.

It has been possible to have eggs frozen for social reasons since April and 97 women have applied, 92 of them without a partner.

‘They are mainly well-educated women with a career,’ fertility professor Fulco van der Veen told the Volkskrant. ‘But almost without exception their reason is that they are single and the clock is ticking.’

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Pope Asks Milan Not to Lose Sight of God and Faith

(AGI) Castelgandolfo — At the ceremony held this morning in the chapel of the private apartment at the Pontifical Palace in Castel Gandolfo, for the imposition of the pallium on Cardinal Angelo Scola, archbishop of the metropolis of Milan, His Holiness Benedict XVI asked the industrial and economic capital not to lose sight of God and the values of faith. The Osservatore Romano reported that the Pope explained that daily and material things are not good unless penetrated by the light of God, and that Milan must feel responsible for this task and not lose sight of Jesus Christ .

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Pope Oversees a Dwindling Church

Tygodnik Powszechny , 22 September 2011

“The Church dies in Europe,” headlines Tygodnik Powszechny on the occasion of Benedict XVI’s visit to Germany starting September 22. Statistics published by the German episcopate tell it all: in 2010 over 180,000 Germans left the Church while only 170,000 were baptised. Also, the number of vocations has been dwindling: in 2009, 120 candidates entered the seminary; a year later there were just 79 of them. Similar trends are observed in countries like Spain or Ireland, once considered Europe’s Catholic vanguard. “Less churchgoers, less vocations, less support for the Christian ethic, less Vatican authority”, writes the Polish Catholic journal, noting that sex abuse scandals have “swept away the Irish Church” and made many people turn their back on the Catholic Church. “Churches of the Old Continent should get used to the fact that the age of the masses is over and they will not, hand in hand with the rulers, convert and baptise the crowd”, observes priest and theologian Paul M. Zulehner.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Stone-Age Toddlers Had Art Lessons, Study Says

Research on Dordogne cave art shows children learned to finger-paint in palaeolithic age, approximately 13,000 years ago

A gallery in France’s Cave of a Hundred Mammoths seems to have been set aside as a place for palaeolithic children to practice finger fluting, or creating decorations in soft clay with their fingers. “It shows collaboration between children and adults, and adults encouraging children to make these marks. This was a communal activity,” said Jessica Cooney of Cambridge University.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



The Killing of Anwar Al-Awlaki is a Hammer-Blow to Al-Qaeda, And a Reminder of How British Campuses Host Extremists

Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born al-Qaeda cleric, has just been killed in Yemen, according to both Yemeni defence ministry and US officials. This represents the harshest blow to al-Qaeda’s global movement since the assassination of Osama bin Laden in May. Although not a military strategist or commander of Bin Laden’s stature, Awlaki’s importance as a charismatic “procurement agent” for al-Qaeda, and as an ideologue for global jihadism, can be seen in his influence of several infamous lone wolf terrorists. These include Nidal Malk Hassan, the US army major who murdered 13 of his fellow soliders and wounded 29 others at the Ford Hood military installation in late 2009; Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian UCL graduate who tried to detonate a bomb woven into his underwear on a Detroit-bound airliner two Christmases ago, and Faisal Shahzad, the abortive Times Square bomber.

Everything you need to know about Awlaki’s particular brand of violent Salafism, and his role as an online procurer of disaffected Muslims, is contained in a brilliant new report by Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, a research fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s College London. Awlaki began advocating jihad in Chechnya in the mid-90s as a young imam in Denver. He was a suspect in two FBI investigations before 9/11, including one that ended in March 2000, after Awlaki was thought to have had contact with two of the future 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar. Nevertheless, he hung around the US, preaching at the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Virginia, where he met a third hijacker, Hani Hanjour. He was arrested twice in 1996 and 1997 for the solicitation of prostitutes (if anything remains of Awlaki’s hard drive, my guess is his porn stash will rival that of the self-abusers of Abbottabad).

And like many jihadists, Awlaki spent some time in London, brought here by various Islamic groups and NGOs. As Meleagrou-Hitchens notes:

In 2002, Awlaki moved to the UK where, along with JIMAS [then a Salafist group that has since undergone somewhat moderate reforms], his patrons were leading Muslim Brotherhood-aligned organisations such as the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) and the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS). Throughout June 2003, they toured him around the country to give lectures to Muslims on subjects ranging from the war on Islam and Muslims to the role of Muslims in the local community. On 18 June in London, he spoke at an event held in conjunction with the MAB and the Islamic societies of four of the city’s main universities, a further reflection of his popularity among young Western Muslims. At the University of Aston in Birmingham four days later, his entire talk was in praise of a number of leading Islamist ideologues, including Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna and ‘Umm Jihad’ (mother of jihad) Zaynab al-Ghazali, who were both described as ‘saviours of the Islamic spirit.’

Specifically, Awlaki was hosted at FOSIS’s annual conference at Camden Centre in June 2003. He was presented as a “distinguished guest.” (Perhaps this is why the Home Office’s recent Prevent Review and Strategy judged that “FOSIS has not always fully challenged terrorist and extremist ideology within the higher and further education sectors.”)

A few months later, in December 2003, Awlaki turned up at the East London Mosque (ELM) in Tower Hamlets to participate in its “Stop Police Terror” event. He exhorted the congregation not to cooperate with the authorities’ counterterrorism investigations. “A Muslim is a brother of a Muslim,” he said, “he does not oppress him, he does not betray him and he does not hand him over… You don’t hand over a Muslim to the enemies…”

That was the first of two events involving Awlaki at the ELM. The second was a video message he delivered in January 2009 — by which time he’d reportedly emigrated to Yemen — for the mosque’s “The End of Time” event (here’s a poster for that eschatological confab), by which time his views on supporting violent jihad were widely known. The Telegraph reported his scheduled appearance before it took place but the ELM decided to host him anyway. The mosque issued a statement: “Mr Awlaki has not been proven guilty in a court of law. Everyone is entitled to their point of view… The subject matter is about judgement and the afterlife, a common theme in many religions.”

By February 2009, Awlaki had published a pamphlet titled “44 Ways to Support Jihad,” in which he wrote: “Preparing for Jihad is obligatory… Arms training is an essential part of preparation for Jihad.” No matter. He was slated to address City University ISOC’s annual dinner on 1 April 2009, an appearance that was ultimately cancelled after the counter-extremism think tank, the Centre for Social Cohesion (now part of the Henry Jackson Society), protested. Then, in August 2009, Awlaki was meant to give yet another video lecture at Kensington and Chelsea Town Hall, this one organised by Moazzam Begg’s Cageprisoners group for its “Beyond Guantanamo” dinner. Another pressure campaign scotched that appearance as well, although City’s ISOC went ahead and posted Awlaki’s prerecorded audio message on its website.

In January 2009, shortly after the thwarted Underpants Bomber plot, President Obama issued a “kill or capture” order against Awlaki, signalling his importance to the War on Terror.

Now might be a good time to inquire of FOSIS and ELM if they still find the late, unlamented cleric acceptable company.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: ‘If I Was Interested in Money I Could Make a Lot More’: Tony Blair Blasts Accusations of Profiteering Over Phone and Gas Deals

Tony Blair has boasted he could cash in and reap even more millions than he already makes.

He claimed he could earn more money and have a ‘very gentle and easy life’ to boot, if he only concentrated on maximising his wealth.

Mr Blair is estimated to have made between £20million and £60million since leaving Downing Street in 2007 by exploiting his fame with business ventures.

His roles include advising U.S. investment bank JP Morgan bank — for £2?million a year — and setting up his own consultancy firm.

           — Hat tip: Kitman [Return to headlines]



UK: Ali Dizaei: Unfinished Business

He’s the police chief who created turmoil at the Met and whose own career appeared to be in ruins. But could he rise again? By Paul Peachey

Four days after he took on the toughest job in British policing, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe has been confronted with a saga that encapsulates all the controversies of his new force’s recent past. It includes allegations of corruption, racism, and phone hacking — all rolled into the controversial 25-year career of one burly, Iranian-born officer. Ali Dizaei is the one-time senior Met Police officer who in 2010 was jailed, and sacked, after being convicted for corruption offences. On appeal, his conviction was quashed in May this year, and yesterday he won his claim to be reinstated to the force. But his employers are unlikely to be brushing down the mat for his return to Scotland Yard soon. Mr Dizaei still faces a retrial next year, and the Metropolitan Police Authority confirmed in a statement last night that he would be suspended on full pay.

It marks another turbulent moment in the career of the man who has been the subject of investigations that have cost millions of pounds. And for the Met, it is another reminder of the difficult issues that Mr Hogan-Howe will have to tackle as he works towards his stated aim of making the Met “the best police service in the world” and that he would “lead a service that criminals will fear and staff will be proud to work for”.

Ali Dizaei, 49, was born in Iran, where his father and other relatives served in the police. He moved to Britain in 1973 where he was privately educated, trained as a barrister and also studied for a PhD in his spare time. After joining Thames Valley Police, the ambitious and confident young policeman rose swiftly through the ranks until 13 years later he moved to the Met as a superintendent. At one point he was tipped as a possible chief constable. It was a difficult time at his new force. He joined in the same year, 1999, in which the Met was having to deal with the damning conclusions of the Macpherson report into the racist killing of Stephen Lawrence and about how Scotland Yard had handled the investigation. Mr Dizaei became one of the force’s most outspoken critics about the way race issues were handled within the service.

His upward rise stalled dramatically when he became the target of a wide-ranging corruption investigation over several years, which led to his suspension in 2001. At the time he was legal adviser to the National Black Police Association (for which he was later its leader). During the operation — codenamed Helios — an eight-man surveillance team tapped his phones and kept him under surveillance. He was investigated for a series of false claims including that he used cocaine and prostitutes, had corrupt links with criminals, and even that he spied for the Iranians.

They resulted in two criminal cases — one for perverting the course of justice after he lied about where he put his car when it was vandalised and for which he was cleared by a jury. The prosecution dropped charges in another case of alleged fiddled expenses amounting to a few hundred pounds when it heard he was owed several thousand pounds in unclaimed expenses. He did not stint on his criticism of the investigation after it was over. “I would not like this episode to be seen as a poor reflection on the Metropolitan Police Service nor the Crown Prosecution Service,” he said at the time. “But rather, as an indictment on a number of individuals in those two organisations who have set out on a personal crusade to try to destroy my life and my career.”

He was reinstated to the police force and received a compensation pay-off, despite censure for making threatening phone calls to a former girlfriend. After the deal, brokered by the conciliation service Acas, the former commissioner Sir John Stevens told an audience that included Mr Dizaei that he admired him for admitting his mistakes, according to The Guardian. “It’s a complete victory for me,” the newspaper reported Mr Dizaei saying at the time. “A year ago, I was an alleged terrorist and now I’m back in uniform with my integrity intact.” But he admitted that he might suffer a backlash from his colleagues. There were suggestions that he was disliked by some colleagues because of his flashy dress sense and his criticisms of the force.

An indication of that level of estrangement was made clear in a book about his ordeal that he co-wrote and published in 2007 — to the apparent anger of the force. The cover shows him in Dixon of Dock Green pose: arms crossed, uniformed and unsmiling, looking up at a traditional Metropolitan Police blue lamp. But the title — Not One of Us — spoke to his apparent outsider status — along with its racy story “told by the only man who knows the whole truth, of the rise and fall of the out-of-control coppers who tried to destroy him and how Dizaei refused to be beaten”, according to the publisher’s synopsis, which concluded that “he’s now back where he wants to be most: doing his job as a serving police officer”.

Controversy continued to swirl around him. He was now a commander but became a central figure in a further race discrimination saga that engulfed the Met in the summer of 2008. He gave strong backing to the highest-ranking Asian officer, Tarique Ghaffur, who made public accusations of racism against the force’s leadership. Mr Dizaei also faced other investigations, including by the Independent Police Complaints Commission over the alleged unauthorised use of a corporate credit card. After an investigation lasting more than a year, he was cleared.

Yet it was a clash in 2008 with a man who claimed that Mr Dizaei had not paid him for work on a personal website that led to a conviction and seemed to have permanently damaged his career. He was jailed for four years in 2010 after he was found guilty of trying to frame the designer. Mr Dizaei claimed that his he had been attacked and the designer spent a day inside a cell and six weeks on bail before the Met decided not to press charges. It seemed that Mr Dizaei’s career was over. He was first taken to a category A prison at Wandsworth before being moved to other prisons. He described prison life as like “putting a hand in a wasps’ nest” because he had to spend time with the type of people he had been trying to put behind bars during his working life.

Little more than a year later, after an appeal he was free. Though the court of appeal ruled that he should face a retrial early next year accused of misconduct in a public office and perverting the course of justice, he vowed that he would clear his name and go back to the Metropolitan Police. Yesterday, as he inched towards his stated goal, he made a similar pledge. “I am delighted to be reinstated. I have always wanted to be a Met Police officer and now vow to clear my name.” He remains in the public spotlight. He even had a part to play in the hacking scandal that contributed to the departure of Mr Hogan-Howe’s predecessor, Sir Paul Stephenson. Mr Dizaei said that he had been “shocked” after learning that he could have been a victim of phone hacking by the News of the World in 2006, according to his lawyers, and he threatened to sue. Whether he would ever be welcomed back by his colleagues is highly questionable. “We just want to see the back of him. Nobody wants him back,” said one police source. “I feel sorry for Bernard Hogan-Howe, just a few days into the job and it’s not something he’d want to be dealing with.”

A Life In Brief

Born: Jamshid Ali Dizaei, 1962, Tehran, Iran.

Family: Married Natalie Downing in 1986. Three sons. Divorced in 2005. Married again in 2007.

Education: Attended Slindon School, Arundel, City University and Brunel University.

Career: Joined Thames Valley Police in 1986. In 1999, transferred to Metropolitan Police. In February 2010 jailed for four years for perverting the course of justice. In May 2011 conviction quashed on appeal. He says: “I am delighted to be reinstated. I have always wanted to be a Met Police officer and now vow to clear my name.” They say: “He was an undoubted champion for racial equality, but his approach was sometimes aggressive.” Brian Paddick, former Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Assurances Made Over Temporary Mosque Bid

A MUSLIM leader has appealed to skeptical residents to support a bid for his congregation to use a youth centre as a short-term base. The religious group has put in a planning application to use Langley Green Youth Centre on Lark Rise as a temporary home whilst its London Road mosque is being demolished and rebuilt. But deep concerns were expressed over access and parking on Lark Rise and more than 200 people have signed a petition opposing the application.

Farakh Jamal, of Crawley Islamic Culture Centre and Masjid (CICCM), made a series of assurances during a meeting at the Langley Green Centre on Thursday (September 22).

He said: “I’m born and bred in Crawley. I’m part of the community and I’ve never seen myself myself as any different from anyone else. Though we have different beliefs, cultures and views it doesn’t mean as a community we’re different. “All Crawley Islamic Centre is asking for is a helping hand while the building of our mosque is taking place. We do not want to cause any problems. We’ve thought about the implications and have been very mindful of the community.” He said the majority of the congregation would walk to prayers and traffic marshals would deal with busy periods such as Friday afternoon prayers. He also insisted the congregation’s residence at the youth centre would last no longer than 18 months and pledged to keep lines of communication open with the wider community.

But residents remain anxious that the arrival of worshipers and children for religious evening classes will worsen congestion issues on Lark Rise. Peter Brent, of Lark Rise, said: “There are a lot of young children who use the grass area to play so there is a risk to them.” Clive, of Lark Rise, said: “My biggest concern is the access back and forth. Whenever there’s a party access becomes a nightmare.” Dianne, whose mother lives on Lark Rise, said: “What if there’s an emergency with my 90-year-old mother and we can’t get down the road?” Another Lark Rise resident asked: “If there are more cars than anticipated where are they going to go? How am I going to go into my road?” The application for temporary change of use of the youth centre will go before Crawley Borough Council’s development control committee on …

Organiser David Shreeves, Labour borough councillor for Langley Green, said before the meeting: “There have been a lot of misconceptions and Chinese whispers has played a big part in this. I thought it would be good to get round the table and trash out why the mosque needs to move and why they need e temporary home.”

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Black PC Who Used Race Card 14 Times Rebuked by Judge for ‘Unjustified Claims’

A police officer who repeatedly accused colleagues of racism has been rebuked by a judge for his ‘unjustified’ claims.

PC Peter Vince-Lindsay brought 14 allegations of discrimination against British Transport Police, including claiming that, because he was black, officers failed to back him up quickly enough when he was hit with snowballs.

He also argued that they deliberately excluded him from a meal in a busy food tent while on duty at Henley Regatta…

Passing judgement and ordering the officer to pay £2,500 costs, tribunal chairman Gordon Etherington said: ‘We have decided the claimant should have known this case was entirely misconceived and not a case that should have been brought before us.’

Adam Ohringer, for BTP, said: ‘He held an axe over the career of the officers and what is more he knew what he was doing. His case never got off the ground.’

           — Hat tip: Kitman [Return to headlines]



UK: Dizaei to Appeal Against Suspension

Scotland Yard Commander Ali Dizaei has said he will appeal against his suspension by the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA). Mr Dizaei, who is facing a retrial for corruption, was suspended on full pay on Friday night within hours of the disclosure that he had been reinstated to the force. The 49-year-old, who walked free from jail in May after his conviction was quashed, will receive his salary of around £90,000 before standing trial again early next year. Mr Dizaei told BBC Radio 4 he would be appealing against the suspension, saying: “Yes I am, I think out of principle. I think your ordinary citizen will say a person is being paid a pay package he should earn and work for that money. There are plenty of jobs I could be doing to earn the money I am being paid without interfering with frontline policing.”

He accused long-standing members of the MPA of being suspicious of non-white officers in senior positions at the Met. “I think you need to distinguish the difference between the Met and the police authority,” he said. “I think there is an attitude within the police authority and particularly among some of the individuals who have been there for a very long time, the last 10 years, who simply say we do have a suspicion around senior ethnic minority officers.” Mr Dizaei is due to stand trial again early next year accused of misconduct in a public office and perverting the course of justice. He launched a bid to get his job back after he was let out of Leyhill open prison when Lord Justice Hughes and two other judges said the Court of Appeal had been “driven to the conclusion” that his conviction “cannot be regarded as safe”.

[JP note; In/out like a fiddler’s elbow.]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Former Council Leader’s Mosque Offer Sparks Anger

Furious residents are accusing former council leader Fred Brown of trying to seek “petty revenge” after being voted out in the last election.

People in Littleport say they are “sickened” that Mr Brown, former leader of East Cambridgeshire District Council, wants to create a miniature mosque in the village. Mr Brown, who lives in Littleport and owns several properties in the village, says he has a property which would be “ideal” for Ely Muslims to convert into a prayer centre. Mr Brown, who lost his seat during the elections in May, said he wants to meet up with the group. But David Leuty, of The Holmes, Littleport, said: “The only reason he is even remotely considering helping these people is to stick two fingers up to everyone who was determined not to see him re-elected. I hope the Ely Muslims have enough sense to ignore his help. I feel sickened by it.”

Janice Hunter, of Main Street, said: “We don’t want a mosque here in Littleport, the same as the residents of Ely don’t. Fred Brown is simply trying to seek petty revenge on us all.”

Speaking to the Weekly News, Mr Brown says he wants to show the Muslims around the building he has in mind. He said: “I own a property in central Littleport which would be ideal for them to use. It’s a large building, which I understand is what they are looking for.” It was earlier this year that the Ely Muslims, who currently meet each week at the Paradise Centre in Ely, announced that they wanted to build a miniature mosque in the city.

The management committee of the Paradise Centre had told the group that they would lease them an area of their sports fields, close to the junction with New Barns Road and Deacons Lane, to build the facility if they gained planning permission. However, the discussions have been put on hold following uproar from many locals, who insist the Muslims should not be allowed to build a new prayer centre. Since then the debate has intensified and the English Defence League (EDL) has even threatened to protest in the city if the plans come into fruition. The Ely Muslims have said all along that they need a bigger space to meet and worship due to the increase in members. Nobody from the Ely Muslims was available to comment.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Police Forced to Give Ali Dizaei His Job Back

Ali Dizaei, the Scotland Yard chief jailed for corruption, has been sensationally reinstated today as a Met commander. The officer won his job back four months after his convictions for misconduct were quashed by the Appeal Court. Mr Dizaei, 49, who spent a year in prison, was allowed to return by a secret meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authority’s professional standards sub-committee. He said: “I am delighted and really happy to be back in the police service. I intend to clear my name and I will do that irrespective of how long it takes.”

However, it is understood MPA officials today took the decision to suspend him as a police officer pending his retrial on corruption allegations. Technically he has been reinstated as a £90,000-a-year Met commander on full pay and conditions. He said he would appeal to the High Court against any decision to suspend him. Mr Dizaei claimed the MPA committee took the reinstatement decision after a police appeals tribunal headed by a QC “unanimously” dismissed his sacking. Neither the MPA nor the Met made any initial comment today. But the decision sent shockwaves through Scotland Yard, with insiders describing the decision as “unbelievable”.

Mr Dizaei’s lawyers are expected to challenge his suspension in the courts, arguing that other senior white police staff have been allowed to stay in their posts while investigations into misconduct take place. Mr Dizaei will be formally reinstated when his police warrant card is returned. It is understood that other members of the MPA were unaware of the move this morning. The decision was taken last night by six members of the sub-committee, who held a session behind closed doors to discuss the case. One insider said officials were left with no legal alternative but to overturn the decision to dismiss the officer after the appeal court quashed his conviction.

Mr Dizaei last year became the most senior officer in 33 years to be jailed for corruption. He was convicted in February last year after a jury at Southwark crown court found him guilty of perverting the course of justice and misconduct in a public office. The policeman was found to have arranged the false arrest of Waad al-Baghdadi, a web designer who had done some work with him. Iranian-born Mr Dizaei, who wore his uniform at the time, was accused of arresting Mr al-Baghdadi outside the Persian Yas restaurant in Kensington, despite knowing he did not have reasonable grounds to do so. He was also alleged to have perverted the course of justice by falsely claiming in written statements that he was a victim of an unprovoked assault by the man. Mr Dizaei, previously a high-flying officer tipped as a possible Met Commissioner, was dismissed from the force in March last year. In May this year he won an appeal against conviction. The appeal court ruled that he should face a retrial and the case is expected to be heard early next year. The officer, a former president of the National Black Police Association, pleaded not guilty to the charges at a court hearing in June.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



World’s Earliest Christian Engraving Shows Surprising Pagan Elements

Researchers have identified what is believed to be the world’s earliest surviving Christian inscription, shedding light on an ancient sect that followed the teachings of a second-century philosopher named Valentinus.

Officially called NCE 156, the inscription is written in Greek and is dated to the latter half of the second century, a time when the Roman Empire was at the height of its power. An inscription is an artifact containing writing that is carved on stone. The only other written Christian remains that survive from that time period are fragments of papyri that quote part of the gospels and are written in ink. Stone inscriptions are more durable than papyri and are easier to display. NCE 156 also doesn’t quote the gospels directly, instead its inscription alludes to Christian beliefs.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

Balkans


Bosnia: Film Diva Penelope Cruz Arrives in Sarajevo to Play Italian Widow

Sarajevo, 7 Sept. (AKI) — Spanish movie diva Penelope Cruz arrived in Bosnian capital Sarajevo on Wednesday to shoot a film “Venuto al Mondo”, directed by Italy’s Sergio Castellitto, based on a novel by Margaret Mazzantini.

Cruz was accompanied by her husband Javier Bardem and their eight month old son Leo. She will play an Italian widow, Gema, who returns to Sarajevo after the war to show her son where he was born and where his father was killed.

Cruz told journalists she generally doesn’t like war stories, but thought it would be one of most important roles in her career. She was “emotionally very touched” by Mazazantini’s novel, she said.

The movie will be filmed in Bosnia, Croatia and in Rome. Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war, which claimed more than 100,000 lives, has sparked interest among numerous western film makers in the past fifteen years.

Castellitto has engaged many local artists to play in his film alongside Cruz in the leading role.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

Mediterranean Union


Deals Signed Between Tunisia and Sicily Region

(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, SEPTEMBER 21 — Seven cooperation agreements in the culture sector were signed by Tunisia and the Sicily Region while Tunisian Culture Minister, Bach Chaouch, was on a visit to Palermo. One of the deals involved the National Heritage Institute of Tunis and the Camarina archaeological centre regarding protecting the site of Carthage. Operative agreements were signed with the University of Palermo, mainly in the sector for the development of cooperation in the field of heritage protection. A new deal for collaboration between the Orestiadi Foundation and the International Culture Centre of Hammamet was also ratified.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

North Africa


Egypt: Muslims Burn Part of Aswan Governorate Church

A group of Muslims burnt part of a church in a village in Aswan Governorate, 800km south of Cairo, eyewitnesses said Friday. A group of Muslims gathered after Friday prayers outside Saint George’s Church in the village of Marinab, close to the town of Edfu, the eyewitnesses also said. Security sources said a group of Muslims clashed with the village’s Christian residents and destroyed their shops, adding that Central Security Forces cordoned off the village to control the clashes. Earlier this month, Christian-affiliated news websites reported that a group of Salafis had warned Christians not to leave their homes in Marinab unless they removed the dome from Saint George’s Church, which was restored this month.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Egypt: Muslims Attack Egypt Coptic Church as Sectarian Violence Continues

CAIRO: Tension between Muslims and Copts is blazing in the southern town of Edfu after two residential buildings were set on fire, eye witnesses from the town said Friday. The clashes started early Friday after a group of Muslim men surrounded the Mare’e Girgues church in opposition to construction expansions happening inside the church. A number of the men reportedly attempted to attack the building. Others say others set parts of the church on fire, before turning to Coptic homes and shops in the town.

Residents said the Muslim men are attempting to prevent fire fighters from reaching the burned out buildings and several shops owned by Copts were vandalized. Reports have not yet mentioned if there were injuries or deaths as a result of the violence. This is the third incidents in two days that targets Coptic churches in Egypt after violence in Fayoum, south of Cairo, claimed one life after a man guarding a church was shot dead by militants who then fled the scene. Security sources on Thursday afternoon said that a drive-by shooting in Fayoum left at least one security guard dead.

The attack apparently was outside the church’s kindergarten. Details of the attack on the Rouda Church in the town are still murky, but according to one witness nearby, the attackers drove past the church and opened fire, in what is the most recent attack that could spark renewed fears of sectarianism in Egypt. “I just heard the gun shots and saw that one guard was on the ground in obvious pain,” said Mona, a witness nearby. In recent years, sectarianism has been reportedly on the rise, with both religious groups clashing in numerous towns and villages across Egypt. This week’s incidents highlight the growing chasm that exists between the two religious groups.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Libya: Gaddafi Tanks Camouflaged With Sheepskins

(ANSAmed) — ROME, SEPTEMBER 22 — Despite continued losses on the battlefields, Colonel Muammar Al Gaddafi should still be acknowledged for his ability to hide his tanks in the desert. A skill comparable to that of the ‘desert fox’, German WWII General Erwin Rommel, reports Al Arabiya’s website. Gaddafi has managed to transform the appearance of his tanks, known as “desert wolves”, into peaceful lambs by covering them with sheepskins very similar to the colour of desert sand. From above, the tanks look like desert dunes, reports al Arabiya. In addition to sheepskins, Gaddafi’s brigades have resorted to other forms of camouflage, according to NATO sources cited by Al Arabiya’s website, hiding tanks inside of desert tents, surrounding them with sheep and camels so that they look like shepherd camps to NATO aircrafts, thus avoiding bombings. Before the war, the Libyan Army had about 530 Russian T-72 tanks, according to website Global Fire Power. The skins of 30-40 sheep are needed to camouflage each tank. This is reportedly the best technique, underlined Al Arabiya, because NATO has only succeeded in destroying a small number of tanks until now.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Muslim Mob Torches Coptic Church in Egypt

by Mary Abdelmassih

(AINA) — After Friday prayers today, a mob of several thousand Muslims from the village of Elmarinab in Edfu, Aswan province, demolished and torched St. George’s church, which was being renovated. The mob demolished the dome, walls and columns, then went to the church depot where the lumber to be used for construction was stored and torched it. The fire lasted 2 hours but the attack continued until 7 PM.

In an interview on Coptic TV channel, Father Salib of St. George’s Church said “the Imam of one of the village mosques called on the people to take matter in their own hands, he added. Other witnesses named the Imam as Sheikh Sabry.

According to eyewitnesses the Muslims also torched a large depot of electrical goods owned by a Copt, a supermarket and four Coptic homes. Muslims prevented the fire brigade from entering the village. Security forces, which were present, “stood there watching,” said Mr.Michael Ramzy, a social worker at the church.

Dr. Naguib Gabriel, head of the Egyptian Union of Human rights Organizations send an urgent message to field Marchall Tantawi to save the Copts in Egypt. “The Copts, their lives and their churches are in danger,” he said.

Attorney Mamdouh Nakhla, head of Al-Kalema human rights organization condemned Muslims taking the law in their own hands. He said “if the Egyptian Government is unable to protect its citizens, then the civilized international society should step in immediately to stop this human tragedy.”

The Media denied the incident. Mostafa el Sayed, Governor of Aswan, appeared on State TV tonight and denied any church being torched. He said it was a “guest home” and not a church. El Sayed said he gave his permission for the building to be 9 meters high, but the church contractor made it 13 meters high. “The contractor was slow in removing the 4 meters, so the Muslim youths took the matter into their hand.” He said the fire was in a depot of the church which had the construction lumber.

He said that both parties are at fault, the Christians for exceeding the height and the Muslims for taking matters into their own hands. He added that he arranged for a “reconciliation” meeting to be held in the next two hours.

Father Salib refuted the governor of Aswan allegations that the torched construction was a guest home. He said St. George’s church was been built 100 years ago and as it was dilapidated, the diocese was given permission to renovate it completely. He said that the Governor of Aswan himself signed the license for the renovation in 2010.

The renovation, although having all the necessary licenses from the government, prompted a crisis in Elmarinab village in the beginning of September. Islamists objected to the presence of a cross, bell and dome and prevented Copts from leaving their homes (AINA 9-9-2011).

Outspoken Coptic activist Wagih Jacob said what happened in Elmarinab is a scandal. The mob went out today, knowing that they have the support of Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). “I accuse SCAF to be in collusion with these people as well as the Governor of Aswan and the head of prosecution.”

Yacoub said that Coptic activists including himself are going to Aswan on Saturday to see what is happening there, even if they are killed. “I call on all Coptic men and Muslim liberals to join us to go to Aswan,” He accused the Governor of Aswan of not telling the truth “because he knows very well that no media will go to the village to take photos there..”

Georges Bouchra of Copts United NGO reported the Copts are staying indoors as it was rumored that Muslims have threatened to torch their homes tonight.

The Maspero Coptic Youth organization held a rally in the densely Coptic-populated district of Shubra in Cairo to protest the attack of Elmarinab church. It was attended by thousands (video).

On October 1 several Coptic organizations, together with other liberal movements, will hold a rally under the motto “No to attacks on Coptic Churches” to start at 5 pm from Shubra and end in Tahrir Square.

           — Hat tip: Mary Abdelmassih [Return to headlines]



UK Minister: ‘Prepare to Work With Islamists’

We should prepare for Islamists in government and even Islamist governments in the wake of the Arab Spring, the minister responsible for the Middle East said this week. Speaking before next week’s Conservative Party conference in Manchester, Alistair Burt said there was a need to distinguish between Islamists who were prepared to support peace within the new democracies and those, such as Hamas, who did not adhere to the same principles as the UK. “I don’t think any reader should wake up one morning and be surprised or amazed that Islamists constitute MPs or even a government,” he said. “What’s important is not the labels. Within the Arab world, the label ‘Islamist’ covers a range of attitudes towards democracy. What we should all do is judge people on their actions as well as their words.”

Mr Burt said: “All of us who live in democracies should celebrate the fact that people who previously did not, now have the opportunity to do so. From what we see of those who are advancing the cause in Egypt, Tunisia, in Libya, these principles will be there.” At the same time, he said, the UK would have no relationship with governments committed to the destruction of Israel. Speaking of the Arab Spring, he said: “We have to believe that it is better when people are given the opportunity to state their preferences on peace, on security, on the system of government, on the welfare of their people, on the education of their children. You’ve got to be better in a free society.”

He said Israel had maintained relationships with authoritarian governments and should seek to do so with the emerging democracies. But he said the situation in Syria was “deeply worrying”. He spent much time at the UN in conversation with countries that have greater leverage than Britain with Syria. Nevertheless, oil sanctions put in place by the EU would have a considerable effect. “Ninety per cent of Syrian oil exports go to the EU,” he said. “These constitute 25 per cent of the revenues that go to Syria and this will now stop.”

He denied that events in the Middle East meant that Britain had taken its eye off the ball with Iran. He had addressed the issue of Iran’s nuclear capacity in Vienna immediately before flying to New York. “We continue to raise this issue directly with the Iranians and to urge them to come back into talks,” he said.

[JP note: Foreign Office minister adheres to Muslim Brotherhood script is a dog bites man story. See the full Alistair Burt interview here http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/55451/we-will-applaud-mideast-democracy ]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Israel and the Palestinians


PNA Buys Anti-Riot Gear From Israel

(AGI) Jerusalem- The PNA, fearing violence ahead of the UN vote, has purchased anti-riot gear from Israel. The PLO is due to submit a request for Palestine to be recognized as an independent state to the United Nations on September 23.& 13; The Israeli press has revealed that the PNA purchased tear gas and rubber bullets from Tel Aviv’s defense ministry.

Palestinian security forces, which work closely with Israeli forces in the West Bank, are thus preparing to defuse a potential escalation of violent incidents.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

Middle East


Iranian Pastor Sentenced to Death for “Crimes Against National Security”

Governor-General Gholam-Ali Rezvani announces sentence. Immediately denied by Yusef Nadarkhani’s lawyer: “In court, the judges have spoken of apostasy of Islam.” The evangelical pastor had converted to Christianity at age 19. He was arrested in 2009. Last July the Supreme Court overturned the sentence.

Tehran (AsiaNews / Agencies) — A court in Rasht (northern province of Gilan) has sentenced the evangelical pastor Yusef Nadarkhani to death for being a “Zionist traitor” and having committed “crimes against national security”. Governor-General Gholam-Ali Rezvani announced the sentences through the Fars agency, specifying that “this is not a religious issue, because in our system no one can be executed for having changed his faith “. However, Mohammad Ali Dadkhan, the pastor’s lawyer, has rejected the statements of the governor, stating that his client will be executed for apostasy.

The lawyer says that is the first time that the authorities have spoken of “crimes against national security” regarding his client. “At the time of sentencing — he explains — the judges spoke of apostasy, making no mention of other crimes. These new charges have to be reviewed. “

Yusef Nadarkhani, 32, converted to Christianity at age 19 and became pastor of a small evangelical church called Church of Iran. Arrested in October of 2009, he was sentenced to death for apostasy according to sharia (Islamic law), which provides for the reversal of the sentence if he returns to Islam. On appeal in July last year, the Iranian Supreme Court overturned the decision, returning case to court in Rasht (Nadarkhani’s hometown) which yesterday upheld the death sentence.

Several Western countries have condemned the sentence against Nadarkhani and have requested his release. Among these, the United States, Great Britain, Germany, France and Poland.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Iraq: Three Christians and a Turkman Kidnapped Near Kirkuk

(AGI) Kirkuk — Three christians and a Turkman were kidnapped yesterday in the district of Daquq, south of Kirkuk, in Irak.

The group was out on a hunt beating and was driving on a car.

General amal Taher Bakr said the vehicle was found arsoned alongside the hunt dogs. Security forces scrambled to the scene immediatelly, but no body has been found yet.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Qatar Builds Largest Waste Treatment Plant in the Area

(ANSAMED) — DOHA, SEPTEMBER 27 — Qatar has invested 800 million euros to build the largest waste treatment plant in the Middle East. According to a report in Qatar-based daily, The Peninsula, the plant spans an area of 3 square kilometres and will be operative within about 2 months. The centre will allow waste to be converted into clean energy and organic fertiliser, producing 50 MW of electricity per day and new products such as paper, plastic and aluminium by recycling, said Safar Al Shafi, the Director of the Sanitation Department of the Urban Planning Ministry. This project will make Qatar a leader in the waste treatment sector, an important business for a country that produces 7,000 tonnes of solid waste per day.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Turkey Compiles List of 174 Responsible for Marmara Clash

(AGI) Jerusalem — Turkish intelligence has compiled a blacklist of 174 Israelis “responsible” for last year’s raid on the Marmara. Nine Turkish activists died in fighting on board the ship. The list containing the names of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and foreign affairs and defence ministers, Avigdor Lieberman and Ehud Barak, as well as many soldiers, has been handed to Turkish judges.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



UAE: More Investments Into Renewables

(ANSAmed) — DUBAI, SEPTEMBER 27 — New items have been pencilled into the United Arab Emirates’ energy diversification plan. While Dubai has announced that 12% of its energy demands will be met by nuclear power by 2030 and stated plans for a solar plant, Abu Dhabi, already a pioneer in investments and the development of renewable energy in the region, has announced that it will install solar panels to provide the emirate with 2.3 MW of power. “Twelve percent of Dubai’s energy will be provided by nuclear power in the future, another 12% will be guaranteed by coal power plants, 71% by natural gas, and the remaining 5% by solar energy,” explained Said Al Tayer, the Vice President of Dubai’s Supreme Energy Council. Al Tayer stressed that plans for coal power plants will be suspended until at least 2012 “to verify the actual efficiency of a clean coal power plant”. The lifestyles of emirates natives and residents, in tandem with difficult climatic conditions, with extremely high temperatures and scarce water resources, make the UAE one of the top polluters in the world. The energy diversification plan also includes cutting carbon emissions by five million tonnes by 2013. Abu Dhabi, which is already working on the construction of Masdar, the first zero emissions city in the world, and which is planning to boost the amount of energy covered by solar power to 7%, announced the installation of solar panels on 11 public and private buildings, guaranteeing 4,025 gigawatt hours (GW.h) and cutting production CO2 production by 3,220 tonnes.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Russia


Book Review: Russia’s Tug-of-War With Its Asian Soul

Russian Orientalism: Asia in the Russian Mind from Peter the Great to the Emigration by David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye

Reviewed by Dmitry Shlapentokh

The study of Orientalism, a description of the West’s approach to the study of Asia, has re-emerged as an important subject of research. The launching pad could well have been Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978), a seminal book that placed the study of Asia, or in this case, the Middle East, in a political context. Said followed the general line of the prevailing post-modernists of that time — mostly leftists — that knowledge is directly linked with power.

The subject of this book, Russian Orientalism, could well tempt the reader to assume that the Russians were increasingly fascinated with Asia and, in a way, identified with this part of the world.

As a matter of fact, Russia’s image as a basically Asian country is quite widespread in scholarship and public discourse, at least in the West. The book actually gives quite a different picture of the Russians’ interest in the Orient, an approach that was quite different from Westerners’ vision of Russia.

Since the beginning of the 19th century, it was quite popular among Western intellectuals, especially the French, to see Russians as Asiatics, as the successors to the Huns, Mongols and Turks, who had created the major threat for Europe for centuries. European Orientalism, thus, was, in a way, shaped by the desire of Europeans to find out about non-Europeans.

Interest in the Orient was also spurred by practical reasons — Europeans were engaged in building empires and needed to know about the people they wanted to conquer and control. This also could be said of the Russians. As one can tell from the book’s narrative, the Russian elite engaged in the study of Asians not to affirm their sameness, albeit there were exceptions, but to emphasize their differences. Russian Orientalism, even when the Russian elite adopted a sort of Asiatic garb, was a peculiar form of Europeanism.

The Russian study of Asia was launched by Peter the Great, the Westernizer. The policy was propagated by Peter’s successors, especially by Catherine II. Catherine II liked to demonstrate to foreign dignitaries that she had a lot of Asians as subjects; they in no way demonstrated her Oriental nature but emphasized her power and the extent of her empire. Her interest in China was also a peculiar manifestation of Europeanism, for interest in China and a certain idealization of China was quite popular in France.

True academic study of Asia, mostly of Muslim countries, was launched in the early 19th century, and the first school to study the Orient professionally was opened in Kazan in west-central Russia (it was later moved to St Petersburg). The proliferation of Asian studies not only reflected a desire to imitate the West and assure that Russia belonged to European civilization, but was again driven by practical reasons.

Similar to Europeans, Russians had been engaged in building their own empire. By the end of the 19th century, Russia had expanded in Central Asia and in the Far East. This created a demand for people who either knew about the area or could train specialists.

By that time, the Russian elite, similar to other European elites, was quite confident that Russians could easily deal with the Asians and on occasion had developed an ideology of a sort of benign imperialism. Ester Ukhtomski, mentioned in the book, was one of those idealists. He assumed that Russia and China could live in a sort of geopolitical symbiosis, but this did not mean that Russia and China would be equal…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

South Asia


“High Strangeness” In Afghan Ambush

America deceived by operation and the political whitewash that followed.

It’s likely that most Americans have never heard of the Ganjgal Valley in Afghanistan. What you are about to read is a true account of what happened there during an agonizing several hours on September 8, 2009. If I have done my job right, by the time you finish, you will be saddened and very angry. But most of all, if you really care about our troops beyond the obligatory lapel pins and bumper stickers, you will demand answers from the highest levels of our government. Because, but for the grace of God, this account could be about you or one of your family members being executed on the other side of the globe.

The families and loved ones of five of America’s best and bravest have experienced an irreplaceable loss due to their needless deaths, which is a gaping wound that continues to be shrouded in mystery despite what various official reports suggest. The voluminous and heavily redacted official investigation leaves more questions than it answers, thus denying true justice to our fallen heroes and their families. Truth and justice have been denied for too long, and now is the time to accept nothing less.

Based on my research to date, I have no doubt that what happened at Ganjgal is but a microcosm of what is taking place throughout Afghanistan, Iraq and other areas in this war waged upon us by Muslim terrorists — a war that has been convoluted by Washington politicians and twisted by an accommodating media.

Since the onset of 24/7 news coverage, we’ve been adhering to unviable rules of engagement in our prosecution of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. No one likes civilian casualities, but the unfortunate and inconvenient truth is that in many cases, it is the so-called “civilians” we are fighting. Our enemy either takes on the appearance of innocuous civilians, hides behind them, or the civilians themselves actively support enemy operations. Nowhere is this more clear than in Ganjgal, where the lives of so-called innocent civilians were spared over our uniformed men of valor.

This is unacceptable and in the end, forces us into an unwinnable situation. Insight in the ambush at Ganjgal will undoubtedly shine a spotlight on forbidden truths that exist about the wars in which we are engaged. Forbidden truths from the policies of politicians at the expense of the lives of our finest.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]



Afghanistan Holds Enormous Bounty of Rare Earths, Minerals

Geologists actually mapping the country’s mineral bounty suspect its prime cache of coveted rare earth elements is considerably larger than the latest estimate lets on.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Global Islamic Group Rising in Asia

The chanting crowd at the radical Muslim protest in Indonesia stood out for its normalcy: smartly dressed businessmen, engineers, lawyers, smiling mothers, scampering children.

At a time when al-Qaida seems to be faltering, the recruitment of such an educated, somewhat mainstream following is raising fears that Hizbut Tahrir, an enigmatic global movement, could prove more effective at radicalizing the Islamic world than outright terrorist groups. Active in 45 countries, Hizbut is now expanding in Asia, spreading its radical message from Indonesia to China. It wants to unite all Muslim countries in a globe-spanning bloc ruled by strict sharia law. It targets university students and professionals, working within countries to try to persuade people to overthrow their governments.

The movement’s appeal to an often influential part of society worries experts. Its goal of an Islamic state may be far-fetched, but it could still undercut efforts to control extremism and develop democracy in countries such as Indonesia, which the U.S. hopes will be a vital regional partner and a global model for moderate Islam. “Our grand plan over the next five to 10 years is to reinforce the people’s lack of trust and hope in the regime,” said Rochmat Labib, the group’s Indonesia chairman in a rare interview with a Western reporter. “That’s what we are doing now: converting people from democracy, secularism and capitalism to Islamic ideology.”

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Far East


China-Hong Kong: Cardinal Zen: Beijing National Education a Form of “Brainwashing”

The retired bishop of Hong Kong, attacks the Chinese government proposal that imposes separate classes for “national education”. According to the prelate, “they want to foment nationalism, the Church does not accept this situation.” Hong Kong deputies also express doubts.

Hong Kong (AsiaNews / Agencies) — The reform of school management in Hong Kong will see a range of subjects that are a means to “brainwash” students. According to the bishop emeritus of the Territory, Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, “Teachers and students must oppose this plan, which is too vague and tends to encourage an extreme nationalism.”

According to the government proposal made, all schools in Hong Kong — from primary school onwards — will have to include non-defined “national education classes” as a separate subject in the syllabus. Speaking at a forum organized by the Office for Catholic Education, the prelate posed the question, “What exactly does the subject want to teach? Does national education mean unconditional support for the Communist Party?”.

Card. Zen said the church’s autonomy in school management provided “checks and balances” against inappropriate national education imposed by the government. “The Catholic Church is obliged to offer this system against the government and to uphold people’s power, and we have never abused this power,” he said. “Without this [autonomy], the government can do whatever it wants, including brainwashing youths with wrong and extreme nationalism. “

The local government supports this criticism. According to education sector lawmaker Cheung Man-kwong, “the government should not force national education on all primary and secondary schools and that schools’ autonomy should be defended. If teachers wish, they must be able to object and decide what to teach in freedom. “

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

Australia — Pacific


Oz Insect Attempts to Mate With Bottle, Wins Ig Nobel

Australians are renowned for their love of the stubby — that small bottle of beer essential to any good barbie. Even the most besotted beer-drinking cricket fan in Melbourne, however, is unlikely to attempt to mate with their stubby — but that didn’t stop an Australian jewel beetle (Julodimorpha bakewelli) from doing just that.

Biologist Darryl Gwynne, now at the University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada, and his colleague David Rentz, noticed the errant beetles in 1983 in Western Australia. On Thursday they were awarded an Ig Nobel Prize for their paper on the phenomenon: “Beetles on the Bottle: Male Buprestids Mistake Stubbies for Females”. Gwynne says the bottles resemble a “super female” jewel beetle: big and orangey brown, with a slightly dimpled surface.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

Sub-Saharan Africa


French Woman Kidnapped From North Kenyan Coast

An elderly French woman has been kidnapped from the Kenyan resort of Lamu, near to the area from which Judith Tebbutt was taken by armed gunmen and her husband, David, was murdered.

Gunmen have kidnapped an elderly French woman from the north Kenyan coast in the early hours of Saturday. It is the second violent abduction of a foreign visitor from the Lamu archipelago in three weeks, police said. A French diplomat has confirmed the kidnapping, but no name of the woman has yet been released. Further reports suggest that two Kenyan coastguard vessels have already surrounded a boat carrying the gunmen and the kidnap victim. “Two boats of the Kenyan coastguard have surrounded the boat which the gunmen and woman are on,” Najib Balala, a Kenyan tourism minister, said, adding that the standoff was taking place near the border with Somalia.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

Latin America


Cannibalism Confirmed Among Ancient Mexican Group

Eating humans “crucial” to spiritual life of the Xiximes people.

“Through their rituals, cannibalism, and bone hoarding, they marked a clear boundary between an ‘us’ and ‘them,’“ Punzo said-”us” being the Acaxées and Xiximes, and “them” being everybody else. The two groups fought and killed members of other groups, he said. But the Acaxées and Xiximes ate only their own kind, specifically men. Other native groups and Spanish colonizers were apparently ritually worthless, according to historical studies.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

Immigration


Bosnian Family Earning Over $121,000 on Welfare in Ireland

Unemployed couple with four children takes home $2,385 a week for doing nothing

An unemployed married couple from Bosnia, with four children, is taking home over $121,000 (€90,000) per year in welfare checks.

The couple, who live in Dublin, takes home $2,385 (€1,763) per week.

Labour Party Senator Jimmy Harte has called for a cap on the amount of social welfare payments a family can receive. Harte received the information about this family from the Department of Social Protection officials. He says that $68,000 (€50,000) is more than enough for one family per year.

Harte said “The family are doing nothing illegal but the system is wrong when a couple are able to receive €90,000 [$121,000] per year for doing nothing. I don’t think this sort of payment is acceptable in the good times, never mind the bad times we find ourselves in now.

There are married couples in this country with two good jobs, working very hard and are not receiving anything like this.

“As well as receiving €90,000 [$121,000] , they will not have to pay property tax or water charges. That is just wrong.

“You would need to be earning close to €140,000 [$190,000] to take that sort of money home after tax.

He added “This is a Dublin-based family but I know there are families in other counties receiving up to €85,000 [$115,000]. They won’t take in as much in rent allowance but they are still entitled to all the other payments.”

Harte has now sent this information to Joan Bruton, the Irish Minister for Social Protection.

He explained that he holds no personal grudge against the family. However, he wants a “root and branch” search of all families on social welfare and calls for a cap on the amount of payments they can receive.

The Department of Social Protection’s figures are as follows:

  • Father’s disability allowance — $ 435.65 (€322)
  • Guardian’s pension for child taken in — $386.95 (€286)
  • Rent supplement — $373.42 (€276)
  • Mother’s carer’s allowance — $514 (€380 )
  • Child benefit — $389.69 (€288)
  • Daughter (17 years) special needs — $285 (€211)

           — Hat tip: McR [Return to headlines]



Interior Ministry Reports Repatriation of 604 Tunisians

(AGI) Rome- The Interior Ministry reported that 604 Tunisian migrants who landed in Lampedusa in recent days, have been sent home.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Revolt Over EU Benefits Diktat: 12 Nations Join UK Fight to Curb Welfare Tourism Free-for-All

Ministers have joined forces with 12 other nations — including France, Germany and Denmark — angry at the European Commission’s threat to take the UK to court over rules which limit foreigners’ ability to claim benefits.

If the Commission gets its way, Britain could be hit with an extra £2.5billion in welfare payments, making it even harder to tackle our huge deficit.

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith warned that the move was just the latest example of ‘unelectable and unaccountable’ European institutions’ desire to grab power from national parliaments.

The row comes as Tories gather for their annual conference in Manchester amid a growing clamour from Eurosceptic backbenchers to use the eurozone crisis as a lever to get Brussels powers returned to Britain.

Last night former Cabinet minister John Redwood said the issue showed why Foreign Secretary William Hague should enter into negotiations with EU leaders to get powers handed back to Britain. He wrote on his blog: ‘What is he doing about it? Why won’t he get on with renegotiating the UK position?

‘Most UK electors want a trade agreement but do not want to be bossed around by a high spending legislature poking its nose into our domestic affairs.’

At present the UK says that EU immigrants must have worked here previously, or have a decent chance of getting a job, before they can claim benefits.

But on Thursday Brussels gave the UK two months to scrap the rules, saying they infringe the ‘human rights’ of EU citizens.

It is feared the change could open the door to tens of thousands of Eastern Europeans who are currently deterred from coming here.

Benefits are much more generous in the West than among the former Soviet-dominated countries of the East.

For example, a person who has been unemployed for more than three months in Poland gets a dole of just £110 a month. This is less than half the £270 or so he would get if he moved to the UK.

So far only Britain has been threatened with court action, but yesterday an EU official warned that other countries could be next if their residence rules are deemed too strict.

Chris Grayling, the Employment Minister, revealed growing anger among European governments and said he would be bringing up the issue at a meeting of ministers in Brussels in three weeks’ time.

His alliance is made up of prosperous Western European countries which are also worried about an influx from former Communist states if they are forced to change their rules.

They, too, face huge costs if they have to tighten up their rules. France, for example, will currently not pay out benefits unless migrants have worked in the country for at least four months.

Mr Grayling told the BBC: ‘There is a very definite difference of opinion between us and the Commission over this. I don’t think somebody coming from another EU state should be able to access benefit simply by turning up here and saying, “I am going to live in the UK from now on”.

‘The truth is European law is all over the place at the moment. We had a case three months ago in which we were instructed by the European Court to make disability payments to a British citizen, a young woman living in Spain.

Mr Duncan Smith told the Daily Mail: ‘This is out of order. Social security was always considered to be a national responsibility, but now Europe is encroaching on these areas.

‘This kind of land grab from the EU has the potential to cause mayhem to nation states, and we will fight it.’

It emerged yesterday that Nick Clegg told EC president Jose Manuel Barroso on Thursday that Britain would fight any attempt to force us to pay benefits to workless EU migrants.

The Lib Dems’ support for the Government on this issue is in contrast to their refusal to join the Tories in opposing the extension of employment rights to agency workers.

A source close to Mr Clegg said: ‘Nick thinks this is a really bad idea. It is one thing to look after European citizens who have worked over here and paid taxes, but it is quite another to start writing cheques to anyone and everyone who turns up.’

A spokesman for the European Commission said the UK was being targeted first because complaints had been received about the rule here.

But she warned that other countries would be next.

She said: ‘We have issues with other countries but the UK case is much more advanced.’

           — Hat tip: Gaia [Return to headlines]



Switzerland: Sommaruga Discusses Migration in Rome

Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga has met Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni for talks on migration, including the developments in North Africa.

Also high on the agenda was the Dublin agreement, the European asylum accord. Both ministers agreed that cooperation in migration issues should be intensified.

In addition, a Swiss liaison officer will be posted to Rome, said a justice ministry statement on Tuesday evening.

It said that the ministers had discussed the current situation in North Africa, which has led to a flood of refugees to Italy in particular.

The statement added that Italy was Switzerland’s most important partner in implementing the Dublin accord, with cooperation mostly working well.

However, there was a need for “optimisation in certain areas”, such as people sent back to Italy under the Dublin accord later presenting new asylum applications in Switzerland. The problem arose because Italy had not sent the people in question back to their home countries, the ministry said.

The ministers also discussed police cooperation in fighting organised crime, according to the statement.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



UK: Banned Activist Sheikh Raed Saleh Wins in Detention Case

A pro-Palestinian activist detained during a visit to the UK on the orders of Home Secretary Theresa May has won a partial victory in a claim for damages. The High Court ruled Sheikh Raed Salah had been wrongly detained for two days, during which he was not told the reason for his arrest. But it said the rest of his detention had not broken the rules. The Home Office said the court had backed Mrs May’s use of her powers and Mr Salah won only on a technical point. Ministers are expected to fight any claim for compensation.

Critics say Sheikh Salah, an Israeli citizen, is anti-Semitic, a charge he has denied. The campaigner for Israeli-Arab rights has been mayor of his home town three times. Mr Salah arrived in the UK in June, planning to attend a number of public events and other meetings with pro-Palestinian campaigners. One of the meetings was at the Houses of Parliament.

But three days later immigration officers detained him at his hotel in London. They handcuffed him and he was eventually taken to a police station, before being held in immigration detention for 21 days. He later won an application to be released on bail.

Mr Justice Nicol said in his judgement that although the Home Office had not broken the rules over its reasons for the activist’s detention, the detention had been conducted incorrectly. He said: “I have rejected the claimant’s case that his detention was unlawful because it conflicted with the statutory purpose or the Secretary of State’s policy on detention. I have accepted his argument that he was not given proper and sufficient reasons for his arrest on June 28 nor was he given them until some time on June 30. He is entitled to damages for wrongful detention during that period.” Mr Justice Nicol said the arrest only became lawful once Mr Salah had received the full reasons for it, through a proper translation by his solicitors, on 30 June. There has been no agreement yet on the damages and Mr Salah is still expected to appeal against the decision to deport him.

Hotel mix-up

The court had heard when Mr Salah arrived in the UK, he was given permission to stay for six months — and as an Israeli citizen he did not need a visa. But two days before he arrived, Mrs May ordered his exclusion on the grounds that his presence was not conducive to the public good. The exclusion order had not been served on him before he boarded his flight to the UK. When Mr Salah was later arrested at his hotel, he could not understand what was going on and his interpreter was barred from assisting the conversation. At one stage, one of the arresting officers tried to use an Arabic translation application on his iPhone, although the reasons for the arrest remained unclear. “In my judgement, what took place at the hotel was inadequate for the claimant’s arrest to be lawful,” said the judge. “The claimant was entitled to know, at least in the broadest terms, why he was being arrested. Even in English, that information was not conveyed to him. That alone meant the arrest was unlawful.” A spokesman for the Home Office said: “We are pleased that the court has found that the home secretary used her powers correctly when detaining Mr Salah. The decision the Home Secretary took was the right one. The court decided that there was a technical problem when he was initially detained.”

[JP note: Home Office cock-up continues as farce.]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Eleven Foreign Terrorists on the Streets and Not Deported

At least eleven foreign-born terrorists who should have been deported from Britain after finishing prison terms are still walking the streets.

They include offenders who helped the July 21 bomb plotters a fortnight after the 7/7 atrocity.

Seven are fighting deportation on human rights grounds, meaning they may never leave. Last night government officials refused to identify them or say what has happened to the other four.

The list is known to include Siraj Ali, who aided the failed July 21 suicide bomb plotters and was jailed for nine years.

Ali is the foster brother of Yassin Omar, the failed Warren Street bomber, and housed Muktar Ibrahim, another of the would-be bombers, while the devices were being made in a council flat a floor below.

He is using taxpayer-funded legal advice to fight deportation to Eritrea, even though Britain returns hundreds of people there every year.

           — Hat tip: Steen [Return to headlines]



UK: Failed Asylum Seeker Strangled and Drowned Bakery Worker Who Refused to Marry Him So He Could Stay in the UK

A failed asylum seeker strangled and drowned a bakery worker who refused to marry him so he could stay in the UK.

Iranian-born Hossein Abdollahzadeh, 32, left Agnieszka Dziegielewska’s naked body in a bath full of water at her flat in Swinton, near Rotherham, just weeks after she kicked him out.

He later hanged himself in his prison cell while on remand charged with Dziegielewska’s murder, the inquest in Rotherham heard.

Agnieszka moved to the UK from Bialystok, Poland, in 2004 — the year the country became a full member of the EU — and met Abdollahzadeh four years later at his takeaway pizza shop in Swinton.

Marrying Agnieszka, an EU citizen, would have enabled the Iranian to continue living in the UK.

It emerged at the hearing that Abdollahzadeh treated his partner of two years ‘like a servant’, regularly slapping and beating her which left her covered in bruises. He also refused to believe their relationship was over when she left him to escape the violence.

Ms Dziegielewska’s mother said Abdollahzadeh had previously tried to strangle her daughter in 2008, holding her neck with both hands and issuing the chilling warning: ‘Nobody can help you now.’

She added: ‘He started treating her like a servant and humiliating her in public. On one occasion he slapped her so hard her tooth got loose. Each time he would explain he didn’t know why it had happened, and it wouldn’t happen again.’

           — Hat tip: Kitman [Return to headlines]



UK: Hate Preacher Wins Human Rights Payout… Even Though He Shouldn’t be Here at All

A banned extremist who made a mockery of Britain’s border controls is now likely to pocket £5,000 in compensation because immigration officials could not speak his language.

The High Court ruled yesterday that Sheikh Raed Salah, described as a ‘virulent anti-Semite’ in the Commons, could claim compensation for unlawful detention by immigration officers.

They had seized the pro-Palestine hardliner — who should never have been allowed into Britain in the first place — to have him deported.

But immigration staff failed to explain to him ‘in a language he could understand’ precisely why he was being detained — a technical breach of the rules. The preacher cannot speak English and officials failed properly to translate what was happening, the court ruled.

           — Hat tip: Kitman [Return to headlines]

Culture Wars


Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist — But It’s Not Our Fault: Blame TV and Magazines Instead, Say Scientists

Researchers from Georgia Tech’s School of Psychology in the U.S. used a word association test to discover that most people have ‘built-in’ prejudices.

However, this racism isn’t necessarily something they believe in, but something that seeps into the subconscious from modern-day culture, they claim.

Study leader Paul Verhaeghen exposed people’s inherent racism with a straightforward, but sneaky, word test.

Volunteers were asked, for example, if the letters g-u-b formed a word, then if the letters g-u-n formed a word.

He found that participants gave their answer much more quickly if they were shown a black face before the letters g-u-n.

Another part of the test involved measuring response times to stereotypical word pairings, such as black-violence.

‘It suggests that most people associate black people with violence and this seems to be universal,’ he said.

Keen to find out the source of this racist thinking, his team examined a collection of works known as the Bound Encoding of the Aggregate Language Environment (BEAGLE).

They found that racist pairings of words, such as black-murder, were fairly common in the various literature. And in the test it was these associations that participants responded fastest to.

In other words, popular culture appears to be drip-feeding people with prejudice.

           — Hat tip: Kitman [Return to headlines]



Serbia: Gay Pride: Mayor of Belgrade Wants it Cancelled

(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, SEPTEMBER 30 — The mayor of Belgrade, Dragan Djilas, has asked to cancel next Sunday’s Gay Pride and all other event that have been scheduled in the capital this weekend, for reasons of law and order due to the “complex situation” the country is currently in. Several ultranationalist homophobe and xenophobe organisations have announced counterdemonstrations to be staged tomorrow and Sunday against Gay Pride, and it is feared that the clashes and chaos that marked last year’s Gay Pride may be repeated. “As mayor of Belgrade I once again turn to all parties to take the moment the country and this community is going through into consideration, and to cancel the gatherings and events scheduled this weekend which would complicate an already complex situation,” the mayor of the capital said, quoted by the media.

“Everybody’s rights are guaranteed by the law and I don’t intent to deny anybody these rights, but I must point out that each right brings a certain level of responsibility,” Djilas added.

The authorities are particularly concerned about rising tensions in the north of Kosovo, and the possibility that ultranationalists may take advantage of the anti-gay demonstrations to stage violent protests against Kosovo’s leadership and its international support (KFOR, EULEX).

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



UK: Fury as Prayers Are Banned at Council Meetings

CHRISTIANS reacted furiously last night after it emerged that council members have been banned from saying prayers at meetings.

Two councils in East Sussex have been warned that Christian prayers are “not part of their duties”.

Mayfield parish council was issued the “advice” by the Sussex Association of Local Councils after voting to include a prayer session in its meetings. Councillors were told it was not appropriate at a public meeting and should be taken off the agenda. The row prompted councillors from nearby Crowborough town council to get involved, claiming prayers have formed part of their meetings for as long as anyone could remember.

           — Hat tip: Kitman [Return to headlines]



UK: Right and Left May Not Matter So Much in the Post-Cold War World. Right and Wrong Do.

We vote because there’s something about society we want to see re-engineered.

‘Suppose I phone the police,” says Marion. “What do you think would happen then?” Let me tell you about our friend Marion. She lives on her own in a seaside town and works as a hospital nurse. She is quietly proud of the home she’s made for herself in her one-bedroom flat, which looks over a communal garden and permits oblique sea views. She doesn’t want much from life: to feel the ocean spray as she takes her evening walk; to discharge her duties well; to be at peace in her home. She has an entirely normal and well-ordered existence. Her experience of life is the main reason the Conservatives might not win the next election.

Marion has no life partner, true. But she’s never metaphorically alone: she has a quiet faith. And she’s never literally alone: because she lives in a flat — with an upstairs neighbour who is slowly destroying her peace of mind. If the exaggerated cries of sexual ecstasy he and his partner share with the rest of the building are just one of those things flat-dwellers must tolerate, then the noisy, thudding dance music which keeps Marion awake night after night is not. In vain she has invoked the freehold lease, which forbids music after midnight. She phones and knocks on the neighbour’s door: she is not answered. She contacts the council, which has a “noise abatement service”: they tell her to keep a diary.

She phones us in London, and the cumulative despair of those sleepless nights makes her weep. We do our best with practical words: we will go with her to talk to the neighbour, we will be on her side when she interacts with the council bureaucracy; but none of this is what Marion really needs. Those needs are twofold: to hope that matters will improve, and for such a hope to be realistic. But this would require the agents of society — the council, the other neighbours, the police (whom she is scared to contact, lest anti-social disturbance escalates to something more frightening) — to be unequivocally on her side. Marion, like most good people, has learned not to make that assumption.

I’m sure there’s “a law” which could help Marion, but that’s not the point. The point is how scared she feels in negotiating a part of life that once would have been resolved by simple social interaction. She is suffering because we replaced the organic ties that bound a community with a set of poorly understood, massively over-interpreted, legalistic “rights”; rights which have encouraged, almost institutionalised, anti-social behaviour. I am Marion when I’m on the bus, and I’m frightened to tell children to stop misbehaving. You are Marion when you don’t tell a feckless pedestrian to pick up their litter. We used to know “the rules”: that, for example, you could speak to a neighbour about noise, without fearing that your life would be rendered unbearable for ever after. We are all frightened of the over-reaction of people who are not behaving as good adults should, and it leaves us at their mercy. We ordered the institutions of civil society to stop judging behaviour, and then we wonder at the chaos to which good people are abandoned.

That there was a hope of resetting those rules was the best reason to deprive Labour of office. Failure to address Marion’s plight is the biggest political danger facing Mr Cameron. It sounds ridiculous to say “It’s not the economy, stupid”, when the economic outlook is so grim, but I’ve never believed the reductionist argument which says we cast our vote primarily for economic reasons. We vote because there’s something about society we want to see re-engineered. Conservatives feel let down, not because the deficit is being tackled, but because too much in society feels the same as it did before the election. They understand that Mr Cameron requires Lib Dem votes to retain his anti-Labour majority, and that being politically shackled to the decaying Lib Dem corpse prevents the introduction, in this parliament, of proper Tory measures — such as tackling the Human Rights Act.

But the lack of a Tory majority should not mean a lack of Tory language, or the flexing of Tory institutional will. Lib Dems may claim that it’s either impossible to tell the difference between right and wrong, or, if it is possible, that only a judge on a bench is able to make the distinction; the Prime Minister should ignore them. If that makes Lib Dems uncomfortable, so be it; many of us have had enough of the liberal society which throws the Marions of this world to the wolves. While we wait for the Tory majority required for legislative change, Tory language could change the terms of the debate; in fact, the latter will help deliver the former. I suspect the Prime Minister is aware of this — Ed Miliband, in his clumsy speech at his conference, gave the impression this week of having woken up to the issue. Right and Left may not matter so much in the post-Cold War world. Right and Wrong do.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

General


Five Things That Internet Porn Reveals About Our Brains

From an enormous trove of sexual Web searches, neuroscientists extract some startling lessons in hidden desire.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Ig Nobel Prizes Honor Wasabi Alarm, Odd Beetle Sex, More

2011 awards announced this week at Harvard ceremony.

The unique annual awards go to real research “that first makes people laugh, and then makes them think.” The scientific celebration, now in its 21st year, was hosted by the Annals of Improbable Research and several Harvard University student groups.

Karl Halvor Teigen of the University of Oslo in Norway took home the 2011 Ig Nobel psychology prize for his group’s attempts to find out just why people sigh. Most study participants initially said they supposed people sighed when sad. But Teigen’s team heard a different story when they began studying subjects in actual sigh-inducing situations.

“The most common answer was that they sighed because they were giving up on something or had become resigned to something,” Teigen said. To test this theory, the team devised simple-looking puzzles that had no solutions and watched people tackle them.

“They sighed and they tried, they tried and they sighed,” Teigen reported. The study reinforced the group’s idea of the sigh as a signal of what the Norwegians call oppgitt-simply giving up.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Meet the Obscure, Useful Metals Lurking in Products All Around You

Without the rare earths, there would be no iPods and no hybrid cars. But who has even heard of erbium or ytterbium?

Today it is clear that the rare earths are hardly rare. The most common of them, cerium, ranks 25th in abundance in the earth’s crust, one place ahead of homely copper. Yttrium is twice as abundant as lead; all of the rare-earth metals (with the exception of radioactive promethium) are more common than silver. The “earths” part is also misleading. These elements are actually metals, and quite marvelous ones at that. The warm glow of terbium is essential to high-efficiency compact-fluorescent bulbs. Europium is widely exploited to make vivid displays for laptop computers and smart phones. Rare earths also pop up in more unexpected places like baseball bats, European currency, and night-vision goggles.

With their growing popularity comes new value, and even political notoriety. Terbium and europium recently overtook silver in price, reaching $40 an ounce. The growing demand for rare earths has become the subject of numerous government reports and a bill that passed in the House of Representatives. The reason these elements are causing such a stir is not their scarcity but their inaccessibility. Rare earths tend to occur in hard rock such as granites, where they lump together in a uniform way that makes them difficult to extract.

Separating out the desired elements demands a toxic and dangerous process, and China has the best infrastructure for doing so economically. China holds about 36 percent of the world’s 110 million tons of recoverable rare-earth ores, with the rest scattered worldwide, principally in the United States, India, Australia, and Russia. Yet China currently produces as much as 97 percent of the world’s rare-earth oxides, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Pekka Pyykkö, a professor of chemistry at the University of Helsinki, puts it this way: “Not all the deposits are in China, but the processing capacity right now is.”

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

News Feed 20110930

Financial Crisis
» Chinese Banks Close to Collapse. Fears of Zero Growth
» EU: Barroso Goes for Bravado
» Euro Inflation Jumps Sharply to 3.0%
» France: Debt Climbs to 86.2% of GDP in Second Quarter
» Germany: ‘Where’s the Money?’
» Greece: Opposition Reacts Harshly to New Squeeze
» Greece: Troika Meets Fresh Resistance in Athens
» Greek Civil Servants Block Troika From Entering Finance Ministry
» Italian Family Savings Fall to Lowest Level Since 2000
» National Governments Can’t be Trusted: Barroso Calls for More Power for EU Institutions
» Slovakia Poses Increasing Threat to EU Bail-Out Fund
 
USA
» ‘Black Widow’ Former Model Who Butchered and Ate Her Husband in Notorious Thanksgiving Murder Seeks Early Release
» Churches Remain Highly Segregated in 21st Century
» Stakelbeck Analysis of Awlaki’s Death
 
Europe and the EU
» Austria: Nestle Tempts Dogs With High Frequency TV Ads
» Belgium: ‘Tintin in the Congo’ Racism Trial Opens
» Belgium: Police Assaulted by Burqa-Wearer’s Husband
» Dutch Law Goes Before Islamic Law
» EU Offers to Buy Belarus for $9bn
» France: Lack of Doctors, Banlieue Schools Appeal to UN
» France: Schoolchildren Riot Over Holiday Cut Rumour
» France: Paris Metro Gives Lessons in Good Manners
» German Researchers Hear What Women’s Voices Reveal About Fertility
» Germany: Teachers Don’t Want Metro Attacker in Class
» Germany: Designer Creates Clothes From Milk
» Greece: Saudi Prince Interested in Panathinaikos Football Club
» Healthcare: Greece Risks EU Court Over Doctors’ Working Hours
» Infertility on the Rise in Finland
» Italy: Berlusconi Indictment Request for Wiretap of Left Ex-Leader
» Kazakhstan: Top Kazakh Muslim Cleric Raps Tough Religion Law
» Nokia is Painfully Packing up in Europe
» Teen Death Stokes Ethnic Tensions in Bulgaria
» UK: An Early Test for the New Prevent Strategy
» UK: Association of Muslim Police
» UK: Countering Al-Qaeda in London: Police and Muslim Communities in Partnership [Robert Lambert Book Launch]
» UK: Guildford Council Criticised Over Islamic Centre
» UK: Journalistic Success, Economic Failure: Can Free Web Content Save the Guardian?
» UK: Muslim Mother Stabbed Daughter 40 Times and Cut Out Her Liver in Ritual Killing to ‘Exorcise Evil Spirits’
» UK: Over 12,000 People Sign E-Petition to Stop Extradition of Babar Ahmad as Campaigners Release Music Video
» UK: The Chron [Northampton Chronicle & Echo] Investigates the University of Northmapton’s Report on Britain’s New Far Right Movement
» UK: Viewpoint: What Are BNP Supporters Really Like?
 
Balkans
» Serbia: Underground Economy, 1.5 Bln Lost Each Year
 
Mediterranean Union
» EP Says Yes to Opening EU to Palestinian Exports
» Tunisia: EU: New ‘Special Measure’ For Poor Areas Launched
 
North Africa
» Egypt: Jews Are Not the Chosen People, Coptic Pope
» Egypt: Sean Penn Joins Protestors in Tahrir Square
» Morocco: Hunting Tourism Rising Constantly
» Tunisia: Number of Visitors Down 35.4% in 2011
» Tunisia: Constituent Assembly, Polls Show Ennahdha in Lead
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» Turkey to Build Biggest Hospital in Gaza
 
Middle East
» Anwar Al-Aulaqi, U.S.-Born Cleric Linked to Al-Qaeda, Reported Killed in Yemen
» Awlaki Unlucky
» Israel Jets Overfly Turkish Ship Off East Cyprus
» Jordan: Protesters Call for Genuine Reforms
» Oman: Journalists Arrested for Criticism of Minister
» Qatar: Emirate Ready to Buy BNP Paribas, Press
» Saudi Arabia: Ban on All Glider Flights
» Syria to Get Reprisal if Boycotts Turkish Goods, Minister
» Turkey-EU: Turkish Experts to Work at European Commission
» Turkey Requests Discount on Russian Gas Imports
» U.S.-Born Al Qaeda Leader Anwar Al-Awlaki is Killed in Yemen
 
South Asia
» Pakistan: Ten Year Old Girl Accused of Blasphemy and Sentenced for a Spelling Mistake
» Three Italian Soldiers Killed in Afghanistan
 
Australia — Pacific
» Brave Teenager Beats Bride Plan
» Woman to Serve 15 Days for Choking Walmart Greeter
 
Immigration
» EU Considers Removing Visas for Turkish Citizens
» Lampedusa:320 Migrants on the Island, Centre Empty by Tonight
» Lampedusa: 4 in Custody for Reception Centre Fire
» Tunisian Gov’t Expresses Pain Over Paris Deaths
» UK: Letter to Baroness Flather From the Council of Mosques
» ‘We’re Throwing Open the Doors to Benefit Tourists’: EU Plan to Let Migrants Claim as Soon as They Enter UK is Blasted
 
General
» Findings Indicate Einstein Was Right About Relativity

Financial Crisis


Chinese Banks Close to Collapse. Fears of Zero Growth

The Chinese Financial Index fell by 24%, more than that of European and American bank stocks. Chinese banks are plagued by insolvent debts due to loans to local governments and the stagnant property market. The country’s growth, currently estimated at 9.5%, is at risk

Hong Kong (AsiaNews / Agencies) — The listings of Chinese banks have dropped to very low levels, raising fears that a collapse could wipe out the country’s growth. This is what emerges from news announced today by Bloomberg, according to whom the MSCI index for the Chinese financial sector fell 4% this month, much more than all the European, American and Japanese banks.

The problem is very serious, even though in the last 12 months the index has recorded 104 billion in earnings. Chinese banks’ troubles are being caused by insolvent bonds offered to local governments, as well as by loans made to support the building boom that has left 50 percent of newly-built houses unsold, and by slowing global economic growth, which penalizes Chinese exports to Europe and the United States.

In 2008, at the beginning of the U.S. credit crisis, China sustained its economy with a package of aid to banks, local governments and Chinese industry of about 4 trillion dollars. This has led to a major overexposure on the part of Chinese banks and high inflation in the country. Local governments have received funding, but in most cases it was only used to create jobs, without a real business plan, without hope of repaying the debt contracted.

According to Jim Chanos, of Kynikos Associates, the insolvent debts could cut China’s growth to almost to zero (it is now estimated at 9.5%).The Chinese economy is also affected by the weight of sovereign debt in Europe and the stagnation in the United States. Both areas have diminished their purchase of Chinese products, undermining the volume of exports from Beijing.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



EU: Barroso Goes for Bravado

In his “Speech of the Union” to the European Parliament on September 28, the President of the Commission sought to defend his institution and put forward concrete proposals to leave the crisis behind. But the European press has no illusions about his true room for manoeuvre.

“Barroso has popped up again!” quips Mediapart. “On Wednesday in Strasbourg, the European Commission showed signs of life. The disappearing act of its President, José Manuel Barroso, has been running for months against a backdrop of financial turmoil unprecedented for the eurozone.”

To prove to sceptics that he is more alive than ever, Barroso pulled out two flagship proposals meant to calm the financial markets: First, a tax on financial transactions across the EU. Second, eurobonds for the eurozone… the sole offer that the same Barroso placed on the table last year at the same time, (the green light to a European debt facility to finance targeted investment projects), never saw the light of day […] If he wins through just on the issues of financial regulation, at the height of the crisis, it’s because he spent a good deal of his first term (2004-2009) unravelling what little regulation of the markets was already in place. […] How can he claim today to have the means to put the markets back in their place?…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Euro Inflation Jumps Sharply to 3.0%

Eurozone inflation soared to 3.0 percent in September, official figures showed Friday, just days before outgoing European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet chairs his last policy meeting. The EU said the annual rate of price rises across the 17-nation currency area in September was 3.0 percent, a dramatic rise from 2.5 percent in August after Brussels said it had peaked, and well above the ECB’s target of below but close to 2.0 percent.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



France: Debt Climbs to 86.2% of GDP in Second Quarter

(ANSAmed) — PARIS, SEPTEMBER 30 — France’s public debt climbed in the second quarter of this year by around 46.4 billion euros, to 86.2% of GDP, 1.7 points higher than in the previous quarter.

The figure was released by national statistics institute INSEE.

In 2010 the French public debt stood at 82.3% of GDP. The French government estimates in the finance bill that was presented last Wednesday that the debt should reach 85.5% by the end of this year, 87.4% in 2012 to fall back again to 87.3% in 2013, 86.2% in 2014 and 84.1% in 2015.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Germany: ‘Where’s the Money?’

Following the Bundestag’s vote on Thursday to expand the eurozone bailout fund, The Local hit the streets to find out what the average German makes of it all, in the latest instalment of our new Zeitgeist series.

Hannah Kowalski, 49, homemaker

“In my view, it’s crap when Germany gives others money. We are also poor. I am against this. Greece caused its own problems; it should take care of them. Where’s the money?”

Klaus B., 63, unemployed

“We never should have accepted Greece and Portugal (into the EU). You can’t compare these countries with Germany or France. It almost goes without saying. When this is over, they’ll just want more money.”

www.thelocal.se/36412/

Sweden battles national butter shortage

As Sweden’s butter shortage enters its second month, the dairy industry is still struggling to meet demand and shelves in supermarkets up and down the country remain empty. Blame is being directed at the new back to basics cooking trend, full fat diet fads and young people turning their backs on farming.

“There are two obvious trends at the same time. On the one hand, demand for butter and cream is rising and on the other, production has been declining for the last few years,” Claes Henriksson of Swedish dairy giant Arla told The Local. Swedish TV-chef Leila Lindholm, known for her flamboyant flans and cute cupcakes, was one of the celebrity cooks whose cookery advice was recently singled by Swedish daily Aftonbladet and British newspaper The Guardian as a reason for the shortage.

“It is very flattering that they should think that I have that much influence on the Swedish public, but I think it is slightly exaggerated,” Lindholm told The Local. According to Lindholm there are many reasons why Swedes are choosing full fat products rather than the light varieties. “Light products are not in vogue at the moment, people are going back to basics when they cook and bake today,” Lindholm said. Also, she added, many diets such as LCHF (low-carb high-fat) are also advocating the use of real butter instead of margarine and other light products, at the same time as there are fewer dairy farmers producing these products in Sweden.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Greece: Opposition Reacts Harshly to New Squeeze

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, SEPTEMBER 22 — The initial reactions of Greek opposition parties to the new austerity measures announced by the government after a lengthy meeting of the government commission lasting over 6 hours are very harsh. Giannis Michelakis, the spokesman of Nea Dimocratia, the main opposition party (centre-right), spoke of “a tsunami of unfair and unbearable measures, the result of a mistaken economic policies.”. “The government,” added Michelakis, “did not speak about the total cost of the measures, since behind its statement other measures are concealed. There is no respect for citizens who every day are called upon to make large sacrifices without getting anything in exchange by policies which are plunging us ever more into a recession.” Aleka Papariga, Secretary General of Greece’s Communist Party (KKE), has once again urged the population not to pay taxes.

“Not even one step back,” Papariga said. “We must turn the government’s life into a living hell. This is what we must do starting from today.” “The socialist government of Pasok,” the other left-wing party in Greece, Syriza said in a statement,” has no right to continue with the same catastrophic policies, not only because it lacks democratic legality but also because it is in clear contrast with the vast majority of society.” “Measures which are harsher than the previous ones and not as harsh as those to come,” reads a statement by Laos, the extreme right party, “it is not possible to dream of dignity and the quality of life while begging and praying.” “The measures that the government announced today demolish the social achievements won with decades-long struggle and sacrifices,” was the comment by Democratic Alliance, a small leftist party. “The government has exceeded all limits. It is turning the country into an enormous hospice for the poor,” was instead the comment of Constantinos Michalos, chairman of the Athens chamber of commerce and industry, in reference to the latest austerity measures. “These measures,” added Michalos,” cannot be carried out. The government’s insensitivity due to an unprecedented incapableness cannot be accepted either by firms or by workers or even pensioners. The entrepreneurial world fears that the measures announced yesterday will not be the last.”

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Greece: Troika Meets Fresh Resistance in Athens

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, SEPTEMBER 30 — In a re-run of events on Thursday, Greek protesters blocked access to ministries due to be visited by troika representatives on Friday. Officials from the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund were due to meet with Transport Minister Yiannis Ragousis at his department but dozens of anti-austerity protesters picketed the building and prevented them entering. It was not clear if the meeting was relocated as daily Kathimerini reports. Civil servants protesting wage cuts and firings demonstrated outside the Finance Ministry for a second day. Members of the Communist Party-affiliated PAME union protested outside several tax and Public Power Corporation offices.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Greek Civil Servants Block Troika From Entering Finance Ministry

Inspectors from the so-called troika of the EU, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund returned to Athens on Thursday (29 September) to review the Greek government’s austerity work only to find staff from seven key ministries blockading their way.

Furious at fresh pay cuts and mass lay-offs, civil servants occupied the ministries of finance, development, labour, justice, health, agriculture and interior affairs, according to local reports.

Finance minister Evangelos Venizelos was scheduled to meet with the troika inspectors, but was forced to meet at the deputy prime minister’s offices when his own building was inaccessible.

Some of the occupations are to continue on Friday, with the sit-in at the Hellenic Statistical Authority due to continue through Sunday.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Italian Family Savings Fall to Lowest Level Since 2000

Savings rate drops to 11.3%

(ANSA) — Rome, September 29 — Italians appear to be feeling the impact of the economic crisis as family savings have falledn to their lowest level in more than a decade.

According to the national statistics agency, ISTAT, family savings fell 0.4% to 11.3% in the second quarter of 2011 and 1.% compared to the same period in 2010.

It was the lowest savings level recorded since 11.1% in the first quarter of 2000.

Family purchasing power in the second quarter dropped 0.2% compared to the previous quarter and 0.3% compared to the same quarter of 2010.

In the second quarter of 2011, Italy posted a primary surplus of 8.236 billion euros and the impact on GDP was 2.1%.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



National Governments Can’t be Trusted: Barroso Calls for More Power for EU Institutions

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has said in an interview that the EU’s institutions need to be strengthened to stabilize the euro zone, arguing that national governments can’t be trusted to take determined action. Meanwhile, former German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück says it’s time to openly admit that Greece is practically bankrupt.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Slovakia Poses Increasing Threat to EU Bail-Out Fund

Plans to strengthen the firepower of the eurozone’s bail-out fund may be put in jeopardy by Slovakia, where a coalition stalemate is prompting the government to consider asking for a special derogation. Last in line to vote, Slovakia’s parliament is supposed to pass two pieces of legislation — one agreeing the framework of the new fund and a second piece that would formally raise Bratislava’s guarantees from €4.4 billion to €7.7 billion.

However, the junior ruling coalition party Freedom and Solidarity remain steadfastly opposed to raising the country’s contribution, depriving the centre-right Christian Union party of Prime Minister Iveta Radicova of the necessary threshold of votes.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

USA


‘Black Widow’ Former Model Who Butchered and Ate Her Husband in Notorious Thanksgiving Murder Seeks Early Release

A former model, who bludgeoned her husband, chopped up his body and cooked parts of it, in a notorious crime that had her compared to Hannibal Lector, is making an early bid for freedom.

Egyptian born beauty Omaima Nelson is serving 27 years for killing William Nelson, 56, in 1991.

Nelson was only 24 when she skinned her husband’s torso, cooked his head on the stove and fried the hands in oil in the Costa Mesa apartment the newly-weds shared.

They had been married only about a month.

Nelson later drove body parts to various ex-boyfriends houses in black bin bags, offering $75,000 for help disposing of the grisly evidence.

Neighbours said the garbage disposal was on for ‘a long time’ and there were ‘constant chopping sounds’ were coming from the home, according to the Daily Pilot.

In court, a psychiatrist testified that Nelson told him she put on red shoes, a red hat and red lipstick before spending hours chopping up her husband’s body.

Nelson told authorities that she was acting in self-defence and that her husband had raped her the night before the murder.

She also claimed she was sexually assaulted by her brother and stepfather and was forced to undergo a female circumcision, a ritual mutilation of the female genitalia practiced in some parts of the world.

The Orange County district attorney’s office opposes freeing her on the grounds that her crimes were especially heinous, and that she had a history of violence before killing her husband.

‘This is probably one of the most egregious mutilations we’ve ever had,’ Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Randy Pawloski, who prosecuted the case, told the Daily Pilot. ‘It is one of the most gruesome and notorious crimes ever committed in Orange County.’

Nelson is scheduled to appear at a parole board hearing next Wednesday in Chowchilla State Prison in Central California.

An earlier bid at parole was rejected in 2006.

           — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes [Return to headlines]



Churches Remain Highly Segregated in 21st Century

There are currently between 300,000 and 350,000 congregations in the U.S., according to Michael Emerson, a sociology professor and co-director of Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research in Houston, Texas. Ninety-two percent are homogeneous, meaning at least 80 percent of the congregation is comprised of a single racial group.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Stakelbeck Analysis of Awlaki’s Death

Hi all, my instant analysis of Awlaki’s death…here’s one nugget:

Unlike another American-born Al Qaeda propagandist, Adam Gadahn (aka “Azzam the American”), Awlaki, who was an imam at mosques in San Diego and northern Virginia before leaving the U.S. in 2002, had major religious street cred in the radical Islamic world. In my conversation last year in London with Al Qaeda-linked, global terrorist Saad al-Faqih, he went out of his way to praise Awlaki as a religious scholar. Al Faqih, a former associate of Osama Bin Laden, would not offer such praise lightly. I believe that Awlaki’s unique blend of Westernized media savvy and religious gravitas make him, in many respects, even more difficult for Al Qaeda to replace at this stage than Osama Bin Laden.

           — Hat tip: Erick Stakelbeck [Return to headlines]

Europe and the EU


Austria: Nestle Tempts Dogs With High Frequency TV Ads

The world’s biggest food company Nestle is seeking to conquer the dog food market with special advertising targeted at men’s best friend. “Nestle Purina has created the first-ever television commercial especially for dogs,” it said in a statement. “The TV commercial to be screened on Austrian television uses different sounds — including a high frequency tone — to capture the attention of four-legged friends and their owners,” it added. The advertisement includes three sounds that can be picked up by dogs, including a squeak that is similar to the sound made by dogs’ toys as well as a high-pitched ‘ping’.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Belgium: ‘Tintin in the Congo’ Racism Trial Opens

A Congolese man pleaded with a Belgian court on Friday to remove “Tintin in the Congo” from bookshelves, arguing that the comic book is littered with racist stereotypes about Africans. “It is a racist comic book that celebrates colonialism and the supremacy of the white race over the black race,” Bienvenu Mbutu Mondondo said as he arrived for the opening of the civil trial in Brussels. “Will we continue to tolerate such a book today?” asked Mondondo, whose case against Tintin’s publisher is backed by a French anti-racism group. One of his lawyers, Ahmed L’Hedim, argued that the book, written by celebrated Belgian author Herge in 1931, violates Belgium’s anti-racism laws.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Belgium: Police Assaulted by Burqa-Wearer’s Husband

Thu 29/09/2011 -Police officers in the Brussels municipality of Sint-Joost-ten-Node were attacked by the husband of a woman that refused to remove her burqa. The incident happened on Wednesday after a patrol from the Brussels-North Local Police Service spotted the woman wearing a burqa on the Liedekerkestraat at around 12:35pm.

The wearing burqas and other garments that cover the face has been illegal since legislation on the issue was passed by the Federal Parliament earlier this year. The police officers asked the woman to remove the part of the burqa that covered her face so that they could identify her. She refused and was asked a second time to show her face. This met with a furious response from her husband who proceeded to attack the police officers. One officer was injured in the attack and will be off work for three days. Police Commissioner Roland Thiébaut told the Brussels regional news website brusselnieuws.be that “Our inspectors wanted to identify her to enable them to draft a crime report.” She refused and her husband became aggressive. He said that he would kill anyone that touched his wife. He struck one of the inspectors. The police officer is now unable to work for three days. “ The man was detained and his case is now in the hands of the judicial authorities. The woman left the scene without removing her burqa.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Dutch Law Goes Before Islamic Law

Dutch courts sometimes conform to the legal rules of other countries, but they are always watching for violations of the Dutch legal system and of human rights. Dutch laws always take precedence, Deputy Justice Minister Fred Teeven said on Thursday.

Mr Teeven spoke in response to questions from Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party about the influence of Islamic law or Sharia on sentences passed in the Netherlands. According to the deputy minister, the relationship between the two is “negligible.” MPs from the Labour, Socialist and Green Left parties expressed unease that the Freedom Party would suggest a link between Sharia and Dutch law. “You are trying to frighten people with myths, to incite them against something that does not exist,” said Labour MP Martijn van Dam.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



EU Offers to Buy Belarus for $9bn

EU leaders have promised authoritarian Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko $9 billion if he frees political prisoners and holds normal elections. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk unveiled the offer at a press event at an EU summit with post-Soviet countries in Warsaw on Friday (30 September). The money would come in the form of loans from two EU banks, the EIB and EBRD, and from the International Monetary Fund in Washington. Lukashenko would not have to step down as part of the deal. But he would have to free political prisoners and, later on, hold EU-and-US-recognised elections, which would most likely see him ejected.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



France: Lack of Doctors, Banlieue Schools Appeal to UN

(ANSAmed) — PARIS, SEPTEMBER 19 — There are not enough doctors willing to work in the schools of Paris’s banlieues, and therefore teachers and parents have launched an appeal to the UN for humanitarian aid to be sent. Once again at the centre of the matter is Seine-Saint-Denis, an outlying area in the north-eastern part of Paris, in which the conditions are the most dire. After a few months ago when Sevran’s mayor requested help from UN troops to restore security in the department, often the scene of clashes between young people and police officers, it is now the schools’ turn to request help from the UN. As reported by the France Info radio station, parents and teachers from the FCPE union intend to denounce in this way the chronic lack of school doctors in this department, which has one doctor for every 9,600 students and one nurse for every 1,300.

In Seine-Saint-Denis schools 40% of positions for doctors are vacant.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



France: Schoolchildren Riot Over Holiday Cut Rumour

Several hundred French schoolchildren went on the rampage on Friday after false rumours spread that President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government wants to take away a large slice of their school holidays. Protests that began in northern France spread to the capital’s outskirts on Friday, where police said they arrested 10 people after high-school children rioted, damaging cars by turning them on their side or smashing windows. Another 18 were arrested in northern France, where protesters attacked buses, torched bins and allegedly insulted a police officer. Around 20 schools were affected in the Picardy region, north of Paris, including in Amiens, where pupils set fire to bins and threw stones, eggs and tomatoes.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



France: Paris Metro Gives Lessons in Good Manners

Police, sociologists and elected officials got together with the management of Paris’ metro and bus network this week to talk about ways to improve the behaviour of the 10 million passengers the system carries each day. The meeting is part of a campaign launched by the transport operator, RATP, using posters across the city to remind travellers of some of the irritating practices that can turn a simple journey into a test of nerves.

“In our society, anti-social behaviour is a way of being self-assertive,” said the sociologist Francois de Singly in Le Figaro, adding that obedience or compliance is “a value that’s been in permanent decline for decades, well before 1968.” The deputy director of the transport police, Serge Rivayrand, said that offenders are getting younger and that handling situations is getting more difficult when police intervene.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



German Researchers Hear What Women’s Voices Reveal About Fertility

A new study investigates whether women’s voices change during their menstrual cycle. The provocative, sexy science impacts whom and how we love and marry, something interesting to biologists and lovers alike.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Germany: Teachers Don’t Want Metro Attacker in Class

Teachers at a Berlin high school are threatening to strike if the teenager convicted of brutally beating a man in a metro station in April is allowed to attend classes there. Torben P., 18, was sentenced this month to nearly three years in prison for the assault on a 29-year-old, which was captured on video and spawned a nationwide debate about youth violence.

But while his legal team appeals the sentence, Torben P. has been released on bail and wants to continue his secondary education. Torben P. was forced to leave the school he had been attending previously following protests from students and parents. The Catholic Liebfrauen school in the Charlottenburg district agreed to take him in last week, but now its teachers are threatening to resign if he is allowed to attend their classes.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Germany: Designer Creates Clothes From Milk

A Hannover microbiologist and fashion designer is releasing a new clothing line with a twist: the clothes are partly created from powdered milk — aiding skincare “The proteins in the powder care for the skin,” said 28-year-old Anke Domaske, who has founded the QMilch line, explaining how she believes the technique she came up with in cooperation with the Bremen Fibre Institute could have applications for other industries, including medicine.

Of course it’s not just powdered milk that goes in the clothes, but the process could be a breakthrough for the fashion industry, which is looking for new ways to create cheaper and environmentally friendly clothing. So-called “bio-clothing” has become a hot trend in the fashion industry. Big European companies like H&M and C&A have been released organic cotton lines. “The issue of sustainability has become a great advertising vehicle,” said Heike Scheuer, a spokeswoman with the International Association of Natural Textile Industry.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Greece: Saudi Prince Interested in Panathinaikos Football Club

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, SEPTEMBER 22 — There is an official proposal for the acquisition of the Greek Panathinaikos footbal club’s majority stake, with reports suggesting the interest comes from a Saudi prince who is a construction magnate, as daily Kathimerini writes today quoting Panathinaikos president Dimitris Gontikas. Prince Sultan bin Naser Al-Farhan Al-Saud, owner of one of the biggest construction firms in Saudi Arabia, has according to reports tabled on offer to buy the controlling stake in the Greek football giant that has been up for grabs for over a week. His proposal, as expressed by his representative Vlassis Tsakas at the club’s board meeting on Monday, provides for an immediate 20-million-euro share capital increase, some 50 million euros next summer for the club’s operation and transfers, and a 150-million-euro project for the construction of a new 48,000-seat stadium for the club, to be completed by the Prince’s own company. Tsakas stated that the 26-year-old Prince, a friend of his, will likely come to Athens by end-October. The deal for the 54.7% stake in Panathinaikos is likely to stir the waters in the local game as this would be the first time a foreign magnate has invested in it.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Healthcare: Greece Risks EU Court Over Doctors’ Working Hours

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, SEPTEMBER 29 — Doctors in Greece work too many hours and today the European Commission asked Athens to conform to EU regulations on working hours in public health services. Brussels has sent Greece a formal letter, and now the country has two months time to take the necessary measures. If Greece fails to conform to regulations, it could be taken to the European Court of Justice. Brussels claims that doctors in Greece working in public hospitals and healthcare centres must work an average of 64 hours per week, 90 hours in some cases. Greece has imposed no ceiling on the number of hours doctors are required to work in continuation, and often they don’t have time to take sufficient breaks. The European Commission sees this situation as a serious violation of the EU directive on working hours. Working too many hours without sufficient rest creates health and security risks for the workers themselves, and excessive exhaustion of doctors can have serious consequences for their patients.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Infertility on the Rise in Finland

One in five women over 40 have not given birth, according to fresh research by Statistics Finland. The number of childless couples in the country is on the rise, pointing to fertility problems.

Two decades ago just 15 percent of Finnish women were childless.

Fertility rates, however, vary by region. In more rural areas, such as in Ostrobothnia, the share of women without kids is 15 percent, whereas in the capital region more than a third of women are not mothers.

Women are increasingly waiting to start a family. In 1990, the share of mothers among 30-year-old women was 67 percent. This figure dropped to 50 percent at the end of last year.

Researchers argue that if this development continues, there is a threat of an ever growing share of women remaining totally childless in future.

Two thirds of childless 40-year-old women are unmarried, a quarter are married and 8 percent are divorced.

           — Hat tip: KGS [Return to headlines]



Italy: Berlusconi Indictment Request for Wiretap of Left Ex-Leader

Would be premier’s fifth trial

(ANSA) — Rome, September 22 — Premier Silvio Berlusconi could face another criminal trial after a Milan prosecutor on Thursday made an indictment request over a wiretap case.

Prosecutor Maurizo Romanelli filed the request over Berlusconi’s alleged involvement in receiving illegally obtained wiretap evidence, the contents of which his brother Paolo later published in Paolo’s conservative newspaper Il Giornale.

Milan Chief Prosecutor Edmondo Bruti Liberati said that in upcoming discussions with a preliminary hearings judge the prosecutors would decide whether to pursue or drop the case.

In December prosecutors had asked for charges to be dropped against Berlusconi.

However, Stefania Donadeo, a preliminary judge in Milan, refused this request last week and told prosecutors to formulate a petition for Berlusconi to be sent to trial.

Another preliminary judge will now decide whether to indict Berlusconi, who already faces four trials in Milan, three for alleged corruption and one concerning allegations he paid to have sex with an underage prostitute and abused his office to try to cover it up.

Prosecutors in Naples have also summoned the premier to face questioning about whether he was the target of extortion over his alleged use of prostitutes.

In the ongoing and several other previous trials, Berlusconi has always denied wrongdoing, claiming he is the victim of a minority group of allegedly leftwing prosecutors and judges who he says are persecuting him for political reasons.

In more than a dozen cases, the premier has never received a definitive conviction, sometimes because of law changes passed by his governments, while some other charges were timed out by the statute of limitations.

The wiretap case regards the publication of a conversation in 2005 between the head of the one-time opposition Democratic Left (DS) party, Piero Fassino, and Giovanni Consorte, the former chairman of Unipol, an association of insurers historically linked to the DS, Italy’s former Communist Party.

At the time Unipol came close to taking over one of Italy’s leading banks, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL), and Fassino was recorded as saying “we have a bank!”.

Fassino, now mayor of Turin, was widely criticised for the comment, especially among the rank and file of the DS, which has since turned into a slightly larger centre-left group, the Democratic Party.

Paolo Berlusconi has already been indicted over the case and the first hearing is scheduled to take place next month.

Also at the request of preliminary judge Donadeo, prosecutors on Thursday put Maurizio Belpietro, the editor of Il Giornale when the wiretaps were published, under investigation.

Two other people have already been convicted for involvement in the case.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Kazakhstan: Top Kazakh Muslim Cleric Raps Tough Religion Law

By Dmitry Solovyov

ALMATY, Sept 30 (Reuters) — Kazakhstan’s top Muslim cleric hit out on Friday at a tough new law on religious activity and warned that the restrictions it imposed on pious Muslims could spur extremism. Article 7 of the bill, which was passed by the Senate on Thursday and has already been approved by the lower house, bans prayer rooms in all state institutions. Both the U.S.-based human rights body Freedom House and the 56-member Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe have criticised the legislation, which has yet to be signed into law by President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

To pray to Allah five times a day is a sacred duty of each Muslim. And it is quite possible that if reading prayers is banned at state institutions, certain groups will appear to voice their discontent with the state,” the Supreme Mufti of Kazakhstan, Absattar Derbisali, said in a statement. “Who can guarantee that, choosing between work for the state and worshipping Allah, such people will not join various political forces or extremist groups? Aren’t we creating a threat to national security and the calm of the nation with our own hands? This is not the way to fight extremism and terror.” Oil-rich Kazakhstan, a majority of whose 16.5 million people are Muslims, has Central Asia’s largest economy and is the world’s biggest uranium producer, a major grain exporter and the ninth largest country by area.

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Nokia is Painfully Packing up in Europe

Nokia plans to close its Cluj plant just three years after opening it, and move more production to Asia. It aims to axe some 3,500 jobs in Europe and the United States. In a move to lower operating costs, Nokia is shifting more of its production from Europe to Asia. The Finnish mobile-phone maker has decided to close its plant in Cluj, Romania, just three years after opening it. The plant replaced a former factory in Bochum, Germany. The move comes as Nokia continues to lose ground on the smartphone market.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Teen Death Stokes Ethnic Tensions in Bulgaria

Hundreds of Bulgarians rallied for a third night in major cities on Wednesday to protest against the Balkan country’s Roma minority. The death of a 19-year-old in southern Bulgaria had triggered the protests.

Bulgarians have been taking to the streets for several days to voice their anger at the country’s large Roma minority, after 19-year-old Angel Petrov was run over by members of a Roma family in Katunica, 160 kilometers (100 miles) east of the capital, Sofia, last Friday. His death has reignited simmering ethnic tensions in Bulgaria, not least because Bulgaria’s notorious Roma boss Kiril Rashkov, also known as “King Kiro,” was in the car that killed Petrov. Eyewitnesses said there had been a dispute between Petrov’s family and King Kiro.

Rashkov, who is the richest man in Katunitsa, is notorious throughout Bulgaria for a variety of illegal activities, including dealing with non-licensed alcohol. He has never had to go to court over this, and in addition to that, has been terrorizing the village for years, according to residents. “There is no one in this village who hasn’t been threatened by him,” one man, who did not want to be named, said.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



UK: An Early Test for the New Prevent Strategy

By Paul Goodman

The death of Bin Laden has been read by some to suggest that the threat from Islamist extremism is over. But whatever the story may be behind this week’s arrests in Birmingham, that conclusion is a mis-reading: the danger hasn’t gone away. The Home Affairs Select Committee is currently carrying out an enquiry into violent radicalisation. Maajid Nawaz of Quilliam recently told the committee that “there is no evidence that this new strategy is yet being rolled out on the ground by civil servants to any meaningful degree.”

He claimed that there is “no national strategy to challenge non-violent extremism” and that there “is no criteria for engagement with extremists”. Is he right? To find an answer, I would start by examining three test cases.

  • The Muslim Council of Britain. The last Government ended relations with the MCB after the Daud Abdullah controversy. Abdullah remains a member of the organisation’s Central Working Committee. The Minister with overall responsibility under the Coalition’s revised Prevent Strategy with dealing with integration, cohesion, community relations and tackling non-violent extremism is Eric Pickles. The Department insists that it doesn’t engage with the MCB. It has funded MINAB, the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Committee, of which the MCB and the Muslim Association of Britain, usually associated with the Muslim Association of Britain, are two of the four members. MINAB is the main survivor of Preventing Extremism Together (PET) — an initial Labour policy response to 7/7.
  • The Federation of Student Islamic Societies. There is a problem with a small number of college Islamic Societies. Five people who have held senior positions in University Islamic Socities have committed acts of terror or been convicted for terror-related offences. The Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS) — the umbrella body to which college Islamic Societies are usually affiliated — is viewed by the Government as unsatisfactory. The Government’s Prevent Strategy document said: “We judge that FOSIS has not always fully challenged terrorist and extremist ideology within the higher and further education sectors. FOSIS needs to give clearer leadership to their affiliated societies in this area.” The Home Office has told me that the Government continues to engage with FOSIS.
  • Azad Ali. Ali is a former President of the Civil Service Islamic Society — the website of which seems to be down at the moment — and adviser to the Director of Public Prosecutions. He used his internet blog to praise a spiritual leader of Al-Qaeda whose sermons were attended by two of the 9/11 hijackers. He wrote of Anwar Al-Awlaki: “I really do love him for the sake of Allah, he has an uncanny way of explaining things to people which is endearing.” When I last wrote about him in June, he appeared still to be the Chair of the Muslim Safety Forum (MSF), although its website does not now show who its officers are. It claims to have “signed a working protocol with the Metropolitan Police and ACPO” and to be “advising the police on matters of safety and security from the Muslim perspective”.

Is Nawaz correct?

Nawaz is right to say that there is “no national strategy to challenge non-violent extremism”, but this seems to be largely a matter of timing. I understand that the DCLG’s strategy integration is ready for publication — I wrote about early contributions to it here, here, here and here — but that a place hasn’t yet been found for it in the grid. I expect Pickles to allude to it at the coming party conference.

He is perhaps right to say that there is “no evidence that this new strategy is yet being rolled out on the ground by civil servants to any meaningful degree” (although civil servants aren’t usually responsible for implementing strategies “on the ground”, and tests for deliverers of Prevent contracts are apparently being applied). But I would question whether one can expect much evidence to have been amassed less than six months after the new Prevent Strategy was agreed.

The civil service and the new Prevent policy

However, as I’ve indicated, there are clear criteria in the Prevent Strategy document governing non-engagement with extremists. (See page 107, a formula repeated in the larger Contest document). The question is whether or not it is being applied. Nawaz is evidently mistrustful of whether senior civil servants are committed to doing so: the name that keeps coming up in this context is that of Charles Farr, the Director of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism.

My judgement that although senior civil servants may not like the Government’s shift of policy, they’ve grasped that David Cameron and Theresa May require it to happen, and are thinking implementation through very carefully. My three examples show how it’s working out. On the MCB, the Government is sticking to the view that the MCB shouldn’t be engaged with. On FOSIS, it is also sticking to the opposite view, which was prefigured in the Prevent document.

Azad Ali — a test for the Met

The most problematic circumstance is in which an organisation or person which the Government views as extreme is a member of a larger body. The Azad Ali controversy is the sharpest example. Ali’s praise for the preacher linked to the Detroit bomb plot and the Fort Hood massace stands on the record, and a judge has ruled that a blog written by Ali can reasonably be read to have supported attacks on our troops in Iraq.

If Ali indeed remains active at senior levels of the MSF, he is an early test case for how seriously Bernard Hogan-Howe, the new Met Commissioner, takes the policy — and of the Home Office’s follow-through. It says that it wrote to all police forces after the Prevent strategy was published, and it intends to “hold the Met to the fire” over Ali. Let’s see what happens next. By the way, the Home Affairs Committee will find it worth studying Centri’s evidence as well as Quilliam’s.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Association of Muslim Police

Association of Muslim Police

Aims of the Association

The Association of Muslim Police (AMP) aims to:

  • assist Muslims in the police service to observe their faith, and to promote understanding of Islam within the police service & the wider community.
  • provide a forum for Muslims in the police, and support their religious and welfare needs, with a view to improving their immediate working environment and retaining them in the Service.
  • assist in the recruitment and retention of Muslim staff, and to assist in the creation of a fair and just working environment for all cultural minorities’

The AMP is formally recognised by the Metropolitan Police Service. It is active in pursuing faith-friendly policies and has been instrumental in ensuring the provision of many facilities to the benefit of Muslim staff, including Hijaab for female officers, ability to wear Islamic/cultural dress when not in uniform, provision of Halaal food and facilities for Salaah (Islamic Prayer). The AMP is available to provide support and advice to Muslim candidates. Those wearing Hijaab and considering a career in the police service are advised to contact the AMP for further specialist advice. Membership enquiries are welcome from police and civil staff candidates including PCSO’s, traffic wardens and cadets. Associate membership enquiries from spouses and family members are also welcome.

All enquiries, including media enquiries should be emailed to muslimpolice@hotmail.com.

[JP note: See a Harry’s Place post about the National Association of Muslim Police (NAMP), dated 21 January 2010, here hurryupharry.org/2010/01/21/national-association-of-muslim-police-links-to-khomeinist-front/ and a Telegraph report, dated 20 January 2010 here www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/7039572/Muslim-police-say-Islam-not-to-blame-for-terror-attacks.html The NAMP website appears to be no longer online and it is unclear whether in fact this organisation still exists.]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Countering Al-Qaeda in London: Police and Muslim Communities in Partnership [Robert Lambert Book Launch]

Title: Countering Al-Qaeda in London: Police & Muslim Communities in Partnership (book launch and discussion)

Speakers: Robert Lambert

Date: 30 September 2011 at 18:45

Venue: Abrar House, 45 Crawford Place, W1H 4LP

Event details:

Since the events of 9/11, the destruction of Al Qaeda became the main target of military, ideological and political efforts by numerous states and groups. However, little is known of the hard work at the grassroots level to counter its ideas and practices. In this talk, the speaker presents an inside account of two pioneering projects in London where Muslim community groups worked in partnership with police to reduce the influence of Al Qaeda-inspired terrorism. One project empowered London Muslims to remove Abu Hamza and his violent hard-core supporters from Finsbury Park Mosque, while the other project bolstered long-term efforts by London Muslims in Brixton to challenge and reduce the influence of Al Qaeda inspired violent extremists including Abu Qatada and Abdullah el-Faisal. The speaker will discuss how the two projects serve as exemplars for future community-based counter-terrorism projects that recognise that the hand of central government can often be counter-productive when countering the influence of Al Qaeda: not least when the UK is waging war in Muslim countries.

The speaker:

Robert Lambert is an academic with a police career in counter-terrorism. In the aftermath of 9/11 he established the Muslim Contact Unit to work empathetically and in partnership with London Muslims. For the bulk of his police service (1977-2007) Lambert worked in counter-terrorism. In June 2008 he was awarded an MBE for his police service.

Free entrance. All welcome.

For more information please contact Sid ( sid@thecitycircle.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 07786212486)

[JP note: The Metropolitan Police could do worse than to keep a close eye on Lambert.]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Guildford Council Criticised Over Islamic Centre

A Muslim group has criticised Guildford Borough Council after it rejected an application for a new Islamic centre. Guildford’s Muslim Education and Cultural Association wants to convert a former garage in Recreation Road. The council rejected the plans because of possible disturbance to residents and concerns about parking. Osama Khan, from the group, said the council had not understood the application and they would appeal against the decision. He said the town had at least 1,000 Muslims and the only meeting space currently available for prayer was a room at the university which had a capacity of 500. Mr Khan said: “This would be basically an educational and cultural centre for the Muslim community who live in Guildford and around Guildford. “We did mention very clearly that any community from the Muslim families will come to the centre through public transportation because any parking space on Recreation Road is actually dedicated to the residents anyway. “There isn’t any [parking] space and we are very much aware of it and that’s why we actually bought that land because it’s central to the town and so that they are well connected to public transportation.” A Guildford council spokesman said: “The council does not have a duty to provide accommodation or sites for any religious group or faith. “However, where local community groups identify sites, we can offer advice on their suitability. We welcome involvement from our whole community in future plans for the borough and treat all planning issues in a consistent and fair way according to the current national and local policy framework.”

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Journalistic Success, Economic Failure: Can Free Web Content Save the Guardian?

The Guardian has been losing money for years. But whereas the New York Times has begun charging for online content, the British daily has staked its future on giving away its journalism for free. The media world is watching with bated breath.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



UK: Muslim Mother Stabbed Daughter 40 Times and Cut Out Her Liver in Ritual Killing to ‘Exorcise Evil Spirits’

A Muslim woman disemboweled her daughter as a sacrifice to God after she became convinced the four-year-old was possessed by spirits, the Old Bailey heard.

Shayma Ali, 36, stabbed the girl up to 40 times and took out her liver while Koranic verses played in the background.

When police arrived at their east London home, Ali was heard chanting: ‘I seek refuge in God from the curse of Satan’.

Ali was found covered in blood rocking back and forward in the lounge of her home, with the child’s liver on the carpet.

She had become obsessed that the child, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was possessed by a Jinn, a spirit referred to in the Koran which can occupy humans and animals.

In the winter months of last year Ali developed acute transient psychosis, which ended in the killing of the child on December 16.

Duncan Atkinson, prosecuting, said Ali had become an increasingly devout follower of Islam after a trip to Egypt in 2009.

By last year she was prone to ‘outbursts of aggression’ towards members of her family who became concerned that her mental health was deteriorating.

‘She became particularly pre-occupied by the idea of possession by a thing call a Jinn,’ said Mr Atkinson.

He told the Old Bailey Ali became increasingly obsessed with exorcising the evil spirits.

‘She removed the eyes from toys and videos, covering over the eyes on covers of DVDs and books,’ he said.

‘She also became obsessed with cleaning because she believed such evil spirits thrived in dirty spaces.’ He said she ‘talked constantly about evil spirits’ and the belief that her daughter was possessed.

On December 16 last year she was alone with her daughter, who was not attending nursery because of a recent illness, at her home in east London.

Ali later told a psychiatrist she had been praying when she began to think about sacrificing a child ‘as proof of her love of God’.

Mr Atkinson said: ‘She became convinced God wanted her to sacrifice her own child.

‘She gripped her daughter by the neck until she blacked out. She took her to the kitchen and, as she said, “just to make sure she had killed the Jinn, the evil spirits, properly I took a kitchen knife which had been lying about and stabbed my daughter”.’

The court heard she called her husband and was found by family members in the lounge. The child was dead in the kitchen.

Police officers observed Ali repeatedly chanting: ‘I seek refuge in God from the curse of Satan.’ She was subsequently arrested and later charged with murder.

The four-year-old had suffered 28 exit wounds to her back, but many of the wounds overlapped each other, leading the pathologist to believe there had been 30 to 40 stab wounds.

She had also suffered blunt impact injuries to her head and compression to her neck.

In January this year Ali spoke to her husband and told him: ‘A voice told me “if you really love Allah you would sacrifice your daughter”.’

Psychiatrist Dr Philip Baker said Ali had become ill very quickly and it was ‘very difficult for any action to be taken’ but when she was psychotic she was capable of extreme violence.

Ali admitted manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility. Wearing a burka she sobbed in the dock, flanked by three nurses, as she entered her plea.

Judge Anthony Morris QC ordered she be detained in a medium-secure unit for treatment without limit of time under sections 27 and 41 of the Mental Health Act.

‘You were suffering from what has been described as an acute and transient psychotic disorder which clearly had been getting significantly worse over a short period of time before you carried out the killing,’ he said.

‘You became convinced that God wanted you to sacrifice your child and you went on to carry out the most terrible attack upon your four year-old daughter, stabbing her many, many times and then removing her internal organs.’

He added: ‘One of the most horrifying aspects of this case is how quickly you lost control of yourself in that you became, in a very short period of time, somebody who was acting in a way entirely foreign to your normal manner of behaviour.

‘The authorities must think long and hard before considering whether it is safe to release you, having regard to the rapidity of the onset of your acute symptoms in this case.’

           — Hat tip: Gaia [Return to headlines]



UK: Over 12,000 People Sign E-Petition to Stop Extradition of Babar Ahmad as Campaigners Release Music Video

More than 12,000 people have signed the e-petition urging the UK government to stop the extradition of British detainee Babar Ahmad to the U.S and put him on trial in the U.K instead. It is currently the highest ranked e-petition about a single person. Supporters of the Free Babar Ahmad campaign have today released a 3 minute song video on You Tube about his case titled ‘Life is One Big Road,’ encouraging people to sign the e-petition. They hope to get over 100,000 signatures by 10 November 2011 to force parliament to respond to their demand of putting him on trial in the UK. Ashfaq Ahmad, Babar Ahmads father said: ‘As a result of the UK’s extradition laws, Babar has been imprisoned without trial since the 5th of August 2004. Over twelve thousand people have recently signed the e-petition for him to be tried in the UK. All of these people believe that our extradition laws should be amended to prevent bundling my son, Gary Mckinnon and others like them onto a plane to America. The Government has undertaken its extradition review the time for action is now.

[…]

[JP note: For those wishing the speedy extradition of Babar Ahmad, here is a link to Babar’s Travels by Jean de Brunhoff tinyurl.com/6xuq4cp]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: The Chron [Northampton Chronicle & Echo] Investigates the University of Northmapton’s Report on Britain’s New Far Right Movement

EARLIER this year the world was left in shock as one man was charged with the mass murder of 93 people, many teenagers, in Oslo and Utoya Island in the name of a right-wing ideology. As people have struggled to understand why the 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik may have committed the atrocity, alleged links between Breivik and The English Defence League (EDL) have surfaced. The EDL, a far-right street protest movement which opposes what it perceives as the spread of ‘Islamism,’ began just 35 miles away from here, in Luton in March 2009, latching onto a football firm already in the town. But it is in Northampton that pivotal research is being carried out in a bid to understand the mentality of this organisation. Last week a major report was launched by the University of Northampton on ‘Britain’s New Far-Right Social Movement’, charting the rise, ideology, structure and development of the EDL and bringing together international leading experts in the field to Northampton.

“For some 30 months the English Defence League has brought disorder, violence and racism in its wake. It has stretched police budgets and strained cohesion amongst and between British communities,” says Matthew Feldman, director of the University’s Radicalism, New Media and Research Group. “A lot of key organisations do great work actively dealing with these problems in the security service and policing, what we want to do is bring all the thinking on this together.” As well as publishing the largest report on the EDL to date, the university’s school of social science, the radicalism and new media research group is an initiative that will generate a series of focused research projects on the subject, particularly on the use of social media.

Whereas it has long been recognised that sites like Facebook and Twitter can be harnessed to effectively communicate, as shown in the uprisings in the Middle East earlier this year.

The school is also looking at how these social media sites are being used to aid extremism — Breivik had both a Facebook and Twitter account. “The thing with the internet is that it is like anything, it can be used for good or evil,” says Dr Feldman. “We now know that a man can make weapons of mass destruction with a credit card and a modem. Its use was predominantly a right-wing phenomena to begin with but it has been used by Islamists. The first blogs were published in 2004, and in a sense in 1995 before most of us knew the internet existed right wing extremists were using it, an ex-KK guy set up Stormfront (a white nationalist group) on the internet then. That’s been going for 15 years now and has more than 150,000 members, the far right has been ahead of the centre in terms of the internet. The internet and social media is so new in so many ways that we still have a lot of key work to do to establish patterns in how extremists use it. We don’t have any answers to questions like if they start by putting up a post and then when they are going to attack or kill, do they suddenly go silent on the internet, or do they become more blustery and post more before they are going to attack. Can we learn anything from what they are thinking and what they do next, from the way they use social media? The EDL is approached as a social movement, driven by an alliance of football hooliganism, nationalism, xenophobia, street politics — collectively organised and disseminated from the leadership to grass-roots supporters via new media.” Dr Feldman says that there is evidence to suggest that the EDL’s anti-Muslim politics has a wider presence in British society than the tens of thousands of ‘followers’ registered on its Facebook site.

That said he does not wish to scare. “All the barbarians are not at the gate, for instance the BNP always loses out to the Monster Raving Looney Party,” he said. “There is the BNP Northants Patriot, and EDL suggestion in Northamptonshire, but it is a pretty cohesive community here, that rejects all forms of extremism and I think that’s very reassuring, which is why we feel very at home in our community here. It is always difficult to prove if there is or isn’t far right activity anywhere, but the thing the internet does is to leave traces and IP addresses. It is a slow and meticulous process trying to tailgate them but there are traces.”

Dr Paul Jackson, lead author on the report, and also of the university research team, said: “The BNP has fiddled with new media, it has used websites, which may take news from other news sites, and given them its own slant, they have blogged, the EDL has been more savvy. Facebook can help connect them because someone puts something on Facebook and someone might respond to them. They are able to share information and build up a sense of community. I don’t think we can say this isn’t in Northampton, nowhere is immune from the message of anti-Muslim attitudes. I don’t think anywhere should see that it isn’t there because there are no major demonstrations, there will be some people in Northampton who agree with the views of the EDL but may also feel they are too violent to support them. We have tried with the report to get a clear message of what the new far right is, what their ideology is and where to place them. The EDL is a new form of far right organisation that has moved away from Neo-Nazism and anti-Semitic agendas, which is Islamophobic by nature. We don’t want to overstate the problem but there is a significant problem there. We want to have more of a debate about it and see it taken up at a political level.”

The report has been passed onto relevant members policy makers, one of those invited to read the report was Northampton North MP Michael Ellis, who wrote its foreword. “I’m really pleased that the University of Northampton is at the forefront of this important research that is increasingly important, nationally and internationally. Extremism of any kind is a threat to our country and to our way of life and we need to counter the abhorrent practices of extremism. I am a member of the Home Office’s Select Committee, there are extremists on both sides and I will be keeping my eye on it in my work on the Home Affairs committee.”

To read the report visit: www.radicalism-new-media.org.

“We do have good communities”

THE Northamptonshire Rights and Equality Council works to support any victims of discrimination in the county, as well as offering support to victims of hate crimes and helping to bring the perpetrators to justice. Its chief executive Anjona Roy offered her insights on the EDL. “We have on occasion reported information about the EDL to the police in Northamptonshire. The EDL is not an organisation in the way that most people see, it is very chaotic in the way it is organised. It is very much based on what the far right are involved in, in a particular area. When they propose something you may get people joining in who may not see themselves as part of it but think they are just joining in at that time. It is violent tribal behaviour. They are not necessarily all following the ideology but taking the opportunity to be involved. It is also a very different kind of far right than other far right groups, who often try to present themselves as respectable and try to operate within the political mainstream. It is very clear about who their enemies are. It is very focused on Islam, and at one level they have become more focused than any other far right group.”

She has welcomed the news that it is an area the university is investigating. “Any research that creates a body of evidence that looks at creating more cohesive communities, that’s got to be welcomed. I think it actually says a lot for the town that its academics see this as an important issue,” she said. “Approaches to dealing with it are different in different parts of the country, and a more consistent approach is needed. I think on balance we do have good communities here. It takes only one bad incident and someone going off the rails in a community, like we have seen in Oslo, to change the situation. The majority of people in this town get on well together and in a nutshell on the whole our organisation gets it right.”

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Viewpoint: What Are BNP Supporters Really Like?

Many people believe the far right has only irrational, isolated supporters and could never succeed in the UK. They’re wrong, says Matthew Goodwin. About seven years ago, when I was a PhD student, I got into my clapped out Nissan Micra and trundled down to the south-west of England to interview a lady about why she had got involved in politics. Sharon was in her early 50s, and reminded me a bit of my mum. Over the next few hours and cups of tea, I listened to her story. Sharon was born and raised in the local village. She knew everyone, and devoted much of her spare time to helping the Residents Association. She was never really that interested in politics. Her husband was a Conservative, but she only went along to the meetings because she liked the sandwiches. But then, over the years, things began to change. For Sharon, it seemed as though the way of life she had become accustomed to was under threat. She talked about feeling a sense of injustice about what had been perpetrated on her fellow citizens — our increasing involvement with Europe, the loss of our manufacturing base, a dwindling sense of respect among young people and the creeping advance of political correctness.

But more than anything, she was concerned about a new phase of immigration into the country. She was profoundly anxious, especially about the impact of this rapid and unsettling change on her friends and loved ones. Her concern wasn’t simply about the economy. It stemmed from her feeling that British culture, values and the national community were under threat. Sharon was Jewish, and the party that she decided to join was the British National Party. Though aware of its history of anti-Semitism and holocaust denial, for her the far right was the only movement that was serious about tackling the threat from Islam.

But as she quickly found out, involvement with the far right comes with consequences. Some of her friends stopped returning her calls — after 17 years the Residents Association no longer required her help. When she stood for the party at an election, her employer threatened to have her dismissed. Then one night, when home alone, Sharon was woken by a car full of anti-fascists who pulled up outside to shout abuse. Sharon told me she could handle all of that, but what really hurt, she explained, was that she was reviled by the very people that she was fighting to protect. When I asked Sharon why, despite all of these consequences, she carries on there was little hesitation: “Because doing nothing is not an option. I am fighting for the survival of my people.”

I spent the next four years travelling up and down the country to interview some of the most committed followers of the far right. Conventional wisdom tells us there is something “wrong” with people like Sharon. Implicit in the stereotypes is that they are driven by crude racism, irrational impulses, and psychological problems. The inadequacy of these stereotypes became quickly apparent during the interviews. On the whole, most of the activists appeared as relatively normal people.

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Balkans


Serbia: Underground Economy, 1.5 Bln Lost Each Year

(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, SEPTEMBER 28 — The underground economy and black labour form one of Serbia’s main problems. Serbia’s State budget loses 1.5 billion euros per year to this phenomenon because of missed tax income. “Unfortunately, we are having difficulties winning this battle against the underground economy, in which between 500 thousand and a million people are working,” said Vice Premier Verica Kalanovic, who plans to propose a series of measures, mainly aimed at improving the efficiency of the tax inspection system. It has been calculated that each year between four and five billion euros pass through the black market in Serbia (which has around 7.5 million inhabitants), more than a third of total movement of goods and services in the Balkan country.

A survey carried out between May and July of this year by Serbia’s Chamber of Commerce in collaboration with the American USAID Fund and the Association of Employers has shown that the share of the underground economy in Serbia has increased from 34% in 2008 to 40% in 2010. This figure is very high, even when compared with other countries in the region: 10% in Croatia, 16% in Macedonia, 20% in Greece and 31% in Moldavia. The role of the black market in the Netherlands and Sweden is just 1%, with a EU average of 15%. One on five workers work off the books and one out of ten have one normal job and a second off-the-book job.

Fifty-five percent of officially registered jobless do black labour. There are between 650 thousand and one million people active in the underground economy in Serbia according to a recent estimate. The sectors in which this black labour is most frequent are trade (more than 30%), tourism, hotels and restaurants (30%) and construction (12%). It is estimated that 54% of illegal commerce regards Chinese shops. Fines for people hiring off-the-book workers range from four to ten thousand euros, but the director of the Inspector’s Office for Labour, Radovan Ristanovic, has said that he does not know a single case in the past five years of someone paying such fine. If Serbia could cash just a third of the invaded taxes, its State budget would show no deficit. This means that more resources would be available for investments in sectors that are vital for the national economy like healthcare, education and social services. And with the money that is lost in the labyrinth of the underground economy ten new bridges on the Sava and Danube rivers could be built each year in Belgrade, projects the Serbian capital needs but has not sufficient funds for. The survey shows that the main causes that stimulate the underground economy include a lack of inspections (46.7%), insufficient political will to act (29%), corruption (17.1%) and inefficient customs activities (11.4%). Inspections must therefore be improved, also through the creation of a central register for imported goods, through which imports of goods can be checked at the border, as well as their distribution to the shops where they are sold. This would eliminate the widespread phenomenon of goods that are sold at market stalls.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Mediterranean Union


EP Says Yes to Opening EU to Palestinian Exports

(ANSAmed) — STRASBURG, SEPTEMBER 27 — The European Parliament has given green light to the agreement that opens the EU market for farm and fisheries products from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and gives access to the Palestinian markets for some European products. Now that the Assembly in Strasburg has approved the document, it can come into force at the start of next year. “This agreement creates an opportunity for the Palestinian people and is the first step towards the development of a nation,” said Greek MEP Maria Eleni Koppa, of the group of social-democrats, sponsor of the text that was approved by hand vote. The agreement, which was signed in April by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton and by the Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority, Salam Fayyad, is valid for ten years and includes a revision clause after five years. In the unlikely scenario that the new imports of farm produce and seafood would increase to a point where they lead to a “distortion” of the domestic market, the EU can take protective measures. The Palestinian Territories are the EU’s smallest commercial partner in the Euro-Mediterranean region, with a total trade worth 56.6 million euros in 2009, most of it (50.5 million) formed by EU exports. Imports of Palestinian products in the European Union totalled around 6.1 million euros in 2009.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Tunisia: EU: New ‘Special Measure’ For Poor Areas Launched

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, SEPTEMBER 28 — The European Commission just launched a ‘Special Measure’ for the poorest areas in Tunisia. The return to economic recovery, said Brussels, is a must and requires the launch of immediate new economic and social policies and reforms which meet the needs of the citizens; in particular those in the most impoverished parts of the country.

The ‘Special Measure’ of support to the development of the most impoverished regions, in the framework of the Neighbourhood policy instrument, (Enpi) is divided into three main components: first to contribute to the creation of employment and to measures of social integration in line with the Tunisian Government’s own programme. The programme will mainly support an existing national programme focusing on short-term employment, for which the Tunisian Government has allocated 64 million Tunisian Dinar (TND) to the governorates of the poorest regions in order to finance 42,700 fixed-term jobs in the public sector.Another priority is to improve the living conditions of 600,000 people by renovating 229 suburbs including 100,000 houses in urban areas in the poorest regions in order to re-launch economic activities in these areas. Third component is to improve access to microfinance services for the population living in the most under-privileged areas by providing support to microcredit institutions to establish and reinforce its presence in the most impoverished areas.

This action is complementary to the programme of support to economic recovery which was adopted last July by the European Commission for an amount of 100 million euros.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

North Africa


Egypt: Jews Are Not the Chosen People, Coptic Pope

(ANSAmed) — ROME, SEPTEMBER 30 — “The Jews are not the chosen people,” said Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria, also the patriarch of the episcopate of Saint Mark, quoted by the newspaper Al Quds Al Arabi.

During the weekly sermon he delivered last Wednesday in the Saint Mark Cathedral of Cairo, Shenouda III said: “I already discussed this issue with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. I have explained him that the Jews used to be called the chosen people because they were the only ones to worship God, while all other people were pagans. But once billions believed in the existence of God, the Jews no longer were God’s chosen people. Now all those who have true faith are God’s chosen people,” the Coptic Pope concluded.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Egypt: Sean Penn Joins Protestors in Tahrir Square

(AGI) Cairo — American actor Sean Penn has joined demonstrators in Tahrir Square. The square is at the epicentre of the Arab Spring protests that brought an end to Hosni Mubarak’s thirty-year reign in February. Accompanied by Egyptian actor Khaled el-Nabawi and carrying the Egyptian flag, Penn joined the young, increasingly angry demonstrators protesting about the situation in Egypt.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Morocco: Hunting Tourism Rising Constantly

(ANSAmed) — RABAT, SEPTEMBER 28 — Morocco must look at the firm possibility of extending further tourist numbers linked to hunting, a sector that, either directly or thanks to allied industries, can generate significant income. This is according to an annual study by the High Commission of Waters and Forests and the Fight against Desertification, which was reported by the MAP agency.

The report claims, amongst other things, that income for the Moroccan economy from hunting practiced by foreigners can be placed at 60 million dirhams.

Around 400,000 working days are derived from the so-called “tourist hunt”, which essentially benefit companies (34 have been recorded) involved in organising the hunts, The report says that the sector has recorded constant growth over the years, partly thanks to government incentives.

Turtle-doves, partridges, quails, woodcocks, thrushes and larks are the species that most attract foreign hunters to Morocco.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Tunisia: Number of Visitors Down 35.4% in 2011

(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, SEPTEMBER 28 — The figures regarding the Tunisian tourism industry are dramatic: the number of visitors plunged by 35.4% in the first nine months of this year, compared with the same period in 2010, from 5.2 to 3.3 million. The data have been released by the Ministry of Trade and Tourism, TAP reports. They also show that the number of overnight stays of 17 million has dropped by 43.2%. Tunisia has 850 registered hotels, which offer a total of 246 thousand beds.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Tunisia: Constituent Assembly, Polls Show Ennahdha in Lead

(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, SEPTEMBER 30 — Today’s poll may very well be the last one released (starting on Monday with the official start to the election campaign it will be prohibited, as will statements on the election from experts and analysts in all media) — a poll which confirms the religious party Ennahdha as having the relative majority with around 25%. The poll, conducted by the German foundation Hanns-Seidel in collaboration with Nessma Tv and the daily paper El Maghreb, puts in second place (with 16% of those questioning intending to vote for it) the Progressive Democratic Party and Ettakatol in third (14%). Following (with 8 % or less) are the Congress Party for the Republic, Afek, El Moubadara, Al Qatan, Al Moustakbal and about ten other political parties and independent lists. Meanwhile, the amount of funds for state financing of parties and independent candidates running in the election campaign for Tunisia’s Constituent Assembly has risen to 9.5 million dinars, six of which have already been paid out. Those in charge at the Finance Ministry, who are overseeing the operation, have made an unusual “disclosure”: some of the funds have not actually been paid yet because some of the parties have not communicated the identification number of the accounts to which they should be paid.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Israel and the Palestinians


Turkey to Build Biggest Hospital in Gaza

(ANSAmed) — GAZA, SEPTEMBER 19 — Turkish International Cooperation & Development Agency (TIKA) will construct the biggest hospital in Gaza, as Anatolia news agency reports.

TIKA’s Palestine Program Coordinator Refik Cetinkaya said that the agency was building a hospital in Gaza with Turkey’s finance. “When it is completed, it will be comprised of 150 beds,” Cetinkaya said adding that the construction began in May, and Turkish companies were building it as there was no foreign investors in Gaza due to blockade. Cetinkaya said the hospital will be a teaching hospital, and the biggest one in West Bank and Gaza. Aker Construction’s project director Mahmut Celepli said the company had employed 170 Gazan people, and this number would rise to 400-500 in the future.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Middle East


Anwar Al-Aulaqi, U.S.-Born Cleric Linked to Al-Qaeda, Reported Killed in Yemen

SANAA, Yemen — Anwar al-Aulaqi, a radical U.S.-born Muslim cleric and one of the most influential al-Qaeda operatives wanted by the United States, was killed Friday in an airstrike in northern Yemen, authorities said, eliminating a prominent recruiter who inspired attacks on U.S. soil.

In Washington, a senior Obama administration official confirmed that Aulaqi is dead. Earlier, a senior counterterrorism official said U.S. intelligence indicates that the 40-year-old cleric, a dual national of the United States and Yemen, perished in the attack, the Associated Press reported.

The Yemeni Defense Ministry, in a text message sent to journalists, announced that “the terrorist Anwar al- Aulaqi has been killed along with some of his companions,” but did not provide further details. The report could not be independently verified; Aulaqi has been falsely reported killed before.

In a separate e-mailed statement, the Yemeni government said Aulaqi was “targeted and killed” five miles from the town of Khashef in Yemen’s northern Jawf province, 87 miles east of the capital Sanaa. The attack, the statement said, was launched at 9:55 a.m. Friday local time.

While the Defense Ministry said Aulaqi was killed in Marib province, other government sources said he was killed in neighboring Jawf province.

A Yemeni security source, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said Aulaqi was killed in an airstrike, possibly by an unmanned American drone. The Obama administration in recent months has escalated the use of drones to target al-Qaeda-linked militants in Yemen and Somalia.

If true, Aulaqi’s death would be considered a significant victory in the U.S. war against global terrorism. It comes less than five months after U.S. Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden, leader of the al-Qaeda network, in a raid on his hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Aulaqi, born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents, has been implicated in helping to motivate several attacks on U.S. soil. He is said to have inspired an Army officer who allegedly killed 13 people in a November 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Tex., as well as a Ni­ger­ian student who attempted to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner the following month and a Pakistani American man who tried to set off a car bomb in New York City in May 2010. Aulaqi has also been linked to an attempt in 2010 to send parcel bombs on cargo plans bound for the United States.

[Return to headlines]



Awlaki Unlucky

Let me start by saying “good riddance…”. The BBC has the rest.

Lucy Lips adds

I wonder if CagePrisoners knew, yesterday, that Awlaki was dead. Yesterday, Asim Qureshi — an outspoken supporter of jihad against British soldiers — posted a long elegy contemplating the life of CagePrisoners’ Sheikh. In it, he peddles the myth that Awlaki was a peaceful religious man, turned to terrorism following his arrest in Yemen.

[…]

Awlaki spent most of his life sending young men to their deaths, and encouraging them to kill others. CagePrisoners knows this very well. They are funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. And Amnesty International continues to promote them.

[JP note: See here for the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation report on Awlaki icsr.info/paper/as-american-as-apple-pie-how-anwar-al-awlaki-became-the-face-of-western-jihad ]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Israel Jets Overfly Turkish Ship Off East Cyprus

(ANSAmed) — NICOSIA, SEPTEMBER 30 — Two low-flying Israel warplanes on Thursday night overflew a Turkish seismic research ship which is exploring gas near Cyprus, Greek Cypriot daily Phileleftheros reported. The newspaper said the two F-15 jets that took off from Tel Aviv flew through the Greek Cypriot and the Turkish Cypriot airspaces. The jets reportedly ignored warnings from the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) officials and got so close to Turkey’s Mediterranean coasts that they could be even seen from Mersin’s beaches, the report said.

Turkey then reportedly sent two F-16 jets to the area to track the Israeli jets, which then returned to Israel. An Israeli military helicopter also flew over the Turkish research ship, Piri Reis, on Thursday night, according to the daily, as it was in the Aphrodite gas field, off Cyprus’ southern coast and adjacent to the larger Leviathan field. The helicopter flew low over the ship for a long time, the report said.

Turkey disputes a Cypriot-Israeli accord signed last year to create exclusive economic zones in the waters between them.

It also says that only Greek Cyprus should not be exploiting natural resources until a settlement is reached between the Greek Cypriot government and the TRNC (recognized only by Ankara) for the reunification of the island, and that any revenues should benefit both communities. In response, Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot government signed their own continental shelf agreement on Wednesday, permitting state-run Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) to start exploration north of the island.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Jordan: Protesters Call for Genuine Reforms

(by Mohammad Ben Hussein) (ANSAmed) — AMMAN, SEPTEMBER 30 — Thousands of Islamist activists demonstrated in downtown Amman after Friday prayer against recent constitutional amendments, calling for genuine reform and dismissal of the government.

The protest, held under the motto: “You will not fool us” was organized by the strong Islamic Action Front (IAF) and its mother organization, the Muslim Brotherhood movement. Holding banners that vilify the government of prime minister Marouf Bakhit, protesters called for the premier removal, appointment of a national salvation government and introduction of major constitutional changes.

Bakhit, a former army general and intelligence officer, has been blamed for much of the kingdom’s political ailments. He recently caused a political storm by dismissing chief of the judicial council in what many said was a prejudice motivated move. Bakhti, who also fired central bank governor in a bizarre move, has also been implicated in several high profile corruption cases including what is known as the casino case, when the government had to pay an investor nearly USD1.5 billion in damages as a fine for cancelled contract. A rubber stamp parliament, made of loyalist tribal leaders recently vindicated him, despite testimonies of ministers against him. Informed sources told ANSA that Bakhit could be shown the exit door by the king within a few days.

“We are no longer accepting promises of reform. The country needs real reform otherwise the situation could become very serious,” said Hamzeh mansour, secretary general of the IAF, the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The parliament last week endorsed constitutional changes that allowed for the creation of a constitutional court and establishment of a committee to run elections. But opposition figures said major issues such as segregation of power and fair power distribution was not addressed. The opposition has been campaigning for changes that could see powers of the king reduced. The king, according to the constitution, can fire and hire governments at his wish and can dismiss and summon the parliament at his wish.

New but slight changes to the constitution kept the king’s power unchanged, where dismissing the parliament during two consecutive terms can not be done for the same reason. The government mobilized hundreds of riot police around downtown street of Talal. The Islamist movement this week announced its boycott to an upcoming municipal elections in protest against authorities refusal to make major constitutional changes in away that allows government be formed according to parliament majority. The group also calls for a new elections and political parties law and calls for an end to meddling by security agencies in the state affairs.

The Muslim Brotherhood movement organized a protest in separate location in downtown Amman also calling for reform. The group vowed to maintain pressure for change, amid accusations by the government that some leaders of the group have hidden agenda.

The mottos of protesters have been circling for weeks now around limiting the king’s powers to allow formation of governments based on parliament majority. Protesters say free governments can fight corruption, nepotism and lack of political liberty.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Oman: Journalists Arrested for Criticism of Minister

(ANSAmed) — DOHA, SEPTEMBER 22 — A court in Oman sentenced two journalists to five months in prison for accusing Oman’s Justice Minister, Mohamed Al Hanai, of fraud, deception and prevarications in an article published on May 14 this year in Muscat-based daily Azzaman, which was ordered to close for one month. The news was reported by Qatar-based daily The Peninsula.

Defence lawyer Ahmed Al Ajmi has appealed the decision and managed to have the two journalists released from prison on bail and reopen the newspaper until the next hearing in the case.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Qatar: Emirate Ready to Buy BNP Paribas, Press

(ANSAmed) — DOHA, SEPTEMBER 21 — Qatar is reportedly in negotiations to buy French bank BNP Paribas, reports Qatar-based daily The Peninsula, which wrote that this only would be the most recent investment that the emirate is making in Europe. Qatar is showing concrete interest in the European market, after already buying 5-star hotel W London for 200 million dollars and 3 football teams — Malaga, Paris St. Germain and Manchester United — with the latter alone costing 2.4 billion dollars. The banking, football and hotel sectors are not the only industries that have caught the interest of the Gulf country, which in recent years has already bought the famous Harrods department store in London and Christies auction house. The art market is also reportedly of great interest to the emir, who bought a Mark Rothko painting for a record price of over 72 million dollars.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Saudi Arabia: Ban on All Glider Flights

(ANSAmed) — ROME, SEPTEMBER 29 — All activities regarding glider planes will be suspended in Saudi Arabia until an analysis has been carried out on its risks for national security. So reported by MENA which quotes Prince Naif Bin Abdel-Aziz, second Vice President of the Council of Ministers and Interior Minister. In a statement aimed at all glider schools and stores that sell flight equipment in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Aviation Club imposes an immediate end of all activities and sales of all equipment for hang gliding until further notice.

This directive, the website of MENA underlines, came after the announcement of the Saudi Interior Ministry that it has recently foiled an attempt to smuggle large amounts of drugs on a glider coming from the country’s northern border.

“This type of flight,” warns an Interior Ministry spokesperson, “could be used to transport terrorists, weapons and drugs, or for infiltration of people who are wanted by the justice system.”

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Syria to Get Reprisal if Boycotts Turkish Goods, Minister

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, SEPTEMBER 30 — Turkey’s economy minister Zafer Caglayan made a terse warning Friday to Syria, saying his country would not hesitate to make a reprisal if the Arab state decides to boycott Turkish goods, as Anatolia news agency reports. “Clearly, this strikes me as an idea on which no careful deliberation was made. In case Syria bans Turkish goods, Turkey will do the same for Syrian goods. I hope they would make sure that this mistake is corrected in the shortest possible time,” Caglayan told reporters when asked about media reports that said Syria had started boycotting all kinds of Turkish products. What is at stake for Turkey is an export volume of over one billion USD. Imports from Syria are worth some 700-800 million USD, according to Caglayan. “This decision will make a bigger impact on the Syrian economy than it would do on Turkey’s economy or any other country for that matter,” Caglayan said.

Tensions between the two countries have been strained after Turkey shunned the Syrian government’s deadly crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators. Turkey has recently imposed a weapons embargo on its southern neighbor. Turkish security forces had already stopped a Syrian-flagged ship, officials have said. Earlier in September, Turkey hosted senior figures from anti-Assad movement which declared a 140-member Syrian National Council to build up pressure on Damascus. Around 7,600 Syrians who fled the violence are seeking shelter in camps in southern Turkey.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Turkey-EU: Turkish Experts to Work at European Commission

(ANSAmed) — STRASBOURG, SEPTEMBER 28 — Turkey and the European Union (EU) have signed an agreement enabling Turkish experts to work at the European Commission, Anatolia news agency reports today. Turkish EU Minister and Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis and Maros Sefcovic, EU commissioner for inter-institutional relations and administration, inked the agreement in Strasbourg on Wednesday. Delivering a speech at the ceremony, Bagis said Turkish experts who would work at the European Commission could have chance to gain new experiences with this agreement. “These experts will shape-up our common future (between Turkey and EU),” he said. Communication between EU experts and Turkish experts would be boosted with this agreement, officials said.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Turkey Requests Discount on Russian Gas Imports

Turkey threatened Thursday to revoke a contract to purchase six billion cubic metres of natural gas, a third of its Russian imports, if the price is not reduced. “We have asked them (Russia) for a reduction. If Russia does not sufficiently meet this demand, we will display the will to end the contract,” Energy Minister Taner Yildiz told reporters in Ankara. The energy minister referred to an agreement under which Turkey imports six billion cubic metres of gas from Gazprom Export, a subsidiary of the Russian gas giant Gazprom, via a western pipeline. Turkey imported 18 billion cubic metres of gas from Russia last year, about 60 percent of its total domestic gas consumption.

Ankara is seeking ways of keeping gas prices for domestic consumers down, the media reported. But the rising costs of gas imports and high exchange rates were putting pressure on the government.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



U.S.-Born Al Qaeda Leader Anwar Al-Awlaki is Killed in Yemen

SANA, Yemen — Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born preacher depicted as a leading figure in Al Qaeda’s outpost in Yemen, was killed on Friday morning in the north of the country, according to the Defense Ministry.

Earlier this year, the American military renewed its campaign of airstrikes in Yemen, using drone aircraft and fighter jets to attack Qaeda militants. One of the attacks was aimed at Mr. Awlaki, one of the most prominent members of the Qaeda affiliate group. There was no immediate comment from American officials.

But Mr. Awlaki’s death, if confirmed, seemed likely to be welcomed in the United States, where Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said in July that two of his top goals were to remove Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s new leader after the death of Osama Bin Laden, and Mr. Awlaki.

[Return to headlines]

South Asia


Pakistan: Ten Year Old Girl Accused of Blasphemy and Sentenced for a Spelling Mistake

Faryal Bhatti misspelled a word in urdu referring to Muhammad, resulting in incredible reactions from teachers and the ulema. Expelled from school, her mother, a nurse, forced to leave work. Bishop Anthony: “Society is becoming so intolerant that a tiny error gets major attention.”

Abbottabad (AsiaNews) — A spelling error has led to an accusation of blasphemy, and serious consequences for a Christian girl of 10 years of age and her family in Abbottabad. Faryal Bhatti, the daughter of a nurse, Sarafeen Bhatti is a student at Colony High School Havelian POF. On September 22, during an examination she misspelled a word in Urdu, putting the full top in the wrong place. Thus the word, referring to the prophet Muhammad, was transformed from “poem of praise” (naat) to “curse (lanaat). The Urdu teacher, Mrs. Fareeda, sternly rebuked Faryal in front of the class and took the matter to the headmaster, even though the child defended herself saying that it was a mistake.

The news of the alleged insult to Muhammad spread through the school, among teachers and the direction accused the girl of blasphemy. The school authorities informed the religious authorities who together with the inhabitants of the colony staged a demonstration, demanding the child be reported to police, expelled from school and her family expelled from the Colony. A mob chanted slogans against Christians, and in Friday sermons religious leaders denounced the episode as “a conspiracy against Islam”, which was to be crushed.

In a meeting with teachers and religious leaders the child (in tears) and her mother explained that it was a mistake and apologized. Maulana Syed Ejaz Ali, a religious leader of the Jamia Masjid saw the piece of paper, talked with the child and mother and concluded: “I have no precise idea about the intentions of Faryal, her eyes filled with tears show her innocence, but the error has transformed the word into an insult and this is sufficient reason for a punishment, she should never throughout her entire life, think against Islam. “

To appease the religious the school administration expelled Faryal from school, Islamic clerics lobbied the Colony administration resulting in the mother being fired and forced to leave the residence. Both mother and daughter were transferred to Wah Cantonment by the hospital management. The Masihi Foundation has asked two Islamic clerics in Islamabad to give their opinion on the matter, Maulana Mehfooz Ali Khan and Hussain Ahmed Malik. Maulana said: “It is the innocent mistake of a child. Many Muslim students in the madrasas incorrectly pronounce the Arabic words, changing their meaning, you can not punish a child for an honest mistake, the girl was only 10 years old, she will carry this trauma with her. Faryal Bhatti has been subjected to all of this only because she is Christian, I protest against the decision to expel the young child and to transfer the mother. “

The bishop of Islamabad-Rawalpindi, Anthony Rufin, told AsiaNews: “I condemn the incident. Now, even Christian students are victimized and accused of blasphemy. Society is becoming so intolerant that a tiny error gets major attention. The ulema have decided on the punishment of a child who does not even know what she did wrong. They should have explained the mistake to her, if it really was a terrible mistake, in this way gaining her confidence and making a service to religious dialogue. What happened is exactly the opposite. “

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Three Italian Soldiers Killed in Afghanistan

Road crash raises death toll to 44

(ANSA) — Rome, September 23 — Three Italian soldiers were killed in a road accident in Afghanistan Friday raising Italy’s death toll in Afghanistan to 44 since it joined the NATO-led mission in the Asian country in 2004.

A fourth soldier was “seriously” wounded in the incident involving an Italian patrol in the western Afghan city of Herat, sources said.

The 41st came on July 26 when Corporal Major David Tobini, 28, was shot dead in a firefight in the Bala Murghab Valley, also in western Afghanistan.

Military sources said they would release the names of the victims once the families had been notified.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Australia — Pacific


Brave Teenager Beats Bride Plan

A 16-YEAR-OLD girl secretly took legal action against her parents to escape an arranged marriage.

The teen, who cannot be identified, asked a court to place her on the airport watch list to stop her parents whisking her to Lebanon and forcing her to wed a young man she had met just once, the Herald Sun reported.

The court said such applications were becoming increasingly common.

Federal magistrate Joe Harman said he was satisfied there was a psychological risk to the girl unless the court intervened.

“The young person’s evidence makes very clear that she has expressed to her parents that she does not want to go to Lebanon and does not want to marry the person proposed,” he said.

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“She has indicated also in her evidence that she is fearful for her personal safety, that she has concerns as to what will occur in relation to her mother’s reaction once she becomes aware of these proceedings.”

Mr Harman said while it might be suggested the young woman had bucked the authority of her parents, she had displayed great bravery in seeking legal help.

“It is not the right of any parent to cause their child to be married against their will, whether in accordance with Australian law or otherwise,” he said.

Mr Harman restrained the girl’s parents from removing her from Australia and from harassing, threatening or intimidating her, or questioning her about the court proceedings.

He ordered that they surrender her passport to the court.

He also ordered the girl be placed on the airport watch list and Australian Federal Police maintain an airport watch for her.

The orders were made just two weeks before the planned wedding in the Middle East in April.

Details of the case have been revealed in a judgment published only this week.

The girl told the NSW court her father was aware of the proposed marriage but generally opposed it.

Mr Harman said that if she were taken to Lebanon, she would return married.

If the wedding were to take place in Australia, a court order and parental consent would be required because of the girl’s age.

The Herald Sun reported last September that the Family Court had banned a 14-year-old would-be bride from leaving Australia.

           — Hat tip: Nilk [Return to headlines]



Woman to Serve 15 Days for Choking Walmart Greeter

ELYRIA — A woman who choked a 71-year-old greeter at the Elyria Walmart Supercenter and then boasted about it to her daughter was sentenced to 15 days in jail Thursday in Elyria Municipal Court.

Judge Lisa Locke-Graves, who imposed the sentence against Toni Duncan, 49, called the attack “absolutely reprehensible.’’ Duncan had pleaded no contest and was found guilty of assault earlier this week.

“I am appalled that someone would choke a person 71 years of age,” Locke-Graves said.

In the March 30 incident, prosecutors said Duncan choked Alger Burchell when he asked to see a receipt for her purchases.

           — Hat tip: Nilk [Return to headlines]

Immigration


EU Considers Removing Visas for Turkish Citizens

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, SEPTEMBER 30 — The European Union for the first time is planning to draw a road map to completely remove visa requirements for Turkish citizens, while in the meantime the union will take steps to ease visa procedures, according to Cecilia Malmstrom, European Commission representative for interior affairs as daily Hurriyet reports. The process will start in the fall and will have five steps starting with granting longer visas, then multi-entry visas, then shortening the processing time, then reducing the paperwork required, and then extending again or even eliminating visas for certain sectors. Turkey’s European Union Minister Egemen Bagis on Wednesday participated in a session of the European Parliament discussing the union’s visa regime for Turkish nationals. The EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee meeting on Wednesday was the first high-level meeting between Turkey and the EU on what Ankara hopes will lead to further negotiations to remove visa requirements for Turks visiting EU member countries.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Lampedusa:320 Migrants on the Island, Centre Empty by Tonight

(ANSAmed) — LAMPEDUSA (AGRIGENTO), SEPTEMBER 22 — There are a total of 320 migrants currently present on the island of Lampedusa, including 140 minors who are at the Loran Station. There are 270 Tunisians still at the reception centre. “By tonight,” said Agrigento Chief of Police, Giuseppe Bisogno, “the Imbriacola Centre will be emptied, also due to the safety of the facilities following the fires set to several structures.” Ten flights are scheduled today to transport the Tunisians who are still at the reception centre on Lampedusa, with 8 military and 2 commercial flights. The operation also involves 72 migrants who landed on Linosa and were transferred to Lampedusa today, as well as 90 minors and 6 families staying at the Cala Creta accommodation facilities. All of the flights, the Hercules military planes and the two Mistral flights, are leaving from the Palermo Airport. The first took off this morning at 9am. The flights are arriving on Lampedusa, the immigrants are boarding the planes and are being transferred to Palermo. According to reports, the two Mistral flights will bring the migrants back to Tunis after the stopover in Palermo. The immigrants who will not be immediately repatriated by plane will be transferred to two ships that are already at the port in the Sicilian capital, the Moby Fantasy and GNV’s ‘Audacia’. These two ferry boats have been used in recent months to transport immigrants to other reception centres in other parts of Italy.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Lampedusa: 4 in Custody for Reception Centre Fire

(ANSAmed) — LAMPEDUSA (AGRIGENTO), SEPTEMBER 22 — Four migrants believed to have started the fire that damaged the reception centre in Lampedusa two days ago, an action which led to the ensuing clashes on the island, were taken into custody by police after an order was issued by the Agrigento Prosecutor’s Office. During the operation, officials from police headquarters also took another 7 individuals into custody: 4 alleged human traffickers responsible for one of the arrivals on Lampedusa in recent days and 3 migrants who returned to Italy after previously being deported. The individuals arrested for the fire are 32-year-old Tunisian, Hamrouni Faysal, who arrived on Lampedusa on September 18, 29-year-old Tunisian, Ghammouri Mohamed, who arrived on the island on September 18, 40-year-old Saleh Mohamed, who also arrived on September 18 and 27-year-old Tunisian, Fazzani Bilal, who arrived on September 15. The migrants had communicated their identities to police when they arrived on Lampedusa. “According to what has been reconstructed,” Agrigento police sources said, “based on testimony from several immigrants present in the centre who provided useful information for the investigation, the fire was set by using pillows and mattresses to make the structure unfit for use in order to prevent repatriations to Tunisia. Making the centre unfit for use would make it necessary for the immigrants to temporarily stay in the reception centre on the mainland, giving them a greater chance to escape.”

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Tunisian Gov’t Expresses Pain Over Paris Deaths

(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, SEPTEMBER 30 — Tunisia’s Foreign Ministry has released an official statement expressing profound sorrow over the death of four Tunisian immigrants in yesterday’s fire in a building in Pantin, a north-eastern suburb of Paris, illegally occupied by dozens of undocumented North African immigrants. Six people lost their lives in the fire.

The ministry added that it is in constant contact with French police authorities especially for the identification of some of the victims, which has been made difficult due to the fact that the flames calcinated the bodies.

Three other young Tunisians were injured in the fire and are now in hospital, where they are being assisted by functionaries of the Consulate. After receiving treatment nine other are now staying in a building provided by the Pantin municipality.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



UK: Letter to Baroness Flather From the Council of Mosques

Baroness Flather,

The House of Lords,

London,

SW1A 0PW

22 September 2011

Dear Baroness Flather,

“Immigrants have children for benefits”

We are deeply saddened and perturbed at your comments regarding “Immigrants have children for benefits” in the House of Lords on the 14th September 2011 as, reported by the BBC.

We are deeply disappointed to read that you have grossly misdirected the correlation between the number of children and benefits in the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities.

There is no substance or evidence to support your contentions. This is hugely irresponsible of you particularly of someone of your status and therefore we would like some clarifications as to the basis for your biased comments.

You have failed to acknowledge the considerable economic contributions made by both communities that you have mentioned. We would urge you to research before you make such out of context remarks.

Finally, we wait for your response.

Your sincerely

Mohammed Rafiq Sehgal

Senior Vice President

Council for Mosques

[JP note: The good Baroness obviously struck an exposed nerve. For more on polygamy and exploitation of the benefits system by Muslims, see Daily Mail report here www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2041244/Polygamy-Investigation-Muslim-men-exploit-UK-benefits-system.html?ito=feeds-newsxml ]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



‘We’re Throwing Open the Doors to Benefit Tourists’: EU Plan to Let Migrants Claim as Soon as They Enter UK is Blasted

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migration Watch UK, has warned that the decision is ‘an open invitation to benefit tourism’.

Europe has given Britain two months to scrap its policies which prevent benefit tourists claiming billions of pounds in handouts.

Last night the European Commission said it would take the Government to court unless it draws up plans to axe restrictions on claims by immigrants, saying they are against the law and must be scrapped.

Brussels bureaucrats acted after receiving a complaint that the rules infringed the human rights of EU citizens.

But Sir Andrew warned the EU ruling could be a disaster, adding: ‘Clearly this risks blowing the Government’s immigration policy out of the water.’

And Employment Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said the move threatened to break the ‘vital link’ which should exist between taxpayers and their own government.

He added: ‘The EU settlement is supposed to protect the right of member states to make their own social security arrangements.

‘But we are now seeing a rising tide of judgments from the European institutions using other legal avenues to erode away these rights, and we should be gravely concerned.’

It is feared the change could open the door to tens of thousands of Eastern Europeans who are currently deterred from coming to Britain — costing taxpayers up to £2.5billion a year in extra welfare payments.

At present a ‘habitual residency’ test is used to establish whether EU migrants are eligible for benefits.

To qualify for jobseekers’ allowance, employment support allowance, pension credit and income support, they must demonstrate they have either worked here previously or have a good opportunity to get a job.

But the European Commission said this ‘right to reside’ test indirectly discriminates against nationals from other EU states by enforcing a set of conditions that effectively tests their right to state handouts.

Yesterday members announced they were considering taking the UK to the EU’s Court of Justice if it does not scrap the test.

And they gave the Government two months to inform them of the measures it takes to enforce the rules.

Officials in the Department for Work and Pensions warn it would cost anything from £620million a year to £2.46billion if they have to scrap the test — seriously hampering plans to rein in public spending.

Employment minister Chris Grayling said: ‘This is a very unwelcome development.

‘It’s obviously right that we support those who work and pay their taxes here, but it’s clearly completely unacceptable that we should open our doors to benefit tourism.

‘I’m really surprised the European Commission has chosen to go into battle on this very sensitive issue, when there are clearly far more pressing problems to solve in Europe.’

A source at the DWP added: ‘This could open the doors of the benefits system to anyone from the EU, even if they have no intention of working.

‘That would be bad enough if we were in good economic times, but we are not in good economic times.’

‘We will fight this tooth and nail. This is a battle we will win.’

Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party, said: ‘Once again we see the EC telling us how to run our country and people are becoming sick and tired of it.

‘The UK is perfectly within its rights to require EU nationals to fulfil certain conditions before taking advantage of our generous benefits system.

‘If the EC gets its way then there will be a far greater burden on the British taxpayer as more money will need to be found for the social security system.

‘The “right to reside” test should stay. It is not discrimination, but simply a system to ensure that benefits are paid only to those who are entitled to them.’

Stephen Booth, research director of think-tank Open Europe, said: ‘Freedom of movement within the EU has largely been positive for the UK but issues surrounding benefits and social security are understandably very sensitive.

‘For the freedom of movement within the EU to work, governments have to be able to assure their citizens that welfare systems won’t be abused.

‘At a time when people are concerned about the pressures of immigration, the Commission is playing a dangerous game by trying to overrule the UK on its “right to reside” test.’

The European Commission first set out its stall last year when it wrote: ‘EU law leaves it to member states to determine the details of their social security schemes and social assistance schemes, including the conditions on awarding benefits.

‘Having examined the “right to reside” test, it is not compatible with different legal provisions of EU law.’

           — Hat tip: TG [Return to headlines]

General


Findings Indicate Einstein Was Right About Relativity

A new Denmark-based study on galaxy clusters provides more evidence for Einstein’s general theory of relativity — which would mean that mysterious ‘dark energy’ probably does exist, although this has yet to be proven.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

News Feed 20110929

Financial Crisis
» Banks to Pay ‘Fair Share’ Under EU Transactions Tax
» Brussels Intends to Bring the Auditors to Heel
» Countries Cutting Off Europe’s Poor
» Dear Prime Minister … A Letter From Mario Draghi and Jean-Claude Trichet
» Germany Approves Expansion of Euro Bailout Fund
» Germany, Do Your Duty and Save the Euro
» Italy’s Credit Downgrade: Belligerent Berlusconi Toys With Europe
» Merkel Breathes Sigh of Relief: German Parliament Passes Euro Fund Expansion
» The Netherlands to Send Tax Officials to Help Greece
 
Europe and the EU
» EU Court to Intervene in Naples Trash
» EU Warns France Over Bonus Channels to Canal+, TF1 and M6
» EU: Spain Risks Fines for Regulations on Zoos
» EU-Morocco: Accord on Fisheries, EP Rejects Appeal to Court
» France: Senate Veers to the Left — Alarm Call for Sarkozy
» Germany’s Enormous Hidden Debt
» Germany: RTL Reviewing Security After Kurds Storm Studio
» German Survey: Former East Less Trusting Than Former West
» Greece: Draft Law Presented to Bring in Referendum
» Ireland: Banned Drivers Failing to Hand in Licences
» Italy: IDV Leader Asks Napolitano to Put Govt Out of Its Misery
» Italy: Dismissal Plea Filed Against Parliament’s Ruby Objections
» Netherlands: PVV Calls for Referendum on Minarets
» New Experiment Aims to Trap Bizarre Antimatter
» Nuclear Plant Phase-Out Gets Swiss Go-Ahead
» Security Officers to Patrol Swiss Trains With Guns
» Shipping: Greece’s Sector Grows Larger and Younger
» Shipping: Greek Merchant Marine Fleet Down
» Spain: Zapatero’s Last Appearance in Parliament
» Spain to EU Court for Local River Regulations
» Swiss Parliamentarians Vote for Burqa Ban
» UK: EDL Leader Convicted of Assault
» UK: Why All the Apologies, Ed?
 
Balkans
» Kosovo: Witness Describes to UN Tribunal Rivalries Between Albanian Rebels
 
North Africa
» Libya: Italy’s Oil Giant ENI Re-Starts Production
» NATO: Gaddafi Forces Weak; Mission Will be Over in 3 Months
» Tony Blair Had Six Secret Meetings With Gaddafi in Libya
 
Middle East
» Is Turkey Going Rogue?
» Lebanon: Patriarch Bechara Rai and the “Arab Spring”. Tensions With Paris and Washington
» Now Even Al Qaeda Tells Iran’s Ahmadinejad to Stop the Conspiracy Theories Blaming the U.S. For 9/11iranian President Called it ‘The September 11 Mystery’
» Syria: US Ambassador Pelted With Stones and Tomatoes
» Turkey Threatens to Blacklist Firms Working With Cyprus
 
South Asia
» Pakistan: Faisalabad: Magician Who Burns Qur’an in Ritual Ceremony Arrested for Blasphemy
» Pakistan: Punjab: Armed Muslims Rape a Christian, A “Common Practice”
» The Muslim Party’s Demands and Islamisation in Sri Lanka
» The Vast Asian Realm of the Lost Humans
 
Far East
» Duties on Poultry: The Latest Act in the Trade War
» Philippines: Christians Dispossessed and Silenced in Mindanao
 
Australia — Pacific
» Bolt is Guilty But the Law is Wrong, Let the Markets Deal With Racial Discrimination
» If a Shark Takes Me, Blame Me, Not the Shark: Briton’s Words Before Great White Attackhe Was Regular Swimmer Who Ignored Warning of Shark in the Water
» Western Australia Girls Admit Shocking McDonalds Condom Hoax
 
Immigration
» 500 Migrants Taken Away, Other 500 Today
» Migrants’ Revolt in Lampedusa, Tunisians in Jail
» Switzerland: SVP to Immigrants: Don’t Mess With the Swiss Flag
 
Culture Wars
» US Ambassador Urges Serbia to Secure Gay Pride
 
General
» Earth Surrounded by Fewer Potentially Dangerous Asteroids Than Thought, NASA Finds
» ‘Magic Mushrooms’ May Permanently Alter Personality
» Planet Mercury Full of Strange Surprises, NASA Spacecraft Reveals

Financial Crisis


Banks to Pay ‘Fair Share’ Under EU Transactions Tax

The European Commission on Wednesday (28 September) unveiled plans to slap a tax on financial transactions in the EU, a scheme that the EU executive hope will raise some €57 billion a year in revenues. Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the commission announced that the college of commissioners had adopted the proposal, long expected and dreaded by the City of London, during his state of the union address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

All financial transactions in which at least one party is located in the EU would come under the purview of the proposed rules. The commission would like to see both derivative contracts and trades in shares and bonds taxed at 0.1 percent from January 2014.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Brussels Intends to Bring the Auditors to Heel

Financial Times Deutschland, 27 September 2011

“Brussels is taking up the ax against the auditors”, headlines the Financial Times Deutschland, reporting on the intent of the European Commission to strip the big audit firms of one of their most lucrative services: their corporate advisory branches. It is by coupling company valuation and advice to the same companies, though, that firms such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, Ernst & Young and Deloitte are bringing in significant revenues — four billion euros a year in Germany alone. Unfortunately for the auditors, confidence in them has evaporated following the collapse of the energy giant Enron, which was brought down by scandals over its faked balance sheets. The accusation levelled against the firms is that they are not sufficiently independent to carry out both auditing and consulting. Michel Barnier, European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services, will therefore present a radical reform of the consultancies in November. “Resistance will be prolonged,” warns the Hamburg newspaper.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Countries Cutting Off Europe’s Poor

La Libre Belgique, Brussels

Six member States refuse to allow funds from the Common Agricultural Policy to be used as food aid to the poor. On 1 January 2012, the budget for assistance to 18 million Europeans may drop from 480 to 113.5 million euros. It’s a possibility that revolts La Libre Belgique.

Sabine Verhest

Their position is as appalling as it is incomprehensible. Unbearable, really. Six member states of the Union — Germany, UK, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Denmark and Sweden, all rich and mostly eurosceptic — are still blocking, through legal wrangling and fallacious arguments, the providing of some 480 million euros intended to feed the poorest Europeans [the final decision has been deferred to the next meeting of EU ministers in late October].

How to understand that, in the midst of the euro crisis, while poverty is increasing throughout the Old Continent, powerful countries can undermine a policy that has proven itself over a quarter century?…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Dear Prime Minister … A Letter From Mario Draghi and Jean-Claude Trichet

Frankfurt/Rome, 5 August 2011.

Dear Prime Minister,

The Governing Council of the European Central Bank discussed on 4 August the situation in Italy’s government bond markets. The Governing Council considers that pressing action by the Italian authorities is essential to restore the confidence of investors.

The Euro area Heads of State or Government summit of 21 July 2011 concluded that “all euro countries solemnly reaffirm their inflexible determination to honour fully their own individual sovereign signature and all their commitments to sustainable fiscal conditions and structural reforms”. The Governing Council considers that Italy needs to urgently underpin the standing of its sovereign signature and its commitment to fiscal sustainability and structural reforms.

The Italian Government has decided to pursue a balanced budget in 2014 and, to this purpose, has recently introduced a fiscal package. These are important steps, but not sufficient.

At the current juncture, we consider the following measures as essential:

1. We see a need for significant measures to enhance potential growth. A few recent decisions taken by the Government move in this direction; other measures are under discussion with social partners. However, more needs to be done and it is crucial to go forward decisively. Key challenges are to increase competition, particularly in services to improve the quality of public services and to design regulatory and fiscal systems better suited to support firms’ competitiveness and efficiency of the labour market.

a) A comprehensive, far-reaching and credible reform strategy, including the full liberalisation of local public services and of professional services is needed. This should apply particularly to the provision of local services through large scale privatizations.

b) There is also a need to further reform the collective wage bargaining system allowing firm-level agreements to tailor wages and working conditions to firms’ specific needs and increasing their relevance with respect to other layers of negotiations. The June 28 agreement between the main trade unions and the industrial businesses associations moves in this direction.

c) A thorough review of the rules regulating the hiring and dismissal of employees should be adopted in conjunction with the establishment of an unemployment insurance system and a set of active labour market policies capable of easing the reallocation of resources towards the more competitive firms and sectors.

2. The government needs to take immediate and bold measures to ensuring the sustainability of public finances.

a) Additional-corrective fiscal measures is needed. We consider essential for the Italian authorities to frontload the measures adopted in the July 2011 package by at least one year. The aim should be to achieve a better-than-planned fiscal deficit in 2011, a net borrowing of 1.0% in 2012 and a balanced budget in 2013, mainly via expenditure cuts. It is possible to intervene further in the pension system, making more stringent the eligibility criteria for seniority pensions and rapidly aligning the retirement age of women in the private sector to that established for public employees. thereby achieving savings already in 2012. In addition, the goverment should consider significantly reducing the cost of public employees, by strenghtening turnover rules and, if necessary, by reducing wages.

b) An automatic deficit reducing clause should be introduced stating that any slippages from deficit targets will be automatically compensated through horizontal cuts on discretionary expenditures.

c) Borrowing, including commercial debt and expenditures of regional and local governments should be placed under tight control, in line with the principles of the ongoing reform of intergovernmental fiscal relations.

In view of the severity of the current financial market situation, we regard as crucial that all actions listed in section 1 and 2 above be taken as soon as possible with decree-laws, followed by Parliamentary ratification by end September 2011. A constitutional reform tightening fiscal rules would also be appropriate.

3. We also encourage the government to immediately take measures to ensure a major overhaul of the public administration in order to improve administrative efficiency and business friendliness…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Germany Approves Expansion of Euro Bailout Fund

The German Parliament approved the expansion of the bailout fund for heavily indebted European countries Thursday, the most important step in a tortuous process that has rattled markets and raised long-term doubts about the ability of governments to react to the expanding debt crisis.

The vote in Germany, Europe’s largest economy and the only country with the fiscal wherewithal to pull fellow countries in the euro currency zone out of trouble, moved the struggling rescue forward. But analysts said it likely would offer only momentary relief rather than anything like a permanent solution.

And for Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, the victory merely provided breathing room after a divisive debate within her own parliamentary bloc that has weakened her grip on power at a critical moment. Opposition politicians argue that the vocal opposition within her ranks meant that Mrs. Merkel had lost control of her coalition and needed to dissolve the government.

[Return to headlines]



Germany, Do Your Duty and Save the Euro

Through a vote of the Bundestag on Thursday, Germany may decide to kill its own best product, precisely when it is really beginning to work. Such would be the result of a rejection of the eurozone package supported by Chancellor Angela Merkel and endorsed by many in the opposition.

When the euro was launched, it was given two almost impossible tasks. First, it had to provide a number of countries with a single currency that would prove as stable as had been the deutsche mark. Germany, which had inflicted immense tragedies to itself and the world partly as a consequence of hyperinflation between the two World Wars, could not settle for anything less. Most other EU countries were keen on having themselves an “anchor of stability” on which to base their economic growth as well as the pursuit of equity across society and between generations.

The second, even more difficult, task was to induce a profound transformation of economic policies and structures, but also of the institutions and the culture determining them. The vectors of such transformation were to be the principles and the rules presiding over the euro, enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty, in the Stability and Growth Pact, and finally in the Lisbon Treaty, where the blueprint of a “highly competitive social market economy”, first experimented in Germany in the Fifties, was adopted by the whole EU. National specificities, a richness of Europe, would of course persist, but as a consequence of sharing the euro all eurozone countries would gradually become somewhat more similar to the template developed in Germany as Ordnungspolitik , the orderly-structured application of liberal principles (see “Marked by a miracle” by Ralph Atkins, FT, 21 September 2011).

After 13 years, it is clear that the euro, largely thanks to the European Central Bank, has achieved remarkably well the first objective. The second, even more difficult, objective — the structural convergence of economic cultures and policies — is being reached in a less continuous manner…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Italy’s Credit Downgrade: Belligerent Berlusconi Toys With Europe

An Analysis by David Böcking

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi refuses to recognize that his country is in trouble. Vast debt, sluggish growth and rising borrowing rates indicate that Rome too may be infected by the euro-zone debt crisis. But the EU has few tools at its disposal to get Italy to take action.

After ratings agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded Italy’s credit rating a notch on Monday night, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi immediately went on the offensive. The appraisal of the country’s economic state seemed to be “dictated more by media reports than reality,” he said. The Italian government is already balancing the budget, he added.

In reality Berlusconi has only just begun working on savings measures — a reaction to massive pressure and repeated market fluctuations. His behavior demonstrates the leader’s intention to cling to the populist style of governing until the bitter end. But the powerful media mogul’s stance also betrays the limits of European Union influence on its indebted member states — at least those that haven’t yet been forced to accept a bailout.

That Italy might ultimately need financial support, to be sure, can’t be ruled out. Certainly, in contrast to Greece and Portugal, the country has a powerful economy and still counts among the world’s biggest industrial nations. But Italy’s national debt, some 120 percent of its yearly economic output, is surpassed only by Greece within the EU.

Moreover, the Italian economy has grown only weakly in recent years, meaning that there is too little tax revenue to reduce its debt. And financing that debt has become more expensive as interest rates rise. In August 2010, interest rates on Italian government bonds were 3.8 percent. One year later, that number had jumped to 5.3 percent.

‘International Laughingstock’

Large debts, weak growth and rising interest rates: These are the same symptoms exhibited by the three euro-zone countries that have already required financial assistance from their currency union partners. Saving Italy, however, would be vastly more difficult. Its debt is simply too great.

The danger has long been recognized in Europe. But as long as Italy has not drawn on financial assistance, EU influence remains restricted. Even after S&P’s credit downgrade and Berlusconi’s aggressive reaction, European leaders can only make appeals. A spokesperson for European Economic Commissioner Olli Rehn urged Italy to immediately enact its savings resolutions. Gerda Hasselfeldt, head of the state parliamentary group for Bavaria’s conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), called the downgrade a “good and necessary incentive.” Peter Altmaier, a leading member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats , said: “The case of Italy shows that we’re not just talking about Greece.”

As slightly less diplomatic analysis came from the president of Confindustria, an organization representing Italian manufacturing and service companies. “We are sick and tired of being the international laughingstock,” Emma Marcegaglia said. The government must either “enact quick, serious and also unpopular reforms” or “pack their bags,” she said.

Her harsh statement shows the pent up frustration over Berlusconi’s crisis management. For a long time the prime minister saw no reason to act at all. When the government passed austerity measures worth some €47 billion in July, Berlusconi boasted about how harmless it was. “We have avoided every drastic measure taken by other European countries,” he said. “The Italians should build us a monument.”…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Merkel Breathes Sigh of Relief: German Parliament Passes Euro Fund Expansion

Chancellor Angela Merkel got the majority she needed on Thursday as German parliament passed the expansion of the euro backstop fund, the EFSF. With fewer conservative renegades than feared, Merkel can breathe a sigh of relief. But with more difficult decisions approaching, the respite may not last.

German parliamentarians on Thursday approved the planned expansion of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) with 523 voting in favor, 85 against and three abstentions. The bill’s passage is a vital step in euro-zone efforts to increase the fund’s lending capacity from its current €250 billion ($338 billion) to €440 billion. Germany’s share of guarantees for the fund will rise from €120 billion to €211 billion, though several other euro-zone parliaments must still vote on the expansion.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



The Netherlands to Send Tax Officials to Help Greece

The International Monetary Fund has asked the Netherlands to send ‘several’ tax department officials to help Greece improve its taxation collection, the Volkskrant reports on Wednesday.

The officials would join the International Monetary Fund team in Athens, the paper says.

‘Tax collection is one of the major problems in Greece,’ finance ministry spokesman Niels Redeker told the paper. ‘It is crucial to make improvements.’

Another civil servant told the paper the ministry wants to be sure Greece itself is keen on having Dutch support.

‘The Greeks must feel it is their idea otherwise it won’t work,’ he said. ‘They should not feel we are taking over their tax collection.’

The EU is also putting together a 25-strong team to help the Greek government, which is also likely to involve Dutch nationals, the paper says.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

Europe and the EU


EU Court to Intervene in Naples Trash

Italy could see sanctions

(ANSA) — Brussels, September 27 — The European Union is preparing to take Italy to court for failing to resolve the trash situation in Naples, EU sources told ANSA Tuesday.

Barring any last-minute changes, the EU will issue a notice on Thursday declaring that the country has two months to resolve the recurring emergency before the case would be taken to the European Court of Justice where Italy could be sentenced to pay sanctions.

The warning came as firefighters were called to put out 13 rubbish fires in and around Naples.

The European Commissioner for the Environment, Janez Potocnik, has been monitoring the Naples trash crisis for several months, promising to implement tough measures if the situation did not improve.

Last year, the European Court of Justice condemned Italy for its failure to adopt adequate measures to deal with the trash situation in the southern region of Campania, of which Naples is the capital.

If Italy is condemned for a second time, penalties would be applied to past and future infractions.

The Naples trash problem is prone to constant flareups.

This summer, thousands of tonnes of trash covered the city’s streets and the surrounding provinces, leading to routine waste fires and street protests from citizens.

There was a previous outcry last November when weeks of clashes and rising piles of rubbish brought Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi to the city.

The premier won plaudits by sorting out a similar emergency in 2008 and made a vow to clear the streets in three days.

But the problems have continued because of technical failures in local incinerators and the lack of investment in other landfill sites.

The issue is further complicated by the role of the local mafia, or Camorra, and claims that they have infiltrated waste management in Naples and dumped toxic waste on sites near residential areas.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



EU Warns France Over Bonus Channels to Canal+, TF1 and M6

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, SEPTEMBER 29 — France could be taken to the European Court of Justice for assigning digital television frequencies, the so-called ‘bonus channels’, to the three broadcasters Canal+, TF1 and M6 without presenting a tender. The European Commission states that the French procedure is against European regulations, harms competing broadcasters and deprives television viewers of a wider choice. According to Brussels, the procedures followed by France to assign the bonus channels, introduced in 2007 before the shift to digital television (DTT), without tender is against European law for several reasons. First of all, this way of assigning frequencies is only allowed in the case of general interest, which is not in question in this case. Brussels also claims that the assignment of bonus channels discriminates new broadcasters, which are forced to present proposals without any guarantee of success. France has two months time to comply to EU legislation. If the country fails to do so, the Commission could turn to the European Court of Justice.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



EU: Spain Risks Fines for Regulations on Zoos

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, SEPTEMBER 29 — Spain risks paying heavy fines for not adapting their practices in several regions to European regulations on zoos. After a ruling by the European Court of Justice in 2010, the European Commission found that the new regulations were transposed on a national level, but were not implemented locally. The government in Madrid did not provide sufficient proof that several zoos were being run in line with EU criteria, in particular regarding licenses, inspections and procedures for closing structures. The zoos found to be in violation are in the regions of Aragon, the Asturias, the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, Cantabria, Castile and Leon, Extremadura and Galicia. A formal letter of warning was sent from Brussels on a recommendation from EU Commissioner for the Environment, Janez Potocnik. If Spain does not provide sufficient responses, the commission could resort to a new recourse to the Court of Justice, requesting fines to be issued.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



EU-Morocco: Accord on Fisheries, EP Rejects Appeal to Court

(ANSAmed) — STRASBOURG, SEPTEMBER 29 — European Parliament will not appeal to the European Court of Justice for an opinion on the legality of the agreement on fisheries between the EU and Morocco. With a solid majority (302 against, 221 in favour, 30 abstained) Parliament rejected the request formulated by a group of 77 MEPs to verify if the deal involving making use of the fishing resources in the Western Sahara region is in line with EU and international law. In particular, the court would have had to verify if the inclusion of the Western Sahara region into the agreement respects the interests of the local population. According to Andrew Duff, a British Liberal Democrat who promoted the initiative, this verification is “particularly important during a period like the Arab Spring, where we are calling for the respect of human rights, democracy and transparency”. With the Treaty of Lisbon effective, now European Parliament must approve the EU’s international agreements. Therefore the approval procedure will move forward without the opinion of the European Court of Justice. The issue will be examined by the European Parliament Fisheries Committee meeting in November and will be voted on during the plenary session in December.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



France: Senate Veers to the Left — Alarm Call for Sarkozy

(ANSAmed) — PARIS, SEPTEMBER 26 — France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy has today held a meeting with Premier Francois Fillon and Jean-Francois Cope’, the General Secretary of the majority party (UMP) on the day after an historic defeat for the country’s Right in elections for the Upper House.

Apart from analysing the election results, the meeting was also aimed at deciding on the futures of two ministers elected to the Senate yesterday: Defence Minister Gerard Longuet and Sports Minister Chantal Jouanno, given that twin appointments are incompatible. Yesterday’s terrible results — it has been 50 years since the Left last managed to win a majority of seats in the Senate — comes as an alarm call to Mr Sarkozy, seven months ahead of the 2012 presidential elections. Meanwhile, with the majority of Senators now provided by the Left, battle has started for the nomination of the Senate Speaker, a role conducted up until today by Sarkozy loyalist, Gerard Larcher.

The vote for the Senate’s Speaker takes place on October 1.

It is a vote of great symbolic importance because, as in Italy, this is the second-highest political position in the land. The Socialists have already issued a warning to the ruling Right: there will be no fudging of the issue in the interests of keeping the position in Right-wing hands. Following yesterday’s victory, the Senate Speaker will have to come from the Left.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Germany’s Enormous Hidden Debt

Handelsblatt, 23 September 2011

“The Truth,” leads Handelsblatt, giving short shrift to the alleged parsimony of the German state — and the astronomical numbers support it. Officially, German debt in 2011 stands at 2,000 billion euros. But that’s only half the truth, because the major portion of expenditure for pensioners, the sick and dependent persons is not included in the calculation. According to new figures, the real debt is 5,000 billion euros. If these figures stand, Germany is in debt to the tune of 185 percent of its gross domestic product and not 83 percent, as officially declared. By comparison, Greek debt should be 186 percent of GDP in 2012, and Italy’s debt is currently at 120 percent. The critical threshold beyond which debt crushes growth is 90 percent. Since coming to power in 2005, Angela Merkel, “has created as much new debt as all the chancellors in the previous four decades together,” writes the chief economist of the business daily. “These are 7,000 billion euros on a bad cheque that we have signed and our children and grandchildren will have to pay.”

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Germany: RTL Reviewing Security After Kurds Storm Studio

German television network RTL is reviewing its security arrangements after a group of Kurdish sympathizers stormed one of their Cologne studios and staged a sit-in protest.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



German Survey: Former East Less Trusting Than Former West

A team of German and British social scientists have published a new study into trust in more than 50 countries. Germany as a whole ranked in the top ten, although those in the western part are more trusting than easterners. The study, the results of which were released this week by Jacobs University in Bremen, found that trust is generally strongest in western, modernized countries and weakest in poorer countries.

Of the countries surveyed, people in Sweden, Switzerland and Norway trust others the most, while those in Turkey, Rwanda and Trinidad and Tobago are the least trusting. Germany’s ranking was split, based on past research and how the survey evolved: western Germany placed 7th, while former communist eastern Germany 11th. Sociology professor Jan Delhey, who co-authored the study, said the researchers were less interested in the differences within Germany, because they wanted to make a bigger international and cross-cultural comparison.

But he said being an ex-communist country is one factor in determining a country’s general level of trust. Rule of law is very important in generating and sustaining trust in other people,” Delhey told The Local. “East Germany had the legacy of being a socialist country for at least 40 years. In socialist countries the state is very suspicious of its citizens, instilling a general climate of distrust. That would be our main explanation.”

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Greece: Draft Law Presented to Bring in Referendum

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, SEPTEMBER 20 — The referendum as an institution will soon be making its debut in Greece as well.

After months in which Socialist Prime Minister George Papandreou has repeatedly spoken about the importance of this instrument to lead Greeks towards further democratic achievements, Interior Minister Charis Castanidis has presented a draft law on the holding of referendums in Greece. The draft law — as reported by today’s papers — calls for two forms of referendum: one to propose and one to eliminate.

The first is for issues of national importance, both of a social and of an economic nature, while the second concerns laws passed by Parliament but not yet published in the Official Gazette. To call a referendum on an issue of a national character, there needs to be a proposal by the government and the approval of a majority of MPs (151 out of 300). To call a referendum for a law which has already been passed by Parliament, there needs to be a proposal by two-fifths of MPs (120) and approval by three-fifths of MPs (180). The results of the voting for referendums are binding for the government only of at least 50% of the electoral body take part in it. As concerns referendums on issues of national importance, the quorum will be decided during the drawing up of the law by the competent parliamentary committee. The questions on the referendum will be decided by Parliament.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Ireland: Banned Drivers Failing to Hand in Licences

JUST OVER A third of the 1,354 drivers disqualified from driving after accumulating 12 penalty points have surrendered their driving licences.

Figures released by the Road Safety Authority show 531 of the drivers with 12 points handed over a licence to the District Court.

The issue arises because garda do not have the power to seize the licence of a disqualified motorist.

The Minister for Transport, Leo Varadkar, told The Irish Times he plans to close this loophole and make it an offence for a motorist reaching 12 penalty points to fail to hand over their licence.

“It needs to become compulsory to hand over your licence when you get to 12 points. It will need to become an offence. There will be an offence of not presenting your licence,” he said.

Mr Varadkar said he will close another loophole, which has allowed more than 85,000 holders of an Irish driving licence to avoid having the points put on their licence because they failed to bring their licence to court.

A provision to make it a requirement for a driver before the courts is contained in the Road Traffic Act 2010, and Mr Varadkar said he hopes this legislation, which also makes it compulsory to hand over a licence after accruing 12 points, will be enacted in time for the October bank holiday weekend.

Mr Varadkar said he was also considering an increase in the penalty points allocated for two key offences; speeding, and using a mobile phone while driving.

“I am considering adjusting the points allocated for speeding and using a mobile phone,” he said. “I am weighing up the pros and cons of such a move.”

Both offences currently attract two penalty points and the Road Safety Authority has recommended that the points for speeding and failing to wear a seatbelt should be increased to three.

Mr Varadkar said he plans to expand the penalty points system and activate a number of new offences including driving with faulty lights, and failing to wear a motorcycle helmet.

Mr Varadkar said his road safety priority this year was to get road deaths below 200 (last year saw 211 deaths — the lowest on record) and then focus more on the level of serious injuries.

“The focus up to now has been on deaths. But injuries are really important and huge numbers of people are damaged in crashes,” he added.

Mr Varadkar was also generous in his praise of the previous government and former minister for transport, Noel Dempsey.

“The last government gets a lot of criticism but on road safety I think they did a really good job,” he said. “Road deaths would not have gone down by the amount they have had it not been made a priority.”

           — Hat tip: McR [Return to headlines]



Italy: IDV Leader Asks Napolitano to Put Govt Out of Its Misery

(AGI) Rome — IDV leader Di Pietro called on the Head of State to put the government out of its misery. “As usual, they are intentionally missing the point. Today, I warned of a real danger faced by the country. A social revolt is drawing near and can break out at any time”, Antonio Di Pietro wrote in a statement. “Failing to understand the seriousness of the present situation would mean closing our eyes and pretending that nothing’s happening. This is something Gaddafi can do in Libya, not Berlusconi in Italy” Di Pietro added.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Italy: Dismissal Plea Filed Against Parliament’s Ruby Objections

(AGI) Milano — Milan’s Prosecution Office files against Parliament’s ‘conflict of attributions’ claim in the ‘Ruby’ case. With Parliament having argued that the Milan Prosecution Office lacks jurisdiction in the case involving an alleged underage prostitute — Ruby — and the Italian premier, Silvio Berlusconi, chief magistrate Edmondo Bruti Liberati today informed of the Office’s filing for Parliament’s case to be either “rejected or declared unfounded.” .

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Netherlands: PVV Calls for Referendum on Minarets

The anti-Islam PVV wants to hold a referendum on the building of new minarets in the Netherlands, along the line of the Swiss vote, party leader Geert Wilders said on Wednesday.

Wilders said he is to submit draft legislation to parliament to pave the way for a public vote.

‘Minarets hurt the eyes. They are the towers of a rising desert ideology ,’ the Telegraaf quoted Wilders as saying.

Minarets have nothing to do with religion, he said. Rather, they are meant to be an ‘ imperialist and ideological sign of domination’.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



New Experiment Aims to Trap Bizarre Antimatter

A new project is underway at the European physics lab CERN to produce antimatter versions of protons and trap them for study. Antimatter is the spooky cousin of normal matter. For every regular subatomic particle, there is thought to be a corresponding antiparticle with equal mass and opposite charge. When a particle and its antimatter partner meet, they annihilate each other to become pure energy.

The Geneva, Switzerland-based CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) is home to other famous physics experiments, notably the world’s largest particle accelerator — the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC — and the OPERA experiment that recently announced the detection of particles that appear to be traveling faster than light.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Nuclear Plant Phase-Out Gets Swiss Go-Ahead

The Swiss parliament on Wednesday voted to phase out the country’s nuclear plants, about six months after the Fukushima accident in Japan. It followed a June vote by the lower chamber to back an exit from nuclear energy recommended by the government, which had earlier frozen plans for a new construction programme after the Fukushima atomic plant explosion.

Bern said it would count on the development of its already considerable hydro-electric plants and other renewable energy to make up for the loss of nuclear power, while not ruling out importing electricity. If necessary the country could also fall back on electricity produced by fossil fuels, a statement added, while still respecting targets set under Switzerland’s climate change policy.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Security Officers to Patrol Swiss Trains With Guns

Security officers patrolling Swiss trains will carry firearms from the summer of 2012 in a bid to halt rising violence against ticket controllers, the rail service SBB said Thursday. “The pistol will be hidden and the agent will use it only in the case of violence, in order to defend himself,” an SBB spokesman said. Some 200 security agents patrol Swiss stations and trains at the moment, and their number will increase to 250 in 2012.

Cases of physical violence against train personnel fall between 2005 and 2010 from 278 to 147, but the number of serious attacks has increased, said the spokesman. The Swiss government in August authorised SBB to provide firearms to its security agents. The Swiss parliament, which was also consulted, was unable to find an agreement on the topic, and had asked the government to decide. Swiss border, cantonal and military police are already allowed to carry firearms on trains.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Shipping: Greece’s Sector Grows Larger and Younger

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, SEPTEMBER 16 — Greek shipowners placed orders for 91 new ships worth 9.4 billion USD and bought 98 used ships of all kinds, worth 3 billion USD, in the first seven months of 2011 as daily Kathimerini reports. They currently have 654 ships under construction (310 in Korea, 298 in China, 22 in Japan and the rest elsewhere), totaling a capacity of 63.2 million deadweight tons. Chinese shipowners, by contrast, invested a total of only 2.4 billion USD in the same period, according to a survey by Clarksons. The Greek-owned fleet in June numbered 4,714 vessels, from 4,655 a year earlier. Of these, only 2,046 were Greek-flagged (compared to 2,126 in June 2010), comprising 567 cargo vessels, 544 tankers, 705 ferry boats and 230 ships of various other categories. Greek-managed shipping companies with vessels up to nine years old rose to 151 in 2011, from 30 in 1998.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Shipping: Greek Merchant Marine Fleet Down

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, SEPTEMBER 21 — Greece’s merchant marine fleet fell by 3.7% in July this year, compared with the corresponding month in 2010, after an increase of 0.3% recorded in July 2010, ANA news agency reports citing data from the Hellenic Statistical Authority (Helstat). The statistics service said the Greek merchant marine fleet totaled 2,041 ships in July, with a gross tonnage of 43,154,944, up 0.4% compared with July 2010.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Spain: Zapatero’s Last Appearance in Parliament

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, SEPTEMBER 21 — This morning in Madrid was Spanish Socialist prime minister Jose’ Luis Zapatero’s last appearance in Parliament after almost eight years in power. The head of the Spanish government took part for the last time before the dissolving of the chambers on Monday for the early general elections set to take place on November 20, in the last debate with opposition leader Mariano Rajoy in the Congress of Deputies.

The prime minister said that over the past few years his government had had to lead the country through “the most serious economic crisis in the past 80 years, which forced three countries to request outside help”, claiming to have “protected social cohesion as much as possible”. Zapatero did however claim “responsibility” for the high unemployment rate in the country, which is near 21%. Rajoy, who the latest polls show in the lead for the November 20 elections and as the likely future prime minister, said that Zapatero is leaving behind “a poisoned inheritance” to his successor. The head of the outgoing socialist government is not standing as a candidate for the elections nor is he running for a seat in parliament. The Socialist are led in the early general elections by prime minister candidate Alfredo Rubalcaba.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Spain to EU Court for Local River Regulations

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, SEPTEMBER 29 — The European Commission has referred Spain to the EU Court of Justice for not aligning their water legislation to EU policy, specifically regarding regulations on the management of rivers at a local level. After already sending a message on the matter and in the absence of the necessary measures being taken, Environmental Commissioner, Janez Potocnik, decided to appeal to the EU Court of Justice. The member states had until the end of 2003 to adopt regulations, rules and administrative procedures required by European policies. Spanish legislation in this case has not yet been modified to conform, in particular regarding plans for the management of river basins. According to Spanish law, several requirements apply only to rivers that flow through more than one region and not to those present in a single region. The requirements involve areas such as the conditions to grant exceptions, the management of bodies of water used for the extraction of drinking water and inspecting the ecological health and chemical compositions of surface waters.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Swiss Parliamentarians Vote for Burqa Ban

Swiss parliamentarians approved on Wednesday a far-right move to impose a ban on the burqa or other face coverings in some public places, including on public transport. With 101 votes against 77, the lower chamber of the house approved the motion titled “masks off!”. The draft bill will still have to be examined by the upper chamber.

Put forward by Oskar Freysinger, a politician of the Swiss far-right SVP party, the motion requires “anyone addressing a federal, cantonal or communal authority exercising his or her functions, to present themselves with their faces uncovered.” Burqas would also be banned on public transport, while “authorities can ban or restrict access to public buildings to such individuals in order to guarantee the security of other users.” Explaining the motion, Freysinger noted that “at a time when insecurity is growing in our streets, more and more people are hiding their faces behind a balaclava, a mask or a burqa. “This makes it impossible to identify these people, a fact that is particularly troublesome in case of violence or identity checks,” he noted.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



UK: EDL Leader Convicted of Assault

The leader of the English Defence League is facing a possible jail sentence after being convicted of assault.

Stephen Lennon launched a verbal attack on a fellow member of the far-right group before headbutting his victim, Preston Magistrates’ Court heard.

Lennon, 28, founder of the EDL, “goaded” a crowd of followers during a rally by 2,000 supporters in Blackburn on April 2.

The 28-year-old, from Luton, Bedfordshire, launched a tirade against a man, who was accused of putting messages on the internet about police informers and “grasses”, before trouble broke out in the crowd among EDL members, the court heard.

Alan McKee, 33, from Gateshead, was pulled from the crowd by stewards for his own safety and taken away by police officers.

But the court heard he later confronted Lennon about his speech as the rally continued with other speakers. Lennon, who was surrounded by his own security guards and EDL stewards, then lunged or stepped forward and headbutted Mr McKee.

Lennon denied assault and claimed during his speech he had harangued another man, also called Alan, an Alan Smith, from Newcastle, who was a member of an EDL splinter group, the North East Infidels, intent on causing trouble.

The court heard from two police officers, Pc Paul Green and Pc Andrew Sumner, who told the court they were on hand when the incident happened. Both maintained they clearly saw Lennon headbutt Mr McKee.

After a day-long trial District Judge Peter Ward said he believed the police officers and convicted Lennon of common assault. Sentencing was adjourned until November 3 when police will apply for a criminal Asbo (Anti-social behaviour order) to prevent Lennon attending EDL rallies.

Outside court, Lennon said: “It’s a fit-up. They are fabricating evidence. I have had ongoing harassment. All this is about getting an Asbo that will ban me from demonstrations and protests. It is meant to be a democracy but this is a stitch-up.”

           — Hat tip: Gaia [Return to headlines]



UK: Why All the Apologies, Ed?

by Martin Bright

The Labour Conference 2011 has turned into a horrible misery-fest. What a daft idea to make the theme of the conference: “We’re really sorry, we won’t do it again”. At least it’s not the slogan, although it would have been more honest than “Fulfilling the Promise of Britain”. I agree with Steve Richards in the Independent that the pessimism is self-fulfilling. This does not feel like a platform for re-election.

[…]

[Reader comment — Ricky, 27 September 2011 at 6:03 pm]

Yet another delusional article by a cheerleader for the Regressive Alliance..

The tribalism of the comrades is so vindictive and confrontational. They seem incapable of accepting that other people in our country do actually have good ideas or are clever or honest or inspirational or are even people of goodwill. The arrogance, entitlement and certainty of the Left is quite chilling. Harman’s creepy story about shielding her baby from Margaret Thatcher’s gaze shows how demented and hateful socialists really are.

Most are people haters and their loathing for mankind drives their command and control mentality. For a decade they tried to lock us into a politically correct “intellectual gulag”, so fearful are they of open ideas and challenging debate. Their control over the judiciary, education, the police, the BBC, the public sector, the MSM is almost total and that’s why the alternative message is rarely heard. They used huge borrowings from China and Brazil to bribe a third of the electorate. They created a massive public sector that became addicted to unearned subsidies. They flooded the country with voting fodder and educated a dependent generation schooled in Marxist dogma. No wonder the addicts still yearn for the simple world view they were promised.

They prefer to assume rights of ideas over the rest of us and are fuelled by loathing and contempt. They are frozen into a kind of late nineteenth century world view — based upon syndicalism, Marxism, Fabianism & Chartism and are yet to move on into our century. Yesterday’s bruvvers & sistas — all.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Balkans


Kosovo: Witness Describes to UN Tribunal Rivalries Between Albanian Rebels

The Hague, 26 Sept. (AKI) — A prosecution witness at retrial of former Kosovo prime minister Ramus Haradinaj Monday described to the United Nations war crimes tribunal rivalries between the Kosovo Liberation Army and the Armed Forces of the Republic of Kosovo (FARK) who fought against Serbian rule during 1998/99 conflict.

The protected witness, listed as 077, told the tribunal a FARK brigade entered Kosovo from Albania in June 1998, but was ordered by Haradinaj, a regional commander of the KLA, to “go back where they came from”.

The KLA’s political leader was current Kosovo prime minister Hashim Thaci, while FARK was formed by a rival group headed by late Kosovo president Ibrahim Rugova.

Haradinaj came to FARK camp in the village of Papracani in western Kosovo, fired in the air and told FARK commander Tahir Zemaj to leave.

Zemaj reportedly criticised his behaviour saying: “We shouldn’t fight among ourselves”.

The FARK brigade was allowed to stay for a while and later left. The witness said he heard that Haradinaj’s aide, Idriz Balaj, known as Toger, came to the FARK camp and marched away five soldiers who were later killed.

The witness said he escaped to neighbouring Montenegro and later found refuge in a European country.

“I was faced with the prospect of being killed and that no one would know whether I was killed by Serbs of Albanians,” he said.

Haradinaj, who briefly served as prime minister after Kosovo was put under UN control in 1999, was indicted in 2005 for crimes against Serb, Roma and non-loyal Albanian civilians.

He and Balaj were acquitted in 2007 for lack of evidence, while a third accomplice, Lah Brahimaj, was sentenced to six years in jail. But the tribunal’s appeals panel ordered a retrial, saying the first trial was conducted in an “atmosphere of intimidation of witnesses”.

Several witnesses were killed or died mysterious deaths before and during the trial and many refused to testify.

Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority declared independence from Serbia in 2008, a move opposed by Belgrade.

Kosovo has now been recognised by more than eighty countries, including the United States and 22 out of 27 members of the European Union.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

North Africa


Libya: Italy’s Oil Giant ENI Re-Starts Production

(AKI) — Italian energy company Eni is resuming production in Libya after the more-than-seven-month-long civil war that ousted longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi brought output to a virtual standstill.

Eni is re-starting production in 15 Libyan wells in Abu-Attifel, located 300 kilometres south of the eastern port city of Benghazi, the company said in a statement.

Before the conflict between Libyan rebels and forces loyal to Gaddafi, Eni was the top foreign producer of oil and gas in the North African country.

Eni is working in partnership with Libya’s state-run oil company NOC at Abu Attifel bringing production to 31,900 barrels a day and will soon re-start other wells.

“In the coming days, other wells will be re-activated in order to reach the required volumes to fill the pipeline connecting the field to the Zuetina terminal,” stated Eni.

On Friday, French oil giant Total said it had resumed production from an offshore oil platform off Libya, making it the first major to return to work since the fall of Gaddafi.

Eni signed an agreement in Tripoli in August with Libya’s new rulers to allow the company to resume output in the country as soon as possible.

Due to the fighting, production from Libya had fallen to around 50,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day from 280,000 barrels, Eni said in July.

Prior to the conflict, Eni got 13 percent of its revenue from Libyan natural resources.

Italy was Libya’s biggest trading partner before it supported UN-mandated military action by Nato forces to protect civilians from attack by Gaddafi’s armed forces and to enforce a no-fly zone.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



NATO: Gaddafi Forces Weak; Mission Will be Over in 3 Months

(AGI) Naples- “Our mission continues, because Gaddafi’s forces are still threatening the population”, claims Charles Bouchard.

The NATO operations chief for Libya further explained, “a few days ago, 25 families were swapped near Sirte by government forces asking for food and water in exchange”. The general noted that “the Colonel’s troops have lost the ability to coordinate amongst themselves and to carry our broad-scale attacks; they are only executing isolated initiatives”. Which is why he “trusts” that the ‘Unified protector’ mission will be finalized within the 3 months envisaged by the mandate renewed yesterday by NATO members and partners. “The Colonel’s forces only control small pockets of the country, mainly near Sirte and Bani Walid. The latest reports tell us that Wedan, Jufrah and Sabha have also come under the NTC’s control”.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Tony Blair Had Six Secret Meetings With Gaddafi in Libya

(AGI) London — Tony Blair had six private meetings with Gaddafi in Libya after he left Downing Street in 2007, not just two. It was reported by the conservative Sunday Telegraph, according to which the revelation casts a shadow on the nature of the relations between the former British prime minister and the Libyan dictator.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

Middle East


Is Turkey Going Rogue?

by Daniel Pipes

In a Middle East wracked by coups d’état and civil insurrections, the Republic of Turkey credibly offers itself as a model thanks to its impressive economic growth, democratic system, political control of the military, and secular order. Recep Tayyip Erdogan effectively bought the June 2011 elections by pumping credit into the Turkish economy. But, in reality, Turkey may be, along with Iran, the most dangerous state of the region.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Lebanon: Patriarch Bechara Rai and the “Arab Spring”. Tensions With Paris and Washington

After France, rumors of discontent within U.S. government over patriarch Béchara Raï’s speech. Trip to the U.S. capital, where the patriarch is scheduled to meet President Obama, postponed. The delicate situation of the Lebanese Christians, in the grip between Sunnis and Shiites. The quest for peace and coexsistence.

Beirut (AsiaNews) — It all started in Paris in early September. Invited by France, to which the newly elected Maronite patriarchs grant — according to an ancient tradition — their first official visit, the patriarch Béchara Raï gave a certainly balanced, but nonetheless, out of the ordinary speech. On his return to Lebanon, a statement by the Quai d’Orsay — the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs — announced that “France is surprised and disappointed” by the intentions expressed by the patriarch, during the press conference held in the context of the visit.

A few days ago the Maronite Patriarchal seat announced that patriarch Raï’s visit to Washington, in the context of a pastoral visit this October to the United States, where there is a thriving Maronite community, was canceled. And in the context of this visit to U.S. capital, of the possibility of organizing a meeting with President Obama was under consideration. A few days earlier, the U.S. ambassador in Lebanon Maura Connelly had visited Bkerke. Logical conclusion: after France, the U.S. is also unhappy about the positions taken by the Maronite Patriarch about the Hezbollah movement and the Arab Spring.

But what, specifically, are these positions? Regarding the Arab Spring, the patriarch has not taken a public position, but greatly mitigated France’s staunch claim that Syrian President Assad “is over.” The head of the Maronite Church, informed about what is happening in Syria to by Maronite priests and bishops living in the country, warned the French President Sarkozy that in no way should the risk of “confessional drift” in the Sunni Muslim country be underestimated, where the Sunni community represents about 80% of the population.

By saying as much, the patriarch Raï seemed to favour President Assad’s holding on to power, whose dictatorial regime is — in principle — secular, against the possible rise of a Sunni theocracy. But this is not at all what the Patriarch Raï said. The latter has sought to explain that he only “described a situation”, but in no way intended to “take sides” with the Syrian regime. The patriarch also fears a military drift in the Syrian revolt, which would result in a civil war between the Sunni majority and the Alawite minority, of which is part President Bashar al-Assad. A civil war, the Patriarch said, would ultimately — and inevitably — lead to a division of Syria, a prelude to a “fragmentation” of the Arab world along ethno-religious lines. The Maronite Patriarch supports a “civil” regime, in which religion is separated from the State and trusts in the virtues of pluralism.

As for Hezbollah, of which in public statements the patriarch appeared to justify the possession of weapons, the Maronite Patriarchate insists that the weapons will remain legitimate as long as the West — which some identify with the “international community” — fail to remove the pretexts with which Hezbollah justifies its maintenance of arms: a helpless Lebanese army, without air cover, without anti-tank rockets, and Israel’s belligerent policy, characterized by the continuous occupation of strips of land that belong to Lebanon.

Patriarch Raï confirmed these beliefs — which some believe are also supported, albeit discreetly, by the Vatican — two days ago during a series of extended meetings between religious leaders held, at the express request of the Maronite Patriarchate, at the headquarters of Dar el-Fatwa, the Council of the Sunni community. A meeting also wanted, in part, to correct the impression that the Maronite Patriarchate is playing the “Shiite” card against the Sunni community, as part of an adventurous “alliance of minorities”. Instead the patriarch’s initiative proves his will to consolidate the “national pact” between the Lebanese and their desire to live together.

However, this effort faces two crucial points, carefully avoided during the session: Hezbollah arms, the function of which are not as altruistic as the pro-Iranian party’ would like make believe. These weapons, in fact, are crucial in the regional geopolitical equation, and place Lebanon within the Syrian-Iranian axis, against the axis formed by the West. And the second, decisive question: the International Tribunal to judge the murder of Rafik Hariri in 2005. From this point of view, the Sunnis and Shiite conflict is clear, since the explicitly accuses militants of Hezbollah, as perpetrators of the massacre. Hezbollah conducted a broad campaign to discredit the Tsl, to push the Lebanese government to withdraw its share of funding. For the opposition, this campaign is to double check that Hezbollah has betrayed Hariri and cleared, in collusion with the Syrian regime.

Currently it is unclear how the Maronite Church will address these two major dilemmas, which represent the main obstacle to real peace within civil society, which would protect Lebanon and the Lebanese Christians from any upset. We know only that the government of Nagib Mikati has imposed this requirement at the top of his priorities, but without any guarantee of success.

In addition, the volatility of the situation in Syria is such that, once again, questions arise spontaneously. What will the consequences for the Christians of that country be, of a militarization of the revolt that no one can control? And what are the consequences, in this case, of the alleged support that the churches have given to the incumbent regime, at the very moment when the West calls on Arab countries, including Lebanon, to strongly disassociate themselves from this regime?

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Now Even Al Qaeda Tells Iran’s Ahmadinejad to Stop the Conspiracy Theories Blaming the U.S. For 9/11iranian President Called it ‘The September 11 Mystery’

Outspoken controversial Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been told by Al-Qaeda to stop his conspiracy theories claiming that the U.S. was to blame for the 9/11 attacks.

The terrorist organisation has reportedly sent a message to the Iranian president asking him to stop spreading his ‘ridiculous belief’ about the 2001 attacks which killed nearly 3,000 people.

According to the Guardian, Iranian media reported on Wednesday quotes from Al-Qaeda’s English language magazine, criticising Ahmadinejad’s latest comments.

The Iranian leader caused a U.S. delegation to walk out of his UN general assembly speech last week when he cast doubt over the official version of the 2001 attacks by referring to 9/11 as a ‘mystery’.

Delegates from several other countries, including Israel, Ireland and Fiji, also walked out while Ahmadinejad was still talking.

According to Iranian media, the article in Inspire said: ‘The Iranian government has professed on the tongue of its president Ahmadinejad that it does not believe that Al-Qaeda was behind 9/11 but rather, the US government.

‘So we may ask the question: why would Iran ascribe to such a ridiculous belief that stands in the face of all logic and evidence?’

The Guardian reported that the Al-Qaeda article insisted it was behind the terror attacks, before criticising Ahmadinejad for discrediting the terrorist group.

The Inspire article continued: ‘For them, Al-Qaeda was a competitor for the hearts and minds of the disenfranchised Muslims around the world. Al-Qaeda… succeeded in what Iran couldn’t.

‘Therefore it was necessary for the Iranians to discredit 9/11 and what better way to do so? Conspiracy theories.’

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had outraged the UN last week by calling the 9/11 attack on the U.S. ‘a mystery’ shortly after the 10th anniversary of the atrocity.

In a speech full of questions which were no more than thinly veiled attacks on the U.S. he asked the UN who had used the ‘mysterious September 11 incident’ as a precursor to war and to dominate the Middle East?

He added: ‘By using their imperialistic media network which is under the influence of colonialism they threaten anyone who questions the Holocaust and the September 11 event with sanctions and military actions,’ he said.

When the idea of an independent fact-finding investigation of ‘the hidden elements’ involved in the attacks was raised last year, he said, ‘my country and myself came under pressure and threat by the government of the United States.’

‘Instead of assigning a fact-finding team, they killed the main perpetrator and threw his body into the sea,’ Ahmadinejad said, referring to the U.S. military’s killing of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in early May.

‘Would it not have been reasonable to bring to justice and openly to trial the main perpetrator of the incident in order to identify the elements behind the safe space provided for the invading aircraft to attack the twin world trade towers?,’ he asked.

No stranger to outrageous comments, Ahmadinejad began his speech by highlighting the plight of the world’s poorest nations, but included the U.S. in that by saying the country suffered from ‘inequality’.

Ahmadinejad then cryptically said this year he planned ‘to analyse the current [global] situation from a different angle’.

He then went on to single out a regular target of his, blaming Zionism for the wars in the Korean peninsula and Vietnam.

           — Hat tip: Gaia [Return to headlines]



Syria: US Ambassador Pelted With Stones and Tomatoes

(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, SEPTEMBER 29 — The American Ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, was attacked this morning in Damascus by a group of loyalists who threw stones and tomatoes at the U.S.

official immediately after he visited a well-known dissident. So reports pan-Arab TV network Al Arabiya, which cited eyewitnesses. By the end of August ambassador Ford was also attacked in the centre of Damascus by loyalist demonstrators. One of them tried to wrap a banner depicting Syrian President Bashar al Assad around the US envoy. Eyewitnesses quoted by al Arabiya report that the attack on Ford and the diplomatic convoy that accompanied him took place near the house of Hassan Abdel Azim, an elderly dissident and leader of a coalition of illegal parties. Azim has repeatedly asked the regime to end the bloody repression of anti-government demonstrators.

Last week French ambassador Eric Chevalier was pelted by a group of loyalists armed with sticks, stones, eggs and tomatoes in the old centre of Damascus. This attack took place immediately after his meeting with the leader of the Orthodox Church in Syria. Both ambassadors had been showing their support to the popular uprising in public since June, before moving to Hama, the heart of the rebellion where they met the demonstrators.

After that they visited Jassem, a town in the southern region of Daraa, the activists’ main stronghold. Chevalier and Ford were present two weeks ago at the funeral ceremony for Ghiyath Matar, a young activist from Daraya, suburb of Damascus, and leader of the peaceful protest movement. She was arrested and killed under torture by the security services. According to the eyewitnesses, two cars of the US embassy have been damaged, and dozens of loyalists are still surrounding the house of the opposition member.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Turkey Threatens to Blacklist Firms Working With Cyprus

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, SEPTEMBER 22 — Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan threatened to blacklist international oil and gas firms working with Cyprus on Mediterranean exploration, and stop them from participating in energy projects in Turkey, as daily Kathimerini website reports today. Turkey’s Energy Ministry is drawing up sanctions on companies that meet the criteria, Erdogan said in televised comments from New York. The prime minister spoke Wednesday after signing a continental-shelf accord with northern Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu that allows Turkish Cypriots to define and drill in waters surrounding the island. Noble Energy Inc., a US company, started drilling September 18 in Cyprus’s southern waters. Erdogan said Turkey’s agreement with northern Cyprus counters the Greek Cypriot decision to start exploration meanwhile Turkey’s navy and air force are monitoring activities in the eastern Mediterranean.

Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. from the US, Brazil’s Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Norway’s Statoil ASA and Royal Dutch Shell Plc are among companies that have offered to work with the state oil firm Turkiye Petrolleri AO (TPAO) in Mediterranean drilling, Istanbul-based Sabah said.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

South Asia


Pakistan: Faisalabad: Magician Who Burns Qur’an in Ritual Ceremony Arrested for Blasphemy

According to police, Muhammad Akram, 45, has practiced “necromancy and black magic for years.” Muslim leader slams the practice but hails the ‘black law’, which guarantees peace and stability in society. A Lahore Sikh leader, active in interfaith dialogue and harmony, is targeted by extremists.

Faisalabad (AsiaNews) — Muhammad Akram, 45, a self-styled magician from Faisalabad (Punjab), was arrested on blasphemy charges for burning a copy of the Qur’an during a ritual ceremony. A resident of Faisalabad’s Mureedwala suburb, he has practiced necromancy and black magic for years, police sources report.

Muhammad Sarfraz, a merchant, hired Akram to conduct “black magic against a business rival”. The two men left together yesterday for the cemetery of Mir Ali, a village in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The two began chanting magic words over a Qur’an. At the end of the ritual, Akram burnt the copy of Islam’s sacred book. Sarfraz reacted angrily to the act, shouting at Akram, drawing people to the scene where they attacked Akram for his blasphemous action.

Senior Police Superintendant Rana Iqbal confirm that “divination and black magic are commonplace in rural areas”, especially among the illiterate who “hope to solve their problems through magic”.

The official added that “Muhammad Akram is one of a number of self-styled magicians who trick people in Mureedwala”, an area where people still live in “darkness”.

Police charged Muhammad Akram under Section 295 B of the Pakistan Penal Code, the so-called ‘black law’, which often leads to the extrajudicial murder of people accused of blasphemy before or during their sentence.

Lahore Sharia expert, Mullah Syed Hassan Tabish, condemned the profanation of the Qur’an and those who practice magic, playing “with the lives of innocent people”. However, for him, the blasphemy law is legitimate because it punishes “acts contrary to Islam”. In fact, “Islamic laws are the best in the world to maintain a balanced and peaceful society”.

In the meantime, Sardar Bishon Singh, the 74-year-old head of the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, is still in hiding after Islamic extremists threatened him. As a leader of Pakistan’s Sikh community, he has complained several times against the discrimination and attacks suffered by his community.

Originally from the tribal areas of Khyber Pukhtunkhawa Province, he moved to Lahore in 1993 to start an import business. In the past six months, Singh became the target of fundamentalists who hit his stores in Lahore’s commercial district on more than one occasion.

Speaking about another attack against a leader of a Pakistani religious minority, Fr Francis Xavier slammed the discrimination endured by “Urdu-speaking Hindus and Sikhs, who pay their taxes and love their homeland like all other Pakistanis” of the Muslim faith.

“We demand immediate protection for Sardar Bishon Singh,” the clergyman from Lahore Diocese said, because “he is a prominent leader of his community and his services for his community and interfaith harmony are remarkable. Such a person is an asset for the country”.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Pakistan: Punjab: Armed Muslims Rape a Christian, A “Common Practice”

A 32 year old woman and mother of five children was abducted and raped in turn by three men. Threats to the husband to force him to withdraw his complaint. Police officers covering the crime, drawing up a report full of holes. Priest in Lahore: Christian violence against women is widespread and scandalous.

Lahore (AsiaNews) — The rape of Christian women in Punjab has become a “common practice” an “outrageous” phenomenon compounded by the fact that “the police protect the guilty” and not the victims. This is the bitter synopsis of Fr Jill John, of the Diocese of Lahore on the last recorded case of sexual violence against a Christian mother. The family calls for justice, but is struggling against a society in which the defenders of the law support the rapists. Even human rights groups like Masihi Life for All Foundation have intervened on the matter, asking government authorities to target the perpetrators of crimes and punish the corrupt and conniving police officers.

The incident dates back to Sept. 15, but the news filtered through only in recent days. Arifa Mushtaq (name changed for security reasons — ed) 32, mother of five was abducted and raped by three Muslims . Her husband Muashtaq Masih a worker at the Kasur sanitation department, in a devastated condition said, “Arifa use to work in a garment factory, on the y evening of 15 September she was coming home from work, she got off the bus, two local Muslims grabbed her from the back. Another armed accomplice came and put a gun on her head”.

The woman began to scream, then asked the trio to leave her free to think their children who were waiting at home. Instead, the men took Arifa by force to a house and, one by one, they raped her. The family is in shock and even their attempt to report the rape has added insult to injury: the Muslims have threatened her husband, warning him to withdraw the lawsuit. Otherwise, his children will have to go through what his wife has gone through. The police has also protected the perpetrators, putting pressure on Muashtaq Masih.

Fr. Jill John confirms that “the police helps the guilty, with omissions and gaps in the compilation of complaints to favor their freedom.” The family of the raped woman, added the priest, are now living in fear while criminals are free to roam the streets of the town. “How much longer — he asks — will we see the children of God suffer? And when will Mushtaq Masih’s family get justice? “. He appealed to the police chief of Punjab and the Minister of Justice to target the corrupt police officers and protect the family.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



The Muslim Party’s Demands and Islamisation in Sri Lanka

In an interview, A.R.M. Itmtiyaz, political scientist of Temple University in Philadelphia, looks at the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), a party that wants a seat at the peace table with Tamils and Sinhalese. For the academic, the party, which is part of the ruling alliance, should instead be more concerned about the rise of fundamentalism within its own community.

Colombo (AsiaNews) — “The ruling regime can solve the problems that afflict Muslims in north-eastern Sri Lanka, but is doing nothing,” said A. R. M. Itmtiyaz, associated professor in the Department of Political Science in Temple University, Philadelphia, United States, as he spoke about protests by the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), the country’s largest Muslim party, against the exclusion of the Muslim community from interethnic talks.

Last week, SLMC President Basheer Segu Dawood even called on the international community to induce the Sri Lankan government to give his party a specific role in the peace process.

Speaking to AsiaNews, Prof Itmtiyaz explains what role the Muslim community plays in the island nation’s interethnic conflict. He looks at the SLMC’s errors and explains why its request to the international community is unhelpful. He also discusses the growing Islamisation of the country’s Muslims, a trend that has been ignored by moderate and liberal Muslims so far.

Professor, what do you think of Muslim leaders’ dissatisfaction in Sri Lanka?

The ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka is the by-product of ethnocentric policies of successive Sri Lankan governments, dominated by the Sinhala-Buddhists. The conflict, which later transformed itself into a brutal war against the Tamils and the Tamil Tigers [known as the LTTE], who were the babies of the ethnic conflict disproportionally, affected Muslims as well. Muslims were expelled by the LTTE from the Northern region in 1990. Three hundred Eastern Muslims were killed at prayer time inside their mosque in 1991 and Muslim wealth was confiscated in the Jaffna, Batticaloa and Amparai districts in the North-Eastern Province. Muslims, particularly in the North and the East, lost their peace and security due to the ethnic conflict. Muslims claimed that the Tamil Tigers treated inhumanely.

Apart from the Eastern Muslim elites’ desire to enjoy power, the marginalization of northern and eastern Muslims was the main reason that progressively contributed to the formation of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress in the mid of 80s.

The SLMC’s rational was politically correct, because marginalized groups often seek a political voice, and in democratic setting, they often appeal to moderates to seek justice. There was a demand from both elites and masses among the Northern Eastern Muslims for political accommodation if and when there was attempt to find a solution to the ethnic conflict. Their demands were often ignored by the major Tamil and Sinhalese parties in the conflict. The LTTE, which successfully challenged state terrorism, did not want to see Muslims at the negotiation table. Even after the military collapse of the LTTE, Tamil moderates do not seem to move away from the LTTE position. On the other hand, the government of Sri Lanka, which got all the support from the Muslim elites against the LTTE and the Tamil nation, did not consider the Muslims as equal partners in a peace settlement. Muslim elites and politicians who had and have great record in supporting the government of Sri Lanka for political and economic reasons did not mobilize their key demand for a separate seat for Muslims.

Do you agree with the president of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress?

In fact, the demand for a separate seat is reasonable. However, the Muslim political establishment, which had aggressively supported the war against the LTTE that killed more than 40,000 innocent Tamils, can win their demands from the government. The latter should address the concerns of the Muslim masses. Now the SLMC is part and parcel of the regime. They are accountable to whatever the regime does, and should be able to settle the major problems that affect the North and Muslims. Such a political outcome may only be possible if the SLMC has some political courage and is sincere in working for the interests of Muslim masses. My point is that the SLMC should focus on the issues that affect Muslims and seek solutions rather than asking global actors to help win Muslim representation at the negotiation table.

How are Sri Lanka and its Muslim Community today?

Muslims in Sri Lanka constitute approximately 8 per cent of the country’s population. They speak mainly Tamil, but their claims are distinct from those of the Tamils despite the fact that they speak the same language and embrace some cultural elements associated with the Tamil nation. They are from three different ethno-social backgrounds: the Sri Lanka Moors, the Indian Moors and the Malays. The others include the Memons, the Bohras, etc. The term Moors used by the Portuguese in the 16th century refers to the Arab Muslims and their descendants. The term was applied to identify their religion and had no role in identifying their origin. They were scattered along the coastal areas but some of them moved into the interior, perhaps to avoid persecution by the Portuguese and the Dutch who once ruled the Maritime Provinces. Though the majority of Muslims (62 per cent) live in predominantly Sinhalese areas, outside the North and East of Sri Lanka, the other 38 per cent live in the Tamil-dominated North-East.

There is a long standing opinion that Muslims are rich and are vibrant. But reality suggests however that most Muslims of Sri Lanka, regardless of their geographical location, are economically weak and have to struggle to earn a decent life. Muslim schools lack qualified teachers and scientific management. Actually, they are one of the most marginalized and poor ethnic groups in Sri Lanka.

The community is now experiencing a process of psychological Islamisation as more and more a strict adherence to Islam and the Muslim dress code prevail, isolating those who do not agree with Islamisation. This also comes with attacks against Sufis. This trend is very noticeable not only among the Muslims of the North and East, but also among the Muslims of the South and West, including Colombo, where Muslims have always been relatively liberal in their religious outlook.

Islamic radicalization is in an early stage and has its origin in political and social factors. Those who are in power or associated with the Sinhala political class, particularly Muslim political elites and politicians need to understand the reality on the ground, and adopt political moves to find solutions.

Such measures can help weaken Islamic fundamentalists and rescue Muslims from joining global jihadists who have become aware of marginalized Muslims in the subcontinent. In reality, Muslim elites, politicians and scholars are in denial when it comes to Islamisation and the recent growth of Islamists. Some of those who deny the reality are actually aware of the reality, but prefer to discuss it within the community and avoid outside attention.

Communities often want to hide their problems and choose instead to paint a nice picture of themselves. This is not only common to Sri Lanka Muslims; it can be seen among the non-Muslims in Sri Lanka and beyond. The point is that denial is dangerous, because when you deny the problem, finding a real solution will be difficult, from elites to the masses.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



The Vast Asian Realm of the Lost Humans

THE Denisovans, mysterious cousins of the Neanderthals, occupied a vast realm stretching from the chill expanse of Siberia to the steamy tropical forests of Indonesia — suggesting the third human of the Pleistocene displayed a level of adaptability previously thought to be unique to modern humans. Our first tantalising glimpse of the Denisovans came last year with DNA analysis of a bone and tooth found in a Siberian cave. The DNA was distinct enough from Neanderthals’ to suggest tens of thousands of years of independent evolution.

Before they disappeared, the Denisovans found time to interbreed with Homo sapiens. As a result, 5 per cent of the Denisovan genome lives on — not in the inhabitants of Siberia but in Papua New Guineans, living thousands of kilometres to the south-east. “I don’t think many people would have predicted that,” says Mark Stoneking of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Stoneking has now compared the Denisovan genome with an additional 33 populations from mainland Asia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Polynesia, Australia and Papua New Guinea. He found Denisovan genes in east Indonesia, Australia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Polynesia.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

Far East


Duties on Poultry: The Latest Act in the Trade War

The United States has lodged a formal complaint against China at the World Trade Organisation for duties imposed on exports of poultry from Beijing. This is only the latest case, in order of time, in a no-holds-barred confrontation between the two powers.

Peking (AsiaNews / Agencies) — The United States has lodged a formal complaint against China at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). According to Washington, Peking violated international law last year when it imposed duties on exports of American poultry.

According to Ron Kirk, the U.S. representative at the WTO, tariffs have hit a sector that employs about 300 thousand people, in addition, the rates have doubled the price of poultry, nearly eliminating demand for it. This is just the latest in a series of cases that have pitted the U.S. and China against one another at the Organisation. Washington has already submitted several complaints regarding the duties imposed by the Asian giant on steel products and derivatives, which are essential for the installation of wind turbines. Because of this situation, the U.S. government, led by Barack Obama, has been the target of the Republican opposition: they want to respond to the duties with sanctions against China, guilty of maintaining the value of its national currency artificially low.

The trade war between the two economic giants, however, is likely to continue along these lines. Just yesterday, the American ambassador to Beijing, Gary Locke, asked Communist officials to ensure “increased access” to the internal market to foreign actors, in order to respond to the “growing frustration” of non-Chinese industrialists and to “respond to the needs of a increasingly developing China.”

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Philippines: Christians Dispossessed and Silenced in Mindanao

In Jolo, Marawi and Basilan, Christians are afraid to express their faith. Because of constant attacks and kidnappings, the churches can only be entered through a side door, guarded 24hrs. The experience of Muslim-Christian dialogue proposed by Silsilah.

Manila (AsiaNews) — In Jolo, Marawi, Basilan and other areas of Mindanao, the Christian minority is suffering harassment and pressure from the Muslim population, AsiaNews’ sources in Mindanao say. Government officials are forcing Christians to sell their land to make room for Chinese industries.

According to sources, the climate of impunity, the abductions, the continuing clashes between the army and extremist Islamic groups and the economic crisis have created an unbearable atmosphere for the Christian population, who are afraid to express their faith in public.

“Jolo Cathedral”, they explain, “is located at the center of the city, and has always been a symbol of unity and friendship between Muslims and Christians. Until a few years ago, the main door was open at all hours, but due to the continuous episodes of vandalism, the Cathedral can now be accessed only through the side entrance. The churchyard is guarded day and night by military and police.”

Sources say that the situation is the same in Basilan and Cotabato. Here in recent weeks both churches were hit with paper bombs that damaged the part of the walls and windows. These acts provide publicity for the young extremists, who learn intolerance against Christians from unscrupulous preachers, often funded by foreign countries, who aim to spread a restrictive and fundamentalist vision of Islam. “The situation is very difficult”, AsiaNews sources explain, “Christians are not permitted to react. The only alternative to escape is to suffer these abuses in silence.”

For Fr. Sebastiano D’Ambra, PIME missionary in Zamboanga and founder of Silsilah (“chain”), a movement for interreligious dialogue, there are nevertheless some signs of hope that could change the future situation of these provinces, considered the most dangerous on the entire archipelago. “In Basilan”, he says, “we have organized a series of meetings with Muslim and Christian leaders where we recounted our experience of interreligious dialogue made in other cities and listened to the problems experienced by the local population. This has sparked a relationship among the various local religious leaders, including the bishop and high Islamic authorities, who for several months have been collaborating to address the problems of the two communities.”

From this experience of dialogue was born the Interfaith Council of Leaders, which aims to get Christians and Muslims to meet to discuss concrete facts and not theoretical problems. For example, the priest explains that Basilan’s population has no access to electricity. To solicit the government, representatives of the Christian and Muslim communities wrote a manifesto of protest, with some concrete proposals useful in addressing the problem.

“What we propose”, said Fr. D’Ambra, “is a spirit of dialogue that touches on all aspects, not only matters of religion. Our task is not simply to speak of dialogue, but to respond in a concrete way to the reality that surrounds us.”

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

Australia — Pacific


Bolt is Guilty But the Law is Wrong, Let the Markets Deal With Racial Discrimination

Political activists and bad legislation have combined to create the extraordinary situation where eligibility for awards and prizes can’t be questioned.

Not all prizes and awards — we can still mock Wayne Swan’s Euromoney award — but only those that have an ethnic component to them.

In a society increasingly obsessed with ethnicity and race this will quickly become a problem.

Andrew Bolt has been found guilty of violating section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act by suggesting that several individuals had claimed Aboriginality in order to further their careers.

           — Hat tip: Nilk [Return to headlines]



If a Shark Takes Me, Blame Me, Not the Shark: Briton’s Words Before Great White Attackhe Was Regular Swimmer Who Ignored Warning of Shark in the Water

A Briton was last night in a critical condition after losing both his legs in a shark attack.

Witnesses said the man, named as Michael Cohen, had gone swimming despite warnings that a shark was circling close to the beach in Cape Town, South Africa.

The 43-year-old is said to have swum regularly at Fish Hoek beach, notorious for Great White sightings, even telling fellow beachgoers: ‘If a shark takes me, then blame me, not the shark.’

Witnesses said he parked his car and then walked right past a flag indicating that the beach was closed.

At least two people warned him that a shark had been seen, but he strode into the water anyway.

Tracy Sassen, a former South African surfing champion, watched as Mr Cohen was taken by the 10ft Great White only a few yards from the beach.

‘I saw two swimmers in the sea, even though the beach was closed,’ she said.

‘I saw a burst of water and thought it was a seal taking a fish or something. Then people started rushing into the sea and pulling this guy out of the water. He was moaning and crying and pleading with them, “Please help me, please help me”.

‘He was very white and in shock. Half of one leg was missing and the ankle on the other leg was badly bitten.’

Monwabisi Sikweyiya, one of the shark-spotters who guards the bay each day, helped drag Mr Cohen from the water and used his own shorts and belt as tourniquets.

He said of Mr Cohen: ‘He was very interested in sharks and respected them, but never took any notice of our warnings.

‘We warned him often that he was taking a risk, but he always said “If a shark takes me, then blame me, not the shark”.’

The shark remained in the bay for some time after the attack and the beach will remain closed indefinitely. Sharks have claimed a number of swimmers and surfers there in recent years.

Last night Mr Cohen was expected to undergo at least six hours of surgery in Cape Town for ‘very serious injuries’.

It is believed the keen swimmer, who is single, was born in Canada but holds a British passport and spent several years living in the UK before moving to South Africa.

The latest incident comes just weeks after British honeymooner Ian Redmond, 30, was killed by a shark as his bride watched him snorkelling in the Seychelles.

           — Hat tip: KGS [Return to headlines]



Western Australia Girls Admit Shocking McDonalds Condom Hoax

A GROUP of Geraldton schoolgirls have admitted to a shocking hoax at McDonald’s in which a two-year-old girl was found chewing on a condom in the restaurant’s playground.

A McDonalds spokeswoman said today a group of local schoolgirls had admitted planting the used condom filled with vanilla icecream in the cubby house of the Geraldton outlet.

The company launched an investigation this week following the incident on Saturday after a complaint was made by the girl’s father.

The toddler’s father said he was having lunch inside the restaurant when his daughter walked in with what he thought was a used condom in her mouth.

McDonalds said the girls were very remorseful for the prank and the company would not take further action against them.

“The students have apologised, expressing remorse for their actions and the distress caused to the family involved,” the McDonalds spokeswoman said.

“While this was a very careless prank that has caused unnecessary concern, we appreciate the girls coming forward and won’t be taking the matter further.”

           — Hat tip: Nilk [Return to headlines]

Immigration


500 Migrants Taken Away, Other 500 Today

(AGI) Agrigento — About 500 migrants have been taken away from Lampedusa, late yesterday evening and early this morning. They have been flown to infrastructures in Sicily and in Southern Italy. There were 1,040 migrants left after yesterday’s first flights. Agrigento Chief of Police, Giuseppe Bisogno reported to Agi that in the upcoming hours the remaining 500 will leave the island and will be flown to the same infrastructures.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Migrants’ Revolt in Lampedusa, Tunisians in Jail

(AGI) Agrigento — The Tunisians arrested yesterday after the Lampedusa revolt have been transferred to the Petrusa Jail in Agrigento. Tuesday revolt culminated with the arson of the Lampedusa holding center. That was the first act of an episode of urban guerrilla which involved the local inhabitants as well. The disorders produced eleven injured people, one of whom, a Tunisian, is in serious conditions at the Palermo hospital where he was airlifted. The arrested parties are accused of arson, damages and resisting arrest.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Switzerland: SVP to Immigrants: Don’t Mess With the Swiss Flag

The vice president of pro-immigrant organization Secondos Plus has infuriated far-right politicians and others in Switzerland with his “humorous” calls for a new Swiss flag, contributor Meritxell Mir reports. What started as a joke to provoke reflection on Swiss values has turned into a nightmare for Ivica Petrusic and Secondos Plus, an association for children of immigrants born in the country.

More than a month ago, Petrusic, the vice president of the lobby group, suggested the cross should be removed from the Swiss flag to bring it more in line with today’s “multicultural Switzerland.” In two recent interviews, Petrusic sought to defuse the issue. Instead, debate flared anew and now Petrusic faces threats from groups on the extreme-right.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

Culture Wars


US Ambassador Urges Serbia to Secure Gay Pride

— BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — The U.S. ambassador to Serbia has urged authorities to provide security for an upcoming gay pride march that has faced threats from extremists.

Mary Warlick said in a statement Wednesday that pride marches present an “important and widely-accepted vehicle” for the gay community to advocate their rights. Serbia’s pride march is set for Sunday, but there are fears it could erupt in violence similar to last year’s when more than 100 people were injured. A right-wing group has scheduled its own gathering on the same day.

Warlick praised the Serbian authorities for securing last year’s event despite the attacks, and urged them “to do everything possible to facilitate a successful and safe event this year as well.”

           — Hat tip: Kitman [Return to headlines]

General


Earth Surrounded by Fewer Potentially Dangerous Asteroids Than Thought, NASA Finds

A NASA space telescope that meticulously mapped the entire sky has found fewer potentially dangerous asteroids that orbit near Earth, space agency officials announced today (Sept. 29). The discovery significantly lowers the number of medium-size asteroids near Earth to 19,500 — nearly a 50 percent drop from the 35,000 space rocks initially estimated — and suggests that the threat to Earth by dangerous asteroids may be “somewhat less than previously thought,” NASA officials said in a statement. Still, there are thousands more of these asteroids, which can measure up to 3,300 feet wide, that remain to be found.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



‘Magic Mushrooms’ May Permanently Alter Personality

Just one strong dose of hallucinogenic mushrooms can alter a person’s personality for more than a year and perhaps permanently, a new study finds.

People given psilocybin, the compound in “magic mushrooms” that causes hallucinations and feelings of transcendence, demonstrated a more “open” personality after their experience, an effect that persisted for at least 14 months. Openness is a psychological term referring to an appreciation for new experiences. People who are more open tend to have broad imaginations and value emotion, art and curiosity.

This personality warp is unusual, said study researcher Katherine MacLean, because personality rarely changes much after the age of 25 or 30. (In fact, one recent study found that by first grade our personalities are set pretty much for life.)

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Planet Mercury Full of Strange Surprises, NASA Spacecraft Reveals

Mercury is not just hellishly hot but apparently covered in brimstone. A vast part of the planet is covered with dried lava — enough to bury the state of Texas under 4 miles of the stuff, scientists say. These and other strange discoveries about Mercury were announced in seven papers released in the Sept. 30 issue of the journal Science, a trove of knowledge from NASA’s Messenger probe, covering everything from odd landscape to the planet’s magnetic core.

Messenger, which stands for “Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging,” marks humankind’s first-ever orbiter around the solar system’s smallest and innermost planet. It is only the second probe even to just visit, following the Mariner 10 flyby in the mid-1970s. Launched in 2004, the $446 million Messenger spacecraft began orbiting Mercury in March.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

News Feed 20110928

Financial Crisis
» EU Hushes Talk of Multi-Trillion Bail-Out Ahead of German Vote
» Greece: Investors in Hotel Industry Prefer to Wait-and-See
» Obama’s Euro-Crisis Lecture is ‘Pitiful and Sad’
» Petrol: Greek Prices Second Highest in Europe
 
USA
» Federal Agents Charge Ashland Man With Targeting Pentagon, Capitol With Aerial Explosives
» Obama Administration Asks Justices to Rule Quickly on Health Law
 
Europe and the EU
» Belgium: Breaking Up is Hard to Do
» British Muslims Unwilling to Integrate Into British Society
» Germany’s Anti-Muslim Scene: Authorities Debate Surveillance of Islamophobes
» German Muslim Converts in UK Court on Terror Charges
» Germany: Dismantling Nuke Plants to Cost €18 Billion
» Ireland: Call for Welfare Pay Cap as Couple Claim €90k a Year
» Populist Extremism in Europe Here to Stay Report Says
» Sweden: Malmö Pleasure Boat in New Firebomb Attack
» Switzerland: They Take Away the Bulls to Bring Us the Moors
» UK Marching Banned — Govt Calls the Tune
» UK: Jailed Fraudster Had Hundreds of Fake IDs
» UK: Video: Police Ban Bible From Christian Café
» US, Russia and EU Gave Green Light for Cyprus Drilling
 
Balkans
» Srdja Trifkovic: ‘KFOR Troops Exceeded Their Mandate in Kosovo’
 
North Africa
» Algerian Army Attacks Salafist Hideouts
» Egypt: Al-Azhar: “US Democracy, Example Not to Follow”
» Egyptian Christian Girl Banned From School for Not Wearing a Veil
» Libya: Islamic Groups Must be in Gov’t, Warns Military Chief
» Return of the Islamists: A Questionable Form of Freedom for North Africa
» Sarkozy in Tangier Tomorrow to Launch High-Speed Train
» Tunisia Sets Price for Pilgrimage to Mecca
» Tunisia: Religious Affairs Minister Rejects Burqa
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» Caroline Glick: A Prayer for 5772
 
Middle East
» Gulf: Lengthy Timeline and Uncertain Results
» Iran Nuclear Drive Heightens Risk of Strike: France
» Syria: Maronite Patriarch, Risk of Sunni-Alawite War
» Syria: Nuclear Engineer Murdered in Homs in Targeted Killing
 
Russia
» On the Hit List: Russia Hunts Down Chechen Terrorists Abroad
 
South Asia
» Following Terror Attacks, Kazakhstan Hurriedly Tightens Religious Law
» Pakistan’s Jihad Against the USA
 
Far East
» China to Launch 1st Space Lab Module on Thursday
» US & China: Space Race or Cosmic Cooperation?
 
Immigration
» 60,000 Land in 2011, 51,000 on Pelagie Islands
» Asylum Seekers From Arab Spring Pour Into Europe
» EP: OK to 43.9 Mln Euros More for Target States
» France: Six Dead in Paris Immigrant Squat Fire
» The Left is Rewriting Britain’s Immigration History
 
Culture Wars
» Dress Witches in Pink and Avoid White Paper to Prevent Racism in Nuseries, Expert Says
 
General
» Facebook Privacy Issues: Social Network Watching When You’re Logged Out
» ‘We Didn’t Mean to Track You’ Says Facebook as Social Network Giant Admits to ‘Bugs’ In New Privacy Row”

Financial Crisis


EU Hushes Talk of Multi-Trillion Bail-Out Ahead of German Vote

European politicians are trying to avoid too much talk of a multi-trillion-euro revamp of the eurozone’s crisis strategy ahead of a crunch vote in the German parliament, with the German finance minister denying plans for such an increase to the bail-out fund and French ministers saying it is necessary to stay quiet until after the vote.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Greece: Investors in Hotel Industry Prefer to Wait-and-See

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, SEPTEMBER 28 — Potential investors in the Greek hotel industry are currently taking a wait-and-see stance due to the prevailing feeling of uncertainty with regard to the local economy, as daily Kathimerini reports. According to Andreas Andreadis, president of the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises (SETE), while a number of hotels are currently up for sale, no major transactions have been recorded so far, with few exceptions. For instance, while about 15 hotels of all categories have gone on the market in the region of Thessaloniki in the last two years, only one sale was made, at a particularly low price. “At this point in time, it is predominantly Balkan and Russian investors who are showing an interest in the purchase of tourist accommodation,” noted Andreadis. This is also due to the fact that certain areas in northern Greece are no longer defined as high-security border zones where foreigners are not able to purchase property.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Obama’s Euro-Crisis Lecture is ‘Pitiful and Sad’

US President Obama has given the Europeans a harsh lecture on the dangers of their ongoing debt crisis. Offended by the unsolicited advice, Europeans have suggested the US get its own house in order first. Obama’s remarks were “arrogant” and “absurd” German commentators say on Wednesday.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Petrol: Greek Prices Second Highest in Europe

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, SEPTEMBER 28 — Greek motorists paid the second highest price for unleaded and diesel petrol in Europe in September, ANA reports citing a survey by EL.PA, the Hellenic Motorists Association. The report showed that Holland (1.737 euros per litre), Greece (1.657), Portugal (1.618), Italy (1.603), France (1.552) and Ireland (1.429) recorded the highest prices, while Byelorussia (0.660), Kosovo (1.23), Luxembourg (1.118), Spain (1.25) and Austria (1.344) recorded the lowest prices for unleaded petrol. Greece (1.451 euros per litre), Germany (1.45), Belgium (1.463), Portugal (1.412), Italy (1.475), Ireland (1.399) and France (1.343) recorded the highest prices while Andorra (1.099) and Luxembourg (1.159) the lowest diesel petrol prices.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

USA


Federal Agents Charge Ashland Man With Targeting Pentagon, Capitol With Aerial Explosives

Federal authorities today arrested and charged a 26-year-old Ashland man with plotting to damage the Pentagon and US Capitol with a remote-controlled aircraft filled with C-4 plastic explosives.

Rezwan Ferdaus, a US citizen, was also charged with attempting to provide material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization, specifically to al-Qaida, in order to carry out attacks on US soldiers stationed overseas, the US attorney’s office said in a statement.

He apppeared for an initial status hearing today in US District Court in Worcester. Prosecutors are seeking that he be detained without bail until his trial. A detention hearing will be held at 3:30 p.m. Monday.

“The conduct alleged today shows that Mr. Ferdaus had long planned to commit violent acts against our country,” US Attorney Carmen Ortiz said. “Thanks to the diligence of the FBI and our many other law enforcement partners, that plan was thwarted.”

She added, “I want the public to understand that Mr. Ferdaus’ conduct, as alleged in the complaint, is not reflective of a particular culture, community or religion. In addition to protecting our citizens from the threats and violence alleged today, we also have an obligation to protect members of every community, race, and religion against violence and other unlawful conduct.”

The statement said that the public was never in danger from the explosive devices, which were controlled by undercover FBI employees.

Ferdaus also was closely monitored as his alleged plot developed and undercover agents were in frequent contact with him.

Federal prosecutors said that Ferdaus, a Northeastern University graduate with a physics degree, began planning to commit violent “jihad” against the US in early 2010.

He allegedly obtained mobile phones and modified them to act as switches for improvised explosive devices, and provided them to FBI undercover agents, believing the devices would be used against US soldiers overseas. Prosecutors said that in a June 2011 meeting, he “appeared gratified” when he was told that one of his triggers had killed three US soldiers and injured four or five others in Iraq.

“That’s exactly what I wanted,” Ferdaus allegedly said. Ferdaus delivered more of the devices and was anxious each time to know if they had worked and how many Americans had been killed.

In recorded conversations beginning in January, Ferdaus allegedly also told a cooperating witness that he planned to attack the Pentagon using aircraft similar to “small drone airplanes” laden with explosives and guded by GPS devies.

In April, he allegedly expanded his plans to include attacking the US Capitol. In May and June, he allegedly delivered two thumb drives to agents that contained detailed plans of his proposed attacks.

In May, he allegedly traveled to Washington, conducting surveillance and taking photos of targets, as well as his proposed launch site, East Potomac Park. He told an undercover agent after his Washington visit that he wanted to couple his “aerial assault” with an armed ground attack, involving six people with automatic firearms.

Between May and September, prosecutors said, he ordered and acquired materials for his plans, including a remote controlled aircraft. He also received from undercover agents on Tuesday “(what he believed to be) C-4 explosives, six fully-automatic AK-47 assault rifles (machine guns) and grenades,” prosecutors said in a statement.

“Although Ferdaus was presented with multiple opportunities to back out of his plan, including being told that his attack would likely kill women and children … Ferdaus never wavered in his desire to carry out the attacks,” prosecutors said.

Richard DesLauriers, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston Division said, “Today’s arrest was the culmination of an investigation forged through strong relationships among various Massachusetts law enforcement agencies to detect, deter, and prevent terrorism.”

           — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness [Return to headlines]



Obama Administration Asks Justices to Rule Quickly on Health Law

The Obama administration asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to hear a case concerning the 2010 health care overhaul law. The development came unexpectedly fast and makes it all but certain that the court will soon agree to hear one or more cases involving challenges to the law, with arguments by the spring and a decision by June, in time to land in the middle of the 2012 presidential campaign.

The Justice Department said the justices should hear its appeal of a decision by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, that struck down the centerpiece of the law by a 2-to-1 vote.

[Return to headlines]

Europe and the EU


Belgium: Breaking Up is Hard to Do

Ryan James Girdusky

While Europe sovereign debt crisis has been the center of world news, a separate quandary has also been taking place in Europe. The nation of Belgium has been without a government since June 1, 2010 — nearly 500 days — surpassing Iraq and Cambodia to break the world record. Greece may have a lesson to teach America about spending and debt, but Belgium’s lesson on multiculturalism may be more important.

The crisis is between the Wallonia region in the south and the Flemish region in the north the former is French speaking and the latter is Dutch. The conflict centers on the long standing cultural differences: linguistic, socio-economic, and ethnic. This comes despite the liberal establishment’s best efforts over the last half century to convince us that culture doesn’t matter.

During the last election, the New Flemish Alliance, a pro-secession party, won the largest share of the nation’s Chamber of Representatives, 27 out of 150 seats. The other secession parties, the Flemish Interest Party won 12 seats and the List Dedecker which has 1 seat. Essentially 27% of the elected officials in Belgium’s lower house support partition. With the remaining political parties unable to form a clear majority due to ideological and cultural differences, the Belgium government went on hiatus. Negotiations for a coalition government have been underway ever since. Last week, Elio Di Rupo, leader of the Socialist Party, stated that the eight party talks were close to reaching an agreement and a coalition government. If a new government is not formed, elections will most likely be held within the next year. Many Belgians, including the Belgian King Albert II, fear new elections would only widen the Flemish separatists majorities.

Regardless if a coalition government can be formed, Belgium has been on the road to dissolution since 2007. That marked the first time that a secession party won a large share of the Flemish electorate. The Walloon electorate’s majority was the Reformist Movement. Debate raged between the two along the lines of cultural issues; ultimately Belgium went six months without an interim government. Despite Belgium’s economic stability in comparison to most other European countries, there is a long standing desire for a nationhood amongst the Flemish people.

In the case of Flanders independence, The Walloon Rally, a pro-secession Wallonia party, has already met with French officials from France’s two ruling parties, coming to the agreement that Wallonia would become the 28th region of France. According to a poll by the French newspaper Le Figaro, roughly half of Walloons and two-thirds of French citizens support such a plan. This would mark the first time two-thirds of the French have agreed on anything since the guillotine. 41% of all citizens in the Flemish part of Belgium supported pro-secession parties despite newspapers claiming the actual support for secession is much lower…

           — Hat tip: TV [Return to headlines]



British Muslims Unwilling to Integrate Into British Society

[…]

The majority of British Muslims do not want to adopt the traditions of the local population. According to WikiLeaks, up to 40 percent of Muslim students in Britain want to live under shariah laws. As many as 32 percent of them are ready to justify a murder committed in the name of Allah. More than a half of the polled said that they would like to see the Islamic Party in the House of Commons of the British Parliament.

Many members of the Muslim Brotherhood found shelter in the British capital. This radical organization is still banned in many Arab states. The administration of the Syrian division of the organization moved to London in 2000….

           — Hat tip: Kitman [Return to headlines]



Germany’s Anti-Muslim Scene: Authorities Debate Surveillance of Islamophobes

Officials from the BfV, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, will discuss the country’s increasingly vocal Islamophobe scene at a meeting on Thursday. There have been calls to put right-wing populist and anti-Muslim groups under increased surveillance.

Islamophobes in Germany could come under increased surveillance by the country’s domestic intelligence agency. There are concerns that the anti-Muslim scene is becoming increasingly dangerous, and some intelligence officials want it to be subject to greater scrutiny, despite stringent German privacy laws.

The subject will be discussed at a meeting on Thursday between the president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Heinz Fromm, and the agency’s leaders in the 16 German states. Officials in Bavaria are considering putting right-wing populists under observation as a new form of extremism, while Hamburg has declared it is watching an internet discussion forum similar to anti-Islamic website “Politically Incorrect” (PI).

A spokesman from the North Rhine-Westphalia interior ministry told the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper that PI was not currently under observation by intelligence agents, but that the blog was being read closely and that the opinions and comments published on it were “undemocratic.” The xenophobic comments were calculated to “incite young people”, the spokesman added.

Most states are reluctant, however, and the federal interior ministry has also not yet committed itself on the matter. In essence, the question is whether the hatred of Muslims is enough to endanger freedom of religion and international understanding — or whether it is a radical but legitimate expression of opinion by individual authors within the limits of the constitution.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



German Muslim Converts in UK Court on Terror Charges

Two German converts to Islam appeared at England’s central criminal court on Monday charged with having information which could be of use in terrorism. Christian Emde, 28, and Robert Baum, 23, appeared at the Old Bailey court in central London. They were arrested at the port of Dover on England’s southeast coast on July 15. The pair, from the city of Solingen in western Germany, were alleged to have had the material on a computer and a hard-drive. Emde was further charged with four offences under Britain’s Terrorism Act, relating to literature with titles such as “Destroying Buildings” and “Make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom”. The pair appeared in court wearing black prayer caps and refused to stand up for the judge when he entered the room. They were remanded in custody to face trial in February, possibly at the top-security Woolwich Crown Court in southeast London. They will next appear in court in December for a plea and management hearing.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Germany: Dismantling Nuke Plants to Cost €18 Billion

Just dismantling Germany’s nuclear power plants during the country’s phaseout from nuclear energy will cost power companies about €18 billion alone, according to a new study by a consulting firm. The study by the Arthur D. Little firm, seen by newspaper Handelsblatt, comes after German energy companies have complained about the cost and complexity of the phaseout.

The government made the decision to phase out nuclear power by 2022 in the wake of the Japanese earthquake and nuclear disaster earlier this year. The country is aiming to move toward greener energy solutions. The move has been controversial, with many opponents warning that it could lead to power shortages and higher prices for consumers. Another study has estimated that total costs to Germany from the phaseout could hit €250 billion over the next decade.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Ireland: Call for Welfare Pay Cap as Couple Claim €90k a Year

A SENATOR has urged that a cap on social welfare payments be introduced after it emerged a family of four is claiming over €90,000 a year.

The unemployed married couple, who take home €1,763 a week, have four children and live in Dublin. They are originally from Bosnia.

Labour Senator Jimmy Harte called for a cap on the amount of welfare payments a family can receive.

Mr Harte, who received the information from Department of Social Protection officials, said that €50,000 is more than enough for a family to survive on.

“It doesn’t matter if this family is from Bosnia or Ballymun — this is far too much. The family is doing nothing illegal, but the system is wrong when a couple are able to receive €90,000 per year for doing nothing.

“There are married couples out there with two good jobs, working very hard and are not receiving anything like this.

           — Hat tip: Kitman [Return to headlines]



Populist Extremism in Europe Here to Stay Report Says

By Aron Lamm

Extremist parties with a populist and xenophobic agenda “present one of the most pressing challenges to European democracies”, according to a new report from Chatham House.

The report says extremist supporters have often been dismissed as a motley band of economically deprived malcontents who are united only in their dissatisfaction with the way things are, but this is an inaccurate assessment. It shows that people who are drawn to populist extremist parties are anchored in specific social groups and share a specific feeling: Their culture is under threat from immigration and multiculturalism. And they are not likely to go away soon.

Titled “Right Response,” the report is a serious attempt to investigate not only what these parties across all parts of Europe are about, but also who votes for them and why. Furthermore, it seeks to answer the uncomfortable question of whether there is broader appeal for the messages these parties spread. Finally, it gives some recommendations about how traditional parties that have often done a poor job in facing this challenge, can do better

European populist extremism-as the report chooses to label it-encompasses very different parties. They range from large and influential parties, some of which have even been in government such as FPO in Austria, to small groups, which cannot get elected to national parliaments. They are also very different in their political views. Some, such as the True Finns in Finland, are fairly moderate, center-right with some extremist elements among them, while others, such as the German NPD, are more openly racist and considered by many to be neo-Nazis.

They have emerged in three waves, according to studies quoted in the report: One directly following World War II, where overt fascist or Nazi ideas lived on; one in the ‘70s which was largely an anti-tax populist movement; and again in the mid ‘80s, from which support has slowly grown and become more durable. In recent years even countries like Sweden, reportedly immune to these kinds of parties, have found them in their parliaments nonetheless.

What unites these parties, according to the report, is their opposition to immigration plus their attacks on the establishment, and traditional parties, for being corrupt, distant, and not listening to the people. Their voters, on the other hand, are united by deep hostility toward immigration, multiculturalism, and ethnic diversity. Supporters of extremist parties are, on the whole, not irrational, but guided by a deep concern about these issues, although their views may seem distasteful to the majority, the report says.

Supporters also represent a relatively homogenous group of very young or very old males from lower middle or working classes, with little or no education and who are “deeply pessimistic about their economic prospects.” Culture Unity Concerns

Another popular myth about supporters of populist extremist parties, or PEP’s as the report calls them, is that they are mainly concerned about the economy, particularly the loss of jobs, the lowering of salaries, and overloading of the welfare system due to immigration. Surveys have instead shown that the single most important issue for these voters is their perception that their culture is under attack from foreign elements. Cultural unity issues were discovered to be nine times as important as concerns about crimes and five times as important as concerns about national economy.

Ever since 9/11, many of these parties have targeted Muslims and Islam, although some, specifically in Eastern Europe, still focus more on Roma and Jews in their xenophobic rhetoric and policies. Today, many of the parties are riding on a wave of anti-Muslim sentiment in Europe, which is much broader than their own voter support. For instance, according to a 2011 survey, just under half of British, German, Italian, Polish, and Dutch respondents agreed with the statement, “There are too many Muslims in the country,” and even more than half agreed, “Islam is a religion of intolerance.”

According to the report, mainstream parties have banked a little too much on extremist parties fading away as economies improve, immigration policies are tightened, or as their charismatic leaders step down. But the PEP’s of Europe have shown themselves to be more resistant perhaps, as surveys over the years have indicated, because immigration remains an important issue to many Europeans. Thus extremist parties have a favorable environment to work in.

The report recommends that politicians stop ignoring or excluding these parties, but also warns against adopting extremist policies in the hope of winning over their supporters. Instead, the report suggests engagement at the grass-roots level and, at the same time, interaction at the international level in the way many of these parties have been doing for the past two decades. “Until the mainstream parties similarly begin to exchange lessons, root their responses in the evidence, and address the actual anxieties of PEP voters, populist extremists will continue to rally support among a new generation of citizens,” the authors of the report state.

           — Hat tip: TV [Return to headlines]



Sweden: Malmö Pleasure Boat in New Firebomb Attack

The Prins Bernhard pleasure boat moored by Skeppsbron in Malmö was targeted in a firebomb attack on Tuesday night, the second attack on the vessel this year.

Witnesses saw a person throw a fire bomb towards the boat and then run away. The attacker however aimed his throw poorly and the bomb landed on the outside of the ramp leading up to the boat. The firebomb caused a minor fire but otherwise caused little damage. The pleasure boat, a popular venue for parties and events, was closed and empty at the time of the attack. Early on Wednesday morning nobody had yet been detained in the case.

The Prins Bernhard was previously targeted on May 16th when a loud explosion rocked Malmö’s town centre after an explosive had been detonated at the boat’s entrance. The door was forced in by the blast and there was a small fire. On that occasion the fire was extinguished by a door guard who was passing by. The boat was on that occasion also closed for the day and no one was hurt. Tuesday night’s bomb is the latest in a long list of explosions at restaurants in Malmö since the beginning of 2010. All of them occurred at night.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Switzerland: They Take Away the Bulls to Bring Us the Moors

The vice president of pro-immigrant organization Secondos Plus has infuriated far-right politicians and others in Switzerland with his “humorous” calls for a new Swiss flag, contributor Meritzell Mir reports.

What started as a joke to provoke reflection on Swiss values has turned into a nightmare for Ivica Petrusic and Secondos Plus, an association for children of immigrants born in the country.

More than a month ago, Petrusic, the vice president of the lobby group, suggested the cross should be removed from the Swiss flag to bring it more in line with today’s “multicultural Switzerland.” In two recent interviews, Petrusic sought to defuse the issue. Instead, debate flared anew and now Petrusic faces threats from groups on the extreme-right.

During the presentation of the association’s candidates for the National Council on August 23rd, Petrusic made a remark about the city of Aarau, where he lives, and which once was the short-lived capital of the Helvetian Republic. There, for a short period in Switzerland’s history, foreigners had the right to vote. Afterwards, he brought up the former flag of the Confederation, a three-striped banner in green, red and yellow. The next day, his remarks made it into the news and were reported in the manner he insists they were intended: as a joke.

“All Petrusic was trying to do was get people’s attention through humour in order to make them reflect on the values of Switzerland, the past and the future,” Daniel Ordás, a Secondos Plus board member, told The Local. The association has more than 400 members, and the majority hold a Swiss passport.

Yvette Estermann, an SVP lawmaker, said the statement made by Petrusic shows “disrespect” towards Switzerland. She wondered “if the next thing will be to abolish Christian churches” in the country.

“As a way of getting people’s attention, it is a good move, but the problem is that this group is involved in politics, so this is outrageous,” said Estermann, an immigrant from Slovakia herself.

“It is unacceptable that immigrants give orders to their host country on what it has to do,” she told The Local. Estermann also leads the conservative immigrants group Neu Heimat Schweiz (Switzerland New Homeland).

[…]

           — Hat tip: LG [Return to headlines]



UK Marching Banned — Govt Calls the Tune

The UK government has granted police the right to prevent far-right groups from marching through five London boroughs for 30 days, prompting concerns that a dangerous precedent has been set in terms of police power and freedom of expression.

Scotland Yard says it applied for the ban over fears of violence and disorder planned by the English Defence League earlier this month.

The view of workers’ rights activists on the Home Office ban on marching is quite clear. “It is an attack on the basic democratic rights of working people in this country,” says Patrick O’Regan from the Workers’ Revolutionary Party.

           — Hat tip: Kitman [Return to headlines]



UK: Jailed Fraudster Had Hundreds of Fake IDs

An immigration fraudster, who was caught with a cache of fake identities at Belfast docks, has been jailed for 18 months.

Fayyaz Ahmed, a 54-year-old Pakistani national, was arrested while trying to board a ferry in February.

He had three computer memory sticks and two mobile phones containing more than 700 false and fraudulently altered documents.

They could have been used to produce dozens of false identities.

           — Hat tip: Kitman [Return to headlines]



UK: Video: Police Ban Bible From Christian Café

Police in Lancashire have told the owner of a Christian café to stop displaying Bible texts on a video screen, because it breaches public order laws.

Officers attended the Salt & Light Coffee House on Layton Road, Blackpool, on Monday 19 September, following a complaint about “insulting” and “homophobic” material.

The café’s owner, Mr Jamie Murray, says the officers did not specify which Bible texts had caused the offence.

Breach

He says the officers told him that displaying offensive or insulting words is a breach of Section 5 of the Public Order Act, and told him to stop displaying the Bible.

The Bible texts are displayed on a TV screen at the back of the café. Mr Murray uses a set of DVDs called the Watchword Bible.

The DVDs cycle through the whole of the New Testament verse by verse, with the words appearing on the screen. Mr Murray mutes the audio.

Legal

He told the police officers he would agree to stop displaying the Bible verses while he sought legal advice. After speaking with a lawyer, he is once again displaying the material.

The café’s name, Salt & Light, is a quote from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Christian leaflets are available in the café, and it has links with a local church.

Mr Murray is being supported by The Christian Institute, a national charity that defends the religious liberty of Christians.

Free speech

There is widespread concern that the police are misusing the law to clamp down on words or material that others may find “insulting”. Civil rights groups worry about the impact on free speech.

The Christian Institute is calling for the word “insulting” to be removed from Section 5 of the Public Order Act — a proposal supported by the National Secular Society, two civil rights groups Liberty and Justice, and Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights.

A backbench amendment to remove the word “insulting” from the Section 5 offence has been tabled in the House of Commons as part of the Protection of Freedoms Bill. The Home Office has promised to consult on the change, but suggests the problem may be better dealt with by advice to police officers and improvements in police training.

Interrogation

Mr Murray said: “I couldn’t believe the police were saying I can’t display the Bible. The officers were not very polite, in fact they were quite aggressive. It felt like an interrogation.

“I said ‘surely it isn’t a crime to show the Bible?’ But they said they had checked with their sergeant and insulting words are a breach of Section 5 of the Public Order Act. I was shocked.

“I’m not here to insult or offend anyone, but the Bible is the Bible. We’re always being told that we’re a tolerant and diverse nation. Yet the very thing that gave us those values — Christianity — is being sidelined.

Enough

“I’m not looking to make a name for myself, I’d rather be quietly getting on with running my café. But there comes a time when you have to say enough is enough.”

[…]

           — Hat tip: LG [Return to headlines]



US, Russia and EU Gave Green Light for Cyprus Drilling

(ANSAmed) — NICOSIA, SEPTEMBER 28 — The United States, Russia and the European Union all urged Cyprus to not delay with drilling for natural resources, the director of the Cyprus’ energy services Solon Kassinis has said today. It had been claimed that the Cyprus’ government was considering postponing explorations after a series of threats from Ankara. Kassinis, who was speaking on CyBC TV, added that an Israeli plot next to the Cyprus plot has 450 trillion cubic metres of natural gas. He added that within the next few months Cyprus will have an indication of the volume of reserves in her Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Balkans


Srdja Trifkovic: ‘KFOR Troops Exceeded Their Mandate in Kosovo’

[See link for video]

The impartiality of KFOR troops in Kosovo is highly questionable, but the current clashes there won’t escalate into a full-scale conflict as Belgrade fails to follow Serbian national interests, believes foreign affairs author Srdja Trifkovic.

­The recent developments near Kosovo border, with extra NATO peacekeepers moving in to help bring calm, but provoking armed clashes instead bring Trifkovic — a foreign affairs editor in US ‘Chronicles’ magazine — to question their neutrality.

“It is rather ironic that we use the term ‘peacekeepers’, because is implies someone who is impartial, who is there to lower the tension, perhaps to prevent violence. Let us imagine — for argument’s sake — that Bashar Assad has sent his security forces against a group of Syrian demonstrators, and those troops were met with stones; they fired live ammunition back, and then claimed they did it in self-defense. I think that already we can hear the laughter of Western politicians and media. And yet they would have us believe that they were acting in self-defence, when firing rubber bullets and live ammunition at rock-throwing Serbs,” Trifkovic told RT..

“But what were they doing there in the first place? The notion that they were helping [Kosovo Prime-minister Hasim] Thaçi to impose his control on the border between Kosovo and Serbia, which should be properly called administrative dividing line, means they have exceeded their mandate and were no longer acting according to the resolution 1244, which is just about the only legal basis of their presence.”

He went on to recall the events of 2004, when Albanians rampaged through some regions of Kosovo destroying whole Serb districts and Christian monuments…

           — Hat tip: Srdja Trifkovic [Return to headlines]

North Africa


Algerian Army Attacks Salafist Hideouts

(ANSAmed) — ALGERIA, SEPTEMBER 28 — In the forests between Legata and Chouicha an Algerian army operation which began on Sunday, is still underway against posts held by the brigade answering to “Emir” Droukdel (nom de guerre taken on by Abu Moussaab Abdelouadoud), one of the most violent representatives of the disbanded Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat.

Yesterday, after two were killed on Sunday and Monday, another four militants lost their lives. However, the joint operation between the Army and security forces is continuing with the aim of “clearing up” an area in which the presence of terrorists has long been widespread. Aircraft have bombed some of the terrorists’ hideouts and the zone is surrounded and being closed in on, a move which according to sources quoted by Le Temps d’Algerie began when information came in on the movement of terrorists into the Legata forests. The operation may be connected with an incident which happened last week in a village not far from the zone of operation, when a group of terrorists severely injured a woman and her child in an ambush. It had been an error, since the two victims were travelling in a vehicle identical to that of a former member of self-defense groups who the terrorists had wanted to eliminate.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Egypt: Al-Azhar: “US Democracy, Example Not to Follow”

(ANSAmed) — ROME, SEPTEMBER 28 — “United States democracy is not an example to follow”. So said Ahmad Attayyeb, the religious head of Cairo’s Islamic Academy of Al-Azhar, the leading Sunni religious authority in the Islamic world. Attayyeb was speaking as he welcomed the US ambassador to Egypt, Anne Paterson, who was wearing the traditional woman’s headscarf, the hijab, for the occasion.

According to the Emirati daily Al Khaleej, the head of Al-Azhar expressed his indignation and bitterness at the spreading of Islamophobia, and called for the phenomenon to be checked, saying that it is against all rules of democracy and goes against the diversity that is typical of free society.

“Arab and Muslim populations have no problem with the American people,” he said. “The real problem is in the policies of successive American administrations with regard to Islamic issues”.

Talking about the Palestinian issue, Attayyeb criticised America’s complete partiality in favour of Israel (which he called a “Zionist entity”). “This partiality reinforces hatred and the futility for the American administration of taking a fit and proper stance. American partiality will increase Al-Azhar’s determination to defend and support the Palestinian people they have an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital”.

Attayyeb remarked that real democracy comes from the people expressing their desires. “We completely reject the generous financial support given by the EU and the United States to associations that are concerned with unimportant things, while vital issues such as education, poverty and disease are ignored,” he said. “The revolutions and the Arab spring have been born out of the pure desire of the people, and not the financing of the West in general and America in particular, for the creation of a democratic process in the region”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Egyptian Christian Girl Banned From School for Not Wearing a Veil

by Mary Abdelmassih

(AINA) — A Christian girl was prevented for over a week from entering her school in Beni Mazar, Minya province, because she refused to wear a veil. “The school management described her as ‘flaunt’ for not covering her hair,” said Coptic activist Nader Shoukry, who uncovered the story.

“Coptic students were forced to obey for fear of the school management’s threats,” said Mr. Wagdy Halfa, the attorney for the girl, “except for 14-year-old Ferial Sorial Habib, whose family refused this decision because it is inconsistent with religious freedom and a blatant Islamization of education.”

Ferial was prevented from entering her school by the social worker, Ms. Ola Abdel Fattah, for eight consecutive days.

Her father went to school on September 17 to protest this decision, but the school filed a police complaint against him on charges of libel and defamation.

Mr. Wagdy Halfa, the student’s attorney, said the school administration of Shaikh Fadl Secondary School, a public school in Bani Mazar, had sent a warning to Christian students compelling them to wear a head dress, similar to the Hijab, and not to reveal their hair, otherwise they would be refused entry to school.

Ferial’s father filed a formal complaint with the state attorney and another with the Department of Education of Bani Mazar, stating the school has turned into a “hotbed of militants” and has acted out of its legal scope by forcing on students what is not specified by law or in the educational guidelines. He asked the authorities to investigate this incident.

According to attorney Halfa schools are only allowed to choose the color of the uniform. He warned of the seriousness of the incident as it confirms the Islamist program to take control of the education system and impose the veil on Christian women.

Activist Nader Shoukry recalls a similar incident which took place in 2010 in a secondary school for girls in Ayat, Guiza province. In that case human rights organizations which stand against the Islamization of education took the matter up, which was investigated and those responsible were transferred from their posts.

Appearing on Coptic TV Channel on September 25, Halfa said “the school is ready to allow the student to go back to school but only on an ‘amicable’ basis and not through ‘administrative prosecution,’ but her father and I objected.”

“This is a matter that cannot kept quiet or resolved by ‘reconciliation.’“ said Shoukry, “It has to be taken up by rights organizations.”

Said Abdalmaseeh, director of the Egyptian Center for Development and Human Rights, presented a complaint yesterday to the Prime Minister and to the Minister of Education, calling on them to legally respond to the school’s actions, to allow the Coptic student to attend school, and issue instructions to all schools that wearing the veil is optional and not mandatory.

The Zurich-based European Union for Coptic Human Rights Organizations has sent a formal request to the Egyptian Minister of Education, demanding an investigation of the Bani Mazar school incident.

           — Hat tip: Mary Abdelmassih [Return to headlines]



Libya: Islamic Groups Must be in Gov’t, Warns Military Chief

(ANSAmed) — ROME, SEPTEMBER 28 — Libyan Islamic groups “will not allow” some secular politicians to exclude them from the Tripoli government. The message by one of the most powerful Islamic leaders in the country, the military chief Abdel Hakim Belhaj, is clear. “We must resist,” he told the Guardian, “the attempt by some politicians to exclude some of the groups which took part in the revolution. Their short-sighted form of politics renders them unable to understand the high risk of this exclusion and the serious reaction” which could be seen by “those excluded”. The National Transitional Council has not yet managed to form a government, with sharps divisions within it. Yesterday the NTC once again postponed the formation of the new government, announcing that it would be created only after the complete liberation of the country.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Return of the Islamists: A Questionable Form of Freedom for North Africa

The autocrats are gone, but who will inherit power in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt? Islamist influence is significant across the region and conservative political groups are flexing their muscles. The coming months will determine just how much democracy North Africa can support.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Sarkozy in Tangier Tomorrow to Launch High-Speed Train

(ANSAmed) — PARIS, SEPTEMBER 28 — King Mohammed VI has invited the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy to the Moroccan city of Tangier tomorrow for the ceremony marking the beginning of work on the high-speed train line between Tangier and Casablanca.

The news was announced in a statement from the Elysée Palace.

Sarkozy will be joined on the trip by France’s Minister of Industry, Eric Besson, the Transport Minister, Thierry Mariani and the Secretary of State for Foreign Trade, Pierre Lellouche.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Tunisia Sets Price for Pilgrimage to Mecca

(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, SEPTEMBER 28 — The total price for Tunisians who want to make the pilgrimage to Mecca this year has been established at 6012 dinars (around three thousand euros). The price for the upcoming pilgrimage was set by the Ministry for Religious Affairs, which has special authority to do so. The Ministry has also specified that 1330 dinars will be spent on ticket acquisition, the rest for accommodations and transfers in the Islam’s holy places.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Tunisia: Religious Affairs Minister Rejects Burqa

(ANSAmed) — TUNISIA, SEPTEMBER 28 — The road has been barred for burqas in a Tunisia which over the past few months — since the fall of the secular dictatorship of Ben Ali — has seen heated debate over relations between the State and religion. On this matter Religious Affairs Minister Laroussi Mizouri has left no room for doubt. In an interview with the Shems radio station, in addition to discussing religious instruction and respect for mosques (which he said were “under threat”) as a place of worship, Mizouri closed the door on authorising the use of burqas in Tunisia: “it does not belong to the Tunisian tradition”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Israel and the Palestinians


Caroline Glick: A Prayer for 5772

Upon his return to Ramallah from New York, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas was greeted by a crowd of several thousand well-wishers. They applauded him for his speech at the UN. There, Abbas erased Jewish history from the Land of Israel, denied Israel’s right to exist and pledged his commitment to establish a racist Palestinian state ethnically cleansed of all Jews.

Many of Abbas’s supporters in Ramallah held posters of US President Barack Obama. On them Obama was portrayed as a monkey. The caption read, “The First Jewish President of the United States.”…

           — Hat tip: Caroline Glick [Return to headlines]

Middle East


Gulf: Lengthy Timeline and Uncertain Results

(ANSAmed) — DOHA, SEPTEMBER 28 — Citizens in the Gulf Countries are becoming the largest energy consumers in the world. With a 10% increase in energy demand per year, many GCC countries are making preparations to invest in nuclear energy to cover their energy needs and to diversify, thereby reducing their dependence from oil and gas, sources that will not last forever. Four hundred billion dollars are earmarked to be invested in nuclear energy projects in the Middle East. The United Arab Emirates are already building four nuclear reactors, which will be ready in 2017.

Gulf Country citizens have not been given the chance to vote for or against nuclear development, but a broad debate is in progress on the safety of nuclear energy, as well as on its effective capacity to satisfy energy demand and the possibility of developing weapons of mass destruction.

The dual nature of nuclear energy is caused by the fact that the development of this form of energy for peaceful purposes allows countries to buy materials like enriched uranium and plutonium, which could also be used for the construction of weapons of mass destruction.

“The shift from a civilian to a military use of nuclear energy is complex but possible if the political will is there, if large investments are made and if technology is developed that is not crucial for the development of nuclear energy for peaceful use,” said Mario Salve, professor in Nuclear Installations of the Engineering Faculty, Energy Department of the Turin Polytechnic.

But if nuclear energy is developed following the indications of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the transition from peaceful to military use is very complex and ever less feasible, Salve added.

Regarding the capacity of nuclear energy to satisfy growing energy demand in the Gulf Countries, many people believe that it takes too long to develop this energy source and that the results will not be satisfactory. For example, the United Arab Emirates are building four nuclear reactors which will produce 5,600 Megawatt of power after their completion in 2017, just 15% of national energy requirements. On the other hand, the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) believes that nuclear energy will cover 30% of the energy demand in the Emirates by 2020.

Many people see this figure as very optimistic, and still too low to run the risks of a nuclear accident, as the ones that took place in Fukushima and Chernobyl.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Iran Nuclear Drive Heightens Risk of Strike: France

UNITED NATIONS — France’s UN envoy warned that Iran faces the risk of a military strike if it pursues its nuclear drive because certain countries would not accept it having an atomic weapon.

In surprisingly frank comments at a New York panel discussion, Ambassador Gerard Araud on Tuesday followed up on President Nicolas Sarkozy’s statement that there could be a “preventive strike” against the Islamic republic.

Asked what would happen if Iran reaches the threshold of a nuclear weapon, Araud said: “Personally I am convinced that some countries won’t accept this prospect.”

The envoy said the danger of conflict was why France, Britain, Germany, the United States, Russia and China were trying to negotiate with Tehran.

“If we don’t succeed today to reach a negotiation with the Iranians, there is a strong risk of military action,” according to Araud, who did not say who would be likely to carry out such action.

“It would be a very complicated operation. It would have disastrous consequences in the region,” said the ambassador, who has negotiated with Iran in the past.

“All the Arab countries are extremely worried about what is happening” with Iran’s nuclear drive, he added.

Western leaders have repeatedly accused Iran of seeking a nuclear bomb, and the UN Security Council has passed four rounds of sanctions against the Islamic Republic, which Araud said are now biting.

Iran insists its nuclear enrichment program is entirely peaceful and has refused to halt enrichment or allow inspections demanded by the international community.

It has also objected to Sarkozy’s “preventive strike” comments, and said it would hit back at any attack.

Araud said that European negotiators had concluded that Iran does not want to negotiate with the international community and was “moving forward” with its program.

“We have tried everything. Not a stone has been left unturned,” he added.

The French envoy and others on the Security Council have said they cannot see any move to order new sanctions in the next six months at least.

Russia and China both oppose any new punitive measures, and at this month’s UN General Assembly meeting their ministers called again for a negotiated settlement with Iran.

           — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes [Return to headlines]



Syria: Maronite Patriarch, Risk of Sunni-Alawite War

(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, SEPTEMBER 28 — A civil war in Syria between Sunnis and Alawites is the scenario feared by the Maronite Patriarch, Bishara Al Rai, the leader of the East’s most important Catholic church.

In a statement reported today by the media in Beirut, Cardinal Al Rai, who was elected as Patriarch of the Maronites last March, said: “We do not want ongoing events in Syria to lead to a civil war between Sunnis [the majority of the Syrian population] and Alawites [a branch of Shi’ite Islam to which Syria’s ruling clans belong]. A war in which Christians would inevitable be victims”.

Al Rai’s words were reported in the Lebanese press after Radio Coran, a Dar Al Fatwa broadcaster serving Lebanese Sunnis, continued the live broadcast of the Cardinal’ speech during an inter-religious summit between Christians and Muslims held behind close doors in Beirut. The station said that the broadcast was “the result of a technical error”. Al Rai said that he was worried about a potential “seizure of power (in Syria) by fundamentalist organisations, which would force the Alawites, after the civil war, to demand the creation of a state for them. launching the process of dismantling the region”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Syria: Nuclear Engineer Murdered in Homs in Targeted Killing

(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, SEPTEMBER 28 — The campaign of targeted killings is continuing in Homs, Syria’s third city (north of Damascus), which for weeks has been the setting for massive military and police operations against anti-regime protesters.

The national watchdog for human rights in Syria says that the nuclear engineer Aws Abdel Karim Khalil was murdered this morning by what was only described as armed men. Last Monday, the deputy rector of the faculty of architecture, Muhammad Aqil, and the rector of the faculty of chemistry at the military academy, Nael Dakhl, were killed in Homs in separate attacks. Hassan Eid, the head of surgery at the city’s public hospital, was also killed on Sunday.

The official news agency Sana accused what it only described as terrorists of killing the doctor and the two academics. Activists in Homs, meanwhile, have pointed the finger at loyalist militias, saying that they are responsible for silencing three exponents of the regime’s civilian body, who have recently become increasingly critical of the ongoing repression.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Russia


On the Hit List: Russia Hunts Down Chechen Terrorists Abroad

On orders from the Kremlin, Russian agents have been liquidating Chechen terrorists abroad. Turkish investigators suspect that a Russian was also behind the latest killings, the recent murder of three Chechens in Istanbul. Some believe the operations are being planned from Berlin.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

South Asia


Following Terror Attacks, Kazakhstan Hurriedly Tightens Religious Law

After a series of speeches and warnings over the spread of extremist religious ideas in his country, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbaev is expected to sign a new bill on religion into law. The bill, approved by parliament on September 21, severely tightens registration procedures for religious institutions while banning unsanctioned religious activity. The construction of new places of worship must be approved by local authorities and the religious education of youth will also be under their control. In addition, the new law imposes a ban on praying in the workplace.

Officially titled “The Law on Religious Activity and Religious Associations,” the new bill has sparked heated debate in Kazakh society.

“Will I be violating the law and effectively become a criminal if I pray in my office?” says Bekbolat Tleukhan, a lawmaker and practicing Muslim. Speaking to Astana’s Channel 7 television, the lawmaker says banning prayer at work violates the country’s constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion.

According to official figures, at least 64 percent of Kazakh citizens are Muslims, the majority of whom follow the Sunni Hanafi sect. Many Sunni Muslims pray five times a day, and at least two of the prayers coincide with standard office hours. “The draft law forces people to choose between their faith and jobs, and it’s not fair,” says Maksat Nurypbaev, the head of Kazakhstan Zhastary, a nongovernmental organization.

The bill requires mosques and all other religious institutions to file complicated paperwork to become registered, including obtaining permission from both local and central governments. Rights defenders have branded the bill discriminatory and restrictive. Supporters of the bill, however, are adamant the law does not limit religious freedom and say it addresses threats posed by extremist groups. “Kazakhs have never backed religious fanatics. Growing a beard or wearing a hijab have never been part of the mentality of a person living in the steppe,” says lawmaker Erzat Alzakov. “It is all new to us. The most worrying is that there are many young people among religious fanatics.”

Alzakov blames society for not closely controlling the content of teaching materials in the country’s numerous religious schools and classes, many of which offer free religious education. “Free lunches don’t exist,” he says. “Only problems are given for free, and we just got them.”

Setting House in Order

Nazarbaev has this year repeatedly warned against the spread of radical ideas “foreign to Kazakhs” and of the need to “protect the nation from religious extremism.” He recently criticized a new trend among some wealthy Kazakhs, who have taken to building mosques as a charity gesture. Speaking during a parliament session earlier this month, the president called for the activities of all unregistered mosques to be looked into. “We need to put our house in order,” Nazarbaev told parliament.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Pakistan’s Jihad Against the USA

by Diana West

Remember when “Operation Infinite Justice” — the post-9/11 US military build-up — was quickly changed to “Operation Enduring Freedom” because Islam believes only Allah dispenses “infinite justice”?

Well, now that as many 50 Pakistani imams in the Sunni Ittehad Council — Facebook page here — have declared jihad on the US, they have also declared that it is haram (forbidden) to call the U.S. a superpower because only Allah deserves the title.

Of course, Pakistan has been fighting a jihad against the American Superdumbpower (is that ok???) for a long time — even as it has been collecting billions in backsheesh — US taxpayer dollars. This week, we learned about one skirmish in that jihad — the deliberate and concerted Pakistani ambush of US military personnel in 2007 during which a US major was killed and three others were wounded. The most shocking aspect of the attack, as reported for the first time in yesterday’s NYT, is that it was not unique. It “fit a pattern.”

A pattern? From the Times story:

At first, the meeting to resolve the border dispute seemed a success. Despite some tense moments, the delegations ate lunch together, exchanged phone numbers and made plans to meet again. Then, as the Americans and Afghans prepared to leave, the Pakistanis opened fire without warning. The assault involved multiple gunmen, Pakistani intelligence agents and military officers, and an attempt to kidnap or draw away the senior American and Afghan officials.

American officials familiar with Pakistan say that the attack fit a pattern. The Pakistanis often seemed to retaliate for losses they had suffered in an accidental attack by United States forces with a deliberate assault on American troops, most probably to maintain morale among their own troops or to make a point to the Americans that they could not be pushed around, said a former American military officer who served in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“Looking back, there were always these attacks that could possibly be attributed to deliberate retaliation,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because his job does not permit him to talk to journalists. Pakistani forces had suffered losses before the May 14 attack, he added.

Pattern … often … always? I think the Pentagon has some ‘splaning to do (again)…

           — Hat tip: Diana West [Return to headlines]

Far East


China to Launch 1st Space Lab Module on Thursday

China is set to launch its first space laboratory into orbit Thursday (Sept. 29), provided the weather cooperates for the planned liftoff. China’s Tiangong 1 space lab is slated to launch aboard a Chinese Long March 2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Northwest China. The prototype, which will test docking technology with the country’s Shenzhou spacecraft, is an important step toward China’s goal of constructing a crewed space station in orbit.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



US & China: Space Race or Cosmic Cooperation?

China is only the third country ever to send a person into space. This week the rising space power is set to reach another milestone, launching its first space lab module, an unmanned prototype for a future space station. China’s reach for the stars presents the United States with a choice. America could reach out to cooperate, proposing joint exploration projects, or it could restrict collaboration and perhaps even decide to pursue a space race akin to the 1960s competition against the Soviet Union. Experts say there are benefits and pitfalls to either position, and note that the space question is only one thread in the complex, changing world of Sino-American relations.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

Immigration


60,000 Land in 2011, 51,000 on Pelagie Islands

(ANSAmed) — ROME, SEPTEMBER 28 — A total of 51,596 non-EU immigrants have arrived on the Pelagie Islands since the start of the year (nearly all on Lampedusa) on a total of 60,656 migrants who landed on the Italian coasts in 2011 so far. This announcement was made by Interior Affairs Undersecretary Sonia Viale during a Chamber hearing.

Viale explained that the situation is “an emergency that should not be dealt with on national level alone, since the crisis concerns the entire Mediterranean area and therefore Europe. All member States must help the countries that face particular migration pressure. Immigration is a European challenge and requires a European response, but this response is late to arrive.”

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Asylum Seekers From Arab Spring Pour Into Europe

Refugees from war and revolution in the Arab world have begun to pour into Europe, according to research.

A count covering the first three months of this year — the months that saw the outbreak of the Arab Spring — showed that number of Tunisian asylum seekers rose more than 20-fold after their country became the first to be engulfed in the chain of uprisings.

The study covered the first three months of this year — the period of the Arab Spring.

The influx raised fears that Britain faces a fresh asylum boom as tens of thousands of individuals and families try to flee other countries convulsed by violent upheavals.

The figures, compiled by the EU’s statistical arm, showed that last year Tunisian asylum seekers were arriving at the rate of just 50 a month.

The EU report said: ‘Tunisians are now ranked eight among the main countries of citizenship of asylum seekers.

‘Nine out of 10 of Tunisians applying for asylum in the EU lodged their application in Italy, which highlights the importance of geographical proximity as one of the potential factors influencing the choice of the destination country for asylum seekers.

‘Among other such factors are the social and economic situation, the presence of certain ethnic communities, immigration policy in the country of destination, language or historical ties, or the activities of people traffickers.’

The EU analysis points to Britain as a future destination country for Libyan asylum seekers, because of extensive Libyan economic and family contacts in Britain.

In particular Libya has close ties with Britain and many affected by its civil war may try to take refuge here. Others still may try to take advantage of the war to claim asylum in Britain when really they are economic migrants looking to live and work in this country.

However numbers shot up following the toppling of President Ben Ali, in January. In February 1,100 Tunisian asylum seekers arrived in Europe, followed by 1,200 in March.

The influx contributed to a 6.5 per cent increase in asylum seekers arriving in Europe in the first three months of the year, up by 4,000 to 66,000. The study also indicates Britain as a destination for Libyan asylum seekers because of extensive economic and family contacts.

Would-be asylum seekers from Tunisia, Egypt and Libya who entered Europe through Italy or other countries have been reported gathering in Calais to try to cross the Channel. Taxpayer-supported charities have been used to issue warnings to them against the dangers of trying to gain a passage by hiding in lorries.

           — Hat tip: Steen [Return to headlines]



EP: OK to 43.9 Mln Euros More for Target States

(ANSAmed) — STRASBOURG, SEPTEMBER 28 — The European Parliament has approved the budget changes that will make an extra 43.9 million euros in funds available for managing the influx of migrants and refugees, following the revolutions that have been sweeping through the southern Mediterranean. The extra funds will be used to help the member states hardest hit and to improve the patrolling of seas by the European border agency Frontex, which will receive an extra 24 million euros.

The remaining amount will be divided between the European Fund for Refugees (12.2 million euros), the External Borders Fund (4.9 million euros) and the European Fund for repatriation (2.8 million euros). The decision was backed by an overwhelming majority, with 513 votes in favour, 79 votes against and 25 abstentions.

“Today’s vote shows that the European Parliament is united when political developments in southern Mediterranean countries are at stake,” said the sponsor of the vote, the Polish (EPP) Euro MP, Sidonia Jedrzejewska. Italy’s Salvatore Iacolino (Popolo della Libertà) said that today’s decision by the European Parliament should be interpreted “as a signal aiming to return its centrality to the Mediterranean”, an area in which “the insistent regions regain the significant power of looking south for the road to be followed, showing the path to the EU as the coherent development of its own political action to develop trade and the defence of rights”. The extra funds approved today have been recovered from those that were left unspent for energy projects scheduled as part of the European revival plan. EU member states had previously given the green light to the budget change on September 12.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



France: Six Dead in Paris Immigrant Squat Fire

At least six people died in a fire on Wednesday at a squat near Paris inhabited by Libyan and Tunisian immigrants, police said. Four of the dead were burned to death and two died from smoke inhalation during the fire in the one-storey building in Pantin, northeast of Paris. Police said the building, which was due to be demolished, was home to around 30 immigrants. Interior Minister Claude Gueant went to the scene of the fire, where firefighters were sifting through the debris in search of further possible victims.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



The Left is Rewriting Britain’s Immigration History

‘We got it wrong”. If this is not quite the slogan for Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool, it is the message the leadership wants the public to hear, though without having to apologise for the mistakes made by the last government. What they really mean by this phoney self-flagellation is this: if we spent too much, it was with the best of intentions; if we borrowed too much, well so did everyone else; if the economy went down the pan, blame the bankers.

And as for immigration — it was all the fault of the Poles. “I think we underestimated the level of immigration from Poland which had a big effect on people,” said Ed Miliband.

But hang on a second. Labour came to office in 1997 and Poland did not join the EU until 2004. Yet whereas in 1996, net immigration to the UK was 40,000, by 2003 it was 150,000. It is now about 250,000. As even a cursory glance at immigration graphs will show, the beginnings of this rapid rise long predated the accession to the EU of the former Soviet bloc countries of eastern Europe.

           — Hat tip: Kitman [Return to headlines]

Culture Wars


Dress Witches in Pink and Avoid White Paper to Prevent Racism in Nuseries, Expert Says

Teachers should censor the toy box to replace witches’ black hats with a pink ones and dress fairies in darker shades, according to a consultant who has issued advice to local authorities.

From the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz to Meg, the good witch from the Meg and Mog children’s books, witches have always dressed in black.

But their traditional attire has now come in for criticism from equality experts who claim it could send a negative message to toddlers in nursery and lead to racism.

Instead, teachers should censor the toy box and replace the pointy black hat with a pink one, while dressing fairies, generally resplendent in pale pastels, in darker shades.

Another staple of the classroom — white paper — has also been questioned by Anne O’Connor, an early years consultant who advises local authorities on equality and diversity.

Children should be provided with paper other than white to drawn on and paints and crayons should come in “the full range of flesh tones”, reflecting the diversity of the human race, according to the former teacher.

Finally, staff should be prepared to be economical with the truth when asked by pupils what their favourite colour is and, in the interests of good race relations, answer “black” or “brown”.

The measures, outlined in a series of guides in Nursery World magazine, are aimed at avoiding racial bias in toddlers as young as two.

According to the guides, very young children may begin to express negative and discriminatory views about skin colour and appearance that nursery staff must help them “unlearn”.

If children develop positive associations with dark colours, the greater the likelihood that the attitude will be generalised to people, it says.

The advice is based on an “anti-bias” approach to education which developed in the United States as part of multiculturalism.

It challenges prejudices such as racism, sexism and ageism through the whole curriculum and teaches children about tolerance and respect and to critically analyse what they are taught and think.

Ms O’Connor, who has worked with Newham and Tower Hamlets councils and recently devised equality material for Lancashire council’s childcare service, said the approach, based on an “anti-bias” model of education, developed children’s empathy and helped early years teachers to explore their own conditioning and possible prejudices.

“This is an incredibly complex subject that can easily become simplified and inaccurately portrayed,” she said.

“There is a tendency in education to say ‘here are normal people and here are different people and we have to be kind to those different people’, whether it’s race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age or faith.

“People who are feeling defensive can say ‘well there’s nothing wrong with white paper’, but in reality there could be if you don’t see yourself reflected in the things around you. “As an early years teacher, the minute you start thinking, ‘well actually, if I give everyone green paper, what happens’, you have a teaching potential.

“People might criticise this as political correctness gone mad. But it is because of political correctness we have moved on enormously. If you think that we now take it for granted that our buildings and public highways are adapted so people in wheelchairs and with pushchairs can move around. Years ago if you were in a wheelchair, then tough luck. We have completely moved and we wouldn’t have done that without the equality movement.”

Margaret Morrissey, a spokeswoman for the Parents Outloud campaigning group disagrees. She said: “I’m sure these early years experts know their field but they seem to be obsessed about colour and determined to make everyone else obsessed about it too.

“Not allowing toy witches to wear black seems to me nonsense and in the same vein as those people who have a problem with ‘Bar Bar Black Sheep’ or ‘The Three Little Pigs’.

Children just see a sheep in a field, whether it be black, grey, white or beige. I have worked with children for 41 years and I don’t believe I have ever met a two year old who was in any way racist or prejudice.”

           — Hat tip: LN [Return to headlines]

General


Facebook Privacy Issues: Social Network Watching When You’re Logged Out

Facebook has admitted that it has been watching the web pages its members visit — even when they have logged out.

In its latest privacy blunder, the social networking site was forced to confirm that it has been constantly tracking its 750million users, even when they are using other sites.

The social networking giant says the huge privacy breach was simply a mistake — that software automatically downloaded to users’ computers when they logged in to Facebook ‘inadvertently’ sent information to the company, whether or not they were logged in at the time.

Most would assume that Facebook stops monitoring them after they leave its site, but technology bloggers discovered this was not the case.

In fact, data has been regularly sent back to the social network’s servers — data that could be worth billions when creating ‘targeted’ advertising based on the sites users visit.

           — Hat tip: Nilk [Return to headlines]



‘We Didn’t Mean to Track You’ Says Facebook as Social Network Giant Admits to ‘Bugs’ In New Privacy Row”

Facebook has admitted that it has been watching the web pages its members visit — even when they have logged out.

In its latest privacy blunder, the social networking site was forced to confirm that it has been constantly tracking its 750million users, even when they are using other sites.

The social networking giant says the huge privacy breach was simply a mistake — that software automatically downloaded to users’ computers when they logged in to Facebook ‘inadvertently’ sent information to the company, whether or not they were logged in at the time.

           — Hat tip: Kitman [Return to headlines]

News Feed 20110920

USA
» Brooklyn College Faculty Condemn NYC Police Spying
» David Cameron Offered Chance to Ring New York’s Bell
» Georgia Board of Pardons Rejects Clemency for Troy Davis
» Muslim Club Aims to Break Misjudgments
 
Europe and the EU
» France: Muslims in Marseille Feel Abandoned by Their City
» Irish Government Spends 7000 Euro on New Rug for Ambassador’s Vienna Home
» Islam the Prinicipal for Arab Revolutions, Says UK Broadcaster
» Israeli Marseille Consulate Evacuated After Bomb Threat
» Italy: Mafia Boss’s Girlfriend Among Berlusconi’s Escorts
» Romania-Netherlands: Bucharest Triggers War of the Tulips
» UK: ‘Treat the Ghurkas Like Asylum Seekers’: Outrage as Minister Says They Should be Dispersed Around the Country
» UK: Al Qaeda ‘Still Planning Operations in Britain’, Theresa May Warns
» UK: Buddhist Monk Charged With Raping Girl in 1970s
» UK: Freak Show Coming to Town: Trafalgar Square, October 8th
» UK: Huhne to Launch Attack on ‘Tea Party Tories’
» UK: Mosque Plan Refused Amid Wave of Protest
» UK: Theresa May Defends Decision to Exclude Palestinian Activist From UK
» UK: Where Do We Find Ourselves Post the Revised Prevent 2011 Counter-Terrorism Strategy
» Why Catholics Could Learn a Lot From Islam
» Why the Israel Philharmonic Isn’t World-Class But the Rotterdam Philharmonic is
 
North Africa
» Egypt: Military and Muslim Brotherhood, Dangerous Players in the 21 November Election
» Egypt: Islam-Based Party is Banned
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» Caroline Glick: Funding the Enemy
» Clegg: Palestine UN Bid ‘Difficult’
 
Middle East
» Blast Kills 3, Wounds 15 in Turkish Capital
» Cameron and Clegg Clash Over the Most Over-Hyped Issue in the Middle East
» Iran: Islamic Awakening Forum Final Statement Issued
» Saudi Arabia: Muslim Leaders to Address New Challenges at Makkah Confab
» The Middle East: Restating the Obvious [Bernard Lewis Book Review]
 
Caucasus
» Azerbaijan: ‘Islam and Christianity Discourse’ Seminar to be Held
 
South Asia
» India: Narendra Modi’s No to Skullcap is Insult to Islam: Imam
» India: Skullcap Refusal on Dais of Amity
 
Australia — Pacific
» First Foray Into Study of Faith
» Grand Mufti Ibrahim Abu Mohamed Feels Duty to ‘Cure’ Radicals
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
» Ghana: A Muslim Can be President — Kufuor
 
Immigration
» Dutch Asylum Policy to Become ‘More Restrictive’, PM

USA


Brooklyn College Faculty Condemn NYC Police Spying

NEW YORK — Brooklyn College faculty passed a resolution condemning the New York Police Department’s infiltration of Muslim student groups, complaining that it threatens intellectual freedom and the civil rights of both pupils and teachers, the college said Monday. The college’s Faculty Council voted unanimously to condemn the practice, part of a broad intelligence-gathering operation that the NYPD has built in the last decade with the help of the Central Intelligence Agency. The collaboration was a focus of an Associated Press investigation, prompting the CIA to probe whether its actions violated laws that bar the agency from spying on Americans.

“The use of undercover police agents and the cultivation of police informers on campus has a chilling effect on the intellectual freedom necessary for a vibrant academic community,” the resolution said. The Faculty Council passed the resolution on Sept. 13. It was first reported on Monday by NYPD Confidential, a blog run by reporter Leonard Levitt. A spokesman for the college, Jeremy Thompson, confirmed the resolution’s passage and said Monday that college President Karen Gould shared the professors’ concerns.

The AP’s investigation revealed that the CIA helped the NYPD set up a unit to monitor mosques, cafes and restaurants frequented by Muslims. It also placed undercover officers in student groups to listen to discussions. “That’s what’s so troubling here: that it seemed like … this was a giant fishing expedition,” said Alex Vitale, a sociology professor who drafted the faculty resolution. “That seemed to be really beyond the pale of acceptable behavior, especially on a college campus.”

A 2006 document obtained by the AP listed a Muslim student association at Brooklyn College as one of seven college groups “of concern” in the city. It cited “militant paintball trips” and fundamentalist speakers. The other groups were at Hunter College, La Guardia Community College, Baruch College, St. John’s University, City College of New York and Queens College. The documents say police had undercover agents in the Muslim student associations at Brooklyn College and Baruch College. The NYPD has said publicly that it only follows leads and does not troll for information. Gould met with faculty on Sept. 13 and told them that police had informed administrators about any spying, Vitale said. Brooklyn College has about 16,900 students and is part of the City University of New York.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



David Cameron Offered Chance to Ring New York’s Bell

David Cameron will be in New York on Wednesday for the UN General Assembly. His main preoccupation will likely be the Palestinian statehood vote and how to play the British position. He will also hold talks with Barack Obama and others. But he will also find time to launch a new initiative to promote Britain as a place to do business. The ‘Great’ campaign is built on a series of elegant posters promoting different aspects of the Great in Britain — knowledge, heritage, sport, shopping, countryside, entrepreneurs, creativity and so on, alongside images of the Olympic velodrome, Richard Branson, Henry VIII and the like. The ad agency Mother came up with the idea. The Prime Minister wants to capitalise on next year when the eyes of the world — as the announcers say — will be on Britain, by bringing together the promotional work government departments were planning. The campaign will only appear abroad, and No10 is hosting a reception for CEOs and chairmen of big companies tonight to drum up some cash to pay for it. The launchis being held at the New York stock exchange, and Mr Cameron has been offered a chance to ring the closing bell on the day’s session. His meeting with the President may get in the way, but No10 are sorely tempted.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Georgia Board of Pardons Rejects Clemency for Troy Davis

Troy Davis, whose death-row case ignited an international campaign to save his life, has lost what appeared to be his last attempt to avoid death by lethal injection on Wednesday.

Rejecting pleas by Mr. Davis’s lawyers that shaky witness testimony and a lack of physical evidence presented enough doubt about his guilt to spare him death, the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles ruled on Tuesday morning that Mr. Davis, 42, should die for killing Mark MacPhail, an off-duty police officer, in a Savannah parking lot in 1989.

[Return to headlines]



Muslim Club Aims to Break Misjudgments

The religion of Islam and its Muslim followers have been negatively portrayed in the media in the past, but students at Chico State strive to break down misconceptions. The Muslim Students Association is a club that focuses on two main goals: provide Muslim students with the opportunity to gather and gain awareness of their religion and to inform other students about the religion, club president Telha Rehman said.

The club meets at 5 p.m. every Friday in Bell Memorial Union Room 208 and is open to all students, whether they practice the Islamic religion or not, he said. The club wants to reach out to other people that are unaware, Rehman said. The Islamic religion is a monotheist religion and followers believe in the same God as Jews and Christians but refer to him as Allah, said Katherine McCarthy, a religious studies professor at Chico State.

Muslims study from the Quran and are strongly against false representations of God, such as depicting God in art or, she said. Muslims practice five pillars, which are charity, fasting during the month of Ramadan, the pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca, reciting the creed and praying five times a day, McCarthy said. Misconceptions about the religion of Islam in the United States include the ideas that all Muslims are violent, support terrorism, are Arab and that they judge other religions to be damned, she said.

“I think the biggest misconception, none of which are true, is that they are so different from other Western monotheisms,” McCarthy said. “When, in fact, they’re quite similar.” It is not the job of the Muslim Students Association to change these misconceptions of the Islamic religion, but everyone’s duty to educate themselves while living in a diverse community, she said. “Just ask questions,” McCarthy said.

Each semester, the Muslim Students Association hosts events that include having guest speakers, showing movies and holding socials where students can participate in a question and answer format group conversation, Rehman said. This semester’s first event is a lecture presented by Sheraz Khan, a physics professor at Chico State, on the topic of the Quran and modern science.

Through its activities the club aims to change the opinions of students regarding the stereotypes associated with Muslims, Rehman said.

Hopefully students walk away still discussing the topics brought up at events, Rehman said. If students leave feeling a sense of enlightenment and curiosity, then the Muslim Students Association is doing its job. Some might feel hesitant to join, but the events were what moved Wiley Gill to the religion of Islam.

Gill’s journey began when his psychology professor assigned a group project that would focus on a certain ethnicity. Gill’s group chose to focus on Arabs and the country of Saudi Arabia, and after splitting the project up in topics, Gill chose to research the Islamic religion.

This sparked his interest, and Gill began to study this religion for a year and a half as a hobby. Gill, who worked as a janitor at Meriam Library at the time, was closing off some restrooms one night when a student asked if he could get in. Gill denied the student and walked him down stairs where other facilities were open.

As he stood by the door, he heard water running and decided to walk in. When he walked in, he saw the student washing his feet, Gill said. Gill was confident the student was washing up for prayer, which is a Muslim practice, and he asked him where he practiced. The student introduced himself and took him to meet members of the Muslim Students Association, he said. From that day on, Gill became an active participant in the Muslim Students Association and on Sept. 8, 2009, converted to the Islamic religion. “The Muslim religion is not only a religion,” Gill said, “but a way of life.”

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Europe and the EU


France: Muslims in Marseille Feel Abandoned by Their City

MARSEILLE, France, September 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — — Local-Based Initiatives Can Help Foster Better Relations between Muslim Residents and their City

Muslims are not included in public policies and debates around education, employment, and housing in Marseille making it difficult to address vast inequities, said the Open Society Foundations in a new report released today. “Marseille is a city divided,” said Nazia Hussain, director of the Open Society Foundations At Home in Europe Project. “The city has adopted a number of innovative strategies that aim to promote diversity, but racial and ethnic divisions remain an entrenched problem affecting almost every aspect of life for Muslims in Marseille.”

Muslims in Marseille offers a snapshot of life in France’s second largest city, specifically in the neighborhood of the 3rd arrondissement. While precise data is not available, research suggests that somewhere between 30 and 40 per cent of Marseille’s population is Muslim, with particular concentrations in the 3rd arrondissement. The issue of national identity and belonging is of increasing importance not only in Marseille, but also the country as whole over the last two decades.

“Marseille is often considered as one of the most cosmopolitan cities in Europe. However it still struggles to recognize the diverse range of identities of its Muslim citizens,” said Hussain. “Muslims do not want to be defined by their faith alone but to be treated and seen as equal French citizens. Nevertheless they are too often seen only through the lens of their religious identity and as a result excluded from policies and debates.”

Key Findings:

  • Among Muslims, 55 per cent said they felt they belonged to Marseille, while nearly 70 per cent of non-Muslims indicated a sense of belonging to their city.
  • Muslims and non-Muslims generally agreed that Arabs (65 per cent), blacks (55 per cent), and Muslims (38 per cent) were the victims of racial prejudice.
  • This report suggests that the educational environment in Marseille’s north district schools stands in stark contrast with that of the city’s south districts, and contributes to the underachievement generally recorded in the city’s heavily Muslim north district schools.
  • Efforts to address racial and religious discrimination in the labour market are limited. Most employment initiatives focus on developing skills rather than preventing employers from discriminating on the grounds of ethnicity or race.
  • Residential segregation is a key feature of Marseille. The city is split between urban renewal areas in the North, where there is a high Muslim and socio-economically deprived population, and well-to-do southern districts with a much lower Muslim and migrant population.
  • French law prohibits non-European foreign residents from voting in national elections which affects both older immigrants and newcomers who do not hold French nationality-excluding a third of potential Muslim voters in Marseille.

Muslims in Marseille is the culmination of more than three years of research. This is primarily a qualitative study offering a glimpse into the lives of people in Marseille. This study is part of a series of monitoring reports entitled Muslims in EU Cities. It focuses on 11 cities in the European Union with significant Muslim populations: Amsterdam, Antwerp, Berlin, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Leicester, Marseille, Paris, Rotterdam, Stockholm, and the London Borough of Waltham Forest.

The Open Society Foundations work to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens. Working with local communities in more than 70 countries, the Open Society Foundations support justice and human rights, freedom of expression, and access to public health and education.

Distributed by PR Newswire on behalf of Open Society Foundations

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Irish Government Spends 7000 Euro on New Rug for Ambassador’s Vienna Home

The Irish Government is spending €7,000 (£6,100) on a bespoke handmade rug for their ambassador’s home in Vienna.

The Department of Foreign Affairs in Ireland recently signed a contract for a carpet with an Irish firm for ambassador Jim Brennan’s floor covering in his Austrian residence.

The lavish hand-woven rug will be made to a pre-determined design, according to documents obtained from the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Three companies were asked to submit bids in the tendering process: Ceadogán Rugs, the Dixon Carpet Company, and Connemara Carpets.

The successful bidder was Galway-based Connemara Carpets. The company said it would not comment on the price charged for the item.

A director of the firm, Kieran O’Donohue, said: ‘If your agenda is the cost to the State, then I cannot participate in any discussion of it.

‘Do you know the size of the rug? This is not most people’s idea of a rug, it is a large area and most people would call this a carpet.

‘The difference in this case is that a carpet is meant to go wall to wall whereas this does not, and is therefore classed as a rug.’

The department declined to comment on whether it was an appropriate use of money considering the parlous state of the country’s finances.

‘We are not in a position to comment on this,’ a spokesman said, adding: ‘The matter is the subject of a separate request under Freedom of Information.’

Mr O’Donohue said his firm was a private company that had simply been successful in a tendering competition with the State.

He said: ‘I had a contract with the department; I won it with the department in a fair competition.’

Concerns about the expenditure were first raised by a Department of Foreign Affairs source who said the cost could not be justified.

The official said: ‘It doesn’t really matter how big it is, a rug is a rug and it seems impossible that this money would be spent at the current time.

‘No matter what its size, €7,000 would carpet a good many houses, upstairs and downstairs.

‘It just seems a throwback to the days when money was a lot more plentiful than it is now.’

The tendering process for the rug has also caused controversy. Dixon Carpet Company is seeking documents relating to how it was conducted.

In response, the Department of Foreign Affairs said that the only evaluation criterion for the rug had been cost.

Details posted on its website show that 24 documents relating to the tender were released, but the department declined to make them available to the Irish Mail on Sunday this week.

A letter sent to the Dixon Carpet Company stated: ‘The contract was awarded following a procurement process whereby three companies were invited to tender for the manufacture of a rug for the ambassador’s residence in Vienna, based on a design provided.’

           — Hat tip: McR [Return to headlines]



Islam the Prinicipal for Arab Revolutions, Says UK Broadcaster

London, Sept 19, IRNA — The revolutions in the Arab world have the opportunity to portray the true nature of Islam of its values and principles, says British journalist and broadcaster Yvonne Ridley.

There are elements of the revolution that are decidely Islamic and I think this influence can only enhance the formation of new governments.” Ridley told IRNA in an exclusive interview. “For once the Islamists will be able to show the world there is nothing to fear from Islam and even some of the most secular elements of the revolution are beginning to grasp a clearer understanding of what it is to be a Muslim,” she added.

Ridley, a British Muslim convert, extensively travels around the Middle East and North Africa, offering insights and often alternative perspective to much of the mainstream Western media. She said while she doubted that the current Arab Spring would see the emergence of overtly Islamic governments, she expected much change through the inspiration and influence of religion. “Millions of Tunisians, Egyptians and Libyans are now able to rediscover the beauty of their faith without fear, intimidation or retribution from brutal regimes which tore away at the very fabric of Islam,” the broadcaster said. “What we will see are Muslims being able to practice their faith freely and adapt their way of life around this Islamic Awakening.” “In the future I expect to see the values and principles of Islam emerging and influencing legislation and law-making in the revolutionary countries,” she said.

When recently asked by what she described as an “Islamophobic radio station” about the Islamic nature of the Arab Spring, Ridley said that she pointed out that they were Muslim countries and that the majority of the revolutionaries were Muslims. “The West cannot force its secularism or Western style democracy on these people. They will choose a style of government which suits them, their lifestyles, ambitions and hopes.” she replied. After eight months of uprising, the British journalist said that she was “so proud of what the people have achieved already” but was also dismayed at all the “negativity which is emanating from the Muslim world and from the West.”

“Part of this is due to lack of confidence in the Ummah that people power could achieve such great things and part of this stems from Western imperialists, hoping the whole project will fail so they can once again control the region by installing their own dictatorial puppets.,” she told IRNA. Egypt and Tunisia, she said, have got rid of their dictators relatively easily compared to what is happening in Libya but that does “not mean the Arab Spring is over, mission accomplished.” “There is still much to do before the elections and there are still those from the ‘old regimes’ who seem to want to interfere and meddle.”

Ridley suggested that the situation in Libya was even more precarious, saying the revolutionaries will have to form “a whole system from zero because under the Gaddafis there was no democratic system in place, no civil society or structures.” Due to the complexities of revolutions, the broadcaster said patience was required and that in some ways it could be said the overthrow of regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya was the easy part, “although thousands have already paid the blood price for freedom.” “Creating a new society and new political landscape was never going to be easy and what the revolutionaries have done so far is amazing, but the pressure is on them now to form a good and proper government acceptable to the people,” she said.

Ridley warned that historically, some revolutions have ended in “disaster because of a lack of forward planning” and said that it is obvious the Tunisian and Egyptian people want to make sure they get it right first time.” “Leading a crowd of people against government guns takes great courage and staring down the barrel of a gun takes guts, but now a different style of leadership is needed for the next step. The people of Tunisia and Egypt, and eventually in Libya, are essentially sailing in unchartered waters. There’s no set precedent and each revolution has evolved and developed differently,” she said. The journalist believed that the strength has been “unity” but that their weaknesses could be “inexperience and lack of leadership skills.” “It has been very easy for the West to manipulate and corrupt Middle Eastern leaders and by using fear and greed the West has forced through decision-making which has been to the detriment of people in the Middle East,” she warned.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Israeli Marseille Consulate Evacuated After Bomb Threat

Anonymous call to police says bomb located in van parked outside consulate in French city; sappers find fake device and call off alert.

The Israeli Consulate in Marseille, France was temporarily evacuated on Tuesday after local police received an anonymous threat that their was a bomb near the building and sappers discovered a suspicious device in a van parked outside, AFP reported.

A bomb disposal squad who arrived on the scene found a fake bomb in the vehicle parked outside the consulate. The mock bomb consisted of a pressure cooker with wires protruding, marked with radiation warning stickers.

           — Hat tip: KGS [Return to headlines]



Italy: Mafia Boss’s Girlfriend Among Berlusconi’s Escorts

Berlusconi’s women. PM recommended Tommasi for place on Isola dei famosi [The Italian version of Celebrity Island — Trans.]. Evening with sisters from Montenegro

BARI — The women call him “Papi” but Gianpaolo Tarantini refers to Silvio Berlusconi as “Babuccio” when he is talking to them. Mr Tarantini also constantly seeks reassurance. He wants to know what Mr Berlusconi said about him in private to the women and whether the premier was satisfied with the encounters. The Bari businessman’s eagerness to please is obvious as he asks the premier whether he has any doubts about the women to bring. In one of those tapped phone calls, Silvio Berlusconi is revealed as making recommendations to the organisers of Isola dei famosi [The Italian version of Celebrity Island — Trans.], the RaiDue reality show presented at the time by Simona Ventura. Financial police investigators note in the transcript of a phone call on 10 March 2009: “Berlusconi calls Tarantini. They discuss the women who will be present at the evening. Tarantini says he will bring Sara Tommasi. The prime minister says ‘The one we sent on a trip to Brazil, no America, with a special programme’“. Ms Tommasi appears to have slept at Mr Berlusconi’s home on several occasions and the PM contacted her directly after obtaining her phone number from “Gianpi”.

Barbara Montereale, the friend that Patrizia D’Addario brought with her to Palazzo Grazioli, attended the parties in spite of objections from her boyfriend, Radames Parisi, nephew of Savinuccio Parisi, one of the most powerful gangland bosses in Bari. At first, her boyfriend told her not to go but he changed his mind and got her to describe in detail both the parties and the New Year 2009 holiday she spent at Villa Certosa.

The trial papers also feature phone calls by Raffaella Zardo, TG4 news director Emilio Fede’s partner, who says that she wants to go to the prime minister’s parties but Mr Fede won’t let her. A few days after discovering that photos were circulating of her and Manuel Casella, the former boyfriend of Amanda Lear, Ms Zardo said to Mr Tarantini: “I’m glad they’re out in the open. Now I know I’m not with Emilio Fede… and later he took me off Sipario [a Rete 4 celebrity gossip programme directed by Mr Fede — Trans.], so people understood. You see what Fede’s like. If you’re going with him, he lets you work, otherwise no. He doesn’t want them published. He even says he’s willing to pay for them”. Mr Berlusconi appears not to have appreciated Ms Zardo and tells Mr Tarantini: “This one’s a wh…. He’s never f… her or even kissed her. She was using him to get work on television. Everyone knew”. It is Ms Zardo who asks Mr Tarantini if the prime minister “can do anything to get a passport for Ayda Yespica’s brother-in-law”. Soon afterwards, she cancels the request: “Don’t bother. It’s sorted. Because she told the prime minister herself but it must have slipped his mind”…

English translation by Giles Watson

www.watson.it

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Romania-Netherlands: Bucharest Triggers War of the Tulips

Presseurop based on James Martin

Upset by the Dutch refusal to accept Romania into the Schengen area, the Romanian authorities have decided on strict border controls for tulips. A reaction that’s a trifle excessive, but justified, writes an angry editorialist.

Grigore Cartianu

We should not be afraid of such confrontations, but rather get used to them — on one condition, though: that we don’t lose them. For if we are going to lash out blindly, if we’re going to fight with everyone who is hostile to us, we’ll turn into the village brawlers and everyone will treat us like lepers.

It all started with the declaration on 16 September of the Netherlands’ firm opposition to Romania’s entrance into the Schengen area. It was an ostentatious show of opposition: the Dutch wanted not just to close the door, but to slam it on our noses.

The experts affirm that Romania has met many of the technical conditions imposed by the EU in order to join Schengen. The country has invested many billions of euros, but, being placed in the same basket as the Bulgarians, we will just have to wait until the Bulgarians too come up to an acceptable standard.

It’s frustrating to be kept so close to the door, after spending weeks tidying up, after having bought a new suit and polished our shoes. Before heading out on the visit we cleared out our bank account, ate a slice of good Dutch gouda, sprayed on the best French perfume, and bought the biggest bunch of flowers (Dutch, for sure.). We arrive, we ring, we say a cheery “Hello Madame!” — and surprise, surprise: at the threshold stands a matron in a bad mood who hurls our flowers into our new suit because we reek of cheese.

We’ve wiped the Netherlands off the map

The question is: faced with such a situation, how should we proceed? Send the madam reeling? Or back off, without failing to remember for next time that it might be better not to touch the cheese before we head out for the visit? Or should we bring along a slingshot and shoot out the windows of the witch, yelling all the while in the street that she has the winning looks of Baba Yaga [the toothless witch of folklore of Eastern Europe)?

The steady rain of frustrations, it seems, has led us to adopt the tactic of slinging the stones. Did we carry out the arrests for nothing? [In early February, Romania’s National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) arrested 140 customs officers accused of corruption and brought them to Bucharest by helicopter]. Did we promenade the culprits on the ‘perp walk’ to show foreigners how ruthless we are towards the scourge of corruption in our customs department, unnecessarily and in front of everyone?

The Dutch have declared that they will not let us enter the Schengen area, and we remember, as if by magic, that they too have their sore spots. Not happy with our border controls, are they? We’ll show them what vigilance means!

Obviously, this could be passed off as a mere coincidence. Their tulip bulbs never interested us before. Are the bulbs, by chance, shaped a little suspiciously? Or worse, perhaps they hide a killer bacterium capable of wiping out our beloved country? For now, we’re looking for the bacteria. We haven’t found it yet, but we’re hot on its trail. In the meantime, we’ve wiped the Netherlands off the map of the Schengen area for Tulips. Next time, we may be more understanding if they do their homework better…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



UK: ‘Treat the Ghurkas Like Asylum Seekers’: Outrage as Minister Says They Should be Dispersed Around the Country

Gurkha veterans should be dispersed around the country like asylum seekers, a defence minister claimed last night. Gerald Howarth said his constituency was being overwhelmed by the Nepalese ex-soldiers and their families following a landmark decision to grant them the right to settle in Britain. The Tory MP’s remarks have sparked outrage from campaigners. Since the ruling in 2009, more than 7,500 former Gurkhas and family members have been given UK visas. Around 10 per cent of the Hampshire borough of Rushmoor’s 90,000 population is now Nepalese, said Mr Howarth. He said schools, health centres and housing services in his Aldershot constituency were struggling to cope with the influx. Mr Howarth, who has raised the issue with David Cameron, said that despite being a defence minister, he ‘got no joy’ when asking the Ministry of Defence for help. He told BBC Radio 5 Live: ‘There needs to be a policy of dispersal.’

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Al Qaeda ‘Still Planning Operations in Britain’, Theresa May Warns

The leadership of al-Qaeda is still planning operations in Britain as it radicalises and recruits cells for operations overseas, the Home Secretary has warned.

The terrorist group is getting more “agile” and there is now a “new landscape of terrorism,” Theresa May told an audience in Washington, as she warned that the progress made since 9/11 could be wiped out. She said the terrorist threat had changed significantly over the past ten years as al-Qaeda lost people, facilities, and freedom of action, along with much of its support. But the Home Secretary warned of the need to be “realistic” about the threats that remain, adding that the leadership of al-Qaeda continues to “plan operations in the UK.” “They attract people for training, they have sections dedicated to overseas operations, they radicalise and recruit,” she said during a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations. And even as the capability of the al-Qaeda leadership has reduced, other threats have emerged which, in the UK, affect us directly.”

There is now a wider range of terrorist groups active in Pakistan, some new, others well-established, the Home Secretary warned. “The new terrorist threats are no less complex and difficult than the old. In some ways they are harder to deal with. They challenge our systems and structures,” she said. “The new landscape of terrorism is more diverse, decentralised and perhaps also more agile than the landscape of 09/11.”

Mrs May, who is on a trip to meet US leaders to discuss security, warned of the easy availability of sophisticated off-the-shelf communications devices for terrorists. “The pace and availability of technology has the potential to more than compensate for the progress we have made since 9/11,” she added. “It can make the ideological struggle look irrelevant — technology can give much more lethal power to many fewer people.” She called for a “new and rather different relationships with our private sectors, who of course own much of this technology and who — for our wider benefit — will develop it as fast and as aggressively as they can.”

The Home Secretary also told her US audience of her determination that the internet “must not be a no-go area for government, where terrorists and extremists can proceed unhindered.” Britain has faced difficulties persuading the US authorities to shut down extremist websites because of their First Amendment right to free speech but Mrs May said she “commended” the British model of combining law enforcement with voluntary reporting to internet companies of extremist activity. “The internet facilitates not only terrorist attack planning and recruitment, but also radicalisation and the circulation of extremist ideologies. We know that terrorist and extremist use of the internet is becoming more sophisticated and we know that much of the extremist material that concerns us is hosted overseas, including here,” she said.

Britain and the US use comparable language to describe the threats but have taken very different approaches to it, she said. “From very soon after 9/11 — and certainly by 2005 — we in the UK realised that terrorist groups had become embedded into the fabric of our society and in particular our cities,” she said. “In America, for many years you saw the terrorist threat as something external, practised by people ‘over there’ who wanted to strike at American citizens ‘over here’. Our different sense of threat led us to respond in different ways. Your response has often been framed by military action overseas. Ours has been grounded in policing and law enforcement in our own country. Neither approach was wrong. “

But America has increasingly seen home-grown terrorism and Britain has increased its efforts to catch terrorists overseas. However, the Home Secretary warned that in countries where terrorists are most active, they are often least likely to be prosecuted. “In these countries, agencies may not have the skills to investigate terrorist cases, the judicial system may be weak or corrupt, or both, and there may be an absence of political will. The consequences are far reaching. When we identify terrorist threats we cannot always resolve them. The absence of a functioning judiciary may lead to the violation of human rights. It may then be impossible to co-operate with states in the way that we would wish. And we cannot then deport to these countries foreign nationals engaged in terrorist activity on our own soil.”

Mrs May said it was hard to see how to deal with terrorism in the long term without better promoting the rule of law overseas. “Promoting the rule of law must be a hallmark of our global counter-terrorism work in the years to come,” she added. The Home Secretary warned that the period ahead was likely to be unstable and added: “We will have to use our imaginations to anticipate future trends. Terrorism in 2015 is likely to be very different from terrorism today.”

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Buddhist Monk Charged With Raping Girl in 1970s

A Buddhist monk has been charged with raping an underage girl in the 1970s, the Metropolitan police has said.

Pahalagama Somaratana Thera, chief incumbent of Thames Buddhist Vihara, Croydon, has been charged with four counts of sexual abuse, police said.

The alleged rape and three counts of indecent assault occurred in Chiswick, west London, in 1977 and 1978.

The 65-year-old from Dulverton Rd, Croydon, will appear on bail at Feltham Magistrates’ Court on 23 September.

There was no immediate response from Thames Buddhist Vihara, which is one of the major Sri Lankan Buddhist temples in London.

           — Hat tip: Kitman [Return to headlines]



UK: Freak Show Coming to Town: Trafalgar Square, October 8th

A forthcoming anti-war ‘mass assembly’ has been announced and supporters have to sign up to the following statement:

We pledge that if British Troops are still in Afghanistan on the tenth anniversary of the invasion we will join the mass assembly in Trafalgar Square on Saturday 8 October to make it clear to the government that they must not continue this brutal and pointless war in defiance of the will of the people.

Let’s look at some of those who have already signed up. ‘Representing’ the ‘will of the people’, we find the following characters:

Moazzam Begg: Taliban apologist, fan of Osama bin Laden’s mentor Abdullah Azzam, etc.

Lauren Booth: Hamas supporter, Press TV employee, promoter of anti-Semites Mahathir Mohamad and Gilad Atzmon.

Jeremy Corbyn MP: Hamas and Hezbollah supporter, thinks the terrorist-supporting Khomeinist ‘Islamic Human Rights Commission’ represents all that’s best in Islam concerning the rights of individuals to free expression, to peaceful assembly, and the rights of individuals within a society.

George Galloway: Nuff said.

Lindsey German: Former member of the central committee of the SWP, liar, Raed Salah supporter, etc.

Lowkey: The SWP and Guardian’s favourite rapper, whose lyrics say things like:

Every coin is a bullet, if you’re Marks and Spencer, And when your sipping Coca-Cola, That’s another pistol in the holster of them soulless soldiers, You say you know about the Zionist lobby, But you put money in their pocket when you’re buying their coffee, Talking about revolution, sitting in Starbucks.

And: How many more children have to be annihilated Israel is a terror state, they’re terrorists that terrorise, I testify, my television televised them telling lies, This is not a war, it is systematic genocide.

Seumas Milne: A good summary: [T]here are those who, knowing full well the nature of that political movement [Islamism], nevertheless deliberately side step the issue, deny the nature of the politics at stake, and — worse — seek to fool others into ignoring them. These people are, to put it bluntly, Quislings and traitors. They are deliberate fellow travellers of theocratic fascist politics and they know it. We should state it clearly, and we should fight them as we fight fascism itself. Milne is a key example of such a fellow traveller.

Yvonne Ridley: Stockholm Syndrome case study, Press TV employee, supporter of numerous Islamists, etc.

Clare Solomon: Formerly of the SWP, until they expelled her. Has written:

The view that Jews have been persecuted all throughout history is one that has been fabricated in the last 100 or so years to justify the persecution of Palestinians. The list goes on. Standing alongside the Islamist supporters and lunatics we find a handful of ‘celebs’, Peter Tatchell, and some woman who apparently writes for the New Statesman.

[JP note: Where are the calls from the great and the good for this ‘Hate the West’ fest to be banned?]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Huhne to Launch Attack on ‘Tea Party Tories’

Conservative right-wingers will today be branded the “Tea Party tendency” by Chris Huhne, the Energy Secretary, in his keynote speech to the Liberal Democrat conference. In another sign that the Lib Dems are distancing themselves from their coalition partners, Mr Huhne will criticise the Tory MPs who are calling for Britain to exploit the eurozone crisis by grabbing back some powers from Brussels. His decision to bracket them with such right-wing American Republicans as Sarah Palin is likely to upset some Conservatives. Mr Huhne’s attack on the Tory right will raise eyebrows. Some Lib Dem MPs are worried that senior party figures are positioning themselves for a possible future leadership contest.

[…]

[JP note: Now there would be an idea for a new party: The English Tea Party]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Mosque Plan Refused Amid Wave of Protest

Multi-million pound plans for a mosque and community centre along a busy gateway in the Black Country have been thrown out amid protests from thousands of campaigners.

But the door has been left open for Dudley Muslim Association to draw up a revised plan and it has been given extra three years to submit another application for the development. It would have been built on the former Nuttall factory site, in Hall Street, under the controversial £6 million plans, which were scaled down by the association in a bid to appease protestors.

The complex would include leisure facilities, open to non-Muslims, as well as two cafes, a multi-use sports hall, a gym, a nursery and a permanent exhibition of Muslim beliefs. But Dudley Council planners threw out the proposals last night, claiming the development would be out of character with the medieval features of the town including Dudley Castle. Concerns over traffic problems and the possibility of increased parking issues were also raised.

Speaking after the meeting committee chairman, Councillor Colin Wilson, said the people of Dudley would have been “dismayed and disillusioned” had the proposals gone through. However, the association was successful in applying to extend the time limit to submit another planning application on the land within the next three years. And spokesman Mushtaq Hussain today said the organisation would not rule out appealing the rejection.

Police patrolled outside Dudley Council House last night as the plans were discussed in front of around 20 people in the public gallery.

A petition of more than 7,000 signatures was handed in during the meeting. The legal bill to halt plans for the mosque has cost the council £58,378.50. Three petitions opposing it attracted up to 80,000 signatures.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Theresa May Defends Decision to Exclude Palestinian Activist From UK

As high court decides upon legality of Sheikh Raed Salah’s detention, home secretary admits tougher line on extremism

The home secretary, Theresa May, has defended her decision to exclude the Palestinian political activist Sheikh Raed Salah from Britain, insisting that she will take pre-emptive action against those who encourage extremism. A high court judge is to decide whether Salah’s arrest and detention was illegal and if he should be entitled to damages for false imprisonment.

Salah, 52, is leader of the northern branch of the Islamic movement in Israel, and was detained in London in June after it emerged he had been allowed to enter Britain despite an exclusion order being issued against him. Salah, a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship, is on bail pending the outcome of his legal challenge.

The home secretary, speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, defended her action and acknowledged the hardening in the coalition government’s approach to those who it believes “encourage extremism”. “I think it is right that we have taken a slightly different stance over the last 18 months, as a new government, in looking at this because we believe that the issue of words that are said — what people actually say and how they are able to encourage others through the words that they say — is an important issue for us to address,” she said. “That’s why we have perhaps taken some decisions in relation to individuals that might not have been taken in the past.”

She said it was important for the government’s Prevent strategy to look not only at violent extremism, but other kinds of extremism as well. “If we are able to do that, I think [that] enables us to operate at an earlier level rather than simply waiting until people have gone down the route of violent extremism,” she said.

The high court ruling in the Salah case will test the legality of this pre-emptive approach to excluding overseas political activists branded as extremists by the home secretary. Mr Justice Nicol reserved judgment after a two-day hearing on whether Salah’s arrest and detention was legal and he should be entitled to damages. Salah is claiming he was falsely imprisoned because he was “confined without lawful authority”.

Salah flew to Britain on 25 June intending to stay for 10 days to attend meetings and public engagements. It is believed he was “waved through at [the] border” and was detained three days later when it emerged the home secretary had issued a deportation order, saying Salah’s presence in Britain was “not conducive to the public good”. Salah’s defence told the high court that the police who arrested him at a London hotel failed to explain in Arabic why they were detaining him.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Where Do We Find Ourselves Post the Revised Prevent 2011 Counter-Terrorism Strategy

MCB [Muslim Council of Britain] Community Briefing

Friday 23 September 2011, 6.30-9.00 pm London Muslim Centre, Whitechapel

Following to the publication of a dossier of informed critical comments and assessments of the government’s revised counter-terrorism Prevent agenda, The Muslim Council of Britain invites members of all affiliate organisations to a live briefing session and Q&A with an expert panel of speakers.

The aim of the briefing session is threefold:

  • to provide a short overview of the new Prevent, both informative and critical, evaluating both the revised strategy and the lessons learnt in respect of how to feed into a review process that takes community based responses into account;
  • to focus on some key areas most likely to impact on Muslims, individually, as particular groups which have been singled out for special attention and as a community, including raising areas of concern and possible responses; and
  • to provide a space for anxieties to be aired and constructively addressed, misinformation corrected, and resources outlined.

An expert panel will address issues of policing, counter-terrorism, youthwork, the law, academic freedom, campus politics and student societies among others, followed by Q&A and fully participative discussion with the audience.

Speakers include:

  • Farooq Murad, Secretary General, The Muslim Council of Britain
  • Rizwaan Sabir, Researcher, University of Strathclyde
  • Zubeda Limbada, Police Community Engagement for Conflict Transformation, University of Birmingham, and Mentoring Programme Manager, Birmingham City Council
  • Timothy Parsons, Senior Lecturer in Policing and Criminology at the London Metropolitan University
  • Azad Ali, Chair, Muslim Safety Forum
  • Alaa’ Al-Samarrai,Vice-President Student Affairs, FOSIS
  • Dr Muhammad G. Khan, former Chair of the Muslim Youthwork Foundation and Tutor in Youth and Community Work, Ruskin College Oxford
  • AbdoolKarim Vakil, Chair, MCB Research and Documentation Committee

MCB ReDoc Soundings: Responding to Prevent 2011: Soundings

Places are strictly limited and will be allocated on a first come basis. Please complete fully the registration form. You will be informed via email only if your registration has been successful.

To register your attendance, please click here: Registration Form

Refreshments provided

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Why Catholics Could Learn a Lot From Islam

Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, sings the praises of Ramadan — and reflection — to Jerome Taylor

There was a time when the country’s bishops didn’t lose much sleep over headlines. As the moral arbiters of the nation they would wade in on controversial issues, regardless of what next day’s editorials might say. But like much of the establishment, Britain’s senior clergymen have surrounded themselves with legions of press advisers whose jobs it is to make sure their paymasters don’t put their foot in it — predominantly by keeping their heads below the parapet. “I’m not sure he’ll say much on that,” says the press man for Archbishop Vincent Nichols when asked whether the leader of Catholics in England and Wales will broach the topic of abortion. “We’re not really keen on an ‘archbishop versus the politicians’ headline’.”

But it turns out that Archbishop Nichols does hold some rather strong opinions on Britain’s elite. “People are trying to take short cuts,” he sighs when asked about the various scandals that have rocked Westminster, the banks, the Metropolitan Police and Fleet Street. “They’re not interested in the long-term consequences as long as it’s success.”Whether that’s reading a newspaper, trying to make the most of your time in Parliament through expenses, the police looking for quick results or the banks. There are all those commonalities.”

Nichols, a football-mad cleric from Liverpool who has risen to become the second most senior Catholic in Britain (after Scotland’s Cardinal Keith O’Brien), is an intensely media-savvy operator. Unlike Dr Rowan Williams, his Anglican opposite in Lambeth Palace, the Archbishop of Westminster has avoided head-on collisions with politicians since he was appointed by the Pope two years ago to lead Catholics in England and Wales. He chooses his words carefully, making sure he is not seen to be directly attacking ministers.

One deviation is on the papal trip one year ago, which — the Archbishop reveals — was nearly sunk, not by thenegative advance publicity about sex abuse within the Catholic Church, but by a lack of political willpower once last year’s general election got under way. “It was almost impossible to make any progress in the cooperative effort that a state visit needed,” he discloses, in his white-carpeted study behind Westminster Cathedral. “No one was making any political decisions. That was the point I was most worried.” The failure to form a government for a further 10 days compounded the pressure.

It took the Archbishop to make a veiled threat of international humiliation to the new Prime Minister to get things moving again, he says. Only after a phone conversation with David Cameron did events speed along. “I told him it will be a question of the reputation of Great Britain having issued an invitation to the Pope and then not make it happen,” says Nichols. “They came back with the appointment of Lord Patten and once that was done, we got going.” The announcement that the Pope would make a state visit to Britain was the first big test for Nichols, after being promoted by Pope Benedict XVI from the archbishopric of Birmingham to Westminster in April 2009.

In the eyes of the Vatican, that visit exactly one year ago, was a storming success, despite the negativity ahead of it. The papacy had been battered by months of headlines as new sex abuse allegations broke out across the Catholic Church, with questions over Benedict’s pre-papal role as head of the Vatican body in charge of upholding the church’s moral and doctrinal purity. In Britain there was also widespread concern about the spiralling costs of the visit. But when Benedict finally stepped foot on British soil he was largely embraced. “The attitude in the country today towards religious faith is not the same as it was a year ago,” claims Archbishop Nichols, who is in line for a promotion to Cardinal once his predecessor, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, turns 80 next year and loses his Vatican voting rights. “I think to some extent the Pope demythologised some of people’s fears — the innate British suspicion of anything Roman Catholic and of the Pope as a position. I think that was profoundly changed when they saw the man himself.”

It was partly the Archbishop’s ability to avoid controversy — and weather the storms when they arrive — that encouraged Pope Benedict to promote him. Some might see his careful answers as a missed opportunity to hold politics up to a higher level of moral scrutiny. Others say it is a sensible approach to a world where a controversial soundbite can easily overshadow the wider message.

On abortion, Archbishop Nichols’ message is one of carefully worded support for the MP Nadine Dorries, and her amendment on independent abortion counsellors. “In the eyes of the Catholic Church abortion is a tragedy,” he says in a voice that still bears a hint of his Liverpool upbringing. “Our principle objective must be to try and win greater sympathy for that perspective and for the value of human life from its beginnings. “In that sense independent counselling would appear to be reasonable. But our main principle would be the nature of abortion itself and that it is an act that destroys human life and is difficult to bear, not only for the person who has the abortion.”

And on the recent rioting, Archbishop Nichols, whose flock play a prominent role within Britain’s prisons as spiritual and practical rehabilitators, says that those rioters who feel aggrieved by harsh sentencing from judges and magistrates will have to wait their turn in the appeal courts. “I think its right to make a distinction between isolated acts of criminality and what happened during a serious civil disorder,” he says. “If the judiciary has got it wrong, that is what the appeal system is for.”

To mark the one year anniversary of the papal visit, the Archbishop has asked Catholics to re-embrace the sacrament of penance and, specifically, giving something up on a Friday. Traditionally European Catholics might forgo eating meat at the end of the week and that is something Archbishop Nichols would like to see more of. “At a personal human level we are having to work out what we can do without because we can’t in these times afford everything we want,” he explains. “That can be combined with a sense of solidarity and help for those who are really genuinely poor. “So in the Catholic tradition the idea of giving something up on a Friday — the act of self denial — has always been tied with being generous to those in need.”

Ramadan, a whole month of fasting and giving to the poor, recently ended for Muslims. Is that something Christians could do more to emulate? “You’re right to point to the Muslim community,” Nichols replies. “What many of our bishops say is that young people today — who are much more exposed and sensitive to the Muslim practice of fasting — are ready for a challenge and want a challenge by which they can be identified.” It is those youngsters who have faith that will be the lifeblood of the Church if it is to survive the ever growing secularisation of our society. “In many ways the young are more religiously minded than the older generations,” he says. “I think it’s the flip side of an age of individualism. Youngsters are not afraid to tell you what they think, to express their faith and be quite exuberant about it. We were much more reticent and probably a bit more troubled by issues of conformity than they are.”

[JP note: I am not convinced that this article’s title is an accurate reflection of what the good Archbishop might have said or thought, rather an indication of this newspaper’s pro-Islam aggenda.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Why the Israel Philharmonic Isn’t World-Class But the Rotterdam Philharmonic is

This last weekend I’ve managed to hear something British audiences the week before did not, except with difficulty: the Israel Philharmonic, uninterrupted. It was in Rotterdam, where attitudes to Israel seem to be more sympathetic than here. And I wish I could say it was a joy to hear this band under conductor Zubin Mehta playing solo, without the accompaniment of chanting and abuse. But it wasn’t.

The sad truth is that the Israel Phil is not the world-class operation it believes itself to be. OK, the string sound has a certain sumptuousness, and the Mahler 5 that made up half this programme was entirely competent. But it was also lazy, dull, self-satisfied, without a spark of energy or life. Mehta conducted like an ageing dandy with his hand on his hip and apparent disinterest. And as for the rest of the show, it started with some Webern that was blowsily delivered, and continued with a Debussy Iberia so stylistically awry it was unrecognisable.

Perhaps the tensions of their current tour have worn the orchestra down. They certainly wore me down in this concert, where I found myself sitting beside a man who spent the whole night staring anxiously around the auditorium and muttering in Hebrew into a radio-mike stuffed down his sleeve. Either he was an Israeli security agent or someone with an Inspector Clouseau fixation. Possibly both. But he sure was a nuisance, and didn’t make me feel more warmly toward the orchestra he was apparently protecting.

The next night in Rotterdam, though, was infinitely better. I was there for what used to be called the ‘Gergiev Festival’ but is now the ‘Rotterdam Philharmonic Gergiev Festival’ — a shift in nomenclature that reflects recent history in the city’s artistic life. Valery Gergiev ran the city orchestra — the No 2 in Holland after the Concertgebouw — from 1995 to 2008 and, during that time, decided that Rotterdam needed a festival: something that brought in stars and opera — as supplied, of course, by the Mariinsky Theatre. Calling it the Gergiev Festival stated the obvious but at least emphasised that during the festival period this elusive man was going to be around (more usually he wasn’t). And over time it put Rotterdam on the cultural map in a way that the city orchestra’s previous conductors, good as they were, had never quite managed.

Since 2008, though, the orchestra has been in the hands of Yannick Nezet-Seguin — an astute appointment that caught this dynamic young French-Canadian (soon to become music director of the broke but still prestigious Philadelphia Orchestra) just as he was poised to make it big. As he now unquestionably is, in terms of everything but physical stature. Yannick, as he’s popularly known (the name is complicated) is a small man as conductors often are, but with enormous compensating personality. He’s focused, strong, ambitious and committed to the nth degree. But when it comes to this festival he’s in a slightly odd position because Gergiev still runs it, even though Yannick runs the orchestra the festival relies on. Hence the diplomatic change of name. This is now a festival not longer simply about Gergiev but about an orchestra: a very fine orchestra, with a razor-sharp music director who is not Valery Gergiev. And if there was any doubt about any of that, you only had to hear Yannick and his band last weekend playing a Bruckner 8 that brought the entire audience to its feet at the end.

I’m told it doesn’t take much to get Rotterdam audiences standing at the ends of concerts, but in this case it was more than justified. The Bruckner was terrrific: purposeful, alive, engaging (all the things the Israel Phil the night before had failed to be), with muscle but without the over-bearing bombast Bruckner symphonies can sometimes be weighed down by. It was seriously impressive. As, I might add, was a certain feature of the Rotterdam Phil’s playing venue. Rotterdam isn’t the world’s loveliest city (it was bombed flat in World War 2 and badly rebuilt), and I’ve known better halls than the De Doelen there. BUT…it provides plenty of space to sit down before a concert (unlike the Albert Hall), and in foyers blissfully uncluttered by people running small businesses, dealing in drugs, begging for money, or practising rap routines to the accompaniment of ghetto-blasters as happens in the shabby bazaar that is now the South Bank Centre. What’s more, De Doelen Hall provides its audience with free tea and coffee, not only during the interval but after the show — encouraging concert-goers to stay, and meet, and talk about the music they’ve just heard. How civilised the Dutch can be, compared to us.

[JP note: Because they are Jews?]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

North Africa


Egypt: Military and Muslim Brotherhood, Dangerous Players in the 21 November Election

The military’s silence is a worrying sign. The young people of Tahrir Square are too divided and disorganised to play any major role in the country’s political debates.

Cairo (AsiaNews) — Egypt’s first post-Mubarak democratic elections will be held in November, the country’s ruling military council announced today in an informal statement reported in the media. Voting for the lower house, the People’s Assembly, will take place in three stages, the first on 21 November and the last on 3 January. Voting for the upper house will be held from 22 January to 4 March.

Except for the days of the election, Egypt’s military has not said much about the new democratic Egypt. “No one has a clue about what will happen after the vote,” sources told AsiaNews in Cairo. “For decades, the military had the last word about everything and will do everything to back those political forces that are allied to them.”

For sources, the military will not give up power easily. “Most of those on the council are former members of the old regime; for 30 years they were accomplices in crimes against the people even if now they want to make us believe that since Mubarak’s fall everything has changed.”

Muslim parties are the military’s best supporters. Since July, they have stopped their members from participating in demonstrations and sit-ins against the military.

The military’s decision to hold elections in November, so close to Mubarak’s downfall, was made to favour these parties against secular-oriented groups, which are still disorganised and lacking in visibility.

“The young people from Tahrir Square do not have any strong group, and have split up joining a myriad of small parties,” sources said. They are thus absent from political debates.

The Muslim Brotherhood is best placed in this election. In eight months, they have been able to reorganise and launch an effective election campaign.

“Islamic parties in a few months have gone from illegality to being all over the place, talking about the government, economy, social mores and religious freedom,” the sources explained.

The crisis with Israel has also helped extremists increase their influence. The review of the Camp David peace accord is widely supported across the country. In the coming months, this could become the battle cry for the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis, who have always been against any relations with Israel.

Still, Egyptians are still very much divided and any prediction is hard to make. Sources said that since the revolution in Tahrir Square, the population has split in two big blocks: the middle class and intellectuals who are in favour of the more moderate Islamic parties and farmers, who represent the largest pool of support for radical Islamic parties.

In addition, the families and movements connected with the victims of repression in Tahrir Square, who led anti-military demonstrations, are another major force. (S.C.)

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Egypt: Islam-Based Party is Banned

Egypt has prohibited the formation of a political party by Al Gamaa al-Islamiyya, an Islamist group that was once involved in a bloody insurgency against the government. Egypt’s state news agency said the Political Parties’ Affairs Committee rejected the request because the proposed party would be based on “religious grounds in violation of the law” and advocated a strict interpretation of Islamic law under which thieves can be punished by cutting off their hands and murderers can be beheaded. Al Gamaa al-Islamiyya waged an insurrection in the 1990s but has since renounced violence.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Israel and the Palestinians


Caroline Glick: Funding the Enemy

Speaking Sunday at the UN’s conference of donors to the Palestinian Authority, Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon warned that while Israel supports economic assistance to the PA now, that is liable to change within the week.

As he put it, “Future assistance and cooperation could be severely and irreparably compromised if the Palestinian leadership continues on its path of essentially acting in contravention of all signed agreements which also regulate existing economic relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.”

           — Hat tip: Caroline Glick [Return to headlines]



Clegg: Palestine UN Bid ‘Difficult’

Britain faces a “difficult judgment” over whether to back Palestinian statehood at the United Nations, Nick Clegg said, amid reports of a coalition split on the issue. The Deputy Prime Minister said there had been “debates” at the top of Government over the position to adopt but said it would be unhelpful to air them in public. Diplomatic efforts are under way to persuade Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas not to table a Security Council statehood bid — which is opposed by the US and Israel. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has offered fresh talks in a bid to find another means to revive the peace process which has been stalled for more than a year. The White House has signalled it would veto the move, raising fears of a tense showdown as senior politicians gather in New York for the UN General Assembly meeting. Mr Clegg, said by The Times to be pushing for firmer support for the move against a more reluctant Prime Minister David Cameron, said the consequences of inaction had to be properly considered. “We have debates, of course we do, in Government,” he told BBC News from Birmingham where the Liberal Democrats are holding their autumn conference. “The senior members of the Government on an issue like this — the Foreign Secretary, the Prime Minister and myself — we talk about this a lot. But we do it as a Government. I do not think it helps at all on issues like that for there to be a running commentary on who says what.”

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Middle East


Blast Kills 3, Wounds 15 in Turkish Capital

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey’s interior minister says three people have been killed in an explosion in the capital that was probably terrorism.

Idris Naim Sahin says the explosion that also left 15 people wounded is “highly likely to be a terrorist attack.” He said the bodies of three people were found in a building near a car that exploded in downtown Ankara.

Sahin says the car was purchased a week ago but it was not yet registered.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A car exploded outside a high school in the Turkish capital on Tuesday, igniting other vehicles and wounding 15 people, witnesses and officials said.

A deputy prime minister said the blast was caused by a car bomb. Other officials said a burning gas canister had been tossed onto a vehicle in downtown Ankara.

Reyhan Altintas, a neighborhood administrator, said she rushed outside after hearing a loud blast. It was followed by three other blasts, apparently caused by cars catching fire.

The blast wounded 15 people, said Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay. At least three were in serious condition.

“I had never heard anything like it in my life,” witness Adnan Yavuz said of the initial blast. “Then came another explosion and parts of a car dropped from the tree.”

Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said officials had received information that a bomb was planted on the vehicle that exploded in the Kizilay district.

Gov. Alaaddin Yuksel and a local mayor, Bulent Tanik, said a witness told them that someone threw a burning gas canister onto the vehicles from a nearby building.

“That canister might have triggered the explosion of a liquefied petroleum gas tank on a vehicle,” Tanik said.

The wounded were initially treated in the school yard before medics rushed to the scene and whisked them away to hospitals, NTV television said.

Kurdish rebels fighting for autonomy in southeastern Turkey have lately escalated their attacks on Turkish targets. The rebels carried out deadly bomb attacks in Turkish cities in the past. Islamic and leftist militants were also behind some bombings in this NATO-member and U.S. ally country.

Kurdish rebels were last blamed for a small bomb attack in the Mediterranean resort town of Kemer on Aug. 28 that injured 10 people, including four Swedish nationals.

Kurdish rebels have been fighting for autonomy in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast since 1984.

Turkish warplanes have bombed suspected rebel hideouts in northern Iraq last month in response to an escalation of attacks by the guerrillas. Turkey has not ruled out a cross-border offensive against Kurdish rebel bases in northern Iraq.

[Return to headlines]



Cameron and Clegg Clash Over the Most Over-Hyped Issue in the Middle East

by Paul Goodman

As I’ve written before, the significance of the Israel-Palestine conflict is grotesquely over-hyped. Orthodoxy holds that solving it is the key to peace in the middle east — an error that the tumult in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Bahrain and elsewhere during the past year has helped to expose. The most insidious threat in the region — Iran’s push for nuclear weapons, which threatens a Saudi response and a regional arms race — has nothing much to do with Israel: it is driven by national pride and religious ambitions in the emerging Shi’ite-Sunni conflict which is one of the great underwritten stories of British journalism.

Indeed, coverage of the region is poor and patchy, obsessed by Israel-Palestine to the exclusion of nearly everything else. The panjandrums of the BBC are flown out to pronounce on events when they become too momentous for even domestic journalism to ignore — such as last year’s inital revolts in Tahrir Square — and then flown back again while the action continues. So it came about that there was very little reporting of the monster rally in Cairo, which took place shortly after the fall of Mubarak, in which the masses were addressed by the extremist Islamist preacher Yusuf Al Qaradawi. None the less, a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conundrum would be both just and good — the only fair answer to a gnawing problem.

Israel’s greatest failure has been weak government failing to rein in the settlers; the Palestinians’ has been the history of rejectionism embodied in Hamas. Would the recognition of a state of Palestine make a two-state solution more likely? The Conservative Party is divided over Israel/Palestine but, as Tim indicated last weekend, the judgement of Tory foreign office ministers is that the answer is no, because the Palestinians would conclude from recognition that they don’t need negotiations to advance their aims, and Israel would most likely be the subject of a wave of legal actions from the new state — thus retarding talks even further.

The Liberal Democrats have a recent history of being less fastidious. The party’s opposition to the Iraq War improved the acquaintance of its MPs with some of the worst elements in British Islamism — Simon Hughes’s support for some having a role in Parliament being one of the most egregious examples. No wonder the Times reports today that David Cameron and Nick Clegg have clashed over the issue, as Barak Obama responds to a bid whose implications he was slow to see. The paper claims that Clegg has told Cameron that he is “being too cautious by resisting greater recognition for Palestine”.

Cameron has also consulted Tony Blair, a move unlikely to provide universal reassurance. It’s not hard to see where all this is heading. Obama is committed to vetoing the Palestinian gambit in the UN Security Council. Cameron won’t want to offend Obama. Clegg won’t want to cross his party. If it comes to a Security Council vote, we are moving towards that bold response, an abstention. And if the UN General Assembly votes to recognise a state of Palestine, much of British journalism will exhaust dictionaries of hyperbole — after which business in the Middle East will continue as usual.

[JP note: See also the article by Charles Moore which Goodman links to in the piece above http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/charlesmoore/8348516/Libya-What-happens-after-we-stop-watching-these-revolutions-against-Col-Gaddafi.html , in particular the quote: “It is often said that anti-Israeli feeling is growing in the West because Israel does not, despite its claims, live by Western values. I sometimes wonder if the opposite is the case: Israel, because of the constant threat to its existence, reminds us of the high cost of defending our freedoms. And that, to Western wishful thinkers, is intensely irritating.” ]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Iran: Islamic Awakening Forum Final Statement Issued

‘This awakening move will certainly advance to the very heart of Europe’

Islamonline.net_ News Agencies Final statement of the First Islamic Awakening meeting was issued late Sunday 18 Sep by reiterating that the Islamic Awakening is rooted in Genuine Islam and relies on the presence of people in all political and social arenas. Part of the statement reads, the independence of Muslim nations and their relief from economic, political and intellectual boundaries created by colonial powers depends on unity and consensus of all Muslim nations. The statement underlined the important role of people from all walks of life, particularly the youth and women in the victory of the Islamic awakening. The First International Islamic Awakening Meeting was opened on Saturday 18 Sep at the presence and with the opening speech by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on the venue of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s international seminars. Over 600 foreign thinkers and intellectuals from 80 world countries and over 400 elites from Iran attended the two-day conference. The conference is also attended by Iran’s top officials, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani and Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani.

Forum issues Five special committees were set up during the two-day event to discuss different aspects of the Islamic Awakening. The conference will also discuss and analyze the history and basic tenets of the Islamic Awakening as well as figures that have played a role in such movements. The in-depth study of a unified Islamic front and the issues and problems it faces as well as the goals and prospects of Islamic Awakening were among other topics of discussion during the conference.

Closing ceremony The closing ceremony of the international seminar was held on Sunday evening with the speech of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the presence of more than 1,000 thinkers and intellectuals from Iran and foreign countries. Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi has said that the great Islamic movements that have recently arisen in the Muslim world are a prelude to the establishment of a new Middle East. Salehi made the remarks on Sunday in an address to the 1st International Islamic Awakening Conference, which was held in Tehran from September 17 to 18. Salehi said the fact that popular movements in the region are spreading and more people are joining them illustrates that a new Middle East will be established based on Islam, in which the people will have the right to determine their own destiny and will no longer be subservient to the United States and the Zionist regime. “The popular uprisings that have recently arisen in the Arab world have their roots in the unsound and unfair equations that have been prevailing in the relations between nations… over successive decades and were Muslim nations’ natural reactions to unjust policies that the global hegemonistic system has adopted,” he added. He also stated that the hegemonistic powers are seeking to hijack the revolutions occurring in the Middle East and North Africa through infiltrating subservient elements into them and seeking to create “artificial crises” in certain countries to avail themselves of an opportunity to manipulate the uprisings. Velayati, who is also Supreme Leader’s Top Advisor for International Affairs, made the remarks while addressing the First International Conference on Islamic Awakening. Velayati told a press conference earlier this month that the conference is not a state-sponsored move, but a large number of government offices and ministries as well as cultural bodies have rendered assistance to the organizers of the gathering.

Popular uprisings Since the beginning of 2011, the Muslim world has witnessed popular uprisings and revolutions similar to what happened in Iran in 1979. Tunisia saw the overthrow of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in a popular revolution in January, which was soon followed by a revolution which toppled Hosni Mubarak in Egypt in February. Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Yemen have since been the scene of protests against their totalitarian rulers, who have resorted to brutal crackdown on demonstrations to silence their critics. Bahrain and Yemen, however, have experienced the deadliest clashes, while in Bahrain the military intervention of the Saudi-led forces from the neighboring Arab states has further fueled the crisis in the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom. Earlier this month, the Supreme Leader stressed that the European continent will soon experience popular uprisings and revolutions sweeping the Middle-East and North Africa at present.

Uprising heading to Europe Addressing a large number of Iranian teachers and university professors in Tehran, Ayatollah Khamenei reiterated that the growing wave of Islamic awakening in the Middle-East, North Africa and other parts of the Muslim world has been inspired by Iran’s Islamic Revolution, and said this awakening will definitely spread to the European countries. ‘This awakening move will certainly advance to the very heart of the Europe and the European nations will rise against their politicians and rulers who have fully surrendered to the US and the Zionists’ cultural and economic policies,’ he said. In relevant remarks earlier this year, a prominent American analyst had said that the wave of Erhal (Get Out) revolutions in the Middle-East and North Africa is now growing to the European continent. ‘Due to the financial corruption dominating most of the European governments and the pervasive bottlenecks and crises that have arisen in the western countries these days, it is predicted that the growing trend of such discontents will soon turn into a series of revolutions known as the Erhal Revolutions’ in the Middle-East and North Africa, Dr. James Anderson said late March. He said the European countries have not witnessed a major development and political leap after the Renaissance, the World War II, the Cold War and formation of the European Union (EU), but now the time is ripe for the European people to get ready for political revolutions and change in their ruling structures. Dr. Anderson also described the current protests and rallies in London as a prelude to Erhal revolutions in Europe, and said many European countries will soon be Erhalized and the world will soon witness that Erhalization has no boundaries. Similar to the spread of Islam to Europe via Spain several centuries ago, the growing waves of awakening seem to be spreading from the Middle-East and North Africa to Europe via the same country, where thousands of Spanish protesters have started rallies since a few days ago.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Saudi Arabia: Muslim Leaders to Address New Challenges at Makkah Confab

JEDDAH: More than 300 Muslim leaders, scholars and academics are expected to participate in the annual Islamic conference organized by the Muslim World League (MWL) in Makkah during the Haj season this year to discuss major Muslim issues.

“We are holding this conference during the Haj season, following a tradition introduced by King Abdul Aziz who had instructed Muslim scholars to meet in Makkah to discuss contemporary Muslim issues and problems,” said MWL Secretary-General Abdullah Al-Turki.

This is the 12th annual conference organized by MWL during the Haj, he said, adding that it would discuss the status of Islamic dawa activities in various parts of the world to come up with proposals to make them more successful.

The conference would set out effective dawa programs for different countries. “We have sent invitations to a number of scholars, university professors and heads of Islamic centers to take part in the conference and present papers,” Al-Turki said. Hassan Al-Ahdal, director general for media and public relations at the MWL, said the conference would be attended by a number of new Muslims. Previous conferences discussed topics such as Muslims in Europe, the role of the media, and youth issues.

“The opening session will be held at the MWL headquarters in Makkah while the remaining sessions will be held in Mina,” Al-Ahdal told Arab News. The papers presented at the conferences are published in a book form. “We send letters to Muslim governments and Islamic centers to implement the conference recommendations.”

Al-Ahdal said the conference offers a good opportunity for Muslim leaders to meet and discuss various issues facing their communities and find solutions to them. “This is one of the major objectives of Haj.” The four-day conference will have four sessions to discuss various aspects of the main theses, such as the principles and importance of dawa, the methodology followed by the Prophets in disseminating the message of Islam, the challenges facing dawa activities, especially in Muslim minority communities, vision and expectations of dawa, and application of modern technology.

[JP note: I expect erhalization will be on the menu.]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



The Middle East: Restating the Obvious [Bernard Lewis Book Review]

THE MIDDLE EAST: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years, by Bernard Lewis. 433 pages, illustrated. Scribner paperback, $16

The crazy thing about the demonization of Bernard Lewis by the apologists for Islam is that Lewis is himself an apologist for a failed system. His style is different, his knowledge broader and deeper, his approach rational, but his results are nearly as wrongheaded. “The Middle East” was written in 1994 and has had a wide readership. My copy is the 16th paperback printing. That suggests that as many as one westerner in 400 or 500 has been exposed to his ideas. If we include his many less popular volumes, perhaps the number comes up to 1 in 200 or 300. Include the journalism and it might be a little more. So that when people speak of Lewis as the most influential scholar of Islam in the west, we are talking about a small group, indeed, many of whom despise him. He was the bete noir of Edward Said’s incoherent and poorly sourced “Orientalism.” Given what’s in “The Middle East,” it seems that if “orientalism” really exists, even a dnuce like Said could have found a more cogent example. Although Lewis writes that he wants to avoid a sultans and kings approach, the chapters devoted to culture, common society and business are skimpy. He attempts to set the stage by beginning, not at the beginning, but a little earlier, at the birth of Jesus. This makes some sense, but he gets off on the wrong foot, writing as if the Middle East was a mostly Christian area for six centuries before Islam. It wasn’t. R.L. Fox, in “Pagans and Christians,” estimates that at most 4 percent of the population of the Roman east was Christian before the forced conversion. The church had less than three centuries to instill its religion on the masses, and because it preferred to co-opt rather than exterminate local cults, it never really replaced the chthonic religions. Islam did, a most important point, but one that Lewis, since he does not realize it, does not address. It has turned out to be exceedingly difficult — short of simply exterminating Muslim populations, as was done, for example, in Italy — to oust Islam once established. The reasons for this are not simple, but one obvious reason is the continuing use of force. Lewis entirely misunderstands force. First, he describes the suppression of the “people of the book” religions (Christians, Jews, maybe Zoroastrians) as a contract entered into with the conquerors. Since there was no choice, it cannot be called a contract. This is hardly a surprise. Lewis correctly identifies Muhammad as a political-military leader with a religious doctrine, but fails to note that he was mainly a gangster. The much praised Islamic toleration — to the extent it existed at all — was nothing but a gigantic protection racket. Lewis’ most egregious misunderstanding is closely associated. He approvingly cites the sura saying “there is no compulsion in Islam.” He is not alone, but it beggars belief that anybody could have such a skewed understanding. Islam is a missionary religion, and wherever it holds civil power (virtually all of the Middle East for the past 1,400 years) it disallows other missionaies. This one-way gate will, eventually, result in a completely Muslim community. What there really isn’t in Islam is freedom of conscience. Without freedom of conscience, there can never be democracy, which means that a good part of the later chapters of “The Middle East” is beside the point. In 1994, Lewis believed that democracy, even liberal democracy, was making headway in the Koran Belt. In fact, it was already obvious by then that the forces of reaction had gained control. There were, are still are not, any Muslim democracies, or even any effective modern states even of undemocratic character. About one in 10 of the world’s 50 or so Islamic societies is a failed state, and a number of others are heading that way. Oddly enough, when giving himself just a little bit of historical perspective, Lewis is able to write a brilliant paragraph explaining why liberalism’s baby steps faltered. It is worth quoting in full: “In the course of the 1930s, liberal and constitutional institutions began to lose the attraction which they had once held in the region. “ It was a very slight attraction. Turkey is always cited as a Muslim but secular democracy. It was never anything of the sort. The travel writer Paul Theroux outfoxed the scholars by noting, two decades ago, that secularization stopped the day Ataturk died in 1937, a point that goes back to the success of Islam in exterminating the chthonic beliefs of the oldest civilizations of humankind. Islam creates the hungriest, sickest, poorest, least educated people in the world, but it has unparalelled staying power. Lewis continues: “Not surprisingly, they were not working very well.” That would be because no considerable part of the society wanted them to work. As the Syrian political scientist Bassam Tibi puts it,. Arabs are not interested in democracy. Lewis again: “Limited to a small, Westernized elite, they had no real basis of support in the society as a whole. Alien in both conception and appearance, they were in every way inefffective — unable alike to evoke people’s memories of the past, to respond to their needs of the present, or to illuminate their hopes for the future. Worst of all, they were associated in the minds of most Arabs with the most hated imperial powers of Western Europe.” Nothing has changed since. The fact that the “most hated imperial powers” were of Western Europe is key. The Arabs had been colonized by the Turks for 500 years and by Europe for 20 to, at most, 130 years. Few Arabs will even agree that the Ottomans did colonized them, and the reason is obvious: In this part of the world, religion trumps politics.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Caucasus


Azerbaijan: ‘Islam and Christianity Discourse’ Seminar to be Held

Organized by the Islamic Development Office in East Azerbaijan Province, a seminar titled “Islam and Christianity Discourse” is to be held in Tabriz on September 21-23.

(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) — Organized by the Islamic Development Office in East Azerbaijan Province, a seminar titled “Islam and Christianity Discourse” is to be held in Tabriz on September 21-23. Hojat-ol-Islam Hamid Azimi, the office’s managing director, said that the seminar would feature an interfaith discussion between Islam and Christianity with the presence of Mohammad Legenhausen, an American philosopher who teaches at the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute in Qom. “It will be held in three sessions on September 21-23 in Shams Tabrizi Center,” he went on to say, adding that the seminar mainly seeks to “further familiarize students with various aspects and characteristics of Islam and Christianity through a comparative study.”

Born into an American Catholic family in 1953, Professor Gary Carl (Muhammad) Legenhausen holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Rice University. He got acquainted with Islam through his Iranian student Akbar Nojehdehi in the University of Texas. In 1979, he kept discussing with him about ideological and religious issues and though he was only concerned with doing research on Islam at first, he took a deep interest in it over the course of his research and ended up a Muslim three years later. He wrote a book entitled Islam and Religious Pluralism in which he advocates “non-reductive religious pluralism”. He has been an advocate of interfaith dialogue, and serves on the advisory board of the Society for Religious Studies in Qom. Professor Legenhausen was officially honored last year by the Islamic Republic of Iran as an outstanding figure serving Islam and the Quran.

[JP note: Has the good professor not understood that Islam is a reductive form of religious monolism?]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

South Asia


India: Narendra Modi’s No to Skullcap is Insult to Islam: Imam

Chief minister Narendra Modi’s refusal to wear a skullcap has found him amidst political controversy. Saiyad Imam Shahi Saiyad has allegedly said that Modi’s refusal to wear Muslim’s skullcap is an insult to the Islam religion. The issue could prove to be a shot in arm for the Congress to criticise Modi and his ‘Sadbhavna Mission’. Sufi saint Imam Shahi Saiyad had offered Modi a Muslim skullcap during his visit on Sunday. However, the CM refused wearing the cap tactfully and instead accepted the shawl. “I did not go there as a member of the BJP or the Congress but as a religious leader. His refusal to wear skullcap is not an insult to me but to the religion Islam,” he said.

The opposition party is considering Modi’s refusal as a trait of pseudo secularism, whereas the BJP has termed it as Congress’s conspiracy. Arjun Modhwadia, president of Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee, said it shows the true face of chief minister and his party (BJP). State BJP spokesperson Vijay Rupani asked if wearing a Muslim skullcap was the only way to show sadbhavna.”BJP doesn’t believe in accepting religion in its real existence. To believe in sadbhavna, a Hindu doesn’t need to wear a Christian’s khes (scarf) nor does he need to wear a Muslim skullcap. Same holds true for a Muslim or a Christian as a Muslim or a Christian doesn’t need to wear a janoi (sacred thread),” said Rupani, adding that there is no need for any controversy at this time.

It is believed that the BJP shot SMSes justifying his refusal. “A Hindu need not wear topi (cap) to show his secularity, neither does a Muslim need to visit temple for the same,” read the text of the message. The SMS also read that the BJP does not believe in Muslim appeasement.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



India: Skullcap Refusal on Dais of Amity

Ahmedabad, Sept. 19: A Muslim cleric yesterday walked up to Narendra Modi and offered him a skullcap but the Gujarat chief minister politely declined to wear it. The BJP leader, who ended his three-day fast for communal harmony today, however, accepted a shawl from Maulvi Sayed Imam Shahi Saiyed. “I thought he would graciously accept it (the cap). After all, he has been wearing various colourful turbans and caps offered to him,” the 61-year-old cleric, who had come with his son Shamsuddin, said later.

While some observers said the cleric had virtually put Modi’s commitment on communal harmony to test with his offer, others said the chief minister’s response betrayed his dilemma. While the chief minister is trying to burnish his political brand appeal, he wouldn’t want to risk hardliners within the wider Sangh parivar, they said, or do anything that could dent his image as a Hindutva poster boy. The BJP played down the incident, saying the party did not believe in appeasement. “Thousands of members of the minority community have come here, but nobody insisted that Narendra Modi put on a skullcap. This is a non-issue which is being turned into a big one by our opponents,” spokesperson Vijay Rupani said. The maulvi, a chief of the Sufi community in Gujarat, however, expressed his disappointment. “I did not want to argue, it was pointless. But I am pained. He has been wearing caps and turbans of each community but declined a Muslim one which is not a sign of sadbhavna,” he said.

“Modi’s refusal to accept the cap is not an insult to me but an insult to Islam,” Saiyed told reporters today. “I had come to Ahmedabad after hearing about the Sadbhavna fast and went to the stage to felicitate Modi. When I offered him the cap, he told me he would not wear it. He might have thought that wearing a skullcap would dent his image.” Modi, however, let the maulvi drape the green shawl around his shoulders. Shamsuddin said his father had bought the cap and shawl for Rs 90. “We were asked by a government official to attend the fast. We came all the way from Rustampura, 100km away from Ahmedabad, and had to go through a lot of security hassles before we were allowed to go to the dais to greet Modi.” Minority leader Yusuf Shaikh said the cap episode was a non-issue, but was significant as it had exposed Modi’s “drama”.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Australia — Pacific


First Foray Into Study of Faith

The only one of its kind in Australia, this master of Islamic studies course puts the religion in an Australian and contemporary context, writes Margie Sheedy.

STUDYING Islam at a university level means many things. “Firstly, it is about gaining a deeper understanding of the Koran and the Islamic texts, many of which are from the classical period,” says Mehmet Ozalp, an adjunct lecturer of Australia’s first master of Islamic studies qualification through Charles Sturt University. “This course aims to help students understand this in the context of the contemporary world without changing Islam itself. ‘Secondly, it is about students thinking more deeply and developing a unique contemporary Australian perspective — understanding the context of Islam so religion makes a positive difference.”

The master of Islamic studies degree already seems to have struck a chord with Muslims and non-Muslims alike. There are 42 students enrolled in the part-time postgraduate course, which is only in its second semester. “We are pleasantly surprised by the amount of interest we have had,” says Ozalp, who is also president of the Islamic Sciences and Research Academy of Australia, which has been working with CSU to develop the curriculum. “Our vision is to provide high-grade education within the faith of Islam at the university level and to [enable students to] achieve a university qualification so they don’t have to go overseas to study.”

Ozalp says the course is broken into several core dimensions: classical Islamic sciences (the Koran and prophetic narrations, Islamic history and law, legal history and the study of Arabic); contemporary religion (including modern issues, such as globalisation and jihad); and human beings and society (the fundamentals of philosophy, sociology and human improvement). “We believe this gives it a nice balance,” he says. “On the one hand, we are staying true to the Islamic tradition but in the Australian context and within the CSU framework and standards. It is hoped that students will gain a deeper knowledge to help them understand contemporary issues and then deal with them in an effective and constructive manner.”

A lecturer at Monash University’s School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies, Salih Yucel, was on the advisory committee for the CSU course. He says the qualification has strong support from the local Muslim community and thinks it is important for Australia.

“Being in Australia since 1987, it is my personal observation and experience that there is a need for an Islamic studies program in an academic environment,” he says. “It will give an opportunity to the second- and third-generation Muslims to learn Islam from relevant and academic sources.”

As a graduate of one of the leading schools of divinity in Turkey, he says the programs and curriculums overseas do not fully address the needs of the second and third generation of Australian Muslims. “Although theologically they are very similar in terms of articles of faith and pillars of Islam, Islam culturally is categorised by the anthropologists as Middle Eastern Islam, central-Asian Islam, Indo-Pakistani Islam, African Islam, south-Asian Islam, Anatolia-Balkan Islam and European Islam,” he says. “The Charles Stuart University master of Islamic studies program focuses on common grounds with European Islam.”

He says that after September 11, 2001, “there has been a great demand by non-Muslims around the world and Muslims who live as a minority to learn about Islam, especially in the Western countries”. “News [public information] related to Islam and Muslims gives a poor representation of Muslims, leading to misunderstanding,” he says.”This program will contribute to understanding. Moreover, it is an academic gap. Why shouldn’t there be academic study about the religion with the second-largest group of adherents?”

The course has drawn students from diverse backgrounds. “There are 19 different ethnic backgrounds [in the course], including Lebanese, Turkish, Afghan, Egyptian and Syrian, most of whom were born in Australia,” Ozalp says. “Our students are 55 per cent female and 45 per cent male. Most of them are doing this on the side, supplementary to their careers or another course of study.

‘There are a number of psychology students, lawyers, doctors and nurses, teachers and police officers; they all deal with Islamic-related matters in their fields. There are also a few Islamic religious educators and non-Muslim students, as well as people who are doing it for the love of learning.”

In terms of career enhancement, Ozalp says the master of Islamic studies degree will help students in their existing professions do their jobs better. “They can also go on to study to become academics, teachers in schools and maybe one day we will have home-grown imams,” he says. “We want this course to be representative of the community and to be inclusive of the community as much as possible.”

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Grand Mufti Ibrahim Abu Mohamed Feels Duty to ‘Cure’ Radicals

HOMEGROWN Muslim radicals are like “ill” patients in need of guidance and whose extremism is often fuelled by examples of injustice abroad such as the simmering conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

Australia’s new Grand Mufti, Ibrahim Abu Mohamed, said young Muslims who were in the orbit of extremist preachers must be “corrected”. Speaking just days after his appointment, Dr Mohamed said homegrown radicalisation, considered by security agencies to be the most serious terror threat confronting the community, was the result of a distorted view of Islam. “Our duty is to clarify those matters,” Dr Mohamed said through an interpreter. “An extremist is like an ill person, an unhealthy person. You need to cure him and find the right cure for him more than just to destroy him and finish him off.”

Dr Mohamed, who was born in Egypt, was elected Grand Mufti by the Australian National Imams Council. He takes over from Melbourne-based Sheik Fehmi Nagi El-Imam, who retired because of ill health. The role of Grand Mufti has often been a controversial one. Sheik Fehmi’s predecessor, Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali, often courted scandal, famously referring to immodestly dressed women as “uncovered meat”.

Dr Mohamed has earned a reputation as a bridge-builder between Australia’s disparate Muslim communities. One law enforcement source contacted by The Australian described the Islamic scholar as “highly respected and very influential”. His appointment came 10 years almost to the day after the September 11 terror attacks, a moment he agreed had created “a gap” between Muslims and the wider community.

“It made a lot of Muslims apologise over a matter they had nothing to do with, or as a matter of fact they were totally against,” he said.

Nevertheless, Dr Mohamed suggested there was a relationship between Western foreign policy and the homegrown threat. Referring to the Israel-Palestine dispute and the recent push by the Palestinian Authority for UN recognition of Palestinian sovereignty, he said justice must have “one face”. “Unfortunately we play with a two-faced justice, that we strengthen the strong and weaken the weak,” he said.

“One of the reasons (for) radicalisation is not being just with one nation and being just with another nation.”

On the controversial subject of what role, if any, sharia should play in Australian society, Dr Mohamed urged perspective. He said the Islamic legal code was largely misunderstood. The more extreme examples, such as punishments, formed only a small part of Islamic law. Dr Mohamed said many of the values enshrined in sharia corresponded with Australian values. “Sharia also calls for freedom, justice, right of speech and this is something we are very fortunate to have,” he said. “These are all matters that we already implement here as Australians, and we’re proud to have it as Australian values.”

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Sub-Saharan Africa


Ghana: A Muslim Can be President — Kufuor

Former President John Agyekum Kufuor has expressed intense befuddlement over alleged claims by Deputy Finance Minister Fifi Kwetey that no Muslim can ever be President of Ghana. Mr. Kufuor told The Globe in an exclusive interview at his Airport residence in Accra on Friday evening that “I don’t know how it could get into anybody’s mind to say that a Muslim could not be the President of Ghana. It’s a democracy; it’s a secular nation which practices freedom of religion, perhaps we may even have a president who is not religious at all. “

Mr. Kufuor who served two consecutive four-year terms as President was sharing, exclusively with The Globe, his opinions about the recent furore on the possibility of a Muslim ever becoming the president of Ghana amongst other things. The issue became topical recently following a Wikileaks exposé that quoted Mr. Kwetey as asserting firmly that religion plays an important part in Ghanaian politics and that there was no way a Muslim could ever be voted into office as President in a country that is largely Christian.

He was quoted by the leaked US Diplomatic cables as having said that “Concerning Vice President [Aliu] Mahama’s Muslim faith, religion is an important factor in Ghanaian politics and many Christian Ghanaians would never vote for a Muslim presidential candidate. “ The cables also claim Mr. Kwetey said that “While most Ghanaians would not admit this openly, a Muslim could not be elected President of Ghana”, he was quoted as declaring boldly to some foreign diplomats.

No Muslim has in the annals of Ghana ever been President. Though former President Dr Hilla Limann was from the Muslim-populated Northern zone of the country, specifically Gwollu near Tumu in the Upper West region, he was never a Muslim. Besides former President Rawlings who chose purely Southern Christian running mates for the 1992 and 1996 elections, all other presidential candidates since the 2000 elections have chosen running mates who were either purely Northern Muslims or Northern Christians to balance the religious divide and to also, principally attract votes from that part of the country which is Muslim-dominated.

The trend continued in 2004. Former President Kufuor maintained his partner Aliu Mahama while then candidate Mills chose, then MP for Kumbungu Alhaji Mohammed Mumuni; a Muslim as his running mate. NPP’s Nana Akufo-Addo also opted for a Muslim, Dr. Mahamud Bawumia as his running mate for the 2008 elections, ostensibly, to amongst other things, strategically sway more northern and Muslim voters into the NPP.

This trend, though seen by some as a healthy development has also generated some resentment amongst some political pundits who believe that if a Muslim is good enough to become the vice president, why not the president? Fifi Kwetey’s alleged comments therefore stirred an instantaneous condemnation from a cross section of Ghanaians who accused him of discriminating against Muslims.

Former President Kufuor expressed shock at Mr Kwetey’s alleged assertion to the diplomats and The Globe that he was utterly astounded that somebody could condescend to thinking that a Muslim could never become the president of Ghana. According to him, religion has no role to play in the choice of who becomes the president of Ghana because the nation is governed by a secular constitution.

“…Presidency by constitution is the preserve of citizens. Fortunately our Constitution is a secular constitution. It also prescribes freedom of religion. I’m a Christian, I am a citizen; I became president not because I am a Christian but because I am a citizen of Ghana and my fellow citizens elected me. If tomorrow, (incidentally my vice president was a Muslim) a party should throw up a Muslim as its candidate and he is a Muslim that the people of Ghana would accept, what stops him from becoming the president of Ghana? …perhaps we may even have a president who is not religious at all.”

Mr Kwetey himself has denied the allegation, explaining that he was misquoted. In a statement released on September 13, the deputy Finance Minister indicated that his comments were meant to bring to the fore what he called the deceit and sidelining of Muslims and people of Northern decent from the political limelight, by the NPP through regional and religious tokenism.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Immigration


Dutch Asylum Policy to Become ‘More Restrictive’, PM

The Netherlands’ asylum policy will become “more selective and more restrictive”, the leader of the centre-right government that rules with the backing of a far-right party said Friday.

The country which long cultivated an image of multi-cultural tolerance, now wants to “address the criminality of foreigners, harmonise and simplify the asylum criteria and fight against illegality,” an interior ministry statement said.

“The asylum policy will become more selective and more restrictive,” Prime Minister Mark Rutte added at a press conference after a cabinet meeting in The Hague.

Among other changes, family reunification will in future be limited to immediate family — a spouse or common-law partner and minor children.

Illegal immigration will become a criminal offence, punishable by up to four years in prison or a fine of 3,800 euros ($5,200).

Foreigners who have lived in the Netherlands for less than three years and commit a crime, will be expelled “speedily”.

The government also announced plans to ban the burqa, and said it would oppose bids by Romania and Bulgaria to enter Europe’s visa-free Schengen zone.

Rutte’s government enjoys parliamentary backing from anti-immigration MP Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom, in exchange for which the party was promised a larger say in policy making.

           — Hat tip: Kitman [Return to headlines]

News Feed 20110919

Financial Crisis
» America’s Debt Woe is Worse Than Greece’s
» EU Finance Chiefs Cool on Geithner Plan for Eurozone
» From Tragedy, Triumph, Deceit and Failure — The Post-War History of the European Project
» Greece Scenarios Not Made Public, And Don’t Mention Greece
» Greece: Venizelos: Reforms Delayed, No New Taxes
» Greece: Further Tough Austerity Measures Soon
» Greece: Eating From Bins — the New Make Do
» The European Dream Lies in Ruins
 
USA
» Astronomers Break Ranks Over Space Telescope Costs
» Ayaan Hirsi Ali Marries English Historian
» Food Preparation Standards in Muslim Community Up for Interpretation
» I Accuse President Barack Obama of Destroying Western Interests in the Middle East, Helping Destabilize the Region, And Putting Millions of Lives in Jeopardy
» Michelle Obama and the Muslim Brotherhood
» NASA’s Future on Space Station Hinges on Private Spaceships
» Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and the Tea Party Aren’t Anti-Intellectual. They Just Don’t Agree With the Disastrous Policies of Ivy League Professors
» The Doors of Perception Are Closed
 
Europe and the EU
» Brussels Wants Say in Any Return of EU Internal Borders
» Desecration of Muslim Graves in France
» Dutch Tulips Blocked at Romanian Border in Schengen Dispute
» EU Issues Warning After Turkey, Cyprus Energy Exploration Row Escalates
» France: Lack of Doctors, Banlieue Schools Appeal to UN
» Inflatable Steel Could Revolutionize Industrial Design
» Italy: Silvio Berlusconi Wiretaps Reveal Boast of Spending Night With Eight Women
» Italy: Naples Has ‘Twin Miracles’ In Blood and Soccer
» Italy: Bossi Calls for Referendum on Separate State
» Nuclear Phaseout to Cost Germany €250 Billion
» Response to Fukushima: Siemens to Exit Nuclear Energy Business
» Sperm Bank Turns Down Redheads
» Telegraph Says Two Women Flown From UK for Berlusconi
» The Islamization of the Danish Passport
» UK: EU Ruling to Mean 9 Bins for Every Home
» UK: Muslim Cleric’s Peace Declaration Demands an End to Terrorism
» UK: Seven Arrested in Anti-Terrorism Operation
» UK: Tory MPs Demand Referendum on Europe
» UK: We’re Fed Up With Europe, So Give Us a Vote
 
North Africa
» Libya: Mustard Gas Depot Found in Rogfa
» Libya: New Confirmation, Gaddafi Eliminated Moussa Sadr
» Morocco: Instant Drug Tests to Help Families
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» Michael Gove Urges West to Support Israel, Not Terror
» The Dilemma of Palestine and the United Nations
 
Middle East
» Cyprus: Tension Over Oil, Turkey Threatens Warships
» Greece to Stand by Cyprus in Case of Turkey’s Attack, Minister
» Iraq: Mgr Sako: Middle East Christians, Between State Islam and Fundamentalism
» ‘Pure Islam Root of Region’s Awakening’
» Qatar Airways to Operate 4 New Milan Malpensa-Doha Flights
» Turkey: Planes and Torpedo Boats Over Gas Fields, Erdogan
 
Russia
» Drunk Navigator Contributed to Russian Plane Crash
» Moscow Muslims Mourn Demolished Mosque
» Russian Minority Party Wins Latvian Elections
» Russian Company Plans to Set Up a Hotel in Space
 
South Asia
» India: Exclusive Mobile for Muslims
» Indonesia: Muslim Miss Universe
» Indonesia: Jakarta Governor Comes Under Fire by Women’s Rights Groups
» Maldivian Government Endorses Deobandi Islam, The Religion of the Taliban
» Pakistan: Acid Attacks: 7 Women Burned in Two Days
 
Far East
» China: With ‘Enforced Disappearances’, the Communist Party Becomes a Bunch of Common Criminals
» Thousands Protest Against Nuclear Energy in Japan
 
Australia — Pacific
» Australian Muslims Have New Leader
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
» Ghana: Muslim Leaders in Suhum Want School Head Removed
 
Immigration
» Bachmann Claims Immigration Worked ‘Very Well’ Before 1960s Reforms, When Nonwhites Were Excluded
» Illegals Collecting Billions in Child Tax Credits
 
Culture Wars
» No Wonder Children Use ‘Gay’ To Mean ‘Rubbish’: Gay Culture is Shallow, Camp and Kitsch
» The Gender-Free British Passport: UK Travellers May No Longer Have to Declare Their Sex, To Spare Feelings of ‘Transgender People’
» UK Considering “X” For Transgenders on Passports
 
General
» Dino-Killing Cosmic Impact Wiped Out Ancient Birds, Too
» Global Heat May Hide in Deep Oceans
» The New Faces of Islam

Financial Crisis


America’s Debt Woe is Worse Than Greece’s

The government’s total indebtedness — its fiscal gap — now stands at $211 trillion, by my arithmetic. The fiscal gap is the difference, measured in present value, between all projected future spending obligations — including our huge defense expenditures and massive entitlement programs, as well as making interest and principal payments on the official debt — and all projected future taxes…

In other words, the U.S. is in worse long-term fiscal shape than Greece. The financial sharks are circling Greece because Greece is small and defenseless, but they’ll soon be swimming our way.

To grasp the magnitude of our nation’s insolvency, consider what tax hikes or spending cuts are needed to eliminate our fiscal gap. The answer is an immediate and permanent 64% increase in all federal revenues or an immediate and permanent 40% cut in all federal noninterest spending.

           — Hat tip: Kitman [Return to headlines]



EU Finance Chiefs Cool on Geithner Plan for Eurozone

A unprecedented visit by US treasury secretary Timothy Geithner to a meeting of European finance ministers in Poland was coolly received by the gathered European economy chiefs, while the meeting itself saw little advance made on how the eurozone can deal with its ever-deteriorating debt crisis. In a sign of Washington’s growing alarm at the inability of EU leaders to tame the situation, Geithner on Friday pressed the bloc to ratchet up its fire-fighting power by leveraging the eurozone’s €440 billion rescue fund.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



From Tragedy, Triumph, Deceit and Failure — The Post-War History of the European Project

by Bruce Anderson

The great majority of Conservatives have come to a simple, implacable conclusion. They think that the power of Europe has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished. For twenty years, Europe has been the Tory party’s grievance of grievances. It has disrupted leaderships and intensified electoral defeats. At times, it made the party ungovernable, and the voters will not allow a party which cannot govern itself to govern the country. Partly because of the coalition, there is a wary truce, but this is the Peace of Amiens, not the Congress of Vienna. The conflict will have to be resumed. But it is worth using the uneasy peace for an historical retrospect.Britain’s relationship with Europe began with idealism. It was nourished by pessimism and even self-hatred, both of them enmeshed in deceit. It foundered on the rocks of geography, geo-politics and national revival.

Many Tories have come to regard the progenitors of Britain in Europe as traitors: the British equivalent of Quisling and Vichy. Yet there are no grounds for questioning the original good faith of Britain’s founding fathers, or rather, founding youngsters. In 1945, many of them were young officers in a victorious army. But it was a victory which left Europe on the verge of ruin. “An old bitch gone in the teeth” was Ezra Pound’s verdict on European civilisation after the First World War. By 1945, the lethal injection seemed even more imminent. Central Europe was full of shattered cities, ethnic cleansing, refugees and hungry, frightened populations. It seemed all too likely that there would soon be a third world war, with the once-dominant continent a mere playing field for the Russian-American contest. In their search for a way back from the abyss, it is hardly surprising that the thoughtful youngsters came to what must have seemed an obvious conclusion: that it was vital to move beyond the age of nationalism. National rivalries had mobilised peoples, stimulated economic growth, created the modern state. The nation states had then hurled the creativity, the stimulus, the mobility — into war. If Europe was to survive — if mankind was to survive — there had to be another way. Europe had to develop supra-national institutions.

It was a powerful argument and in the early years, it was reinforced by success. West Germany embraced democratic values. Europe recovered faster than almost anyone had thought possible. The Common Market was working. Although political union seemed a long way off, Europe was becoming part of the political psyche in its member states, which was hardly surprising. Holland was an ex-country. Belgium had never been a proper country. Luxembourg was a relic of the Holy Roman Empire. Many Italians felt that they were not fit to govern themselves, with good reason. Despite the Bundesrepublik’s progress, many Germans felt the same, for understandable reasons. The French had no such doubts. Nor were they ready to move beyond nationalism. But they were content with Europe, because they assumed that they would run it.

In Britain, meanwhile, it was an era of frustration, in which it appeared to be impossible to attain steady economic growth without bottle-necks and over-heating. The phrase “stop-go” was coined to express the frustrations. By then, the young officers of 1945 were moving into positions of power. They argued that the UK needed some European dynamism. This received an increasingly sympathetic hearing in elite circles, reinforced by the four “s” s: sizeism, sentimentalty, self-hatred, and Suez.

As the fraught Fifties gave way to the failures of the Sixties and the follies of the Seventies, a lot of diplomats, other civil servants and politicians grew disillusioned with Britain. We seemed condemned to mediocrity, backwardness, littleness. By contrast, Europe was big and exciting. So a closer engagement with Europe would have two desirable consequences. It would provide a crutch for crippled Britain. It would also supply a large canvas for ambitious administrators, just as the Empire had been for their predecessors. Better the wide blue skies of Europe than the grey constraints of Whitehall.

Among the more sentimentally-inclined, travel is also a liberation from constraint, never more so than on departure from 1950s Britain. Those who went to Europe, still an adventure in those days, discovered good food, cheap wine, and abundant sun with, of course, the possibilty that sunshine plus alcohol would have aphrodisiac consequences. It was easy to believe that the more European Britain became, the better. The late Auberon Waugh proclaimed himself a good European, because he thought that Europe would mean decent table wine at five francs a bottle: they order these things better in France. Such sentiments are attractive, even enticing. But they often merged with a much less appealing characteristic of the British liberal bourgeoisie: a tendency to despise one’s own country. To my knowledge, no-one has yet explained why such feelings should be so widespread in the British and American intelligentsia, while virtually absent in France. But a lot of people, liberal-minded about anything except their own country, were attracted to Europe as a means of doing down Britain (so were and are a lot of Frenchmen).

The liberal/leftie tendency to national self-denigration drew heavily on Suez. It is impossible to overestimate the dismay which that degringolade caused among the high-minded classes, who believed that it was the insane overreach of post-imperial delusion. To them, joining Europe was a way of getting real and growing up. But they had one difficulty with getting real. They profoundly distrusted their ability to take the British electorate with them. Hugo Young documented this in his book “The Blessed Plot”. The phrase comes from Shakespeare’s John of Gaunt, praising England. Mr Young adapted it to mean a plot which he was happy to bless: to beguile the UK into a federal Europe. Throughout most of the years of plotting, the Tory federasts were always the most dishonest, brazen and shameless. They would constantly reassure the voters that Europe was nothing to do with federalism, that any loss of sovereignty would be trivial and that it was all about free trade. They treated the electorate rather as a parent might minister to a sick child, fractiously refusing to take its medicine. Distract its attention, shove the teaspoon down its gob, then quickly proffer a sweet: “there, there. what was all the fuss about?” But the voters were not sick children. Bless them, they went on fussing.

The Euro-fanatics might still have succeeded, if the patient had been unable to recover. As it was, they were confounded by ancient and modern: primeval geography and a modern demiurge. Margaret Thatcher cured the patient. She revived the animal spirits of the middle classes; she re-awakened national self-confidence; she restored common sense. If the government pursued sound fiscal and monetary policies while British commerce produced goods and services that people wanted to buy at a price they were prepared to pay, the country would prosper. Our destiny was in our hands. So Europe should be our market, not our master.

The success of Thatcherism meant that we could once again place our trust in our oldest asset. An Englishman who believed in divine providence might well cite the sundering of his country from the European mainland as triumphant proof of divine beneficence. The creation of a national moat, the English Channel, shaped all subsequent British history. By insulating us from the turmoils of the continent, it helped the development of a unitary state and of constitutional structures which owed far more to evolution than to revolution. Partly as a necessary corrective to leftism and subversion, many Englishmen believe in their nation’s innate moral superiority. But there is a problem: Occam’s Razor. The Channel explains so much that moral pre-eminence is almost an unnecessary afterthought.

As a result of their experience of continental savagery, most other Europeans have come to distrust the nation-state. It is too keen on wearing jackboots. To us, however, the jackboots march under the banners of pan-Europeanism: Philip II, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Hitler. Most of us trust our nation-state to make our laws and protect our liberties. Today, most people in Britain are clear about the current threat to their freedoms. It arises from the EU and the ECHR. That is why Jacques Delors was right. Britain is allergic to Europe.

Europe is also the victim of its earlier successes and its more recent failures. European institutions did help Europe to recover. But as a result, the fears of 1945 have gone, for ever. Germany and France will never again go to war over Alsace-Lorraine. We do not need a federal Europe to prevent a third world war. There is nothing inherently evil about modern European nation-states, even France.

Those are the threats from success. They are far outweighed by the threats from failure. Whatever view one takes of Suez, the Euro is far, far worse. The position is easy to summarise. It can neither go forward, nor backwards, nor stay as it is. Those who invented the Euro can console themselves on one remarkable feat. They have devised a problem which may be beyond the power of the human mind to solve. For the rest of us, at least in Britain, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that British federasty is dead. The bad news is that no-one is sure how to keep the European economy alive.

[JP note: In addition to the Euro, other problems beyond the power of the human mind to solve would probably include Islam and multiculturalism, and all combinations thereof.]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Greece Scenarios Not Made Public, And Don’t Mention Greece

A continuing European debt crisis will lead to a 40% drop in Dutch share prices and a 20% fall in house prices, according to new finance ministry calculations, the Telegraaf reports.

The figures are contained in a confidential briefing for MPs about the likely effect on the Netherlands of three different forms of financial crisis: a general financial crisis, a continuing European debt crisis and a global crisis.

MPs had called on finance minister Jan Kees de Jager to look at the options in the wake of increasing concern about the effect of an eventual Greek bankrutpcy on the Dutch economy.

The briefing does not mention Greece by name, according to media reports. In June, De Jager said if Greece was allowed to go bankrupt, it would cost the Netherlands several tens of billions of euros, because confidence in Portugal, Ireland and Spain would also be hit.

National debt

According to the Financieele Dagblad, the figures show that should there be another credit crisis like that of 2008, the Dutch national debt will rise by 25% over the next five years. Unemployment will rise 2%.

A European debt crisis will see the euro fall 20% in value, while the national debt will go up 18%. Unemployment will rise 2%.

The third scenario, a global economic crisis, will cause most damage, with the national debt rising 30%. The economy will shrink by 8%, the calculations show.

In his covering letter the minister says the figures are not being made public because they are very rough estimates with a high degree of uncertainty.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Greece: Venizelos: Reforms Delayed, No New Taxes

(ANSAmed) — ROME, SEPTEMBER 19 — Greece is “behind schedule” with the reform programme that was agreed with the international community. Now the country must “speed up” to reach the set goals. This statement was made by Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos during a press conference in Athens, Bloomberg reports. The Greek Minister underlined that to reach these goals Greece must “sell State assets, close government agencies and tackle surplus staff” in public administration. Venizelos ruled out the “introduction of new taxes,” because “that is not possible.”

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Greece: Further Tough Austerity Measures Soon

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, SEPTEMBER 19 — After last week in Poland, when European partners clearly told Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos that his country would not be receiving any further aid without the full implementation of the measures decided alongside the troika (IMF, EU and ECB), the Athens government has been faced with a dilemma: meet the requests of the troika — leading to a heavy political price to pay — or hold early elections, as opposition party Nea Dimocratic leader Antonis Samaras continues to call for. The path of early elections was ruled out during yesterday’s government meeting since “it would make the country’s problem even more complicated”. The government, therefore, is obliged to follow the troika’s indications: bring in fresh austerity measures, which will be discussed today during a video conference between Venizelos and troika representatives. The minister — report newspapers — will inform the creditors’ representatives on the new measures the government is about to bring in and will try to overcome the diffidence of European partners on the government’s ability to implement the measures provided for by the Medium-Term Economic Package decided on over a year ago. Among the new “shock-measures” (as the media have called them) are the immediate application of a new salary system for state employees, the elimination of most subsidies and sector incentives, a reduction in the number of employees (in enterprises in which the state has a stake as well as ministries), the shutting down of “useless” state agencies and the equalisation of heating fuel with vehicle diesel. All of these new measures will have to have as their target — according to the troika — the finding of 2.5 billion euros more than those provided for in the plan presented last week by Venizelos, including the special real estate tax. In order to achieve this target, the troika has left it up to the government to find alternative solutions to bring in 2.5 billion euros: an increase in the tax on alcohol or cigarettes, or others that will add to the state coffers the money needed. In any case, the Athens government’s main aim now is to convince the troika to grant the sixth 8-billion-euro instalment, part of the first 110-billion-euro aid package granted to Greece.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Greece: Eating From Bins — the New Make Do

On 19 September, the Greek government announced new cuts designed to convince its partners to hand over the 6th tranche of international aid. Meanwhile in the streets of Athens, more and more people are searching for a cheap way to feed themselves.

Giorgos Pouliopoulos

Until now, the phenomenon was unknown in this country, but with the economic crisis, we have seen more and more people searching bins for food. In the past, only tramps and Roma rooted through bins. Then came the arrival of the Asian and African migrants who sifted through rubbish, heaping their finds into supermarket trolleys. Today Greeks are also looking through bins. Many of them are looking for things to sell, but others are searching for food.

For 25 years, Iranian born Samat Eftehar has owned a tavern in Exarchia. “It is still a lively little neighbourhood. I have known most of the people here for years. Some of them who were already on low salaries have had their wages cut. They are decent people, and now they are forced to eat from bins,” he says.

Sometimes, he gives away food to needy people he knows. “I don’t think we have seen the last scene in this tragedy yet. Things are getting worse. There’s a real famine,” insists Samat Eftehar. “I don’t mean a famine where there is nothing to eat, like in Africa. I’m talking about a famine where people can’t even afford to buy meat once a month.”

Even during the recession, Europe still throws away 89 million tonnes of food every year. That is 180 kilos of food for each of the EU’s citizens. Households are responsible for 43% of this wastage, which is often caused by the trompe l’oeil of expiry dates.

“At least I have pocket money”

Giorgos Arabatzoglou works as a street cleaner for Penteli district in the north of Athens: “Even in this well-off suburb, people are going through the bins, especially on market days. And it’s on the increase,” he says. “We are always finding torn bin liners, so we think more people are rooting: not just in the supermarket bins, but also outside souvlaki shops. Recently, I saw the extraordinary spectacle of a well-dressed young woman, rooting through a pile of expired yogurts trying to find the one with the most recent date.”

For Athens city councillor Giannis Apostolopoulos, “the phenomenon has been on the rise over the last six weeks, although it has been present in the country for 10 years. We notice it more now because we are more directly affected. There are plenty of retired people whose incomes have been cut, and sometimes you see young unemployed people too.” And the phenomenon is not limited to Athens. “No doubt about it. But we have a daily soup kitchen here, which attracts people from other neighbourhoods. And the skips in Athens are piled that bit higher.”

For several years, Dimitri, age 40, has worked as a crane operator for Athens city council. One day, the father of four found a piece of furniture he thought might suit his hallway that had been put out on the street. “I didn’t even have 10 euros in my pocket to buy cigarettes. The council hadn’t paid us for months, and that is when I found this furniture which had been thrown away in the Egaleo district. So I took it while I had the chance. A colleague told me to sell it off for cheap. That was the first time I did it, and I earned 60 euros in two afternoons.”

Dimitri has since traded in his car and bought a small van. When his eldest daughter sees furniture out on the street, she tells him to come and get it, while the garage of his building has become his workshop. “I get 300-400 euros a month out of it, so at least I have pocket money.” But Dimitri still has to contend with a growing number of competitors who are also searching the streets…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



The European Dream Lies in Ruins

by Janet Daley

Europe’s leaders seem incapable of solving the crisis unfolding in front of them.

I have to say that even in my most apocalyptic Eurosceptic moments — when I had moved on from thinking the federalist project simply preposterous to believing that it was criminal folly — I never anticipated this. What I expected was growing disillusionment followed by an almost imperceptible unwinding which would be finessed with political double-talk and diplomatic duplicity. The implosion would come, but it would be with a whimper, not a bang. Faces would be saved and enormous numbers of lies would be told, and somehow the thing would be brought to an end — or made so vestigial that it would no longer matter.

Well, so much for that idea. This is going to be huge: so cataclysmic that it may summon up forms of ugliness that we have not seen walking abroad in Western Europe for half a century. This is where the story goes beyond irony. The European federal dream was devised by its architects to be a definitive repudiation of the ideological conflicts of the 20th century. Pragmatism, consensus and regard for the greater supra-national good would reign where once wicked nationalism and zealotry had prevailed. But what strikes me when I hear the surreal statements emanating from those emergency summits and absurd Franco-German-Greek conference calls is that this is precisely a continuation of the old ideological delusions of the European past. The EU leadership and the Greek prime minister announce implacably that Greece will not leave the euro (ever), as if their uttering of the words made them indisputable. In fact, this is simply a statement of political will that dares the world to defy it.

It seems that the European political class still thinks that an assertion of its mystical belief can alter reality: that what it insists is so, will be so. If its idea of itself and its design for the future are in conflict with the facts of economics or life as it is actually lived, then it is those facts that will give way. (A German Christian Democrat politician once said to me, “The single currency will work because we will make it work.”) Those facts now include not only Greek debt but the democratic wishes of electorates who have a sentimental belief in their right to hold their own governments to account. This is where we are: up against the unavoidable contradiction of the European federal project. The complaint that the EU is lacking in strong political leadership is misconceived: it has had altogether too much “leadership” — which is to say, domination from political and bureaucratic authorities determined to lead with as little interference from real people as possible.

“Consensus” has become coercion. The imperatives of federalism and ever closer union have come bang up against the basic principle of democracy: that elected governments should be answerable to their own electorates, particularly on matters that affect the lives of ordinary citizens, such as taxation and public spending. Federalism cannot allow democracy to disrupt its objectives, and democracy will not permit federalism to ignore its anger and frustration. Angela Merkel cannot do what her critics are insisting that she must do — as George Osborne put it, show that she recognises “the gravity of the situation” and is “dealing with it” — because her electorate will not wear it. She cannot commit herself to endless bail-outs and the under-writing of infinite Mediterranean debt, just as the Greek government cannot deliver the EU’s austerity measures — because the people of both these countries do not wish it. The irresistible force has met the immovable object.

So the choice is between abandoning the democratic principle which holds that the legitimacy of government derives from the consent of the governed, or backing down on the commitment to the euro and all the strictures that go with it. We know which side of this argument our Government has chosen. Mr Osborne reiterated last Friday his insistence that the EU needs “fast-track” fiscal integration — and never mind the democratic scruples.

I suspect that the US Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, who is drumming his fingers on the table with exasperation at EU dithering, wants the same. Since the consequences of this European folie de grandeur now threaten the American and British economic recoveries, it is scarcely surprising that Mr Osborne and Mr Geithner are pushing for a resolution to the central contradiction: are you separate countries or are you one unified economic entity? Settle the damn thing once and for all. Your paralysis is putting us all in peril.

Are the British and American governments prepared for what may follow if they get what they wish for? We were always told that the choice was between European solidarity and war. The EU was created to eradicate the sins of nationalism and, specifically, to tie Germany into a federation which would prevent its historical bellicosity from rising again — which makes it peculiarly ironic that one “solution” being currently mooted is the withdrawal of Germany from the euro. But in fact, discord and hostility are now being provoked by the very constraints and pressures of EU enforcement.

Civil unrest and non-cooperation with government demands are exacerbated by the resentment of what are still perceived as “foreign” agencies. (And, indeed, they are foreign in that individual populations have no hold over them. Greek trade unionists cannot vote Mrs Merkel, let alone the EU Commission, out of power.) Whoever it was who said that this was at least as much a political problem as an economic one was stating the obvious. The rage and anxiety over this loss of national self-determination are already taking sinister forms in the rise of aggressively nationalist parties and neo-fascist movements in the most unlikely “liberal” countries. Add to that the fears of those recent EU member states — the former Warsaw Pact countries — which still look anxiously to the East toward a rampant Russia. Here is a recipe for real conflict both within and between the countries of Europe. Is it beyond the bounds of imagination that we might see the Muslim minorities become the Jews of the 21st century?

EU ministers are not, as is sometimes claimed, “in denial”. They fully appreciate what Mr Osborne calls “the gravity of the situation”. They are paralysed because they see clearly the full force of their dilemma. So they vacillate between the impulse to ram through “fiscal integration”, and the fear of electoral consequences: between the totalitarian impulse and the democratic principle. By the end of the year, we will know which one they chose.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

USA


Astronomers Break Ranks Over Space Telescope Costs

The beleaguered James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) got a reprieve last week when a Senate subcommittee offered to guarantee the money needed to finish the observatory in time to launch in 2018. But the astronomy community as a whole isn’t sure this is good news. Some now fear that the behemoth telescope, which is 7 years late and vastly over budget, will end up devouring money allocated to other planetary science and solar physics projects.

When JWST, the heir apparent to the Hubble Space Telescope, was named a top priority for NASA astrophysics in 2001, it was supposed to cost $1 billion and launch by the end of this year. It is now expected to cost at least $8.7 billion for launch and operations and to launch no earlier than 2018, a dramatic overrun that prompted Congress to propose axing the telescope.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Ayaan Hirsi Ali Marries English Historian

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the anti-Islam campaigner and former Dutch MP, has married English historian Niall Ferguson at a quiet ceremony in Boston in the US.

The couple are having a baby later this year.

Ferguson left his wife of 17 years and three children for Ali, 41, after they met at a party in 2009.

Hirsi Ali now works for a right-wing think-tank in the US.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Food Preparation Standards in Muslim Community Up for Interpretation

In a small industrial space in Upper Darby, Sultan Bhuiyan watches as one of his workers slides a live chicken upside down into a metal bracket. With only the chicken’s head exposed, the man quietly utters the phrase “in the name of God,” and following the ritual of Islamic law, brandishes a knife, running it quickly across the chicken’s neck. He will do this over and over, tenderly stroking the chicken’s feathers as he takes it from its cage to the bloodstained killing room. “People come from all over. Some of them will come and watch the animal be killed. Some want to do it themselves,” Bhuiyan said. “The supermarkets sell halal food, but it is not what I consider halal.”

The word halal, which means “allowed” in Arabic, refers to that which is permissible under Islamic law. Like the word kosher in Judaism, it is most commonly associated with food products sanctioned by the religious leadership. Within the U.S. Muslim community, suspicion has grown in recent years about meat sold under the halal label as the number of suppliers expands and standards of animal slaughter get new, modern interpretation by a growing network of certifying agencies.

Generally speaking, after a short prayer, animals are to be killed with a sharp blade drawn across the throat. That allows the blood considered unhealthy to the Muslim diet to drain. In a standard slaughterhouse, a cow, for example, would be killed with a bolt gun and then bled. But with the growth in the U.S. Muslim population in recent decades, halal foods have become a $20 billion-a-year industry, according to an estimate from the Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America in Chicago. As more meat is turned out by larger, more efficient operations, the traditional method of a man and a knife is no longer considered an absolute necessity by many Muslims.

“The slaughtering of the animal is a pretty simple practice,” said Zain Abdullah, an associate professor of religion at Temple University. “But there is a cadre of scholars that Muslims will follow. They interpret the religion for the community, but there are usually multiple interpretations.” In some large-scale slaughterhouses, recordings of prayers are played over loudspeakers. In others, the only rule is to have a Muslim in the room when the animal is killed, said Maria Omar, spokeswoman for the Chicago council, which acts as a certifying agency for suppliers and as a consumer-education group. “It’s no different from the organic market or gluten-free market,” she said. “When there’s no fixed standards, a lot of people are taken for a ride. A lot of people don’t even think to ask, what do you mean by halal?”

A range of Muslim certification agencies has sprung up to sign off on modern assembly lines where Muslim workers pray as animals are killed at a quick pace by mechanical blades.

Their argument is primarily economic. As they see it, if every animal were hand-slaughtered, many Muslims would not be able to afford to eat halal at all. “Our community is trying to figure out not only what the standard should be, but what is practical,” Omar said.

As the debate rages on, consumer-protection laws have passed in at least seven states, including New Jersey. There, halal retailers and slaughterhouses are required to fill out a detailed questionnaire regarding everything from the food’s alcohol content to whether the animal was stunned before slaughter. The survey results must be posted for public view.

But there is virtually no enforcement for those who run afoul of the laws, Omar said. The question of what is and isn’t halal extends to many aspects of Muslim life — from whether women should keep their faces covered to whether Muslims in Dubai can sell liquor to expatriates. And for many, machine-slaughtered meat is simply part of living in the modern world.

Ahmad Shadid, a Muslim travel agent in Jersey City, N.J., who books pilgrimages to Mecca, said he found the idea of questioning the halal label unsavory. “Everybody has their own understanding of the religion. This is not going to change. It’s like, when is the beginning of Ramadan and the end of Ramadan?” he said. “I have a busy job. I don’t have time to slaughter my own meat. If the guy says it’s halal, I accept that.” But some Muslims have rejected eating meat slaughtered by machine. That is especially true for new immigrants from North Africa and South Asia, where households commonly slaughter their own animals, Abdullah said. “African Muslims in Harlem, they felt compelled to set up their own African butcher shops,” he said. “For immigrant communities, it’s religious, but much more it’s a matter of tradition.”

Oftentimes, consumers are left in the dark as to how exactly the animal they’re eating was killed. The Brown chain of ShopRites, which has 10 stores in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, began expanding their halal offerings in 2005 and are installing isolated halal butchering rooms and meat cases in their new stores. Asked how their meat was slaughtered, co-owner Sandy Brown said she was not sure because ShopRite buys from a wholesaler and not directly from a slaughterhouse.I’m 99 percent sure it’s hand-slaughtered,” she said. “There’s a couple of mosques we work with, and whenever we do something new, we check with them.”

The lack of a unified industry standard is driving suspicion, said Amr Scott, owner of Quetta Halal Meat Market near Rittenhouse Square and a strict proponent of hand-slaughtered meat. “People see a halal label, and they think a Muslim signed off on it, so it’s OK,” he said. “But everyone has a different standard. It’s utterly ridiculous.” For the generations of Muslims who came to the United States in the 1950s and ‘60s, detailed questions about what food was halal were not an issue, because there were almost no halal shops. They traveled hours to trusted vendors or killed their own. “I remember my dad would drive to a farm down in Virginia to slaughter his own chickens,” Scott said.

But now, with so many halal suppliers to choose from, those tasked with determining the rules by which Muslims eat find themselves answering questions that never would have arisen centuries ago. At a conference in India earlier this year, Islamic scholars argued over the validity of chicken plants installing buttons on their assembly lines so each chicken could be killed by an act of man and not automation. Ra’id Abdul-Malik, a teacher at the Association of Islamic Charitable Projects mosque in West Philadelphia, consults centuries-old writings to answer questions such as, “Could a Muslim eat an animal hit by a car?” The answer is yes, as long as the animal is not killed in the accident but by a knife across the throat after the fact. “It doesn’t have to be something based on logic,” Abdul-Malik said. “Humans do not always know what is acceptable.”

[JP note: It doesn’t have to be something based on logic — indeed not, that would take all the fun out of the intepretation.]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



I Accuse President Barack Obama of Destroying Western Interests in the Middle East, Helping Destabilize the Region, And Putting Millions of Lives in Jeopardy

By Barry Rubin

Think of how outrageous my headline is:

“Destroying Western Interests in the Middle East, Helping Destabilize the Region, and Putting Millions of Lives in Jeopardy”

Do you think that’s extremist, crazy, can’t be true because you’re not seeing that stuff in the New York Times? You must be a right-wing Republican, you say?

No, just a serious Middle East analyst…

           — Hat tip: KGS [Return to headlines]



Michelle Obama and the Muslim Brotherhood

With the news that “Infiltration of the federal government by members of the radical Muslim Brotherhood is worse than some have warned,” it should come as no surprise that while Obama has been courting Muslim Brotherhood operatives, his wife has also gotten into the act. According to the toolkit site,

“[t]he Let’s Move! initiative, started by First Lady Michelle Obama, has an ambitious national goal of addressing the challenge of childhood obesity within a generation, so that children born today reach a healthy adulthood. Let’s Move! engages every sector impacting the health of children and provides schools, families, and communities with simple tools to help kids be more active, eat better, and get healthy.”

Thus,

“[f]aith-based and neighborhood organizations have a unique and critical role to play in ending childhood obesity and addressing related issues of hunger. Your organizations are trusted leaders in your community, which makes you well-positioned to take action. Children learn many lessons about healthy living and well-being in faith- and community-based settings that set the foundation for their lifestyles as adults. Let’s Move Faith and Communities is designed to help faith-based and neighborhood organizations transform neighborhoods, engage communities, and promote healthy choices.”

Consequently, towards the end of July 2011, IRUSA or Islamic Relief USA, “a faith-based disaster relief and development organization, celebrated the inauguration of its Summer Food Service Program … at the An Nur School in Lanham, Maryland.” The White House announced that IRUSA “ha[d] a collaborative partnership with the USDA’s Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and that IRUSA ha[d] pledged to host 50 sites as part of a Michelle Obama initiative.”

So while an FBI “agent confirmed that at least three operatives of the Egypt-based Brotherhood — whose credo is ‘Jihad is our way and death in the cause of Allah is our dream’ — have penetrated the Obama administration,” the First Lady is now dealing with an organization that boasts of such people as Yaser Haddara who is a member of the IRUSA board since 2006 and its chairman until May 2011.

According to the IRUSA’s own site, “Dr. Haddara was one of the developers and lead trainers for the Student Leadership Training Program that was jointly sponsored by the Muslim American Society and the Muslim Association of Canada. Dr. Haddara has been actively involved in several community organizations including the Islamic Society at Stanford University, the Muslim Community Association of the Bay Area, the Islamic Society of North America (Western Region), the Muslim American Society, and the Muslim Association of Canada.”

One of the main front organizations of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Society of North America’s “leadership does not accept Islamic practices that fall outside the version of Islam propagated by Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood.” Furthermore, in addition to terrorism, … the Muslim Brotherhood [spreads] political Islam, which weds religion and politics into a potent force that clashes with pluralistic democracies.”

According to the 2007 report entitled Extremism and the Islamic Society of North America, “ISNA is clearly connected to Islamic radicals and terrorist organizations, but it is not simply guilty by association — its own ideology is marked by extreme social, political, and religious views.” Hence, “ISNA’s ideology is its leaders’ views of Islam within the context of religion and politics, where they believe in Islamic supremacy” as exemplified in the following statement: “[i]n considering the earth as an arena for Islam, Allah has promised its inheritance to His righteous people, and He has promised that Islam Will prevail over other religions.”

So how does one reconcile this with IRUSA’s CEO Abed Ayoub who claims that “IRUSA’s mission is to alleviate suffering, hunger, illiteracy, and disease regardless of color, race, gender, or creed”? Also troubling is the point that “[a]ccording to the most influential Islamic authorities, zakat (alms in Arabic) can be given only to Muslims.” So how does this figure in Michelle Obama’s outreach program?

Moreover, in January of 2011, Daniel Pipes described how “Islamic ‘charities’ squander money.” He explained how the Islamic Society of North America’s Canada branch had engaged in “gross mismanagement” whereby less than one-quarter of monies collected went to the Muslim recipients. Pipes further explained that “ISNA’s management refused to give the auditor all the necessary documents” and thus it was not possible to follow “the trail of funds transferred from ISNA to other organizations[.]” Pipes ends his article by stating that “Islamic ‘charities’ already have a notorious reputation because of their ties to terrorism; this case shows that they must be watched for more venal problems as well.”

Further nefarious associations go to the Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW). IRW has had directors who are linked to the U.K. and European Muslim Brotherhood. One director was a former minister of religious affairs in the Sudan and also held numerous positions associated with the global Muslim Brotherhood. In 2006 the Israeli government announced “the arrest of an IRW worker for activities related to supporting Hamas.” Moreover, “Islamic Relief was one of the founding members of the Union of Good.” According to Steven Merley of the Hudson Institute, “[t]he Union of Good is a coalition of Islamic charities that provides financial support to both the Hamas ‘social’ infrastructure, as well as its terrorist activities. It is headed by global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi, and most of the trustees and member organizations are associated with the global Muslim Brotherhood. The Union of Good was banned by Israel in 2002 and was recently designated a terrorist entity by the United States[.]”

As far back as 2004, Daniel Pipes described the Muslim American Society (MAS) and explained “how it seeks to replace the Constitution with the Koran.” Though the MAS “goes about its work quietly; it is none the less dangerous — and perhaps more so — for that.”

In August 2010, the Muslim Brotherhood-associated “Coordinating Council of Muslim Organizations” (CCMO) brought Muslim leaders to attend a special workshop presented by the White House and U.S. government agencies (including Homeland Security) to “provide the groups ‘funding, government assistance and resources.” According to a post by Christine Brim at Andrew Breitbart’s Big Peace, “the workshop [would] apparently provide special access for these Muslim Brotherhood organizations: the organizers pledge[d] to provide ‘direct access’ and ‘cut through red tape.’ And after the workshop an Iftar dinner (breaking the fast of Ramadan) commenced. The event was announced by the ISNA, an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism finance trial.”

Notwithstanding the concern about the Muslim Brotherhood connections, Meghan Clyne, editor of National Affairs at the Weekly Standard, asserts that while “[m]uch of what the [Michelle Obama] toolkit recommends is innocuous — encouraging churches to host kids’ intramural sports leagues, for instance. … several sections illustrate the Obamas’ strange understanding of the role of religious communities in America and suggest how, under this president, faith-based offices at the White House and in the agencies have changed their mission and purview.”

For Clyne “[m]ost worrisome, … are the administration’s efforts to have congregations place themselves in the service of government as recruiters for the welfare state” … and “[t]his approach is a marked departure from the original purpose of the White House faith-based initiative. Launched at the outset of President George W. Bush’s first term, the initiative was largely intended to allow religious entities to compete on an equal footing with secular ones for grants to deliver social services. When it came to treating addicts, rehabilitating prisoners, mentoring children, sheltering the homeless, and, yes, feeding the hungry, the Bush administration argued that faith-based organizations often had better records of efficiency and compassion than government programs. But rather than reducing the public’s dependence on government-run programs by empowering faith-based organizations, [the Obama] White House seems to view churches, synagogues, and so on as tools to increase reliance on programs designed in Washington.”

“They’re turning this on its head,” said Rev. Richard Land, who handles public policy for the Southern Baptist Convention. The wisdom of the original faith-based initiative — about which he was initially skeptical, Land explains — was “to have people who live in a zip code making the decisions about what are the best ways to alleviate the problem in that zip code,” rather than being pushed to follow some federal initiative. Under the Obama administration, Land said, “the White House says what your priorities should be.”

It appears that political strategists in the White House are mindful of the demographics which “serve the President’s electoral interests” in this faith-based program. Moreover, is it ever a good “idea for churches to provide platforms for politicians — or First Ladies” no matter which political party? And, most troubling, “increased dependence on government [ultimately] services the interests of the party that represents big government,” leading us farther down the road to less independence and decision-making.

So here’s the mix: greater government interference coupled with possible Muslim Brotherhood influence even though the Muslim Brotherhood “is one of the most dangerous Islamic groups in the world today.” Is this a recipe for disaster?

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



NASA’s Future on Space Station Hinges on Private Spaceships

NASA vitally needs new private spaceships, vehicles capable of carrying U.S. astronauts and from the International Space Station (ISS), in order to maintain the future health of the massive orbiting laboratory. And they need them soon, agency officials said Friday (Sept. 16) in an industry forum. “Every year we do not have a commercial crew capability, the ISS is at risk,” Philip McAlister, acting director of commercial spaceflight development at NASA Headquarters in Washington, stressed before an audience of private spaceflight industry representatives. The retirement of NASA’s 30-year space shuttle program has left a temporary gap in U.S. human spaceflight capabilities. Efforts are already well underway on commercial vehicles to take over the responsibility of ferrying cargo and supplies to the space station and other destinations in low-Earth orbit.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and the Tea Party Aren’t Anti-Intellectual. They Just Don’t Agree With the Disastrous Policies of Ivy League Professors

The Republican race has convinced many journalists that the Tea Party is congenitally stupid. “Bachmann and Perry frequently take policy positions that fly in the face of science,” writes one self-described “science advocate” in the Huffington Post. He goes on to list statements they have made about sex education, evolution, global warming and the death penalty to argue that they are in a “race to unreason”. Maureen Dowd in The New York Times provides circumstantial evidence that Rick Perry is a cretin: “Studying to be a veterinarian, he stumbled on chemistry and made a D one semester and an F in another… He even got a C in gym.” You read that right: according to Dowd the poor fellow can’t even master a skipping rope. The liberal press has concluded that the only alternative to this confederacy of dunces is Jon Huntsman. He’s “The Presidential Candidate the Media Hates the Least”, according to one headline, although that’s probably because no one in the newsroom has ever heard of him.

The theory that conservatives are imbeciles has been around a long time. Back in the 1950s they were written off by social historians as “paranoid” bumpkins. More recently, the Tea Party has been dismissed as the product of a profound misunderstanding about history and economics. In her book The Whites of their Eyes, Professor Jill Lepore made the case that the Tea Party’s approach to modern politics was built on a child’s reading of the American Revolution — that the application of 18th-century slogans to an era as complex as our own is irrational. According to Dowd and Lepore, the Right-wing is as vacuous as it is dangerous.

But the broad charge of “anti-intellectualism” is totally untrue. Religious and fiscal conservatives read books — lots of them. That’s why the best-seller lists for the New York Times are so eclectic. In between Jonathan Franzen and Christopher Hitchens, you’ll find conservative polemicist Ann Coulter and evangelical preacher Joel Osteen. Townhall.com recently offered a list of 25 books every conservative should read. There were some predictable entries (economists Hayek and Friedman), but also a surprising appreciation for Mark Twain. Economically, the American Right boasts schools of thought that have dramatically reshaped the world. Britain and Chile took their lead from theories propounded at the University of Chicago. The neoconservatives (out of fashion now, but once the most powerful philosophical force in the Western World) can claim a remarkable intellectual lineage running from Leo Strauss to Bill Kristol. Social traditionalism provides a wonderful vein of literature (Russell Kirk, Clyde Wilson), as does the contemporary Catholic Right (John Dilulio). Two years ago, the star speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference dinner was the historian Eugene Genovese. The liberal professors who still use his textbooks on the history of slavery are presumably unaware of quite how cantankerously Right-wing Genovese really is.

Republican Presidents enjoy a healthy intellectual life. Richard Nixon read avidly and annotated everything. Reagan had a boyish but healthy taste in literature. He once told a magazine that his favourite books were “Turnabout, by Thorne Smith, Babbitt, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the works of Pearl Buck, HG Wells, Damon Runyon and Erich Remarque.” The average liberal college graduate probably couldn’t spell Remarque. George W Bush took time out from remaking the world to attend private lectures by historian Andrew Roberts. Incidentally, Bush had slightly higher college scores than environmentalist Al Gore.

As to the Tea Party’s anti-intellectualism, it is hard to think of a contemporary Right-wing movement so interested in intellectual ideas or political history. Tea Party fanatics obsess about the motivations of the Founding Fathers, and they’ve even made a TV series about life in colonial America. Glenn Beck — an very literate idiot — regularly recommends heavyweight reading on his show. Here you can watch him pushing the book American Progressivism: a Reader by RJ Perlitto, something normally reserved for (probably empty) college seminars. Beck’s serious effort to chart the relationship between early 20th-century progressivism and Obama’s social democratic policies is simplistic but compelling — and it has started a big debate in scholarly circles.

The Right isn’t anti-intellectual, but it is critical of the power of intellectual cabals to reshape American life without the consent of voters. Rightly so. Intellectuals often presume that their cleverness qualifies them to run things. George Bernard Shaw noted that what attracted so many academics to Marxism was its ability to turn their ideas into government policy: it flattered them. But what works on paper doesn’t necessarily work in real life, and the reshaping of humanity to suit an abstract philosophy either requires ignoring the facts or a brutal re-engineering of them. America’s government was never more dominated by intellectuals than in the 1960s — when Ivy League bureaucrats poured millions of dollars into disastrous anti-poverty programs and dropped thousands of bombs on Vietnam. Today, an “intellectual” President has presided over perhaps the most idiotic economic programme in recent history — motivated by an abstract Keynesian conviction that “the more you spend, the faster you’ll grow”.

At the heart of the Tea Party is an experiment in democracy and self-rule. Its members refuse to be told what to do or what to believe. In this sense, they are the antithesis of the intellectual elitism that permeates Ivy League academia. Some might call them wilfully stupid. History will say they were wise beyond their years.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



The Doors of Perception Are Closed

by Diana West

My title today conjures up all the wrong imagery because “the doors of perception,” which comes to us from William Blake, was taken by Aldous Huxley as the title of his book of reflections on mescaline, which was taken by Jim Morrison as the name of his band. My concern with “the doors” is not at all psychodelic, although I suddenly find that this is likely the one opportune moment I will ever have to drop the fact that in the mid-1950s, Aldous Huxley invited my late father, Elliot West, a Hollywood writer and novelist, to take mescaline with him.

Dad declined, although he did do what he could to help Huxley in his surprising quest to get a television writing job — surprising as in: The great Aldous Huxley, author of the genius “Brave New World” and crackling novels such as “Point Counter Point,” essays, poetry, and even co-credit on the excellent 1940 screenplay of “Pride and Prejudice,” can’t get a lousy TV job just by clearing his throat? Apparently not, and my mother still recalls how Huxley broached the subject while examining the cover of an LP (record, kids) of the musical “Kismet” at such close range that it was half an inch from his eyeballs. Huxley was very nearly blind; hence, his desire for mescaline, a drug said to intensify color and landscape.

Anyway.

The doors of perception are closed. From the New York Times:

“Tumult of Arab Spring prompts worries in Washington”

WASHINGTON — While the popular uprisings of the Arab Spring created new opportunities for American diplomacy, the tumult has also presented the United States with challenges — and worst-case scenarios — that would have once been almost unimaginable.

Almost unimaginable?

That this clear, obvious, and vociferously-stated-by-its-actors progression of the Islamic jihad is deemed “almost unimaginable” tells us that the sensory, mental and imaginative powers of our society, circa 2011, are in total and complete blackout…

           — Hat tip: Diana West [Return to headlines]

Europe and the EU


Brussels Wants Say in Any Return of EU Internal Borders

The European Commission launched a bid Friday to oversee any return of border checks in Europe’s passport-free travel area, drawing the ire of nations refusing to hand Brussels such powers.

The plans unveiled by the European Commission propose new rules on conducting border controls in the EU’s passport-free Schengen zone to address mounting concern in parts of Europe over illegal immigration, notably from North Africa.

The European Commission unveiled draft legislation that would give it a big say in decisions to deploy border guards, a proposal that has France, Germany and Spain have already rejected. “With these proposals we are safeguarding the future of Schengen,” said EU home affairs commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem. “By reinforcing its European dimension we are protecting one of the most cherished achievements of the EU: the free movement of our citizens,” she said.

At the moment, governments are allowed to temporarily deploy border guards during terror threats or major events such as football games or summits, but countries are seeking more leeway to restore controls.

Under commission proposal, border controls could also be reintroduced to deal with unexpected migration flows or if a Schengen country fails to police its frontiers with non-EU nations. This clause carries the threat of temporarily excluding from Schengen a nation unable to control its borders. While it does not name any country, Greece has been under fire over its porous border with Turkey.

The commission’s proposal would still allow governments to unilaterally reinstate patrols in urgent situations, but only for a five-day period. For longer periods, countries would need a green light from the EU’s executive arm, something some governments reject. “It’s unacceptable. An urgent situation, by definition, lasts more than five days,” said a European diplomat.

French, German and Spanish interior ministers complained this week that the proposal goes too far, arguing that a decision to restore border controls is the remit of national governments. In a joint statement, the three ministers said “we believe that respecting the core area of national sovereignty is very important to the member states”. “We therefore do not share the European Commission’s views on assuming responsibility for making decisions on operational measures in the security field,” they said…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Desecration of Muslim Graves in France

Thirty Muslim graves in a cemetery of Carcassonne, in south-western France, were covered with racist and Nazi graffiti said Sunday a judicial source.

The graves, those of Muslims killed during the First World War, are in the military section of the cemetery of St. Michel in the city, said the prosecutor of Carcassonne Antoine Leroy.

           — Hat tip: Kitman [Return to headlines]



Dutch Tulips Blocked at Romanian Border in Schengen Dispute

Citing health concerns, Romanian authorities blocked flower imports from the Netherlands over the weekend, just one day after the Dutch government announced it would veto the country’s entry to the border-free Schengen area at an upcoming home affairs ministers’ meeting. Six truckloads of Dutch flowers, seeds and bulbs were halted on Saturday and Sunday (17-18 September) at the Romanian-Hungarian border. They were suspected of being contaminated with ‘dangerous bacteria’, Romanian customs authorities said.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



EU Issues Warning After Turkey, Cyprus Energy Exploration Row Escalates

Turkey’s energy minister has threatened to launch a gas and oil exploration in the eastern Mediterranean if Cyprus doesn’t abandon off-shore drilling plans. The EU has called on both countries to resolve the dispute.

On Monday, Turkey threatened to initiate a retaliatory gas and oil exploration if the Greek Cypriot government did not abandon the off-shore energy search. Turkey’s energy minister Taner Yildiz warned that Turkish naval ships would be ordered to escort energy exploration ships in the eastern Mediterranean unless Greek Cyprus immediately halted drilling plans. “If Greek Cyprus sticks to the timetable it announced previously, we will start drilling activity next week,” Yildiz told reporters. “This work will be carried out together with the (navy) escort,” he added. “There will be no turning back on this issue.”

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



France: Lack of Doctors, Banlieue Schools Appeal to UN

(ANSAmed) — PARIS, SEPTEMBER 19 — There are not enough doctors willing to work in the schools of Paris’s banlieues, and therefore teachers and parents have launched an appeal to the UN for humanitarian aid to be sent. Once again at the centre of the matter is Seine-Saint-Denis, an outlying area in the north-eastern part of Paris, in which the conditions are the most dire. After a few months ago when Sevran’s mayor requested help from UN troops to restore security in the department, often the scene of clashes between young people and police officers, it is now the schools’ turn to request help from the UN. As reported by the France Info radio station, parents and teachers from the FCPE union intend to denounce in this way the chronic lack of school doctors in this department, which has one doctor for every 9,600 students and one nurse for every 1,300. In Seine-Saint-Denis schools 40% of positions for doctors are vacant.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Inflatable Steel Could Revolutionize Industrial Design

The Swiss, Polish architects behind the idea say their technique can reduce construction costs. They hope to expand what began as an artistic project into more practical applications.

For the past few years, a two-man team from Poland and Switzerland have come up with a new system of making steel cheaper and lighter, but no less sturdy — by filling it with air. Oskar Zieta and Phillipp Dohmen have pioneered what they’re calling “Free Inner Pressure Deformation,” a new engineering technique that allows them to make furniture — which they’ve been selling since 2009. Zieta Prozessdesign sells inflated steel furniture, including ladders, chairs and stools, for 200 to 300 euros ($275 — $415). However, more recently, they have been expanding this technique that may eventually have an impact on everything from wind turbines to highway guard rails.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Italy: Silvio Berlusconi Wiretaps Reveal Boast of Spending Night With Eight Women

Conversations show that Italian PM resented meetings with the Pope and world leaders interfering with his partying

Magistrates investigating an alleged prostitution ring in Italy have published wiretaps in which Silvio Berlusconi boasts of spending the night with eight women and complains that meetings with Gordon Brown and the Pope are interfering with his partying.

The wiretaps were released at the conclusion of an investigation into entrepreneur Gianpaolo Tarantini, who is accused of paying women to sleep with Berlusconi, 74, at his homes in 2008 and 2009. The Italian prime minister is not under investigation, although the wiretaps throw doubt on Berlusconi’s claims that he has never paid for sex.

“They are all well provided for,” Berlusconi tells Tarantini of the girls passing through his Rome residence in one of the thousands of recorded conversations released, which filled Italian newspapers on Saturday.

In another conversation, a woman named Vanessa Di Meglio sends a text from Berlusconi’s residence to Tarantini at 5.52am asking “Who pays? Do we ask him or you?”

Tarantini first made the headlines through the revelations of prostitute Patrizia D’Addario, who claimed Tarantini recruited her to have sex with Berlusconi. A second scandal has erupted over Berlusconi’s parties at his villa near Milan, with the prime minister on trial accused of paying underage Moroccan dancer Karima El Mahroug for sex.

The newly published wiretaps give startling insight into Berlusconi’s sexual appetites. “Last night I had a queue outside the door of the bedroom… There were 11 … I only did eight because I could not do it anymore,” Berlusconi told Tarantini in 2009. “Listen, all the beds are full here … this lot won’t go home, even at gunpoint.”

Berlusconi, who boasted to one TV showgirl that he was only “prime minister in my spare time”, told Tarantini in September 2008 that he needed to reduce the flow of women since he had a “terrible week” ahead seeing Pope Benedict, Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel and Gordon Brown. Berlusconi has long insisted that his private parties are informal but elegant affairs, that extend only as far as joke telling and songs, but is revealed on the tapes as putting pressure on Tarantini and his associates to conjure up beautiful female guests.

One associate is heard complaining he will need a caravan to pick up all the girls, while in another conversation Tarantini says to a colleague: “Find a whore, please.”

Tarantini, an entrepreneur from Bari who sold prosthetic limbs before meeting Berlusconi in 2008, quickly became a confidant of the prime minister. “Listen Gianpaolo, now we need at most two each,” said Berlusconi in one call. “Because now I want that you have yours, otherwise I will always feel I am in your debt. Then we can trade. After all, the pussy needs to go around.”

Berlusconi also sought to impress his female guests by inviting senior managers from his cinema production company and from state TV network RAI.

“These are people who can get jobs for whoever they want,” he told Tarantini. “Therefore the girls will get the idea that they are in front of men who can decide their destiny.”

Tarantini is suspected of procuring women for other top officials, including a magistrate and a manager at state controlled defence group Finmeccanica. In a separate probe, he has also been arrested on suspicion of seeking to blackmail Berlusconi through an intermediary in return for keeping the lid on details of his procurement of women. Berlusconi has claimed the money he paid out, believed to be more than €500,000, was merely financial assistance.

In a letter published in the newspaper Il Foglio, Berlusconi hit back at the latest wiretaps, claiming: “My private life is not a crime, my lifestyle may or may not please, it is personal, reserved and irreproachable.”

Opposition leaders meanwhile demanded an inquiry into suggestions in the wiretaps that Berlusconi used government aircraft to ferry prostitutes to his parties. “Italy, with its grave problems cannot allow itself an executive which governs in its spare time. The time for words is over, Berlusconi must go to the Italian president and resign,” said Davide Zoggia, an official for the opposition Democratic Party.

Already in trouble in the polls after pushing through a painful austerity budget, Berlusconi’s political support took another blow over the weekend as his crucial partner Umberto Bossi, head of the Northern League party, warned that the administration would not make it to the end of its mandate in 2013.

Encouraging support, however, came from Russia, where Vladimir Putin said: “They criticise [Berlusconi] because they are jealous.”

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Italy: Naples Has ‘Twin Miracles’ In Blood and Soccer

Naples, 19 Sept. (AKI) — Long-suffering Naples seemed to have enjoyed twin “miracles” when the dried blood of its third-century patron saint liquified and its soccer team defeated the defending Italian champion.

Fans filled the streets of the southern city late Sunday after Napoli trounced defending Serie A champion AC Milan 3-1 at home.

Napoli also tied 1-1 Manchester City on Wednesday in the Champions League, and last week opened their Serie A season with a 3-1 win over Cesena, nothing short of a miracle for many in religious and superstitious Naples.

Also filling the streets for a more sombre ritual than football were thousands of Catholic faithful who didn’t manage to find a place in the packed 14th century Saint Januarius Cathedral where believers say blood belonging to Naples patron saint Januarius melts twice a year.

According to tradition, failure to liquify could beckon in disaster for the city at the base of volcano Mt. Vesuvius which buried Pompeii and many of its residents under ash around 2,000 years ago.

In modern times, the city has been buried under mounds of trash, which lately have been cleared from the street — a sign of a miracle, according to some of Naples residents.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Italy: Bossi Calls for Referendum on Separate State

‘We cannot be forced to pay for Italy’, says Bossi

(ANSA) — Rome, September 19 — Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s powerful coalition partner, Umberto Bossi, has called for a referendum on his proposal to create a separate state in northern Italy.

Bossi, who heads the conservative Northern League, on Sunday revived earlier proposals for a breakaway state that his party calls Padania which covers the Po Valley and surrounding regions.

“We have to find a democratic way, perhaps referendums, because an important and hard-working people like ours cannot be forced to pay for Italy,” he said.

Bossi, who was speaking at a political conference called “The Padania people’s party” was greeted with enthusiastic cries of “secession, secession” from the crowd.

“We from the League escaped the (changes) to pensions,” Bossi said, in a reference to recent pressure he imposed on Berlusconi to restrict the impact of changes to pensions in the government’s 54-billion-euro budget package.

Bossi’s statement provoked a strong reaction from the opposition Democratic Party and other political opponents.

Pier Luigi Bersani, head of the Democratic Party, said he was “dreaming” and would continue to stay with Berlusconi.

“I believe that people cannot eat with fairytales, now we have serious problems and the League should take its responsibilities seriously,” Bersani said. On Monday Bossi gained support from Eva Klotz, founder of the German-speaking minority party Sud-Tiroler Freiheita in the Alto Adige region on the Austrian border, who said it would help her region gain secession.

“Bossi is finally tackling secession seriously and Alto Adige should be prepared since we should not be limited to choose between Italy and Padania”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Nuclear Phaseout to Cost Germany €250 Billion

Germany’s decision to switch from nuclear to renewable sources of energy will require investment of €250 billion ($340 billion) over the next decade, a new study found Monday. According to the study by the state-owned investment bank KfW, the planned realignment of Germany’s power supply from nuclear to renewables will require “additional investment needs of around €250 billion by 2020.”

KfW describes itself as one of the leading sources of finance in the energy sector, estimating that it financed 80 percent of new wind turbines installed in Germany last year, plus 40 percent of solar panels. The bank also financed the insulation of buildings. In the wake of the nuclear catastrophe in Fukushima, Japan, the German government has decided to shut down all of its nuclear reactors by the end of 2022.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Response to Fukushima: Siemens to Exit Nuclear Energy Business

Siemens plans to pull out of the nuclear energy business, CEO Peter Löscher told SPIEGEL. After the Fukushima nuclear disaster “the chapter is closed,” he said. The company will expand its renewable energy activities instead.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Sperm Bank Turns Down Redheads

The world’s largest sperm bank has started turning down redheaded donors because there is too little demand for their sperm.

Ole Schou, Cryos’s director, said that there had been a surge in donations in recent years, allowing the facility to become much more picky about its donors.

“There are too many redheads in relation to demand,” he told told Danish newspaper Ekstrabladet. “I do not think you chose a redhead, unless the partner — for example, the sterile male — has red hair, or because the lone woman has a preference for redheads. And that’s perhaps not so many, especially in the latter case.” Mr Schou said the only reliable demand for sperm from redheaded donors from Ireland, where he said it sold “like hot cakes”.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Telegraph Says Two Women Flown From UK for Berlusconi

(AGI) London — Apparently, some women were “flown from London” for Silvio Berlusconi’s sex parties. Gianpaolo Tarantini allegedly paid 70,000 pounds to fly two women from the UK to Berlusconi’s villas in Rome, Milan and Sardinia. The Telegraph reveals so, claiming that the expense included 1000 euros for having sexual intercourses and accommodation at luxury hotels.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



The Islamization of the Danish Passport

According to the Danish police, you are not allowed to wear a hat or a cap on passport pictures. But you are allowed to wear an Islamic veil that covers both your hair, your ears and the general contour of your head.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



UK: EU Ruling to Mean 9 Bins for Every Home

MILLIONS of Britons face bin chaos and higher taxes after a High Court ruling on a controversial EU directive, experts warned yesterday.

Householders could be forced to separate all their rubbish for recycling, meaning up to nine bins outside people’s homes.

And this could lead to costlier collections, which would force up council tax or even lead to services being culled.

The news comes on top of the doubling of council taxes under Labour — a period when half of all councils axed weekly waste collections.

The Campaign for Real Recycling won the right to a judicial review of the Government’s compliance with a revised EU Waste Framework Directive.

The CRR says the WFD enshrines the principle of separating recyclable materials at source.

This can lead to households having bins and bags for materials such as paper, cardboard, glass, cans and food waste so bin-men can put them into compartments on lorries.

The CRR says keeping materials separate boosts their value and improves recycling by reducing contamination.

If its court bid is successful the ruling will affect all councils in England and Wales.

But waste management firm Biffa claimed the WFD allows for “commingling” where “dry” recyclables, such as glass, cans, plastic, paper and cardboard, are put in the same container. The materials are then sorted later by the waste firm.

Biffa insists commingling allows “fewer vehicle movements, fewer collections rounds and containers, and a safer working environment for collection crews as well as achieving higher recycling rates”.

It says about half of all local authorities use a form of commingling and this doesn’t affect the value of recyclables even when they are commingled.

Biffa’s development director, Pete Dickson, said: “The judicial review could set back British recycling years, confuse householders and undermine the very real recycling achievements made by many Councils.

“If the court rules in CRR’s favour, scores of councils may be faced with scrapping their commingled recycling schemes and spending an unnecessary fortune on implementing kerbside-separated collections, as well as dealing with increased disposal costs. This could mean an increase in council tax or a cut in services.” Doretta Cocks, of the Campaign for Weekly Waste Collection, said: “I am very pro recycling but it should be as easy as possible. If you present residents with different containers, it can put them off recycling.”

The CRR said commingled recyclables — especially if compacted in the back of a bin lorry — are often so badly contaminated that they can only find a market in Asia where they may be sorted by poorly-paid workers including children.

It claimed that separating recyclables could be done with as few as two containers.

CRR chairman Mal Williams said: “It remains our contention that the UK will ultimately benefit much from embracing not just the letter of this directive, but the spirit of it as well.”

The Daily Express is campaigning for a referendum on Britain’s EU membership. Earlier this year 373,000 readers backed a petition calling for the UK to quit the EU.

           — Hat tip: McR [Return to headlines]



UK: Muslim Cleric’s Peace Declaration Demands an End to Terrorism

One of the world’s leading Muslim clerics will issue a global declaration against terrorism at a speech in London on Saturday. Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri will make the declaration at the ‘Peace for Humanity Conference 2011’ at Wembley Arena. The peace declaration, which will call for an end to terrorism and for the protection of human rights in new Arab regimes, is expected to be signed by major religious and political leaders, including David Cameron and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Tariq Jahan, whose son was killed in the Birmngham riots, is also expected to attend.

The Pakistani scholar who lives in Canada is the founder of Minhaj-ul-Qaran International, a Sufi-based organisation that promotes moderate Islam. He issued a fatwa against terrorism last year and has since received death threats from many groups, including al-Qi’ada. A $10m bounty has reportedly been placed on his head. The Muslim scholar has been running de-radicalisation youth camps across the UK, America and Europe for several years. He believes the declaration is urgently needed because he sees a growing number of young Muslims who could easily be swayed to extremism.

He said: “We want to give the message to the whole of the Muslim world and the youths who have been brainwashed that this is Islam and what it stands for: peace, harmony, tolerance, moderation and love and compassion for humanity. This message will go out all over the world, from coast to coast.” He said the “historic document” was needed a decade after 9/11 to combat extremism and ensure the Arab Spring became an opportunity not just for democracy but also the upholding of human rights.

Outlining the content of the declaration he said: “Number one will be the absolute condemnation of terrorism; number two the protection of complete human rights, as it is seen in the Western world and endorsed by the United Nations”. It will also call for “support for the concept of humanity and fraternity between all cultures, religions and human beings”; “democracy and good governance in the Muslim world” and “total ecological and environmental responsibility”. “We want to emphasise education to bring an end to extremism, violence, hatred and racism,” he said, “To educate the Muslim people and youth and at the same time educate the West so that the hatreds are removed. We will be condemning every kind of racism and xenophobia and we will support all Muslims living in Western countries to have integration and citizenship and we will condemn isolation.”

The day will include what the group claim is the first collective cross-religious peace prayer instigated by a Muslim. The last collective peace prayer was called by the late Pope John Paul in Assisi a decade ago. “Mankind is burning now in a fire of hatred and fanaticism and aggression and terrorism,” said Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri. “The peace prayer is another way to show that all religions can come together to pray for global peace.” Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri believes it is essential to rebuild the boundaries between Islam, terrorism and politics. “I look around me and I see people are confused”, he said. “Extremists and terrorists have created a very big misunderstanding in the minds of generations. They have mixed up religion with international and political issues. By talking of the Palestine issue, the Israel issue, the Afghanistan issue and the occupation of Iraq, they have mixed up these political issues with the issue of Islam. They have connected their terroristic and criminal activities with the political issues of the Muslim world, making many young people confused. My struggle is to differentiate between the issues — to take the political issues as a totally separate agenda that has no link with suicide bombing and these crazy activities,” he said.

[JP note: Islam is one long, rollercoaster ride of crazy activities from start to finish, no differentiation required.]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Seven Arrested in Anti-Terrorism Operation

Birmingham, 19 Sept. (AKI) — Seven people in the English city of Birmingham were arrested overnight as part of an anti-terrorism operation.

Police said six men and one woman were arrested late Sunday and early Monday. All suspects range in age fro 22 to 32.

The investigation, which has involved security service MI5, relates to suspected Islamist extremism, the BBC reported.

Assistant police chief Marcus Beale said in a statement that the men were arrested in or near their homes by unarmed police officers as part of a “large, pre-planned, intelligence-led counter terrorism operation.”

Police were searching six homes and one commercial property in Birmingham, he said.

“I believe it was necessary to take action at this time in order to ensure public safety,” Beale said.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



UK: Tory MPs Demand Referendum on Europe

David Cameron must call a referendum on Europe or face a rebellion from his own party and a backlash from voters, a leading back-bench Tory warns today.

Mark Pritchard, the secretary of the 1922 committee of Conservative MPs, is the most senior Tory yet to demand a vote on Britain’s membership of the European Union following the eurozone crisis. Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Mr Pritchard says that the EU has become an “occupying force” which is eroding British sovereignty and that the “unquestioning support” of backbenchers is no longer guaranteed. He says the Government should hold a referendum next year on whether Britain should have a “trade only” relationship with the EU, rather than the political union which has evolved “by stealth”. He warns that the Conservatives will see constituents “kick back” if taxpayers are forced to foot the bill for the failure of “unreformed and lazy” eurozone countries to introduce fully-fledged austerity measures.

George Eustice, a backbench MP and former close aide to Mr Cameron, is also demanding a “new relationship” with the EU. William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, recently threw his weight behind the Eurosceptics by saying that Britain might prosper by loosening its ties with Europe. Danny Alexander, the Liberal Democrat Treasury minister, yesterday attacked Eurosceptics as being “enemies of growth”.

In a clear warning to Mr Cameron, Mr Pritchard says Tory MPs have become tired of tolerating the “Europhile views” of Liberal Democrat ministers. He writes: “Conservative backbenches can no longer be taken for granted. “Conservative MPs will not continue to write blank cheques for workers in Lisbon while people in London and Leicester are joining the dole queue. For many Britons, the EU has already become a kind of occupying force, setting unfamiliar rules, demanding levies, curbing freedoms, subverting our culture, and imposing alien taxes. ‘In less than four decades, and without a single shot being fired, Britain has become enslaved to Europe — servitude that intrudes and impinges on millions of British lives every day. Brussels has become a burdensome yoke, disfiguring Britain’s independence and diluting her sovereignty.”

Mr Pritchard accuses Mr Cameron of failing to honour a “guarantee” to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. He says: “The Coalition should agree to a referendum on Europe asking whether Britain should be part of a political union or of the trade-only relationship we thought we had signed up to. This is a moderate proposition that would attract voters from across the political spectrum, unite many on the Left and Right within Parliament and galvanise the support of most in the media.” Mr Cameron recently ruled out a referendum on the EU asking whether Britain should opt in or out. Mr Pritchard believes his “stepping stone” approach will provide a compromise. He says that if Britain votes for a trade-only relationship with the EU, there should then be a referendum about membership on the date of the next general election. Mr Pritchard writes: “The British have grown weary of Europe. The Coalition government should end decades of political appeasement by successive governments and champion freedom and democracy for Britain — and agree a referendum.”

Mr Cameron and George Osborne, the Chancellor, know that the unfolding crisis in the eurozone will give the Conservative party’s Eurosceptic MPs a chance to argue more powerfully for a realignment of Britain’s position in the EU. The 2010 intake of new Tory MPs is regarded as the most Eurosceptic in a generation and large numbers of government ministers remain privately anti-Brussels. Some hope that Mr Osborne, the Conservative election strategist, will advance a series of policies that can address the concerns of his party before the next election and in the process tap into the worries of voters. But Mr Osborne’s Liberal Democrat deputy at the Treasury, Mr Alexander, yesterday criticised those who want to take Britain away from the EU. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury, told Liberal Democrat activists: “Sadly, Eurosceptics on left and right fail to understand Winston Churchill’s central insight that sharing sovereignty strengthens influence and isolation weakens us. Scottish Nationalists make the same mistake. We will never let the anti-Europeans or nationalists frustrate our national interest. They are enemies of growth.”

Backbencher Mr Eustice is spearheading the challenge to the Prime Minister over the EU. Eurosceptic Tory backbenchers want the party leadership to act more decisively on Europe and return some powers to Westminster. Mr Pritchard’s intervention will further increase tensions within the Coalition. Mr Pritchard is a leading figure in a group of 120 Conservative MPs who are pushing the Prime Minister to set out a “clear plan” for pulling back from Europe.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: We’re Fed Up With Europe, So Give Us a Vote

by Mark Pritchard

Britain has become a slave to the EU, writing blank cheques to prop up its lazy economies, says Mark Pritchard.

Over the first year of the Coalition, the Conservative Parliamentary Party has restrained itself over European issues. In part this is because it has recognised the need to focus on tackling the huge public deficit left behind by Gordon Brown and his protégé, Ed Balls. This break-out of impassiveness has also been helped, although to a lesser extent, by the Government’s EU Bill, which has made the Conservative Party look and sound far more Eurosceptic. Many colleagues have also reluctantly accepted that, with the Europhile Liberal Democrats as the Coalition’s bedfellows, banging the Eurosceptic drum would be unhelpful and could be destabilising. But, with Europe’s ever increasing bail-outs and international loans — many drawn on the backs of struggling British taxpayers — it is no longer tenable to separate the economics of Europe from British domestic politics.

Whatever the economic justification for past European bail-outs — such as with the Republic of Ireland — any future “back-door” interventions through multi-billion-dollar loans distributed via the IMF are a clear and present danger to the Coalition’s period of European serenity. Moreover, recent Europhile comments by senior Liberal Democrat ministers have not helped matters. Bail-out fatigue was always going to be a danger for the Treasury; but, mixed with the heady cocktail of falling living standards at home and the self-inflicted Mediterranean origins of Europe’s financial crisis, unquestioning political support from the Conservative backbenches can no longer be taken for granted. Conservative MPs will not continue to write blank cheques for workers in Lisbon while people in London and Leicester are joining the dole queue.

The Government tells us that Britain’s bail-out commitments are limited, shared with other countries and will end in 2013. This is all true, but, unless eurozone countries accept similar austerity measures to those expected of British taxpayers, then MPs can expect their constituents to kick back. As Britons lose their jobs, struggle to pay utility bills, forgo annual holidays and are made to pay more into their pensions, future bail-outs of Europe’s mostly unreformed and lazy economies will not attract Conservative parliamentary support.

When Britain voted to stay in the European Economic Community in 1975 the country was promised it would be a common market. Yet over time, mostly by stealth and within every new treaty, we have been drawn relentlessly into an “ever closer union” with the Continent. For many Britons, the EU has already become a kind of occupying force, setting unfamiliar rules, demanding levies, curbing freedoms, subverting our culture and imposing alien taxes. In less than four decades, Britain has become enslaved to Europe — servitude that intrudes and impinges on millions of British lives every day. Brussels has become a burdensome yoke, disfiguring Britain’s independence and diluting her sovereignty.

Those who suggest the Lisbon Treaty should be ripped up and replaced with a new EU constitution, or that the eurozone’s move towards “fiscal union” provides a major opportunity for Britain to re-negotiate her relationship with Europe, are well-meaning; but these measures would only change things at the margins and do little to arrest the EU’s democratic illegitimacy. The majority of Britons living today have never had a say on Europe. After nearly four decades of subjugation to Europe, it is time for the British people to choose their own destiny and to be set free. The 1975 mandate is neither immutable nor eternal.

That is why the Coalition should agree to a referendum on Europe asking whether Britain should be part of a political union or of the trade-only relationship we thought we had signed up to. This is a moderate proposition that would attract voters from across the political spectrum, unite many on the Left and Right within Parliament and galvanise the support of most in the media. Even the Liberal Democrats, given their commitment to a Euro-referendum in their last election manifesto and their so-called “freedom agenda”, would be hard-pressed to veto it. The referendum should be held next year, and a successful “No to political union” result would immediately strengthen the Prime Minister’s negotiating hand in Brussels to commence serious and meaningful negotiations with our partners on Britain’s new relationship. The process of returning political sovereignty to Westminster would then take place over the proceeding two years.

But, if Brussels refused to repatriate specified powers within a designated 24-month period, then a second referendum — this time an “in or out” vote — would be triggered in 2015 and held on the day of the next general election. This stepping-stone approach would give voters, the British Government and Brussels Eurocrats an action list and a timetable. Having been served notice by the British people, Brussels would need to act. If specified powers were not returned within the defined timetable, Brussels would have only themselves to blame if Britons voted to leave the EU. The British have grown weary of Europe. The Coalition government should end decades of political appeasement by successive governments and champion freedom and democracy for Britain — and agree to a referendum.

Mark Pritchard is the Conservative MP for The Wrekin and is the secretary of the 1922 committee

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

North Africa


Libya: Mustard Gas Depot Found in Rogfa

(ANSAmed) — ROME, SEPTEMBER 19 — The Libyan rebels have taken control of a depot of mustard gas of the Gaddafi regime. The gas is located in the chemical plant in the city of Rogfa, 600 km east of Tripoli. The news is reported by the German newspaper Der Spiegel, which adds that the factory has been secured and that it is guarded by security forces, without specifying the nationality of these forces. The chemical site of Rogfa, the newspaper underlines, is under constant air surveillance by NATO forces, while the Libyan rebels control the site from the ground. The discovery of the chemical site, the German newspaper adds, has spread fear in the United States, Europe and Israel.

These countries are concerned about the possibility of the gas ending up in the hands of Islamic extremists or forces loyal to the old Libyan regime. The mustard gas that was found on the site is in a solid state, so that it cannot be used in bombs against the rebels, as was feared earlier by the National Transitional Council. No confirmed data are available on the amount of toxic gases stockpiled by the regime of Gaddafi, Der Spiegel concludes.

After signing agreements with the West, the old Libyan regime announced in 1994 that it had 23 tonnes of mustard gas, half of which is still in Libyan territory.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Libya: New Confirmation, Gaddafi Eliminated Moussa Sadr

(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, SEPTEMBER 19 — Moussa Sadr, the founder of the Lebanese Islamic movement Amal who disappeared in the summer of 1978 on the eve of a trip to Italy, was allegedly killed by a number of Libyan officials on the orders of Colonel Gaddafi, since a number of national and international contacts were in his appointment book which could have caused problems for the regime. This is the explanation to the mystery surrounding the death of the imam given by the former military prosecutor of Gaddafi’s regime and now NTC representative Mohammed Bachir el-Khoudar.

El-Khoudar claims that Gaddafi had decided to do away with Sadr after a talk in which the religious figure accused him of being a non-believer and said that for this reason his end was near.

Sadr disappeared on August 31 1978 when he was on his way to Paris (where his children were) after a stopover in Rome’s Fiumicino airport. For this reason, the Italian judiciary also dealt with his disappearance but ended up dismissing the case due to uncertainty over whether the man had ever actually reached Rome.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Morocco: Instant Drug Tests to Help Families

(ANSAmed) — RABAT, SEPTEMBER 19 — The use of drugs has become a global phenomenon and has been for some time now. Each country tries to fight it using often different strategies and methods, though the problem is the same everywhere. The problem has reached Morocco as well, young people in particular, among whom drug abuse has reached worrying proportions. The Moroccan government has been working for years with all its structures — medical, social and judicial — to try and keep the phenomenon from spreading, especially under pressure from families that feel powerless to intervene when they suspect their children have already started taking drugs.

Now a test has been introduced in Morocco in an attempt to help these families (but also police and gendarmerie, in the forefront in the fight against drugs). This test determines within a few minutes whether the tested urine or saliva contains traces of cannabis, cocaine, ecstasy, morphine, amphetamine, benzodiazepine or barbiturates, the substances that are most popular among the youngest generations who often don’t know anything about their long-term effects.

The test is called ‘Narcochek’ and, newspaper Aujord’hui le Maroc reports today, is already distributed across Morocco. At the moment only public institutions have received the tests, but at the start of next year it can also be obtained at chemist’s shops. Why this choice for distribution to chemist’s shops as well? The answer is simple: the test is thought to be an effective instrument in the hands of families who have doubts on their children and need to have certainty, without the State knowing anything about it. In fact, information about a test carried out by healthcare institutions would automatically be passed on to State institutions. The test is reportedly very reliable, a 99.6% precision level has been verified before it was put on the market. Another aspect that could turn out to be very positive is the fact that saliva tests can check for the presence of five substances at the same time (cannabis, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and amphetamine). Often this kind of test is strongly opposed by anti-drug associations despite being licensed. But that is not the case with Narcochek, which has been welcomed by the Moroccan association against smoking and drugs, which announced that it “is a real step forward in the fight against drug abuse.”

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Israel and the Palestinians


Michael Gove Urges West to Support Israel, Not Terror

In today’s Sunday Telegraph Tim Montgomerie examines whether Britain will back the Palestinian Authority’s bid for statehood at the United Nations. Michael Gove, how Education Secretary, is unable to make public comment on the issue but this piece in The Times from 2001 offers many relevant thoughts.

Land for peace is an ancient principle. There is a special place in history for all those who have given an extra mile of territory to avoid further conflict. That place is called Munich.

That we in the West have failed to heed our own history is apparent in the approach we take to the Middle East. Observing the escalation of violence in Israel, with seven dead in the latest suicide bombings, the instinctive prayer is for peace. As it was in the Thirties. And hope therefore fixes on the prospect of “talks”. As it did in the Thirties.

So determined are we to see “talks” as the solution, that they are held as the one inviolable good in a wilderness of tears. The prevailing media narrative therefore has “renewed violence threatening the talks”, as though they were mutually exclusive antagonists, violence the indivisible evil and talks the quintessential good of this drama. But the truth about “talks” is that they are the product of violence, not its solvent. Munich was a reward for terror. Indeed the more “successful” talks are, the greater the legitimation for further violence. Once Sudetenland fell, who stood up for Prague?

The talks which the West demands that Israel continues to hold with the Palestinian Authority will only confer further legitimacy on a terrorist state. It is not just that Arafat’s territory harbours terrorists. It is terrorist. Militarily, culturally, spiritually. Just as much as any totalitarian regime from our dark continent’s 20th century.

Militarily terrorist? Arafat’s own presidential guard, Force 17, and its allied forces engage in regular sniping against Jewish targets, on both sides of the 1967 green line. Force 17 has combined with Hamas to attack Israeli communities in northern Jerusalem, liaised with Hezbollah in attacks from Gaza, and engaged in its own mortar bombings of Israeli settlements in Gaza as well as kibbutzim in the neighboroughing Negev. The Palestinian Authority’s summer camps train children to handle weapons with the aim, in the words of one 14-year-old, “to chase out the settlers”. In the words of the US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Edward Walker, “Arafat has embraced violence as his prime negotiating tactic”.

Culturally terrorist? Arafat’s newspapers produce a stream of anti-Jewish invective, its cartoons depicting Jews as worms, Nazis and hook-nosed dwarves labelled “the disease of the century”. Those same media have accused the Jews of implementing “the protocols of the Elders of Zion”, spreading “mad cow” disease by smuggling contaminated chocolate into the Palestianian Authority, infecting Arab children with HIV and engaging in an “organised conspiracy to harm male virility” through poisoned food.

Arafat’s official school textbooks also practise the same subtlety. A set text for 13-year-old Palestinian children runs “Draw your sword, let us gather for war with red blood and blazing fire. Death shall call and the sword shall be crazed from much slaughter.” Lest any child wonder against whom the crazed sword should be unleashed a prose exercise for eight-year-olds makes all clear: “Complete the following blank exercise with the appropriate word: ‘The Zionist enemy (blank) civilians with its aircraft’.” No gold stars I suspect for any pupil who writes in “salutes”.

And spiritually terrorist? How about the sermon of Sheikh Sabri broadcast on the official Palestinian radio in which he declared: “Allah shall take revenge on behalf of his prophets against the colonialist settlers who are sons of monkeys and pigs.” Should anyone doubt what fate awaits the children of “monkeys and pigs” another sermon from the same sheikh clarifies doubts: “Muslims, I am sure that Israel will eventually be destroyed and that the settlements will be your spoils.” And it’s Israel that the UN thinks is racist?

Anyone tempted to condemn Israel for its recent actions should just ask themselves, what would any other state do when, having granted land for peace, it finds that land is being used as a bridgehead for war? Perhaps even more pertinently, what do other Middle Eastern states do when they face any opposition activity on their own soil? If you want the answer consider what the late Syrian President Hafez al-Assad did to dissidents in Hama and President Saddam Hussein of Iraq to the Kurds of Halabja. If you can find witnesses alive. And yet we expect talks with these people to be productive?

In contrast to the practice of every other Middle Eastern state, democratic Israel is exercising restraint in the face of provocation. It responds to indiscriminate terror with limited, targeted, military strikes against the instigators of terror. Because, unlike every other Middle Eastern state, Israel is a democracy. And therein lies the inescapable, unspoken, obstacle to peace in the Middle East.

Arab nations, such as Arafat’s, Assad’s and Saddam’s, are tyrannies which need an external enemy to blame for the woes of an oppressed people. Israel is that enemy, as the Jews were for Hitler. It does not matter how much land Israel cedes, or how many settlements are removed to make the West Bank satisfactorily Judenfrei for Chairman Arafat, these tyrannies will still need their enemy. And so the campaign of terror against Israel will continue as long as their tyranny does. The only way to bring lasting peace to the Middle East is to bring democracy to its peoples. And yet that is a course from which the West is steering away. It is no longer UK policy to back the opposition to Saddam, we place no sanction on Syria for its recent turn back to darkness, and we impose no penalty on Arafat for his reign of terror. All we do is beat up on the victim. When will we learn? Ask Neville Chamberlain.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



The Dilemma of Palestine and the United Nations

Where do Britain, Israel, the United States stand on Palestine’s bid for statehood?

What are the Palestinians trying to achieve at the UN this week?

In the next few days Palestinian leaders are set to apply for full membership of the United Nations. Just two nights ago, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, used a televised address to supporters to describe full UN statehood as “our right”. Hillary Clinton and the US diplomatic service have been working overtime to discourage the application. Although America has the power to veto full membership, it doesn’t possess enough allies to stop Palestine achieving observer status.

Why does America object?

Washington fears that granting statehood will endanger the already slim prospects for a resumption of face-to-face talks with Israel.Israel has a justifiable suspicion of the United Nations. The UN’s human rights body was, until recently, chaired by Gadaffi-run Libya and has repeatedly censured Israel while remaining silent on the crimes of regimes such as Syria. Hillary Clinton fears that a Palestinian delegation will harness the UN’s anti-Israel sentiment to pursue relentless acts of “lawfare”. Even observer status could give Palestine the right to attempt multiple, vexatious prosecutions of Israel through the International Criminal Court.

What’s Britain’s position?

Although British Conservatives have traditionally been closer to the American world view, there is something of a shift taking place as Anglo-French relations become warmer and deeper. In Benghazi, Libya, on Thursday this shift was evident as David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy stood before an ecstatic, mainly Muslim crowd, championing the most exciting manifestation of the Arab Spring so far. Foreign Office advisers have warned William Hague that Britain’s improved status in the Middle East could be compromised if Britain takes Israel’s side at the UN. Consequently, the UK has been leaning towards a compromise position drafted by Paris that would give Palestine observer status. The thinking behind this position was summed up by Alistair Burt, the foreign office minister. “It would be a disaster,” he said, if after the UN process “one side proclaimed triumph and the other reacted to a disaster”.

Will Israel accept a compromise?

No. Israel is feeling even more vulnerable than usual at the moment. Last week’s attacks on its embassy in Cairo were bad enough. Worse was the new Egyptian regime’s failure

to even answer Israel’s increasingly desperate calls when the rioting was at its worst. Relations with Turkey have become very hostile and the international community seems unable to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons — weapons that Tehran has promised to aim at Tel Aviv. Israel points out that the Palestinian authority has recently brokered a deal with the terrorist-sponsoring Hamas. It notes that Abbas has said that he’ll exclude every Jew from any Palestinian state. Israel believes that it would be wrong for the international community to reward this kind of extremism.

What’s the view of Tory and Liberal Democrat MPs?

At the top of the Government, Iain Duncan Smith, Liam Fox, Michael Gove and George Osborne are steadfast supporters of Israel and they are joined by many Conservative backbenchers. There are, however, a handful of increasingly vocal Tory critics of Israel. Their hand has been strengthened by the sometimes bellicose rhetoric of Israel’s prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and also by the yellow half of the Coalition. Nearly all Liberal Democrat MPs support full statehood for Palestine. Chris Huhne has said he is “entirely sympathetic” with Abbas’s objective, and Ming Campbell has described Alistair Burt’s middle-of-the-road position as profoundly disappointing. Nick Clegg himself is thought to be under pressure from his wife, who has previously advised the Palestinian Authority.

What does Cameron do?

The Prime Minister probably won’t veto Palestinian statehood for fear of causing a dangerous rift with the Liberal Democrats. He’ll also have noted threats from Saudi Arabia to reduce co-operation with the West if Palestinian hopes are dashed. On the deep blue sea side of his devilish dilemma, he knows he risks his government’s relationship with Israel. Cameron has been skating on thin ice for some time with friends of the region’s pre-eminent democracy. Neither he nor William Hague are seen as reliable allies. The Prime Minister caused upset last year when he likened Gaza to a “prison camp”. More recently he caused offence when he resigned as a patron of the Jewish National Fund. With all key parties gathering in New York this week, the PM’s hope is that a showdown vote can somehow be avoided. He hopes that the whole drama will force all sides back to the negotiating table. That seems unlikely without some major concession from Israel on, for example, the building of settlements. And without major concessions, Abbas is unlikely to spare Cameron or Barack Obama from having to make some very awkward choices.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Middle East


Cyprus: Tension Over Oil, Turkey Threatens Warships

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA — Turkish warships may keep guard over the underwater oil prospecting possibly to be conducted by Turkey on the basis of an agreement with the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. This was reported by the Turkish agency Anadolu, which quoted Turkish energy minister Taner Yildiz. In reiterating the appeals made over the past few days by the foreign ministry, Yildzi urged the Greek-Cypriot government to immediately halt preparatory works for imminent oil and gas surveying through a platform of the US company Nobel, since it is seen as a “provocation”. The drilling around Cyprus are a cause of friction undermining Turkey’s relations with the EU. “The platform may even be accompanied by a Navy fleet,” said the Turkish minister. “If the administration of Southern Cyprus implements the schedule for prospecting in the Mediterranean, TPAO may also begin its surveying,” added Yildiz in reference to the Turkish state oil company, saying that the agreement with the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC, recognised only by Turkey) to conduct prospecting in the part of the sea between Turkey and the northern part of the island is “ready”.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Greece to Stand by Cyprus in Case of Turkey’s Attack, Minister

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, SEPTEMBER 19 — Greek Minister of Foreign Affairs Stavros Lambrinides assured on Sunday that Greece would stand by Cyprus in case Turkey decided to attack, due to the launching of explorations for hydrocarbons in Cyprus’ exclusive economic zone. Lambrinides noted that the Eastern Mediterranean does not need a “gendarme”, especially one who, instead of implementing international law, is the first to violate it, the minister said speking with Greek media.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Iraq: Mgr Sako: Middle East Christians, Between State Islam and Fundamentalism

The Arab springtime and changes in the Middle East are feeding fundamentalism and threatening to destroy those countries’ millenary cultural pluralism. For Mgr Sako, Christians in the near East must dialogue with courage and sincerity with fundamentalists, Muslim Brothers, Salafi and Sunni and Shia authorities. It is important to clarify “our fears and our hopes”.

Kirkuk (AsiaNews) — The changes in Middle East countries in recent years threaten to foment fundamentalism. Mgr. Louis Sako, Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Kirkuk, says the Christian minority there, accustomed to living under state Islam, should dialogue with its Muslim fellow citizens and explain that it is possible to live side by side with reciprocal respect and dignity. With regard to the Arab springtime and attempts on the part of the West to export its own model of democracy, the Archbishop affirms: such attempts are ineffective, it is better to focus on educating youth.

For years the political geography of the Middle East— in Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya… — has initiated and suffered changes. These changes are a source of acute concern for religious and ethnic minority groups, mainly Christians. A Middle East divided in different ethnic nations, so often proposed, would destroy a mosaic of millenary pluralism without bringing a solution.

In actual fact, our Middle East Christians have discovered a way of life, more or less positive, under state Islam. For 14 centuries we have lived in peaceful, although conditioned, co-existence. We, Christians of the near East, are aware of our future in these Muslim majority countries. Without either over-simplifying or exaggerating, we know that for Islam State and religion walk hand in hand and cannot be separated. Even in countries, so-called, secularised, there has never been a separation of the two powers, as in the case of the West.

However today the situation has changed completely. Fundamentalist Islam is growing and becoming an increasingly concerning phenomenon. Extremists want Islamic law, (Shari’a) to be the basic law of the State, to protect their religious and ethnic identity (umma, community of true believers) from the “atheist corrupt” West. The Koran teaches Muslims that Islam, the religion taught by Mahommet the greatest of all prophets, is the only true and complete religion. This is why they preach the necessity of holy war (Jihad) to protect and to propagate their religion. But this could become extremely dangerous.

The Arab springtime has brought with it a powerful demand for democracy and recognition of the human rights of the individual. But, putting aside international propaganda, this idea, unfortunately, is something formal, belonging to theoretic principles rather than concrete reality. For the time being Europe’s democratic model cannot work in the Middle East: it will take a long time for it to be applicable and it will demand a new culture and the formation of youth.

If we, the Christian minorities which have always lived in these countries, are to obtain a better future we have to rely only on ourselves, knowing that the West is led only by financial and political interests, all connected with oil. We must make it clear to our Muslim fellow citizens, frankly and without ambiguity, that we are an integral part of the population. We are native to these parts: we contributed greatly to the formation of Muslim culture, during the Caliphate of the Umayyads and the Abbasids; we were chief players in the renaissance of the Arab nation in the 18th century; today, we intend to maintain our role side by side. We must tell them: we respect you and we love you because God who is love, loves us all . For our part, we ask you to respect us as we are and to respect our religion. Only in this way will we trust one another and strengthen our relations.

Therefore it is necessary to discuss together the reasons for our fears and for our hopes. With courage and sincerity, we must discuss our common destiny with fundamentalists, Muslim Brothers, Salafis, Sunni and Shiite authorities. We must show them our sincerity, our commitment and our determination to live side by side with respect and with dignity.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



‘Pure Islam Root of Region’s Awakening’

The final statement of the first International Conference on Islamic Awakening in Tehran highlights the role of pure Islam and popular involvement in political and social fields.

According to the statement issued on Sunday, “Unity of the entire Muslim Ummah (Nation) is necessary for returning to national and Islamic dignity and independence of Muslim nations from the political, economic and ideological dominance of oppressive powers.” The statement pointed out the unique role of people, especially women and youths, in the popular revolutions across the Middle East and North Africa. The “glorious resistance” of Palestine and Lebanon against Israel was described as the most significant subject in the Muslim world. The conference also expressed solidarity with the people of Somalia who face a dreadful famine. Five special committees were set up during the two-day event to discuss different aspects of the Islamic Awakening, including the history and basic tenets of the revival movement as well as figures that have played a role in the popular uprisings, and the challenges ahead. The conference, attended by scholars and popular figures from over 80 countries at the IRIB international conference center, also agreed on the establishment of a permanent secretariat based in Tehran.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Qatar Airways to Operate 4 New Milan Malpensa-Doha Flights

(AGI) Milan — Qatar Airways decided to operate four new weekly fights from Milan to Doha. The new services will starts from the 1st of January 2012 and tickets are already on sale. These services will be operated on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Thursdays so that two flights will be available for these days.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Turkey: Planes and Torpedo Boats Over Gas Fields, Erdogan

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, SEPTEMBER 19 — The European part of Cyprus has commenced the exploration of an underwater gas field in its disputed territorial waters and immediately — expressly as a retaliatory measure — Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan replied that Turkey would be doing the same off the northern half of the island split in two. The tension created in the area for at least the past two weeks due to the Turkish-Israeli diplomatic crisis rose after Ankara announced it would be sending warships and planes despite the EU’s calls for calm and talks. Cypriot sources have said that the gas exploration operations in the waters south of the island began yesterday evening, with an acceleration compared with the presidential announcement yesterday that they would be beginning “over the next few days”, at least as concerns the true “drilling” in the Block 12 (also known as Aphrodite) field in the Republic of Cyprus’s Exclusive Economic Zone. In action is the Homer Ferrington oil drilling rig of the Texan company Noble Energy which — after conducting surveys in Israeli territorial waters — has today been positioned on the perpendicular of the field. Faithful to the threats expressed over the past few days, Erdogan — on his departure for the UN General Assembly — announced that Turkish underwater exploration for gas off the northern coast of Cyprus may begin “this week” in “our exclusive economic zone”, and that it will be monitored by planes, frigates and torpedo boats — rapidly-moving but small, the latter launch torpedoes against larger ships. Cypriot radio has already reported the presence, in international waters but close to the Homer Ferrington rig, Turkish ships that for the moment have not shown any aggressive intentions. On the other hand, a Turkish newspaper noted yesterday two F-16 fighterplanes streaking through the air with trajectories worthy of an appeal to the UN, and Greece has promised strong support to its neighbouring islanders should an attack take place. The prospect of war, previously conjured up by Erdogan in speaking at the beginning of the month on naval escorts to flotillas carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, spurred EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton to urge Turkey to “abstain from any sort of threat” which could result in even higher tension levels with Cyprus, the island divided since the Turkish invasion in 1974 between one part internationally recognised (the Greek-Cypriot one) and another accredited only by Ankara.

Brussels has appealed to Turkey and Cyprus “to find a comprehensive solution as soon as possible” on the status of Northern Cyprus, which is at the centre talks under UN aegis. The atmosphere is, however, not of one of constructive talks — seeing as a Turkish minister has today reiterated a threat formulated yesterday by the deputy prime minister: if Cyprus gets the scheduled EU rotating presidency in the second half of next year without previously having solved the issue of the divided island, Turkey will freeze relations with the EU.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Russia


Drunk Navigator Contributed to Russian Plane Crash

A drunk navigator was a contributing factor in June’s air disaster that killed 47 people in northwest Russia, according to a new report. The investigation has also placed blame for the crash with the other crew members.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Moscow Muslims Mourn Demolished Mosque

MOSCOW // For more than a century, Moscow’s Muslims have found affirmation in their Cathedral Mosque, painted in a minty pastel evocative of the city’s cherished old buildings, with a golden crescent high above, proclaiming their identity. This week, the mosque, built by Tatar Muslims, who have lived in Russia for a thousand years, was a pile of splintered wood, shattered brick and billowing plaster.

The mosque was demolished last weekend, the official reason being that the 1904 building was badly deteriorated and heavy rains had made it so dangerous that it had to be destroyed before it collapsed and killed someone. But longtime Muscovites, Muslim and not, were unconvinced, saying it was a historic monument that should have been preserved at all costs. Ravil Gainutdin, the chief mufti, who works out of offices next door, shed no tears. Mr Gainutdin heads the government-backed Spiritual Board of Muslims of the European Part of Russia. Recently he had been complaining that the mosque was not properly aligned with Mecca and that it had no historic value.

Farid Asadullin, the chairman of the scientific and public department of the Council of Muftis, said houses of worship are destroyed all the time, pointing out that Moscow’s Orthodox Christ the Saviour Cathedral, dating from 1883, was torn down in 1931 (by Stalin, who replaced it with a swimming pool) and then built anew in the 1990s. “Renewal of a mosque is a natural process,” he said. Little was heard outside the official religious structure until Thursday, when several Moscow Muslims and preservationists organised a news conference to mourn their loss. They had a hard time finding space but finally ended up in the attic of a marginalised political party, Yabloko, with mostly religious and ethnic media members in attendance.

“I am not such a believer,” said Adil Belayev, an elderly man with pure white hair who said some of his kin had helped build the mosque. “I don’t pray every day. But that was a holy place, and I felt it.” The mosque was built despite Tsarist disapproval, and it withstood revolution and repression, said Mukhammyat Minachev, who is Muslim. “And now someone has demolished our memories,” he said. Gayar Iskandyarov, an engineer and leader of the Foundation for the Development of the Muslim People, said the mosque had been a cultural centre for Tatars, keeping their language and traditions alive even though they were a minority in Orthodox Russia.

A new mosque is being built next to the destroyed one. The cornerstone was laid in 2005, but it is still far from finished, and no work has been done in a few years. Now, officials said, the permits are in hand and work can proceed. Around the edges of the room, journalists whispered that a Muslim from the Caucasus had donated a great deal of money to finish construction of the new mosque and that tearing down the old one represented a shift in power. Once Tatars defined the Muslim community; now they are outnumbered by Muslims from the Caucasus and Central Asia.

The Muslims at the news conference, Tatars who grew up in Moscow, said they should have been told that the mosque needed repairs. They could have come up with alternatives. The old one could have been incorporated into the new one. “That would have been too expensive,” interrupted Farit Farisov, chairman of the board of trustees of the Council of Muftis, who attended the event. “Where would we get the money?” Of course people had been told, he said later. “Maybe we didn’t use the word ‘demolish’, but we talked about reconstruction,” he said. “I’m a lawyer. I cannot define demolish or reconstruct. Talk to an architect.” He said that the new mosque will be finished within a year or so and that the old one will be restored as part of it. Frescoes were saved, he said. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Everything will be fine.” As he spoke, a large yellow steam shovel was biting into the rubble of the mosque, dropping it into a red dump truck.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Russian Minority Party Wins Latvian Elections

Russian minority party Harmony Centre won Latvian elections over weekend with 29.5% of the vote, reports Reuters. It is the first time the party — positioned as centre-left — has come out top in the Baltic nation where around a third of the 2.2 million population are Russian speakers.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Russian Company Plans to Set Up a Hotel in Space

Orbital Technologies plans to set up a hotel in space by 2016 and offer space tours to Mars by 2030. Experts say it’s technically feasible, but will be very expensive.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

South Asia


India: Exclusive Mobile for Muslims

i786 comes with one year warranty with three months replacement comes at a price tag of Rs 2,999.

I-Tel, an unknown player in the mobile handset space, has launched India’s first multimedia customised mobile phone for Muslims. Known as i-Tel i786, it comes integrated with special software for Muslims like Azan Alarms, Prayer Timings, Wallpapers, Ring Tones, Higri and Greogeon Calender, and Zakat calculator. Talking to The Mobile Indian, a spokesperson of the company said, “We have started the customised mobile phone for Muslims having customised Muslim calendar, prayer timing schedule and Qibla directions and Muslim wallpapers.’

He added: “We have taken permission from the biggest mosque and leading Islamic scholars to sell this customised Muslim handsets to Muslims all over the world after intensive research.” The spokesperson further said that the company will give 2.5 per cent Zakat (a kind of donation given by Muslims for social welfare) on every sale of the handset to needy and poor Muslim children, and NGOs for educational purposes. Besides, i-Tel has also taken special permission to put the model i786 as this number is highly auspicious for Muslims as it means “we start in the name of Allah”

The i786 is a dual SIM phone which has integrated MP3, MP4 player and supports Bluetooth. It has a camera of 1.3 megapixel resolution as well. It supports English, Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, Persian, Turkish, Bengali, Burmese, Indonesian, Vietnamese and Thai language. This phone comes with one year warranty with three months replacement comes at a price tag of Rs 2,999.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Indonesia: Muslim Miss Universe

CAIRO — A beauty pageant for hijab-clad Muslim women who can recite the holy Qur’an in Arabic and participate in the welfare of their society has been held in West Jakarta to choose Muslims’ ‘Miss Universe’. “It’s the first online Islamic beauty contest in the world,” Eka Shanty, executive director of the nonprofit Indonesia Islamic Fashion Consortium, which organized the event, told The Jakarta Globe. “In the Miss Universe contests, the candidates parade their bodies in revealing dresses,” Eka added. “But in this contest, they’re all covered. Not an inch of skin shows, except for their faces and hands.”

Coming to Puri Agung Grand Ballroom in West Jakarta last Week, 10 young women wearing colorful hijabs and dresses sat on the floor to recite the verses of the holy Qur’an.

These young women were all finalists of Muslimah Beauty 2011, a beauty pageant held for young Muslim women in Indonesia which aims to recognize the beauty and potential of young women who wear hijabs. Coming through a long way, the contest began by online registration on social media Web site DetikForum.com. The contest required Muslim Indonesian women between the ages of 18 and 24, over 165 centimeters in height, who don hijab, could recite Qur’an in Arabic and was fluent in another foreign language.

“The registration method was very effective,” said Arifin Asydhad, the Web site’s deputy editor in chief. “We received 1,170 registrations from almost every part of Indonesia.”

Candidates from different areas in Indonesia were first shortlisted to 50 based on their physical appearance, achievements and educational background.

Ten finalists were selected on Sept. 9 and placed under “quarantine” at Grand Sahid Jaya Hotel in Central Jakarta on Sept. 11-12. “We call the quarantine period Manasik Kecantikan Hati [rituals for inner beauty],” Eka said. “During this period, all candidates performed sholat tahajud [early morning prayer] at 3 am and studied the Qur’an together.”

Inner Beauty

Trotting in their colorful hijab, contestants’ beauty was more than just a pretty face. “In my opinion, true beauty comes from the inside,” Dika Restiyani, the winner of the beauty pageant, said. “A truly beautiful woman is someone who benefits and inspires other people.” Restiyani studies at the Nanyang Technological University. She also manages, along with a group of friends, Pelangi Anak Negeri (Children of the Nation’s Rainbow), an organization that provides education for street children in South Jakarta. Another finalist, Kholifah Nuzulia Firdausy, works as an architect in Malang, East Java. She also runs a library for disadvantaged children in the area. Most of the finalists said they have been wearing the hijab since they were young.

“I feel comfortable in a hijab,” said finalist Shayma Faisal Abri, who started donning hijab when she was 6. “It protects me from exposure to matahari [sunlight] and mata laki-laki [men’s eyes],” the 18-year-old added with a smile. Reaching the final stage, the finalists represented role models for Indonesian women who observe their religion. “They’re the heroines of Indonesian Muslim women,” said Edy Putra Irawady, the deputy minister for trade and industry. “They’re all very young, yet they possess great talents and huge potential. They should be the role models and benchmarks for Indonesian Muslim women.” Eka, the executive director of the nonprofit Indonesia Islamic Fashion Consortium, agrees. “The winners will be the fashion and beauty icons of young Muslim women in Indonesia,” Eka said. “They’ll also represent Indonesian Muslim women to the world at large.

The event is also expected to draw the attention of all Muslim world, being held in the country with the largest Muslim population. “Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world,” Eka explained. “That’s why it should also be the Mecca for Muslim beauty and fashion in the world.”

[JP note: Muslims miss universe and arrive in heaven?]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Indonesia: Jakarta Governor Comes Under Fire by Women’s Rights Groups

Jakarta, 19 Sept. (AKI/Jakarta Post) — Indonesian women’s rights activists condemned Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo for his statement that shifted the blame for a spike in rape cases onto women wearing tight and revealing outfits.

Fauzi said on Friday that women should not wear miniskirts when riding public transportation vehicles to avoid “any unwanted consequences”.

“I urge women in Jakarta and other cities to avoid wearing miniskirts when they ride on these minivans, because this could arouse male drivers and passengers,” Fauzi said responding to questions on what the city government would do to reduce the number of rape cases in the city. Activists were outraged by the statement, saying that it was a shameful statement from a public official.

“Fauzi should just resign. The governor of Jakarta should not make such statements as it does not reflect good governance principles,” said director of Jurnal Perempuan Foundation Mariana Amiruddin.

Mariana said that rape should be considered as a crime, no matter what triggered the act.

“By attributing rape to how women dress Fauzi is blaming the victims. This is like saying that if Fauzi drove the minivan, he would think that it would be all right for him to rape female passengers in mini skirts,” she said.

Chairperson of the National Commission on Violence against Women (Komnas Perempuan) Yuniyanti Chuzaifah said that Fauzi’s statement was a classic statement of authority putting the blame on victims.

“His statement suggests that it is women who should be responsible [when a rape occurs],” she said.

Yuniyanti said Fauzi had done a lousy job in gender education for Jakarta residents.

“As the highest-ranking official in the city, Fauzi should be aware that people follow his example. If he’s saying things like this, people will think that he’s right,” she said.

This is not the first time government officials have made statements that shifted the blame for rape onto women.

In 2009, West Aceh regent Ramli Mansur made national headlines for suggesting that it was all right to rape a woman who wore tight pants.

Responding to a recent spike in rape cases in the city, a number of experts have also made statements that could be deemed as discriminatory against women.

Sociologist Musni Umar of Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN) said earlier this week that YouTube videos with suggestive dangdut moves could be responsible for the spike in the number of sexual assault cases.

“Sexual assaults are very likely the result of YouTube. Those videos could easily arouse men,” he said as quoted by detik.com.

Meanwhile, police in South Jakarta handling the case of R.S., who was gang-raped inside a public transportation minivan on Sept. 1, said they found new evidence that could prove that the victim may have personally known one of the rapists, identified as A.

In a statement that could further victimize R.S., South Jakarta Police Detective Chief Sr. Comr. Budi Irawan said that R.S. had contacted A to meet her at a rendezvous point the night of the incident.

“R.S. was rather shocked finding three other men inside the minivan. But since she knew one of her assailants, she decided to get on board,” Budi said.

R.S., 27, was gang-raped by four men inside an M24 minivan plying the Srengseng-Kebon Jeruk route, on Sept. 1. The rapists also stole her cell phones before dumping her on a quiet street.

No response was given by the police when the woman reported the incident to police. Two weeks later on Tuesday evening, she spotted one of the rapists, the minivan driver, and had him arrested with the help of two traffic police officers.

Three suspects in the case are still at large.

This latest gang-rape case is similar to an incident involving a Bina Nusantara University student, Livia Pavita Soelistio, earlier last month.

According to criminal code article 285 on rape, a convicted rapist faces a maximum jail term of 12 years.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Maldivian Government Endorses Deobandi Islam, The Religion of the Taliban

The Religious Unity Regulations have provided the clearest indication yet of the official direction religion in the Maldives is taking: towards Deobandi Islam, the religion of the Taliban.

Among 36 institutions of Islamic learning approved by the regulations is the ultra-orthodox Jamia Darul Uloom in Deoband, India and at least six affiliated madrassas. Established in 1867 to bring together Muslims who were hostile to British rule, the Deoband madrassa, created the so-called ‘Deobandi Tradition’ committed to a literal and austere interpretation of Islam. For the last 200 years, the Deobandi Tradition has argued that the reason Islamic societies have fallen behind the West on all spheres of endeavour is because they have been seduced by the amoral West, and have deviated from the original teachings of Prophet Mohammed.

It is the fundamentalist Deobad Da-ul-Uloom brand of Islam that inspired the Taliban movement. Many of the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan and in Pakistan are graduates of the Deobandi-influenced seminaries in Pakistan. Mullah Omar, for example, attended the Deobandi Darul Uloom Haqqania madrassa in Peshawar. The Kabul Centre for Strategic Studies has reported that so many of the Taliban leaders were educated at the school that its head cleric, Maulana Sami ul-Haq is regarded the father of the Taliban. The Deobandi Tradition is highly critical of Islam as practised in modern societies, feeling that the established religious order had made too many compromises with its foreign environment.

The mission of the Deoband is to cleanse Islam of all Western influences, and to propagate their teachings with missionary zeal. Increasingly, the Deobandi movement has been funded by the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia, leading to the former being co-opted by the latter. Without a clear indication — such as ‘Darul Uloom’ appearing in the name of the institution — it cannot be said with certainty how many of the total of 10 listed Pakistani institutions in the regulations are categorically Deobandi.

Available facts suggest, however, that more than just the two Darul Ulooms listed in the Regulations are Deobandi. It is the Deobandi that has the largest number of religious seminaries in Pakistan — of 20,000 registered seminaries in Pakistan, 12,000 are run by Deobandi scholars; and 6,000 by the Barlevi, with whom the Deobandi have many disputes.

Among the 10 Pakistani institutions approved by the regulations is also Jamia Salafia, a seminary whose alumni include several leaders in Al-Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba, the organisation behind the Mumbai terror attacks in which a Maldivian is alleged to have participated. It is also the leading supplier of Salafi neo-conservatism in the Maldives.

Even when the approved list of institutions in the regulations’ list goes beyond South Asian borders, it gravitates towards the Deobandi movement. The list includes, for example, the Dhaarul Uloom Zakariya in South Africa. The only institute in Britain the regulations approve of is the Islamic Da’wa Academy, a place which produces the Muslim equivalent of a missionary. Why is there such an acute need to proselytise in a country where the population already believes in Islam except to propagate a particular view? The Deoband HQ has recently sought to distance itself from violent extremism. For the powers that be in the War on Terror, what matters is the graduation from extremism to violence. But, for societies such as the Maldives, and for the people who have to live under its precincts, what matters more is the oppression that extremism imposes on daily life. This is the reality that a Maldivian people living under the Religious Unity Regulations will have to face.

The application of the Deobandi school of thought on Maldivian women is a frightening prospect that is not too far in the distant future. The Taliban’s stance on women is a clear indication of the scale of the potential problem. An example of the Deobandi’s take on women is the 24 April 2010 Fatwa by the seminary in Deoband that declared it ‘haraam’ and illegal according to Sharia for a family to accept a women’s earnings. ‘It is unlawful for Muslim women to do job in government or private institutions where men and women work together and women have to talk with men frankly and without veil.’ Embarrassed by the angry reaction in the Indian media and among women’s groups, the Deoband madrassa denied it banned women from the work place and only insisted that working women be ‘properly covered’. As analysts have pointed out, however, what the Fatwa suggests is that women can only work in such places where they can fully veil themselves and where they cannot ‘frankly’ talk to men, whatever that means. The Fatwa effectively banned Muslim women from the workplace in India.

The Religious Unity Regulations stipulate that no one should propagate their particular ideology of Islam as the ‘right Islam’. This stipulation looks good in writing, and is perhaps what has allowed the government to spin the document as ‘a crack-down on extremism’. It is true the regulations prohibit the promotion of a particular ideology of Islam as the ‘true Islam’. But by regulating what truth about Islam would be considered as legitimate in the first place, a pre-selected knowledge of the ‘right Islam’ — what looks like Deobandi Islam — is being imposed on the people that pre-empts the regulations themselves. It is clear from the staggering changes that have occurred in Maldivian faith in the last decade that the Deobandi movement has been a resounding success in the country. Now it has the chance to flourish further, with no conflicting opinions to be allowed in.

Clamping down on other forms of Islam is, in fact, a defining characteristic of the Deobandi Tradition. Although from a global perspective the Deobandis are only one of many religious expressions of Islam, from the Deobandi point of view, theirs is the only true Islam. The Deobandi regard all other forms of Islam as heretical, leading to continued tension and long-term violence between the Deobandi and other Muslims. In Pakistan, where the Deobandi is known to have played a crucial role in establishing an Islamic state, the Deobandi Taliban have carried out many acts of violence against followers of the Berlevi tradition, which many Pakistan’s Muslims follow.

The Religious Unity Regulations have already created tensions among those who have claimed the mantle of ‘religious scholar’ in the Maldives. The Islamic Foundation of the Maldives is arguing against the Regulations on the basis that the requirement of a first degree as a prerequisite for the Preachers License is unconstitutional. It is also fighting for the religious right to describe Jews as ‘evil people and liars’.

The Adhaalath Party, meanwhile, has objected to the regulations because the President and his advisors apparently watered down the purity of their contributions to the draft Regulations by contaminating it with “provisions from English law…not suited to a 100 percent Muslim country”, echoing the founding principles of the Deobandi Tradition.

‘Compared to the first draft’, President’s advisor on the Regulations, Ibrahim ‘Ibra’ Ismail, said, “the regulations do not impinge on freedom of expression”. What matters is not whether, comparatively speaking, the first draft is a veritable Magna Carta. What matters is the final draft that has been gazetted. And it severely restricts the freedom of the Maldivian people in the name of the ‘right Islam’ — Deobandi Islam. To spin the document as something that “will allow liberal-minded thinkers to convince people of the middle ground” is deliberately misleading if not an outright lie. This document does the exact opposite.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Pakistan: Acid Attacks: 7 Women Burned in Two Days

FAISALABAD: A total of seven women suffered acid attacks in the past two days in Faisalabad in separate incidents.

First year student Tayyiba was on her way back home from a local tuition academy when students Ali Raza and Hamza allegedly chased her and threatened her life.

“Both boys go to the same college as me and they were heckling me for not wearing a dupatta on my head. They tried to grab me and when I yelled at them they attacked me with acid,” Tayyiba told police officials before being admitted to the hospital. “She said that both men had said she ‘deserved for her face to be ruined because she had not covered her head’

In another incident, a man and his two friends allegedly threw acid at his wife and five other women from her family. According to police officials, Chak 132 GB Dijkot resident Umar Hayat attacked his wife Nabila and five women of her family after she refused to leave with him.

“He told her he would never hit her again if she left with him and when she refused he threw acid on her and all the other women”…

           — Hat tip: Kitman [Return to headlines]

Far East


China: With ‘Enforced Disappearances’, the Communist Party Becomes a Bunch of Common Criminals

On 30 August, the government legalised ‘detention under surveillance’, a practice that is absolutely illegal that allows the authorities to make people disappear without motive or rights. It is a throwback to the dark days of the Cultural Revolution, but today people are less patient than at that time. Here is an analysis by the great dissident.

Washington (AsiaNews) — The U.S. State Department spokesperson issued a statement to a question taken at the August 30, 2011 daily press briefing regarding the Chinese Government’s effort to modify its Criminal Procedure Law to legalize enforced disappearance, which is neither consistent with international human rights law, nor consistent with other provisions in Chinese law. The United States urged the Chinese government to respect Chinese citizens’ rights when it makes legal revisions.

Many friends ask: What is enforced disappearance? From an academic perspective, it is of course is a non-voluntary and forced disappearance. From an international perspective, the United Nations has a special Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. Its role is to monitor and criticize those illegal governments and cliques that engage in forced disappearance, in an effort to protect ordinary people against persecution by the rich and powerful.

In other words, the Special Working Group tries to force those officials or powerful groups to comply with the law, and to be reasonable. If a person is forcefully detained somewhere such that even the family and community do not know his whereabouts, who could tell if the authority or group which holds the person is law-abiding? Who could interfere with it? It could reach the degree that nobody knows if or when the person disappeared forever. Thus, it contributes to lawlessness and encourages treating people as non-human. Regardless whether a person is good or bad, a civilized society should treat anyone as a person. This is human rights.

Human rights are not a vague and general theory, but something closely related to the presence of each of us. To say it bluntly, human rights is about people being counted as animals or not, which is not a trivial thing. Human rights are like the air; usually you do not feel it is important until you lose it. Then you can appreciate its vital importance. This time, the Chinese Communist regime is changing the law actually in open violation of its own laws, by legalizing the illegal detention and enforced disappearance. This is a huge setback of the Chinese legal system in the past three decades.

It is a bit like what happened before the Cultural Revolution in China. First, the law was openly violated, and then gradually society entered the famous “complete lawlessness” state as claimed by Jiang Qing, Mao Zedong’s wife. Not only common people, even various governmental and party officials found it hard to escape this persecution of “complete lawlessness”. There was no place for one to make a rational argument, or even use the sophistry of the Chinese Communist Party. That was because you simply did not exist. You had disappeared.

An example back in the Cultural Revolution was Liu Shaoqi. As the President of China, Liu Shaoqi was also forced to disappear. No one knew where he was. No one knew how he was. Even no one knew when he died. Only 10 years later when he was “redressed”, did we learn that he had been persecuted to death long ago. Does not the President of a country have a lot of power? It was useless. As long as he was forced to disappear, he would not be able to reason with those guards who only care about discipline. He would be treated as an animal, to be dealt with in whatever way they like.

At least Liu Shaoqi was arrested. So at least people still knew that he was in the hands of the judiciary, knew that he was in prison. In 1994, the public security authority in China invented a so-called “residence under surveillance”, which is called “forced disappearance” today. I maybe the first person who was forced to disappear in the name of “residence under surveillance”. At that time, I was detained by the authorities. They really could not find a suitable accusation. The Procuratorate did not approve, not only the arrest, but even the detention. That was because the Communist authorities really failed to provide a legitimate reason, yet they were unwilling to let me go home. Even though I made repeated requests, they refused to inform my family. I threaten that I would sue them for illegal detention.

There was no need for ordinary police to bear such a serious charge. Their superiors had to find a legitimate reason in order to continue my detention without informing the outside world. The only capacity the Public Security Bureau authority had was the “residence under surveillance”. Thus they offered a piece of “residence under surveillance”, but would not let me return to my own residence. When I strongly protested against this blatant practice of lawlessness, they claimed that the condition of the detention place was no worse than my home. I strongly urged them to notify my family according to law. But they responded that since my case had not entered the judicial process, it was unnecessary to carry out the detention according to law. In short, with the approval of the highest authorities, they could be as unreasonable as bandits.

At that time, I was already under forced disappearance and incommunicado, thus I could do nothing anymore. Eighteen months later, when my case was sent to the courts, I asked the judge to at least count these eighteen months. The judge said: since the detention was not carried out according to law, they do not know how to calculate the sentence accordingly. Thus, my detention became simply a waste of my time. But, fortunately I was still alive and there were law enforcement agencies that did not agree with the lawlessness of the people who detained me. So it was not the worst.

The worst came when the Chinese authority published the amendments to the Criminal Procedure Law on August 30, 2011. Now, it is legal to engage in forced disappearance. Authorities can detain people in secret places without notifying the family and the outside world, to the degree that no one knows even when one is permanently disappeared. If you are as lucky as Liu Shaoqi, then at least people will know where you once were when your case is redressed 10 years later. But what if you can never enter the judicial process? Then you are disappeared forever. What kind of law is a law that makes it legal to evaporate a person?

This is kind of law that meets the concept of the Chinese Communist Party. The law of the Communist Party is used to persecute people and to combat the enemy, rather than to set boundaries defining people’s interactions and restrict the powerful against innocent civilians. The elite of the Communist Party who are rich and powerful often accuse people who are defending their rights as unruly people. In fact, this type of bandit-style legal concept of the Communist Party is the true logic of the unruly shyster and tyrant.

During the almost 20 years since I was forced to disappear, this gangster logic has been inherited and developed. While the level of the officials detained have not reached to the level of Liu Shaoqi, numerous high and low ranking officials have been illegally detained these years, under a name just like that “residence under surveillance”: “double designation”. The Communist Party can illegally detain countless of its members outside of the judicial system, as if one ceases to be a person with legal entity when one joins the Communist Party. This situation could be described by the now fashionable wording of the Communist Party: Do not take the law as a shield.

The average Chinese are even less than the Communist Party members. Recently, there is a surge of people under forced disappearance, especially many lawyers. Further, they are subjected to torture and serious threat. Not only is there no place to reason with authorities during the detention, one even does not dare to reason when one is released. There is already no law, but simply a group of kidnappers. Now, by legalizing this logic of the kidnappers, the regime has become outright bandits. They really achieved the ideal of Mao Zedong and Jiang Qing: complete lawlessness.

I think that if the Cultural Revolution repeated again, the people will not expect the Communist Party to correct its own wrongs anymore. The reason may be explained by the old Chinese saying: People will treat their oppressors the way they have been treated. History cannot simply make the motion of a circle and stay in the same place.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Thousands Protest Against Nuclear Energy in Japan

Tens of thousands of protesters who want to abolish all nuclear plants in Japan rallied in central Tokyo Monday, just over six months after the nation’s worst nuclear crisis since the war.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

Australia — Pacific


Australian Muslims Have New Leader

Australia’s Muslim community has a new spiritual leader after the Australian National Imams Council (ANIC) elected a Melbourne-based scholar as its Grand Mufti. Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohamed, who was born in Egypt, has been appointed to the position after a unanimous vote from imams in Sydney over the weekend. Council spokesman Sheikh Mohamadu Saleem says imams Australia-wide voted for Dr Mohamed following the resignation of the previous grand mufti, Sheikh Fehmi, due to bad health. Sheikh Saleem says its an important position. “[He] is the figurehead, our spiritual head of the Muslims and also he enjoys the respect and the regard from the general Australian community. Dr Abu Mohamed attained a PhD in Islamic Studies from Al Azhar University in Cairo and has been in Australia for around 20 years.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Sub-Saharan Africa


Ghana: Muslim Leaders in Suhum Want School Head Removed

The Suhum Council of Muslim Chiefs and the entire leadership of Suhum Muslim community have bared their teeth at the Acting headmistress of Islamic Girls Senior High School at Suhum, Madam Sharifatu Adama Haruna for mismanaging the school and not adhering to the principles on which the school was founded. According to the council, Madam Sharifatu Adama has over the years exhibited gross disrespect towards leaders and stakeholders of the school and the entire Muslim religion and all attempts to draw the attention of Ghana Education Service to her conducts for redress and subsequent actions, have proved futile.

To this end, the Muslim community in Suhum has given Ghana Education Service one week ultimatum to transfer Madam Sharifatu or they will give her an emergency exit from the school if she stepped foot in the school next academic year which begins next week. Secretary to the Muslim Community in Suhum, Haruna Abedi told Asempa fm’s Maxwell Kudekor in an interview that the Muslim community cannot sit unconcerned and allow things to fall apart at a school they fronted and nurtured for years.

He added that, it is not their intention to create discomfort to any teaching or non teaching staff of the school but rather asked for collaboration and respect from the headmistress to all stakeholders. Haruna noted that, the headmistress of the Islamic Girls Senior High School, Suhum, does not appreciate and recognize the school as a Muslim mission school and has deliberately refused to accept that the school has a mission to accomplish; a mission which should not contravene the rules and regulations of Ghana Education Service.

He said the madam has banned all Muslims and leaders of Suhum from worshiping at the school mosque which was built by the same leaders and has further sacked the Imam of the mosque who was nominated by the district chief imam. According to him, in an attempt to correct the headmistress from her wrong doing, she insulted the leaders of the area and called them illiterates who know nothing. “This development resulted in several petitions against the headmistress but none of them have yielded result from the Ghana Education Service,” said Haruna Abedi.

The Islamic Girls Senior High School Suhum was established by the leadership of the suhum Muslim community in 1999 with the aim of providing education to the Muslim girl and to eradicate illiteracy in the Muslim community. The school since its inception was managed by the Suhum Kraboa Coaltar Muslim Community till the year 2006 when the GES drafted it into the SHS system and instituted a joint management with the Muslims and the Islamic Education Unit. Meanwhile the Suhum Kraboa Coaltar District Security Council has invited leaders of the Muslim community into a meeting to calm the situation whiles the Regional Director Of Education madam Adriana Kandilige has also been to the school to assess the situation.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Immigration


Bachmann Claims Immigration Worked ‘Very Well’ Before 1960s Reforms, When Nonwhites Were Excluded

In her criticism of liberal immigration reform, Bachmann was presumably referring to the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, or Hart-Celler Act, which ended the de facto national origins quotas that had governed U.S. immigration policy since 1924.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Illegals Collecting Billions in Child Tax Credits

According to the U.S. Treasury Department, illegal aliens are bilking the federal government for billions because they are filing fraudulent returns, and the sum is much higher than even a top group opposed to illegal immigration has estimated.

The Treasury reported in July that the Internal Revenue Service coughed up $4.2 billion in child tax credits for illegal aliens in 2010.

Data

The Treasury reported that illegals are fraudulently using the Additional Child Tax Credit, which was created to give more money to taxpayers who cannot claim a full tax credit for children.

The question is how illegals get away with gaming the system. Answer: Because all wages, even those earned illegally, are taxed, but since illegals cannot get valid Social Security numbers, the government needs a way to track their income and collect what is due. It does so using individual taxpayer identification numbers (ITINs), which, again, are for those taxpayers who cannot obtain a Social Security card.

These ITINs create the problem, and it’s a big one, according to the Treasury: The booty claimed by illegals using the ACTC has rocketed from $924 million in 2005 to $4.2 billion in 2010.

           — Hat tip: Kitman [Return to headlines]

Culture Wars


No Wonder Children Use ‘Gay’ To Mean ‘Rubbish’: Gay Culture is Shallow, Camp and Kitsch

by Brendan O’Neill

One thing that causes great consternation amongst schoolteachers, commentators and gay-rights activists is that young people use the word gay to mean “rubbish”. Last week it was reported that thousands of schoolchildren, some as young as four, have been reported to their local authorities for using racist or homophobic language, including using “gay” as a stand-in for “naff”. One boy was reprimanded for saying in class: “This work’s gay.” This follows other gay-as-rubbish controversies, including a tsunami of newspaper outrage when, in 2006, BBC Radio 1 presenter Chris Moyles described a mobile phone ringtone as “gay”, and even more outrage when the BBC inquiry into his remark ruled that the word gay is “often now used to mean ‘lame’ or ‘rubbish’. This is widespread current usage… among young people.”

But is it really such a mystery as to why the word gay has come to mean rubbish? It seems obvious to me. It is because gay culture is quite knowingly and resolutely lame. I don’t mean culture that happens to be produced by homosexuals, which includes some of the greatest art in history. No, I mean the stuff that passes for mainstream “gay culture”, foisted upon us by gay TV producers, filmmakers and magazine publishers, which is almost always shallow and camp and kitsch. That is, crap. If young people associate “gay” with “rubbish”, then they’re more perceptive than we give them credit for — they have twigged that, sadly, what is these days packaged up us as “gay culture” is almost always patronising pap.

The irony is that in turning gay into a codeword for rubbish, these allegedly uncouth schoolkids are only echoing observations made by some of the leading liberal thinkers of the past 50 years. In her famous essay “Notes on Camp”, published in 1964, Susan Sontag examined what she called the “improvised self-elected class, mainly homosexuals, who constitute themselves as aristocrats of taste” and who are fascinated with “camp” — that is, with viewing the world “not in terms of beauty, but in terms of the degree of artifice, of stylisation”. Camp culture is more interested in style than content, said Sontag; indeed, its emphasis on style is “to slight content, to introduce an attitude which is neutral with respect to content”. Sontag said the “ultimate camp statement” is “it’s good because it’s awful” — recognising nearly 50 years before today’s schoolkids that there’s something inherently rubbish about certain strands of gay culture.

Various thinkers have expanded on Sontag’s analysis of the celebrated awfulness of so-called gay culture. In his book, The Culture of Queers, Richard Dyer says a key part of mainstream gay culture and fashion is “the transformation of naff into style” (indeed, the word naff has its origins in polari, the gay slang of the 1950s and 60s). One glimpse at modern-day gay culture should make it clear that much of it remains “neutral with respect to content”. From shallow, pseudo-therapeutic nonsense like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and How to Look Good Naked to the Eurovision Song Contest and all those embarrassing GBFs (Gay Best Friends) that are now a staple of every soap and movie, all the stuff patronisingly referred to as “what gay people like” tends to be dross. When young people’s only exposure to “gay stuff” involves seeing camp things, naffness put on a pedestal, is it any wonder they have come to associate gay with rubbish? It seems a bit harsh to write off schoolkids as homophobes when they are only expressing, in cruder lingo, what serious thinkers have said for years: that some gay culture tends to wallow in the notion that the more awful something is, the better it is.

If we’re going to blame anyone for the association of gayness with rubbishness, how about those cultural bigwigs who produce so much tongue-in-cheek, knowingly naff gay culture? Sontag argued that camp, this attempt to “dethrone the serious”, was most vociferously promoted by “small urban cliques”. Today, it is often the same small urban clique that gives us rubbish “gay culture” which also goes mad when young people start to think that gay means rubbish. Their double standards are totally gay.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



The Gender-Free British Passport: UK Travellers May No Longer Have to Declare Their Sex, To Spare Feelings of ‘Transgender People’

Britain is preparing to rip up centuries-old rules by introducing passports which do not contain details of the holder’s sex.

The move, following pressure from the Lib Dems, is designed to spare transgender people and those who have both male and female sexual organs from having to tick ‘male’ or ‘female’ on their travel papers.

Currently, everybody must identify themselves as a man or woman, even when they are undergoing a sex-change operation or if they are considered ‘intersex’.

But with the Lib Dems promising to be ‘fierce champions of equality’, the Home Office has begun a consultation on changing the rules.

To satisfy international laws, the passport would still list a category titled ‘sex’, but would then contain a simple ‘X’ for everybody.

Supporters say it will solve the problem of embarrassing situations at border controls, where people whose sex appears to differ from that in their passport are grilled for long periods by guards.

But some Home Office officials are concerned the change could make life harder for the already stretched UK Border Agency by giving them one fewer piece of information to work from.

Last night, the Home Office said: ‘We are exploring with international partners and relevant stakeholders the security implications of gender not being displayed in the passport.’

Home Office Minister Lynne Featherstone is under pressure to act from her fellow Lib Dem MPs.

One backbench MP, Julian Huppert, said: ‘There does not seem to be a need for identity documents of any kind to have gender information. It is not a very good biometric; it is roughly a 50:50 split.

Military ID, such as the MOD90, which obviously can have quite a high security clearance, contains no gender information. That might be what we should look at.’

Mrs Featherstone — who has just announced plans for gay weddings — has made a string of promises committing the Government to do more for transgender people.

“While on my travels as a champion for women’s rights, I am and will be a champion for gay rights too. Britain must not get complacent. We are a world leader for gay rights, but… there is still more that we must do.”

Home Office Minister Lynne Featherstone

She said: ‘The UK Government is totally committed to creating a society that is fair for everyone.

‘We are committed to tackling prejudice and discrimination against transgender people at home and around the world. We need concerted government action to tear down barriers and help to build a fairer society for transgender people.’

And she said in a speech on Saturday: ‘While on my travels as a champion for women’s rights, I am and will be a champion for gay rights too. Britain must not get complacent. We are a world leader for gay rights, but… there is still more that we must do.’

Under existing rules, a ‘transgender’ person undergoing a sex-swap is free to change their identity to a new sex, once the procedure is complete and a gender recognition certificate has been issued.

While undergoing a sex change, a person can also nominate their intended new sex, and place that on their passport. They must produce a certificate from a doctor saying that is the gender under which they live their daily lives.

But people who are classed as intersex — a condition which people carry from birth, where they have male and female reproductive organs — are forced to make a choice.

Home Office officials say the review is wide-ranging and they are considering ‘all the gender options’.

The law in Britain could be changed in a matter of days. Passports come under the royal prerogative, so only a simple ministerial order would be required.

Last night, an Identity and Passport Service spokesman said: ‘IPS is considering the gender options available to customers in the British passport.

‘This is at the early discussion stage and no decisions have been taken. Any changes to the UK passport would need to satisfy our rigorous security requirements.’

On Saturday, Mrs Featherstone announced the coalition will push ahead with plans to introduce ‘gay marriage’ by 2015. At present, gays and lesbians are allowed to enter civil partnerships, which offer most of the legal protections of marriage. But the term ‘marriage’ is not used.

           — Hat tip: McR [Return to headlines]



UK Considering “X” For Transgenders on Passports

(AGI) London — The UK is considering introducing the third gender on passports, namely “X”, for transgenders, just like Australia. The current regulation envisages that transgenders must indicate one of the two sexes on ID documents. The new proposal is part of a security package being studied by the Interior Ministry, which states that the letter “X” can indicate a gender on new passports.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

General


Dino-Killing Cosmic Impact Wiped Out Ancient Birds, Too

Although birds survived the mass extinction that claimed their brethren, the rest of the dinosaurs, birds did not emerge unscathed, scientists now find. Apparently many ancient lineages of birds died off at the end of the Age of Dinosaurs, researchers added. Nearly all the modern bird groups, from owls to penguins and so on, began to emerge within 15 million years after the rest of the dinosaurs went extinct. These birds are subtly but significantly different from many of the ancient lineages that existed before a cosmic impact at the end of the Cretaceous period about 65 million years ago wreaked havoc around the globe.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Global Heat May Hide in Deep Oceans

REUTERS: New York — The mystery of Earth’s missing heat may have been solved: it could lurk deep in oceans, temporarily masking the climate-warming effects of greenhouse gas emissions, researchers reported on Sunday…

So where did the missing heat go?

Computer simulations suggest most of it was trapped in layers of oceans deeper than 305m during periods like the last decade when air temperatures failed to warm as much as they might have.

This could happen for years at a time, and it could happen periodically this century, even as the overall warming trend continues, the researchers reported in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Kevin Trenberth, a co-author of the study, said in a statement. “The heat has not disappeared and so it cannot be ignored. It must have consequences.”

           — Hat tip: Kitman [Return to headlines]



The New Faces of Islam

They’re proud Muslims, they’re top models, and they’re remaking the fashion world’s ideal of beauty.

When 20-year-old Hind Sahli, a brown-skinned young woman with dark shoulder-length hair, was growing up in Casablanca, she used to watch television shows like America’s Next Top Model and daydream about being on a fashion runway. Sahli was appropriately tall and thin, but in Morocco, the beauty ideal is a voluptuous figure. She was mercilessly teased for her spare frame and would soothe her hurt feelings by sashaying around her living room.

Sahli, who is both Arab and Muslim, was also growing up in a culture where modeling bumps up against significant cultural taboos. As a matter of religion and tradition, female modesty is expected-not the kind of provocative and exhibitionist behavior the mainstream fashion industry rewards. As Sahli strutted around the room, her mother-a deeply religious homemaker who wears the hijab-was amused by these preoccupations. Sahli’s father, a policeman, was not. Still, neither of them had much to say. It was just make-believe, after all. About that same time, in the tourist town of Nabeul, Tunisia, a young woman with the gamine features of Audrey Hepburn was having similarly fanciful thoughts. Hanaa Ben Abdesslem had always drawn lingering glances because of her soaring height and impossibly thin frame. The stares made her self-conscious and shy. But when she flipped through fashion magazines, she’d gaze at those “tall, thin, beautiful women, and I thought perhaps someday I could feel at ease.”

Five years ago, the Arab world was mostly disconnected from the global modeling network. In the absence of established agencies and international magazines, modeling wasn’t even a defined profession. Foreign travel was difficult both logistically and culturally. Then there were all manner of preconceived notions from around the globe about what it meant to be an Arab woman.

To accomplish their goals, Sahli and Ben Abdesslem would have to step outside the boundaries of tradition, leave the security of their families, and breach the confines of once unyielding cultures and prejudices-not just in the Arab world but beyond it. And that’s precisely what they have done. In the last year, especially, both Sahli and Ben Abdesslem have made significant headway-between them, they have walked in shows for labels such as Givenchy, Ralph Lauren, Louis Vuitton, Jean Paul Gaultier, Vera Wang, and Phillip Lim. They have posed for Italian Vogue and French Vogue and shot advertisements for Top Shop and Lancôme.

Though they have crossed paths only a handful of times, the two women are now inexorably linked through timing, culture, the assumptions others make about them, and their desire to represent 21st-century Arab women to the world. The fashion industry tends to treat cultural differences as entertaining biography; ethnicity as little more than aesthetics. But the recent experiences of Sahli and Ben Abdesslem show them to be charting a new course on the global runway. For them, fashion is not about gossipy chatter and luxurious indulgences, or even primarily about commerce and entertainment. It is about empowerment, opportunity, and modernity. It is a chance for these young women to be seen, to be heard, and, quite simply, to be.

“It’s given me independence,” Ben Abdesslem says of her career. “It’s given me confidence in myself as a woman.” Paradoxically, women from the Arab world have long been among the most voracious consumers of fashion. Indeed, the economics of the French haute couture industry relies on Middle Eastern customers. But their consumption is mostly private. The industry adores places such as Marrakech as backdrops for an exotic fashion shoot. Yet while the runways have welcomed models from South America, Eastern Europe, Africa, and the rest, Arab women have until now been largely absent.

The changes that made Sahli’s and Ben Abdesslem’s ascents possible began some two years ago, when the catwalks were notably homogenous. Blonde, pale, clonelike models from Eastern Europe dominated. Diversity became a cause célèbre, pushed by activist and former model Bethann Hardison and by Diane von Furstenberg, president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America.

“We have a responsibility in the fashion community to reflect global beauty, to reflect the new economies and reflect their financial strengths,” says Kyle Hagler, senior manager at IMG Models, who works with Ben Abdesslem. With prodding, agencies broadened their search for fresh faces. They turned to North Africa. “I think we all became socially aware,” Hagler says, adding, “We have a responsibility to make sure that it goes on.” The world, of course, also changed. The Arab Spring, which began in Tunisia, saw protests, revolts, and civil war sweep through North Africa and into the Middle East. The region convulsed with citizen demands for democracy, openness, and opportunity.

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

News Feed 20110918

Financial Crisis
» Eurogroup Chief Lauds Italian Budget Package
» European Banks: Dollar to the Rescue
» Europe is Turning Back to National Identity — And It’s Exhilarating
» Greece: Pension at Risk, Exodus From State Employment
» Greece: Online Campaign Against Tax Hikes Starts
» Greece: New Row Over Real Estate Tax
» Inflation and Aging Threaten Asia’s Development
» Serbia: Government Adopts Balance Sheet Law, Deficit to 4.5%
» The Economist Calls for “Act of Supreme Collective Will”
» Three Eurozones Are Better Than One
» Turkey’s Economic Lie
» Youthful Members of the Full-Time Precariat
 
USA
» Florida: Man Accused of Killing Wife, Wounding 2 Pastors
» New Studies Show Severe Racial Discrimination at University of Wisconsin
» Porn Prepares for the Apocalypse
 
Canada
» Swiss TV Won’t Broadcast Swissair Crash Film
 
Europe and the EU
» Austere Italy? Check the Traffic
» BBC: Norway Local Elections: Breivik’s Old Party Suffers
» Dutch Government Bans Burka
» France: Strauss-Kahn Regrets Not Running for President
» Germany: Berlin Exit Polls Show Government Coalition Losing Ground
» Italy: Silvio Berlusconi to Tarantini — “Who Are You Bringing Me Tonight?”
» Italy: ‘30 Prostitutes and Actresses’ Recruited to Have Sex at Berlusconi Parties
» Italy Among the Worsts in OECD for Money in Education
» Italy: Berlusconi Will Not Respond to Sex Claims, Says Lawyer
» Italy: First Snow Falls on Stelvio Pass
» Italy: Soccer: Lazio Fan Charged With Assaulting U. S. Tourist
» Italy: Amanda Knox Writes Video Script for Rock Band
» LNP Party Leader Bossi on Northern Italian ‘Secession’
» Netherlands: Immigration, Greece and Cuts: 2012 is the ‘Year of Truth’ For Wilders
» Netherlands: Wilders: 2012 Crucial Year for Coalition
» Sarkozy’s Popularity Rating 32% in September, 67% Against
» Sweden: Police Confirm Searching Mosque in Gothenburg
» Sweden: Shots Fired in Malmö Apartment
» Thieves Strip the UK Bare
» Ugandan Dr John Sentamu ‘To Head Church of England’
» Vatican Secretary: Legalism is Not the Path to Salvation
 
Balkans
» ‘Al Jazeera Balkans’ Running by End of Year
 
North Africa
» Libya: NTC Still Locked Over Interim Government
» Tunisia: Salafists Want to Destroy Le Kef Basilica
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» Israel: No Change to Egypt Peace Agreements
» Professor Phyllis Chesler: Blaming Israel Won’t Help
 
Middle East
» Iran: Water Battles Among Young People Frighten the Ayatollah
» Where Was Jesus Baptised? Israeli-Jordanian Row
 
Latin America
» Ahmadinejad to Vist Chavez on 24 September
 
Immigration
» 71 Billion Euros — the Cost of Immigration
» Nepali Migrant Women Victims of Abuse and Exploitation
» Suriname: French Guiana, A Door to the EU
» Sweden: Asylum Agreement to Reunite Thousands
» Three Boats With 287 Migrants Landed on Lampedusa the Night
 
Culture Wars
» UK: ‘We Want to be Less Male and Pale’: Clegg Pledges to Make Lib Dems More Diverse… As Three Quarters of Voters Say They’re Not Up to the Job”
» UK: “How the Tories Became the Gay-Friendly Party: As the Government Backs Gay Marriage, A Unique — and Surprising — Insight Into David Cameron’s Thinking”

Financial Crisis


Eurogroup Chief Lauds Italian Budget Package

‘We are satisfied with measures,’ Juncker says

(ANSA) — Wrocklaw, September 16 — Eurogroup President Jean-Claude Juncker on Friday lauded Italy’s just-passed austerity package.

“We all think the Italian authorities have done what they can and have taken measures we are satisfied with,” said Juncker after a Eurogroup meeting in this Polish city, also attended by the United States. The Eurogroup, comprising the finance ministers of the euorozone, has been meeting with increasing frequency to address market turbulence stemming from fears over the Greek debt crisis that have spread to Spain and Italy.

The 54-billion-euro austerity package, including spending cuts and tax rises, aims to reassure the markets by balancing the budget by 2013.

Foreign officials like International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde have urged the Italian government to fully implement the measures in the package, which include the abolition of provincial governments, a rise in women’s pension age and a 1% hike in VAT.

They have also urged the government to try to boost Italy’s chronically low growth, which Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti has vowed to do.

The austerity package has met with protests, many about a clause that could make it easier to fire workers.

Italy’s largest trade union, CGIL, brought thousands of people to the streets in a general strike last week.

On Friday the third-biggest union, UIL, announced a public-sector strike on October 28.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



European Banks: Dollar to the Rescue

Rzeczpospolita, 16 September 2011

“A dollar drip for European banks,” headlines Rzeczpospolita the day after the world’s leading central banks pumped dollars into the financial system by offering European banks 3-month loans. As a result, shares soared and the euro rebounded. “Some analysts see the move aimed at increasing liquidity as, in fact, the first stage of preparing the Greek bankruptcy…a scenario officially ruled out by European leaders,”notes the Warsaw daily. However, the positive effect of the “dollar drip” exactly three years after the fall of the American investment bank Lehman Brothers which triggered the world crisis, may be short-lived and won’t “replace necessary reforms” “The recent economic forecast of the European Commission shows that the EU economy is slowing down…but the situation could get even worse as nobody can presently predict the consequences of restructuring the Greek debt” warns the Warsaw daily.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Europe is Turning Back to National Identity — And It’s Exhilarating

The European debt crisis is a reformation moment — the EU has overreached its power and now faces a crisis of legitimacy

Perhaps I was wrong, after all. I thought Europe’s governments would spend any amount of money and impose any amount of austerity to rescue any number of banks from their recklessness and folly. All banks were too big to fail. No debt was too big to bail. Europe was in the grip of a classic banker’s ramp.

Yet Greece’s bluffing of the high priests of the eurozone may, after all, be called. The unthinkable may be unavoidable. The priests are suddenly talking of “when, not if,” Greece defaults. Greeks themselves seem to regard devaluation as a less painful discipline than state-imposed austerity, and are probably right. Their partial default and de facto departure from the euro would be a truly seismic moment, requiring the instant restructuring of debts and possibly currencies across the periphery of the eurozone, covering Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy. It would be drastic, but since it has been predicted ever since Maastricht in 1992, it can hardly be regarded as unimaginable.

At this point “pro-Europeans” have to stop talking rubbish and start on realpolitik. Alaric is not at the gates of Rome. Washington has not crossed the Delaware. Napoleon has not returned from Elba. All that may happen is that Europe’s democracies, disregarded, distorted and corrupted for a quarter century by the oligarchs of Brussels, will crawl out from the shadow of the very Acropolis where democracy was born. For all sceptics of grand federations, gilded alliances, and upmarket mafias hatched down the ages in Europe’s cloud-capped spas, this could be an exhilarating moment.

There is nothing wrong in a currency zone of compatible political entities. There is a dollar union between the American states, and there have been attempts at using currencies to cohere earlier empires, with crowns, roubles and pounds sterling. But a union must reflect an underlying economic reality, with political institutions that can relate voting to taxing and spending, and borrowing to repaying.

Where, as in Europe, this has become far from the case, the disciplines of a complex modern economy become unenforcible. Those in charge merely demand “ever closer union”, which means ever more power over subordinate democracy.

A good history of the euro was supplied by the Nobel economist, Paul Krugman, in the New York Times in January. He contrasted the US dollar area, with its federal government, common language and political culture, with the eurozone, which has none of these things. Krugman concluded that “this, from the beginning, made the prospects of the single currency dubious”. Worse, it had floated up to “grip the imagination of European elites”. The single currency became a passport to a bureaucratic utopia, a means to ever more glorious union. Practicalities were for nerds.

I regard myself as a “good” European, but as far as the EU was concerned, that idealism was dented as each advance of Brussels power took ever greater liberties with Europe’s taxpayers and legislators: regulating, subsidising and corrupting all it touched. A recent report showed the EU casually overpaying almost a billion euros to Greek farmers. It continues to throw more dead fish back in the sea than it takes out. It defaces Europe’s countryside by subsidising half-built houses. It is still building itself a stupendous £280m palace in Brussels. The place is obscene.

Because being “pro-Europe” is a faith cult rather than a policy, its adherents dare not raise a peep of protest at its outrages. Not for the first time in Europe’s history, a centralised superstate stalks the continent with a retinue of uncritical appeasers unable to see the wood for the tax-free salaries. Sceptics are treated like Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind — traitors to the great confederacy who should be shot for speaking home truths.

That Germany should be the one country that can sensibly stage the euro bailout is doubly ironic. It is the one country that did not indulge in the housing bubble, most of its workers living happily in rented accommodation. Meanwhile, its constitution was crafted by the postwar allies to make its leadership of Europe near impossible. The German government is meant to be weak, at the mercy of its provinces and their electorates. If, as seems likely, Angela Merkel’s voters grow fed up with bailing out Greece, or with bailing out banks, that will be an end to it.

The euro lobby is now pleading, begging, goading Germany to brandish its old muscles and flash its old sword. It calls on Germans to tell Greece to knuckle under, slash spending and sack its workers. If this fails then Greece’s benighted politicians should be stripped of power and made subject to fiscal union, with public spending controlled and political oversight to enforce it. Greece and the other weakened states of Europe should be put in hock to the gods of the euro…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Greece: Pension at Risk, Exodus From State Employment

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, SEPTEMBER 16 — In Greece there is an exodus from State employment. The fear of losing a substantial portion of their pensions or to see wages cut down even further, along with cuts in severance pay (already cut by 10%) and lastly concerns about “temporary suspension” from work for redundant staff in state owned companies already started up by the government: these are the reasons behind the real and proper ‘exodus’, unprecedented in the country, of State employees that is being reported in recent days.

In the space of only two days (last Thursday and Friday), as reported by the Elefterotipia newspaper, more than 10,000 employees working in municipalities, revenue offices, hospitals and other State offices have submitted letters of resignation.

Most of them are people who have earned their right to a pension and managers who, by staying on at work, would suffer even greater losses. It has been calculated that during this year more than half of the 150,000 State employees who would normally have retired in 2013 will retire. We are talking about employees of all categories who, having matured their pension, resigned, thereby also depriving the public sector of expert staff. Symptomatic of the panic that has been unleashed in recent days, as reported by the Ethnos newspaper, are the figures which concern the Institute of Social Security (Italy’s Inps). 12% of the employees — 1,000 people out of a total 8,383 — have resigned. And, again during the last two days, resignation letters have been submitted by more than 1,500 employees of the Revenue Office, whereas it is expected that resignation requests in the State sector from today to December will exceed 20,000. Meanwhile, as regards the new austerity measures decided by the Athens government, the application of a new tax on real estate — already called “a blow to homes” — is provoking a harsh reaction by the opposition parties as well as the mobilisation of common people on social networks and micro-blogging websites such as Facebook and Twitter.

In effects as of next January a new tax will come into force affecting real estate for two years. From 50 cents to 4 euros per square metre based on the value of the building which, according to estimates by the Athens government, should raise approximately 400 billion for the State coffers. Contrary to the new tax are many MPs belonging to Pasok, the socialist party in government. Furthermore, since churches will be exempted from the tax, while the unemployed will not, the anger of the people is increasing even more. The tax will be collected through the electricity bill. Result: those who don’t pay will have electric power cut from their home.

Meanwhile the growing exasperation of the Greek people is starting to be aired online. Various groups of “outraged web users” have appeared on Facebook and raised a noticeable though not overwhelming following. On Facebook, up to last night a group called “I do not want to pay special taxes” was ‘liked’ by 21,872 people. Another Facebook page named “I do not want to pay” contains a long list of messages by users who are angry with the socialist government run by premier Giorgio Papandreou.

“I would rather have my electricity cut off, I will not pay”, says one message. Other websites instead exhort people not to pay the new taxes claiming that the increases applied by the government are unlawful and anti-constitutional.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Greece: Online Campaign Against Tax Hikes Starts

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, SEPTEMBER 16 — A tide of public exasperation against a seemingly endless series of tax hikes by the government, most recently a new levy on property heralded over the weekend, is finding expression online, chiefly on social networking and microblogging sites like Facebook and Twitter. Several groups have already sprung up on Facebook and have attracted a significant, though not yet extraordinarily large, following, as daily Kathimerini reports. One Facebook group called “I won’t pay any special taxes” had attracted 21,872 “likes” by late Thursday. A Facebook page with the title “I won’t pay” bore a long list of angry messages by reluctant taxpayers on Thursday. “I prefer them to cut my power, I’m not paying,” reads one entry, referring to the ministry’s warning that tax dodgers will risk having their electricity cut. (The new property tax is to be added to electricity bills in a bid to limit tax evasion.) In a related development, a number of new websites have appeared encouraging people not to pay their taxes, arguing that the new charges are illegal and violate the Greek Constitution. Although online campaigns and initiatives do not always translate into actual action, the development is reportedly of concern to authorities who were seriously inconvenienced by a “Won’t pay” movement that emerged early this year, involving hundreds of leftist protesters refusing to pay for public transport or road toll charges. The movement was formed as a reaction to steep hikes in toll fees and tickets for public transport.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Greece: New Row Over Real Estate Tax

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, SEPTEMBER 16 — The imposition of a new tax on real estate in Greece, which was announced in Salonika by the Finance Minister, Evangelos Venizelos, has provoked a bitter reaction from the opposition and other parties. Beginning next January, a two-year tax on property is to be introduced. The government estimates that the new levy, which will range from 50 cents to 4 euros per square metre of property, should generate around 400 billion euros.

Many deputies from PASOK, the governing socialist party, are against the new “home squeeze”. It also appears that churches and other places of worship will be exempt from paying the tax, while it will have to be paid by the unemployed, an element that has provoked further anger.

Giannis Michelakis, spokesperson for Nea Dimocratia, the main (centre-right) opposition party, accused Venizelos of lying to Greek citizens about the new tax, while the Communist Party of Greece called it “a shameful tax” and called on citizens not to pay it. Syriza, another left-wing party, suggested “favourable treatment of the Church at a time when the poor and the invalid are suffering”.

According to early information, it appears that the tax will be collected through electricity bills. The result is that those who fail to pay will see their electricity supply cut off. Union representatives from DEH, the Greek electricity company, were quick to react, inviting employees of the company not to cut off the supply to homes if bills are not paid.

The chair of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Athens, Costantinos Michalos, called on the government not to impose a tax on property and to carry out a wholesale review of its economic policy. “The government’s new attack on businesses and citizens gives it the moral responsibility for the birth of a new movement: the “I can’t pay” movement”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Inflation and Aging Threaten Asia’s Development

In its outlook update report, the Asian Development Bank warns that unfavourable demographic structures can cut growth by 1 per cent a year. In China, the proportion of elderly to working age people could quadruple between now and mid-century. Inflation, with its usual trail of social unrest and violence, looms on the horizon.

Hong Kong (AsiaNews) — An aging population and rising inflation could hurt Asian growth. If governments do not address these issues, economic recession and social spending could jump, this according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB). In its outlook update report, the bank expects lower growth and rising inflation. For this reason, governments must make structural reforms in the coming years.

Specifically, the ADB cut its growth forecast for developing Asia to 7.5 per cent in 2011, from its earlier projection of 7.8 per cent. Excluding Japan, which is still reeling from the tsunami six months ago, the bank attributed the moderating growth of Asian economies to ongoing worries about the health of the US and European economies.

However, the main factor is the continent’s demography. “Asia’s population is aging at a speed unprecedented in human history,” said Changyong Rhee, chief economist at ADB. China, for example, is expected to see the proportion of elderly to working age people quadruple between now and 2050, surpassing the United States.

In the last three decades, those countries that had favourable age structures added more than 1 percentage point to average annual per capita gross domestic product growth, the ADB said.

However, China’s one-child policy has undermined that favourable condition, increasing the number of elderly in need of government assistance and cutting the number of revenue generating workers.

Inflation is the other major threat, the report found. In fact, the inflation rate for developing Asia is expected to average 5.8 per cent this year. That is higher than an initial estimate of 5.3 per cent in April.

The world’s economic downturn is the cause, especially the United States’ inability to create jobs and Europe’s persistent failure to tackle its debt crisis.

All these factors have prompted South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines to avoid raising interest rates this month after boosting them earlier this year.

Still, policy makers need to be prepared for greater volatility in capital flows and the persistent threat of rising prices, the ADB said.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Serbia: Government Adopts Balance Sheet Law, Deficit to 4.5%

(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, SEPTEMBER 16 — Today Serbia’s government adopted the balance sheet review law for 2011 in coordination with the International Monetary Fund (Imf) which predicts a deficit of approximately 143 dinars (one euro is worth slightly more than 100 dinars).

On the basis of this law revenues will be equal to 707.3 billion and expenditure will be equal to 850.9 billion dinars, as specified by the vice minister of Finance, Dusan Nikezic.

The agreement with the Imf provides that the balance sheet deficit for this year will be equal to 4.5% of GDP, more than the 4.1% predicted at first.

Nikezic stated that the balance sheet law provides increased spending on pensions, wages and social security, while there will be no cuts to incentives for agriculture nor postponements for major infrastructural activities.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



The Economist Calls for “Act of Supreme Collective Will”

“How to save the euro”.

In a very long and detailed piece, The Economist states that “the only way to stop the downward spiral now is an act of supreme collective will by euro-zone governments to erect a barrage of financial measures to stave off the crisis and put the governance of the euro on a sounder footing.”

For this, the London weekly considers that “a rescue must do four things fast. First, it must make clear which of Europe’s governments are deemed illiquid and which are insolvent, giving unlimited backing to the solvent governments but restructuring the debt of those that can never repay it. Second, it has to shore up Europe’s banks to ensure they can withstand a sovereign default. Third, it needs to shift the euro zone’s macroeconomic policy from its obsession with budget-cutting towards an agenda for growth. And finally, it must start the process of designing a new system to stop such a mess ever being created again.

“Based on proper stress tests (which should this time include possible default on Greek sovereign debts)”, a European banks recapitalisation should be supported by “a commitment from the European Central bank to provide unlimited liquidity for as long as it is required”. The ECB should also “declare that it stands behind all solvent countries’ sovereign debts and that it is ready to use unlimited resources to ward off market panic.”

Realising that “the sobering truth about the single currency is that getting in is a lot easier than getting out again”, one has to recognize that a German withdrawal from the common currency “would be just as terrible” as a Greek one. And for The Economist, “the issue now is not whether the euro was mis-sold or whether it was a terrible idea in the first place; it is whether it is worth saving. Would it be cheaper to break it up now? And are the longer-term political costs of redesigning Europe to save the euro too great?”

“The Economist concedes that our rescue plan begins with a democratic deficit that needs to be fixed if steps towards closer fiscal union are to work”, the article adds. “But there must be ways for good governments to force bad ones to keep in line that do not require the building of a huge new federal superstate.” And at the end of the day, “the alternative may be the collapse of not just the single currency but the single market and the whole European project.” And on this issue, concludes The Economist, the last word will be with the German electorate.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Three Eurozones Are Better Than One

De Volkskrant, Amsterdam

There is no denying the reality: Eurozone countries are so different that there will be no common exit to the current crisis. The solution, argues a Dutch economist, is to divide states using the single currency into three groups governed by different rules.

Harrie Verbon

When the euro was introduced, one of the main objectives was the convergence of participating member state economies. It was assumed that if a member state failed to keep up economically, it would be excluded by its more competitive peers.

This is exactly what has happened with a number of countries in Southern Europe, including Greece and Portugal. In both of these countries, productivity is too low, labour costs are too high, exports are insufficient and there are too many imports. Worse still, the public finances of these countries are in a terrible state, partly for the reasons mentioned above, but also because of a lack of ethics in public administration.

For more than a year, European politicians have striven to provide these countries, and in particular Greece, with fresh resources to finance their budget deficits. At the same time, the idea that transfers via the European Financial Stability Facility from rich Eurozone countries to their weaker peers does not constitute a long-term solution has increasingly taken hold.

A deep cut in Greek salaries is impossible

The first necessary improvement will be to reduce the cost of the products of these countries, so as to make them more attractive to buyers in more solid economies like Germany, Austria and the Netherlands (GAN). The euro is clearly an obstacle to any such initiative. If the countries in difficulty had their own currency, a simple devaluation would have this effect. However, with the euro, the only way to cut production costs is to reduce salaries.

Let’s imagine that the Greeks accept to cut their salaries by 20 %. How is such a measure supposed to be implemented? It is relatively easy to cut civil service salaries, but that is as far as it goes. Another inconvenient aspect of this remedy is its potential to disrupt the labour market, because a cut in salaries will necessarily reduce the quality of the available workforce. And this will be counterproductive because the functioning of the Greek labour market has to be improved so that the country can successfully compete with GAN countries…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Turkey’s Economic Lie

Op-ed: Turkey no economic powerhouse, Erdogan’s credit bubble will soon explode

Guy Bechor

Some refer to him as “the Middle East’s new sultan in a neo-Ottoman empire” — yet the truth about Erdogan’s kingdom is utterly different. We are not facing an economic power, but rather, a state whose credit bubble will be bursting any moment now and bringing down its economy.

The budget deficit of the collapsing Greece compared to its GDP stands at some 10%, and the world is alarmed. At the same time, Turkey’s deficit is at 9.5%, yet some members of the financial media describe the Turkish economy as a success story (for comparison’s sake, Israel’s deficit stands at some 3% and is expected to decline to 2% this year.)

While Turkey’s economy grew by some 10% this year, this was merely the result of financial manipulation.

So how does the system work? The banks in Erdogan’s Turkey handed out loans and mortgages to any seeker in recent years, offering very low interest rates; this was in fact a gift. As the interest rate was so low, Turkish citizens used more and more credit, mostly for consumption.

And how did Turkey’s Central Bank finance this credit party? Via loans: Erdogan’s bank borrowed money in the world and handed it out to its citizens. However, Turkey’s deficit kept growing because of it, until it reached a scary 8% of GDP; by the end of the year the figure is expected to reach 10%.

Turkey’s external debt doubled itself in the past 18 months, which were election campaign months. Only a small part of the deficit (15%) was financed by foreign investment. The rest constitutes immense external debts.

Now it’s clear that Erdogan’s regime bought the voters in the recent elections. Most of the Turkish public elected him not because of Islamic sentiments, but rather, because he handed out low-interest loans to everyone. I will provide you with cheap money so you can become addicted to shopping, and you shall elect me.

The Israel diversion

This created Turkey’s credit bubble, which may explode any day now, because the date for returning the loans approaches. Will the Saudis help Erdogan as he hopes? This is highly doubtful. Nobody is willing to pay for attacks on Israel, and the West is annoyed by Erdogan’s thuggery. Why should they help him?

Moreover, Turkey’s unemployment rate is 13% and the local currency continues to plummet vis-à-vis the dollar — it reached its lowest levels since the 2009 global crisis. With a weak currency and with a stock exchange that lost some 40% of its value in dollars in the last six months, Erdogan wants to be the Middle East’s ruler?…

           — Hat tip: Money Jihad [Return to headlines]



Youthful Members of the Full-Time Precariat

Polityka, Warsaw

The crisis has accelerated the emergence of a new social class in Europe. Dubbed “the precariat” by sociologists, it is made up of young people with no prospect of a decent job or a reasonable standard of living.

Wawrzyniec Smoczynski

Poland can now lay claim to its first “satisfied” young generation. According to the government’s “Mlodzi 2011” (“Young people 2011”) report, Poles in the 15-34 age group are very much like their peers in Western Europe. Confirmed hedonists and ardent consumers, they tend to be uninterested in the institution of marriage, but eager to cultivate their individualism and, at the same time, assume a role that is useful to society.

Although they consider work to be the main condition for their future success and happiness, they are faced with increasing difficulty in their bid to find jobs. According to data reported in July 2011, the rate of unemployment in the 18-34 age group, which accounts for more than half of Poland’s unemployed, is twice the national average of 11.7%.

The current social context is fraught with risk. This has been particularly obvious in Western Europe, which, over the last few years, has been regularly affected by outbursts of anger on the part of the young generation. The burning of the Paris suburbs, the street battles in downtown Athens, the mass demonstrations in Madrid and, more recently, the riots in London are clear signs of a social crisis.

Uncertain future

Young people are the main victims of the economic crisis. Currently, 20.4% of Europeans in the 15 to 24 age group who seek work remain without jobs. That is a third more than in 2008. At the same time, this rate is a European average, which masks major disparities between countries: 42% of young people are without jobs in Spain, 30% in the Baltic States, Greece and Slovakia, and 20% in Poland, Hungary, Italy and Sweden.

In cases where the young unemployed finally do find jobs, these are rarely stable. Slovenia and Poland are both distinguished by their extraordinary number of temporary workers: 60% of wage earners aged in the under-25 age group are employed under temporary contracts. The situation is almost as bad in France, Germany, Sweden, Spain and Portugal, where this figure stands at more than 50%.

The underpayment of young people is another phenomenon that is very widespread in Spain, France and Portugal. Spanish workers aged between 16 and 19 only receive 45.5% of an average adult’s wage, while those aged between 20 and 24 earn only 60.7%. These low salaries have a direct impact on the growing numbers of the working poor, who do not have enough income to cover their needs, even though they have jobs. As a percentage of the labour force, the working poor are most common in Romania (17.9%) and Greece (13.8%), which are ranked ahead of Spain (11.4%), Latvia (11.1 %) and Poland (11%).

What all of these people have in common is uncertainty about their future, which prevents them from planning their lives, and low wages that do not allow them a decent living. In Latin, precarius means “obtained by prayer.” In contemporary sociology, ‘precarious work’ describes a type of employment that leaves people suspended between poverty and prosperity, deprives them of material security, and forces them to live with a social status that is under constant threat of collapse.

As the Professor of Economic Security at the University of Bath and the author of The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class, Guy Standing, explains, we are currently witnessing the global emergence of new social class…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

USA


Florida: Man Accused of Killing Wife, Wounding 2 Pastors

LAKELAND, Fla. — Derrick Foster was kneeling in prayer when the gunman burst through the front door of Greater Faith Christian Center Church. He heard shooting, then screams.

A former parishioner is accused of critically wounding the church’s pastor as associate pastor as close to 20 people prayed between Sunday services. Authorities and relatives said Jeremiah Fogle shot his wife to death at his house, where he had started his own church, before continuing the rampage a block away at Greater Faith.

Foster, a teacher in the ministry, got up and saw the man near the pulpit, turning around with the gun in his hand.

“The first thing in my mind was, ‘I have to take this gun away,’“ he said.

Foster said he and another man tackled the gunman. The Polk County sheriff’s office said one of the parishioners struck the suspect in the head with a microphone stand.

“He had a great grip on the gun,” Foster said. “My plan was, as soon as he hit the floor, it would cause him to drop it. But he didn’t drop it.”

Post a CommentHe said it took three or four minutes of struggling with the gunman before he finally wrested the weapon away.

The gunman had six live rounds in his pocket. “He was prepared to shoot even more,” Sheriff Grady Judd said.

Pastor William Boss and associate pastor Carl Stewart were shot from behind, authorities said. Boss, who was shot in the head, and Stewart, shot three times in the back and ear, were in critical condition Sunday. No one else at the church was hurt.

“Of all the places you should be safe, you should be safe in a house of worship,” Judd said. “Especially on a Sunday morning.”

As deputies began investigating, a church member advised that they check on Fogle’s wife, who lived with him a block away in a neighborhood of mobile homes, humble houses and industrial shops. Investigators and relatives say 56-year-old Theresa Fogle was found slain inside, apparently killed before her husband went to the church.

“We don’t know exactly why he went in to this mad rage,” Judd said.

Officials said Jeremiah Fogle would be charged with murder and could face additional charges. It was not immediately clear if he had an attorney.

Theresa Fogle’s sister Maria Beauford said the couple married in 2002 and ran a transportation business together. They had been members of Greater Faith Christian Center Church, where the shootings happened, but had started their own ministry out of their house and regularly hosted Sunday services, Beauford said…

[Return to headlines]



New Studies Show Severe Racial Discrimination at University of Wisconsin

Two studies released today by the Center for Equal Opportunity reveal severe discrimination based on race and ethnicity in undergraduate and law school admissions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with African Americans and Latinos given preference over whites and Asians.

The odds ratio favoring African Americans and Hispanics over whites was 576-to-1 and 504-to-1, respectively, using the SAT and class rank while controlling for other factors. Thus, the median composite SAT score for black admittees was 150 points lower than for whites and Asians, and the Latino median SAT score was 100 points lower. Using the ACT, the odds ratios climbed to 1330-to-1 and 1494-to-1, respectively, for African Americans and Hispanics over whites.

           — Hat tip: Kitman [Return to headlines]



Porn Prepares for the Apocalypse

A pornography studio by the name of Pink Visual is beginning groundwork on an underground bunker that will insure that, come the 2012 apocalypse, whoever is left standing will still be safe from the aftermath of riots, looting, fires and zombies. And, of course, that the rest of the surviving world will still able to get their porno.

The press release from Pink Visual is blunt. Then again, when you’re in the adult entertainment biz, you learn that cutting to the chase is often all too necessary:

“We’re building an enormous underground bunker in preparation for the Apocalypse that various prognosticators and ancient calendar interpreters have predicted will take place in December of 2012.”

“Our goal is nothing less than to survive the apocalypse to come in comfort and luxury,” says spokesman Quentin Boyer.

           — Hat tip: Kitman [Return to headlines]

Canada


Swiss TV Won’t Broadcast Swissair Crash Film

Swiss television (SF) has decided not to broadcast a documentary about a Swissair crash that left 229 people dead in Canada in 1998 after controversial new allegations emerged that it may have been caused by a terrorist attack. SF co-researched and funded the documentary with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), which puts forward the theory that the Swissair SR-111 crash in the Atlantic Ocean near Halifax, Nova Scotia, on September 2nd 1998 was not the result of a burnt cable, but was deliberate.

Swiss journalist Fritz Muri carried out extensive research working closely with the Canadian broadcaster, according to Blick newspaper. All 229 passengers and crew died in the tragic plane crash, including a Saudi prince and a relative of the late Shah of Iran. A four-year official investigation carried out by the Transportation Safety Board (TSB) of Canada, which cost US$39 million found that the crash was probably caused by an electrical fault that ignited the insulation on board. However, the CBC documentary suggests a terrorist attack was to blame and that investigators tried to cover this up.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

Europe and the EU


Austere Italy? Check the Traffic

Sandro Scalia for The New York Times

Comitini, Italy, population 960, does not appear to have major traffic problems, but it still employs 9 people to manage the flow.

By RACHEL DONADIO

COMITINI, Italy — With only 960 residents and a handful of roads, this tiny hilltop village in the arid, sulfurous hills of southern Sicily does not appear to have major traffic problems. But that does not prevent it from having one full-time traffic officer — and eight auxiliaries.

Especially in the poorer Italian south, many say a jobs-for-votes system has persisted.

The auxiliaries, who earn a respectable 800 euros a month, or $1,100, to work 20 hours a week, are among about 64 Comitini residents employed by the town, the product of an entrenched jobs-for-votes system pervasive in Italian politics at all levels.

“Jobs like these have kept this city alive,” said Caterina Valenti, 41, an auxiliary in a neat blue uniform as she sat recently with two colleagues, all on duty, drinking coffee in the town’s bar on a hot afternoon. “You see, here we are at the bar, we support the economy this way.”

But what may be saving Comitini’s economy is precisely what is strangling Italy’s and other ailing economies throughout Europe. Public spending has driven up the public debt to 120 percent of gross domestic product, the highest percentage in the euro zone after Greece’s. In recent weeks, concerns about Italy’s solvency and the shaky finances of other deeply indebted European nations have sapped market confidence and spread fears about the stability of the euro itself.

On Wednesday, Italy’s lower house of Parliament gave final passage to a $74 billion austerity package aimed at eliminating Italy’s budget deficit by 2013. But analysts doubt that the measures — primarily tax increases but also cuts in aid to local governments, a higher retirement age for women in the private sector and a change in Italy’s labor law to make it easier for companies to hire and fire — will achieve the advertised savings.

Many of the cuts in financing for local governments may yet be bargained away in annual budget negotiations to be held this year, and nowhere in the legislation are there any measures to reduce the salaries or the number of public sector employees, more than 80 percent of whom have lifetime tenure. But they would lose some retirement benefits, and a hiring freeze is already in place.

Financial markets have remained edgy, with yields on Italian bonds rising to a record high of 5.7 percent at auction this week, before rallying a bit after the government passed a confidence vote on the austerity measures. Investors remain unconvinced, though, fearing a possible downgrading of Italy’s credit rating, which could further drag down the euro, and there is already talk of the government introducing additional austerity measures.

“I have great doubts about whether they’re sufficient,” Stefano Micossi, an economist and the director of Assonime, an Italian business research group, said of the austerity package. “The mechanisms that led to such spending haven’t changed.”

The sticking point, he added, was the public sector. “The big problem is the public administration,” he said. “It’s inefficient and corrupt. But corruption is born in politics and politicians don’t want to change.”

Italy is contending with a public debt, built up under a succession of Christian Democratic governments, that helped the country emerge from dire poverty after World War II to become Europe’s third-largest industrial economy.

Especially in the poorer Italian south, the Christian Democrats put millions of people on the state payroll in a jobs-for-votes system that many say has persisted under Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. The quid pro quo worked so long as the economy was expanding, but now is seen as one of the major threats to Italy’s solvency.

In 2009, the most recent year for which data is available, an estimated 3.5 million Italians were on the state payroll out of a work force of 23 million, according to the Ministry for the Public Administration and Innovation. On Mr. Berlusconi’s watch, government expenditures — including the cost of public administration and defense — rose to more than $1 trillion in 2010 from $753 billion in 2000.

Analysts attribute some of the rise to the introduction of the euro in 2001 and the rising cost of pension spending in a nation that will soon have more retirees than workers, as well as to soaring health care costs.

But they say it also stems from deals Mr. Berlusconi has made with powerful politicians from both the north and the south to get the votes needed to hold together his government. Those votes mean the government is loath to stop the flow of money. Even with the new austerity measures, “They haven’t closed the taps,” Mr. Micossi said. Some say the jobs-for-votes mentality derives from Italy’s feudal heritage. Italy was a patchwork of warring fiefs before unification 150 years ago, and personal networks are often still seen as more powerful than institutions.

Even today, the concept is: “I understand the state if it gives a benefit to my person, family, business,” said Luigi Musella, a historian at the University of Naples and the author of “Clientelism,” about Italy’s quid pro quo politics.

For his part, Nino Contino, the mayor of Comitini since 2002, is proud that he has used public money to create jobs.

“I know that 60 people in a town of 1,000 is a good number, it’s a lot,” Mr. Contino, 49, said of his city’s employees. “But if I didn’t let them work, these people would have to go work in America. That’s 60 people with 60 families looking for work elsewhere.”

“Besides,” he added, “the city doesn’t pay them. The state and the region do.” Indeed, Comitini’s city employees are paid 90 percent by the regional government and 10 percent by the town.

“This town lacks for nothing,” Mr. Contino added, as he showed off the town’s library, with a children’s play area and an extensive collection of Sicilian history books, including a rare 10-volume set of the “History of Feudalism.”

Upstairs, a small museum featured Arab-Norman pottery fragments and an exhibition on the nearby sulfur mines that employed as many as 10,000 people before they closed in the 1950s and 1960s, forcing many residents to retire early and others to emigrate.

Beyond its 960 residents, the town counts 3,000 emigrants registered to vote there, said Mr. Contino, whose main job is as a specialist in cellulite reduction…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



BBC: Norway Local Elections: Breivik’s Old Party Suffers

The anti-immigration Progress Party once favoured by right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik has lost a third of its vote in local polls in Norway.

Mr Breivik, who killed 77 people in a bomb and gun massacre seven weeks ago, was once a member of the party.

With nearly all votes counted, the opposition Conservatives had the biggest gains, taking 28% compared to 19% in 2007.

The governing Labour Party — targeted by Mr Breivik — made smaller gains.

It increased its vote share by two points, to reach nearly 32%.

However, it saw its coalition ally the Socialist Left Party (SV) drop from 6% to 4%, compared to the 2007 local election results.

           — Hat tip: Kitman [Return to headlines]



Dutch Government Bans Burka

(AGI) The Hague — As announced by Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch far right party, the government has decided to ban the burka. A press release of the Interior Ministry informs so, stating that the ban “is bound to be approved”. The bill has been submitted to the Cabinet and must now be approved by the State Council in order to be enforced.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



France: Strauss-Kahn Regrets Not Running for President

(AGI) Paris — Socialists and the current presidency have now drawn a sigh of relief since Dominque Strauss-Kahn, considered Nicolas Sarkozy’s greatest rival until May, will not run for president. DSK said he would “have liked to run in the 2012 presidential elections, but will not do so” after being accused of rape by a hotel maid in the USA, although all charges have now been dropped.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Germany: Berlin Exit Polls Show Government Coalition Losing Ground

(AGI) Berlin — Voters in the city-state of Berlin have voted against the government coalition with the Piraten Party winning 8.5% of the votes. These elections have confirmed current SPD Mayor Klaus Wowereit, given many vote to the green movement and blessed the debut of the Piraten party. According to exit polls, the SDP won 29.5% of votes in this regional election, down compared to the 30.8% won in 2006, while the CDU gained 23.5% compared to a previous 21.3%. The green movement did extremely well up to 18% from their previous 13.1 with the online Piraten Party’s 8.5% surprising everyone with their programme that includes free public transport for everyone and the legalisation of minor drugs ..

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Italy: Silvio Berlusconi to Tarantini — “Who Are You Bringing Me Tonight?”

Sabina Began under investigation, says “I did it for love”

BARI — The requests to have women sent to his homes were incessant. The next day, Silvio Berlusconi would relax and discuss the evening with his friend, “Gianpi” Tarantini. Sexual exploits and aesthetic appreciations of women’s figures, in particular their “B side”, are all there in the documents lodged by Bari magistrates. Sources who have seen the files say there were dozens of exchanges between the prime minister and the Puglian businessman from September 2008 to May 2009. Often, Mr Berlusconi would ask: “Who are you bringing me tonight?” At least forty women were involved in the ring of prostitution. One of the most assiduous attenders was Barbara Guerra, later a fixture at Arcore. At least once, Ms Guerra agreed to prostitute herself at a private party in Mr Tarantini’s house. On other occasions, she brought friends with her to comply with the prime minister’s invitations. Mr Tarantini appeared to have no difficulty finding available women when the prime minister called to organise a party, even at only a few hours’ notice. The Puglian businessman had an astonishing list of contacts and sometimes, the prime minister asked him to pass the phone to the evening’s main attraction.

“Beautiful Belén”

The trial documents include a conversation with Belén Rodriguez, the Argentinian beauty who was breaking up with her then boyfriend, footballer Marco Borriello. “I like you a lot. You’re very beautiful”, cooed the prime minister, who went swiftly on to ask how her television work was going. Mr Berlusconi was equally passionate about Manuela Arcuri, to whom Gianpaolo Tarantini promised the earth to get her into Palazzo Grazioli. Ms Arcuri, however, was unmoved. “So is he offering me a film production?”, Ms Arcuri asked her friend Francesca Lana, who was more than willing to take part in the soirées. Mr Berlusconi insisted and Mr Tarantini complained to Ms Lana: “Oh, why won’t she come?” A leading role continued to be played by Sabina Began, the “Queen Bee”, who has always claimed to be close to the prime minister and now finds herself under investigation. In the past few months, magistrates have questioned Ms Began as a witness but her position has changed and when she received the notice of conclusion of investigations, she hired lawyer Fabrizio Siggia and said: “Everything I did, I did for love”. When questioned by magistrates, Ms Began strove to play down the tone of the parties. She adopted a similar attitude when investigations got under way into the Arcore entertainments and she stated publicly that “Bunga Bunga is not an erotic practice. It’s my nickname”…

English translation by Giles Watson

www.watson.it

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Italy: ‘30 Prostitutes and Actresses’ Recruited to Have Sex at Berlusconi Parties

Rome, 16 Sept. (AKI) — Italian prosecutors have concluded a two-year investigation a prostitution scandal associated with prime minister Silvio Berlusconi by charging eight people with allegedly providing the billionaire politician with dozens of escorts for parties he hosted.

The probe by the prosecutors’s office in the southern city of Bari used around 100 thousand telephone intercepts with reports of Berlusconi boasting about his sexual exploits with prostitutes. Berlusconi is target four trials in Milan for corruption and paying an minor for sex. He says he is innocent in all cases and claims to be the target of persecution by a left-wing magistrate.

He is not believed to be the target in the Bari investigation.

According to investigators, around 30 prostitutes were provided for parties where they received cash and gifts from Berlusconi who is worth almost 8 billion dollars, according to Forbes Magazine.

Investigators say Giampaolo Tarantini, a thirty-six year old a businessman from the Bari in the southern Puglia region, recruited the prostitutes mostly to attend parties at Berlusconi’s residence in Rome. In exchange he asked for favourable treatment in the rewarding of public contracts in healthcare and other sectors.

Some actresses were among the women recruited to attend the Berlusconi parties and some declined to go to have sex with the prime minister or his associates.

Italian actress Manuela Arcuri was allegedly promised the possibility to host the annual San Remo light-musical festival in exchange if she had sex with Berlusconi, who turns 75 this month. She refused.

Berlusconi has said he has never paid for sex, claiming the need to seduce women.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Italy Among the Worsts in OECD for Money in Education

(AGI) Rome — Italy invests little on education. It is among the worst OECD countries. Italy spent 4.8% of its GDP in education, corresponding to a 1.3% decrease compared to the OECD average, which is 6.1%. Italy came 29th among 34 countries in this special ranking. This is what the 2011 OECD report on education states.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Italy: Berlusconi Will Not Respond to Sex Claims, Says Lawyer

‘Is it a sin to adore the PM?’ says accused

(ANSA) — Rome, September 16 — Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi will not appear before Naples prosecutors investigating his alleged use of prostitutes, his lawyer said Friday.

“At this time Berlusconi will not be presenting himself to Naples prosecutors,” his lawyer Piero Longo told ANSA on Friday.

Berlusconi is facing new questions about his sex life after prosecutors claimed that Bari businessman Gianpaolo Tarantini provided at least 30 women for the prime minister in a bid to exchange sex for public contracts. The allegations were presented at the conclusion of a two-year investigation into claims that Berlusconi entertained aspiring models, actresses and starlets at his private residences in 2008 and 2009. Prosecutors are believed to have evidence that Berlusconi and Tarantini spoke a hundred times between September 2008 and May 2009, the period in which the businessman is alleged to have recruited the women.

Tarantini, who was convicted of cocaine trafficking in June, allegedly paid the women to attend parties at the prime minister’s homes in Rome, Sardinia and at Arcore outside Milan.

The businessman, his wife Angela Devenuto, and online magazine editor Valter Lavitola, who is abroad, are also accused of blackmailing Berlusconi.

They allegedly received up to 850,000 euros to stop them from releasing telephone intercepts that would have been potentially embarassing to the premier.

Eight people have been charged for supplying prostitutes to Berlusconi in the hope of gaining jobs, contracts or other favours, according to prosecutors.

The charges were made as prosecutors in the southern city of Bari ended an inquiry into friends and associates of the prime minister, including businessman Tarantini and German actress Sabina Began.

Began, who is known by the nickname Queen Bee, is believed to have recruited escorts and other women to attend the prime minister’s private parties.

In an interview published in the Italian daily Il Messaggero on Friday, Began spoke of “thirty normal girls, who for the most part were accompanied by their boyfriends”.

“There were many men there who were in couples with their girlfriends and also many gays,” Began said.

“There were also old men, elegant men of a certain age.

Where is the scandal in that? Why are they investigating me? I am completely innocent. Is it a sin to adore the prime minister”? Began said when she heard rumours about Tarantini’s drug use, she warned Berlusconi to steer clear of him, and that she remained in regular contact with the premier.

“He gets depressed, but resists it. He will not give up his job. The word does not enter his vocabulary”.

Italian actress Manuela Arcuri was allegedly promised that the prime minister would appoint her host of Italy’s prestigious Sanremo Music Festival if she had sex with him, but she allegedly refused.

Berlusconi was scheduled to meet Naples prosecutors at his office at Palazzo Chigi in Rome on Tuesday about whether he was the target of extortion over his alleged use of prostitutes.

But instead he flew to Strasbourg for meetings with the head of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso and other senior officials to discuss Italy’s austerity package which was passed in parliament on Wednesday.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Italy: First Snow Falls on Stelvio Pass

(AGI) Bolzano — Temperatures have fallen sharply in the Trentino Alto Adige where it is raining constantly and the first snow has fallen on the Stelvio Pass at an altitude of 2,000 metres. Drivers are required to have snow chains on their tyres. The rain has caused a number of landslides that for the moment have not blocked any roads. Temperatures are expected to fall even more in the coming hours with snow falling at between 1,400 and 1,700 metres.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Italy: Soccer: Lazio Fan Charged With Assaulting U. S. Tourist

(AGI) Rome — A 32-year-old Lazio soccer fan has received a three-year game ban as well as charges of assault for attacking an American tourist during a match. Around 3:30 p.m. the fan was seen hitting the American tourist, 44, in the face because he had applauded a play be the opposing side. The attack stopped after a few minutes after another Lazio fan ‘escorted’ the American from the area.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Italy: Amanda Knox Writes Video Script for Rock Band

Umbrian group to perform in her jail

(ANSA) — Perugia, September 16 — Amanda Knox, the US student appealing a 26-year conviction for the 2007 murder of British flatmate Meredith Kercher in Perugia, has written a video script for a band based near her prison.

The band, Hands of Times (H.O.T), said Knox had “always had a passion for music and poetry” and had often seen them at student gigs before the Kercher case.

H.O.T., an emerging band from Orvieto, are playing a gig Saturday in the women’s section of Perugia’s Capanne prison where Knox has been detained since her conviction in December 2009.

The band did not disclose details of the video clip, which is scheduled to appear early next month.

But it is rumoured to contain her reflections on life in jail.

Knox is said to have written the script in Italian and English and sent it by letter to H.O.T, who decided to use it for one of their songs, The Mistral Blows.

The script showed “considerable artistic quality”, said the band, who added they had a “mutual relationship of affection and esteem” with Knox.

She has not been paid for the script, H.O.T. said.

Knox, whose case has attracted attention worldwide, also sent the band poems but they have not yet decided whether to use them.

Earlier this month Knox gained what many observers saw as a victory in the fight to clear her name when the Perugia appeals court rejected a prosecutors’ request for further DNA testing on the alleged murder weapon in the Kercher slaying.

The judges described as “superfluous” any more testing on the knife which defence experts in June said showed insignificant and therefore inconclusive amounts of DNA.

The DNA evidence had been key to the original convictions of Knox and her Italian former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, respectively to 26 and 25 years.

Prosecutors claimed “latest-generation equipment”, allegedly not taken into account by the defence experts, would have still been able to pick up valuable traces from the knife recovered from Sollecito’s kitchen.

At the first trial the prosecution presented evidence showing DNA from Knox and Kercher on the knife.

They also presented tests showing Sollecito’s DNA on a severed bra clasp recovered at the murder scene.

Kercher, 21, a London student from Sheffield University, was found dead in the bedroom of the house she shared with Knox and two Italian women on November 2, 2007.

Knox, 24, from Seattle, and Sollecito, 27, from Puglia, were convicted of murder and sexual assault.

In a recent letter in the British media, Kercher’s sister Stephanie said her family have been living in “anguish” and expressed concern about how the original DNA investigation had been condemned by two court-appointed experts.

“In these last few week we have been left seriously anxious and greatly troubled by the news regarding the original DNA findings,” Kercher wrote.

A third man, Ivory Coast drifter Rudy Guede, has been separately convicted of the murder and is serving 16 years after exhausting the appeals process.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



LNP Party Leader Bossi on Northern Italian ‘Secession’

(AGI) Venice — LNP party leader Bossi underscores his party grassroots’ readiness fight for northern Italy’s independence.

“Do the math. There are several million northern Italians willing to fight,” Umberto Bossi told party audiences at a meeting in Venice. Bossi also underscored the “democratic” nature of his party, submitting that secession “might require a referendum.”

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Netherlands: Immigration, Greece and Cuts: 2012 is the ‘Year of Truth’ For Wilders

The government will have failed to meet Geert Wilders’ demand that non-western immigration to the Netherlands be halved by 2015, the Volkskrant reported at the weekend.

The paper says figures from immigration minister Gerd Leers show little change in immigration from outside the developed world.

Wilders made his support for the minority government’s €18bn package of cuts dependent on a ‘substantial’ reduction in immigrants.

In 2012, for example, the minister is expecting 27,000 people will be given a residency permit, the same as in 2016. In addition, 15,000 refugees will come to the country on an annual basis, the minister’s figures show.

New measures

A spokesman for Leers told the paper the effect of new measures to reduce immigration have not yet been included in the calculations.

Leers wants to tighten up the rules on family reunions, with only partners and under-age children being allowed in and not grandparents or other more distant relatives.

There will also be a year’s waiting time before people can join their partners in the Netherlands and ‘import brides’ will only receive independent residence status after they have live here for five years.

In an interview with Saturday’s Volkskrant, Wilders said an agreement is an agreement. ‘He [Leers] has to meet his targets,’ Wilders said.

Greece

Immigration is only one aspect of the PVV’s support for the coalition which is coming under pressure. Wilders is also totally opposed to any more support for Greece, and a rise in the state pension age.

On Friday, he told reporters 2012 would be the ‘year of truth’ for the coalition alliance. ‘We intend to sit this coalition out, but not at any price. We are not going to accept everything,’ he said, before describing the alliance as a ‘marriage of convenience’.

He also warned the cabinet that future cuts should not hurt Henk and Ingrid, the name Wilders gives to the average man and woman.

Collapse

Labour leader Job Cohen on Saturday challenged Wilders to let the cabinet collapse.

‘Wilders is ignoring the fact that Henk and Ingrid are picking up the bill… if something happens which he doesn’t like, Wilders still says ‘let the government stay’,’ Cohen told the AD.

Meanwhile, VVD stalwart and Alcatel-Lucent CEO Ben Verwaayen says in an interview with Saturday’s NRC Wilders’ attacks on Greece rather than Muslims is a logical step. For Wilders, ‘the Greeks are the new Muslims,’ Verwaayen said.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Netherlands: Wilders: 2012 Crucial Year for Coalition

THE HAGUE, 17/09/11 — Party for Freedom (PVV) leader Geert Wilders is planning to remain in the alliance with the minority government of Christian semoctrats (CDA) and conservatives (VVD). But 2012 will show whether that is possible.

Wilders said on Friday in an interview with public broadcaster NOS that 2012 will be “the year of truth” for the coalition. He terms the partnership with VVD and CDA a “marriage of convenience”. That does not mean he wants to terminate the coalition. “It is our intention to allow the government to continue, but not at any price.”

As is widely known, Wilders’ main problems lie with what he regards as the government’s pro-European policy. “It is as if we (the PVV), as far as Europe is concerned, are form Mars, and the cabinet is from Pluto.”

The PVV sees nothing in the government’s stance on Greece. Should not all the money borrowed be repaid “then the government has a problem,” warns Wilders. The same applies if the government transfers more powers to Brussels, he added.

Wilders says development aid is an expenditure item that could be cut if economic developments and related cost cuts demand it. CDA MP Kathleen Ferrier immediately opposed this proposal on Friday.

Ferrier, who is CDA’s spokesman for development aid, said the existing coalition agreement to reduce spending on development aid to 0.7 percent from 0.8 percent was already a sacrifice for her party. There should not be further cutbacks, otherwise there will be a potential political conflict, she said.

Labour (PvdA) party leader Job Cohen meanwhile expects serious tensions will arise in the coalition by 2012, particularly with regard to the euro crisis. “The government has been in office only eleven months. But it will become difficult to continue because of the forthcoming crisis. Wilders has already said he does not want more cuts,” Cohen said on Friday in an interview in De Volkskrant morning newspaper.

The irony is that until now, the PvdA has been reaching a helping hand to the CDA and VVD minority cabinet every time the PVV was not willing to do so. On Thursday evening, for example, PvdA voted for the cabinet’s proposed pension reforms,a move that was crucial to get the plan through parliament.

Although Cohen said Friday the coalition could face “even greater problems” in 2012 with regard to Europe, he does not plan to make trouble on this dossier. PvdA has a clear pro-European profile, he confirmed. “We already had that last year. There is also self-interest there, because Europe is good for our economy, pensions and employment.”

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Sarkozy’s Popularity Rating 32% in September, 67% Against

(AGI) Paris — 8 months from the French presidential elections, Sarkoky’s popularity dropped by 1 point to 32% in September.

This is the result of an Ifop survey that will be published tomorrow on the Journale du Dimanche. 67% of his fellow countrymen does not appreciate the present tenant of the Elysee.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Sweden: Police Confirm Searching Mosque in Gothenburg

Sweden’s National Security Service, Säpo, has confirmed it raided a mosque in Bellevue, Gothenburg, with the help of local police, on Thursday. A search warrant of the mosque’s offices was requested by Agnetha Hilding Qvarnström, the deputy chief prosecutor of the Prosecution Office for National Security, in relation to the investigation into a suspected terror plot against the Röda Sten (Red Rock) art gallery last weekend

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Sweden: Shots Fired in Malmö Apartment

A series of shots ricocheted around an apartment Saturday night in Malmö, southern Sweden. Although no one was injured, police suspect attempted murder. Five or six shots fired Saturday night from a close range struck both the exterior wall and balcony railing of an apartment in Malmö. The owner of the apartment, uninjured, saw a man running from the scene at Sofiagatan in the city’s southwest corner.

No arrests had been made and no suspects had been determined as of Sunday morning. Police classified the incident as attempted murder after technicians determined the shots were fired from approximately 10 metres away. An hour and a half prior to the 8pm shooting, a rock had been thrown against the window of the same apartment.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Thieves Strip the UK Bare

HEARTLESS criminals are plundering everything from power cables to children’s graves to cash in on the soaring price of scrap metal.

Gangs are even travelling from Europe to strip railway wiring, snatch metal railings and rip down power lines in a £1billion crime-wave that threatens to plunge parts of Britain into darkness this winter.

Last night David Cameron was urged to get a grip on the spiralling crime to prevent power blackouts.

Nothing is sacred to the criminals, who also steal garden ornaments, farm gates and road signs. They plumbed new depths when they tore railings from a baby’s grave.

The distraught parents of Jordan Lee Cardiss, who died from meningitis at just 18 months, were left “sickened”.

The railings, put up by his father, 27-year- old Dean Cardiss, were taken, along with the gates to New Wortley Cemetery in Leeds.

Mother Stacey Plain, 27, said: “It is all I have left of my son. You can tell it’s a baby’s grave. The people who did this are scum.”…

           — Hat tip: Kitman [Return to headlines]



Ugandan Dr John Sentamu ‘To Head Church of England’

ARCHBISHOP of York Dr John Sentamu is emerging as the favourite to become the next head of the Church of England.

He is widely seen as the best choice if current Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams steps down next year as expected.

Dr Williams, 61, is thought to favour a return to academic life after a decade holding the Church’s highest office. …

           — Hat tip: Kitman [Return to headlines]



Vatican Secretary: Legalism is Not the Path to Salvation

(AGI) Verona — “Legalism has never saved anyone, whereas love and mercy make up the supreme law of Christian life”. These were the words of the Holy See’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, in the homily for the mass which was celebrated today at Verona cathedral. “There is no government system which could in all fairness render love’s service superfluous.”

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

Balkans


‘Al Jazeera Balkans’ Running by End of Year

(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, SEPTEMBER 16 — Programmes on the “Al Jazeera Balkans”, the new regional broadcaster to be based in Sarajevo, are likely to be on air by the end of the year.

The Serbian news agency Beta says that preparation of the channel’s studios is in its final stages, with production due to begin in the next few months.

Al Jazeera Balkans will be on air 24 hours a day, while 6 hours of programmes will be produced in countries in the region. The channel will revolve around news, while the remainder of the content will be made up of repeats of other Al Jazeera programmes.

The controller of the new channel, which will have correspondent offices in Belgrade, Zagreb, Podgorica, Skopje and Pristina, will be the Croatian, Goran Milic, one of the former Yugoslavia’s best known television journalists.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

North Africa


Libya: NTC Still Locked Over Interim Government

(AGI) Benghazi — Libya’s transitional authorities have failed to name the new cabinet. The political wrangling came about when the insurgents had to engage into a strategic retreat from the two cities of Bani Walid (150 kms south of Tripoli) and Sirte, Gaddafi’s hometown ( 360 kms east of the Tripoli), which are still controlled by the loyalist forces.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Tunisia: Salafists Want to Destroy Le Kef Basilica

(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, SEPTEMBER 16 — A group of Salafists have invaded the ancient Byzantine basilica (VI century) of Le Kef, considering it “blasphemous” and intending to destroy it. The criminal act, according to reports in Business News, may be carried out today after the Friday prayers. The Le Kef basilica is an archaeological monument from the Byzantine era which in the XVII century (during the Muradite period) was transformed into a mosque. The latter state of it remained until 1966 when — due to its scientific importance — the decision was made to restore such an important monument for both tourism and cultural reasons.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Israel and the Palestinians


Israel: No Change to Egypt Peace Agreements

(ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM, SEPTEMBER 16 — Israel has no intention of reviewing the peace agreements reached with Egypt in 1979 by the then Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, and the Egyptian President of the period, Anwar Sadat. This is according to the director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Rafi Barak, who has been speaking to Egypt’s ambassador to Israel, Yasser Rida, the Ynet website reports.

“From an Israeli point of view, there is no intention to reopen the peace agreements, besides it is not possible to do so unilaterally,” Barak said.

In a television interview yesterday, the Egyptian Prime Minister, Essam Sharaf, said that “the Camp David agreement [of 1979] is not untouchable and can always be the subject of debate”. Barak, meanwhile, told Rida that “Israel attaches importance to relations with Egypt” and showed his displeasure at “the repeated calls from Egyptian government officials over the supposed need to bring change to the peace agreements, as well as their further anti-Israeli comments,” Ynet says.

Relations between the two peoples are also influenced by the words of its leaders, “who must therefore show responsibility,” Barak added.

The stances adopted recently by Egypt have had a negative effect, “which has reached its highest point with the attempt to attack the Israeli embassy in Cairo[last week],” he said.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Professor Phyllis Chesler: Blaming Israel Won’t Help

“It is not good to push someone whose back is already against the wall…”

Were Israel to be attacked she would be on her own—and she would blamed for daring to defend herself. But something is very wrong in the Muslim world that is bigger than Israel.

On September 16, 2011, the New York Times actually used the word “Islamist” in a front page story—not as often or as prominently as the word “militant” but still, there it was—and in an article titled “At White House, Weighing Limits of Terror Fight.”

For all those who are invested in the Lie that the infidels (i.e. Western civilization} are not under attack, allow me to point out that the anti-Israel and anti-American Paper of Record had, altogether, three articles on the front page about Afghanistan, Bahrain, and about “Islamist militants in Yemen and Somalia” as well as about “Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen, and the Somalia-based Shabab;” “Al Qaeda operating in Afghanistan…and in the tribal regions of Pakistan.”

In this same issue, the Times also has articles which focus on or mention Jordan, “Palestine,” Turkey, Afghanistan, Libya, Bahrain, Lebanon, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and the Arabian Peninsula.

Even the Times knows that something is up, something has gone wrong, very wrong in terms of the Muslim world, that it is far bigger than Israel, and that it won’t get better merely by blaming Israel or America.

In my opinion, were Israel to be attacked she would be on her own—and she would blamed for daring to defend herself. This has already happened many times. While the war against the Jews is very hot, it is almost invisible in the western media.

As we know, (but allow me to remind us), in August of 2011, Israel endured 178 Hamas/”Palestinian” terror attacks which included 145 rockets and 46 heavy mortar shells fired into the south of Israel.

That same month, Israel also endured a heavy “surge” of hostile, apparently civilian Arabs crossing Israel’s borders from Syria and attempting to do so from Lebanon, which included the Lebanese Army opening fire on a group of Israeli soldiers.

Also in August, terrorists (Hamas? Al Qaeda? PLO?) crossed into Israel from Egypt, wearing Egyptian military uniforms, and killed seven Israeli civilians, including young children; they wounded at least thirty Israelis. The attacks against Israel in August alone were three times greater than all the attacks against Israel this year.

During this same time, the Turkish Prime Minister demanded that Israel “apologize” for defending herself from a Turkish-launched terrorist attack (the Marvi Marmara incident) and threatened to send Turkish warships into the Mediterranean to accompany a new flotilla to break the Israeli siege of Gaza.

And right around 9/11, Egyptian police forces allowed angry and hate-filled “demonstrators” to overrun the Israeli Embassy in Cairo; Prime Minister Netanyahu made no progress for the safe release of the Israeli security guards trapped in the building; only a phone call, eight to ten hours later, from President Obama presumably persuaded the Egyptians to help the besieged Israelis escape.

Finally, on September 13, 2011, the Turkish Prime Minister blew more smoke, this time in Cairo when he got the crowd to roar its hatred for Israel. He is in a dead heat competition with Iran for leadership of the Caliphate.

[…]

[Return to headlines]

Middle East


Iran: Water Battles Among Young People Frighten the Ayatollah

Numerous arrests of young people across the country since July, for engaging in battles with water bottles and water pistols in parks. The regime’s fear: “This is not simply a game. This an act is being guided from abroad”.

Tehran (AsiaNews/agencies) — Iranian police have arrested on September 2 a group of people responsible for having a waterfight in a Tehran Park. The acting commander of Iran’s police, General Ahmad Radan, said that the group had planned the battle thanks to the Internet and “intended to break customs”.

The police have intervened several times during the summer to suppress water battles. In the first incident in July, hundreds of young men and women took part in a waterfight in the capital’s popular Water and Fire park, with water pistols and plastic bottles. The police detained dozens of fighters. Many others have been arrested since then.

Fundamentalists consider it improper and immoral for men and women to mix freely, much less douse each other with water. In addition, there is the fear that these gatherings could weaken the regime’s grip on young people, or even lead to protests against the regime. Since the 2009 demonstrations, any type of gathering that is not controlled arouses the suspicion of the authorities.

On September 5, judiciary official Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi accused unknown foreign persons of organizing campaigns for waterfights in the country: “This is not simply a game with water”, he said “this act is being guided from abroad”. Ejehi said Friday that some of those arrested admitted “they were deceived, and some said they came out based on a call from a counter-revolutionary”. The state television has moved in the same line, transmitting the confessions of some participants who admitted having been invited to participate from abroad. But some conservatives, close to the regime, claim that arresting youth for waterfights is excessive.

All these statements and opinions help to understand the restlessness of Tehran’s top brass, who barely managed to subdue through force the so-called “Green wave”, the movement following the fraudulent election of Ahmadinejad in 2009.

The Green wave has features very similar to the revolts of the Arab spring, in an attempt to bring more democracy, less corruption, more freedom and work. Paradoxically, Iranian leaders have applauded the Arab Spring, hoping for an end to the U.S.-backed regimes in the Arab world. But ithey will not allow a little spring to bloom in their homeland, as well.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Where Was Jesus Baptised? Israeli-Jordanian Row

(ANSAmed) — ROME, SEPTEMBER 16 — On which bank of the river Jordan was Jesus baptised? This question has remained without an answer for around two thousand years now, and it has once again led to a heated dispute between Israel and Jordan. Both countries want the honour of having this holy site in their territory, for reasons of tourism. Now the website ‘Terrasanta.net’ of the Franciscan Custody has also intervened in the debate, and has urged the rivals, in a judgment worthy of Solomon, to “allow Christians from across the world to come and commemorate the baptism of the Saviour on the bank of the river Jordan they prefer.” Tensions started rising again after a long period of relaxation when Israel opened the site Qasr al-Yaud, near Jericho, to the public on July 12. The site had been kept closed for decades, because of its location at the Jordanian border, in an area that is controlled by the Israeli military but situated in the Palestinian Territories from a viewpoint of international law. The reopening of the site on the western bank of the river Jordan has angered the Jordanian authorities, Terrasanta.net reports. Jordan claims the baptismal site on the eastern river bank is “the authentic one.” This site lies inside Jordanian territory (al-Maghtas, Bethany-beyond-the-Jordan as it is called in the Gospel according to John).

Jordan has accused Israel that the country wants to falsify history with this operation, trying to draw Christian pilgrims away from the baptismal site in Jordan. It should be said that Jordan’s government has invested heavily in tourism on the site of Wadi Kharrar, around 7 kilometres from the Dead Sea, allowing also Christian Churches to build new sanctuaries with accommodations for pilgrims nearby.

The Israeli embassy to the Holy See has replied to Jordan that “debating on which side of the river Jesus was baptised is of relative importance because what really counts is that it has happened in the waters of the river Jordan.” But in any case, the embassy underlined, “reliable sources place the baptismal site on the west bank of the river.” The Franciscans in the Holy Land, whose task it is to protect the places of worship, explain that “there are archaeological indications and sources that make it likely that the physical baptismal site is located in Wadi Karrar, on the Jordanian bank.

There are also traditions and historic indications that place the baptismal site on the western side, near Qasr al-Yahud.” In any case, Terrasanta.net concludes, it is not essential for Christians to know which is the correct location. The important thing is that they can reach the Jordan in freedom and safety.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Latin America


Ahmadinejad to Vist Chavez on 24 September

(AGI) Caracas — Hugo Chavez announced a visit by the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on 24 September. The Venezuelan premier also stated that his Byelorussian counterpart, Alexandr Lukashenko, will arrive in Caracas in December. Mr.

Ahmadinejad’s trip will take place after his attendance to the UN General Assembly in New York.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

Immigration


71 Billion Euros — the Cost of Immigration

In my recent article on Marine Le Pen’s speech in Nice last week, I expressed my surprise at her claim that the annual cost of immigration in France has reached 70 billion euros. It sounded impossibly high. But she based her statement on the work of economist Gérard Pince, who has in the past used his mathematical and actuarial skills to estimate realistically the number of immigrants in France.

Pince spoke with Pierre Cassen of Riposte Laïque, and explained briefly his statistical methods and his opinion on the underlying motives for the massive immigration that is strangling France both culturally and economically. Here are excerpts from that interview, beginning with his political preferences:

– I’m sorry that ideological differences on the sex of angels is dividing the forces of the resistance. For my part, I am sticking to one simple rule. I support without reservation all those who fight against immigration and the Islamization of our country. The fight against this invasion must take precedence over all other considerations. I am trying to convince others of this conviction but there is still much to do. Reciprocally, I feel that the resistance movements ought to concentrate on their main mission and avoid those topics that are divisive, such as the future of Europe or the euro!

– You have just published a report on the cost of Third World immigration for 2009. You say it amounted to 71 billion euros. Why is this study more reliable than others that explain how this immigration benefits France, and still others, like Jean-Paul Gourevitch, who don’t arrive at the same figures you do?

– The answer can be found in the report. The studies that claim that immigration enriches us are part of a scandalous fraud, especially when they come out of the universities. I know Jean-Paul Gourevitch’s work. He deals with immigration in general (including European immigrants) and he does not take into account direct descendants. Moreover, his approach is different…

           — Hat tip: Steen [Return to headlines]



Nepali Migrant Women Victims of Abuse and Exploitation

Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are the worst offenders. NGO complains about the high number of migrant women who go to work illegally in the Middle East. About 16 per cent comes home without any money.

Kathmandu (AsiaNews/ Agencies) — According to a study by the Foreign Nepali Workers Rescue Center (FNWRC), about 90 per cent of all Nepali migrant women are victims of sexual violence and exploitation. The worst cases are in Arab countries where female migrant workers are routinely raped, beaten and not paid. For this reason, the Nepali government limited emigration to the Middle East between 1998 and 2010.

Still, every year, 83,000 Nepal migrant women leave the country in search for work. Most go to the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, where job opportunities are better.

Arab states are destination of most illegal workers. Out of 67,000 in the Middle East in 2006, only 3,000 had the right papers and a valid contract.

To avoid red tape, many women resort to human traffickers. Pocketing thousands of dollars, the latter promise the women jobs that turn out to be non-existent; instead, they force them to work like slaves for unscrupulous employers.

Sapana Bishwokarna, 26, arrived in Saudi Arabia in 2007. She paid US$ 700 for the promise of a baby-sitting job in Riyadh family. Instead, when she arrived she found out that there was no baby to care for and had to work as a domestic instead.

“The family was one father and two adult sons,” she said. “I could not understand their language and I was punished every day with a beating.”

For months, her employer and his sons abused her. When she got pregnant, they sent her packing back to Nepal without paying her. In her village, Sapana now works as a seamstress to raise her 2-year-old boy.

“I emigrated to become independent but for women going abroad is too dangerous,” she said. “They treat us like animals.”

The authorities do little or nothing to monitor emigration, especially if it involves women, said sociologist Kumar Yatru

About 16 per cent of migrant women come home without any income. Illegal workers have no protection and often their situation is unknown to the authorities.

The government has set up help centre where migrants can learn the language and laws of their country of employment so that they can be aware of potential risks. However, everything is in Kathmandu, which is hard on people from poor and remote areas of the country.

Despite the risks, the number of migrant women is rising, said Saru Joshi, regional programme coordinator of UN Women-Nepal

“In Nepal, women still don’t have property rights,” she explained. “They are still under their husbands or in-laws.”

Instead of favouring emigration, the government should adopt policies that give women rights at home, ensuring equality with men.

Sadly, “Nepal is still a patriarchal country, and cultural and social traditions have limited the policies’ implementation,” Saru said.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Suriname: French Guiana, A Door to the EU

Trouw, Amsterdam

As the sole EU land border on the American continent, the French overseas department is the destination for a large number of immigrants from neighbouring Suriname. Every year, 13,000 of them apply for residency permits that are valid throughout the entirety of the Schengen Area.

Ivo Evers

Outside the imposing mayor’s office in Saint-Laurent, a small town on French Guiana’s border with Suriname, a group of twenty men and women have gathered in the searing heat. From the bored looks on most of their faces, it is clear that this is not the first time they have waited outside the building. The Surinamese are queuing up for highly valued residency permits, which are even more sought after than French passports.

They are part of a massive wave of cross-border migration on the European Union’s only South American frontier: as an overseas department of France, French Guiana is a de facto part France. “Every year, 13,000 people, mainly Surinamese, apply to us residency for permits. About a third of these applications are approved,” explains sub-prefect Hamel-Françis Mekachera. “It is the start of a long process, which eventually leads to the granting of French nationality seven years later.”

But the EU is making it increasingly difficult to pass through this door into its territory: “Paris has sent us an order to reduce the number of people we accept,” says Mekachera, “but this region is not perceived as a frontier by local people, who regularly cross the Maroni [the river that marks the border between French Guiana and Suriname]. It is not easy for us Europeans to deal with this, because there are no specific measures about it French law.

River crossing with a long history

The blurred border is responsible for a host of problems, not least the informal trade across the river: at the market in Saint-Laurent, the Surinamese language, Sranan, is widely spoken, and many of the traders wear T-shirts emblazoned with the flag of the former Dutch colony. At the same time, crime is a growing problem: armed robberies are frequent, and the perpetrators usually seek refuge on the Surinamese side of the river.

For years, French Guiana has also served as refuge for Surinamese displaced by conflict in their home country. The first wave of refugees arrive in July 1986, following the outbreak of a civil war which lasted until 1991. During the conflict, which pitted the forces of Suriname’s military junta led Dersi Bouterse against the Jungle Commando guerillas led by Ronnie Brunswijk, 15,000 Surinamese sought refuge in Saint-Laurent.

Mayor Léon Bertrand was there to welcome them. “They were mainly women and children. We had the feeling that we were at war too. There was a Surinamese army patrol boat firing at anyone trying to cross the river. I saw Albina [the Surinamese town on the other side of the Maroni] burned to the ground with my own eyes.”

The vast majority of Surinamese refugees from that period have never made the sad crossing back to their country of origin. The civil war and the Bourterse military government brought about a rapid deterioration in the economic and social climate in Suriname and opened up a development gap with neighbouring French Guiana that has continued to widen.

“We never refuse to accept anyone”

The Surinamese have continued to come knocking on the door of the French overseas department. Of the 217,000 population of French Guiana, 70,000 are originally from Suriname. And many Surinamese have chosen to move to Metropolitan France.

Surinamese immigration has had an obvious impact on the hospital in the centre of Saint-Laurent where Dr Gabriel Carles has worked for thirty years. “We never refuse to accept anyone, not only is not humane but it’s also illegal. >From time to time, we turn a blind eye to cases where certain patients are on the point of giving birth, which we register them as emergencies. And yes, their children are given birth certificates that enable them to apply for French nationality when they are aged between 13 and 18.”

According to Carles, the Surinamese who cross the Maroni to gain access to free good quality medical care account for half of the annual budget in the hospital, where 50% of newborns are of Surinamese origin.

In Korou, which is 100 kilometres from Saint Laurent, we met with 44-year-old artist Franky Amete, who has lived in French Guiana for two decades. “Many Surinamese have come here for the euro and the better quality of life,” he told us. “I also came here to work. At the time, life was very hard in Suriname. I wasn’t able to earn a living as an artist in my own country, but I can do that here.”

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Sweden: Asylum Agreement to Reunite Thousands

Thousands of fragmented Somali families may be reunited in Sweden as early as July 2012 following the first step forward in the development of a common migration policy between the government and the Green Party (MP). Reunification has been hampered since spring 2010 when Sweden tightened its family immigration law, taking stringent measures toward those that did not have recognized identity documents. Thousands of Somalis have thus been stranded in crowded refugee camps in east Africa during the current famine. Changes in the law mean that about 4,000 Somalis, many children, will be permitted into Sweden though it is not certain if all will receive a residence permit.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Three Boats With 287 Migrants Landed on Lampedusa the Night

(AGI) Lampedusa — A total of 3 boats carrying 287 immigrants, including many women and children, reached Lampedusa during the night.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

Culture Wars


UK: ‘We Want to be Less Male and Pale’: Clegg Pledges to Make Lib Dems More Diverse… As Three Quarters of Voters Say They’re Not Up to the Job”

Nick Clegg pledged to make the Liberal Democrats less ‘male and pale’ as he launched a new diversity scheme at the party’s annual conference.

The Deputy Prime Minister said the Leadership Programme showed that the issue was an ‘absolute priority’ for the party….

Under the party’s new diversity initiative, around 50 potential parliamentary candidates from under-represented backgrounds will be given mentoring and guaranteed places on shortlists for priority seats.

Half the spots will be reserved for women, 20% for black and ethnic minorities, and 10% for those with disabilities.

The remaining 20% will go to individuals from less well-off backgrounds, and openly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender candidates.

           — Hat tip: Kitman [Return to headlines]



UK: “How the Tories Became the Gay-Friendly Party: As the Government Backs Gay Marriage, A Unique — and Surprising — Insight Into David Cameron’s Thinking”

It was announced yesterday that our Conservative-led Government is going to put same-sex partnerships and traditional civil marriage on to the same footing. After centuries of inequality, gay people and straight people will at last be equal before the law, and the doctrine of ‘live and let live’ will have won the day.

This has happened because David Cameron, a Tory Prime Minister, has driven the process forward.

           — Hat tip: Kitman [Return to headlines]

News Feed 20120918

Financial Crisis
» Widening Gap Between Rich and Poor in Germany
 
USA
» Catholics Then, Muslims Now
» Iranian Regime Loses to Legal Project in Federal District Court
» No One Should be Fooled by the Myth of Obama
» Obama’s Foreign Policy Fraud Has Come Undone
» ‘Scream’ To Go on View at MoMA
» ‘They’re Killing us Because We’re Infidels’
» This Video Could Kill Mitt Romney’s Chances of Becoming President. Is it Too Late to Draft Rick Santorum?
» US Scientists to Use Chinese Moon Lander for Space Research
 
Europe and the EU
» French Newspaper Will Publish Muhammad Cartoons
» French Muslims “Dismayed” Over Upcoming Muhammad Cartoons
» German Muslims Split Over Film’s Screening
» Meet the World’s First Transhumanist Politician
» Murdoch’s News Corp Possible Bidder for Italian La7 Network
» Populist Provocation Germany Mulls Ban on Showing Hate Film
» ‘Postpone EU-Israel Trade Accord Vote’, Say Socialist MEPs
» ‘Racy’ Cartoons of Mohammed Published in French
» Scottish Leaders Under Pressure on EU Status
» The Louvre Inaugurates Islamic Arts Building
» True Antidote to Fanaticism in Islam Itself, Hollande
» UK: Conservatives Expect Barack Obama Re-Election in US
» UK: Family in Court Over Violent Bethnal Green Exorcism
» UK: Hyndburn Mosque Plans Hit Land Hitch
» UK: Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie — Review
» UK: Rushdie Releases Memoirs as Anti-Islam Film Protests Rage
» UK: Shops Accused of Selling Illegal ‘Bush Meat’ At London Market
» UK: Top Authors Denounce $500,000 New Bounty on Rushdie
» UK: Where Charity Begins
 
North Africa
» Algeria: 22% of Population Still Illiterate
» Anti-Islam Film: Egypt Indicts Nine Emigrated Copts
» Egypt: Cleric Issues Fatwa Against ‘Innocence of Muslims’ Cast, Crew
» Egypt Wants 7 Coptic Christians and Pastor Jones on Trial
» Egypt to Try 7 Copts, US Pastor Over Prophet Film
» Libya: New Book Reveals Gaddafi’s Hunger for Sexual Slaves
» Seven US-Resident Egyptians Charged Over ‘Innocence’ Movie
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» PNA: EU Commissione: 100 Mln Extra Funds for Palestinians
» Will Israel Stay Zionist?
» Zahhar: Gaza More Secure Than West Bank
 
Middle East
» Concern Over ‘Qaeda Ideology’ In Protests — Sleeping Cells Have Awakened
» Iran Deploys Russian-Made Submarine in Gulf
» Iran: Bounty on Salman Rushdie Increased to $3.3 Million
» Lebanon: Fatwa Issued Against ‘Innocence of Muslims’ Film Producer
» Syria’s Assad to Purge Top Sunni Armed Forces Officials
» Syrian Rebels Put $25 Million Bounty on President’s Head
» The Truth About Muhammad and Aisha
» Turkey’s Towering Ambition
 
Russia
» Russia Claims to Have Found Huge Diamond Deposit in Field
 
Caucasus
» A Letter From a Scared Actress
 
South Asia
» Afghanistan: Suicide Attack: Anti-Islam Film ‘Innocence of Muslims’ Sparks Deadly Violence Yet Again
» Afghanistan: Suicide Bomber Hits Foreigners on Kabul Bus
» ‘Blasphemous’ Film Protests in Thailand and Indonesia
» NATO Scales Back Joint Operations With Afghan Forces
» NATO Afghan Decision: Philip Hammond Urged to Address MPs
» Newsweek’s ‘Muslim Rage’: A Sickening Piece of Shock Journalism That Cheapens a Once Great Magazine
» Troops Out! Pressure Grows to Stop Wasting Lives in Afghanistan
» US Suspends Most Joint Operations With Afghan Forces
 
Far East
» Chinese General: Prepare for Combat
» Chinese Ships Sail Into Waters Near Disputed Islands
» Oil Reserves at Heart of Japan-China Island Dispute
 
Australia — Pacific
» Girls Are Not Free to Speak Out in Islamic Countries
» Retrial Granted for Afghan Refugee Who Killed His Wife After Complaining She Was Too Australian
» The Anti-Muslim MP Not Allowed to Visit Australia
» What Do You Want to Know About Islam?
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
» Boko Haram Terrorists Kill Nigerian State Attorney General
 
Immigration
» Boat Carrying 139 Immigrants Stopped Off Tunisian Coast
 
General
» Looking Back at Salman Rushdie’s the Satanic Verses

Financial Crisis

Widening Gap Between Rich and Poor in Germany

Economic inequality is increasing in Germany as the country’s rich benefit disproportionally more from rising wealth, a new report has found. Worrying, too are dwindling state assets and public properties.

In the past 20 years, private net worth has more than doubled: from 4.6 trillion euros ($6 trillion) in 1992 to approximately 10 trillion euros in 2012, according to an article published by the Süddeutsche Zeitung on Tuesday.

The newspaper quoted from a draft of the “German Poverty and Wealth Report,” compiled by the Labor Ministry and scheduled to be published soon.

The report has found that Germany’s super rich have become continuously more so over the past two decades.

In 1998, 45 percent of Germany’s total wealth was owned by the wealthiest 10 percent, the report found. Ten years later, the number had risen to 53 percent.

By comparison, the bottom half of German households control a mere 1 percent of all wealth.

Moreover, income inequality is worsening, according to the report. Though salaries of the rich have increased steadily over the years, because of inflation a loss of real income has been observed in the bottom 40 percent of full-time workers.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]

USA

Catholics Then, Muslims Now

by Doug Saunders

THE short, crude anti-Muslim video that sparked a wave of violent protests across the Middle East did not emerge from an obscure pocket of extremism; it is the latest in a string of anti-Muslim outbursts in the United States. In August, a mosque was burned down in Missouri and an acid bomb was thrown at an Islamic school in Illinois. The video’s backers are part of a movement that has used the insecurity of the post-9/11 years to sow unfounded fears of a Muslim plot to take over the West. Their message has spread from the obscurity of the Internet and the far right to the best seller lists, the mainstream media and Congress. For the first time in decades, it has become acceptable in some circles to declare that a specific religious minority can’t be trusted…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Iranian Regime Loses to Legal Project in Federal District Court

by Sam Nunberg

PHILADELPHIA, September 14, 2012 — Federal District Court Judge John B. Bates for the District of Columbia yesterday granted summary judgment for Seid Hassan Daieolesian, editor of the English Iranian Lobby website “In Search of Truth: Reports on Mullahs’s lobby in US,” the defendant in a defamation suit brought by Trita Parsi and the National Iranian American Council (NIAC). Judge Bates also ordered sanctions against Parsi for failure to comply with the discovery phase of the litigation. The Legal Project coordinated and financed the defense of Mr. Dai; Sidley Austin LLP represented him pro bono.

Trita Parsi sued Seid Hassan Daieolesian for defamation in April, 2008 after Mr. Dai’s investigative reporting exposed Parsi’s and NIAC’s deep and incontrovertible ties to high-level agents of the Iranian regime. The suit went through 53 months of litigation that included 24 months of discovery and over 30 court motions. These ultimately confirmed the accuracy of Mr. Dai’s investigative reports.

The case reached national prominence when Parsi’s e-mails (produced during discovery) not only confirmed his ties to the mullahs but also that he has delivered lectures to the CIA, briefed Secretary Hilary Clinton and visited the Obama White House starting in 2009. As recently as this past July, he was hosted by Senior Adviser to the President Valerie Jarrett…

[Return to headlines]

No One Should be Fooled by the Myth of Obama

The President has ridden his luck for too long, says one conservative commentator: his failures can’t be ignored

by Roger Kimball

Are you insane?” That was one of the questions the American blogger Sarah Hoyt asked when contemplating the cataract of doom and gloom issuing from the conservative blogosphere following the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, a week ago. (For the record, she also asked: “Have you gone completely out of your minds? Do you want to lose? And do you understand fully what a loss would mean?”) Many conservative commentators, eyeing the (predictably evanescent) bounce in the polls Obama enjoyed after the convention, concluded that the game was up. Romney was now certain to lose, Obama could get on with the task of (as he put it in 2008) “fundamentally transforming” America into a quasi-socialist redoubt where half the populace voted for a living, and conservatives would have to sit by idly while American businesses were regulated to feebleness and personal liberty (except, of course, the liberty to have an abortion at any time up until shortly after delivery) was eroded in the name of equality.

Back in 2008, many commentators, including me, had invoked the Wizard of Oz when discussing Barack Obama. Who was this international man of mystery? His college and graduate school records were sealed, as was his attorney client record. He’d written two autobiographies — correction, two autobiographies had been published over his name: who actually wrote them continues to be a matter of speculation — but who was this man being presented to the American people for the top job? What had he actually done? Go back and watch that 2008 Democratic Convention in Nuremberg — or maybe it was Denver; it just seemed like Nuremberg: the Greek columns, the weeping, nearly hysterical crowd, the man who promised to make the oceans recede and “heal” the earth basked in a nimbus of adulation and inevitability. It was an extraordinary performance. The great and wonderful Oz would have appreciated the artifice. Oz had been a lowly purveyor of nostrums who managed to gull a needy populace into accepting him as a potent miracle worker. And Obama?

This is the embarrassing part. His administration has presented the world with an unrelieved litany of failure. Except, of course, for the moment when he parachuted into that compound in Pakistan and single-handedly took out Osama bin Laden. He’s been shy about claiming credit for that exploit, but we should give credit where credit is due. Obama has also taken more vacations and played more golf than any other President. The other day, just after the US envoy to Libya and three other diplomats were murdered in Benghazi, the President decamped to Las Vegas for a fundraiser, thus demonstrating the sort of steely leadership that has become a signature of his administration.

The failures? Sure, there have been a few. But can anyone really blame Obama? The American debt clock ticked past $16 trillion as the Democratic Convention convened but you understand, don’t you, that what Governor Mitch Daniels called the new red menace of debt is really the fault of George W Bush? Obama came to office promising to halve the annual deficit in his first term. It stubbornly hovers around $1.5 trillion but that too is the fault of Dubya, or possibly it’s the Wicked Witch of the East. Ditto the unemployment figure. “Give me $800 billion,” said Obama on assuming office, “and we’ll have unemployment down to 5.6 per cent by July 2012.” Official unemployment is 8.3 percent, while so-called “U6” unemployment, which counts the unhappy folks who have just given up looking for work, is nearly 15 per cent. All told, we’re talking about 23 million munchkins out of work, Dorothy, and the sense of malaise is deep and spreading.

“It’s the economy, stupid.” Remember that? The Clinton strategist James Carville was right. And note that “the economy” is not just a matter of dollars and cents. It’s like Aristotle’s notion of happiness: not the explicit goal of our endeavours but a natural by-product of virtuous activity energetically pursued. Its motor is the creation, not the redistribution, of wealth, though, as John F Kennedy (or one of his speechwriters) observed, a rising tide lifts all boats. What matters to leaders such as Barack Obama is not the dynamics of a rising tide but that all boats be on the same level — except, of course, for the vessels of Oz and his minions: they circle the bay like those flying monkeys, keeping order, deploying the IRS to investigate large donors to the other side, and so on.

As Alexis de Tocqueville saw, inherent in democracy is a tension between the demand for equality, on the one hand, and the demand for freedom, on the other. A healthy democracy balances those contending claims, nurturing equality while protecting freedom. How, as former mayor Ed Koch liked to ask, are we doing? Currently, nearly half of those who file tax returns pay no income tax: that’s zero, nada, nothing. The top one per cent of filers pay 40 per cent, the top five per cent pay nearly 60 per cent. Obama’s favourite word (after “me”) is “fairness.” Is that fair?

I think Obama is right: this election presents Americans with two fundamentally different visions of how their country will be governed. One features the carnivalesque Oz-like pipings of dependency. The other returns us to Kansas, where people make their livings unencumbered by the court protocol that a culture of entitlement requires. That’s the choice. There are a lot of people on the receiving end of government largesse in America these days. I forget who it was who said that a democracy can work well until the day people realise that, when one party becomes the party of the state, they can vote themselves other people’s money. Has that day come in America? Maybe. But remember the American elections of 2010. That “shellacking,” as Obama put it, should give the party of freedom hope. I continue to believe Romney will not only win but win big.

Roger Kimball is editor and publisher of The New Criterion

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Obama’s Foreign Policy Fraud Has Come Undone

by Daniel Greenfield

The mass riots and attacks on embassies do not mark the moment when Obama’s foreign policy imploded. That happened a long time ago. What these attacks actually represent is the moment when the compliant media were no longer able to continue hiding that failure in bottom drawers and back pages…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

‘Scream’ To Go on View at MoMA

Edvard Munch’s 1895 version of “The Scream” — which became the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction when it brought nearly $120 million at Sotheby’s in May — will go on view at the Museum of Modern Art, courtesy of its new mystery owner, for six months, starting on Oct. 24.

“This is an incredible opportunity for our visitors to see something that is otherwise hard to see,” Glenn D. Lowry, the museum’s director, said in a telephone interview.

Munch made four versions of “The Scream” — an image that has become a universal symbol of angst and existential dread — from 1893 to 1910. Three are in Norwegian museums and have not traveled for years. This one, a pastel on board, is the only “Scream” still in private hands and the only one in the United States; it has never before been shown publicly in New York, officials at MoMA say.

Depicting a hairless figure on a bridge under a brilliant yellow-orange sky, the composition was originally conceived by Munch as part of his “Frieze of Life” series, which explores themes of love, angst and death. “Some people call it the Mona Lisa of Modern art,” Mr. Lowry said.

This version, the most colorful of the four, has a frame painted by the artist with a poem describing a walk at sunset (“I felt a whiff of melancholy — I stood/Still, deathly tired”) that inspired the work. (It is also unique among the “Screams” for its background figure turning to look out onto the cityscape.)

The New York financier Leon Black is said to have been the buyer of the pastel at Sotheby’s, but nobody — including Mr. Black himself, officials at Sotheby’s or Mr. Lowry — would confirm that he was the one lending the painting to MoMA.

Mr. Black is a member of MoMA’s board, however (as well as of the board of the Metropolitan Museum of Art). He is also one of this country’s foremost collectors, having amassed a world-class art collection that includes paintings by Manet, Cézanne and Degas; drawings by Raphael, Daumier and van Gogh; and sculptures by Brancusi, Gauguin and Degas.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]

‘They’re Killing us Because We’re Infidels’

by Diana West

Paul Sperry rakes the Pentagon response to jihad inside the wire — more “sensitivity” training — in the New York Post this week (must have been Prince Talal’s day off).

Top officials believe culturally offensive behavior is the motivation behind the killings, so it’s stepped up Islamic sensitivity training for our troops.

“Top officials” should be relieved of duty, ASAP. They have lost their minds if they ever had any. Or, to be more accurate, they have adopted, internalized the Islamic mindset to a point beyond apology and beyond reason. Reality check: Normal, mainstream Afghan culture includes child rape, pederasty, “seven-day shit suits,” cruelty to animals, enslavement of women, and death to apostates, just to hit some highlights. Such institutional depravity, however, is the New Normal to the ideological zealots in charge. They don’t see it, and can’t imagine the effect of it on Western troops, even when their own internal reports flag such native practices as dog torture as “stressors” that lead to “serious social altercations” between US and Afghan soldiers. These and other resounding features of culture clash are officially hushed up lest the irreconcilable differences between Islam and the West become openly acknowledged, and the bankruptcy of the past decade of nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan becomes the open national scandal that it should and must become.

Thus, our generals burble on about nose-blowing and shoe bottoms, announcing that deviations from the Islamic way of nose-blowing and handling shoe bottoms (“cultural affronts”) are motivations for murder. (This is the same Islamic mind-set that informs the White House and media position that the Mohammed video is “causing” the Islamic attacks on US embassies.)

Sperry’s op-ed continues:…

           — Hat tip: Diana West [Return to headlines]

This Video Could Kill Mitt Romney’s Chances of Becoming President. Is it Too Late to Draft Rick Santorum?

by Tim Stanley

Mother Jones has got its hands on a video that could kill Mitt Romney’s chances of being elected president. It’s from a fundraiser earlier this year, and the transcript of Romney’s speech is as follows:

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what… These are people who pay no income tax. … [M]y job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.

The Romney campaign refuses to comment, but the Obama White House has taken time out from the Middle East crisis to say this

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

US Scientists to Use Chinese Moon Lander for Space Research

A cooperative deal has been inked between a U.S. group and China to use that country’s moon lander to conduct astronomical imaging from the lunar surface.

The International Lunar Observatory Association (ILOA) of Kamuela, Hawaii has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Beijing-based National Astronomical Observatories (NAOC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. A signing ceremony took place in Kamuela on Sept. 4.

The deal is the first such U.S.-China collaboration centered on using China’s Chang’e-3 moon lander now being readied for launch next year.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]

Europe and the EU

French Newspaper Will Publish Muhammad Cartoons

(AGI) Paris, 18 Sep — While the Muslim world is in an uproar over the Islamophobic film on Muhammad, the French weekly satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo announced that it will publish new cartoons depicting the prophet. When the Danish newspaper Jillanden Posten published cartoons of Muhammad in 2006 violence erupted throughout the Islamic world.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

French Muslims “Dismayed” Over Upcoming Muhammad Cartoons

(AGI) Paris- The French Council of the Muslim Faith is “dismayed” by news of upcoming cartoons of Muhammad by a French newspaper. The weekly satirical paper Charlie Hebdo announced that it will publish “offensive cartoons” of Muhammad on Wednesday.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

German Muslims Split Over Film’s Screening

Opinion among Muslims groups in Germany is divided over whether public screenings of a US-made anti-Islam film should be prohibited. “The Innocence of Muslims” is at the center of violent protests around the world.

Two leading Muslim groups joined a growing number of voices on Monday to demand that the film is banned in Germany. Their call comes after the right-wing extremist group Pro Deutschland announced that it hoped to show the film in a public venue.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]

Meet the World’s First Transhumanist Politician

It’s not necessarily a negative thing for us to become less human, says transhumanist politician Giuseppe Vatinno

What is transhumanism?

Transhumanism is a philosophical doctrine that aims to continuously improve humanity. It promotes science and technology but with people at its centre. Ultimately, it aims to free humanity from its biological limitations, overcoming natural evolution to make us more than human.

How does transhumanism improve humanity?

It does this through the development of technologies that boost health and fight ageing and disease, by replacing lost or defective body parts and by improving the internet, communication technologies and artificial intelligence.

Is there a danger that transhumanism could actually make us less human?

Becoming less human is not necessarily a negative thing, because it could mean we are less subject to the whims of nature, such as illness or climate extremes. A beautiful sunset is positive, but the black death that struck Europe in the 14th century was not. We want to retain the positive aspects of nature and reduce the negative ones.

But could we become cyborgs?

This is more the realm of science fiction. But we are already taking steps in that direction. Look at Oscar Pistorius, the sprinter with two prosthetic limbs. He is able to beat able-bodied competitors.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]

Murdoch’s News Corp Possible Bidder for Italian La7 Network

Popular broadcaster Mentana says could be ‘good match’

(ANSA) — Rome, September 18 — The possibility of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp as a new bidder in the running for the purchase of La7, Italy’s fourth and smallest commercial TV channel, could be a “good match,” Enrico Mentana, director of La7’s news program said on Tuesday. “They are a serious group with an impressive dossier that knows about television. I see no reason why it wouldn’t be a good match,” Mentana said.

La7 network is up for sale because of debt-trimming by parent Telecom Italia, the largest telecommunications company in Italy.

Popular prime-time news host Mentana boosted the channel’s ratings when he joined La7 after being sacked as news chief of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi’s Canale 5 (owned by Mediaset) in 2004.

Mentana expressed doubts that he would remain with La7 if Mediaset, one of the possible bidders, purchased the channel.

“Mediaset is a market player, not Hitler. But I would leave for problems I personally have had in the past with Mediaset management,” Mentana said.

Al Jazeera, Sky Italia, Discovery Channel and Espresso publishing group, which owns liberal Italian daily La Repubblica, have also expressed interest in the purchase.

“I am not doing DNA exams on possible buyers, but I don’t see conflicts of interest with Espresso, whose owner does not have political aspirations or show signs of interfering with the tone of the news (by injecting bias)…unlike Berlusconi,” Mentana said referring to Carlo De Benedetti, Espresso group’s owner and Silvio Berlusconi’s traditional rival.

Analysts say that La7′s market value increased because of its moderate, balanced approach to news reporting specialized in accurate, wider-ranging information programs. photo: Enrico Mentana

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Populist Provocation Germany Mulls Ban on Showing Hate Film

A populist group in Germany wants to publicly show the anti-Islam film “Innocence of Muslims,” which is stoking a violent backlash across the Muslim world. Officials are reviewing whether they could ban the action, sparking a delicate debate over free speech and public order.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]

‘Postpone EU-Israel Trade Accord Vote’, Say Socialist MEPs

Not in line with EU Israel policy

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, SEPTEMBER 18 — A group of Socialist-Democratic (SD) MEPS have asked for a European Parliament vote on a new EU-Israel trade agreement to be postponed for two years, because it is not in line with the European Union’s (EU) foreign policy on Israel. SD MEPs say that a protocol in the accord could give an unfair advantage to Israeli products, regardless of their origin in Israel or the Territories, and that it contrasts with the EU’s stance on what it has more than once called, ‘illegal Israeli settlements.’ This follows an initial go-ahead by the Trade Committee of the European Parliament.

“Today’s vote”, said MEP Vital Moreira, “is not in line with EU foreign policy. Bolstering the partnership between the EU and Israel at this time would undermine EU condemnation of Israeli politics with regards to the Palestinians, in particular, Gaza blockades.” “Since Israel’s political course hasn’t changed”, continued Moreira, “we have requested a two year postponement of the final decision on the accord”. Vice-president of the European Parliament Social-Democrats, Veronique de Keyser, asked that “products from the occupied Territories are not allowed to be considered ‘commercially legal’ or to be included in the accord”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

‘Racy’ Cartoons of Mohammed Published in French

No to excesses, PM says. Paris Grand Mosque appeals for calm

(ANSAmed) — Paris — Cartoons of the prophet Mohammed were published in the French satyrical weekly Charlie Hebdo on Tuesday, sparking fears that the images will foment the latest outbreak of anti-Western tensions in the Middle East and elsewhere when it hits newstands on Wednesday.

The drawings, which according to French daily Le Figaro portray the founder of Islam in “racy” positions, do not appear on the front page. Police have been stationed outside the publication’s headquarters, which was firebombed last November after its decision to name a special edition “Charia Hebdo”, with Mohammed listed as the “editor-in-chief”.

French Premier Jean-Marc Ayrault upholds “freedom of expression, but disapproves of any excess and appeals to everyone’s spirit of responsibility”, the ministry made known in a note on Tuesday. The rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris, Dalil Boubakeur, issued “an appeal for calm”. Charb, who is Charlie Hebdo’s editor-in-chief, is not worried about the possible consequences of the publication, he told I-tele TV.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Scottish Leaders Under Pressure on EU Status

The Scottish government is facing renewed pressure to reveal legal advice on whether it would remain in the EU if the country votes to leave the United Kingdom.

An urgent hearing of the Court of Session in Edinburgh will take place on Thursday (20 September), with Scotland’s information commissioner Rosemary Agnew demanding the urgent two-day meeting to confirm that the ruling nationalist administration should release any legal advice on EU membership prospects.

The question of Scotland’s EU membership is vital to the nationalists who are keen to retain unfettered access to the single market as well as an opt-out from joining the euro.

The government has consistently argued that Scotland’s EU status would not be affected by independence.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]

The Louvre Inaugurates Islamic Arts Building

Designed by Mario Bellini and Rudy Ricciotti

(ANSAmed) — PARIS, 17 SEPT — 20 years after the opening of the Pyramid at Paris’ Louvre museum, French President Francois Hollande will inaugurate a second building in the museum dedicated to Islamic art, Tuesday.

Commissioned in 2002 by former President Jacques Chirac and designed by architects Mario Bellini and Rudy Ricciotti, the building, which cost 98.5 million euro and covers an area of 2,500 meters square, will host more than 3,000 objects of Islamic civilization. Among the objects on show, all of which come from Louvre collections and the Museum of Decorative Art, are carpets, ceramics and jewelry — displayed in chronological order from the seventh through to the nineteenth century, and a 12 metre tall reconstructed Ottoman wall. Sitting in the Louvre’s Visconti Courtyard — the only one available for the project, the building is on two levels, one of which is underground. “It is a modern building, developed in the underground space, which fits exactly with the tour of the Louvre”, Bellini tells ANSA. Bellini compares the building to a ‘floating device’, or a jewel set in the 18th Century courtyard of the Louvre. Equally, “the corrugated, translucent structure” — covered by a grid of gold and silver coloured metal, “could resemble a cloud, a sail blowing in the wind, or the wing of a dragonfly”. “It seems suspended in the air thanks to a perimetre of invisible windows which reveal the blue sky and the rest of the Louvre. In addition the floor has many openings which give a sense of continuity to the two exhibition floors”, explains Bellini.

The idea of creating a department devoted to Islamic Art was an ‘intelligent” one, says Bellini, particularly in times of international tension between religion and civility. “It is a gesture of understanding, exchange, acceptance and integration”, he said. Henry Loirette, president of the Louvre describes the new wing as “a decisive step in the architectural history of the building and the museum” which represents “the will to go forward. “ The inauguration is to include a series of events, lectures and screenings.

Guests include director Abbas Kiarostami, writer Orhan Pamuk and the artist Walid Raad.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

True Antidote to Fanaticism in Islam Itself, Hollande

At opening of Louvre’s new Islamic Arts wing

(ANSAmed) — PARIS, SEPTEMBER 18 — “The best weapons to fight so-called Islamic fanaticism are to be found within Islam itself”, French President Francois Hollande said at the opening of the Louvre’s new Islamic Arts wing on Tuesday.

The new wing was designed by architects Mario Bellini, from Milan, and Rudy Ricciotti, from Marseilles.

“The honor of Islamic civilizations is to be more ancient, more vital and more tolerant than those who today abusively claim to be speaking in their name”, Hollande said. “They are the exact opposite of the obscurantism that annihilates Islam’s principles and destroys its values, bringing violence and hate”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

UK: Conservatives Expect Barack Obama Re-Election in US

Tories admire president’s call for patience and believe British public receptive to hard long-term message from incumbents

Downing Street officials are preparing for what they expect will be victory for Barack Obama in the US presidential election in November and defeat for Mitt Romney, the Republican challenger, who is a natural Tory ally. Conservatives made strenuous efforts in the spring to build up their Republican links, including a meeting between the chancellor, George Osborne, and Paul Ryan, now Romney’s vice-presidential candidate. But they believe there is a strong personal relationship between Obama and David Cameron that dwarfs any political differences…

[JP note: They pretend they’re Tories and we pretend to clap.]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

UK: Family in Court Over Violent Bethnal Green Exorcism

A woman was whipped with a walking stick during a brutal exorcism organised by members of her own family, a court heard. Asma Hussain was tied to a bed and covered with holy water after relations became convinced she was possessed by a demon, the jury was told. Her husband Ahmed, 60, summoned the local Muslim preacher to carry out the ceremony and encouraged him to hit his wife harder, Snaresbrook Crown Court heard. Mrs Hussain’s back was described as “one massive bruise” and she also suffered injuries to her face and hands.

Ahmed Hussain, his son Mohammed, 28, daughter Salma, 22, daughter-in-law Halima Khatun, 28, and son-in-law Mohammed Azia, 21, are on trial accused of false imprisonment and assault occasioning actual bodily harm. They are said to have believed “black magic” had been cast on their victim. “It appears that members of Asma Hussain’s family believed that she was possessed by demons,” said prosecutor Babatunde Alabi. “As a result of this belief, it is alleged that they kept her captive in her own home, tying her to a bed in the living room. They also arranged for an imam to carry out an exorcism on her. During the course of the exorcism, she was held down, had water poured all over her and was beaten with a cane. For some unknown reason, it appears the defendants thought that Asma was possessed by a demon. They claimed her behaviour had changed and that her condition had deteriorated over a matter of weeks so they decided to deal with the matter by spiritual means.”

The exorcism, at the family home in Bethnal Green, is said to have been instigated by Ahmed Hussain last January. The attack continued into the early hours of the morning, the court heard. The previous day, Ahmed and Mohammed Hussain are said to have brought the imam to the home of another daughter, Shahana Hussain, where Asma had stayed overnight, telling her someone had put ‘black magic’ on her. On the day of the exorcism, Shahana Hussain became concerned after visiting her mother to find a relative removing a tie from her leg, it was said. She had bruising on her face and was crying and appeared to be distressed. Shahana later called police who attended the property with paramedics, to be told by Mohammed Hussain that his mother was possessed and in need of an exorcism, the court heard. “In the ambulance, a full assessment was carried out. When Asma’s top was lifted up, it was discovered her back was one massive bruise,” said the prosecutor. Ahmed Hussain, of Poplar, Mohammed Kayes Hussain, of Aldgate, Salma Hussain, Aziz, and Khatun, all of Shadwell, all deny assault occasioning actual bodily harm and false imprisonment. The trial continues.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

UK: Hyndburn Mosque Plans Hit Land Hitch

TALKS on a major new mosque have hit a stalemate over the ownership of land. Plans for landscaped gardens surrouding a mosque along the gateway into Accrington initially gained council backing when first raised in 2009. A Hyndburn Council meeting found the option to be the best available, if it was combined with a community centre. Now, however, religious leaders and the council are said to have hit a roadblock on whether the council-owned land, at Steiner Street, should be made available freehold or leasehold…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

UK: Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie — Review

The humiliations, the parties, the failures of analysis — Pankaj Mishra on Salman Rushdie’s memoir

Politics and literature,” Salman Rushdie wrote in 1984, in what now seems an innocent time, “do mix, are inextricably mixed, and that … mixture has consequences.” Criticising George Orwell for having advocated political quietism to writers, Rushdie asserted that “we are all irradiated by history, we are radioactive with history and politics” and that, “in this world without quiet corners, there can be no easy escapes from history, from hullabaloo, from terrible, unquiet fuss.”

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

UK: Rushdie Releases Memoirs as Anti-Islam Film Protests Rage

LONDON — As violent protests over a US-made film rock the Muslim world, Salman Rushdie publishes his account Tuesday of the decade he spent in hiding while under a fatwa for his book “The Satanic Verses”. With at least 19 people killed in a week of furious protests over the film, Rushdie’s candid memoir of the years spent on the run after he too was accused of mocking Islam, entitled “Joseph Anton”, has an added resonance. “A book which was critical of Islam would be difficult to be published now,” the Indian-born writer, 65, told BBC television in an interview broadcast Monday. “There’s a lot of fear and nervousness around.”

[…]

[JP note: Good timing.]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

UK: Shops Accused of Selling Illegal ‘Bush Meat’ At London Market

An undercover investigation has revealed a shocking trade in illegal “bush meat” at a London market. Grasscutter rats and “smokies” of charred sheep skin — both delicacies in West Africa — are being sold under the counter at a number of butchers at the Ridley Road market in Dalston, the BBC found. Secret filming revealed that six butchers and food stores were allegedly prepared to sell large quantities of meat that breaks food safety laws. West African and environmental health sources told the BBC the market was known for illicit meat. But a Freedom of Information request to Hackney council revealed that the last time its enforcement officers visited premises about illegal meat was in 2009.

Paul Povey, a member of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, said: “I am just so shocked. It’s all illegal and hasn’t undergone health control, hasn’t been inspected and may well be contaminated.” The BBC filmed butchers prepared to sell smokies, which are made by using a blow torch on the skin of a sheep or goat to give it a charred flavour. The practice is outlawed under UK and European food laws for reasons of public safety and animal welfare.

Dr Yunes Ramadan Teinaz, a chartered environmental health practitioner, said: “Behind the illicit trade in smokies are criminals who don’t observe the law and are just after financial gain. It is disgusting and outrageous that the local authorities don’t take action and remove this meat from the human food chain.” One Hackney butcher sold the BBC researcher some of the illicit meat and said: “Don’t tell anyone, otherwise there will be trouble.” Two African food stores were selling the grasscutter rats, described as having been imported from Ghana. There is no suggestion that every butcher in Ridley Road was prepared to deal in illegal meat.

Confronted with BBC London’s evidence, Islam Halal Meat, Punjab Halal Meat and Fish and Dalston Butchers denied they were selling illegal meat. The manageress of food store Great Expectations, which allegedly sold two Ghanaian rats to the BBC researcher, said: “I don’t sell rats, I never sell rats, I don’t sell rats. I don’t have any rats, why you come to video me?” The manageress of Adom Trading also denied selling bush meat. “What you are saying is a lie, a 100 per cent lie, I don’t sell rats,” she said…

[JP note: ‘We have no rats,’ said Ali Basharat ruefully.]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

UK: Top Authors Denounce $500,000 New Bounty on Rushdie

Iranian foundation raises reward for execution of dormant 1989 fatwa, citing anti-Mohamed film

Best-selling authors rallied to support Sir Salman Rushdie last night over the announcement by an Iranian religious foundation that it was raising its bounty for his murder. Sir Salman is in New York where he is promoting the publication of a memoir chronicling his time living under a fatwa imposed by the late Ayatollah Khomeini over his novel, The Satanic Verses. The tour has been overshadowed by a declaration from religious leader Hassan Sanei, head of the semi-official 15 Khordad Foundation, that he was adding another $500,000 to the hardline group’s existing reward of $2.8m for killing the novelist. It raised the bounty in protest at the online film The Innocence of Muslims which has sparked violent outrage in parts of the Islamic world. “Surely if the sentence of the Imam [Khomeini] had been carried out, the later insults in the form of caricatures, articles and the making of movies would not have occurred,” Ayatollah Sanei said. The British Government called for urgent action against the foundation…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

UK: Where Charity Begins

As Britain’s foreign aid budget soars, we are entitled to know precisely where our money is going

One reshuffled minister who has no need to worry about her departmental budget is Justine Greening, the International Development Secretary. Despite an age of austerity that is requiring cuts across the public sector, the department’s budget will rise by 37 per cent during this parliament. The people of this country, who are already generous with their voluntary contributions to charities abroad, will donate an extra £300 on average per household through their taxes. The aim is for Britain to increase aid spending to the UN target of 0.7 per cent of GDP, even as output falls and disposable income declines.

This controversial policy is justified by the Coalition on the grounds that the poorest people in the world should not have to suffer for the economic downturn in the wealthier West. This is a laudable attitude, albeit one that is easier to adopt with other people’s money. But the taxpayer must be certain of one thing above all — that it is being spent wisely and efficiently. We are assured that it no longer ends up in the Swiss bank accounts of Third World despots; and yet, as The Sunday Telegraph disclosed at the weekend, substantial sums are paid out in consultancy fees that clearly never get anywhere near an impoverished village or a starving child.

Lord Ashcroft, who was made a government adviser in the reshuffle, has written to Miss Greening urging her to “turn off the golden taps and stop flooding the developing world with our money”. In view of the commitments consistently given by David Cameron, this is not going to happen. So it is gratifying to learn that Miss Greening — an accountant by profession — is going through the aid budget line by line to ensure value for money is forthcoming. This is the least the country can expect. We are entitled to know precisely where our money is going and to whom.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

North Africa

Algeria: 22% of Population Still Illiterate

Significant results since independence

(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, SEPTEMBER 14 — Six million Algerians out of a population of 37 million are illiterate, a little over 22 %, according to the most recent official data on literacy on which authorities have significantly invested since the country’s independence 50 years ago.

Though six million are a lot, statistics show that school attendance in among six to 12-year-olds is 93%. Seven percent of children don’t go to school for a variety of reasons including a ‘reduced physical capacities’( 12%), a category embracing a number of issues.

School is often abandoned in rural areas where some parents force their children to work in the fields, especially girls.

Security also plays a role in some areas, where Islamic terrorists operate as parents fear for their children’s safety, along with transport problems in the country’s vast rural regions.

According to experts with Algerian association IQRAA, which studies education, if the country will continue to invest as it has in past decades continuing to consider instruction a top priority, illiteracy will fall by 10 percentage points by 2018 to 12%.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Anti-Islam Film: Egypt Indicts Nine Emigrated Copts

Including director, producer. Copt gets 6 years for FB cartoon

(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, SEPTEMBER 18 — Egypt’s attorney general has indicted nine Coptic citizens who emigrated to the US on charges stemming from the production of the film that triggered protests throughout the Islamic world, Egyptian media reported on Tuesday.

The charges against director Elia Bassili, alleged producer Maurice Sadek and seven other people include attacking the Prophet Mohammed, fomenting religious hatred, and attempting to dismember the country.

Also on Tuesday, an appeals court in Sohag, in Upper Egypt, sentenced Beshoy el Beheri, a Copt, to six years in prison for publishing cartoons deemed to be degrading to the Prophet Mohammed and to President Mohamed Morsi on his Facebook page in August of last year. Beheri had denied the charges, claiming he was not the owner of that Facebook account.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Egypt: Cleric Issues Fatwa Against ‘Innocence of Muslims’ Cast, Crew

WASHINGTON: A Salafist cleric in Egypt is calling for the deaths of all those involved in the making of an anti-Muslim film that has outraged the Islamic world, SITE Intelligence Group said on Monday. In a statement, the terrorism monitoring service said Ahmad Fouad Ashoush issued his fatwa, or religious edict, against the cast and crew of “ Innocence of Muslims” via jihadist internet forums over the weekend…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Egypt Wants 7 Coptic Christians and Pastor Jones on Trial

(AGI) Cairo, 18 Sept- Egyptian judges are charging seven Coptic Christians living abroad, including the producer of the Islamophobic film “Innocence of Muslims” Nakoula Basseley Nakoula and his friend Morris Sadek, and the US pastor behind “Burn a Koran Day”, Terry Jones, with the crime of insulting Islam. Egyptian authorities stated that the accused risk the death penalty and have asked for their extradition to Egypt.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

Egypt to Try 7 Copts, US Pastor Over Prophet Film

Egypt’s general prosecutor has issued arrest warrants for seven Egyptian Coptic Christians and a Florida-based American pastor and referred them to trial on charges linked to an anti-Islam film that has sparked riots across the Muslim world.

The prosecutor’s office says the seven men and one woman, all of whom are believed to be outside of Egypt, are charged with harming national unity, insulting and publicly attacking Islam and spreading false information. The office says they could face the death penalty.

A statement from the prosecutor on Tuesday says Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, an Egyptian Copt living in southern California and believed to be behind the film, is among those charged. So is Florida-based Pastor Terry Jones, who has said he was contacted by the filmmaker to promote the video.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]

Libya: New Book Reveals Gaddafi’s Hunger for Sexual Slaves

Dictator preyed on 100s of adolescents, French journalist writes

(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, SEPTEMBER 18 — Bab-al-Azizia was not just Muammar Gaddafi’s citadel in the heart of Tripoli, nor just the emblem of a decades-long dictatorship. It was also, according to a new book by French journalist Annick Cojean, one of Dante’s circles of hell, reserved for the victims of the Colonel’s voracious sexual appetites.

Titled The Prey, the book tells the stories of girls like Soraya, 25, who spent five years at Bab-al-Azizia. At 15, she was noticed by the Colonel’s personal bodyguards in a Sirte high school. Within a few hours, she was torn from family and school and taken to Gaddafi’s court at Tripoli. Here, she says, she was made to wear revealing clothes, to smoke, drink alcohol, and take cocaine. This was a fate common to adolescents of both genders during the Gaddafi regime, Cojean says in her book. The dictator’s vast network of flesh peddlers, all of them eager to ingratiate themselves with the Colonel, included diplomats, employees, members of his protocol, and the military, Cojean writes.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Seven US-Resident Egyptians Charged Over ‘Innocence’ Movie

(AGI) — Cairo, 18 Sep — Egyptian prosecutors have opened proceedings against Coptic Egyptian citizens involved in the making of the Innocence of Muslims. Charges of “insulting the Islamic religion and its Prophet” and of “inciting sectarian conflict” are being pressed against seven US-resident Egyptians, namely Morris Sadek, Adel Riad, Nabil Bissada, Esmat Zaklama, Elia Bassily, Ihab Yaacoub and Jack Atallah.

Prosecution is yet to set a trial date.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

Israel and the Palestinians

PNA: EU Commissione: 100 Mln Extra Funds for Palestinians

Money for water, supporting refugees and part of West Bank

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, SEPTEMBER 17 — The European Commission today announced new funding of 100 million euros for the Palestinians in the areas of water and sanitation and supporting refugees, as well as a package of support to Area C (the part of the West Bank under direct Israeli occupation), among other things.

“The decision — EU Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy, Stefan Fule said — shows our commitment to help the people of Palestine in the areas which are vital to their everyday lives, such as water, public services and infrastructure. It also shows our determination to do all we can to support Palestinian refugees living outside the OPT— providing them with an education and access to essential healthcare and social services”. The EU is the largest donor to the Palestinian territories. The funding announced today brings the EU’s aid for 2012 to a total of 200 million euros, to which a further 100 million euros of 2011 credits to be spent in 2012 should be added.

The new funding will specifically go towards improving the access, the quality of water and solid waste management in Gaza, as well as working with other donors on land-fill and sanitary solid-waste disposal. Additional funding for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNWRA) will provide support on education, health, relief and social services for Palestine refugees in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Will Israel Stay Zionist?

by Paul Goodman

To Israel and Palestine…

I hope the Palestinian developer we met near Ramallah was a Muslim, because this would add an extra dimension to the story I’m about to tell. He is helping to construct a city — the first purpose-built one in part of what I hope will become the state of Palestine — called Rawabi. His Israeli suppliers must sometimes transport their goods to the fledgling city by lorry. A small road through which these big vehicles travel borders a vineyard owned by a local priest who the developer must thus — in his own word — “schmooze”. I am taken by the idea of a Muslim developer with Jewish business partners charming a Christian priest in Yiddish.

This tale of civic ambition eased by ethnic co-operation is a by-product of my first visit to Israel and Palestine, courtesy of BICOM. Rawabi is situated where the respective crossroads from Nablus to Ramallah and from Tel Aviv to Amman meet. The country throws up political, economic and cultural highways and byways, and there are many to take. Some are internal: the social protests that saw 300,000 people take to the streets last summer, the dotty destructiveness of its electoral system (pure proportional representation plus no parliamentary constituencies), the jaw-dropping success of its high-tech industries. And some are external: the possibility of Syria’s collapse spilling into Israel, the new Salafist terror presence in the Sinai — a danger to Egypt and Israel alike — and, above all, the probability of an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities that could ignite a regional conflict and destabilise the world’s economy…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Zahhar: Gaza More Secure Than West Bank

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Seven years after Israel disengaged from the Gaza Strip, several things have changed both at the political and the economic level, Hamas official Mahmoud Zahhar said Friday.

Speaking to Ma’an, Zahhar asserted that “Gaza is free of occupation, and contiguity with the outside world is easier as visitors from all over the world visited the coastal enclave.”

He added that one year after the disengagement local and parliamentary elections took place in 2006. “Fatah turned against the outcome of elections, a siege has been imposed and the former Egyptian regime practiced certain policies including closure of the Rafah crossing.”

Despite all of that, he said, the economic situation has improved noticeably and the Gaza Strip became self-reliant in several aspects because lands in former Israeli settlements were planted. “We are self-dependent in several aspects except petroleum and electricity.”

Asked to comment on the protests in the West Bank against the deteriorating economic conditions, Zahhar said that was a natural result of economic reliance on the United States and Israel who completely control the Palestinian economy…

           — Hat tip: ES [Return to headlines]

Middle East

Concern Over ‘Qaeda Ideology’ In Protests — Sleeping Cells Have Awakened

KUWAIT: Senior state officials have expressed concern about the emergence of extremist views during the recent protest outside the US embassy against a movie offending Islam and the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH). Speaking to Al- Qabas on the condition of anonymity, the sources said that “the appearance of Al-Qaeda’s ideologies, mottos and banners” during the demonstration could be an indication that “sleeping cells that have awakened”. And while the officials said that the offenses displayed by the movie are “unacceptable”, they indicated that the protest expressed during the gathering “reflected an extremist and violent ideology”, wondering at the same time if “certain people are seeking to make use of this issue to achieve certain gains”.

The sources further called authorities to launches immediate efforts to “prosecute individuals behind potential sleeping cells before they can make use of the instability created by the situation of the political scene”. “The threat is not posed by the gathering of nearly 300 people, but by the emergence of Al- Qaeda’s ideology”, the sources said. Meanwhile, three people, identified as two Kuwaiti citizens and one stateless resident, were sent to the Criminal Investigations General Department after being arrested by Hawally police over an attempt to raid the American embassy. According to a source familiar with the investigations, the three have already indicated that their actions were motivated by their attempts to “express their outrage” against the movie. In the meantime, Islamist MP Mohammad Hayef and a number of religious leaders have urged the public to avoid attending any gathering in protest against the movie “unless after verifying its goals”, and called organizers to bear full responsibility for what takes place during the demonstrations.

“Boycotting the company that produced and promotes the movie can help prevent any attempt to attack Islamic sanctities”, said a member of the annulled 2012 parliament Dr Obaid Al-Wasmi. Meanwhile, fellow member Ammar Al-Ajmi urged the Kuwaiti government to “summon the US ambassador and express the stern rejection of the Kuwaiti people and Muslims worldwide” for the movie. Al-Ajmi also called for “making sure that any person who commits a similar crime is trailed and punished” to send send a clear message to the US government that their stance allowed fools to offend Muslims’ beliefs”. Meanwhile, 2012 parliament member Badr Al-Dahoum criticized the “We are all Osama” chants heard during the protest in front of the US embassy, while fellow member Faisal Al-Yahya argued that “spreading Mohammad’s(PBUH) message of justice and ethics” is the best way to defend the Prophet (PBUH). MP Adnan Al-Abdulsamad said in the meantime that “the repeated offenses against Islam and the Prophet (PBUH) justify unifying efforts to address the real dangers threatening them”.

Also, 2012 parliament member Mohammad Al-Dallal called the Kuwait Lawyers Association to “coordinate with lawyers unions in Muslim countries around the world in order to take legal actions against any party that offends the Prophet (PBUH). Al-Dallal also called for establishing a fund supervised by the International Islamic Charitable Organization “to defend and spread the message of Mohammad (PBUH)”. Meanwhile, another 2012 parliament member Dr Ahmad Al-Azmi demanded “a firm step to demand an apology from the United States and actions against the movie’s producers”.

           — Hat tip: RR [Return to headlines]

Iran Deploys Russian-Made Submarine in Gulf

Tehran has deployed one of its Russian-made submarines in the Persian Gulf, just days after the United States and more than two dozen allies began naval exercises nearby, Iranian state television reported Tuesday.

The Taregh-1 joined the Iranian fleet in the southern port of Bandar Abbas after it was overhauled earlier this year, according to the TV report. It’s one of three Russian Kilo class submarines that Iran obtained in the early 1990s.

In May, Iran redeployed another Russian-made submarine after repairs.

The report also showed the launch of what was said to be the partially completed hull of a destroyer, the Sahand, which the TV said is expected to be ready in the near future.

Both launches came under the command of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters. He said Iran has no intention of invading other countries.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]

Iran: Bounty on Salman Rushdie Increased to $3.3 Million

Iran will pursue makers of anti-Islam film: vice-presidenthor

DUBAI — Iran’s government will “track down” those responsible for making an amateurish film clip mocking the Prophet Mohammad, a senior official said, Iranian media reported on Monday. The video made in California and posted on YouTube portrayed the Prophet Mohammad as a womaniser and a fool. It has ignited a week of violent protests across the Muslim world. “The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns … this inappropriate and offensive action,” First Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi said, according to the Mehr news agency. “Certainly it will search for, track, and pursue this guilty person who … has insulted 1.5 billion Muslims in the world.”

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Lebanon: Fatwa Issued Against ‘Innocence of Muslims’ Film Producer

Hizbollah warned of “very dangerous” global repercussions if an anti-Islam film is released in its entirety, as a fatwa was issued against the film’s producer who has gone into hiding with his family…

[JP note: There’s that F word again: there are probably more fatwas flying around than you could shake a hairy koran at!]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Syria’s Assad to Purge Top Sunni Armed Forces Officials

(AGI) — Rome, 18 Sep — Italy-Syria Observatory sources claim Syria’s Assad is preparing to purge Sunnis from the armed forces. With ties to Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood, the Iraqi sources quoted by the Observatory say that in efforts to rein in revolts Syrian president has set up an elite Alawi force.

Planning to remove top Sunni armed forces officials from their posts by close of year, Assad is also claimed to have already pressed ahead with the purge within the air force and missiles departments.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

Syrian Rebels Put $25 Million Bounty on President’s Head

(AGI) — Rome, Sept. 18 — Syrian rebels have put a $25 million reward on the head of President Bashar al Assad, “dead or alive.” The reward offer came from the commander of the Free Syrian Army, who did not wish to reveal his name, the online edition of the Israeli newspaper “Hareetz” reports.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

The Truth About Muhammad and Aisha

by Myriam Francois-Cerrah

Innocence of Muslims repeated the claim Muhammad was a paedophile, but the story is more complex and interesting than that

Writing about Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, the Orientalist scholar W Montgomery Watt wrote: “Of all the world’s great men, none has been so much maligned as Muhammad.” His quote seems all the more poignant in light of the Islamophobic film Innocence of Muslims, which has sparked riots from Yemen to Libya and which, among other slanders, depicts Muhammad as a paedophile. This claim is a recurring one among critics of Islam, so its foundation deserves close scrutiny…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Turkey’s Towering Ambition

by Hugh Eakin

In March 1548, having brought the Ottoman Empire to the height of its power, Suleiman the Magnificent decided to build a mosque in Istanbul. “At that time,” an anonymous chronicler explains,

His Highness the world-ruling sultan realized the impermanence of the base world and the necessity to leave behind a monument so as to be commemorated till the end of time…Following the devout path of former sultans, he ordered the construction of a matchless mosque complex for his own noble self.

In late May of this year, Recep Tayyip Erdogan—Turkey’s powerful prime minister, a devout Muslim, and the self-styled leader of the new Middle East—announced that he would be erecting his own grand mosque above the Bosphorus. It will be more prominent than Suleiman’s. The chosen site—the Büyük Çamlica Tepesi, or Big Çamlica Hill, overlooking the city’s Asian shore—is 268 meters above sea level; it is easily the most conspicuous point of land in greater metropolitan Istanbul. (A favorite look-out spot, it is here that the protagonist in Namik Kemal’s late Ottoman novel Awakening (1876) begins a tragic love affair with a woman of loose morals.)

[…]

The larger irony is that in calling for a huge new mosque in the tradition of Sinan, Erdogan may be missing the more fundamental lesson of the Ottoman architect’s work. As Bruno Taut, the German architect who emigrated to Turkey to flee the Nazis, argued, Sinan was himself a proto-modernist whose ability to create extraordinary beauty from novel engineering had more in common with twentieth-century German functionalism than earlier Islamic architecture. Rather than imitating his predecessors’ designs, he continuously sought out new and more subtle ways to surpass them. Sinan aimed to be more elegant than his Byzantine and Ottoman forebears; Erdogan, it seems, just wants to be taller.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Russia

Russia Claims to Have Found Huge Diamond Deposit in Field

Russian scientists are claiming that a gigantic deposit of industrial diamonds found in a huge Siberian meteorite crater during Soviet times could revolutionize industry.

The Siberian branch of Russian Academy of Sciences said that the Popigai crater in eastern Siberia contains “many trillions of carats” of so-called “impact diamonds” — good for technological purposes, not for jewelry, and far exceeding the currently known global deposits of conventional diamonds.

Nikolai Pokhilenko, the head of the Geological and Mineralogical Institute in Novosibirsk, told RIA Novosti news agency Monday that the diamonds include other molecular forms of carbon. He said they could be twice as hard as conventional diamonds and therefore have superlative industrial qualities.

He said the minerals could lead to a “revolution” in various industries. “But they can’t upset a diamond market because it is shaped by diamonds for jewelry purposes.”

The deposit was discovered by Soviet scientists in the 1970s, but was left unexplored as the Soviet leadership opted for producing synthetic diamonds for industrial use. The deposit remained classified until after the Soviet collapse.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]

Caucasus

A Letter From a Scared Actress

A few years ago, a message came in to this website on the FAQ line from a young actress from Georgia (the one from the former USSR, not the State with Atlanta in it) called Anna Gurji. She sent a link to her webpage and to films she had made in Georgia, and told me she was a fan, and if she ever came to the US, she would want to be in something of mine…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

South Asia

Afghanistan: Suicide Attack: Anti-Islam Film ‘Innocence of Muslims’ Sparks Deadly Violence Yet Again

Early Tuesday morning, in a blatant Afghanistan suicide attack, a 22-year-old female belonging to the militant terrorist group Hezbi-Islami (who have ties to the Taliban) drove a car filled with 600 lbs. of explosives purposefully into an oncoming mini-bus, containing between eight to ten “foreigners,” on the highway leading to Kabul National Airport while simultaneously igniting her munitions load via her suicide vest…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Afghanistan: Suicide Bomber Hits Foreigners on Kabul Bus

Up to 12 people are reported to have been killed in a suicide bomb attack on a minibus carrying foreigners near the Afghan capital, Kabul.

Eight South Africans were killed in the attack which took place on a major road leading to the international airport. Afghan insurgent group Hezb-e-Islami has claimed responsibility for the blast, which it says was in response to a recent anti-Islam video. It comes as Nato says it will restrict operations with Afghan forces from now. A South African foreign affairs ministry spokesman told the AFP news agency the eight victims worked for a private aviation company. “We have identified those who have been killed, but we cannot release their names until we have notified their next of kin,” Nelson Kgwete, a spokesman for South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Co-operation told the BBC. “This is the first time that we’ve had South Africans killed in such a manner in the region.”

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

‘Blasphemous’ Film Protests in Thailand and Indonesia

(AGI) Bangkok — About 200 people protested the “blasphemous” American film about the Prophet Mohammed in front of the U.S.

consulate in Medan, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Some of the demonstrators set fire to American flags. About 500 Muslims, including women and children, protested in front of the U.S. embassy in Bangkok, Thailand. The demonstrators were accompanied by 200 police officers and went ahead without incident.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

NATO Scales Back Joint Operations With Afghan Forces

Nato-led forces are scaling back joint operations with Afghan forces after a spate of “insider attacks” in which Afghan recruits turned their weapons on Western allies, officers said on Tuesday.

The move marked a setback for the coalition’s war strategy, as the planned withdrawal of Western troops hinges on training and advising Afghan forces to take over security by the end of 2014. Under the new order, most joint patrols and advisory work with Afghan troops will only be conducted at the battalion level and above, while co-operation with smaller units will have to be “evaluated on a case-by-case basis and approved by RC (regional) commanders”, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement. As the so-called “green-on-blue” attacks have grown, US commanders have gradually acknowledged the assaults pose a serious threat to the war effort and have struggled to stem the problem. The commander of US and Nato troops in Afghanistan, General John Allen, “has directed all operational commanders to review force protection and tactical activities in the light of the current circumstances,” a US military officer in Washington said in an email. “This guidance was given at the recommendation of, and in conjunction with, key Afghan leaders,” said the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

NATO Afghan Decision: Philip Hammond Urged to Address MPs

Defence Secretary Philip Hammond is facing calls to make a statement to MPs on Nato’s decision to scale down joint patrols with Afghan forces.

Two British soldiers were killed at the weekend, in one of a series of attacks by “rogue” Afghan troops. Nato’s change of strategy comes a day after Mr Hammond insisted such attacks would not “derail” its operations. Labour MP Denis MacShane urged Mr Hammond to make a second statement, updating the Commons on the situation. Sergeant Gareth Thursby and Private Thomas Wroe, both of 3rd Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment, were shot dead on Saturday by a rogue Afghan soldier who turned on them after faking injury…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Newsweek’s ‘Muslim Rage’: A Sickening Piece of Shock Journalism That Cheapens a Once Great Magazine

by Rob Crilly

As angry protests spread through the Muslim world, I knew where to head. The Red Mosque is only a five minute drive from my home in Islamabad and protests were planned for the end of Friday prayers. Pakistan has a reputation for extremism and the mosque was once the scene of a bloody showdown with security forces that ended with hundreds dead and injured. If there was to be trouble, it would be there. By the time I arrived the crowd had already peaked at about 30. There were rabble rousers to be sure, but on a nice September afternoon most of the worshippers watched from a distance, bought an ice cream and headed home to their families.

None of that matters to Tina Brown and her increasingly threadbare magazine Newsweek. Sensational covers now seem to be the only way to keep selling the magazine, whether it’s declaring Obama to be the first gay president or a recycled picture of asparagus spears and a juicy pair of lips to tease customers into parting with their change. This week hits the Islamaphobia button and looks like it has come straight from a storyboard laid out by Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the fraudster behind Innocence of Muslims. Two men — bearded and therefore we must assume Muslims — grab at each other in a terrifying portrait of anger, headlined “Muslim Rage”. The close-cropped image is a masterpiece of its kind, robbing the subjects of context. It could be a picture of two men who have just watched their football team go behind. It could be a funeral. It might be a crowd of 5 rather than 5000. None of that matters. Instead we are expected to think one thing: They are coming for us…

[JP note: They are indeed.]

[Reader comment by bundamba on 18 September 2012 at about 11 am.]

There is no room for islam in any democracy.

[Reader comment by Simon Norwich on 18 September 2012 at about 1015 am.]

Rob Crilly, I look forward to you visiting the 12 families of those blown up by the suicide bomber in Afghanistan today as a protest against the anti-Muslim film, the 3000 families bereaved after 9/11, the 50 families bereaved after 7/7, and the millions of women who had the misfortune to be born in the Islamic world and so forced to live their whole lives in subservience (boy, you sure have a lot of time on your hands!) and telling them that there’s no such thing as “Muslim Rage”. And you’d better hurry in any case, because there are thousands more women throughout the Islamic world who will soon be killed for “dishonouring” their families.

Of course not all “Muslims” seek to kill or physically abuse other people, but Islam generates a mindset that provokes vast numbers of Muslims to do abhorant things and to have no respect for freedom and democracy. As for the majority who keep themselves to themselves — that’s exactly what they do! They are still so affected by the mindset of Islam (or the “rage” of the extremeists) that they fail to stamp out the dangerous behaviour of the extremists. There is nothing like the total unequivocal condemnation of the extremists that would be the case in non-Muslim countries and communities.

[Reader comment by spencerisright on 18 September 2012 at about 1015 am.]

Am I reading the guardian or the telegraph? Get rid of this fool before we see him on the internet in an orange suit. (Sorry)

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Troops Out! Pressure Grows to Stop Wasting Lives in Afghanistan

‘Green on blue’ killings are last straw for politicians who agree British lives are being sacrificed needlessly

CRACKS are growing in the cross-party consensus on the war in Afghanistan because of the increasing number of British soldiers being killed by the Afghan recruits they are meant to train. The Daily Mail today leads the charge with its report of the murder of Private Tom Wroe, 18, and Sgt Gareth Thursby, 29, a father of two, by an Afghan security recruit under the headline: ‘How many more wasted lives?’

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

US Suspends Most Joint Operations With Afghan Forces

The U.S. military has suspended the bulk of joint field operations with Afghan troops amid a wave of so-called insider attacks and concern about protests over an anti-Islam film.

Fox News has learned that while U.S. troops are still patrolling, as are the Afghans, the two sides are not running operations together for the time being without special approval.

Until now, U.S. and NATO troops routinely conducted operations with their Afghan counterparts. But under the new order, such operations will now require the approval of a regional commander. Fox News was told the step is a temporary measure.

The move comes after Afghan police on Sunday killed four American soldiers, and a gunman in an Afghan militia uniform shot dead two British soldiers a day earlier. It also comes in the wake of the week-long wave of protests across the Muslim world over an anti-Islam film.

NATO’s International Security Assistance Force put out a statement stressing that ISAF took “some prudent, but temporary, measures to reduce our profile and vulnerability to civil disturbances or insider attacks” in response to the protests.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]

Far East

Chinese General: Prepare for Combat

Top Chinese general in unusual move tells troops to ready for combat with Japan

By Bill Gertz

China’s most powerful military leader, in an usual public statement, last week ordered military forces to prepare for combat, as Chinese warships deployed to waters near disputed islands and anti-Japan protests throughout the country turned violent.

Protests against the Japanese government’s purchase of three privately held islands in the Senkakus chain led to mass street protests, the burning of Japanese flags, and attacks on Japanese businesses and cars in several cities. Some carried signs that read “Kill all Japanese,” and “Fight to the Death” over disputed islands. One sign urged China to threaten a nuclear strike against Japan.

Gen. Xu Caihou, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, considered the most senior military political commissar, said Friday that military forces should be “prepared for any possible military combat,” state run Xinhua news agency reported.

Heightened tensions over the Senkakus come as Defense Secretary Leon Panetta arrived in China Monday.

Panetta, in comments made in Japan shortly before traveling to China, said, “We are concerned by the demonstrations, and we are concerned by the conflict that is taking place over the Senkaku islands.”

“The message I have tried to convey is we have to urge calm and restraint on all sides,” he said, noting any “provocation” could produce a “blow up.”

Panetta repeated the U.S. position that it is neutral in the dispute over Japan’s Senkaku islands, a small chain of islets located south of Okinawa and north of Taiwan. But he also reaffirmed the U.S. defense commitment to Japan, a treaty ally…

           — Hat tip: DS [Return to headlines]

Chinese Ships Sail Into Waters Near Disputed Islands

Chinese ships have entered waters surrounding the disputed islands. Media have also reported a flotilla of about 1,000 Chinese fishing boats en route to the area and further anti-Japan protests in China.

The Chinese government dispatched ships to the disputed island chain on Tuesday after learning that Japanese activists had briefly occupied one of the islands. The two activists left a small boat offshore and swam to the island before returning home.

“The unlawful landing of the Japanese right-wingers on the Chinese territory of the Diaoyu islands was a gravely provocative action violating Chinese territorial sovereignty,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in a statement. Japan refers to the islands as Senkaku.

Last week, Japan announced that it had completed the purchase of the islands from Japanese private owners.

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, in China for unrelated meetings, called for restraint. A strong ally of Japan, the United States has not taken sides in the dispute.

“We reserve the right to take further action, although we hope to settle the issue through peaceful negotiation,” state media quoted Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie as saying after he met with Panetta on Tuesday.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]

Oil Reserves at Heart of Japan-China Island Dispute

It all comes down to black gold. Anti-Japan protests erupted in at least 100 Chinese cities on Tuesday, as anger over a struggle for control of oil and gas in the East China Sea turned violent, and increased the tension between the countries.

The focal point is a dispute over a remote island chain known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, lying east of China and south-west of Japan (see map). The US handed them to Japan after the second world war, but China says that it has a prior claim. Japan recently purchased several of the islands back from a private Japanese owner, and their nationalisation has ratcheted up anger in China.

“There is potential oil and gas,” says Pui-Kwan Tse of the US Geological Survey. It’s not clear how much is there, or whether it would be economical to drill for it.

However, the East China Sea is rich in oil and gas reserves, many of which have only been discovered in recent decades. China and Japan are both eager to stake a claim: China’s energy demand is growing rapidly, and Japan’s reserves are limited.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]

Australia — Pacific

Girls Are Not Free to Speak Out in Islamic Countries

I AM so disheartened to read that an eight-year-old Muslim girl living in Australia has such a strong desire for jihad and to live under sharia law.

I wonder if she understands that her right to speak to men, or to be educated, or to live in the freedom she experiences here in Australia, would not exist under extremist Muslim laws. If she lived in certain Middle East countries and was unfortunate enough to be raped, she could be stoned to death. What have we done, in our compassionate embrace of multiculturalism, to deserve this lack of respect for our own culture?

Daphne Thompson, Middle Ridge, Qld

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Retrial Granted for Afghan Refugee Who Killed His Wife After Complaining She Was Too Australian

AN Afghan refugee who killed his wife after complaining she had become “too Australia” has been granted a retrial.

Soltan Ahmad Azizi was jailed for a minimum of 17 1/2 years in 2010 after he strangled Marzieh Rahimi with her veil at the couple’s Hampton Park home in 2007.

The mother-of five was killed in front of the couple’s three-month-old toddler and baby, 22 months.

Azizi allegedly admitted killing his wife and even called the police afterwards, telling them, ‘You can handcuff me now.”

But in calling for an appeal, lawyers for Azizi argued jurors in the original trial were subject to inadmissible or prejudicial evidence.

They claimed alleged statements by Ms Rahimi about previous physical, psychological and emotional abouse by Azizi were not relevant and should have been excluded.

The trial heard Ms Rahimi had complained that her husband had been violent since the first night of their marriage and she wanted a divorce.

It was also claimed Ms Rahimi, 33, had told social workers her husband had branded her a slave with no rights.

The court heard Azizi believed he could dominate his wife and at times had locked her out of their Hampton Park home.

Just days before killing her, he had complained to his sister-in-law in a phone call that his wife was not docile enough and had become “too Australian”.

The jury was told Azizi told police he didn’t plan to kill Ms Rahimi.

He allegedly said he punched her, then “choked her with her veil”; he then rang 000, telling the operator, “I killed my wife . . . come see. You come. My kids are only little.”

Azizi pleaded not guilty to murder, with his lawyers claiming he had not intended to kill his wife.

But a jury found him guilty of murder.

In seeking an appeal, lawyers also argued the jury was not left to decide an alternative verdict of defensive homicide, a law intended to shield battered women from murder convictions.

The law carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in jail; the maximum for murder is life imprisonment.

           — Hat tip: Nilk [Return to headlines]

The Anti-Muslim MP Not Allowed to Visit Australia

by Paul Sheehan

My hands are tied. This, in essence, is the response that Chris Bowen, the Minister for Immigration, has given to questions in Parliament this week about why he granted a visa to an Islamic fundamentalist, Taji Mustafa, who spoke over the weekend at a conference organised by Hizb ut-Tahrir, a group notorious for religious intolerance, disdain for Western values and sympathy for jihad.

“Hizb ut-Tahrir has not been proscribed in Australia and nor has it been proscribed in the United States or the United Kingdom,” Bowen told Parliament on Monday. “This entry permit was issued in accordance with the normal procedures for British nationals.”

So Taji Mustafa came, spoke, and, by unfortunate coexistence, the weekend was marked by a violent demonstration by a group of rabidly anti-Western Islamic fundamentalists in Sydney.

What nobody knew was that at the same time, the minister had been sitting on a visa application by a member of the Dutch parliament who is an outspoken opponent of Islamic fundamentalism in the Netherlands and Belgium.

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More than three weeks ago, the Dutch MP, Geert Wilders, applied for a visa to visit Australia. Visa applications by his support group of police and staff were granted within three days. Wilders is still waiting. He applied in August.

Wilders is scheduled to give two speeches in Australia in October. Because of his parliamentary obligations, if Bowen continues to sit on the application Wilders will have to cancel the trip. That may be Bowen’s intent.

Wilders has already paid a high price for his willingness to confront religious fundamentalism in his own country. He lives under 24-hour police protection. He has had numerous threats on his life.

Being a prominent critic of Islamic fundamentalism is highly dangerous in the Netherlands, which has a large Muslim population. The most conspicuous critics of Muslim extremism in Holland, prior to Wilders, were a film director, Theo Van Gogh and another member of the Dutch parliament, Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Both were subject to numerous death threats. Van Gogh was stabbed to death on a street in Amsterdam. Hirsi Ali was subjected to several assassination attempts. She was forced to live in secret locations. She left the country permanently and now lives in the United States.

Now Wilders, by condemning Muslim extremism, is himself condemned to live with menace, which proves his point…

           — Hat tip: Nilk [Return to headlines]

What Do You Want to Know About Islam?

A low-budget film about Islam that has been dubbed highly offensive by some and ridiculous by others has sparked a wave of protests around the world since last Tuesday. Over the weekend, anger spread to the West, with violence erupting in Sydney and London. Six police were injured in the Sydney clashes and several protesters arrested, sending Australia’s Muslim leaders into damage control and prompting them to to call for calm…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Sub-Saharan Africa

Boko Haram Terrorists Kill Nigerian State Attorney General

(AGI) Abuja — The attorney general for Nigeria’s Borno State, Zanna Malam Gana, was murdered by Boko Haram terrorists on Monday, hours after the shooting death of two of the group’s leaders. Boko Haram is an Islamic terror group linked to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI). The Nigerian government confirmed that a group shot Gana in his hometown of Bama, an isolated sub-Saharan center, which is about 100 km from Borno’s state capital of Maiduguri. On receving the news, the state’s governor, Kashim Shettima, left the federal capital of Abuja, where he had gone to receive a prize in journalism and returned home. The former director of Nigeria’s prison system, Ibrahim Jarma, and his bodyguard were murdered by two terrorists on Monday night at the entrance of a mosque in the city of Azare in northeastern Bauchi State. Another person was wounded.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

Immigration

Boat Carrying 139 Immigrants Stopped Off Tunisian Coast

(AGI) Tunis — A boat carrying 139 immigrants to Italy has been stopped by the Coast Guard off the Tunisian coast according to the local TAP news agency which emphasized that most of those on board came from southern Tunisia. The vessel was stopped off the Island of Djerba. On September 7th another vessel carrying over 100 Tunisians sunk off the island of Lampedusa and only 56 people were saved.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

General

Looking Back at Salman Rushdie’s the Satanic Verses

Writers, broadcasters, friends and publishing insiders recall what it was like to be caught up in the most controversial story in recent literary history, The Satanic Verses and the ensuing fatwa against its author, as Salman Rushdie prepares to bring out his eagerly awaited memoir

Geoffrey Robertson QC

Defended Salman Rushdie in the blasphemy case brought against The Satanic Verses

On Valentine’s Day 1989, the dying Ayatollah Khomeini launched the mother of all prosecutions against Salman Rushdie. As with the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland, his fatwa was a case of sentence first and trial later. Rushdie’s difficulties brought many of his north London friends into a closer and warmer contact with officers of the Special Branch than they might ever have thought likely. It was not long before a private prosecutor tried to issue a summons against the author of The Satanic Verses to attend, at the Old Bailey, his trial for blasphemous libel. The magistrate refused, so the prosecutor appealed to the High Court, where 13 Muslim barristers attempted to get the book banned, but their action forced them to draft an indictment against Rushdie and his publishers specifying with legal precision the way in which the novel had blasphemed.

Their efforts convinced me that The Satanic Verses is not blasphemous. The book is the fictional story of two men, infused with Islam but confused by the temptations of the west. The first survives by returning to his roots. The other, Gibreel, poleaxed by his spiritual need to believe in God and his intellectual inability to return to the faith, finally kills himself. The plot, in short, is not an advertisement for apostasy. Our opponents could in the end only allege six blasphemies in the book, and each one was based either on a misreading or on theological error:

God is described in the book as “The Destroyer of Man”. As He is similarly described in the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation, especially of men who are unbelievers or enemies of the Jews.

The book contains criticisms of the prophet Abraham for his conduct towards Hagar and Ismael, their son. Abraham deserves criticism and is not seen as without fault in Islamic, Christian or Jewish traditions.

Rushdie refers to Muhammad as “Mahoud”. He called him variously “a conjuror”, “a magician” and a “false prophet”. Rushdie does nothing of the sort. These descriptions come from the mouth of a drunken apostate, a character with whom neither author nor reader has sympathy.

The book grossly insults the wives of the Prophet by having whores use their names. This is the point. The wives are expressly said to be chaste, and the adoption of their names by whores in a brothel symbolises the perversion and decadence into which the city had fallen before it surrendered to Islam.

The book vilifies the close companions of the Prophet, calling them “bums from Persia” and “clowns”, whereas the Qur’an treats them as men of righteousness. These phrases are used by a depraved hack poet, hired to pen propaganda against the Prophet. They do not represent the author’s beliefs.

The book criticises the teachings of Islam for containing too many rules and seeking to control every aspect of everyday life. Characters in the book do make such criticisms, but they cannot amount to blasphemy because they do not vilify God or the Prophet.

The case had one very satisfying result: the Home Office announced it would not allow further blasphemy prosecutions, declaring “how inappropriate our legal mechanisms are for dealing with matters of faith and individual belief … the strength of their own belief is the best armour against mockers and blasphemers”. Amen to that (Pussy Riot prosecutors please note). The crime of blasphemy has now been abolished, although this wretched legacy of English law still permits courtroom persecutions in Pakistan and some other countries of the Commonwealth.

Although Rushdie remains alive and well after nearly 24 years, spare a thought for the families of those who did not get away from this theocratic regime: the 162 democrats and dissidents assassinated in Europe; the thousands of atheist and Marxist prisoners murdered in prison; the green movement protesters and their lawyers (15 so far) who have been sentenced to long prison terms for being their lawyers. Had the world devised a way to bring this regime to justice for devising the Rushdie fatwa, we would not now have to worry about what it will do with nuclear weapons…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

News Feed 20110917

Financial Crisis
» Greece: Mass Public Administration Resignations
» Italy: Problems Remain Despite Austerity
» Netherlands: A New Economic Crisis is a Real Possibility and Everyone Will Have to Help Pay the Bill, Is the Central Message in the Government’s 2012 Spending Plans.
» President Obama to Seek Higher Tax Rate on Millionaires
 
USA
» Another Baby-Step for Sharia in America
» Islamic Dogophobia and Our Canine Heroes
» Muslim Groups Press FBI, DOJ on Anti-Islamic Training
» Reno Crash Killed 9; Probe Focuses on Wayward Part
 
Canada
» Don’t Airbrush Islamist Threat
» OIC Raps Canadian PM’s Anti-Islam Tirade
 
Europe and the EU
» ‘All Dogs Allowed!’ Italian Proposal Would Forbid Housing Restrictions on Pets
» Croatia: EU: Accession Treaty Signed in Dec. After Elections
» Finnish State Police Investigating Two Foreigners for Links to Terrorism
» France: New Law Required to Curb Rising Faith Demands in French Firms: Report
» Italy: One in Two Spot Checks on Receipts in Rome Leads to Fines
» Italy: Police Uncover Mafia Designer Clothing Scam
» Italy: Milanese ‘The Coolest Dressers in Europe’
» Italy: World-Famous Mountaineer Walter Bonatti Dies at 81
» Italy: Parents: 57 and 70: Stripped of Child
» Italy: Anti-Lega Nord Protesters Clash With Police in Venice
» Litre Jug Exceeds 9 Euro Germany’s Oktoberfest
» Muslims Defy Outdoor Prayer Ban in France
» Netherlands: Rotterdam Gaining Ground
» Oceana: 3.3 bn in EU Fishing Subsidies in 2009, Spain Leads
» Spain: Stolen Codex in Santiago, Revenge Hypothesis Emerges
» The Perversity of Britain’s Diversity Regulations is Bad for Men, Women and Minorities
» Two Arrested in Finland in Terror Financing Probe
» UK: Is the EDL the New Voice of the White Working Class?
» UK: Several Establishment Journalists Have Turned Their Backs on Europe
» UK: Tough Policing: Advice for the New Met Police Commissioner
» US Citizen to Italy After Detention in England
 
Mediterranean Union
» EU-Morocco: Fishing Accord, Euro-MPs to Appeal
 
North Africa
» Algeria: Scepticism Over Radio/TV Liberalisation, Media
» Egypt: 35% Drop in Tourist Numbers in 2 ND Quarter
» Gaddafi Loyalists Launch Major Bani Walid Counteroffensive
» Libya: Refugee Flows to Tunisia Still High
» Tunisia: Five Unemployed Attempt Collective Suicide
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» Amnesty Wants Israel Haluled Before the International Criminal Court
» Britain to Back Palestinian UN Bid ‘On Condition’
» Canada to Oppose Bid for Palestinian Statehood
» Turkish Charities to Build Orphanage in Gaza Strip
 
Middle East
» Cyprus-Turkey: Tension Rises Over Off-Shore Exploration
» Syria: Anti-Assad Sheikh Threatens to ‘Tear Christians Apart’
» Turkey Firmly Refuses U.S. Mediation in Crisis With Israel
 
Russia
» ‘Flying Ladas’: Crashes Threaten Russian Aerospace Revival
 
South Asia
» Explosions Kill Three in Thailand
» India: Madhya Pradesh: Pentecostal Pastors and 11 Hindus Who Wanted Baptism Arrested
» India: ‘Police Were Biased in Gopalgarh’
» Indonesia: Don’t Go to Ambon for Jihad, Mui Says
» Pakistan: Assassination of Shahbaz Bhatti: New Falsehoods From the Police
» Sri Lanka: Bhuddist Monks Destroy Muslim Shrine
» US Points to Links Between Afghan Terrorists and Pakistan
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
» ‘Jonathan May be Nigeria’s Last President’
 
Immigration
» Algeria: Another Two Die, Nine Are Saved
» Maroni: Tunisia Accord Works
» The Netherlands to Veto Bulgaria, Romania’s Schengen Entry
» UK: Lumley is Target of ‘Gurkha Town’ Facebook Hate Campaign
 
Culture Wars
» British Govt Aims to Legalize Same-Sex Marriage in 2015

Financial Crisis


Greece: Mass Public Administration Resignations

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, SEPTEMBER 16 — Fear of changes in Greece’s public administration sector following the creation of a new single office for the payment of all public sector workers and for possible cuts to wages and pensions are behind the mass resignations of public sector workers in the country in recent days.

In September, according to figures circulated by the Minister of Finances, an unusually high number of resignations was tendered to the state offices. The resignations regard all categories of workers who are entitled to a pension, and deprive the public sector of experienced staff.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Italy: Problems Remain Despite Austerity

La Stampa, 15 September 2011

“Austerity plan passes amid confrontation” headlines Italian daily La Stampa, following the final adoption by parliament of a €53 billion package of budget cuts aimed at returning to a balanced budget by 2013. At the same time, dozens demonstrated in front of the building. The plan provides for slashing the number of civil servants, an increase in VAT, extending the retirement age for women, and has provisions to facilitate lay-offs, the paper explains. The paper notes the criticism expressed by the Confindustria, the Italian employers’ federation, on the absence of measures to stimulate growth.

In the process, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi tried to pass another decree, aimed at restricting telephone surveillance in order to, among other things, shield him from court cases in which he is involved. La Stampa notes on this subject that, very ironically, the Prime Minister has recently come under investigation for having used illegal telephone surveillance to harm a member of the opposition. “Governing means doing what is necessary, not what one wants,” La Stampa says, and asks of Berlusconi if he doesn’t want “to take a step back” and hand the reins to a technical administration, to show that he is up to the challenges that await Italy “after twenty years of cabaret which too often degenerated into a spectacle”.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Netherlands: A New Economic Crisis is a Real Possibility and Everyone Will Have to Help Pay the Bill, Is the Central Message in the Government’s 2012 Spending Plans.

A number of difficult and uncertain years are ahead of us, the government warns. Spending power will fall across the board for the next three years and almost everyone will affected by cutbacks. Next year’s pay rises will almost entirely be eaten up by inflation, which will remain around 2%.

In his introduction to the budget, finance minister Jan Kees de Jager states that the effects of the previous economic crisis were almost entirely absorbed by the government and industry. But the man in the street was largely unscathed, enjoying an increase in spending power of around 2%, De Jager said.

Uncertain times

Those days are over, the finance minister wrote in the main document, entitled Koersvast in onzekere tijden (staying on track in uncertain times). The state debt has soared, spending on healthcare is booming and the new eurozone crisis threatens the treasury again.

‘The buffers have gone. We cannot continue to pass the bill on to the next generations,’ De Jager said. The cabinet aims to get government spending in order and the effect of many already agreed cuts will become apparent next year.

Analysts say middle income households will feel the cuts most, as child, housing and healthcare benefits are cut, and there is less money available for child care. Healthcare premiums will also rise next year, as agreed in the coalition deal.

In total the government plans to make €5.8bn-worth of spending cuts and savings next year, while spending will go up by around €1bn. New cuts will be inevitable if the Greece crisis continues, De Jager said.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



President Obama to Seek Higher Tax Rate on Millionaires

President Obama on Monday will call for a new minimum tax rate for individuals making more than $1 million a year to ensure that they pay at least the same percentage of their earnings as middle-income taxpayers, administration officials said.

With a special joint Congressional committee starting work to reach a bipartisan budget deal, the proposal adds a populist feature to Mr. Obama’s effort to raise the political pressure on Republicans to agree to higher revenues from the wealthy in return for Democrats’ support of future savings from Medicare and Medicaid.

Mr. Obama, in a bit of political salesmanship, will call his proposal the Buffett Rule, in a reference to Warren E. Buffett, the billionaire investor who has complained that the richest Americans generally pay a smaller share of their income in federal taxes than do middle-income workers, because investment gains are taxed at a lower rate.

[Return to headlines]

USA


Another Baby-Step for Sharia in America

In a development reported with a front-page jumbo headline in the New York Post, as well as a more subdued NY Times accounting, the US takes one further step — albeit a tiny one — toward Islamicization of America.

New York City’s metered Yellow Cabs are the only ones licensed to pick up street hails and are strictly regulated in every respect by the Taxi & Limousine Commission: from the vehicle’s, mechanical specifications to the equipment it must have — even to the color and design of its exterior. Only a taxi with a license “medallion” may qualify, and such medallions are strictly limited in number, which is why the price they bring is upwards of $700,000. each. Some drivers work with so-called “fleet cabs,” which they rent by the day; others own their own cab and medallion (often under a mortgage); and still others own the cab but lease the medallion from its owner.

It’s this last category that is affected by the new ruling. It seems that the medallion owner, not the vehicle owner, rents out roof-top advertising for additional revenue; and these ads cover a full range of legal products and services — including the so-called “gentlemen’s clubs.” Turns out that Muslim cabbies are offended by such ads on the cars, much as the Minneapolis Muslims cabbies had a hard time with airport passengers carrying alcohol or accompanied by seeing eye dogs.

In the Minneapolis situation, such drivers were told by the authorities that they were performing a public service and had to accept alcohol and dog-carrying passengers or face a stiff penalty. Not so with the Big Apple’s city fathers. The ruling reported today allows any cabbie whose medallion is leased to refuse any roof-top advertising that doesn’t square with his religious beliefs.

Strangely, the particular ads involved, for two midtown strip-clubs, are not the remotest bit phonographic or obscene. They state only the name of the establishment and its address and/or phone number. The only illustration is a partial picture of a woman’s face (unveiled, of course).

According to the Post article:

The great religious war, waged on top of yellow cabs, has ended. Devout Muslim hacks — who were crouched behind their steering wheels in shame while driving with ads for strip clubs atop their taxis — won a major victory yesterday in their war on roof smut. The city’s Taxi & Limousine Commission agreed to give cabbies who own their vehicles absolute veto power on the content of ads on their cars — delighting scores of modest hacks of various faiths who had fought hard for the rule overhaul.

“We are Muslims, and we do not like the ads!” crowed cabby Mohamed Tahir, 66, whose cab is topped with an image of a sexy brunette from Flashdancers Gentlemen’s Club.

As a New Yorker, I see cabs with such ads every day; but, I must ask, where does this stop? Just this morning, looking out the breakfast window, I noted a taxi whose ad panel bore a pitch the the “Charley’s Angels” TV show featuring not one, but three winsome lasses in sexy low-cut attire — far less modest than the dance club’s graphics. And, then there was one cab advertising a brand of liquor, another Muslim taboo. Will the dance club ruling be followed by objections to public advertising of any non-burqua- wearing female, all alcoholic beverages? Will New York’s T&LC cave again when it happens?

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Islamic Dogophobia and Our Canine Heroes

Kalb, or dog, is one of the worst possible insults in the Muslim world. Call a man Kalb or Kalb ibn Kalb, if you want the knives to come out. In Afghanistan, those who fled the Taliban and returned to help the Coalition rebuild the country are called “Sag shouey” or “Dog washers” since Americans are infidel dogs and the Afghans who cooperate with Americans are menial servants of the dogs.

Mohammed, in addition to his affinity for pre-teen girls also had a compulsive hatred of dogs. Some Hadiths quote him ordering the killing of all dogs, others show him to be moderate ordering that only “‘black dogs” be killed. Which gives a special edge to the not uncommon description in the Muslim world of Obama as a “black dog”.

After Osama bin Laden’s execution, an imam of the Al-Aqsa mosque castigated the “Western dogs” who had done it. And as it turned out a dog actually did accompany the SEAL team that took down Osama. Unlike the billions spent on trying to win over Pakistanis and Afghans, who went on aiding terrorists anyway- the dogs remained true and loyal friends.

On September 11th, among the first responders were our four footed friends who risked their lives clambering around the smoking rubble in search of survivors. Muslims believe that an angel cannot enter a home when a dog is inside. But after the Muslims had killed thousands of Americans, it was the dogs who acted as the angels finding the bodies where they could and helping give the families of the dead something to bury.

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Muslim Groups Press FBI, DOJ on Anti-Islamic Training

Two Muslim groups that have had generally positive relationships with the federal government have separately written the Justice Department and the FBI asking for investigations of anti-Muslim information used in FBI counterterrorism training.

Salam Al-Marayti, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), wrote FBI Director Robert Mueller asking for an immediate internal investigation and a reassessment of the vetting process of trainers.

Al-Marayti wrote that MPAC was “greatly concerned” about the training materials used by the FBI, which he said employed “highly selective use of quotes and sources from Islamic scripture; and, Dangerously false and reductive presentation of one of the most vibrant and visible faith communities in America.”

“Our communities need an answer from our nation’s top law enforcement leaders; silence on this issue only sends a message of complicity and ruins critical partnerships that have proven effective in keeping our nation safe and secure,” Al-Marayti wrote…

           — Hat tip: MH [Return to headlines]



Reno Crash Killed 9; Probe Focuses on Wayward Part

RENO, Nev. (AP) — The death toll rose to nine Saturday in an air race crash in Reno as investigators determined that several spectators were killed on impact as the 1940s-model plane appeared to lose a piece of its tail before slamming like a missile into a crowded tarmac.

Moments earlier, thousands had arched their necks skyward and watched the planes speed by just a few hundred feet off the ground before some noticed a strange gurgling engine noise from above. Seconds later, the P-51 Mustang dubbed the Galloping Ghost pitched oddly upward, twirled and took an immediate nosedive into a section of white VIP box seats.

The plane, flown by a 74-year-old veteran racer and Hollywood stunt pilot, disintegrated in a ball of dust, debris and bodies as screams of “Oh my God!” spread through the crowd.

National Transportation Safety Board officials were on the scene Saturday to determine what caused Jimmy Leeward to lose control of the plane, and they were looking at amateur video clips that appeared to show a small piece of the aircraft falling to the ground before the crash. Witnesses who looked at photos of the part said it appeared to be a “trim tab,” which helps pilots keep control of the aircraft.

Reno police also provided a GPS mapping system to help investigators recreate the crash scene.

“Pictures and video appear to show a piece of the plane was coming off,” NTSB spokesman Mark Rosekind said at a news conference. “A component has been recovered. We have not identified the component or if it even came from the airplane … We are going to focus on that.”

The dead so far included the pilot and eight spectators. Officials said 54 people were transported to hospitals, but more came in on their own. Eight remained in critical condition late Saturday and nine were in serious condition…

[Return to headlines]

Canada


Don’t Airbrush Islamist Threat

The remarks by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in a CBC interview that “the major threat is still Islamicism,” generated predictable controversy by the usual suspects on the left.

On the contrary, the PM needs to be applauded for stating without any ambivalence what most Canadians and people increasingly in the West see for themselves. This is the level of indiscriminate violence perpetrated by Islamists, or the jihadist segment of the Arab-Muslim population, against those who disagree with them, and the organized efforts of Islamists with their apologists in the West to subvert liberal democracy.

Indeed, it is most refreshing to hear Harper, leader of a G8 country, speak candidly and in sharp contrast to previous prime ministers on matters vital to the national interest and security of Canada. But the contrast between Harper’s candour and the obsequiousness of President Obama when it comes to speaking about Islamism — former prime minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain very rightly described it as Bolshevism in our day and age — is even starker and bleak.

The Obama administration has ruled out any use of the “M”-word (for Muslims) and the two “I”-words (for Islamist and Islamism) by those in American officialdom in discussing the bigotry and violence emanating from the Arab-Muslim world. It is insulting to watch Obama and the senior members of his administration airbrush away any mention of the perpetrators of the worst mass casualty attack on U.S. soil. Moreover, it was grotesque that Obama in commemorating the dead on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 deliberately omitted any reference to the 19 Arab-Muslim men who brought about their murder in an act of war. Imagine, if possible, an American president, in commemorating the dead in the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, refusing to make any reference to the Japanese imperial navy responsible for the surprise attack.

Strike force

Those 19 Arab-Muslim men on the morning of 9/11 were the strike force of the Islamists who have declared their war against the infidels of the West, and those who oppose them within the Arab-Muslim world. In refusing to discuss Islamism and identify Islamists, Obama and those leaders who follow him make the West more vulnerable to their insidious subversion of the western values of freedom, democracy and the rule of law.

And it is even worse. This appeasement of Islamists abandons those Muslims and other religious minorities inside the Arab-Muslim world opposed to Islamism to unremitting violence by Islamist thugs and their enablers, as we are witnessing in what goes by the misnomer of the “Arab spring.” Then it gives a pass to Muslims in Europe and North America who, in failing to publicly denounce Islamism and Islamists, are by their silence complicit or in collusion with this latest version of Bolsheviks at war with the West. The necessary and just war against Islamists — irrespective of how the meaning of war is sanitized for political correctness — is now a decade old. It will not be over soon, and the West needs leaders who are forthright and strong to wage it. In Canada we are fortunate to have in Stephen Harper such a leader.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



OIC Raps Canadian PM’s Anti-Islam Tirade

JEDDAH: The 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has denounced a recent statement made by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a high-profile non-Jewish supporter of Israel, that he considered “Islamic terrorism” as the biggest threat to world peace.

“Harper’s statement will only exacerbate the misunderstanding and suspicion between the West and the Islamic world and obstruct global efforts to confront bigotry and hatred between religions and cultures,” said OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu. In an interview with CBC News, Harper said the biggest security threat to Canada a decade after 9/11 was “Islamic terrorism.” He continued: “When people think of Islamic terrorism, they think of Afghanistan, or maybe they think of some place in the Middle East, but the truth is that threat exists all over the world.”

An article written by Dovid Efune in The Huffington Post rated Harper as the No. 1 non-Jew having a positive influence in shaping the Jewish future. “Harper has been a great friend to Canada’s Jewish community as well as an outspoken supporter of Israeli positions in the international political arena… saying last year, ‘When Israel, the only country in the world whose very existence is under attack, is consistently and conspicuously singled out for condemnation, I believe we are morally obligated to take a stand.’“

Efune, who is director of Algemeiner Journal, commended Harper’s efforts in blocking a G8 resolution in support of US President Barack Obama’s Middle East policy speech that would mention the call for a Palestinian State based on the 1967 lines, while not incorporating other elements of the speech. This stand “earns him the top spot this year,” Efune wrote in the daily. Effune said his top 10 list of non-Jewish supporters of Israel includes politicians, activists and business giants. Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, Speaker of the US House of Representatives John Boehner, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former Spanish Premier Jose Maria Aznar occupy the remaining top five spots.

According to columnist Dr. Debra Chin, Harper is apparently using Canadian governmental authority to advance ultra right-wing ideological goals. She said Harper was a member of the ultra-right wing Northern Foundation in 1989, quoting a book authored by Trevor Harrison entitled “Of Passionate Intensity.” In his book, Harrison documents that the foundation comprised neo-Nazi social Darwinist intellectuals, Chin wrote in The Canadian newspaper.

In his comments, the OIC chief said such misleading statements from the prime minister of a sovereign country would create chaos. “The usage of Islamic terrorism is wrong like the usage of Christian terrorism or Jewish terrorism,” he pointed out. “Islam is a religion of peace and mercy,” the secretary-general said and reiterated his organization’s commitment to combat terrorism and extremism in all its forms. “Our stand is based on Islamic teachings that reject terrorism and violence,” he added. Ihsanoglu said OIC countries were the main victims of terrorism, suffering heavy human and material losses.

Saudi Arabia, which hosts the OIC headquarters, suffered a series of bombings and attacks since May 2003 that claimed the lives of 350 people. Hassan Al-Ahdal, director-general for media and public relations at the Makkah-based Muslim World League, expressed his dismay at Harper’s remarks. “Such irresponsible remarks should not have come from a prime minister. It will give fuel to extremists to carry out terrorist attacks and deepen the division between Islamic and Western cultures. It will also encourage Islamophobes to carry out more attacks against Muslim minorities.”

Al-Ahdal hoped that the Western thinkers would condemn Harper’s remarks in order to strengthen good relations between Muslims and the West. He said Harper’s remarks would encourage Muslim countries and parents not to send their students to Canada, fearing they would face bad treatment. “It is quite unfortunate to see that Islamophobia is spreading in the West. Earlier, we have seen such attitudes from the right-wing extremists. Now it has been taken over by leaders like Harper, Sarkozy and Merkel,” he said. Al-Ahdal urged Muslim countries to take a firm stand against such Islamophobic remarks. “I hope all Muslim countries will call their Canadian ambassadors to express their strong protest against Harper’s remarks and inform them such incidents would affect Canada’s relationship with Muslims,” he said.

Al-Ahdal underscored the interfaith dialogue initiative launched by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah to promote world peace and stability by enhancing cooperation and understanding between the followers of different faiths. “The initiative will help bridge the gap between the East and West,” he said and called for strengthening the initiative by holding more meetings between leaders of various faiths.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Europe and the EU


‘All Dogs Allowed!’ Italian Proposal Would Forbid Housing Restrictions on Pets

The eternal battle that pits animal lovers v. landlords could take a decidedly pet-friendly turn in Italy, where the Parliament is set to debate a bill that would outlaw any building regulations banning home pets.

Jeff Israely

Rome

“No pets” not allowed! That is the spirit of a new bill put forth by a member of the Italian Parliament that would erase all building regulations that forbid tenants from keeping pets at home. The bill was drafted by Gabriella Giammanco, an ally of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and has now made its way to Parliament’s Justice Committee.

“The new law will not allow for keeping all animals at home, but just the “family’s animals”, owned to provide company, not for feeding purposes,” Giammanco says. Italian families own some 45 million pets, including seven million dogs, eight million cats, 16 million fish and 12 million small-bird species and snakes.

Currently, building regulations can clearly state that pets are not allowed. The bill aims to erase this option for landlords. And what would happen if the owner of a pet has health problems? If approved, Giammanco’s bill will allow everyone to bring their animal friends with them to hospitals and nursing homes.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Croatia: EU: Accession Treaty Signed in Dec. After Elections

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, SEPTEMBER 14 — The European Union expects to complete the procedure to sign Croatia’s accession treaty by December. According to the timetable, the final formal approval of the European Council cannot happen before Croatian elections, scheduled to take place on December 4, reported sources in the Polish EU president’s office, after the agreement reached among the member states today in Brussels on the final text of Croatia’s accession treaty. “Now we have a consolidated text in English,” explained sources in the EU president’s office, “to be translated into the other EU languages, which will be submitted for review by the European Commission and for a vote by European Parliament, on the agenda on December 1. The first available meeting, the General Affairs council, is set to take place on December 5.” The document, which is 350 pages long, “clearly contains the date July 1 2013 as the accession date,” explained Polish sources, “and states that the European Commission has been given the responsibility of closely monitoring progress “ regarding pre-accession requirements. In the treaty there are not any conditions involving free access to the Schengen area. “The treaty does not automatically imply,” explained the EU sources, “an enlargement of the Schengen area”, which is treated separately. After the signing of the accession treaty in December, it will be up to the individual states to ratify it. Only after this process is complete will Croatia be able to enter the EU as the 28th member state.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Finnish State Police Investigating Two Foreigners for Links to Terrorism

Police are looking into the first ever terrorism-related cases in Finland. The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has begun a preliminary investigation into suspicions of the financing of terrorism, and recruitment for the commission of terrorist acts. Two people have been taken into custody.

Two individuals were arrested by police on September 7th and have been remanded into custody. Following their arrests, police carried out searches of several homes in the Helsinki area and evidence was seized.

According to information received by YLE, one of the two is suspected of funding terrorism, and the other is under suspicion of recruiting for the commission of terrorist acts. Both are of non-Finnish ethnic background.

           — Hat tip: KGS [Return to headlines]



France: New Law Required to Curb Rising Faith Demands in French Firms: Report

PARIS — French companies are increasingly facing religious demands from their employees and need a change in the labour code to be able to reject requests they find unreasonable, an official report said on Thursday. Most cases concern Muslims seeking time off for prayers or halal food in company cafeterias, but demands have also come from other faith groups as well as workers resentful of colleagues who get special treatment, officials said.

In recent years, France has banned religious dress such as Muslim headscarves in state schools and full facial veils in public, but it has no laws covering religious issues that may arise in private companies. The High Council for Integration (HCI) report suggested a labour code amendment allowing companies “to include in their internal rules clauses about clothing, religious insignia and religious practices in the company”. Giving legal force to rules restricting religion in the workplace would ensure equal treatment for all employees and protect companies from discrimination suits based on religion, it added. “The principles of neutrality and impartiality favour the correct functioning of a company,” the report said. “So the absence of any expression of religion, be it a practice or ostentatious insignia, is strongly recommended.” Alain Seksig, author of the report, said the proposal would go to Prime Minister Francois Fillon and any change in the labour code would need to be approved by parliament.

Hundreds of Cases

France’s legal separation of church and state relegates religion to the private sphere, an approach challenged by a growing Islamic identity among some of the five million Muslims in the country’s 65 million population. The report gave no figures for the extent of demands for exceptions linked to religion but said they came up so often in hearings the HCI had conducted that they merited attention. HCI chairman Patrick Gaubert told journalists his council had learned of hundreds of cases of religious demands in companies in recent years and found they were appearing in many regions around the country. In one case, a private creche outside Paris fired a Muslim employee after she began wearing a headscarf and long robe to work and claiming it was her religious right to do so. She contested her dismissal on the grounds that the public bans on religious clothing did not apply in a private business, but the court ruled the creche had the right to set limits.

Natalia Baleato, director of the creche, told journalists that some Muslim employees refused to take children swimming because they thought bathing suits were immodest and others threw away desserts and sweets that might contain pork gelatin. Two parents who were Jehovah’s Witnesses did not want their child to attend parties at the creche and a Catholic employee annoyed by Muslim demands for special treatment refused to work at Easter and Christmas, she added. “These religious questions take a lot of time to manage,” she said.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Italy: One in Two Spot Checks on Receipts in Rome Leads to Fines

(AGI) Rome — Out of a total of 13,500 checks on receipts issued in Rome, Jan to Aug, tax police report fines in 51pc of cases.

According to latest reports, out of a total of close to 6,300 fines issued, 1,162 relate to full receipts and 5,137 relate to till receipts. With checks conducted throughout the Province of Rome, tax police report a 67.71pc incidence for full receipts and a 55.18pc incidence for till receipts in the City of Rome alone.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Italy: Police Uncover Mafia Designer Clothing Scam

At least 127 cited by investigators

(ANSA) — Padua, September 9 — Italian police on Friday uncovered a counterfeit clothing ring run by the Neopolitan mafia that mirrored scenes in the popular film Gomorrah.

Police from the northern city of Padua issued six arrest warrants and cited 127 people after uncovering an alleged criminal organisation linked to the Camorra that was producing fake designer brands. The organisation was allegedly led by a leading member of the Ricciardi clan whose assistants organised a source of production parallel to the production of authentic designer brands for sale in the region of Lombardy and north-east Italy.

Three Italians and two North Africans were arrested, while another man was being sought by police.

The organisation is alleged to have produced the fake merchandise between Naples and Caserta in the southern region of Campania.

Like the film Gomorrah, based on the acclaimed book by Roberto Saviano, tailors were allegedly recruited by the mafia and forbidden to have any contact with legitimate Chinese businessmen in the area or face serious reprisals.

More than 200 finance police were involved in the investigation which also involved the seizure of a ship that was used to store the merchandise. Franco Manzato, councillor for consumer protection in Venice, congratulated the police for their investigation.

“I reaffirm the need for zero tolerance against fake products and scams and the maximum vigilance against crime,” Manzato said.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Italy: Milanese ‘The Coolest Dressers in Europe’

Milan trendies beat Paris, Rome, London counterparts

(ANSA) — Milan, September 13 — The Milanese are the coolest dressers in Milan according to a new poll from TripAdvisor.

The trendy inhabitants of Milan beat out their counterparts in Paris, Rome and London thanks to the way they translate catwalk looks to the streets, according to the survey of 3,000 European travellers.

Parisian fashion lovers came second and Roman trendies third, followed by fashionistas in Barcelona, Madrid and London.

Stockholm was seventh, followed by Florence, Copenhagen and Amsterdam.

Istanbulites were voted the worst dressed in Europe.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Italy: World-Famous Mountaineer Walter Bonatti Dies at 81

Called ‘last traditional-style climber’ by peers

(ANSA) — Rome, September 14 — World-famous mountain climber Walter Bonatti died late Tuesday in Rome at age 81 from an unspecified illness.

“Bonatti was one of the greatest mountain climbers in history, the last traditional-style mountain climber,” said fellow Italian climber Reinhold Messner, the first man to climb Mount Everest without the aid of supplementary oxygen. “He was above all a beautiful person”.

Born June 22, 1930 in the Lombard city of Bergamo, Bonatti won international renown in the 1950s and 1960s for scaling some of the most difficult peaks of the Alps and the Himalayas.

In 1954, at just 24 years old, he and other climbers became the first to reach the summit of K2, which is generally regarded as the world’s most dangerous mountain.

The achievement became clouded in controversy soon after the mission returned due to claims from fellow climber Achille Compagnoni that the younger Bonatti bungled and prevented a planned attempt without oxygen.

Bonatti countered by claiming his companions wanted to exclude him from the last climb because he was allegedly the strongest member and the only one who might have pulled off a conquest without oxygen tanks.

The Italian Mountaineering Club accepted Bonatti’s version in 2008, a year before Compagnoni died.

“Anyone with a little experience in high-altitude mountain climbing and is familiar [with the case] cannot conceive of a version of events different from Bonatti’s”, said Luigi Zanzi, a mountain climbing expert who testified in a 2004 case regarding the K2 ascent. “Without Walter Bonatti, the Italian expedition would never have arrived at the peak,” he told ANSA.

After becoming the first person to make a solo winter climb of the Matterhorn’s north face, Bonatti retired from professional climbing to become a travel author and photographer, writing critically acclaimed reportage that ranged from the Alps to Oceania and the Amazon.

In 2009 he received the Piolet d’Or for lifetime achievement, the most prestigious prize in international mountain climbing.

The following year, Bonatti was made an honorary citizen of Mt Blanc, the highest peak in the Alps on the border between France and Italy, near his home of many years in the Italian town of Courmayeur. The ceremony took place on top of the 3,500-foot-peak.

“I didn’t think that Monte Bianco could still move me so much,” he said at the ceremony as he held back tears, using the Italian name for the mountain.

In 2004 Bonatti was made a Knight of the Grand Cross, one of Italy’s highest public honors, but chose not to accept upon learning that Compagnoni would also be a recipient.

He did accept induction into the French Legion of Honor for saving the lives of two fellow climbers in a disaster in the Alps Upon hearing of his passing, the Italian House held a standing ovation in honor of his life and career, and House President Gianfranco Frattini hailed him as “an incomparable champion of brave and harrowing feats”.

A viewing will be held on Saturday and Sunday in the town of Lecco, at the foot of the Italian Alps.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Italy: Parents: 57 and 70: Stripped of Child

Judges deny accusations of ageism

(ANSA) — Turin, September 16 — Judges have ruled to deny custody of a toddler to two elderly parents and said on Friday that age had nothing to do with their decision.

“No court, and especially not the one for minors in Turin, would declare parents to be unfit because they were too old,” said judges Anna Maria Baldelli and Fulvio Villa in a written statement.

Contrary to accusations, they said that their decision was based upon evidence of repeated cases of abandonment and neglect.

On Thursday, the court ruled that a 70-year-old father and a 57-year-old mother were unfit to look after their 18-month-old daughter, a verdict which some believed to be based on their advanced years.

The baby girl was born in May last year after artificial insemination overseas.

In its ruling, the court called the baby “the fruit of a distorted application of the opportunities offered by advances in genetics,” and declared the parents’ choice to have her “beyond the laws of nature” and showing a “disregard for the child’s interests”.

The couple is appealing.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Italy: Anti-Lega Nord Protesters Clash With Police in Venice

(AGI) Rome — Demonstrators clashed with the police at an anti-Lega Nord protest march organised by social centres in Venice. About 800 people took part in the demonstration organised on the eve of the Lega Nord’s traditional annual event in Laguna. The clashes started when demonstrators tried to break the police blockade to reach the centre of the city.

Smoke bombs and firecrackers were thrown at the police, and some protesters reportedly used stinging spray on two Carabinieri officers who were slightly injured.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Litre Jug Exceeds 9 Euro Germany’s Oktoberfest

(AGI) Berlin — The 178th edition of the Oktoberest kicked off at precisely 1200 hours CET in Munich. Events were preceded by the traditional parade and the midday cask-popping. The city’s mayor, Christian Ude, equalled his personal best in the cask-popping event by opening the cask with two thrusts of the hammer. With events running until October 3, visitors will have to dig deep in their pockets with the 1 litre jug now exceeding the 9 euro mark, hitting EUR9.20.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Muslims Defy Outdoor Prayer Ban in France

PARIS — Hundreds of Muslims defied a French ban on outdoor prayer — which came into force Friday —and took to the streets and sidewalks of Paris to pray.

The French government announced Thursday it was banning praying outside, with officials pledging to enforce the ban from Friday.

But 200 Muslims ignored the ban and prayed on the streets in the neighborhood of La Goutte d’Or, Le Parisien newspaper reported.

French interior minister Claude Gueant said he had nothing against Islam but wanted it out of the public eye because France was a secular state.

           — Hat tip: KGS [Return to headlines]



Netherlands: Rotterdam Gaining Ground

Trouw, Amsterdam

When growth in Europe’s largest port was stifled by a lack of available space, engineers came up with an ingenious expansion project to reclaim a tract of land that is as big as 4,000 football pitches — a feat that is reminiscent of the construction of the sea walls that protect the islands of South Holland, which were built half a century ago.

Bart Zuidervaart

It is a stormy day out on “Maasvlakte 2” where the wind is reaching 6 and 7 on the Beaufort scale, and showers of hail are coming in off the sea. But there is no respite from the construction of tomorrow’s Netherlands. The workers are busy building a 3.5-kilometre breakwater to protect the new port from the North Sea — an enormous undertaking, which involves the positioning of 20,000 concrete blocks — 2.5-metre long cubes, each weighing 40 tonnes — in the water just off the coast.

To complete this massive task, they are using a specially designed crane, built at a cost of 10 million euros, which has been nicknamed Blockbuster. The machine is manned by a team of eight mechanics, none of whom works for more than an hour at a time, explains Ronald Paul, who manages the organisation in charge of the “Maasvlakte 2” project. The work demands extreme concentration, because the margin of error in the positioning of the blocks cannot be more than 15 centimetres. On average, 700 people are now working on the construction of Maasvlakte 2, at a cost of 1.5 million euros per day. The overall budget for the project is 3 billions euros…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Oceana: 3.3 bn in EU Fishing Subsidies in 2009, Spain Leads

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, SEPTEMBER 13 — The real value of EU and national government subsidies for the fishing sector in 2009 was 3.3 billion euros, three times the number provided by the European Commission and half the value of fishing in the EU that year. In pole position is Spain (733,961,495), followed by France (361,937,900), Denmark (307,387,494), Great Britain (264,703, 762) and Italy (250,699,139). This was included in the latest report released by Oceana, an international organisation for sea conservation which took into account not only payments from EU funds for fishing but also subsidies by the individual member states, such as an exemption from fuel taxes (1.4 billion euros). Oceana is “extremely concerned”, especially over the use of “harmful subsidies” for the increase of fleet capacity, fuel, engine replacement, marketing and promotional campaigns, and port and warehouse construction. The organisation underscores that despite this financing there is a problem with excessive fishing in European waters, and EU fishing boat fleets are also found in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans. In view of the modification of EU fishing policies, Oceana requests a “drastic change” to stop the increase in fishing capacity and “the enormous inefficiency” of the industry. “Fishing subsidies,” Oceana said, “do not only support excessive fishing, directly reducing operating costs, but also make it possible to fish more.”

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Spain: Stolen Codex in Santiago, Revenge Hypothesis Emerges

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, SEPTEMBER 14 — In a story worthy of the famous Umberto Eco novel, The Name of the Rose, the Codex Calixtinus, the first ‘guide for pilgrims’ and priceless 12th century illuminated manuscript also known as the Liber Sancti Jacobi, mysteriously removed from the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral archives in July, was reportedly stolen in an act of vengeance against the Cabildo (governing body) of the cathedral.

The is the most recent idea proposed by investigators, cited by La Vanguardia, on the incredible theft discovered on July 8. The robbery could be an act in which the ancient manuscript was seized as part of a power struggle within the governing council of the cathedral. The Dean of the cathedral, José Maria Diaz, has been hammered by critics for months for the insufficient security measures used to protect the precious medieval manuscript. Only two keys were capable of opening the safe where the first guide for pilgrims of the Apostle James and one of the symbols of Christianity was preserved. And three guards were responsible for watching over the treasure of incalculable historic value, to which it was practically impossible for anyone to gain access. A firm ‘no’ was the customary response of the dean to whoever requested the item to be displayed, whether they were museums or cultural groups. Several lucky visitors, mainly historians, were able to view the 225 parchments that make up the Codex Calixtinus from the door at the entry to the cathedral achieves. The recently restored manuscripts were displayed on a velvet cushion and kept under lock and key. Serafin Castro, who is leading the investigation opened by the national police department’s cultural heritage division, recently said that the Codex Calixtinus could be “very, very close to the Cathedral”, when reporting on developments in the investigation. The seemingly prevailing idea is that it may have been hidden, or even concealed in the Santiago Cathedral itself, according to La Vanguardia, “as an act of revenge in a power struggle within the cathedral’s governing council, with the goal of discrediting the dean, who was re-elected to his position in 2010, which he will continue to hold until 2014”. Sources close to the investigation confirm that the hypothesis is linked to the fact that only José Maria Diaz and another two collaborators — a specialist in medieval history and one in modern history, who discovered the disappearance of the manuscript — had access to the keys where it is kept. However, the hypothesis of a robbery commissioned by a collector is still being looked into, initially followed by investigators and supported by specialists, such as philologist Luis Alberto de Cuenca, a member of the Royal Academy of History and expert on books. “It is a fantastic illuminated manuscript that is impossible to sell on the market,” he observed after the theft was discovered. “It is suspected that this could be the object of a sudden fancy of a multibillionaire psychopath. If they stole it in order to divvy it up into parts and resell it, we would have to tear whoever planned the theft to pieces,” he said to the press. In this case, it would be nearly impossible to find those holding the illuminated manuscript. Divided into 5 sections, the first book describes the sermons of the Apostle James, and the second is an account of the 22 miracles performed by Saint James in Europe. The third book recounts the arrival of the apostle’s body from the Holy Land to Galicia and tells of the custom of pilgrims collecting seashells along the Galician coast, the symbol of the Way of St.

James. In the fourth book, incorrectly attributed to the Archbishop Turpin of Reims, the story is told of how Saint James appeared to the Emperor Charlemagne to reveal the existence of his tomb and how he went to liberate it from the Moors, founding the first church. The fifth book is the first guide for pilgrims, with a study of the journey through Spain by Picaud, villages that were often unpleasant and where attacks were common, an indispensable historical portrayal of the period. In the 8 centuries during which it has been kept in the cathedral, the Codex has left the archives just a few times, the last dating back to 1993. And meanwhile, the controversy regarding the management of the church’s cultural heritage has not subsided. “The most reliable hypothesis seems to be it being hidden,” according to sources in the Xunta de Galicia. Although the revenge theory is viewed as unlikely in circles close to the investigation, because “it would be like killing a fly with a gun”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



The Perversity of Britain’s Diversity Regulations is Bad for Men, Women and Minorities

Working with people different from ourselves is good, but enforcing it is bad.

The biological differences between men and women are vanishingly small, in the scheme of the universe. Visiting aliens would find our sex hard to discern just by looking, so they might be curious at the politics of difference we have constructed around our gender gap.

Perhaps to assist any alien delegates, Labour are holding a Women Only day at the start of their conference. There’s something intrinsically daft about the party of equality holding an event which pivots on segregation, but it’s unfair to pick on Labour for following the fashion that says some “minorities” (such as women, weirdly) require special treatment.

Theresa May is an adherent too, and unlike Labour, she has power. She wants companies to publish the pay of men and women, to highlight and remove the “gender pay gap”. That there could be a myriad of life choices which lead to any such difference, and reasons why some women in some sectors earn less than some men — other than blatant discrimination — seems to escape the female Tory Home Secretary, which is at least depressing. At best, it serves to highlight the political and legal mess we are in with regard to “minorities”.

About a decade ago, I sat round a management team table with my colleagues: a Chinese woman, a Jewish-American man, a female Australian, a male Russian, an Indian woman, and at least one gay white Scotsman called Graeme. We were summoned to hear a lecture from a human resources specialist on the importance of being visibly “diverse”. It was the first time we’d heard the word in this business context, and we actually laughed, and asked the HR guy how we could possibly be any more diverse, given that we were such a small team. “Well,” he said. “There aren’t any black people here.” That stopped the laughter. Diversity policy thrives on such insidious insinuations of guilt: who would dare be accused of racism? The Chinese, Australian, Russian, Indian, American and British heritage of our gender-mixed team was of no consequence. An external body could measure us, and rate us deficient with regard to an arbitrary category of minority.

I have on record from a friend that his American organisation’s most senior HR leader recently contacted the entire workforce, regarding annual awards for consumer relations. These are peer-nominated awards, not selected by management: a true exercise in highlighting and rewarding talent. It had come to the HR supremo’s notice, however, that while the nominations were all excellent, there was an “under representation” of African-Americans, and women. Could everyone have another think, and try again?

That example is just within the realm of the farcical but inconsequential, though I can’t help but wonder how the eventual award-winners from those singled-out groups felt. But the implications of this doctrine are serious: they relate to equity, across the population, and justice, for the very minority groups meant to be protected. Imagine I worked for you, along with Jane, a young mother, and Dave, a single man. The economic downturn begins, and lasts as long as a Virginia Woolf novel feels. If your company is to survive, you’re going to have to let me, or Jane, or Dave go. How easy do you think it would be to select either Jane or myself for redundancy, over Dave? What do you think HR would advise, either implicitly or explicitly? What do you fear Jane or I, protected minorities both, might do, if forced out? Now imagine Dave is actually called Mohammed. Who wins then? The gay bloke or the Muslim?

That’s all hypothetical, but this example from another friend, mother of two boys, is not. She works in a small business and shocked me last month by saying: “I’ll never employ a woman of childbearing age again.” Her company is small, but expanding, and she can no longer afford to employ someone who will take a year off to have a child, come back part-time, then take another year out for the next one. This is not some anti-feminist, anti-PC lunatic; she usually votes Labour. She’s a woman who knows what it’s like to work and raise children, who’d be as flexible as possible with her staff. She just wants some sanity back. What would Theresa May suggest to her? That we should pass another law?

I don’t believe a word of the HR guff about how diversity brings economic advantage, but this isn’t a call for workplace homogeneity. Of course it benefits us to work with people different from ourselves. My views on childcare have been radically altered by working with women who struggle to arrange it: I’ve gone from rancid, teenage libertarian (“Don’t have kids if you can’t afford them”) to near Swedish social democrat. Nothing matters as much as raising children, and we all have a part to play. And motivating people from minority backgrounds to not limit their aspiration is a good thing. Motivation is not the same thing as regulation, however.

How would you feel if you lost your job to a protected minority? More disposed to think well of such people? Less so? Even if you lost out because you deserved to, it would require the disposition of a saint not to suspect the motives of your erstwhile employer, if all you’ve heard for the past 10 years is the importance of building a more diverse workforce. The explosion in the number of employment tribunals must surely at least partly reflect this. The Ministry of Justice’s summary for 2009-2010 shows a 56 per cent increase in the number of cases over the previous year, and almost double the number compared to 2000. Can it be coincidental that the rise — with all the economic consequences for the businesses involved — has gone hand in hand with the march of Equality legislation? Who suffers most from the creation of all this ill-feeling?

The idea that the interpersonal decency required for a common good life can be legislated into existence would be laughable were we not living with the consequences of trying to make it happen. The entirely predictable endpoint of all this — a mass of court cases, with more and more groups demanding the right to be “protected” (Christians are the latest) — will not make a single human being more good, or more happy. These laws are detestable precisely because they are anti-human, reducing each of us to a single category of identity, setting us at one another’s throats to defend our legally protected rights. These are not concepts that a Tory should be pushing, Home Secretary.

I wish the Labour conference well. But if they really want to discuss the problems faced by women in their party or society, they’d be more successful if they put aside the self-imposed gender segregation, and invited as many people as possible to take part. Diversity is another one of those words that’s in danger of losing its meaning, I fear; it stands now for legally-sanctioned conformity. Look at the Labour conference Women’s Day: speaking up for diversity, by enacting its exact opposite.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Two Arrested in Finland in Terror Financing Probe

HELSINKI — A man and a woman with foreign backgrounds have been detained in Finland on suspicion of financing terrorism and recruiting people for terror attacks on another country, police said on Saturday.

“There is a reason to believe these actions are related to such an organization which is suspected of terrorism actions,” Detective Inspector Kaj Bjorkqvist from the National Bureau of Investigation said.

The two suspects had been under surveillance by the security intelligence service before their arrest on September 7, police said. They appeared at Helsinki district court a week ago and were remanded in custody at a special hearing for which court papers have not been released.

In the police’s first detailed comment on the case, Bjorkqvist said the plans for a possible attack were not targeted against Finland, but a country “not very near” to Finland. The security threat level in Finland had not increased, he told reporters.

Finnish newspapers said the two had Somali backgrounds but Bjorkqvist declined to comment on their nationality or name any organizations or countries the investigation was linked to.

Police have searched a number of houses in the capital region and confiscated evidence. They are also investigating whether other people are linked with the case.

           — Hat tip: SL [Return to headlines]



UK: Is the EDL the New Voice of the White Working Class?

There’s a YouTube video doing the rounds which “anti-fascist” campaigners against the English Defence League don’t want you to see. It features a couple of young middle-class supporters of Unite Against Fascism sniggering as one of them describes a “horrible tattooed woman” at a demo being punched in the face “before someone kicks her up the arse”. In the words of Telegraph blogger Brendan O’Neill, these well-bred kids admit that it’s not normally OK to hit women, “but you can make an exception when it comes to female EDL supporters because they aren’t women — they’re dogs”.

You might think there’s nothing new in this. The street battles between the Anti-Nazi League and the National Front in the 1970s pitted white middle-class students against white working-class thugs: in both cases there was a sense that the ethnic minorities they were fighting over were almost irrelevant. Actually, the similarities are misleading. The EDL isn’t the National Front or even the British National Party. It’s not a fascist party, more of an angry white rentamob. And the racism is different, too: not so much about colour, more about culture.

But here’s the worrying thing. The EDL and its sympathisers appear, at first glance, to be more representative of a section of the English working class — especially in London — than the old “far Right” ever was. Neo-Nazis, your time is up. The Second World War was just too long ago. Disaffected whites don’t want to dress up as stormtroopers: that would make them feel like prats — the Sealed Knot with swastikas. As for the fascist-lite BNP, don’t be misled by the protest vote that put Nick Griffin in the European Parliament. In the general election, it achieved 1.9 per cent of the vote, sending it into a tailspin of despair.

The white working class isn’t interested in proper fascism. For a generation that came to political maturity slumped in front of the telly, ugly blokes preaching about Britain’s ethnic heritage look as if they’ve escaped from a comedy sketch. Also, racial purity isn’t a big deal on south London estates. Not when White Man Van has little mixed-race nieces whom he adores.

“Chavs”, as the UAF calls them, don’t hate their British-born black equivalents. They may not be best mates with gang members, but they know them from school and get their weed from the same dealers. There are even traces of class solidarity between them, which enrages fastidious “anti-fascists”. Gays? Jews? Yesterday’s prejudices. The EDL has gay and Jewish sections. Better a poof who doesn’t rub your nose in it than a Muslim who speaks broken English and pushes ahead of you in the queue for benefits and social housing.

It’s pointless to argue with an EDL sympathiser that most British Muslims don’t fit this description: that Islam is a complex and fast-changing phenomenon and that Muslim ghettos are likely to be eroded by secularisation. A little learning is a dangerous thing, and EDL agitators know just enough about sharia to convince their neighbours — including black ones — that a sinister project to Islamise Britain is about to succeed.

The English Defence League has chosen its target carefully; no doubt about that. But is the group an authentic expression of white anger or just the latest racist parasite on a demoralised working class? That’s a difficult question to answer. The Government doesn’t seem to have a clue. Perhaps the only way to find out is to wait and see whether a new recession pushes British politics any further in the direction it has taken this year: out of Parliament and on to the streets.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Several Establishment Journalists Have Turned Their Backs on Europe

Today Simon Jenkins becomes the latest of several establishment journalist to turn on Europe. Jenkins writes:

“Europe is clearly at a turning point, turning against the single-statism of the European movement, with its straitjacketed currency, its flows of economic migrants and counterflows of subsidies, its everlasting crises and its humiliation of democratic governments. It is turning back to national identity, and there is nothing the EU can do to stop it.”

The Times’ Matthew Parris was the first of the establishment to make very sceptical noises, when he wrote:

“I’ve never seriously entertained ideas of British withdrawal for longer than 24 hours. What, then, if there were a vote today? Would I still vote to stay? Probably. But that assumption of inevitability is leaking away. I’ve begun to daydream about halfway houses, two-tier membership arrangements, a semi-detached relationship in which the Franco-German core of the European project do what they surely have to do next if their dream is not to die: create a hard-edged and more exclusive Euroland in which harmonised taxes and spending, and harmonised debt-to-GDP ratios, run alongside the already unified currency. And we British stand outside that.”

Last week Times journalist, Camilla Cavendish also entertained the thought of leaving the EU.

“Realism,” she wrote, “means admitting that the single-market project has run its course and that the EU is fatally fractured.” She continued: “If the UK benefits from trade but is largely hurt by harmonisation, a free trade agreement might be preferable to membership. It is a huge step — but it could let us stand with the EU without being run by it. Leaving the EU would not mean ending co-operation. We work together on terrorism and intelligence with the US and other countries without giving up control over home affairs. If our Parliament was not subject to EU law it might well adopt European environmental standards, for example, while retaining the right to change its mind.”

In the Daily Mail, Max Hastings went even further than the rest, and apologised for being pro-European for his whole life:

“I still reject the crude jingoism of the UK Independence Party, which ignores the practicalities of avoiding a breach with our vital trading partners. And I realise that quitting Europe would engage us in a crisis that would sap the entire energy and attentions of any British government for years. But it has become essential to repatriate powers from Brussels. This is not in furtherance of isolationism, but of the economic imperative to strengthen our competitive position in the world and repair our social fabric. We must regain control of Britain’s borders, loss of which has inflicted wholly unwelcome social change. Almost incredibly, the latest net immigration figures are the highest ever. If the EU maintains its present path, it is hard to see the structure surviving longer than another decade. Its failure will become ever more starkly obvious to the electorates of Northern Europe, who pay the bills for the chronic corruption and incompetence of the South.”

Who will be next?

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Tough Policing: Advice for the New Met Police Commissioner

by Robert Lambert MBE

From a short list of three candidates I confess I was keen to see ‘soft cop’ Sir Hugh Orde win the contest to become the new Met Police Commissioner but now that the Home Secretary has appointed ‘tough cop’ Bernard Hogan-Howe instead I offer him my full support in his new and demanding post. With encouragement from the Platform editorial team I will use this article to offer him some advice.

First and foremost I want to offer advice about his approach to policing — what he likes to call ‘total policing’, a variation of ‘zero tolerance policing’ or ‘tough policing’ and what might be called his philosophy of policing if that is not too grand a claim. According to Philip Johnson writing in the Daily Telegraph, Hogan-Howe appeals to Conservative politicians because he is ‘a scourge of liberal judges and soft sentencing’; is ‘dismissive of the health and safety brigade’; and ‘believes in stopping crime and in keeping order’. ‘If you wanted a Scotland Yard chief’ Johnson suggests ‘who looks tough and talks tough (and isn’t Bill Bratton, the American favoured by David Cameron), then Hogan-Howe fits the bill perfectly’.

In truth, whether New Labour or a Conservative and Liberal democrat coalition, all governments strive to appear to be tough on crime and tough on terrorism and are bound to be drawn to Hogan-Howe, who as chief constable of Merseyside, ‘built up an impressive reputation for getting to grips with the city’s gangs and for tackling anti-social behaviour’.

So far, so good. Anyone who witnessed the recent rioting and looting in London and other English cities, will be pleased to have a tough, no-nonsense cop at the helm. However, whatever style of policing is adopted — tough or soft — it has to be applied fairly. My advice to Hogan-Howe is therefore to ensure that he is as tough on white collar crime as he is on street crime. As Jon Snow pointed out on the Channel 4 News this week, the publication of the Vickers report into British banking reform ‘sparks the question why the UK has so far failed to prosecute a single individual for his or her misdeeds during the financial meltdown of 2008’.

Many readers may have seen Snow press the City Minister, Mark Hoban, on why there had been no prosecutions of dishonest bankers by the Serious Fraud Office. It is easy to bear down on looters but Hogan-Howe will need to show greater courage if he is to tackle what Snow calls a far greater threat from bankers than ‘from any number of more arrestable rioters’.

Hogan-Howe will need to be equally brave if he is to be as tough on far right terrorism, political violence and intimidation as his predecessors have been on terrorism and political violence associated with al-Qaeda and fringe Muslim extremists. He will need to ensure that counter-terrorism policing takes full account of the threat posed by extremists who share the same ambitions as Anders Breivik if not — to date at least — the Oslo terrorist’s chilling skill.

And if the new commissioner accepts the Home Secretary’s view that young Muslims should be ‘prevented’ from becoming radicalised into ‘extremism’ then he should ensure that the same measures are applied to young people joining the English Defence League. Even handedness is essential. Sticking with the EDL, Hogan-Howe should ensure that the group is treated as a threat to community safety, and repudiate colleagues and politicians who seek to excuse them.

Most crucially of all, Hogan-Howe should be tough and brave in standing up to the Home Secretary in defending Muslim organisations and groups she has wrongly branded ‘non-violent extremist’. He should support his police chief in Tower Hamlets who hails the Islamic Forum Europe (IFE) stewards and youth workers in Tower Hamlets as outstanding partners of police. [JP emphasis]

By the same token, courage should be displayed in defending the outstanding work of Muslims in London who have helped to tackle the threat of al-Qaeda influence. With this being the topic of my new book Countering al-Qaeda in London: Police and Muslims in Partnership , I have sent a copy to Hogan-Howe so he can see for himself how important it is to stand up for Muslim partners of police who are now being stigmatised by the Home Secretary as ‘extremist’. This is surely the kind of test that determines whether a police chief is really ‘tough’ or just selectively ‘tough’ on issues that play well in Whitehall, as well as with the Daily Mail and The Sun.

When Sir Ian Blair was Met Commissioner he was regularly attacked in the media for being soft and politically correct — especially in his treatment of Muslim communities. As a result, when Blair attended a conference on Islamophobia at the London Muslim Centre in 2007 he sought to appear ‘tough’. Much to the amazement of the conference organisers Blair began his keynote address by declaring that he did not think Islamophobia was a significant problem and that instead he would deliver a speech on the al-Qaeda terrorist threat — a version of a speech, he said, he had delivered in Italy a few days earlier.

I sat in the audience and after Blair finished his address turned to a police colleague sitting next to me and said that the speech was ill-judged and counter-productive. Somewhat exasperated, after five years of explaining to ACPO officers that there was a need to take Islamophobia seriously, I was forced to conclude that Blair’s speech was aimed at the Daily Mail and not at the audience he was addressing in Tower Hamlets. Hogan-Howe will need to be tougher than that.

I was not able to stay for the entire Islamophobia conference as I had to visit a London mosque that had been attacked by vandals the night before. As I walked away from the LMC, along the Whitechapel Road and past Altab Ali Park towards Aldgate East tube station I pondered a change in Blair’s attitude towards Islamophobia. I recalled how in July 2005 his staff officer telephoned me in relation to a front page report in The Sun newspaper. Typically, just days after terrorists inspired or directed by al-Qaeda bombed London The Sun explained to its readers how this atrocity was linked to Palestinian resistance by seizing on a planned visit to Britain by the academic Tariq Ramadan to make its case:

‘Extremist Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan, who backs suicide bombings, is to address a London conference part-funded by police.in our bomb-hit capital he is being given a platform to speak — while the victims of Britain’s worst terror atrocity wait to be buried. Ramadan is no ranting Abu Hamza or Omar Bakri. He’s more dangerous than that…He is a soft-spoken professor whose moderate tones present an acceptable, “reasonable” face of terror to impressionable young Muslims…’

In addition to the malicious targeting of specific ‘extremists’ such as Ramadan, Murdoch’s tabloids regularly stigmatise Muslim communities in Britain. According to research published on the sixth anniversary of the London bombings, the News of the World and The Sun have contributed to the creation of ‘suspect communities’ through reporting that fails to distinguish between terrorists and the communities where they live. Unlike some of his predecessors , the new commissioner will need to be tough on journalists too. Journalists, bankers and politicians as much as street thugs. That will be the real test of ‘toughness’ and courage.

Robert Lambert MBE is a research fellow at the Department of Politics and Co-Director of the European Muslim Research Centre, University of Exeter. He is also the retired head of the London Metropolitan Police’s Muslim Contact Unit (MCU) and a Lecturer at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV) at the University of St Andrews. His latest book,’Countering Al-Qaeda in London: Police and Muslims in Partnership’ is published by Hurst & Company.

[JP note: Lambert is a leading UK dhimmipath who, among other activities, supports the Jew-hating Qaradawi. Note — a dhimmipath is a person suffering from a chronic mental disorder with abnormal or self-lethal behaviour in relation to Islam.]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



US Citizen to Italy After Detention in England

McLEAN, Va. — An Oregon man who traveled to England by boat because of his apparent placement on the U.S. no-fly list has been released from custody by British authorities after being detained upon arrival from a trans-Atlantic cruise, according to his family. Michael Migliore, a 23-year-old Muslim convert and dual citizen of the U.S. and Italy, had been trying unsuccessfully for months to fly to Italy to live with his mother.

He ended up traveling by Amtrak from Portland to New York, where he took a trans-Atlantic cruise that arrived in England Monday. The trip took more than a week. When he arrived in Southampton, his family and lawyers from the Council on American-Islamic Relations said, he was detained by British authorities. On Monday night, Migliore’s brother and mother reported that he had been released from custody after eight to 10 hours of questioning. They said authorities confiscated a cell phone, iPod and other electronic media. While he has been released, Migilore remains under watch by a law enforcement official as he continues his trip to Italy, said his brother Anthony Migliore. Michael Migliore says he was told earlier this year that he is on the no-fly list, though U.S. officials refuse to confirm it publicly. He believes he is on the list because he refused to be interviewed without a lawyer by FBI agents after an acquaintance was charged last year in a plot to bomb a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland.

Gadeir Abbas, Migliore’s lawyer with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, had challenged Migliore’s placement on the no-fly list, saying he had been denied due process. Abbas was writing letters to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and FBI Director Robert Mueller seeking Migliore’s removal from the list.Because of the no-fly list, Migliore “was forced to travel like he was living in the 19th century. What was waiting for him on the other side of the Atlantic was more oppression,” Abbas said.

Michael Migliore told his family that British authorities removed him from the ship before it was allowed to dock in Southampton, according to Anthony. They questioned him about photos he had taken of the ship during his journey, which Anthony described as typical tourist photos. “He said they tried to insinuate he’s taking these pictures to plan something,” Anthony Migliore said. “He didn’t even want to go on a boat. If they would’ve let him fly, he wouldn’t have had any pictures of a boat.”

CAIR officials said they have dealt with many cases in recent years of American Muslims wrongly barred from international travel by a government bureaucracy that operates in secrecy with little or no accountability. U.S. officials routinely refuse to confirm whether somebody is on a no-fly list. In court cases where the constitutionality of the no-fly list has been challenged, government lawyers say there is an administrative process available for people who are wrongly placed on the list. More broadly, they say placement on the no-fly list does not infringe on citizens’ rights because there is no constitutional right to take an airplane.

In the past, U.S officials have said that fewer than 200 U.S. residents are on the no-fly list, though significantly larger numbers are on a broader watchlist that could result in additional screening procedures. A spokeswoman with the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs did not return a call seeking comment Monday. British police in Southampton, where Migliore was detained, could not comment Monday evening.

Both Abbas and Migliore’s mother, Claudia Pasquale, say that Migliore’s journey across the country and the Atlantic demonstrates the folly of the no-fly list. While citizens are severely inconvenienced by the inability to fly, little is done to improve national security because, theoretically, a terrorist could just as easily target a train or a cruise ship. Pasquale, though, is adamant that her son is not a terrorist and does not want to harm anybody. While she is Catholic, her son’s decision to convert to Islam at age 18 coincided with his maturation as a young man, she said. She doubted that he would have graduated from college if not for his conversion.

Pasquale said she has bought another plane ticket from London to Italy for her son, after his detention caused him to miss his initial flight. While the U.S. no-fly list does not govern European flights, Migliore and has family said they have been prepared to continue travel on train if he continues to have flight difficulties in London. Migliore is planning to live with his mother and find a job, with the goal of living in Italy permanently. “He was finished in the States. If you think he’s such an undesirable person, let him go,” she said.

Associated Press writers Sylvia Hui and Jonathan Cooper contributed to this report from London and Salem, Ore., respectively.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Mediterranean Union


EU-Morocco: Fishing Accord, Euro-MPs to Appeal

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, SEPTEMBER 14 — The fishing agreement between the EU and Morocco may go before the European Court of Justice, as it concerns the waters of Western Sahara territory as well. A group of 74 European parliamentarians, led by the British Liberal Democrat Andrew Duff, has just presented a resolution with a request to the European Court of Justice to determine the legality of the agreement in accordance with EU treaties and international law. The aim is to have clear ideas on the matter before the European Parliament gives the green light to the agreement. “The extension of the agreement on fishing with Morocco,” said Duff in a statement,” generates uncertainty on its legality in both substantial and procedural terms. The European Parliament has the duty to know whether EU obligations and international law are fully complied with”. The resolution will now be put to a plenary vote. “I hope that European MPs,” added Duffy,” will agree to give the Court of Justice the possibility to examine the proposed agreement. If the court upholds our report, I expect it will suspend the agreement or recommend that the territory -which is not self-governed — of the Western Sahara be excluded”. According to the agreement and its protocol, reports the statement by the ALDE European MP, the EU will pay Morocco over 36 million euros to fish in Moroccan waters, including those of the Western Sahara. According to international law, the benefits of fishing should benefit the entire population of the territories concerned.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

North Africa


Algeria: Scepticism Over Radio/TV Liberalisation, Media

(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, SEPTEMBER 14 — What seems to be a Copernican revolution in the audiovisual communications world in Algeria — following the government’s decision to “open” the sector up to private owners — has not garnered many enthusiastic comments in a country where information is not lacking so much as the need is felt for the sector to be truly a service and not only an opportunity for profit. To sum up, the government has announced that the public monopoly on audiovisual information has come to a de facto end and that it will hereafter proceed to grant licenses following timely and rigorous preliminary inquiries.

And only a few hours later El Watan, a French-language daily often in the front lines when it comes to criticising the authorities — at any leve- if their behaviour is censurable, announced that it would soon be submitting a request to obtain the go-ahead for a television channel and a radio station. It is a economically substantial commitment but one sure to be a success, since in Algeria — like in all North African countries — there is hunger for constant information and news, something which is currently limited to official sources or statements issued by the government. However, the latter’s decision met with a lukewarm response often threaded with scepticism more than support (due to its official motivation), since it is being interpreted as only the latest in a long string of means to help “friends”, and not as something which should foster growth of Algerian society, made up mostly of young people. Some have voiced opinions which go even further, as was the case with Belkacem Mostefaoui, vice director of the Graduate School of Information and Communication. Mostefaoui told El Watan that he saw a “total lack of transparency”, and that he feared that behind the draft law there was a “hidden game” being played.

He also expressed concerns that the draft law on market liberalisation could result in a degeneration of the situation in Algeria, of what is the cultural model of Algeria, which would therefore be exposed to the temptation to copy other countries, with a multiplication of commercial channels that are the preserve of investors who are also “ideological comrades” of the regime. And so, the suspicion is spreading that the new players on the audiovisual information scene are acting — not only out of normal economic interests (those investing most certainly do not want to lose money) — but to create centres able to grant visibility and engage in lobbying activities. Others, however, feel that the draft law — though what exactly it contains, its limits and motivations still remain obscure — should be accepted for what it is, not forgetting that Algeria is one of the few countries in the world having only one television channel, and that many Algerians placing their hopes in this reform process are not at all pleased to be in the company of North Koreans in this less-than-edifying statistic.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Egypt: 35% Drop in Tourist Numbers in 2 ND Quarter

(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, SEPTEMBER 12 — The number of tourists visiting Egypt during the second quarter of 2011 was down by more than a third on those in the first part of the year.

According to a report issued by Egypt’s Statistical Agency, during the period in question, there were 2.2 million tourist visitors to the country compared to the 3.5 million during the same period of 2010, showing a fall of 35.4%. Although negative, the figures show a slight improvement on the fall of more than 40% registered in the first quarter of this year, which coincided with the uprising leading to the ousting of Hosni Mubarak.

Yesterday, the Egyptian government announced that it would not be pursuing a suggested policy of requiring non-package tourists to furnish themselves with visas to visit the country, fearing the consequences of such a move for the tourist sector.

The head of the international section of Egypt’s tourism ministry, Samy Mahmud, told the daily paper Masri al Youm, that he feared last week’s attack on the Israeli embassy would have a negative impact on bookings for the winter season.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Gaddafi Loyalists Launch Major Bani Walid Counteroffensive

(AGI) Bani Walid — Having pushed back NTC militia in Bani Walid yesterday, Gaddafi loyalists launch major counteroffensive.

News of the counteroffensives is reported by journalists following the militia’s retreat. Sources also report insurgents having been forced back from their advanced outposts, several kilometres outside Bani Walid. Insurgents are reported to have suffered heavy casualties.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Libya: Refugee Flows to Tunisia Still High

(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, SEPTEMBER 14 — Refugee flows from Libya to Tunisia are still substantial. TAP reports that on Monday about 11,000 people arrived at the Ras Jedir border crossing, while from the Libyan side of the border repeated exchanges of fire were heard.

Yesterday also saw high flows, with lengthy waits at the border crossing which refugees arriving in vehicles had to face under the scorching sun. However, some Libyans are also heading back to their home country in cars loaded with food and necessary supplies. Transit waits are long in part due to the thorough checks carried out by Tunisian border police.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Tunisia: Five Unemployed Attempt Collective Suicide

(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, SEPTEMBER 16 — Five unemployed diplomats from Kasserine attempted suicide, early in the afternoon, by hanging themselves. A last minute intervention managed to save their lives and only one of them has been admitted to the local hospital in serious conditions. The suicide attempt took place in front of the regional headquarters of the Kasserine Ministry of Teaching where the five persons, aged between 34 and 43 years old, had been protesting for days claiming their right to work.

The collective suicide attempt is the first of this kind in Tunisia and has also been documented by a series of pictures.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Israel and the Palestinians


Amnesty Wants Israel Haluled Before the International Criminal Court

Amnesty International has called for the UN Security Council to refer Israel to the International Criminal Court. Letters on the subject have been sent to Ban Ki-Moon and Baroness Ashton, as well as the Arab League and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. The human rights group, known for being heavily critical of the Israeli government, said it was pursuing the move in light of the opening of the UN General Assembly session in New York. The Palestinian Authority is set to make a unilateral bid for independence at the UN next Friday.

On Thursday, a reform to Britain’s universal jurisdiction law came into effect. Under the new law, groups will have to seek permission from the Director of Public Prosecutions in order for an arrest warrant to be issued for visiting foreign dignitaries.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Britain to Back Palestinian UN Bid ‘On Condition’

The British government will only back a Palestinian bid for statehood at the UN next week under stringent conditions, a Foreign Office official said today. Britain would support a Palestinian attempt to secure “observer state” status at the General Assembly on condition that the Palestinians agree to return to peace talks without preconditions and that Israel’s concerns over potential future prosecutions at the ICC were met.

The UK considers a direct Palestinian appeal to the UN Security Council “catastrophic”, since it would be likely to result in the US and Israel withdrawing funding from the Palestinian Authority. Britain’s preferred scenario is Palestinian acceptance of a package crafted by Quartet envoy Tony Blair and EU foreign affairs representative Catherine Ashton, under which the PA would be upgraded to a new legal status below that of a state, although diplomats close to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas indicated that it was unlikely that he would accept that initiative.

The General Assembly non-member “observer state” option would, in practice, give the Palestinians a seat within many UN institutions. The big concern for Israel is that this would be likely to result in the International Criminal Court gaining jurisdiction over the West Bank, enabling the Palestinians to lodge legal cases against Israel over issues like settlement construction. Britain has so far taken no formal position on the upcoming UN bid but is waiting to see which course of action Mr Abbas will take at the UN next week. Officials fear that if, by next Tuesday, Mr Abbas has not made a proposal, his course will be set for a showdown at the Security Council next Friday.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Canada to Oppose Bid for Palestinian Statehood

OTTAWA — Canada will oppose an upcoming bid for statehood at the United Nations by Palestinians, says Prime Minister Stephen Harper. On Friday, Harper said this sort of “unilateral action” on behalf of the Palestinian Authority is “very regrettable” and won’t help the goal of establishing long-term peace in the Middle East. The prime minister made the statement as he prepares to visit New York next week for a meeting with other world leaders whose nations are part of the military alliance that ousted Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

Also next Tuesday, Harper will attend a high-level meeting at the United Nations on improving maternal and child health in poor nations — a cause that Harper has been championing for more than a year. On Wednesday, Harper’s focus will be on the economy as he attends a business roundtable hosted by the New York Stock Exchange. Harper will not deliver an address to the General Assembly of the UN, which will be gripped by the controversial request later in the week from the Palestinian Authority for full membership in the international body.

The Palestinians have been actively lobbying the international community to support their request — a move which they say would be a major step toward the actual creation of a Palestinian nation. By achieving such official recognition, they believe they would have a greater international profile and more leverage in their negotiations with Israel. The United States has indicated it will oppose the request at the UN — expected to come next Friday when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas delivers an address to the UN General Assembly.

At a news conference in Saskatchewan, Harper was asked about the position Canada will adopt. “It is our view this unilateral action on behalf of the Palestinian Authority to be not helpful,” Harper responded. “No unilateral actions like this are helpful in terms of establishing a long-run peace in the Middle East.” The prime minister left no doubt how Canada will act at the UN on the matter. “Canada views the action as very regrettable and we will be opposing it at the United Nations.” The issue is quickly developing into an international political time bomb that could cause significant friction at the UN. It’s still not certain how the drama will play out, but the likely scenario is as follows.

Abbas will ask the 15-member UN Security Council to endorse the Palestinian Authority’s bid for full membership at the UN. Once that happens, the stage will be set for a major international rift. The United States will use its power as a permanent member of the Security Council to veto the bid. The U.S. says the only way for the Palestinians to achieve statehood is through negotiations with Israel as part of long-standing, but stymied, Mideast peace efforts.

Once that veto happens, it’s expected the Palestinians will opt for their second-best option. They will ask the 193-member General Assembly for recognition as a non-member state.

This would provide limited powers of UN membership, but would carry the advantage of being able, for instance, to take human rights complaints to the International Criminal Court.

In such a vote, it is highly likely that the Palestinians would succeed. Already 127 of the 193 nations reportedly have indicated they would vote for a Palestinian bid. In that instance, Canada would be among the countries formally objecting by voting no.

Although Harper has adopted a firm stance on the Palestinian issue, he won’t be speaking to the General Assembly this year. (He has spoken to the Assembly twice since coming to power — in 2006 and in 2010). Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird will speak to the Assembly on behalf of Canada later this month. During his trip to New York next week, Harper will meet Tuesday with NATO nations and Arab organizations that are known as the Friends of Libya — the group that rallied last spring to mount a military action against Gadhafi and to help the rebels in that country.

Although Gadhafi’s forces have lost the capital city of Tripoli, their leader is still on the run. Moreover, it’s unclear how well the National Transitional Council, which has the support of countries, such as Canada, will guide the war-torn North African country toward stability. At next week’s meeting, Harper will be joined by major leaders, such as Britain’s David Cameron and France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, who visited Libya this week. The countries are expected to agree on the need to extend the mission beyond its current Sept. 27 deadline — likely for another three months. They also will focus on measures to ensure Libya’s fledgling interim government receives the aid it needs.

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Turkish Charities to Build Orphanage in Gaza Strip

(ANSAmed) — GAZA, SEPTEMBER 16 — Turkish Cansuyu Relief and Solidarity Association will build an orphanage in Jabalia city in Gaza Strip and the foundation of the building was laid with a ceremony on Friday, Anatolia news agency reports. The Chairman of the association, Mustafa Koylu, said that Cansuyu had been helping people in Gaza since Israel’s embargo began, adding that they distributed food and clothes to poor families. Noting that many people lost their houses and many children lost their parents during Israeli bombing on Gaza two years ago, Koylu said that Cansuyu would build an orphanage in the city. He added that the children would not stay in the center, noting that they would be educated and rehabilitated in the orphanage. Koylu said that the orphanage would cost 1.1 million USD and serve 600 orphans.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Middle East


Cyprus-Turkey: Tension Rises Over Off-Shore Exploration

(ANSAmed) — NICOSIA, SEPTEMBER 16 — The ‘Homer Ferrington’ oil drilling platform, owned by the Usa Noble Energy company, after having carried out explorations in Israel’s territorial waters, has been positioned in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of the Republic of Cyprus, where it will start prospecting operations next week under the vigilant eye of Ankara’s Navy and Air Force.

The report was made by sources of the Cyprus Ministry of Defence according to whom Turkish fighters and frigates have watched from a distance, without violating the territorial waters or the air space of Cyprus, the transfer of the platform from the off-shore Israeli oil field named “Noa” to the Greek-Cypriot “Block 12” (also known as “Aphrodite”).

The “Homer” is expected to start drilling operations as of next Monday, but there is no indication that friction sparked off in the eastern Mediterranean in recent days by Ankara, which is still questioning the right of Israel and Cyprus to search for oil and gas fields in their respective EEZs, is easing up.

According to Turkey, the revenues of oil and gas extractions are also due to the Turkish-Cypriot people who live in the North of the island that was militarily occupied by Turley in 1974.

Furthermore Ankara claims that the prospecting operations carried out by the government of Cyprus represent a hurdle to the continuation of negotiations that have been in place since 2008 between Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots for the reunification of the island.

Yesterday Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement saying that — should the Republic of Cyprus continue drilling — Ankara will sign an agreement with the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (Trnc, only recognised by Turkey) to carry out prospecting operations in the stretch of sea between Turkey and the northern area of the island.

The matter was also addressed yesterday by the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs which protested against Ankara’s decision to send — escorted by the Turkish Navy — the Portuguese ship for geological explorations named ‘Bergen Surveyor’ off the shores of the island of Kastelorizo, which is Greek but which lies less than three kilometres away from Turkey’s coast.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Syria: Anti-Assad Sheikh Threatens to ‘Tear Christians Apart’

(ANSAmed) — ROME, SEPTEMBER 16 — A Syrian sheikh who has been exiled to Saudi Arabia and has become one of the voices of the uprising against Assad, urges his followers, in television sermons that have been broadcast in Syria as well, to “tear apart, chop up and feed” the meat of all supporters of the current regime “to the dogs,” including all Christians. The fundamentalist turn part of the Syrian opposition is taking is denounced on the website Terrasanta.net, of the Franciscan Custody.

Many Syrian Christians, the website reads, are terrorised; in some cities, like Homs, they are even afraid to leave their houses. Some churches have already been burned down. These appeals to hate were made in this context by sheikh Adnan al Aroor, who is described in a profile of television network Al Arabia as a ‘moderate Sunni’, a ‘symbolic figure’ for the anti-Assad activists, a man who invites people to ‘peaceful and non-violent’ rebellion. The sheikh broadcasts on the Islamic satellite channel al Safa, which has its headquarters in Saudi Arabia. The channel is very popular in Syria. In one of the sheik’s sermons that have been examined by the editorial staff of ‘Terrasanta’, al Aroor explains that Syrians can be divided into three groups: “the first includes people who are for the revolution and against Assad. When the President falls, the winners will look with favour on this group. The second group consists of people who are not for nor against the revolution. They can expect no privileges from the new regime. The third group opposes the revolution and backs Assad. The meat of these people — in the words of Al Aroor — will be “torn apart, chopped up and fed to the dogs.” This is an explicit threat to Christians, who have always been considered to be protected by the current regime. “Each Friday”, Terrasanta.net writes, “crowds called by the peaceful call of the social networks fill the squares. But there are also those, and that is a cause for concern, who come after being urged by unscrupulous preachers. They all come to challenge a government that is unable to show evidence of real reforms. Whoever wins, the future of Syria remains unclear.”

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Turkey Firmly Refuses U.S. Mediation in Crisis With Israel

(AGI) Istanbul- Turkey’s government has turned down the proposal for US mediation in the country’s diplomacy crisis with Israel. “We do not require any mediation whatsoever with Israel”, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told journalists regarding the possibility of a diplomatic intervention by Washington in the crisis which has Turkey a step away from a rift with Israel.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

Russia


‘Flying Ladas’: Crashes Threaten Russian Aerospace Revival

A series of plane crashes — eight this year alone with the total loss of 119 lives — is threatening to undermine Russia’s ambitions to revive its once-proud aircraft industry. The country is pinning its hopes on a new regional jet, the Sukhoi Superjet 100 — but each new disaster involving aging planes is dimming its prospects of success in the international market.

When the red carnations ran out, people started laying gladioli and chrysanthemums along the wall of the ice hockey rink in Yaroslavl, Russia.

Inside the building, President Dmitry Medvedev asked his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gül and 300 other guests of honor to observe a minute of silence for the 44 victims of a Yak-42 plane crash. Twenty-seven of those who died were members of the celebrated Lokomotiv hockey team, which scored many of its greatest triumphs in this rink. German national hockey team member Robert Dietrich was among the victims.

Once the silence was over, the Russian head of state returned to his favorite topics, Internet progress in Russia and the modernization of his enormous empire. It is unlikely that his grand words impressed any of the grieving fans. For the victims of the plane crash, Medvedev’s modernization comes too late.

One woman tacked a poster to the arena wall, on which Yaroslavl residents offered their condolences. “Forgive us,” one person wrote in a messy scrawl, presumably meant to express the sense that something isn’t right here, in this country that considers itself a world power, yet whose infrastructure often resembles that of a developing country.

This year alone, eight serious airplane crashes have claimed the lives of 119 people. In the same time period, leading Western airlines have maintained a crash-free record. The Yak-42 is considered particularly prone to accidents. More than 180 of this model were produced in Saratov and Smolensk from 1979 until 2002; nine of them have crashed and 569 people have died. The Yak-Service airline even spent time on the European Aviation Safety Agency blacklist and was forbidden for some time to fly its planes into the EU, due to shortcomings in safety and documentation.

More Dangerous Than Africa

Flying in Russia, the natural resource superpower with the world’s third largest foreign currency reserves, has become more dangerous than in many crisis-ridden countries in Africa. “It’s depressing for a nation proud of its aviation,” says Jan Richter, a flight safety statistician in Hamburg.

Just this spring, President Medvedev declared a healthy aircraft industry a “key condition for recovering our economy’s competitive position.” Now, at the site of the crash, he said angrily: “Of course we should think of our own. But if they can’t hack it, we’ll have to buy our planes abroad.”

The most powerful helicopter (the Mi-12), the largest cargo plane (the An-225) and the world’s first commercial supersonic jet (the Tu-144) — the Russian aviation industry has had a dazzling history. The country’s factories once manufactured more than 350 commercial airplanes a year, producing over a thousand of the Yak-42’s predecessor alone.

Today, Russia’s share of the global market has shrunk to a mere 1.5 percent, and despite the Kremlin pumping billions of rubles into the country’s aviation industry, it produced just seven large passenger airplanes last year.

Now the Kremlin is pinning its hopes on a new regional airplane, the Sukhoi Superjet 100. Already 170 orders for the plane have come in, including a few from the United States, and the first three planes have been delivered…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

South Asia


Explosions Kill Three in Thailand

A series of explosions killed three people including a child and injured at least 64 in Thailand’s violence-plagued province of Narathiwat, officials said on Saturday. Three bombs hidden on parked motorcycles exploded within 30 minutes on Friday night in Sungai Kolok town on the Thai-Malaysian border, about 800 kilometres south of Bangkok. A 3-year-old boy died and the Malaysian parents were hospitalised with severe injuries, Internal Security Operations Command officer Colonel Parinya Chaidilok said. At least eight of the injured victims were identified as Malaysian citizens. Sungai Kolok is a popular weekend destination for Malaysian-Chinese tourists from across the border.

‘We suspect the people behind this attack were linked to a drug-trafficking gang that authorities recently cracked down on,’ Parinya said. Narathiwat authorities arrested suspected drug dealers on Tuesday and seized up to 14,000 amphetamine pills. They also seized computers that provided details of a drug-dealing network in the border region, which has been plagued by Muslim insurgencies and contraband traffic for decades. ‘This gang is paying local insurgents to create chaos in the region,’ Akkhara said.

Thailand’s southern region comprising Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala provinces has witnessed escalating violence since January 2004, when Muslim militants raided an army base and seized 300 war weapons. The raid triggered a series of bloody crackdowns on suspected Muslim separatists in 2004 that further antagonised the local population against the Bangkok-based government and unleashed a wave of revenge killings on authorities and their accomplices over the past seven and a half years.

Clashes, shootouts, beheadings and bombs have claimed 4,846 lives in the majority-Muslim southernmost provinces since 2004, with no sign of the violence abating this year, according to Deep South Watch, a network of academics and civil society groups that monitors the southern unrest. There have been 11,704 violent incidents documented in the three provinces since 2004, claiming 4,846 dead and 7,995 injured. Of the dead, 1,857 were identified as Buddhists and 2,858 as Muslims, with 131 victims’ religion unknown. The majority of the population feels closer cultural and linguistic ties with Malaysia than with the predominantly Buddhist Thai state. The area, once called the Islamic Sultanate of Pattani, was conquered by Bangkok about 200 years ago but has never fully accepted central government rule.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



India: Madhya Pradesh: Pentecostal Pastors and 11 Hindus Who Wanted Baptism Arrested

Five activists of the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) and the police tried to convince the faithful to file a false complaint against the pastor, on charges of forced conversions. The 11 rejected. GCIC: “ Madhya Pradesh is a rogue state with the Christian community.”

Mumbai (AsiaNews) — Insulted, beaten and charged with false accusations of forced conversions of five Hindu activists by the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh). This is what happened yesterday in Madhya Pradesh to four Pentecostal pastors, and the wife of one of the11 faithful. After a night in jail, they were released on bail today. It is the latest episode of aggression by Hindu nationalists against Pentecostal pastors. But Sajan K George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) points out: “The situation is alarming for all Christians, Madhya Pradesh is a rogue state that does not guarantee any rights of the Constitution in this community.”

Pastors Ramesh, Balu and Ashok were driving to a prayer meeting attended by 20 other people. Of these, 11 were to have received the baptism ritual according to Pentecostal ritual. Suddenly, the RSS activists armed with sticks broke into the house, along with three local police officers. The pastors tried to explain what was happening, but the activists began to attack them accusing them of practicing forced conversions. After arresting the men and Sumantra, the wife of the rev. Ramesh, the police questioned the 11 baptized. Along with the Hindu group, the police tried to coerce the faithful to file false charges against Pastor Ramesh on charges of forced conversions. The group refused, saying they wanted to be baptized as believers in Christ.

“The anti-conversion law of 1968 — says Sajan George — serves as a pretext to intimidate Christians. A similar case occurred last August 31 in Khargone district, where the pastor Veersingh Kalesh received threats while he officiated a service of prayer. “

But the Hindu persecution in Madhya Pradesh against Christians also has other forms, as the president of the GCIC reports: “The state government (led by the BJP — Bharatiya Janata Party, the Hindu nationalist party, ed) abuse federal laws to harass the Christian schools, putting them under pressure, interfering with their management “

In March, the government has attempted to carry out a survey on the Christian population in Madhya Pradesh: number of schools, churches and priests, financial situation, foreign income and any political patronage, details of Christians with a criminal record. Following protests, the survey was blocked.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



India: ‘Police Were Biased in Gopalgarh’

GOPALGARH: Two days after communal riots over a land dispute left eight people dead in Bharatpur district, allegations of partisan policing became shriller on Friday. Bharatpur SP Hinglaj Dan said seven bodies had been identified and civil rights activists, armed with information that these were of Muslims, alleged partisan police action. The People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) and Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind demanded a CBI enquiry into the role of the police.

Fearing it could stoke violence, cops prevented Jamait leader and Rajya Sabha MP Maulana Mahmood Madani from visiting the troubled area. He was stopped near Pahari on way to Gopalgarh. “They must have lots to hide. Chief minister Ashok Gehlot had said I could visit the area. On the way, I was told by his office to speak to Rajasthan chief secretary who said I could not go as it could escalate tension,” Madani said. He demanded removal of the CM and suspension of the Bharatpur collector and SP. “It’s a case of targeted firing by the police. There could not have been a more communal rifle,” said PUCL’s Kavita Srivastava, who was in the area talking to victims and witnesses.

Riots broke out on Wednesday over a 42-year-old dispute over six bigha land near the village graveyard. Authorities said the mobs of Meo Muslims and Hindus fired at each other killing many while community leaders claimed most fatalities resulted from police firing. Local Congress MLA Zahida Khan alleged police inaction while Muslims were attacked. “The district collector and SP were fair. But Additional SP O P Meghwal, Inspector Brijesh Meena and lower rank policemen were blatantly partisan. They misled the collector and the SP,” she said.

On Thursday, a panchayat was held at Gopalgarh mosque to resolve the land dispute. “While returning from the panchayat, we were attacked by Gujjars. We asked the police to help but they didn’t,” alleged Sarfuddin Khan, sarpanch of neighbouring Pathrali village. “During the Asar namaaz, police came accompanied by villagers. They began firing on devotees in the mosque,” alleged Asaruddin Khan. Asked about the allegations, Dan said his force wasn’t taking sides and police had to fire to stop the mobs from spreading violence. He denied his men had trained their guns on the Muslim mob.

MLA Zahida Khan insisted it was pre-planned. “Why else would firing begin after the dispute was resolved at the panchayat? Why only Muslims died in the firing when the quarrel was between two communities?” she asked. PUCL’s Srivastava claimed there was evidence of RSS in inciting the mob. “We interviewed two senior police officers who said a bunch of RSS members from Bharatpur were present then,” she said.

MLA Khan had similar allegations. “BJP and RSS members, including Giridhari Tiwari and Dr G C Kapoor from Bharatpur, were present at Gopalgarh during riots,” she said. VHP Deeg district president Manjit Singh Gulati confirmed they were in Gopalgarh when riots broke out. “They went there to resolve the dispute,” he said.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Indonesia: Don’t Go to Ambon for Jihad, Mui Says

After a provocative text message began circulating in East Java urging Muslims to go to Ambon to wage jihad following a deadly sectarian clash there, the Indonesian Council of Ulema on Friday discouraged Muslim organizations from doing so. “We guarantee no Muslim organizations will be provoked to go to Ambon. We have to sit down together and discuss the situation,” Abdussomad Bukhori, the head of the East Java branch of the council (MUI), said on Friday.

The MUI, Abdussomad said, has been staging talks with groups like Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah as well as hardliners such as the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI). The MUI’s efforts reflect what happened during a previous stretch of violence in Ambon, where from 1999 to 2002 thousands of Muslims traveled there to perpetuate a protracted sectarian conflict that killed an estimated 9,000 Christians and Muslims and displaced many more. Some of those militants went on to join terrorist networks such as Jemaah Islamiyah and Abu Sayyaf, located in the southern Philippines.

On Thursday, National Police Chief Gen. Timur Pradopo was in Ambon to assess security conditions. According to National Police deputy spokesman Brig. Gen. Ketut Untung Yoga, Timur concluded his visit by giving three instructions to the local officials. “The first is to maintain Ambon’s current calm and prevent future chaos from happening,” Ketut said. Second, Timur asked Ambon police to expedite their investigation into the riot, Ketut said. “The third is an order to local officers to be vigilant and anticipate all possibilities,” he said.

The recent clash in Ambon was sparked by rumors that spiraled out of control after a motorcycle taxi driver suffered a fatal traffic accident. The driver died from his injuries on his way to the hospital, but a viral SMS fueled false reports that the driver had been tortured and killed by Christians. That prompted a violent clash between two groups, one of which is believed to have included the man’s family, shortly after his funeral on Sunday. Thrown rocks caused a number of injuries, but at least seven fatalities resulted from gunshot wounds, according to Dr. Ita Sabrina of Dr. M. Haulussy Public Hospital. A mob also vandalized a number of buildings and vehicles. As a precaution, police have been seizing sharp weapons and guns on passenger ships bound for Ambon, so far netting more than 130 items.

Ambon, the capital of the Maluku province, has a history of violence. In 1950, it was the center of an uprising against Indonesian rule instigated by the breakaway Republic of South Maluku, which continues to exist in exile.

Additional reporting by Antara

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Pakistan: Assassination of Shahbaz Bhatti: New Falsehoods From the Police

The two suspects would be former Christians converted to Islam, in conflict with the Bhatti family over some property. The Bishop of Islamabad: “The statement by the police is absurd.” Christian and Muslim personalities decry a cover-up and demand a new inquiry commission.

Islamabad (AsiaNews) — Pakistani police are spreading new falsehoods and new doubts about the assassination of Shahbaz Bhatti, the Catholic Minister for Minorities, killed last March 2 by a group of Muslim extremists. Bhatti had long led a fight against the death sentence of Asia Bibi for blasphemy and in defense of religious minorities in his country.

According to the police in Islamabad, the two suspects in the killing, Zia-ur-Rehman and Malik Abid, would be two ex-Christians from Faisalabad, converted to Islam, who allegedly have a property dispute with the Bhatti family. The police have also stated that there is no evidence against them.

This is the second time that police have attempted what is being called a “cover-up”. In August, some Pakistani media reported police statements according to which Shahbaz Bhatti would have been killed over “family disputes” related to some property (see 09/08/2011 Smoke screen and false news to hide Shahbaz Bhatti’s assassins).

Later, the Court of Counterterrorism issued an international arrest warrant against Zia-ur-Rehman and Malik Abid, who after the assassination would have fled to Dubai (09/02/2011 Islamabad, Bhatti murder: focusing again on Islamic extemism).

In recent days, the two have been transferred to Pakistan, thanks to Interpol. The Senior Superintendent of Police Operations and the head of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT), however, said that “the suspects are being detained for investigating, they both were allegedly nominated by the Bhatti family, yet it would be too early to comment on their involvement in Bhatti’s assassination as there is no evidence available about their involvement. They are being detained on the basis of doubt, things will get clear once they are interrogated.”

The statements of the police provoked strong reactions and criticism in the Church of Pakistan. Mons. Rufin Anthony, Bishop of Islamabad and a personal friend of Shahbaz Bhatti told AsiaNews that “the statement by the police is totally absurd.”

“If they are not sure about the involvement of the suspects”, he added, “then what are they suspecting them for? Why did the court issue the warrants if the JIT didn’t have any evidence about their involvement?”

For the bishop, there is a suspicion that “the police are defending the culprits, or diverting the direction of the case, arresting some so-called suspects and then gets them released, on the basis of the non-availability of solid evidence for their involvement”. “It is clear”, he continued, “that if there is no evidence against the two suspects, they will be released by the court.”

To Mons. Anthony, it is urgent to set up a serious inquiry committee. “It is about time that the concerned authorities start taking things seriously: as Shahbaz Bhatti’s assassination is not only the assassination of a Federal Minister, it is the assassination of the voice of the voiceless. They have silenced a man, but can never silence his vision, his thoughts and his struggle for the marginalized”.

The prelate’s opinion is also shared by Muslim personalities. An academic Muslim cleric, Maulana Mahfooz Khan, also comments on the police statements: “They are just to divert the direction of the case. How can a vehicle [that of the murderers] disappear from the Federal Capital, where there are security checkpoints on all the entry and exits? Every citizen is stopped and questioned at every security checkpoint, how can a vehicle filled with armed men escape un-noticed by the authorities?”

Mahfooz Khan agrees that a new judicial commission is urgent. “The Government”, he adds, “seems reluctant in taking interest in the assassination of their own Federal Minister, who was slain in broad daylight in Islamabad.”

“Shahbaz Bhatti”, he concludes, “fought for the rights of minorities; his struggle for the interfaith harmony is remarkable.”

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Sri Lanka: Bhuddist Monks Destroy Muslim Shrine

A group of Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka led a crowd that demolished a Muslim shrine last week, the BBC has learned. This incident took place on Saturday in Anuradhapura, an ancient Buddhist city and Unesco world heritage site. The monk who led the group told the BBC he did it because the shrine was on land that was given to Sinhalese Buddhists 2,000 years ago. But a prominent Muslim in the area said he was very sad and the sentiment was shared by many Sinhalese too.A Sri Lankan news website showed photographs of a crowd including monks apparently reducing a small structure to a pile of rubble. The mob waved Buddhist flags and — in one picture — burnt a green Muslim flag. There have been no other reports of what happened.

But the BBC has spoken to the monk, Amatha Dhamma Thero, who admits masterminding the demolition of the Muslim shrine. He said he arranged a gathering of 100 or so monks, including some from other Asian countries, to take action because — he alleged — local Muslims were trying to convert the shrine into a mosque despite new constructions being illegal on this site with its many Buddhist temples. He said local government officials arrived and said they would remove the shrine within three days, but the crowd said “we cannot wait” and proceeded to tear down the structure.

Some witnesses say that the police were present during the incident and did not do anything to stop the destruction of the shrine. Amatha Dhamma Thero says that the police were there to prevent communal clashes. But the police deny they were present at all. “This is a fabricated story. No media in Sri Lanka has reported this and we don’t have any police report. If this happened there would have been a complaint. We have not received any complaint,” outgoing police spokesman Prishantha Jayakody told BBC Sinhala.

One councillor told the BBC that mosque officials were afraid to complain about an attack that occurred while senior police officers were present. The demolition has been denounced by a local senior Muslim and a local Sinhalese politician. The Muslim, Abdul Razack, denied that a mosque was planned and said the demolished shrine was about 300 years old and had attracted visitors of other faiths too. He said local Muslims and Buddhists alike were concerned at what happened but Muslims had avoided the site on Saturday, fearing sectarian disharmony.

The politician, Aruna Dissanayake, said the government should act against those who had attacked the shrine. A minority was trying to create sectarian problems in a place where most Muslims and Sinhalese Buddhists co-existed well, he added. Most of Sri Lanka’s majority Sinhalese are Buddhist, and Muslims are regarded as a separate ethnic group.

In a recent newspaper column, a veteran Muslim journalist said there was a growing fear among his community that some people were running a campaign to incite the Sinhalese against them, including through Sinhalese websites and print media.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



US Points to Links Between Afghan Terrorists and Pakistan

(AGI) Islamabad — The US Administration points to ongoing links between Afghan terrorist groups and the Pakistan. In a radio interview America’s ambassador in Islamabad, Cameron Munter, said America “has evidence” connections between Islamabad and the terrorist Haqqani clan, alleged to operate in conjunction with the Taliban. The clan has claimed responsibility for last week’s attacks in Kabul.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

Sub-Saharan Africa


‘Jonathan May be Nigeria’s Last President’

Reverend Oladimeji (Ladi)P. Thompson, founder and Senior Pastor of Lagos-based Living Waters Unlimited Church has, for over 20 years, followed the activities of terror groups in the North. He is also the international co-ordinator of Macedonian Initiative, a non-government, non-denominational organization established to provide succour to Christians persecuted because of their belief in Jesus Christ.

Immediately after the UN House bombing, our SAM EYOBOKA and UDUMA KALU approached him for his comment and the answer is that Boko Haram may break up Nigeria. Excerpts:

You said since 2000 you have a clear vision…

First of all, my warning was to the church leadership . I moved on to the secular world and I found out that it’s going to be difficult, so I did not go there any more. But the truth is that Goodluck Jonathan may be the last president of Nigeria. When I was saying this, they sounded very far fetched to believe.What is helping Nigeria right now is that the people who sponsor what is supposed to happen in Nigeria have been kept busy themselves for now. People like Muammar Gaddafi who used to come to Kano unannounced and unofficially regularly; there are different axis all over the world who are involved in what is happening in Nigeria. For example, the UN House in Abuja was not the handiwork of Boko Haram.

You may say what do I mean? One, there is nothing like Boko Haram. The word Boko Haram is a word created by the Western Media to explain Yusufua Maiduguri. Yusufua is just one out of 26 radical groups that are operating within Nigeria.

The western press, to make it readable to the western world, created the word, Boko Haram. Haram means forbidden and Boko is corruption of book. They have not burnt any university. They have not killed any professor, nor harassed any institution of higher learning. What they are out for is very simple. Number one, not to Islamise but an Islamic Nigeria, a Nigeria where there is no plurality of religions, but one religion; a Nigeria in which women will be oppressed always, a Nigeria in which they will eradicate democracy. They have scored success in many nations of the world before our own. You only need to go and do research and you will find out.

Uthman dan Fodio and Shehu of Borno

Nigeria’s problem started since 1955 or 1956. It is an ancient problem. The problem with Nigeria’s own is that before the global resurgence of terror, Nigeria had an ancient streak that started in 1774 when Uthman dan Fodio entered Maiduguri. He was lecturing in Islam doing very nice and quiet and the Hausa people embraced him and were happy with him because he was teaching their children. They didn’t know that he was radicalising their children at the same time. While he was radicalising the people at that time, nobody knew. He even instructed one guy called Yoeofa, the son of the king in Islamic way. When Yoeofa was being taught by Uthman dan Fodio, he said dan Fodio was a good and nice teacher, but dan Fodio noticed that the taxes were high; that they were not purists.

The predominant Islamic force in Nigeria then was the remnant of Kanem Borno Empire. You will find out that the Shehu of Borno, who was actually supposed to be the spiritual leader of Islam in Nigeria, was displaced by dan Fodio because dan Fodio in 1804 declared a Jihad. It was tough then and they were coming towards South. There were three things that stopped dan Fodio. Number one, El Kanemi, a Borno man who said, ‘I am a Muslim but I don’t understand this religion that involves killing of Muslims as well.’ And have you noticed that they have also started throwing bombs in mosques in Nigeria? El Kanemi rose and he was able to put a stop to the advance of Uthman dan Fodio.

Secondly, the arrival of the British and they had what they called Maxim gun, and in 1903 or 1904 Sokoto and Kano fell. There was armed resistance and in 1906 there was an uprising in Mali which arose just like bin Ladin’s but it didn’t last long. The British decimated it. They were able to kill a few British nationals. All the emirs had waited then, saying if he (the Malian) succeeds we will join him, but when they saw the British crushing him, they went underground.

Thirdly, Ilorin was taken but the Jihadists couldn’t advance further because of the forest belt. They have an advantage of cavalry; when they were coming to South, they had an advantage of horses but when they hit the forest belt, their horses couldn’t proceed. That is why you find that Ogbomoso, Osogbo, that buffer zone is where the rivers spread and the violence was not heavy.

Jihad under colonial rule

The truth is that during the colonial years, the British made one mistake in which they used indirect rule. Lugard personally promised them that he would not allow the Mauguzawas to be introduced to Christianity. Majority of people in northern Nigeria, when the British came, were not Muslims. They were animists and the Mauguzawas, who automatically, because of indirect rule were recognised as Muslims. It is an ancient creed, a very smart creed-very difficult to detect. War can go on even in peace time.

They shifted to consolidate under the British rule; smiling at the British while consolidating their code for the whole of Northern Nigeria. The moment the British wanted to leave, because they appeared nice to , the British made a miscalculation which is what is destroying them till today. What the British did was to devise a formula and hand over power to Northern Nigeria and create a political formula by which Northern Nigeria ordinarily should forget about one Nigeria.

Jonathan, Yar’Adua and Northern power blocs

This last time, whether by the name of Goodluck and by the pattern of his life that was disrupted, for the first time in Nigeria, we had about four or five presidential candidates from the northern part of Nigeria and they couldn’t agree on one. Had they agreed on one, all these things would not have happened. Olusegun Obasanjo came because of the pacification of the South West and after him, the North could have held on to power for ever, but immediately, it shifted back to the North. You know what happened to Yar’Adua. The late Yar’Adua was the Mutewani Katsina (holder of the Emirate’s treasury).

The Emirate and an Ancient Dream

What Nigerians don’t know is that there is an existence underneath the Federal Government structure in which an ancient dream is kept alive by a core of radicals who teach their children why they should not see Nigeria as one. And because it is not a formalized education, it’s not written down anywhere. It’s difficult to detect but they tell their children that southerners should always come to pay obeisance. ‘We are their rulers and there is only one religion’. You find that when Yar’Adua was in Katsina state, he was a devout Muslim to the core. There is a radical call from Katsina because it is the centre of learning; they’re purists.

When he was to become president, I was alarmed because I knew what his sentiments were, but somehow he did not last long and Goodluck stepped in. Goodluck should not have become president this time around but for the fact that northerners could not agree on a consensus candidate. If they had agreed on the formula left for them by the British colonial heritage, there would have been no argument.

Sheik Gumi, Islamic Banking and Jonathan

In 1955 or 1956, in the Hajj Camp in Saudi Arabia, the Nigerian flag was burnt because the flag had a Star of David on it. One of the contributors of what you are seeing today was late Sheik Gumi, a clever man who never denied where he was going. If you remember, he was the one who declared that over his dead body would there be a Christian ruler in Nigeria. That was just a tip of the iceberg. One of his boys who converted from Islam in those days, they put fatwa on him. He had to escape to Kano and the Federal Government used all state apparatuses to hunt for him. They beat him till they felt he was dead, but the Christians later found out that he still had life and he later escaped to Ghana. All these sentiments have been there but we are the ones who close our eyes and pretend as if they were not there. There is a radical cult at the centre. Islamic banking we are talking about today, Gumi was part of it. So, all the noise that people are making at the last moment is pattern of what they have been doing because there is a pattern in which it will work.

Christians in Northern Nigeria. Ask people like Archbishop Peter Jasper Akinola, His Eminence Sunday Mbang and those who had headed CAN, they will tell you how many young girls were kidnapped annually in the North. Your children can’t go to schools; it is either you fake their names to a Muslim name or there is no promotion.

Progression of the Ancient Dream

All these things have been there and we pretend as if we don’t see them. But they are there, well established in all those states. The movement behind it is a very intelligent; they are slow in their tactics and facts. The progression in Nigeria was that by the time they have swept through the Northern states and consolidated the North…the normal thing is that you push non-Muslims away from the city centres. So most northern cities today that have any sizeable Christian number are divided into two. Why? Because there is a time to come when they will launch an attack unless the Christians agree to live under a status where they become a third class citizen. This issue is not only in Nigeria; it is a global thing.

Islamisation of Nigeria

Nigeria has done about 65 per cent, it only has about 35 per cent to go. People are only shouting Plateau State but I pity Plateau State young men because they are falling into a trap till now.

Foreigners on Plateau

Plateau State people think they are doing something but they are wasting their energy by responding with vigilante groups. I have seen a lot of foreigners who are coming into Nigeria with their own silly theory when they don’t understand what is going on here. Last week, I was in a place where one of these British consultants was talking on how Plateau indigenes were just killing Muslims. They are only managing information in which the international press is looking at Plateau as blood-thirsty people. And Nigerians know that they are the most peaceful people in Nigeria, ordinarily.

Camps in South South, South East

This same thing has entered Makurdi in Benue State and it is coming down South. Whether you like it or not, there are camps and places where people are being trained in the South South and we now have more Igbo Muslims in Nigeria than we have ever had in this country. Why? They have quietly entered through sponsorships, spending money. There is one school in Afikpo where people are offered scholarships and given free food. As soon as you adopt the Islamic religion, you will be sent out of the country to radicalise you more. In the South South, there are militants milling around in the name of petty traders. The truth is that they have taken advantage of everything and that is a weakness for us. While we were sleeping, when we didn’t know a lot about these people …

Islam in Bauchi

Look at the Bauchi nurses in 2001 who were sacked because they refused to wear hijab. What I am saying is that a medical doctor, S.Y Sabo, who was in charge of Federal Medical Centre, Azare, knew that he was not just a medical doctor but also there to establish something. You can duplicate this in all the places. Do you remember what happened to Gideon Akaluka on the streets of Kano? Is it normal to parade the head of a fellow human being on the stick and dance round town jubilating? And since all these things happened, has anybody been convicted in Nigeria? You want to know why? It is because Nigerian institutions are riddled with spies and wolves who believe in that future; and the truth is that Nigerian leadership doesn’t have the moral courage to face up to the fact that from the police force to intelligence services, to education, to sports, the institutions are filled with people who are fighting the war quietly.

Including the Judiciary?

If you are talking about the judiciary, let me ask? Which rule of law is the uppermost in Nigeria? Nigeria has the British law that we inherited. Then we have the Common Law, the Customary Law and the Sharia Law. Which one is uppermost in Nigeria? If the Nigeria Constitution is uppermost, a former governor in Nigeria married a 13-year- old girl. He paid $100,000 for her, smuggled her into Nigeria from Egypt. According to the laws of Nigeria, is that a crime or not? Will you agree to live in a country where a full grown serving senator can marry a 13-year old girl? We all sat down to watch what would happen when some people came up to say that it was an Islamic affair, a religious affair and not a democratic issue. What happened to the case eventually? So what has been proven now?

Nigeria’s mistakes

Now, what are the mistakes we are making? This thing is creeping in and because of the ancient one that started earlier and the emergence of the international one ,they are now woven together. About six or seven years ago, in 2001, a bomb exploded in a church in Lalanto in Jos. Bomb making literature had been coming to Nigeria for more than 10 years. It’s just that initially ,it was blowing off their own hands and legs and it was being explained away. But gradually, they have mastered it now. Before, the problem was how they would co-ordinate the activities of 26 Islamic sects with each one having its own leader and different ideas but western countries have solved the problem for them, by creating the name Boko Haram. Unlike before when an individual sect had its own ideology, now Boko Haram has created an umbrella through which they all work. By being stupid and playing into the hands of the western media, they made our case worse. So they are now making more progress and even bolder than they could get before. The reason why Uthman dan Fodio was able to overthrow Hausa kings was because there was a lot of corruption in the Hausa Kingdoms. There was a lot of oppression and poverty. There was no home for majority of them. There was no hope for the future then.

There is little hope for the future now. A house full of intellectuals, deceive themselves that there is a future. And that is why the average intellectual does not have the reality on what Nigerian life really is. Many Nigerians youths are crossing deserts on foot to escape Nigerian life. That is a pointer for you on what life looks like in the country.

Is the invitation to foreigners to assist us a true way out of the problem?

We have to be very careful. Immediately the UN House was bombed, Nigeria ceded its authority and it was not right for Nigeria to cede its authority. A lot of countries have similar problems and many of them are looking up to Nigeria to see how she would solve the problem to help their own countries. Now, in Nigeria a lot of intelligent strategies have just been just bullshit, they are unwise. At every step, we bring in our soldiers to level (destroy) towns.

Ordinary Boko Haram with 1.6 million members held Nigeria Army and Police Force for almost three weeks. Nigerian youths are impoverished, education is gone, and we are the second highest in the world’s infant mortality, maternal maternity, second highest in the world. It is a curse for you to be pregnant in Nigeria, that is what it means. It is better for you to go to Ghana or Cotonou, next door and have your children than to have them in Nigeria.

In all indices by which you measure a state, Nigeria cannot score pass mark in any area. Human life value is very low. A woman was butchered by soldiers in Gombe, till today no compensation. The governor, Danjuma Goje made it impossible for the case to be tried in the state. It was all by collusion. If you like, let’s keep deceiving ourselves here that things are well. The infiltration is already noticeable in Calabar, in South East and in these areas we have the problem of tribal divide. No consensus. The youths, almost 75 or 80 per cent of the country, are impoverished, they are disenfranchised, and they have no inheritance. The people who stole their inheritance, their great grand fathers are still alive-all the generals who are arguing against each other. The monies their grandchildren should spend they stole.

Outside Assistance, CAN Chairman

This one has an agenda and a motive. They are schooled somewhere, well funded locally and internationally. Unfortunately for us, the international funders right now are busy but once things are settled in the Middle East, more funding will come back to Nigeria. When the president of CAN called for the arrest of that general, uninformed ignorant people whose children may be slaughtered in future decried the position of the CAN president. As a special adviser to the CAN president, I can tell you that he has more information in his hands than he is allowed to speak to the public.

But whether you like it or not across all the northern states, the number of people killed in order to bring Jonathan Goodluck to power is maximum casualty figure we have never seen in Nigeria before. He rode him on a lot of bloodshed. The pattern of the killing even before the result was announced, the killing had started in the genera’s name. When the CAN president called for his arrest, he was not joking. It is just that the government lacked the moral courage to do what is right. They incited people. It was pre-planned, pre-medicated obviously and if you look at the target of the killing, as usual, you cannot say it was political. Even if you bring them out for political reason they will still do what they want to do. Isioma Daniel (who was your colleague) when she made a comment on Miss World, which buildings were burnt? Most of them were churches. What has a journalist’s comment on Miss World to do with maiming and killing of people. We are pretending as if this thing is not there but it is mopping up.

UN building bombing and Boko Haram

It was assumed that it is al Qaeda that bombed the UN building. It is more in consonance with al Qaeda. What Nigeria should have done is to first of all examine the explosives used and the methodology of the explosion-because every device has its own signature-and check it maybe it is in consonance with the more primitive ones that they mixed with internet instructions. The truth is that it is not the handiwork of Boko Haram. If we continue to call them Boko Haram, we are uniting 25 to 26 Islamic sects. We are encouraging their unity and helping the foreigners who are funding them to make their work fast. We should break away from calling them Boko Haram and the Nigerian Press must stand up to wage a war against their western counterparts, accusing them of neo-colonialism. If they can create an Islamic battlefront in Nigeria, they will come in from all around the world and Nigeria will fracture and the world will go on, just like Sudan for many years. Their vision is global. There are lots of radical preachers all over the county, they will teach freely for years and nobody ever disturbs them. They are protected by their governors and commissioners of police.

Do you think that it is in the interest of the west to create chaos in Nigeria?

If you are having problem in your country and the people causing problem in your country can move away from your country to another side, would it be in the interest of your own county to encourage the people of that country to learn their mistakes and turn their own land to a fertile ground. They will sell ammunition to both sides. Look at Libya, what is happening is a very interesting scenario. But my fear is the compromise of Nigerian interest. My own insistence is that whatever is going to happen to us, whatever co-operation we are going to have international with anybody; we don’t want Nigeria to be represented by bananas who will just throw away the national interest without even knowing what they are doing.

What do you mean?

Look at the UN Building bombing. The place has now been sequestered. Our inadequate facilities, our security systems, obviously, are highly unprepared for this kind of thing and they have yielded it to foreign government. Before you call in foreign assistance, you must think properly and think well. Because of the absence of enough intelligence to handle the problem we are now surrendering, but we should surrender with caution, because one or two moves like this, Nigeria will become the worst of. What makes you think that the nation’s security apparatus is not infiltrated? I will like you to go and supply me the list of Nigerian national security advisers from independence. If you can give me that list, let us sit down and scrutinise the lives of every one of them, their utterances in private, not in public; their business interests, their links all over the world. Someone put Nigeria in OIC single handedly. Are there not radicals in Nigeria who have been walking free simply because the orders come from above that nobody should arrest them? Who are the people supporting this no-arrest order? You better let people know what we are up against.

You think President Jonathan is incapable of handling this?

A farmer does not depend on good clock to bring about good harvest and food for us to eat. If a tailor depends on good luck to sew your cloth, when you are looking for a shirt you will end up with a dress. If a farmer does not look for good luck to give us to feed the nation, and a tailor does not depend on good luck to sew cloth, when it comes to certain matters good luck has its limitation. Instead, wise planning and intelligent thinking is what is needed. It’s not true that IGP is incompetent as people have been saying. We have a situation where the IG himself is more or less a junior to some of the commissioners of Police serving under him. Remember that some people stayed behind with the intent of helping him, are all of them loyal to him? Do we know where the loyalty of some of them lies? Is it possible for him to have as free hand with the kind of command he’s asked to handle? Is he given a free hand? The moment you politicize anything that had to do with security, you have fractured the chain of command. So, whereas, he may be a very competent officer but the structure he was asked to perform with may not help him.

Is that not enough reason to resign as people are calling on him to do?

You will have to interview him on that. Is it easy to resign? If he is your uncle will you ask him to resign?

What is the way forward out of the current logjam?

The leadership must first of all find the moral courage to understand the reason why we are prone to these things more other countries; to face the problem, diagnose it and call it by its real name so it can treat it. If leadership does not do that we are going to slide to the morass faster. That is one. Number two; this new problem, in other countries nobody is relying on old methodologies. In some countries, they call a new kind of war, because there is no text book answer. As I speak right now, all over the world, intelligence experts are just writing the text books to match this menace of terrorism, because it is a resurgence that has not be seen in many centuries. So, coming up with military intelligence to come and answer this problem is a waste of everybody’s time; coming up with DIGs to come and answer this, is a waste of everybody’s time. What we need is leadership with innovative thinking; people who can think out of the box; who understand the cultural, religious, political and the radical aspects of what we are talking about here; people who know how to recognize the different phases and to handle all the phases with equanimity. I give you an example; one of the things that making this thing spread faster is the lack of a consensus in Nigeria. The Chinese Constitution is about 2,000 words; the American is about 4,400 words but the Nigeria Constitution is in excesses of 74,000 words. Nigeria has never had a real constitution. What we call a constitution is not representative of the Nigerian people. There is no common agreement. The best country that Nigeria to align with right and it is going to be done with utmost wisdom, is USA-the only country that has had the same kind of history and experience and was successful to a point. They were also colonized by the British. Every offer that was given to Nigeria as we transited to independence was also offered the Americans but they rejected all. All the problems in the Nigerian foundation can find solution in the American history. There is something called the American declaration of independence, Nigeria does not have the equivalent of it. What is written there is very simple but very powerful, and you can build the country on it: “…All men are created equal before God and everybody is entitled to the pursuit of happiness….”

That is why you see that nobody jokes with liberty in the US. If you have 10 heads, everybody is equal. Three revolutions were fought by the Americans, all based on the original agreement. In Nigeria, is there any such document that says we are all equal and that everybody is entitled to the basics of life? We do not know the power of such words. America was able to overcome its colonial experience and build their nation properly. Nigeria is yet to that. We must work with America with caution, but there is a lot we can learn from them.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Immigration


Algeria: Another Two Die, Nine Are Saved

(ANSAmed) — ALGERIA, SEPTEMBER 13 — The bodies of another two irregular immigrants attempting to reach the Italian coast have been recovered from the sea by Algeria’s coast guard, close to the trading port of Téne’s. According to a report by el Watan, the bodies are of two black Africans, probably from sub-Saharan countries. Their estimated ages are between 30 and 40 years.

Ahead of an official identification, the bodies have been transferred to the mortuary of Téne’s hospital.

In the meantime, news has arrived that on Saturday, nine “haragas”, all of them very young and originating from rural Talassa communities (of Chlef province), were rescued at sea from a certain death by the coast guard. They were travelling on board an improvised vessel and as the first rescuers report, were in a condition of serious malnutrition and were already dehydrated.

Having undergone first aid treatment, the nine were questioned by a public prosecutor who will decide whether charges should be brought against them (illegal migration is a criminal offence in Algeria).

The El Watan newspaper points out that Talassa is one of the poorest areas in the country and apart from its underdeveloped condition, it has also been the scene of terrorist activity

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Maroni: Tunisia Accord Works

(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, SEPTEMBER 12 — The outcome of the accord aimed at combating illegal migration, which was signed with Tunisia in April has, according to Italy’s Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, been a totally positive one. Mr Maroni, who today completed a flying visit to the Tunisian capital, said on his way back to Italy that Tunisia’s commitment had borne fruit, showing how the North African country is worthy of the attention Italy has been paying to it as part of a more complex Euro-Mediterranean scenario.

The recent landings to be reported at the island of Lampedusa, in which many Tunisian migrants were involved, were isolated incidents which do not give rise to concern, the Minister said. The overall phenomenon, which we are constantly checking, leads us to judge the effectiveness of the accord with Tunisia positively. Mr Maroni added that it was his intention to develop this accord further from the point of view of security.

This, he explained, means that Italy’s relations with Tunisia should also take social aspects into account, as these underlie the phenomenon.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



The Netherlands to Veto Bulgaria, Romania’s Schengen Entry

The Netherlands will ‘work against’ a European decision on Romania and Bulgaria’s entry to the Schengen open border area, immigration minister Gerd Leers told parliament on Thursday evening, news agency ANP reports.

The European Commission is looking at the issue next week and the Netherlands will use its veto if it appears Bulgaria and Romania are to be admitted, Leers said.

Leers said in particular he is concerned that neither country is doing enough to combat corruption, a fact confirmed by a Commission report this summer.

Finland supports the Dutch position, ANP says.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



UK: Lumley is Target of ‘Gurkha Town’ Facebook Hate Campaign

Joanna Lumley is being targeted in a Facebook hate campaign for her role in attracting huge numbers of Gurkhas to the country.

The star successfully campaigned for the soldiers and their families to be given a right to settle in Britain two years ago.

But the Gurkhas and their families now make up ten per cent of the population in Aldershot and residents say services are struggling to cope.

[…]

Our problem is not with the Gurkhas it is with the Government. If they matched the increase in residents with an increase in money and infrastructure there would not be a problem.’

The Gurkhas have been a part of the British Army for almost 200 years.

[…]

Within months of being granted permission to come to Britain, the veterans began arriving.

Many have settled in Aldershot and other towns with Nepalese communities or Army connections, including Reading, Folkestone, Colchester, and London.

The Lumley’s Legacy page says the town is ‘struggling’ to cope with an influx of approximately 9,000 Nepalese, many of whom are elderly and do not speak English. It describes them as a ‘drain’ on local services.

[Note from Egghead: It took less than two years for expensive elderly foreign immigrants to comprise 10% (and counting) of the population one mid-sized English city. How long will it take the highly-state-subsidized very fertile polygamous minor-marrying Muslims to outnumber the indigenous English people?]

           — Hat tip: Egghead [Return to headlines]

Culture Wars


British Govt Aims to Legalize Same-Sex Marriage in 2015

(AGI) London- The British government is aiming to legalize same-sex marriage in 2015, superseding the current regime. The latter, which has been in force since 2005, only recognizes civil unions. The proposal has the support of deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s Liberal-Democrats but also that of Prime Minister David Cameron himself. The same cannot be said of the more conservative Tories.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

News Feed 20110916

Financial Crisis
» Decision on Next Greek Loan Payout Delayed Until October
» Greece: Tension Remains Within Pasok Over Taxi Issue
» Greece and Portugal Should Ditch the Euro, Says Top Economist
» Japan, Switzerland and US Take Steps to Protect EU Banks
» The Bond That Unites Europe is at Breaking Point
» Tunisia: Italian Entrepreneur Takes Up Challenge for Jobs
» US Pressures Eurozone Leaders on Greek Bailout Split
» World Bank Cautions Russia About Oil Shock
 
USA
» CAIR Calls on Councilman to Apologise for Anti-Islam Facebook Comment
» Cocaine, Wild Affairs and Child Neglect — the Chains That Could Derail Sarah Palin’s Bid for the Presidency
» FBI Says Training Lecture Critical of Islam Ended
» FBI Teaches Agents: ‘Mainstream’ Muslims Are ‘Violent, Radical’
» Missing: The Face of the Age
» Nina Shea: White House to Aid Islamic States Defy Free Speech
» Senate Panel Restores James Webb Space Telescope Funding
» US Journalists Taught How to Cover Islam
 
Canada
» Canada’s Ice Cores Seek New Home
 
Europe and the EU
» A Victim of Its Own Success: Berlin Drowns in Tourist Hordes and Rising Rents
» Anti-Roma Protests Turn Violent in the Czech Republic
» Bossi: ‘Italy in Nose Dive, Alternative is Padania’
» Britain Not to Attend UN Racism Conference in South Africa
» Converts Must Die: Imam to Swedish Radio
» Danes Swing Left: Denmark to Get First Female Prime Minister
» France: Paris Bans Use of Streets as Open-Air Mosques
» France: Praying in Paris Streets Outlawed
» France: Gangs Clash in Mulhouse After Mosque Wedding
» France Herds Muslim Faithful Off Streets After Prayer Ban
» Germany: Islam Prejudice Rampant in Europe’s School Books: Study
» Germany’s Great Beers Face Sugary Pollution Crisis
» Germany: Schoolbooks Distort Islam, Study Shows
» Germany: Blackface Obama Billboard Sparks Outrage
» Greece: Education Reform, Clashes in Central Athens
» Italians Losing Faith in Berlusconi
» Italy: Clooney’s Italian Ex Launches Nude Animal-Rights Campaign
» Italy: Berlusconi Could Face Another Trial
» Italy: Tarantini Case — Arcuri Refused to Prostitute Herself
» Italy: Tarantini Prosecutors — Slender Young Girls Recruited
» Italy: Alleged Escort at PM’s Parties Says She Acted Out of Love
» Italy: Bossi: ‘We Have Obtained the Territorial Labor Contract’
» Italy: Scientists on Trial: At Fault?
» Muslims Defy Outdoor Prayer Ban in France
» Neanderthals vs Humans? German Scientists Bring Fossils Into the Computer Age
» Netherlands: Dutch Burqa Ban — Maximum Fine to be 380 Euros
» Nokia App Powers Portable Brain Scanner
» Sixty Years of Germany’s Beate Uhse
» Sweden: Conductor Nearly Tossed From Moving Train
» UK: First Free School for Muslims Gets the Go Ahead Amid Fears Over Segregated Schooling
» UK: Prison Doesn’t Achieve Anything, Says Ken Clarke
» UK: Report on EDL to be Published at University of Northampton
 
Balkans
» Kosovo: Witness Gets Two Months Jail for Contempt of UN Court
» Russian Ambassador Warns Serbia Against the West
» UN Warns Kosovo and Serbia Over Border Post Friction
 
North Africa
» Arab Uprisings: Salafists on the Attack in Defence of Islam
» Libya’s New Govt, A Ridiculous and Wretched Bunch, Says Del Boca
» Libya: 15% of Forces Loyal to Gaddafi Still Operational
» Libya: Rebels Forced to Withdraw From Bani Walid
» Libya: Cameron and Sarkozy Lap Up Triumph
» Tunisia: Erdogan Offers “Turkish Model” For Democratic Islam
» Tunisia: Islam Can Exist With Democracy, Says Turkish PM
» Tunisia: A Genuine Islamist Democrat [Rashid Gannoushi]
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» Abbas Says Palestinians Will Demand Full U.N. Membership at Security Council
» Caroline Glick: The Palestinian Obsession
» Israel Should Hold Fast and Let Muslims Vent Their Rage
 
Middle East
» United Arab Emirates: 16 Women Embrace Islam
 
Russia
» Planned Russian-Backed Pipeline Raises Concerns in EU
» Polish FM in WikiLeaks: Germany is Russia’s Trojan Horse
 
Caucasus
» Imam Shot Dead in Russian Caucasus: Police
 
Far East
» Following Deadly Jet Fighter Crash, Taipei Presses Washington for New Aircraft
 
Australia — Pacific
» Platypus Sex is XXXXX-Rated
» Woman in NSW Burqa Case Seeking Costs After Appealing Her Conviction
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
» Development Aid for Africa: ‘The Problems Don’t Disappear With Sacks of Rice’
» S. African Court Blocks Purchase of Small Chinese Condoms
 
Immigration
» Iraqi Asylum Seeker, 17, Took Part in Gang Rape Just Four Months After Arriving in Britain
» Netherlands: Cabinet Tightens Up Immigration Laws
» Netherlands: ‘Poles Are Now Stealing Our Fish’
 
Culture Wars
» UN Rights Chief Welcomes Australia Transgender Passport Move
» Why Are We Pushing Multiculturalism on France, Russia, The World?
 
General
» Pluto’s Icy Exterior May Conceal an Ocean
» ‘Tatooine’ Alien Planets Should be Common, Scientists Say

Financial Crisis


Decision on Next Greek Loan Payout Delayed Until October

Eurozone and IMF officials have said they will decide in October whether to approve the bailouts that Greece needs to keep it from bankruptcy. Finland has reiterated its demand for collateral in return for new loans. Officials from the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund have said they will decide in October whether to approve a batch of bailout loans that Greece needs to keep it from bankruptcy.

The news came as US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner urged eurozone ministers to leverage their 440-billion-euro ($606 billion) bailout fund and free more resources to tackle the debt crisis during a meeting of EU finance ministers in Wroclaw, Poland. US Treasury Secretary Timothy GeithnerGeithner believes European leaders have the capacity to actAnalysts say the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) — set up in May 2010 and so far used to bail out Portugal and Ireland — must be increased in size to build market confidence in Europe’s ability to contain the crisis. But Germany and others refuse to bolster the fund and eurozone national parliaments have yet to ratify new powers agreed for the fund two months ago that would allow it to make precautionary loans to countries in trouble and buy sovereign bonds to prop up struggling states.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Greece: Tension Remains Within Pasok Over Taxi Issue

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, SEPTEMBER 14 — The issue of the liberalisation of the profession of lorry drivers, considered closed a year ago by former Transport Minister Dimitris Reppas, was reopened yesterday evening by his successor Giannis Ragusis, who informed his party’s MPs on the draft law he had presented concerning taxi liberalisation. “In the draft law in question,” the minister said, “there will be, in addition to the articles concerning taxis, those on lorries as well. The liberalisation of lorry drivers will be complete, immediate and with rules not allowing cartels to be created.” “A Greece that says one thing, means another and in the end does something entirely different is unbearable to everyone, both its partners and its citizens. We must go through with everything we say in an absolute, integral and immediate manner,” the minister said, urging the MPs from Pasok, the socialist party in the government, to support the government’s efforts. The minister’s words gave rise to a reaction from many socialist MPs, who accused him of arrogance and requested the application of new criteria for the granting of taxi licences.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Greece and Portugal Should Ditch the Euro, Says Top Economist

In an article published five years before the launch of the euro Martin Feldstein wrote that the new currency could lead to severe friction in Europe. Now the noted economist says several countries should leave the euro.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Japan, Switzerland and US Take Steps to Protect EU Banks

Five international central banks have decided to provide special loans of US dollars to European banks in a bid to restore confidence in their ability to survive a Greek default. The European Central Bank (ECB), using dollars swapped for euros from the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan and the Swiss National Bank will make the loans available at fixed interest rates on a three-month basis in three separate auctions, with the first auction on 12 October.

The move was unveiled on Thursday (15 September), the third anniversary of the collapse of the Lehman Brothers bank in 2008, which heralded the start of the global financial crisis. It follows a ratings agency downgrade earlier this week of French lenders Credit Agricole and Societe Generale, as well as an agency warning on BNP Paribas. The three banks have a collective exposure of €42 billion to Greek sovereign bonds, which are rated at junk status. Fears of a Greek default have seen US lenders shut down loan facilities to exposed European banks in recent weeks, creating a potential liquidity crisis.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



The Bond That Unites Europe is at Breaking Point

by Michael Burleigh

Disaster across the eurozone has all but destroyed the common purpose at the heart of European union.

Already jittery because of the financial crisis, members of the European Parliament spilt their coffee when the Polish finance minister, Jacek Rostowski, addressed them this week. “If the eurozone breaks up, the European Union will not be able to survive,” he said, as MEPs bleakly contemplated their vanished expense accounts and sandwiches instead of long lunches in Brussels and Strasbourg. But there was much worse to follow. Dr Rostowski, a British- born economist, former Tory party member, and Solidarity activist, told them about a chance meeting with an old friend at an airport.

As they discussed the eurozone crisis, the friend warned there would be “war in the next 10 years”. Rostowski added with a final flourish, “War! Ladies and gentlemen, those are the terms he used,” as the massed MEPs mentally translated wojna into guerre and Krieg. It was not supposed to end like this, for the European project has always had more than economic goals, as Rostowski confirmed when he said that “Europe’s great achievement is political peace. But it is not eternal”. As a Pole, he knows.

The original modest efforts, involving the integration of coal and steel industries, were designed to solve an urgent problem in the minds of people in 1945. Germany was too big and it had caused two world wars, the second of which saw 55 million people die. The idea was for the Lilliputians to tie down the German Gulliver in supranational structures, an idea that was then fleshed out, in a progressively more statist, federalist and welfarist direction, by the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats of the day. Relentlessly, a vainglorious political project was born, though no one in the Dog and Duck is clamouring for a state called Europe.

That process reached its apogee with what was sold as monetary union, rather than exchange rate integration, which might have raised some doubts regarding the impossibility of local devaluation and who was to pick up the tab when a country racked up excess debt while no taxes were collected. The big lie, told to all-too-credulous European publics, was that they would have no more fuss changing Deutschmarks into lire and pesetas when they sold their products or went in search of sun. How noble, how progressive!

Mr Rostowski’s old friend may seem overly alarmist, but there are plenty of others warning what will happen if the eurozone implodes in the next few weeks, when and if Greece defaults on its debts, and others follow. A stark UBS report on the consequences of break-up of the eurozone predicts that the countries most badly affected will see their GDP contract by up to 50 per cent, with tight controls imposed to stop the flight of capital and free movement of labour, and with state subsidies used to protect key industries. All of these measures would violate the basic rule of the Single Market, which is not likely to weather such a crisis. But who cares, since Europe is already in violation of its own rules about the transferability of national debt?

Perhaps this seems a tad technical? It is estimated that the cost per person of leaving the single currency will be between 9,500 and 11,500 euros in the exiting country in the first year, and then three to four thousand euros every year after that. And the remaining eurozone members won’t get off lightly, either. The political consequences of the breakdown of the euro are difficult to assess since there is scarcely a relevant precedent. The 19th-century Latin Monetary Union — involving France, Italy, Spain and Greece, among others — collapsed after the Papal States (and Greece) were caught debasing the silver content of what were supposed to be inter-exchangeable coins. More recently, the collapse of common currencies in Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union did not have quite the dire consequences some are predicting if the euro disappears.

Some of these consequences we can live with, such as warnings that Europe will forfeit what is pretentiously called its “soft power”. Like Nigel Farage, I am not sure what Mr Rompuy or Baroness Ashton are for; certainly they are not representing any wishes of ours on the world stage, as they nervously await help from the BRIC nations to escape a crisis of their own making. But the gloomy analysts at UBS are predicting civil disorder on a massive scale, probably necessitating an authoritarian solution. Again that seems overblown, although it is worth remembering that several states in southern and eastern Europe have only recently emerged from authoritarian or totalitarian pasts. Luckily, the enfeebled condition of Europe’s various armed forces probably makes a return to that unlikely.

Although one cannot find much support for bringing back the Greek colonels or Franco, one can all too easily see a growth of populist parties of the sort that are thriving in Scandinavia, most of which is not in the euro. Colossal resentments are afoot, in nations that are having austerity measures dictated down the phone, as well as among those, like the Germans, who see their hard-earned money being poured down various southern European drains. Where exactly did the first 156 billion euros already given to Greece go?

Every conceivable ethnic stereotype has had a revival, some of them not very far from the truth. The Greeks really owe 40 billion euros in unpaid taxes, and despite this scandal, Greek tax collectors really are on strike. The firesale of Greek assets will run into the minor obstacle of, say, an over-manned and heavily unionised electricity industry threatening to switch off all the lights. No wonder a senior German politician has compared sorting out Greece with telling a recalcitrant child to tidy its bedroom.

One should not underrate the impact of wounded national pride. It makes nations do funny things. They go to war over such unquantifiable notions as honour, in addition to the pursuit of gold or oil. Take the Turks. Having been rebuffed for membership of the EU, the Erdogan government is currently seeking a major role in the Arab world, as if it is trying to recreate the Ottoman Empire by adopting the Palestinians, whose plight makes Erdogan’s heart weep. A whole new diplomatic and economic axis is being cooked up, involving a partnership of Turkey with Egypt.

Who is to say that after being patronised by the Germans for their economic fecklessness, various southern European nations might not decide their fate lies on the northern shores of North Africa, in a more concrete Mediterranean Union than has hitherto been envisaged? If the European Union itself were to collapse, where would this leave countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic, the Baltic States and others, which already fear the shadow of Russia, and the hand of Vladimir Putin on their energy supplies? And remember who is offering to pick up European debt. The next three-way phone call will probably be from Beijing and Moscow to Brussels or Berlin, and they will mean what they say.

For the absurdity of where we have arrived at was symbolised by that three-way telephone conversation between Merkel, Sarkozy and Papandreou. Does the fate of the eurozone really hinge on that piece of PR theatre? In this panicked atmosphere, the only solution seems to be to reinforce past failure, repeating the same mistakes as before, like someone sticking their finger into an electric socket despite the earlier shock. Greece maxes out its finances: fine, shovel some more money to them. The euro reveals its cardinal problem: fine, deepen economic and political integration. For otherwise, all the other posts and institutions that have been dreamt up, from the European courts to the High Representative in Foreign Policy, will be exposed as the bogus things they are.

Of course, what “Europe” really needs is not deeper integration, but national leaders and parliamentarians with the statesmanship of the generation who after the war set a much more modest project in motion. To adapt Christopher Wren’s famous epitaph in St Paul’s, if they were alive to look around at their monument, they would weep — as the rest of us are about to do as reinforced folly reverberates in our daily lives.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Tunisia: Italian Entrepreneur Takes Up Challenge for Jobs

(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, SEPTEMBER 15 — The presence of Italian entrepreneurs in Tunisia has been a reality for years. Even with some petty distinctions (between Italian businesses and Tunisian-registered and Italian-owned businesses) these enterprises have provided thousands of families with the means to survive in difficult circumstances, considering the international economic crisis and fears over the security situation in the country. But the Italian entrepreneurs who have been in Tunisia for a long time — with a few rare exceptions — are looking to stay. Or better yet, they are taking on the challenge posed by the economic situation. One such businessman is Isnardo Carta, a Vicenza native who had the Enfidha Industrial Park built, a hub that will stand near, when it becomes operative, a nearby port that is bound to “cause trouble” for other structures in Africa (Tangiers) and Southern Europe. “We have been working in Tunisia for years,” Carta explained to ANSAmed, “despite the many difficulties that we have had to deal with in the past.” He did not explain further, but it is not difficult to understand what could happen in a country which up until a few months ago was the land of the raids of the insatiable Ben Ali clan, which intervened heavily (bribes, as confirmed by many investigations underway) when an initiative had good margins for success and therefore earnings. The Enfidha Industrial Park spans thousands of square metres and already offers important global enterprises and industries spaces that are completely equipped, including urban infrastructure. This initiative is something that the former Tunisia should have encouraged, but in reality was preventing, due to their evident greed. Today Isnardo Carta confirmed that his commitment is unbothered, and he even upped the ante: “Tunisia needs to provide jobs to its many young people. We want to give them jobs, if there are opportunities, we will give them to them. There is just one bureaucratic obstacle: the approval to the original project allowing the venture to encompass 200 hectares compared to the current 50. “If all difficulties are overcome,” added Carta, “we may be able to respond positively to the strong interest that investors and business owners from all over the world have for Tunisia. And this is how we would give work to thousands of young people who are unemployed today and who unfortunately fuel the phenomenon of illegal immigration.” Youth unemployment in Tunisia is a concern of Isnardo Carta, almost a personal issue. “We (meaning the business owners in the Industrial Park, editor’s note) could potentially give work to hundreds of young people, even though the project that we were set up to serve, the port, is struggling to take off. You cannot even imagine how many people come knocking on our door, but who we are forced to tell: ‘Right now we have nothing to offer you’. They are secondary school and university educated, good and eager men and women, whose anger I feel mounting over what we could do and what we are not able to do.” But Carta is faithful: “The new governor is an intelligent person and understands the important social effects that our initiative would have, in addition to what it already has.” Carta, whose business has already constructed large public works (including many NATO structures) still has faith: “Those of us who are in Tunisia are staying here to give many young people a better future.”

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



US Pressures Eurozone Leaders on Greek Bailout Split

US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner went into exceptional talks with European finance ministers on the debt crisis on Friday, but Finland held to its objections to a new bailout for Greece. After the world’s main central banks joined forces to pump dollars to banks squeezed by fear of debt contagion, the EU is under strong pressure to end months of bickering over a second financial rescue for the near-bankrupt government in Athens. As European Union nations began critical talks in Poland, Austria said default for Greece could eventually prove to be the least costly outcome.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



World Bank Cautions Russia About Oil Shock

The domestic economy could shrink 1.5 percent next year if global oil demand falls sharply following a recession in Europe or the United States, the World Bank said Thursday. The bank suggested three possible scenarios for the country’s economic development in 2011 and 2012, with the severe shock scenario being the worst-possible case.

“The risks to the global economy are growing and so are the risks to Russia’s growth,” the World Bank said in a report. “The sharply rising uncertainties in the global economy call for thinking through alternative scenarios and their implications for the Russian economy,” the report said. Under the worst-case scenario, contraction in global demand is likely to result in oil prices sliding to $60 a barrel next year and Russia entering a recession, with unemployment rising to 7.5 percent and the budget deficit reaching about 5.3 percent of gross domestic product.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

USA


CAIR Calls on Councilman to Apologise for Anti-Islam Facebook Comment

The Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA) today called on the City of Orange Councilman Jon Dumitru to apologize for an anti-Islam Facebook posting in which he falsely linked the “teachings of Islam and the Koran” to the 9/11 terror attacks. On the anniversary of 9/11, the Councilman posted a picture of the burning Twin Towers on his official Facebook page, and wrote underneath: “It was 10 years ago today that most Americans learned first-hand of the teachings of Islam and the Koran being filled with messages of peace…as they killed thousands of our fellow Americans! Today I remember those lost, left behind, and those across the world searching for these pure evil terrorists and dispatching them from this world! WE WILL NEVER FORGET, WE WILL NEVER FORGIVE!”

CAIR-LA sent a letter to the Councilman today informing him of the offensive nature of his comment and called on him to apologize to American Muslims. The letter also asked the Councilman to meet with members of the American Muslim community to discuss the negative impact of his inflammatory remarks. In the letter, CAIR-LA Executive Director Hussam Ayloush wrote:

“Your hateful statement in which you falsely insinuate that the teachings of Islam and the Quran would allow the terrorist attacks of 9/11 is deeply troubling to all Muslims, including many who live in your city. Muslims across the world, especially those here in the United States have unequivocally condemned the 9/11 attacks and all forms of terrorism. Using the tragedy of 9/11 as an opportunity to spread misinformed views about Islam and the Quran is a failure of leadership. At a time when our entire nation was mourning that tragic day and emphasizing unity among all Americans, you unfortunately decided to falsely blame an entire faith community. We have learned from history that such smears and stereotypes have only led to scapegoating of entire communities.”

CAIR-LA press release, 15 September 2011

Mind you, Jon Dumitru does have his admirers. Pamela Geller for one. Over at Atlas Shrugs she hails Dumitru as a patriot who is under attack from one of the “un-indicted co-conspirator Muslim Brotherhood groups that are working towards this nation’s destruction”. Geller urges her supporters to “rally behind the courageous Councilman” and email him messages of support. And the Christian News Wire has issued a press release from Dr Gary Cass of DefendChristians.org who demands: “Can anyone blame Dumitru for his feeling after seeing hundreds of his fellow first responders killed in the name of Allah?” Cass denounces CAIR’s complaint as “just another ploy to keep Americans off balance when confronting the threat of encroaching Islam”.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Cocaine, Wild Affairs and Child Neglect — the Chains That Could Derail Sarah Palin’s Bid for the Presidency

[…]

The book also revives various controversies over Palin’s record as Governor of Alaska, including her alleged hounding of a policeman who had split up with her sister, and her possible dalliance with Dominionism, a controversial evangelical philosophy that the U.S. government should be run according to strict Christian principles.

[The American press has just recently taken to labeling hard-core Islamists as being “self-motivated” to perform terror acts — that is “self-motivated” instead of Koran-motivated. Now, along comes Dominionism which is meant to be altogether quite as scary as Islamism. Evidently, the left’s plan is for godless Marxism to “save” us all from Dominionism and Islamism. — Egghead]

           — Hat tip: Egghead [Return to headlines]



FBI Says Training Lecture Critical of Islam Ended

WASHINGTON-The FBI said Thursday a lecture at the bureau’s training academy that was critical of Islam has been discontinued. The bureau employee who gave the lecture contended, among other things, that the more devout a Muslim is, the more likely he is to be violent. A federal law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity about the internal FBI training issue, says the lecture was given for just three days last April. FBI spokesman Christopher Allen says that in the aftermath of the lecture, policy changes have been under way to better ensure that all training is consistent with FBI standards.

The online publication Wired.com first reported on the instruction given to agents. Ever since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the FBI has stressed the importance of working with leaders in the Muslim community as an important part of the battle against terrorism. The law enforcement official said the bureau should have kept a closer watch on the content of the lecture before it took place. The official said that as soon as the instructor’s views were identified, the FBI stopped any further such lectures. The goal of training programs, said the official, is to provide diverse views, but with balance and context that do not cross into inappropriate comments.

The materials for the instructional presentation said that mainstream American Muslims are likely to be terrorist sympathizers, that the Prophet Mohammed was a cult leader and that the Islamic practice of giving charity is no more than a funding mechanism for combat. The FBI did not identify the lecturer. Wired identified an FBI intelligence analyst named William Gawthrop as the source for much of the material and said Gawthrop previously worked at the Defense Department’s Counterintelligence Field Activity. Allen said the instructor who conducted the training no longer provides training on behalf of the FBI. Allen also said that changes will help develop appropriate training content for new agent training and continuing education for all employees, as well as introduce a consultative element from experts outside the FBI.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



FBI Teaches Agents: ‘Mainstream’ Muslims Are ‘Violent, Radical’

The FBI is teaching its counterterrorism agents that “main stream” [sic] American Muslims are likely to be terrorist sympathizers; that the Prophet Mohammed was a “cult leader”; and that the Islamic practice of giving charity is no more than a “funding mechanism for combat.” At the Bureau’s training ground in Quantico, Virginia, agents are shown a chart contending that the more “devout” a Muslim, the more likely he is to be “violent.” Those destructive tendencies cannot be reversed, an FBI instructional presentation adds: “Any war against non-believers is justified” under Muslim law; a “moderating process cannot happen if the Koran continues to be regarded as the unalterable word of Allah.”

These are excerpts from dozens of pages of recent FBI training material on Islam that Danger Room has acquired. In them, the Constitutionally protected religious faith of millions of Americans is portrayed as an indicator of terrorist activity. “There may not be a ‘radical’ threat as much as it is simply a normal assertion of the orthodox ideology,” one FBI presentation notes. “The strategic themes animating these Islamic values are not fringe; they are main stream.” The FBI isn’t just treading on thin legal ice by portraying ordinary, observant Americans as terrorists-in-waiting, former counterterrorism agents say. It’s also playing into al-Qaida’s hands.

Focusing on the religious behavior of American citizens instead of proven indicators of criminal activity like stockpiling guns or using shady financing makes it more likely that the FBI will miss the real warning signs of terrorism. And depicting Islam as inseparable from political violence is exactly the narrative al-Qaida spins — as is the related idea that America and Islam are necessarily in conflict. That’s why FBI whistleblowers provided Danger Room with these materials. Over the past few years, American Muslim civil rights groups have raised alarm about increased FBI and police presence in Islamic community centers and mosques, fearing that their lawful behavior is being targeted under the broad brush of counterterrorism. The documents may help explain the heavy scrutiny.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Missing: The Face of the Age

by Diana West

Having passed the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I can now say with certainty that something major was missing from all of the ceremonies, the symbolism and the media coverage. It was something that not only captures the meaning of the attacks themselves, but better defines our response to them than any other single thing. It is the face of the age itself, and it is not Osama bin Laden’s.

I refer to the most familiar of the 12 Danish Muhammad cartoons, the one by Kurt Westergaard. I always think of this world-famous drawing as “Bomb-head Muhammad,” for the lit bomb that serves as Muhammad’s turban. (This is no fantastical image, as we learned last month when Afghan President Hamid Karzai prevailed upon local imams to implore their flocks to stop putting bombs in their turbans after three separate assassinations via turban bombs took place.)

I say “world-famous drawing,” but have you ever actually seen this cartoon printed in a newspaper, or shown on a news broadcast? No. With exceptions to be counted on one hand, this ultra-potent image has never received mainstream media display, despite its almost continual newsworthiness…

           — Hat tip: Diana West [Return to headlines]



Nina Shea: White House to Aid Islamic States Defy Free Speech

WASHINGTON (BP) — An unprecedented collaboration between the Obama administration and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC, formerly called the Organization of the Islamic Conference) to combat “Islamophobia” may lead to the de-legitimization of freedom of expression as a human right.

The administration is taking the lead in an international effort to “implement” a U.N. resolution against religious “stereotyping,” specifically as applied to Islam.

To be sure, the administration argues that the effort should not result in free-speech curbs. However, its partners in the collaboration, the 56 member states of the OIC, have no such qualms.

Many OIC states police private speech through Islamic blasphemy laws that the Saudi-based OIC has long worked to see applied universally. Under Muslim pressure, Western Europe now has laws against religious hate speech that serve as proxies for Islamic blasphemy codes.

Last March, U.S. diplomats maneuvered the adoption of Resolution 16/18 within the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC). Non-binding, this resolution expresses, among other things, concern about religious “stereotyping” and “negative profiling” but does not limit free speech. It was intended to — and did — replace the OIC’s decidedly dangerous resolution against “defamation of religions,” which protected religious institutions instead of individual freedoms.

But thanks to a puzzling U.S. diplomatic initiative that was unveiled in July, Resolution 16/18 is poised to become a springboard for a greatly reinvigorated international effort to criminalize speech against Islam, the very thing it was designed to quash.

Citing a need to “move to implementation” of Resolution 16/18, the Obama administration has inexplicably decided to launch a major international effort against Islamophobia in partnership with the OIC. This is being voluntarily assumed at American expense, outside the U.N. framework, and is not required by the resolution itself.

On July 15, a few days after the Norway massacre, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton co-chaired an OIC session in Istanbul on religious intolerance. It was there that she announced the initiative, inviting the OIC member-states’ foreign ministers and representatives to an inaugural meeting of the effort to be hosted by the U.S. government this fall in Washington. She envisions it as the first in a series of meetings to decide how best to implement Resolution 16/18.

In making the announcement, Clinton was firm in asserting that the U.S. does not want to see speech restrictions: “The resolution calls upon states to ‘counter offensive expression through education, interfaith dialogue, and public debate … but not to criminalize speech unless there is an incitement to imminent violence.’“ (This is the First Amendment standard set forth in the 1969 Supreme Court case of Brandenburg v. Ohio.)

With the United States providing this new world stage for presenting grievances of “Islamophobia” against the West, the OIC rallied around the initiative as the propaganda windfall that it is. The OIC promptly reasserted its demands for global blasphemy laws, once again sounding the call of its failed U.N. campaign for international laws against the so-called defamation of Islam. It has made plain its aim to use the upcoming conference to further pressure Western governments to regulate speech on behalf of Islam.

The OIC’s understanding of the upcoming meetings, as stated in the Saudi-based International Islamic News Agency, is that they will “aim at developing a legal basis for the U.N. Human Rights Council’s resolution which [will] help in enacting domestic laws for the countries involved in the issue, as well as formulating international laws preventing inciting hatred resulting from the continued defamation of religions.”

In an August 17 op-ed on the initiative, OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu was enthusiastic. He expressed concern that “anti-Islam and anti-Muslim attitudes and activities, known as Islamophobia, are increasingly finding place in the agenda of ultra-right wing political parties and civil societies in the West in their anti-immigrant and anti-multiculturalism policies,” and that “their views are being promoted under the banner of freedom of expression.” This parallels the old Soviet-bloc attack on the First Amendment as an official sanctioning of racism.

Citing a familiar litany of examples — “the publication of offensive cartoons of the Prophet six years ago that sparked outrage across the Muslim world, the publicity around the film ‘Fitna’ and the more recent Qur’an burnings” -— Ihsanoglu was emphatic that “no one has the right to insult another for their beliefs or to incite hatred and prejudice” and that “freedom of expression has to be exercised with responsibility.”…

           — Hat tip: PK [Return to headlines]



Senate Panel Restores James Webb Space Telescope Funding

A U.S. Senate panel has proposed giving NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) about $150 million more for 2012 than the White House requested for the overbudget project, which appropriators in the House of Representatives voted this summer to cancel. The additional funding for JWST amounts to a 40 percent increase for the project and is part of a 2012 spending bill approved Sept. 14 by the Senate Appropriations commerce, justice, science subcommittee. Overall, the subcommittee’s bill would provide NASA with a total of $17.9 billion for 2012. That is about $500 million less than the agency got for 2011 and $800 million less than what U.S. President Barack Obama sought for NASA in the 2012 budget request he sent Congress in February.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



US Journalists Taught How to Cover Islam

WASHINGTON — In a bid to run correct news reporting about Muslims, two American universities have launched a project to teach journalists how to tackle Islam-related issues.

“In our increasingly polarized media landscape, having the facts about any topic is vital to good journalism,” said Howard Finberg, director of interactive learning at the Poynter Institute, reported Ahlul Bayt News Agency. “And this is especially important when covering topics such as religion.”

Titled “Covering Islam in America”, the project was co-launched earlier this week by Washington State University and the Poynter Institute’s News University. The course is designed to prepare reporters to run accurate information when reporting about Muslims and Islam-related issues. “We have no ax to grind, other than a desire to see accurate, balanced reporting of this topic, which has such broad impact on American society today,” said Lawrence Pintak, a former CBS News Middle East correspondent who developed the project.

The course covers a wide range of topics on Islam ranging from the Islamic teachings and the history of Muslim immigration to the role of women in Islam and the relationship between Islam and Christianity.”Our e-learning module on NewsU is an effective and accessible way for journalists to get the training they need to cover Islam and Muslims in America,” Finberg said.

In addition to the online course, a version with more readings and analysis called “Islam on Main Street” is offered through WSU’s Center for Distance Education. Sections about the diversity of religious expression, women and Islam, and Islam and the black community are also planned. Though it is mainly initiated for journalists, bloggers and students, the course is also useful to educators, government officials and anyone involved in the conversation about Islam in America.

Muslim Reporting

Reporters will be instructed by top-notch journalists and academicians, who have a long experience in reporting about Islam and Muslims. “We turned to the scholars who know this subject inside out and helped them present their knowledge in a way accessible to general assignment reporters on deadline,” Pintak, said. In addition to Pintak, instructors also include Stephen Franklin, a former Chicago Tribune Middle East correspondent, who spent years covering the Muslim world. Pintak said the online course offers the kind of education about the Muslim community that he wished he had received before he was assigned by CBS to Beirut 30 years ago. “I had been reporting on wars in Africa, so I knew how to dodge bullets. Of Islam, the dominant religion in the region, I knew essentially nothing,” Pintak said.

Hostile sentiments against US Muslims, estimated between six to eight million, have been on the rise since the 9/11 attacks. A US survey has revealed that the majority of Americans know very little about Muslims and their faith. Famed US academic Stephen Schwartz had criticized the Western media for failing to meet the challenge of reporting on Islam and Arab issues after the 9/11 attacks. Rabbi Eric Yoffie, head of the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), the US largest Jewish movement, had also accused US media and politicians of demonizing Islam and portraying Muslims as “satanic figures”, A recent British study accused the media and film industry of perpetuating Islamophobia and prejudice by demonizing Muslims and Arabs as violent, dangerous and threatening people.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Canada


Canada’s Ice Cores Seek New Home

Funding cuts may sacrifice glacial expertise.

An unusual ‘help wanted’ advertisement arrived in the inboxes of Canadian scientists last week. The e-mail asked the research community to provide new homes for an impressive archive of ice cores representing 40 years of research by government scientists in the Canadian Arctic.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

Europe and the EU


A Victim of Its Own Success: Berlin Drowns in Tourist Hordes and Rising Rents

Berlin is struggling to maintain its identity as its popularity soars. Budget tourists are flocking to the German capital, eager to sample the famous nightlife, while Scandinavian investors are snapping up cheap real estate. Residents are protesting, but the gentrification juggernaut seems unstoppable.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Anti-Roma Protests Turn Violent in the Czech Republic

For weeks there have been riots between Czech locals and newly settled Roma in northern Bohemia. What started as a series of brutal but isolated fights has grown into a popular movement in small towns along the eastern German border. Right-wing extremists have fanned the hatred.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Bossi: ‘Italy in Nose Dive, Alternative is Padania’

(AGI) Pian del Re — Umberto Bossi remarked that Italy is in a nose dive, and that the alternative is Padania. He said, “All over the region touched by the Po there is an army of thousands of men who are waiting for the lightning bolt to begin their march. That Italy is in a nose dive everyone understands, it is clear that an alternative needs to be prepared, Padania.” Bossi commented, “We knew that it would end up like this. There was no possibility, after the crisis, for the North to continue to support the whole country, Rome and the welfare to the South.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Britain Not to Attend UN Racism Conference in South Africa

(AGI) London — Great Britain will not take part in the 10th anniversary of the UN’s World Conference on Racism in Durban, South Africa. British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, explained that the “the conference, and the anti-Semitic atmosphere in which it was held, was a particularly unpleasant and divisive chapter in the UN’s history. It is not an event that should be celebrated.”

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Converts Must Die: Imam to Swedish Radio

Swedish public service broadcaster Sveriges Radio (SR) has been reported for hate speech after featuring a programme in which a Somali imam called for all converts from Islam to be killed. The programme in question was a panel discussion and was broadcast live by SR International’s Somali service. The police report was filed by Erik Johansson, at the Swedish Evangelical Mission (Evangeliska Fosterlands-Stiftelsen — EFS), after friends told him of the imam’s words underlining every Muslim’s responsibility to kill anyone who leaves Islam.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Danes Swing Left: Denmark to Get First Female Prime Minister

Danes awoke to a change of power on Friday after election results showed a narrow loss for the long-ruling center-right government. The country’s new center-left leader will be the first woman prime minister in Danish history, but Helle Thorning-Schmidt faces difficult coalition talks ahead.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



France: Paris Bans Use of Streets as Open-Air Mosques

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an Islamist populist once convicted of inciting religious hatred, once quoted a poem:

The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers…”

Today, Paris has banned prayers in the streets by supposedly devout Muslims who turn entire neighborhoods into open-air mosques:

Beginning this evening at midnight, holding Muslim prayers in the streets of Paris will be prohibited. The announcement was made by France’s Interior Minister, Claude Gueant, in an interview published today by the daily Le Figaro, which noted that “use of force” against those not complying with the regulation had not been ruled out. The minister underscored that a “convention” had been signed with Muslim associations so that a former barracks could be used as a place of prayer.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



France: Praying in Paris Streets Outlawed

Praying in the streets of Paris is against the law starting Friday, after the interior minister warned that police will use force if Muslims, and those of any other faith, disobey the new rule to keep the French capital’s public spaces secular.

Claude Guéant said that ban could later be extended to the rest of France, in particular to the Mediterranean cities of Nice and Marseilles, where “the problem persists”. He promised the new legislation would be followed to the letter as it “hurts the sensitivities of many of our fellow citizens”. “My vigilance will be unflinching for the law to be applied. Praying in the street is not dignified for religious practice and violates the principles of secularism, the minister told Le Figaro newspaper. “All Muslim leaders are in agreement,” he insisted.

In December when Marine Le Pen, then leader-in-waiting of the far-Right National Front, sparked outrage by likening the practice to the Nazi occupation of Paris in the Second World War “without the tanks or soldiers”. She said it was a “political act of fundamentalists”. More than half of right-wing sympathisers in France agreed with Marine Le Pen, at least one poll suggested.

Nicolas Sarkozy’s party denounced the comments, but the President called for a debate on Islam and secularism and went on to say that multiculturalism had failed in France.

Following the debate, Mr Guéant promised a countrywide ban “within months”, saying the “street is for driving in, not praying”. In April, a ban on wearing the full Islamic veil came into force. Holland today became the third European country to ban the burka, after Belgium, despite the fact fewer than 100 Dutch women are thought to wear the face-covering Islamic dress. Yesterday, Mr Guéant said the prayer problem was limited to two roads in the Goutte d’Or district of Paris’s eastern 19th arrondissement, where “more than a thousand” people blocked the street every Friday.

However, a stroll through several districts in Paris on a Friday suggests that Muslims spill into the streets outside many mosques. Under an agreement signed this week, believers will be able to use the premises of a vast nearby fire station while awaiting the construction of a bigger mosque. “We could go as far as using force if necessary (to impose the ban), but it’s a scenario I don’t believe will happen, as dialogue (with local religious leaders) has born fruit,” he said. Sheikh Mohamed salah Hamza, in charge of one of the Parisian mosques which regularly overflows, said he would obey the new law, but complained: “We are not cattle” and that he was “not entirely satisfied” with the new location. He said he feared many believers would continue to prefer going to the smaller mosque.

Public funding of places of religious worship is banned under a 1905 law separating church and state. Mr Guéant said that there were 2,000 mosques in France with half being built in the past ten years. France has Europe’s largest Muslim population, with an estimated five million in total.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



France: Gangs Clash in Mulhouse After Mosque Wedding

Violence broke out in the eastern town of Mulhouse over the weekend after rival gangs fought street battles, leaving at least six people injured including four police officers. Local newspaper Les Denières Nouvelles d’Alsace reported that problems started after an argument between two families, of Chechen and north African origins, in the Bourtzwiller neighbourhood of the city.

On Friday, after a wedding at a mosque in the city, a group of young men started shouting insults at the marriage party. Things got more serious on Saturday evening when fights broke out, this time with weapons, and police were called. “We’re not sure of the source of the tension,” said Alain Martinez, director of public security for the region. “Around 40 people calling themselves Chechens turned up to settle an argument after a marriage that didn’t end well on Friday.” After the initial fighting, the Chechen men took refuge inside the mosque and found themselves circled by around 100 men from the neighbourhood. Police were required to help them evacuate.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



France Herds Muslim Faithful Off Streets After Prayer Ban

A ban on praying in French streets came into effect on Friday, with thousands of the nation’s Muslim faithful being moved to temporary alternative spaces for their day of prayer. From Paris to Marseille, Friday’s midday prayers will be led from disused barracks or other temporary buildings, after the question of Islam’s visibility became a political issue under right-wing President Nicolas Sarkozy.

France, home to Europe’s largest Muslim population, this year banned the face-covering burqa and earlier this week Interior Minister Claude Gueant warned that “from September 16 there will be no more prayers in the street.” “If anyone happens to be recalcitrant we will put an end to it,” Gueant said, suggesting police could be brought in. “Prayers in the street are unacceptable, a direct attack on the principle of secularism,” Gueant told AFP last month, citing the government’s defence of the republic’s secular values as reason for the new policies.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Germany: Islam Prejudice Rampant in Europe’s School Books: Study

BERLIN — European school books present a distorted image of Islam and Muslims, using stereotypes that breed mistrust of the faith and its people, a five-country study published Thursday showed. This slanted view reflects “cultural racism,” concluded Germany’s Georg Eckert Institute for textbook research, which analysed 27 volumes used in classrooms in Britain, France, Austria, Spain and Germany.

The report, which was presented at the foreign ministry in Berlin, was billed as the first of its kind in Europe. “Islam is always presented as an outdated system of rules which has not changed since its golden age,” Susan Krohnert-Othman, the institute’s project director, told reporters. The researchers concluded that Islam is frequently presented as a homogenous entity without reflecting its diversity in different parts of the world. The report did not find major differences between the five countries studied.

The textbooks used at the secondary school level frequently set an “antiquated Islam” against a “modern Europe” and depict them as in conflict with each other. Krohnert-Othman said that such representations “cannot challenge populist Islamophobia” among pupils. “Even modern European school books include oversimplified presentations of Islam and they stand in the way of a credible intercultural dialogue with the Muslim world,” said Germany’s minister of state for European affairs at the foreign ministry, Cornelia Pieper, after reading the study’s findings.

The researchers called on schools to present information on reforms advocated by Muslim clerics and intellectuals as well as the modernisation process within the religion. And they said instruction on cultural diversity needed a major overhaul. “Muslims must no longer be classified as a separate group consisting of non-European immigrants whose traditions prevent integration,” the researchers concluded.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Germany’s Great Beers Face Sugary Pollution Crisis

Germany brews some of the world’s greatest beers in line with purity laws, but also has a strange custom of mixing them with soda and juice. A call to keep apart great beer and sugary, artificial sodas.

Years ago, when a Hamburg bartender first told me about Bananenweizen, I assumed she was kidding. I figured she wanted to see if she could fool an American into thinking that Germans, of all people, actually would mix banana juice with their famed wheat beers. But it was no joke.

Well-crafted German wheat beers often have subtle hints of banana, among many other flavors and aromas. It’s pleasant in small quantities, the hallmark of a careful brewer able to draw out many complex flavors from traditional ingredients through centuries-old craftsmanship. But there’s nothing subtle about bananenweizen. The sickly-sweet banana juice annihilates the beer’s flavor, smothering all the fruits of the brewmaster’s labor. Bananenweizen is just one example. Lemon-lime soda, cola, fruit syrup and all sorts of sticky industrial ingredients are regularly mixed with any number of styles of beer. They appear on the printed menus of bars and restaurants all over the country under various names.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Germany: Schoolbooks Distort Islam, Study Shows

European school books present a distorted image of Islam and Muslims, using stereotypes that breed mistrust of the faith and its people, according to Germany’s Georg Eckert Institute for textbook research. The organisation analysed 27 volumes used in classrooms in Britain, France, Austria, Spain and Germany, finding the slanted view reflects “cultural racism.” The report, which was presented at the foreign ministry in Berlin, was billed as the first of its kind in Europe.

“Islam is always presented as an outdated system of rules which has not changed since its golden age,” Susan Krohnert-Othman, the institute’s project director, told reporters. The researchers concluded that Islam was frequently presented as a homogeneous entity without reflecting its diversity in different parts of the world. The report did not find major differences between the five countries studied. The textbooks used at the secondary school level frequently set an “antiquated Islam” against a “modern Europe” and depict them as in conflict with each other. Krohnert-Othman said that such representations “cannot challenge populist Islamophobia” among pupils.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Germany: Blackface Obama Billboard Sparks Outrage

German comedian Martin Sonneborn is well-known for jokes bordering on the tasteless. But a satirical political billboard of him posing in blackface makeup as US President Barack Obama is sparking outrage. “Ick bin ein Obama (I am an Obama),” reads the poster at Berlin’s central Ernst Reuter Platz square, in an apparent play on John F. Kennedy’s famous “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech. On the poster, a “black” Sonneborn smiles as he raises his arm in the air.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Greece: Education Reform, Clashes in Central Athens

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, SEPTEMBER 15 — School and university students are continuing to demonstrate against the reform of the education system brought about by Prime Minister George Papandreou’s socialist government. The reform draft was approved by the vast majority of the Greek Parliament. Today’s protest march started just after noon at the Propylaea and was heading for the Parliament. A group of ten hooded youths armed with sticks and iron bars got away from the demonstration and started to smash windows and glass doors at a bank in Panepistimiou Street, in downtown Athens. The youngsters then attacked a passenger bus, smashing the windscreen . There is no evidence of anyone being hurt in the riots.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Italians Losing Faith in Berlusconi

PM and government approval ratings drop to record low

(ANSA) — Rome, September 15 — Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s approval rating has dropped to a record low of 24% with a growing majority of the country having little or no faith in his ability to govern, poll results showed Thursday.

The approval figure was five points lower than in June, which was the last time the poll was commissioned by Italian daily La Repubblica.

The results further showed that more Italians than ever have little or no faith in the premier, creeping up four points to 64% of the voting population.

Approval for his government also appears to be slumping, dropping four points to 19%, another record low.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Italy: Clooney’s Italian Ex Launches Nude Animal-Rights Campaign

Canalis would ‘rather go naked than wear fur’

(ANSA) — Rome, September 15 — George Clooney’s former Italian partner Elisabetta Canalis has launched a new anti-fur advertising campaign for American animal rights association PETA in which she gets naked.

The 33-year-old, who split with Clooney earlier this year after two years together, is the face and body of a PETA campaign, which is suitable for family viewing, entitled ‘I’d rather go naked than wear fur’.

“I think this is the best reason why I got naked in my life,” the Sardinian model and actress said in May after the shoot for the campaign.

“(When) I was a kid I was watching TV at home and they showed a documentary.

“In the documentary I saw how they killed little animals, electrocuting them, drowning them, bludgeoning them.

“I was shocked because I was a little girl, but at that moment I thought that I would never, never, never, wear fur in my life”.

In the past other celebrities have stripped for PETA’s anti-fur campaigns, including Charlize Theron and Pamela Anderson.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Italy: Berlusconi Could Face Another Trial

Preliminary judge refuses to drop wiretap case

(ANSA) — Rome, September 15 — Premier Silvio Berlusconi could face another criminal trial after a preliminary judge on Thursday ordered prosecutors to make an indictment request over a wiretap case.

In December prosecutors had asked for charges to be dropped against Berlusconi over his alleged involvement in receiving illegal obtained wiretap evidence, the contents of which his brother Paolo later published in Paolo’s conservative newspaper Il Giornale.

However, Stefania Donadeo, a preliminary judge in Milan, said Thursday that he had refused this request and commanded prosecutors to formulate a petition for Berlusconi to be sent to trial.

Another preliminary judge will then decide whether to indict Berlusconi, who already faces four trials in Milan, three for alleged corruption and one concerning allegations he paid to have sex with an underage prostitute. Prosecutors in Naples have also summoned the premier to face questioning about whether he was the target of extortion over his alleged use of prostitutes.

In the ongoing and several other previous trials, Berlusconi has always denied wrongdoing, claiming he is the victim of a minority group of allegedly leftwing prosecutors and judges who he says are persecuting him for political reasons.

In more than a dozen cases, the premier has never received a definitive conviction, sometimes because of law changes passed by his governments, while some other charges were timed out by the statute of limitations.

The wiretap case regards the publication of a conversation in 2005 between the head of the one-time opposition Democratic Left (DS) party, Piero Fassino, and Giovanni Consorte, the former chairman of Unipol, an association of insurers historically linked to the DS, Italy’s former Communist Party.

At the time Unipol came close to taking over one of Italy’s leading banks, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL), and Fassino was recorded as saying “we have a bank!”.

Fassino, now mayor of Turin, was widely criticised for the comment, especially among the rank and file of the DS, which has since turned into a slightly larger centre-left group, the Democratic Party.

Paolo Berlusconi has already been indicted over the case and the first hearing is scheduled to take place next month.

The preliminary judge also told prosecutors to put Maurizio Belpietro, the editor of Il Giornale when the wiretaps were published, under investigation.

“I don’t know anything about this affair,” Belpietro told ANSA. “I published a story that came from a colleague. I don’t know anything else about it”. Two other people have already been convicted for involvement in the case.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Italy: Tarantini Case — Arcuri Refused to Prostitute Herself

(AGI) Bari — Gianpaolo Taranto contacted the Manuela Arcuri to ask her to prostitute herself with Berlusconi, but she refused.

The actress was promised that the prime minister would help her become a presenter of the Sanremo festival. Tarantini recruited Tery and Nicolo’, Carolina De Freitas Barbosa, Daniela Lungoci and another unidentified girls to prostitute themselves, the former at Palazzo Grazioli and the other three at Villa San Martino, paying them and refunding travel expenses.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Italy: Tarantini Prosecutors — Slender Young Girls Recruited

(AGI) Bari — Prosecutors in the Tarantini case claim that slender young girls were recruited as prostitutes for Silvio Berlusconi. Gianpaolo Tarantini, Salvatore Castellaneta, Pierluigi Faraone, and Massimiliano Verdoscia are accused of being involved in the recruitment of women ‘who were to prostitute themselves with Silvio Berlusconi at the meetings organised at his various homes’. The prosecutors say that the girls were chosen according to ‘specific physical characteristics (youth, slight build, etc.,)’ also with instructions on what clothing to wear and how to behave at these meetings. The events in question took place between September 2008 and May 2009.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Italy: Alleged Escort at PM’s Parties Says She Acted Out of Love

(AGI) Rome — Sabina Began sais she is not worried, because everything she may have done, she did it out of love for Berlusconi. “I’m not worried, as I can’t be worried about something I had no role in. Everything I may have done, I did it out of love for prime minister Berlusconi”, Sabina Began said in a telephone interview with journalist Valentina Petrini, who is on the editorial staff of Piazzapulita, LA7’s new current affairs programme hosted by Corrado Formigli.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Italy: Bossi: ‘We Have Obtained the Territorial Labor Contract’

(AGI) Pian del Re — Umberto Bossi said that after federalism his party has obtained the territorial labor contract. Speaking from Monviso for the celebration of the Ampulla Ceremony, Bossi announced, “After federalism, we have obtained the territorial contract, that is, workers will have a contract that differs from region to region based on the cost of living.” The Northern League leader assured listeners, “This and federalism will, in coming years, push towards a great change.”

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Italy: Scientists on Trial: At Fault?

In 2009, an earthquake devastated the Italian city of L’Aquila and killed more than 300 people. Now, scientists are on trial for manslaughter.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Muslims Defy Outdoor Prayer Ban in France

Hundreds of Muslims defied a French ban on outdoor prayer — which came into force Friday —and took to the streets and sidewalks of Paris to pray. The French government announced Thursday it was banning praying outside, with officials pledging to enforce the ban from Friday. But 200 Muslims ignored the ban and prayed on the streets in the neighborhood of La Goutte d’Or, Le Parisien newspaper reported. French interior minister Claude Gueant said he had nothing against Islam but wanted it out of the public eye because France was a secular state. He added, “Street prayers must stop because they hurt the feelings of many of our compatriots who are shocked by the occupation of the public space for a religious practice.”

Although officials would persuade people to pray in mosques, Muslims who continued to pray in the street would be arrested, Gueant warned. The ban angered French Muslim leaders who said Muslims only prayed outdoors because of a lack of space in mosques in France.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Neanderthals vs Humans? German Scientists Bring Fossils Into the Computer Age

Researchers in Leipzig are compiling a ground-breaking digital archive of artefacts from around the world. Created to contrast Neanderthals with modern man, the archive could revolutionize their field — which is exactly why many oppose it.

Hublin advocates paying closer attention to the differences. For that reason he was bothered by the enthusiastic response given to the news that Neanderthal genes can be found in modern humans. “People made a stirring love story out of it,” he says. But he adds that history teaches that kidnapping and raping human women may have been the origin of this genetic merging. Hublin argues that many researchers paint an overly harmonious picture of the coexistence of these two rivals.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Netherlands: Dutch Burqa Ban — Maximum Fine to be 380 Euros

Women wearing the Islamic burqa (full body cloak) or niqab (face veil) in public will soon be subject to a maximum fine of 380 euros. The planned measure is to be discussed by the Dutch cabinet on Friday.

A ‘burqa ban’ formed part of the minority Dutch government’s programme agreed with the populist Freedom Party (PVV) on whose parliamentary support the cabinet relies.

Rather than singling out burqas and niqabs, the senior partner in the coalition, the conservative VVD, is in favour of a general ban on people wearing clothes that cover the face including balaclavas and helmets with opaque visors. On the VVD website, it is argued that people can find such clothing threatening. The extent of the ban will become clear after Friday’s cabinet meeting.

The Christian Democrats are the smaller party in the coalition and say: “Clothing covering the face makes it harder to indentify people, hinders communication and makes people feel less safe”. From 2007, the PVV has called for a ‘burqa ban’ punishable by higher fines and even imprisonment. It describes the garment as “an expression of the rejection of the West’s core values”. It is estimated that about 150 women in the Netherlands always wear the burqa or niqab when they go out in public. A maximum of a few hundred women wear the garments occasionally.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Nokia App Powers Portable Brain Scanner

YOU can now hold your brain in the palm of your hand. For the first time, a scanner powered by a smartphone will let you monitor your neural signals on the go. By hooking up a commercially available EEG headset to a Nokia N900 smartphone, Jakob Eg Larsen and colleagues at the Technical University of Denmark in Kongens Lyngby have created a completely portable system.

This is the first time a phone has provided the power for an EEG headset, which monitors the electrical activity of the brain, says Larsen. The headset would normally connect wirelessly to a USB receiver plugged into a PC. Wearing the headset and booting up an accompanying app designed by the researchers creates a simplified 3D model of the brain that lights up as brainwaves are detected, and can be rotated by swiping the screen. The app can also connect to a remote server for more intensive number-crunching, and then display the results on the cellphone.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Sixty Years of Germany’s Beate Uhse

When Sexual Liberation Arrived By Mail

In the 1950s, Germany was a place where many women were terrified of getting pregnant and kept woefully ignorant about sexual matters. One dauntless woman changed that almost single-handedly. The empire of Beate Uhse started small as a mail-order provider of sex-education brochures. But it grew to become the world’s largest seller of sex toys.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Sweden: Conductor Nearly Tossed From Moving Train

A man travelling on a train between Kristianstad and Bromölla in Southern Sweden, tried to throw the conductor off the train as he was caught without a ticket. The aggravated man was travelling in the company of a woman on a train between Kristianstad and Bromölla when a female conductor asked to see his ticket around 12:40am Thursday morning. Unable to produce a ticket, the man then became aggressive, putting the conductor in a choke hold. He then managed to work the door open at which point he allegedly tried to toss her from the train, which was travelling at about 70 kilometres per hour at the time of the incident.

While the man’s attempt to throw the conductor off the train failed, and he and his companion managed to escape from the train, the incident angered union officials. In the wake of the incident, both the union and the safety representatives have met with officials from DSB First to discuss workplace safety issues. “We’ve really not agreed on anything so far,” Gadd told Sydsvenskan, “and that’s why we now have put in a safety stop (skyddsstopp) effective immediately.” The safety stop means that until a decision is made, the conductors will no longer be checking tickets on the trains of Öresundstågen.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



UK: First Free School for Muslims Gets the Go Ahead Amid Fears Over Segregated Schooling

The first free school for Muslims in the country will open in Blackburn, Lancashire, next year. The business case for Tauheedul Islam Boys’ School has been approved by the Government. But opponents have described the decision as ‘extremely bad news’ for community cohesion and claim it will deprive state schools of vital funds.

Tauheedul Islam Girls’ School principal Mufti Hamid Patel, who made the application with governors, has vowed that the school will be a beacon to raise overall achievements in all schools in Blackburn with Darwen. Mr Patel said he had developed a curriculum where the school would play an active role in all areas of the community and also had visions to enrol students into university at 16 thanks to accelerated learning

The detailed plan includes all students undertaking 500 hours of community service throughout their school life, specialisms in sport and the Big Society, outdoor pursuits such as canoeing and mountain climbing more than once a year and a finishing school. The school plans to benefit non-pupils by running GCSE and A-level revision sessions in areas such as Darwen and Shadsworth, as well as creating a Sports’ Academy for primary school children.

Since the plan was first mooted around 700 pre-registration admission forms have been submitted by parents — including from London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Dewsbury and Bolton — for the first 150 places. Free schools do not fall within local authority control and get their funding direct from the Government, but have greater freedom than academies to set their own agenda.

Mr Patel said: ‘This is a fantastic milestone. We are very excited and think it is good news. ‘The support is generally good from across all the communities. This has been 18 months in the planning and will be the first free school in the town and the first Muslim free school in the country.

And we are looking at all sorts of innovations and ideas. Though our intake will be comprehensive with learners from areas which are the most deprived in the country, our school will have an elite, but not elitist, philosophy. ‘It will be a ‘grammar’ school for ordinary kids. Every young person at Tauheedul Boys’ High School will have a sense of privilege and exclusivity.’

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Prison Doesn’t Achieve Anything, Says Ken Clarke

Prison is an “extremely expensive way” to house criminals, and fails to achieve anything, Ken Clarke has said.

The Justice Secretary was speaking ahead of official figures, published yesterday, which showed that the prison population has hit another record high. Mr Clarke was taking part in a television debate on how the criminal justice system treated the rioters after the disturbances in England last month. Mr Clarke said: “It (prison) is an extremely expensive way to accommodating people for a time and making no progress whatever in stopping them being criminals.” Mr Clarke also told the BBC2’s Newsnight programme on Thursday night : “The prison population has soared pointlessly. I would like to stabilise the situation.”

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



UK: Report on EDL to be Published at University of Northampton

A major report on the ideology, structure and development of the English Defence League (EDL) will be launched at an international conference at The University of Northampton next week. The conference is entitled “Populist Racism in Britain in Europe since 1945” and will be held between 22-23 September. The report, The EDL: Britain’s Far-Right Social Movement, also examines the EDL’s influence on far-right terrorism and “lone wolf” extremists. The latter are individuals who act alone with far-right extremist views; for example, Anders Breivik — perpetrator of the recent terrorists atrocities in Norway — allegedly acted alone and his manifesto praises the work of the EDL.

University of Northampton press release, 13 September 2011

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Balkans


Kosovo: Witness Gets Two Months Jail for Contempt of UN Court

The Hague, 16 Sept. (AKI) — A witness for the in the trial of former Kosovo prime minister Ramus Haradinaj was sentenced to two months in jail on Friday by the United Nation War Crimes Tribunal for contempt of court.

Sefcet Kabashi, a key witness against Haradinaj, who is accused of war crimes against Serb, Roma and non-loyal Albanian civilians during 1998/99 conflict, refused to testify in 2007, saying several witnesses had been killed.

He was arrested by Netherlands authorities in August and handed over to the tribunal. But he again refused to answer questions by the prosecution at Haradinaj’s retrial which is currently going on in The Hague.

Haradinaj, a former military commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which fought against Serbian rule, was acquitted in the first trial for “lack of evidence”. But the tribunal’s appeals panel said the first trial was conducted in an “atmosphere of intimidation of witnesses” and ordered a retrial.

Kabashi could have been sentenced up to seven years in jail and/or 100,000 euros for contempt of court. But the tribunal said it took into account Akashi’s “family situation and post-traumatic problems” as mitigating circumstances.

He has already served one month in jail and will be freed after serving another thirty days.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Russian Ambassador Warns Serbia Against the West

Russia’s ambassador to Serbia warned Belgrade on Thursday not seek an ally in the West, which he said was acting “against Serbia’s national interests,” local media reported. NATO and European Union member states will be against your national interests …,” Tanjug news agency quoted ambassador Aleksandar Konuzin as telling a forum on global security in Belgrade.

Konuzin spoke as Kosovo prepared to execute its threat to take over disputed border crossings with Serbia, a move that Belgrade has strongly opposed. Noting that the United Nations Security Council would discuss the issue later Thursday, Konuzin said Russia would back “Serbia’s interests” at the session. “We have the same interests and we will defend your country,” he said.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



UN Warns Kosovo and Serbia Over Border Post Friction

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called on Serbia for restraint as tensions over the control of border posts in northern Kosovo mounts. Ethnic Serbs are reported to have blocked two crossings.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

North Africa


Arab Uprisings: Salafists on the Attack in Defence of Islam

(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, SEPTEMBER 15 — Amid the wind of freedom blowing over North Africa even before the disintegration of dictatorial regimes (Tunisia, Libya and Egypt) or the implementation of less cautious programmes of reform (Morocco and Algeria), the only fear for intellectuals and secular figures was that a shift towards fundamentalism would find space in the predictable political void that might and, in some cases, did follow. This idea has indeed become a reality and in a process that targets the creation of confessional states based on the precepts of Islam (even in its more moderate form), the emergence of Salafists, with their ability to be politically subversive, is beginning to be felt.

It is the Salafists who have stolen the headlines, appearing some way from being monitored by security forces, who whether out of incompetence or suspicious disinterest, have allowed them to roam. The latest episode occurred last night in the Tunisian town of Menzel Abderrahem, in the governorate of Bizerte, where Salafists followed up their threats by physically attacking illegal alcohol retailers. In the absence of the police, the attack resulted in widespread clashes of a notable level of violence.

There have been similar explosions of extremist violence in Algeria, where other Salafists laid into other sellers of alcohol, smashing through what many people saw as a sort of accepted hypocrisy, whereby those selling alcohol — which is forbidden by Islam — were able to do so provided operations remained discreet. The compromise is an understandable one in officially Islamic countries, where consumption of alcohol is far from being an exception reserved for the chosen few (rich and poor, cultured and ignorant all partake). But the advent of democracy has removed the veil of hypocrisy, allowing the Salafists to take up the green flag of Islam and use it to violent ends.

Fundamentalist fury, when it is not infused with political motives (it was Salafists who laid waste to the Kasbah, which houses the Tunisian government and ministries), targets behaviour that is seen as offensive to the Koran and to the Prophet. There have been repeated examples of this in Algeria, where Salafist anger has erupted against prostitutes, who have been the subject of real expeditions. Whole residential buildings have been set ablaze because some of the flats were known to be used by women receiving their clients. No matter if the fire ripped through the homes of those who had nothing to do with the issue.

The question of whether Salafists are acting to make the most of a power vacuum or are aided by suspicious compliance still remains unanswered. One indication will come in the election of Tunisia’s Constituent Assembly, which is likely to see Ennadha, a religious party suspected of having two faces, gain a relative majority. The first, reassuring face of the party promises freedom, work and democracy. The second, meanwhile, fails to condemn those who use the Koran to justify violence. It remains to be seen on October 23 whether or not the supporters of Ennadha are joined by the “beards”, who today roam the streets of central Tunis, rebuking those who dress in western fashion.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Libya’s New Govt, A Ridiculous and Wretched Bunch, Says Del Boca

For the historian, the new Libyan government does not add up. Made up of former Gaddafi officials and Muslims extremists fighting among themselves, it will bring few benefits to the Libyan people. It might instead herald the beginning of a power struggle following planned elections.

Rome (AsiaNews) — With a government that includes former Gaddafi officials, radical Muslims and former al Qaeda operatives, the new Libya will not be that much different from the old one. “The presence of these characters shows that the new government is just a ridiculous and wretched bunch,” historian and Libya expert Angelo Del Boca told AsiaNews. For him, this war reflects its contradictory causes, more related to economics than a genuine desire for change.

“What surprises me these days is the appearance of many faces tied to Muslim terrorism and anti-Gaddafi tribal leaders from Cyrenaica,” he said.

In his view, they have nothing to do with democracy as claimed by Western governments, especially France and Great Britain, whose leaders just started a visit to Tripoli and Benghazi.

Instead, what worriers the historian is Abdul Hakim Belhaj, the current military governor of Tripoli and head of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a jihadist movement close to al-Qaeda who supplied thousands of suicide attackers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“In the coming months, rebel leaders will clean up their image for the elections, but the Libyan people will not get many benefits,” Del Boca explained.

For him, the National Transitional Council (NTC) is culturally unprepared to change the country and is already torn apart by a power struggle that could plunge Libya into chaos.

Great anti-Gaddafi dissidents and intellectuals like Anwar Fekini, who raised funds for the war against Libya’s fallen strongman, have been left out in the cold.

The future ideological order of the country is already feeling the pressures from Muslim extremists who provided most of the fighters for the battle for Tripoli. “The danger of a Sharia-based state is quite real,” Del Boca warns.

Indeed, a radical Libyan Muslim leader, sheikh Ahmed al-Salabi, yesterday said that he did not recognise himself in the new government, with its officials from the old regime, and that he would do everything to oppose it.

Meanwhile, the United Nations announced changes to Security Council Resolution 1970. Over the coming weeks, the arms embargo imposed on Libya will be gradually lifted and sanctions on Libyan banks and oil companies will be phased out. The No Fly Zone will however remain in place. (S.C.)

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Libya: 15% of Forces Loyal to Gaddafi Still Operational

(AGI) Paris — NATO says that 15% of the forces loyal to Muammar Gheddafi are still operational and explained that they are concentrated in an area between Tripoli, the southern desert town of Sebha and the coastal town of Sirte. When asked about the whereabouts of Gaddafi, General Vincent Tesniere, who was speaking in a teleconference from the Italian base of Poggio Renatico, said, “the alliance is not looking for individuals.” .

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Libya: Rebels Forced to Withdraw From Bani Walid

(AGI) Bani Walid — After battling fiercely for hours rebels were forced to withdraw from Bani Walid that they had penetrated today. This is what journalists following Lybian rebel forces report. Rebels pulled out of the city at sunset under massive fire by Muammar Gheddafi’s forces .

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Libya: Cameron and Sarkozy Lap Up Triumph

Le Figaro, 16 September 2011

“Sarkozy and Cameron welcomed as liberators by the Libyans,” proclaims Le Figaro on its front page after the visit of the French head of state and British Prime Minister to Libya. “Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron have taken advantage of this moment […] to reap the fruits of their determination. That two European leaders should be hailed so warmly in an Arab country while the continent is struggling with the debt crisis has something comforting about it,” writes the pleased conservative daily.

Across the Channel, The Independent considers it “a visit that Cameron and Sarkozy might have delayed”. While the two European leaders indeed had every right to be the first Western leaders to visit Libya after Gaddafi and were welcomed during a walkabout, “the enthusiasm of Libyans does not let the British and French leaders off the charge that their visit was made in unseemly haste; a case of too much, too soon,” the London daily writes…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Tunisia: Erdogan Offers “Turkish Model” For Democratic Islam

(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, SEPTEMBER 15 — The Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who arrived in Tunis last night, has been given a rock star’s welcome in the Tunisian capital, where he was met by large numbers of Palestinian and Turkish flags, but also many of Israel, burned and trampled. The greeting in Tunis shows that the acclaim he received in Cairo was not an isolated incident.

Erdogan is now a serious protagonist of Arab politics and his influence has now gone well beyond the boundaries of the Middle East, “conquering” Egypt and Tunisia, which, until yesterday at least, had appeared more secular. The visit by the Turkish Prime Minister, which officially began today, saw him hold talks with the Tunisian Prime Minister, Béji Caid Essebsi, and the President, Foued Mebazaa, (both of them in interim positions, ahead of a clarification of the Tunisian political scene expected as part of the election of the Constituent Assembly). The trip is cementing Erdogan’s position as one of the main political players in the area, and the Turkish PM has been able to capitalise — particularly with Arab masses demanding the creation of Islamic states — on the charm of taking up a very delicate challenge waving the banner of Islam. This is also shown by the Israeli flags torched by hundreds of people, literally in a state of delirium, as they awaited him at the airport.

Speaking in the Tunisian capital, Erdogan repeated what he has been saying for weeks and which puts him on the front line of the dispute with Israel, for whom he said the period of dictating events in the Mediterranean, in complete disregard of international law, was at an end. The “pretext” is that of last year’s attack by Israeli special forces on the flotilla that was aiming to carry humanitarian aid to Gaza, and which ended with the death of around ten activists, most of them Turks.

Erdogan added that three steps are needed if Israel wants to return to the negotiating table: an official apology for the attack; compensation for the families of the victims; and the lifting of the naval blockade imposed upon Gaza. The demands will fall on deaf ears, as by accepting even one of the three demands, Israel would act against the cornerstone of both its foreign and home policy. But Erdogan is continuing undaunted, in the knowledge that he is gaining popularity and that he is involved in an important battle.

Yet the Turkish Prime Minister is also keen to use his trip to Tunisia to launch a reassuring message, with the idea that the model that he has applied in Turkey can be exported to the protagonists of the Arab Spring. Islam and democracy are not contrasting, he said, and can even go hand in hand. Erdogan conveyed the message using the example of “his” Turkey, where 99% of the population is Turkish, but where Christians and Jews are free to practice their religions, as is right in a secular state in which all beliefs have the same value.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Tunisia: Islam Can Exist With Democracy, Says Turkish PM

By Mohamed Argoubi and Sylvia Westall

TUNIS (Reuters) — Tunisia’s new political order will show that Islam and democracy can co-exist just as they have in Turkey, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday.

Erdogan, in Tunis on the second stop of a North African tour aimed at asserting Ankara’s growing regional influence, said secularism should guarantee that people of all beliefs, as well as atheists, were treated fairly. He said there was nothing to stop a Muslim from governing a secular state.

Tunisia plans to hold elections on October 23 to select an assembly to rewrite the constitution, nine months after the revolt that swept away President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and sparked uprisings around the Arab world. Islamist party Ennahda, banned for two decades under Ben Ali, is expected to poll strongly, unnerving Tunisian secularists. Erdogan said the country should have nothing to fear from the influence of Islam in politics. “The most important thing of all, and Tunisia will prove this, (is that) Islam and democracy can exist side by side,” he told a joint news conference with counterpart Beji Caid Sebsi. “Turkey, as a country which is 99 percent Muslim, does this comfortably, we do not have any difficulty. There is no need to hinder this by putting forward different approaches. In the broadest sense, consultation will put forward the will of the people,” he said.

More than 90 political parties have sprung up in Tunisia since Ben Ali’s fall. Ennahda is seen with around 20 percent in the polls. “Tunisia and Turkey confirm that there is no contradiction between Islam and democracy,” Sebsi, a secularist, said.

Al Qaeda Threat

Erdogan has been holding up Turkey’s blend of Islam and democracy as a model for the movements which have toppled entrenched Arab autocrats in Tunis, Cairo and Tripoli.

“On the subject of secularism, this is not a secularism in the Anglo-Saxon or Western sense. A person is not secular, the state is secular,” Erdogan said. “A Muslim can govern a secular state in a successful way.” Sebsi said they had discussed the relation between religion and the state as well as ways to fight security threats in a turbulent region — with a reference to al Qaeda.

Tunisian officials have warned that al Qaeda could be exploiting the Libyan conflict to acquire weapons and smuggle them into other countries. Tunisia arrested several men with suspected links to the group’s North African branch near the border earlier this year. After Erdogan received a rapturous welcome in Cairo this week, hundreds of Tunisians turned out to greet the Turkish premier at Tunis airport late on Wednesday, clutching portraits of him and hoisting banners reading “Welcome Erdogan!”

Ennahda leader Rachid Ghannouchi joined the crowds, praising Erdogan as someone who had “worked hard for Islam”. Ennahda, a moderate Islamist movement which has close ties with Erdogan’s AK Party, has said Turkey’s political model is something it aspires to. Erdogan completes his tour in neighbouring Libya on Friday.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Tunisia: A Genuine Islamist Democrat [Rashid Gannoushi]

The erudite Rashid Gannoushi believes pluralistic Muslim societies should welcome the cultural wealth brought by non-Muslim citizens

The founder of the Hizb Al Nahda (Renaissance Party), Rashid Gannoushi, was arrested, tortured, exiled and made to live for many years outside Tunisia. He returned to his native land after 20 years of absence on January 30, 2011, in the aftermath of the popular unrest that ousted Zine Al Abidine Bin Ali from the presidency. Because of the many uncertainties surrounding Tunisia and the anticipated Constituent Assembly elections, now scheduled for October 23, the very future of democracy in the country was in jeopardy. Gannoushi’s views and putative roles were critical and worthy of a careful investigation if for no other reason than to affirm how an Islamist supported democratisation.

Islamic Tendency Movement

Long before the 2010 demonstrations, which were precipitated by poor living conditions and high unemployment for the vast majority of Tunisians, young men and women who were educated overseas and who envisaged a society where political freedoms were the norm, mobilised against the Bourguiba and Bin Ali governments. Gannoushi, who hailed from Al Hama, in the Qabis province of southern Tunisia, lived for several years in Cairo, Damascus and Paris, which emancipated his outlook. Upon his return to his native land, the young Gannoushi founded the Harakat Al Ittijah Al Islami (Islamic Tendency Movement, better known by its French acronym MTI — Mouvement de Tendances Islamiques) in April 1981, an organisation that was quickly banned for harbouring Islamist affinities.

There was no doubt that Gannoushi was influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Syria, even if his chief objection at the time was towards various secular ideological principles incorporated by Tunis. Whether he became a Salafi — the way the word is understood today — was an entirely different proposition, though the young man was persuaded that social reforms based on the true principles of Islam were the salvation that his nation sorely demanded. In one of his more poignant declarations, Gannoushi said: “I remember we used to feel like strangers in our own country. After having been educated as Muslims and Arabs, we found our own country totally moulded in the French cultural identity.” This he rejected. What he and his supporters wanted was to promote Islamic principles, highlight and explain differences between these and Western ideologies, and live exemplary lives whenever possible.

The Bourguiba response

After 1988, Tunis tolerated the MTI and similar movements that, for the most part, focused on moral concerns. Earlier, the Bourguiba regime did not perceive Islamists as a threat to the state, whose nemesis were the so-called “leftists”, and which could be nicely balanced by the MTI and others. Ironically, at one point, even Bourguiba presented himself as favouring Islamic principles. In the event, and in the aftermath of the 1979 Soviet War for Afghanistan, which mobilised Islamist organisations against the USSR and atheism, the MTI took on a far greater political role. Coupled with the 1979 Iranian revolution, the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the rise of various movements across the Muslim world, Gannoushi’s MTI led to an open confrontation with the regime. The sting was so painful that interior minister Driss Guiga stated in 1981: “We are six million Tunisian Muslims. We are all the Islamic Tendency. No one can accept that certain individuals claim the monopoly of Islam and pretend to act under its name or its sacred values to hide their political goals.”

By May 1981, Gannoushi had entered into a political alliance with several other groups and called on the government to recognise the MTI as a political party. Neither Bourguiba nor his interior minister, Bin Ali, were interested and promptly arrested 60 leading members for forming an illegal organisation. At a time when the Tunisian economy was topsy-turvy, MTI officials spoke of prosperity, whereas the state was reduced to micro-management. Calamities followed one after the other. In 1985, a portion of the income flow from Tunisians working in Libya stopped after the maverick Colonel Muammar Gaddafi expelled 40,000 Tunisian workers — ostensibly the result of a downturn in the Libyan economy — because of political considerations, as the maverick colonel practised the “expulsion” tool as a weapon against what he concluded were uncooperative governments. Simultaneously, the Tunisian economy suffered another blow as tourists stayed away after the October 1, 1985, Israeli raid on the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) headquarters near the capital city.

These developments, coupled with high unemployment, improved MTI’s popularity as the movement positioned itself as an alternative to the state eager to look after the downtrodden. Tunis banned the group, as a major crackdown became the norm, and which eventually led to an MTI plot that, allegedly, planned to overthrow the Tunisian government and replace it with a religious one. In August 1987, 99 MTI members were charged with “forming an illegal organisation; plotting subversive actions with Iran; and attempting to overthrow the government”. Five were sentenced to death while another 69 received verdicts ranging from two years to life imprisonment.

The Bin Ali rejoinder

After his coup d’état, Bin Ali reaffirmed Islam as the country’s religion and adopted more conciliatory attitudes towards “moderate Islamists”. His appeasement granted a general amnesty for imprisoned MTI members, including Gannoushi; the creation of a consultative body empowered to address religious concerns, the High Islamic Council — which, interestingly, welcomed an MTI leader Shaikh Abdul Fateh Mourou to its rosters; the inclusion of the MTI in the National Pact that grouped leading parties to draft fresh participatory rules; allowing Islamists to run for office in the April 2, 1989, elections, albeit as independents; the legalisation of an Islamist student organisation; and the authorisation for Al Fajr, an Islamist newspaper, to publish freely. Remarkably, Gannoushi adhered to the 1988 law that prohibited the formation of political parties on the basis of religion, region or language and, consequently, changed its name to Harakat Al Nahda or the Renaissance Movement before it formally became a hizb (party).

Harakat Al Nahda

Unabashedly, Al Nahda envisaged a government that would apply Sharia while proceeding through the democratic process. Indeed, in the April 1989 elections, its “independent” candidates won 15 per cent of the total vote, with up to 40 per cent in major cities including Tunis. Regrettably, not a single parliamentarian was allowed to enter parliament, which led to further arrests and expulsions. What followed was a series of violent clashes and, while Harakat Al Nahda presented itself as a non-violent political party, Tunis ensured it was implicated in clashes with security forces. Whether all these collisions originated in the MTI or whether they were “encouraged” by the Bin Ali regime needed further elucidation. Suffice it to say that Harakat Al Nahda became “illegal”, with its leaders either jailed or exiled. In the post-9/11 environment, president Bin Ali opted for a proactive antiterrorist policy, which gained Western, especially American, backing.

An Islamist democrat

Whether Gannoushi, who lived in London between 1989 and 2011, would once again play a major role in his country’s politics remained an unknown proposition. Suffice it to say that writing and delivering countless lectures moulded his thinking. Like most Arabs, he supported various Palestinian movements, including Hamas. Unlike most Islamists, however, he developed an appreciation for multiparty democracy in the country that gave the world the Magna Carta. Long before the uprisings in the Arab world, which started when Mohammad Bouazizi immolated himself on December 17, 2010, in Tunisia, Gannoushi spoke of serious socio-economic reforms. His writings, including the Al Bayan Al Ta’sisi li-Harakat Al Ittijah Al Islami (The Founding Communiqué of the Islamic Tendency Movement), represented what was a progressive strain in Islamic reformism.

In additional writings, he stressed the need for innovation against social injustice and while this was not a fresh idea in the larger scheme of evolving Arab ideologies, he emphasised the importance of culture. In his view a correct Islamist movement took into account the needs of citizens — not just believers — as he distanced himself from “obscure theories”, such as the ones espoused by the famous Egyptian Islamist Sayyid Qutb. Again, perhaps because of his observations in Britain, Gannoushi concluded that there was value in the very idea of workers’ rights, unions and, the most emancipated view of them all, in women’s education. Of course, Islam recognised the value of work and granted women full rights from its inception, though few Islamists could reconcile themselves with such outcomes.

Philosophical legacy

Gannoushi started out opposing the Bourguiba and Bin Ali regimes but entertained pragmatic political views. While he preferred to rely on Sharia, he nevertheless wished to distance himself from the cherry-picking that, regrettably, became fashionable. He maintained, for example, that Islam recognised special roles for women with full rights and privileges, including education. Unlike the Taliban in Afghanistan, he insisted that women receive all the benefits that a community could offer, including access to learning.

In several of his writings, Gannoushi cited oppressive cultural codes in certain countries — especially Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco — as the leading reason why women turned to Western culture away from Islam. Genuine reforms, he argued, needed to address women’s rights. In numerous lectures, he frequently called on men to respect women and welcome them to add value to the nation.

An equally powerful argument in Gannoushi’s philosophy was his conclusion that pluralistic Muslim societies ought to stress the cultural wealth brought into the realm by non-Muslim citizens. Towards that end, he repeatedly pointed out that Arab citizens who happened to be non-Muslim ought not be barred from positions in the government, which was a position that was opposed by conservative Islamists. Except for Lebanon, where a political parity existed between Muslims and Christians, no other Arab country tolerated such an outcome according to their respective constitutions, though exceptions existed at certain times for a few well-placed individuals in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Iraq and Bahrain. For Gannoushi, nevertheless, the key feature of this perspective was to amalgamate citizenship (responsibility) with privileges (rights). On January 22, 2011, in an interview with Al Jazeera TV, Gannoushi confirmed that he opposed an Islamic Caliphate the way it existed in history. Rather, and unlike several other parties that emerged in the new Tunisia, the former Islamist voiced his support for democracy. That, he posited, was the true meaning of Islam.

The making of a leader

Rashid Gannoushi was born in 1941 outside Al Hama, in the Qabis province of southern Tunisia, into a relatively prosperous family. After secondary education and a Baccalaureate (high school + 1) in 1962, he enrolled at the University of Zaytunah, destined for a promising career in the sciences. To further enhance his training, he entered the school of agriculture at Cairo University in 1964, which was not the ideal learning forum at the time. When Egypt expelled Tunisians in the mid-1960s, ostensibly because of a dispute between Jamal Abdul Nasser and Habib Bourguiba (the latter was deemed too neutral in the Arab-Israeli conflict and pro-French in other instances), Gannoushi left for Syria. Rather than continue in agriculture, however, the young man opted to study Philosophy at the University of Damascus, from where he graduated in 1968. It was in Damascus that Gannoushi first joined the Socialist Party, which intrigued him for its egalitarian penchants. From Syria, Gannoushi moved to France, where he attended the Sorbonne dabbling in various subjects — including religious studies — before returning to Tunisia. His new goal was to reform Tunisian society through a political organisation that promoted Islamic principles.

In April 1981, Gannoushi founded the Harakat Al Ittijah Al Islami (Islamic Tendency Movement), which promoted anti-violence and called for a “reconstruction of economic life on a more equitable basis, the end of single-party politics and the acceptance of political pluralism and democracy”. Notwithstanding democratic aspirations, Gannoushi and his followers were arrested in July 1981, tortured, tried and sentenced to 11 years in prison in Bizerte. Released in 1984, he returned to prison in 1987 with a life sentence, but was again released in 1988 a few months after the November 1987 bloodless coup d’état against Bourguiba. Gannoushi moved to Britain where he was granted political asylum, became a prolific author and continued to criticise the Tunisian government as corrupt. He returned to Tunis after the regime of president Zine Al Abidine Bin Ali fell in early 2011.

Dr Joseph A. Kéchichian is an author, most recently of Faysal: Saudi Arabia’s King for All Seasons (2008).

Published on the third Friday of each month, this article is part of a series on Arab leaders who greatly influenced political affairs in the Middle East.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Israel and the Palestinians


Abbas Says Palestinians Will Demand Full U.N. Membership at Security Council

The Palestinian president announced Friday that he will seek statehood through the Security Council at the United Nations next week, a move strongly opposed by Israel and the United States and likely to provoke a major conflict over how to resolve one of the most intractable issues in the Middle East.

The announcement by the president, Mahmoud Abbas, in a speech delivered at his headquarters in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was the first time he has so explicitly and publicly endorsed such a strategy, which Palestinian officials have been moving toward for months as their frustration over stalled peace talks with Israel has intensified. American and Israeli diplomats had struggled to dissuade Mr. Abbas and his aides from such a step.

[Return to headlines]



Caroline Glick: The Palestinian Obsession

If nothing else, the Palestinians’ UN statehood gambit goes a long way towards revealing the deep-seated European and US pathologies that enable and prolong the Palestinian conflict with Israel.

In a nutshell, the Palestinian Authority — or Fatah — or PLO initiative of asking the UN Security Council and the General Assembly to upgrade its status to that of a sovereign UN member state or a sovereign non-UN member state is an act of diplomatic aggression…

           — Hat tip: Caroline Glick [Return to headlines]



Israel Should Hold Fast and Let Muslims Vent Their Rage

Israel has rarely been so isolated. Consider the forces ranged against it:

  • Jihadi entities — Hizbullah and Hamas — on its northern and southern borders that are itching for the moment when, behind their own civilian populations, they can rain down death upon Israeli civilians, forcing Israeli retaliation that inevitably causes Palestinian civilian casualties.
  • An Arab Spring that has unleashed waves of anti-Zionism and empowered the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the first and most constant enemies of the Zionists.
  • “Allies” in the Muslim world who are now turned or turning against it — Turkey, and Egypt following in the lead of Turkey: the closing of the Israeli embassy in Ankara, followed soon after by the takeover of the embassy in Cairo, illustrating how both bottom-up and top-down forces in the Muslim world militate for confrontation.
  • A newly empowered Muslim media that spreads lethal narratives at lightning speed around the globe.
  • The “progressive” West, especially the global tribe of the “Left,” and the “human rights” NGOs saturated with anti-Zionist diatribes, about to hold Durban III, commemorating one of the ugliest incidents in its depressing, demopathic career of betraying the very humanitarian causes they were created to protect.
  • A Western news media and academia, enamoured of post-modern, post-colonial paradigms that present Israel as the Goliath victimizing the Palestinians, the paragon of an imperial and racist colonialism for which the West is trying to repent, and with whose sacrifice it might atone.
  • A diplomatic elite that has long preferred to side with the oil-rich Arabs over a tiny, troublesome state.
  • An internationally weak American president who, for reasons ideological, psychological, and practical, considers making friends with the Muslim world a far greater priority than protecting Israel.
  • And now, in a few days, a Palestinian authority about to use the UN — currently a bastion of anti-Zionism — as a means to further isolate Israel diplomatically and legally.

Rumours are that it’s so bad that the stiff-necked, Right-wing Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is under heavy pressure to be more placating, to calm the storm. Of course, in so doing, Israel would be playing the role of sacrificial offering on the altar of jihadi warfare. Contrary to the exceptionally naïve expectations of the proponents of such a conciliatory stance, a reasonable, apologetic, concessionary Israel will not appease Muslim hatred, nor calm the roiling waters of Arab anger. On the contrary, it will play directly into the hands of the jihadis who aim at the — to us — ludicrous goal of world domination.

And any Western country that thinks sacrificing Israel in this manner will improve the situation, rather than weakening itself profoundly in a global battle it should be winning hands down, is deluding itself. Instead of pouring water on the fires of religious war — something virtually every thoughtful Westerner considers the most dangerous and destructive of forces — they would be pouring oil on the jihadi apocalyptic forest fire that grows with every passing year. If you’re worried about global climate warming, shouldn’t you also be worried about global jihad warming?

Israel, paradoxically, is also in a particularly strong position. Few alliances last long in this part of the world, and no sooner are reconciliations announced than they begin to fray. The very countries that, in their move to Islamism, have turned against her, have, at the same time, gutted their armies of their military professionals. Even as they strut on the international stage, making threats and demanding abject apologies, their military ability to confront Israel wanes. And of course, the Israel he’d meet would not be the wounded, defensive one with which he shadow-boxes daily. Israelis have always had more heart for fighting real wars than for constant low-grade battles with terrorists who hide behind civilians in order to gain a propaganda victory.

Indeed, the situation of the Turks is so perilous, that one (typical) conspiracy theory circulating in among them now is that Obama has been encouraging Erdogan’s intransigence so that Turkey will enter into a disastrous war with Israel and end up losing not only to them, but to their troublesome neighbours, the Kurds. Have Egyptians really believed their fantastic narrative about defeating Israel in 1973, a victory snatched from them (rather than from the Israelis) by meddlesome Westerners? Is the mob mentality in the street and in the media, so much in evidence in 1967, still capable of driving them to a war with Israel?

Behind the military weakness lies economic weaknesses. High wheat prices from drought-stricken China played a major role in both sparking the “Arab Spring” and the weakness of Arab economies (with and without oil) pose major threats to the largely dispossessed people. With problems like this, only fools and tyrants would resort to scapegoating one of the most economically successful and productive nations in the neighbourhood, as a way to move forward. If the Turks continue their belligerence, their Jewish population will leave Turkey, and the unemployment rate will, according to some estimates, almost double.

Israel should, if anything, hold fast and let the Arabs and Muslims vent their impotent rage; even to challenge them. Israel should call Turkey’s morally repugnant bluff about concern for Palestinians even as it crushes its own minorities. Western human rights activists would do everyone a favour by spotlighting Turkey’s troubling record, for more than just the purpose of keeping them out of the EU. I’m quite sure the Kurds and the Greek Cypriots would much prefer Israel as a neighbour than Turkey — indeed, honest Arab inhabitants of Jerusalem, like those who would say they would move out any parts of Jerusalem given to the PA, would admit the same.

Of course such pushback might lead to war. No one in Israel wishes for war. Every soldier’s death and every dead civilian, on both sides, is experienced as a national tragedy. Unfortunately, even impotent venting can lead Muslim leaders down dark tunnels that they can’t escape. The extremist street can and has propelled them into following through on their rhetorical flourishes and drum rolls. Foolish Arab leaders, fuelled by false pride, will lie to each other about their capabilities, as Nasser did to the Jordanians in 1967, forcing themselves into confrontations that will cost them, the West and Israel dearly.

Of course, Israel needs help. It will need sound and sane nations and peoples who, looking at the global situation, can distinguish between firemen and arsonists, between those who show concern for both their own citizens and those of their foes, and those who willingly sacrifice their own children in order to target those of their foes. It needs outsiders who can understand that turning on one’s friends and supporting one’s enemies, reveals to any many an observer not courage, but weakness. Israel needs outsiders who understand that they are the targets of jihad just as much as the Israelis. It does not need ideologues who can’t learn from catastrophic past mistakes.

In other words, Israel needs allies who love life, freedom, and critical intelligence. It needs them the way the Dutch needed the English as they tried to survive 80 years of vicious warfare that went on around them, and the assaults of the imperial neighbour, Spain. It needs them as the Czechs needed the Western democracies to protect them from the Nazis’ insatiable appetite. Israel needs people with discernment and a lively instinct for self-preservation.

If the West had the courage of its democratic convictions, it would make it clear to the representatives of the “Arab Spring” that the barrel of the gun only makes it possible to build democracies, but that sustaining them demands far more. It would tell the Palestinians — not just the leaders, but the people — to start doing the kinds of things that will lead to peace rather than conduct a war of ethnic cleansing masquerading as peace. It would explain to the Egyptians that scapegoating a neighbor when your own government continues to fail its people only makes the problem worse. Nato would tell the Turks to keep their ships out of the eastern Mediterranean.

Of course that would mean that we in the democratic West begin to understand our own political history, and appreciate that democracy is not merely giving the people the vote, that military alliances don’t give a free hand to hostile partners. Without a democratic culture of fairness, tolerance, ability to self-criticize, and respect for the “other,” and ability therefore to enter into positive-sum relations with the other — all attitudes for which there is little evidence (and much counter-evidence) in current Arab political culture — one can expect those newly empowered voters to fall prey to the first demagogue who sounds the right notes.

A Westerner can say to me, “Forget it. They’ll never change. And if we criticise them, we’ll just alienate them, even provoke them. Israel is lost.” Of course, that also means we Westerners are lost, that we just delay our place on the crocodiles’ menu. We have the choice between genteel suicide and mental battle.

For the Soldier who fights for Truth, calls his enemy his brother:

They fight & contend for life, & not for eternal death!

But here the Soldier strikes, & a dead corse falls at his feet,

William Blake, Jerusalem, II.41-43.

Do we have the resources for mental and moral strife, and the courage to think and act clearly?

[JP note: For the mot de jour, demopath see here http://www.theaugeanstables.com/reflections-from-second-draft/demopaths-dupes/ Quote: “Demopaths are people who use democratic language and invoke human rights only when it serves their interests, and not when it calls for self-criticism or self-restraint. Demopaths demand stringent levels of human “rights” but do not apply these basic standards for the “other” to their own behavior. The most lethal demopaths use democratic rights to destroy democracy.”]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Middle East


United Arab Emirates: 16 Women Embrace Islam

DUBAI — The department of Islamic Affairs and Charitable Activities in Dubai on Wednesday saw the conversion of 16 women into Islam

According to a senior official at the department, the new converts are all Asians and mostly from the Philippines. “The new Muslims willingly approached the department to officially declare Shahada (conversion words) believing that Islam is the true religion and reason for happiness in life and the Hereafter,” said Dr Omar Al Khatib Assistant Director General of the Department. The Islamic Department in Dubai, paying much attention to new Muslims, explains and educates them on how tolerant and merciful Islam is. “We develop their awareness about the new religion; its teachings and principles in an attractive, persuasive and gentle way as instructed in the Holy Quran.”

As per official statistics, Dubai hosts expatriates from around 204 nationalities. “Our staff preachers and counsellors, who speak 11 languages, including English, French and Asian languages, simply brief people about Islam in shopping centres, hospitals and community gatherings,” Dr Al Khatib said. New Muslims also join courses on the five daily prayers which top the most pivotal pillars of Islam. “They learn how to perform Prayers as instructed by Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him),” he added. Aisha Al Kash, Head of Religious Cultivation and Counselling Section, said the converted women were touched by the special treatment they received from both Muslim Emiratis and expatriates. “They have felt no discrimination here based on religion, colour, language, country, or ethnic backgrounds,” she said.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Russia


Planned Russian-Backed Pipeline Raises Concerns in EU

A new gas pipeline between Russia and southern Europe that bypasses Ukraine has raised concerns in the EU, although Germany’s Wintershall is part of the project and former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is a chief lobbyist. State-controlled energy giant Gazprom is planning, along with western partners, two huge gas pipeline projects whose stated goals are to secure Europe’s energy supplies but which critics say will increase the EU’s dependence on Russia.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Polish FM in WikiLeaks: Germany is Russia’s Trojan Horse

Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski in a private conversation with US diplomats in 2008 said that Germany protects Russian interests in Nato in return for access to the Russian market. According to a US cable recently published by Wikileaks, Sikorski, in a conversation with the then US under secretary for global affairs Paula Dobriansky in Warsaw on 23 April 2008 “Wryly commented that many accused Poland of being the US Trojan horse in the EU when it joined in 2004, but there is another Trojan horse in Nato”.

The cable went on: “Asked what the US strategy should be towards Germany and Russia, Sikorski responded that Germany appears to have a deal with Russia. ‘They’ll play with Russia and in return German companies will get hundreds of billions of euros of business there, a pretty good deal’.” Sikorski made the comment after Germany opposed giving Georgia and Ukraine a Membership Action Plan (MAP) at a Nato summit in Bucharest.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

Caucasus


Imam Shot Dead in Russian Caucasus: Police

Gunmen shot dead an elderly imam at home in the troubled Russian Caucasus region of Dagestan, the regional interior ministry said Friday, in the fourth such killing since April. Two gunmen entered the house of the imam of a village mosque in the region’s northeast at 10 pm on Thursday and “shot him with automatic weapons, causing him to die at the scene,” the interior ministry said in a statement.

The imam, named as Zainudin Daiziyev, was born in 1927, a regional police spokeswoman told AFP. The killing was the fourth murder of an imam in the mainly Muslim region of Dagestan since April this year. The Caspian Sea region experiences almost daily shootings and bombings that officials blame on local criminals and Islamists with links to Chechnya. Fuelled by endemic poverty and corruption, the militants are seeking to establish an independent Islamic state across the North Caucasus.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

Far East


Following Deadly Jet Fighter Crash, Taipei Presses Washington for New Aircraft

Two ageing F-5 fighters F5 crashed into a mountain in the east of Taiwan, and the deaths of the three airforce pilots triggered new demands for a US arms sale. While Taiwan’s democratic candidate criticises president Ma and says: “We support peace, but we do want security from China”. For the first time in 10 years the State Department may shirk the US-Taiwan industry conference on defence and security.

Taipei (AsiaNews) — Taiwan’s army aircraft are now no more than “flying coffins”, and the United States must sell new fighters to the Island: “This is no longer a question of simply defence. The lives of our military are at risk”. This is the unanimous reaction of society and politics in former Formosa following the deadly fighter crash on 13 September in which all three pilots lost their lives.

On Tuesday two Taiwan ‘Air force ‘ F5 fighters disappeared from radar shortly after take-off from Hualian base in the east of the Island. The two jets were seen by eye witnesses as they crashed in the nearby mountainous area: although the causes of the accident are still to be ascertained, Taiwan officials blame the age of the jets. The bodies of the three pilots were found yesterday.

Luo Shou-he, national army spokesman, confirmed the accident and renewed a call to the US government in Washington to unfreeze the sale of new F16 aircraft: “We are in dire need of replacements “. Taiwan airforce fleet comprises mainly aircraft built some 35 years ago: China however, which considers the Island no more than a ‘rebel province’ under its own control, is pushing the US to cancel the arms sale.

Washington, according to the “Taiwan Defence Act”, in theory is obliged to sell Taipei all the arms it needs for defence against mainland China. But economic pressures from Beijing and the coming to power of Ma Yingjeou — a nationalist who has made several openings towards mainland China— had brought the situation to a standstill. However the question is now back in the news, with the US increasingly wary of angering Beijing.

Precisely yesterday came confirmation that for the first time in 10 years, there will be no leading member of the US State department at the up-coming US-Taiwan industry conference on defence and security ties between the two countries. The gathering is to be held in Virginia 18 to 20 September. However the conference will see the attendance of a leading member of the Pentagon.

A new voice in the Taiwan arms sales debate is that of Tsai Ing-wen, Democratic Party candidate set to challenge Ma in presidential elections next January. On a recent visit to Washington, Ms Tsai acknowledged that during this democratic presidency — licensed to Chen Shui-bian, independence champion from the very beginning — relations between the two states have been “difficult” but, she underlined: “We have grown together with our democracy”.

Speaking at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, she added: “Our approach to China will be stable and balanced “. But immediately criticised the president in office because, while asking the United States to go ahead with the sale of new aircraft to Taiwan,, “she has failed to set aside the promised 3 % of the GNP for the purchase of arms. We support peace but we also want to security”.

America’s President Barack Obama is expected to come to a decision on the US — Taiwan F 16 sale before the end of this present month of September.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

Australia — Pacific


Platypus Sex is XXXXX-Rated

The weird and wonderful duck-billed platypus just got even more weird and more wonderful. Platypuses are famous for laying eggs yet producing milk, having a bird-like bill and a skeleton with reptilian features. Now it turns out that the mammal has an equally eye-catching way of deciding its sex, according to a study by Frank Grützner and Jenny Graves at the Australian National University in Canberra, and colleagues.

In most mammals, including humans, sex is decided by the X and Y chromosomes: two Xs create a female, while XY creates a male. In birds, the system is similar: ZW makes for a female, while ZZ makes for a male. But in platypuses, XXXXXXXXXX creates a female, while XYXYXYXYXY creates a male. In other words, rather than a single chromosome pair, platypuses have a set of ten-chromosomes that determine their sex.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Woman in NSW Burqa Case Seeking Costs After Appealing Her Conviction

A MUSLIM who was at the centre of a legal case about the removal of her burqa is attempting to win costs.

Sydney woman Carnita Matthews launched her battle to win costs in the NSW District Court on Friday after successfully appealing against a conviction for falsely accusing a police officer of trying to remove the facial covering.

Ms Matthews was sentenced to six months in jail in November 2010 after being found guilty of falsely claiming the officer tried to remove her burqa during a traffic stop in Woodbine, southwest Sydney.

NSW District Court judge Clive Jeffreys overturned the conviction in June after ruling he was unable to conclude beyond reasonable doubt it was Ms Matthews who made the complaint — because the person who did so was wearing a burqa.

Ms Matthews’ lawyer, Stephen Hopper, told a brief hearing he would argue that his client should be awarded costs because the police investigation was conducted in an “unreasonable manner”.

He said he would also argue that the investigation was initiated without reasonable cause and that the case against his client was prosecuted in an “improper manner”.

Crown prosecutor Thomas Spohr is opposing the costs application.

The total amount of costs being claimed remains unclear.

Mr Hopper told reporters after Ms Matthews’ conviction was quashed that the costs sought would likely be “modest”.

The Matthews case led the NSW government to strengthen police powers to compel people to identify themselves.

Citizens are now required to remove burqas, niqabs or any other type of obscuring headwear when asked by police, or face a possible fine.

           — Hat tip: Nilk [Return to headlines]

Sub-Saharan Africa


Development Aid for Africa: ‘The Problems Don’t Disappear With Sacks of Rice’

Does aid to Africa do more harm than help? In a SPIEGEL interview, Zambian author and economist Dambisa Moyo explains how Western efforts have stalled real progress in Africa for the last 40 years and why it should be stopped. Africans, she argues, need to finally take responsibility for themselves.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



S. African Court Blocks Purchase of Small Chinese Condoms

(AGI) Pretoria — A South African court has blocked the acquisition of 11m Chinese made condoms due to ‘size issues’.

The dispute featured contracts between Pretoria’s finance ministry and Siqamba Medical, who in turn are supplied by China’s Phoenurse. Competitors Sekunjalo Investments Corporation have challenged the contract in court, submitting that their condoms are 20pc larger than those imported from China.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

Immigration


Iraqi Asylum Seeker, 17, Took Part in Gang Rape Just Four Months After Arriving in Britain

A 17-year-old Iraqi asylum seeker who had only been in Britain for four months took part in a gang rape and laughed as he humiliated the victim.

Salman Ahmed, who was thought to be drunk at the time of the assault in Oxford, was told that he would be deported after serving his sentence of five years and three months at a young offenders’ institution.

The teenager ‘enjoyed the humiliation, pain and harm’ during the attack on March 16, according to Judge Anthony King at Oxford Crown Court.

Ahmed and an accomplice, who police are still trying to track down, repeatedly raped the 23-year-old victim, after snaring her while on a night out.

According to the prosecution they told the unnamed woman: ‘You have been making two guys happy.’

Mr King heard how Ahmed and his accomplice held the woman down as each raped her.

He said: ‘When you had no reason to believe that this young woman would consent to any form of sexual contact you and a man with you took hold of her, detained her and while you lay upon her the other man then raped her.

‘Throughout she protested and sought to escape. Once that first man had raped her with your help you then separately raped her while he held her down.

‘That was not enough for you. Both of you then raped her again, each assisting the other to do so.

‘You were clearly laughing as you were enjoying the humiliation, the pain and harm you were inflicting upon her.’

He added: ‘These were grave offences. I find there was an element of pre-planning between you and the other man who has not yet been brought to justice.’

The judge was told that the victim had been sober on the evening of the attack, however, Ahmed had suffered an ‘alcoholic blackout’ and could not remember the incident.

Jeannie Mackie, defending, said he was previously ‘without sexual experience’.

Ahmed pleaded guilty when DNA evidence linked him to the crime.

His lawyer said: ‘Alcohol has been an issue in my defendant’s life.

‘Although he comes from a Muslim family he had not drunk alcohol until November 2010 when he came to this country, and alcohol has become a problem.’

Ahmed was also placed on the Violent and Sex Offender Register for life.

           — Hat tip: Gaia [Return to headlines]



Netherlands: Cabinet Tightens Up Immigration Laws

THE HAGUE, 16/09/11 — The cabinet is virtually certain to adopt five legislative proposals from Immigration and Asylum Minister Gerd Leers which will substantially tighten up immigration and asylum policy.

Leers wants to make it easier to deport aliens who commit crimes. Should they have been in the Netherlands for less than three years, they will run the risk of deportation if they are given a jail sentence regardless of the length of the sentence.

Taking action against systematic foreign criminals will also become easier. Leers wants to deport anyone convicted of a crime three times within three years. The minster is not taking into account here how long an alien has already been living in the Netherlands. If offenders have, for example, been living in the Netherlands for 20 years, they can still be sent back to the country of origin.

The minister also wants to view family migration and reunification more stringently. Only the so-called ‘core family’ will still be eligible for coming to the Netherlands. This means the partner and underage children. Grandpas, grandmas, nephews and nieces will no longer be eligible for family reunification in future.

Additionally, a waiting period of one year will be introduced for people who are bringing their partner over. An ‘import bride’ or bridegroom will only be eligible for independent residency after five years — until that time, he or she is legal only on the basis of the relationship with the partner. Currently, the period is three years. In this way, the Christian democratic (CDA) minister hopes to prevent marriages of convenience.

Illegal residence in the Netherlands will also become a crime. In his proposals, Leers has also worked out the sanctions for this. Illegals can in future face a prison sentence of up to four months or a fine of up to 3,800 euros.

A stricter asylum and immigration policy is one of the core points of the tolerance accord between the conservatives (VVD), CDA and the Party for Freedom (PVV). For Geert Wilders’ PVV, such a more stringent policy was an important condition for supporting the minority cabinet.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Netherlands: ‘Poles Are Now Stealing Our Fish’

Polish nationals are fishing Dutch lakes and rivers free of carp and pike to eat or sell on the black market, the Telegraaf claims on Friday, quoting local fishing clubs.

The situation is so serious that the clubs are now employing extra controllers and publishing information in Polish, the paper says.

The problem has arisen because eastern Europeans do not put the fish they catch back, the paper says. ‘The have other ethics and culture,’ a spokesman for the national fishing organisation Sportvisserij Nederland said.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

Culture Wars


UN Rights Chief Welcomes Australia Transgender Passport Move

The UN rights chief on Friday welcomed Australia’s move to allow citizens to choose “indeterminate” as a gender option on their passports, describing it as a “victory for human rights.” Canberra had previously required a person whose gender was different from that of their birth to have sex change surgery before they could change their passport details to reflect their preferred sex, and there was no “indeterminate” option.

“This is something that will be welcome news for many transgender and intersex people in Australia who from now on will not be required to undergo surgery or hormonal treatment in order to be able to express their gender identity,” said Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. “By its action, Australia has placed itself in the vanguard of change and has scored an important victory for human rights,” she added in a statement.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Why Are We Pushing Multiculturalism on France, Russia, The World?

By Henry McCulloch on September 14, 2011

A “Festival of the Cultures of Islam” is now (September 7-17) in full swing in Paris. You’re paying for it. Why? This bit of multiculti showbiz was ginned up by the City of Paris and the U.S. Embassy-which has gone so far as to lend the Stars And Stripes to the islamopropaganda-along with (what a surprise) Harvard University. The Institut’s website says the Festival has been “organized through a partnership (réalisé en partenariat )between the City of Paris, the United States Embassy in France and Harvard University.” Such réalisations always cost you money.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

General


Pluto’s Icy Exterior May Conceal an Ocean

PLUTO could hide a liquid ocean beneath its icy shell. Indeed, other bodies on the solar system’s frigid fringe could also harbour subsurface oceans, and these could provide the conditions to sustain life. Temperatures on Pluto’s surface hover around -230 °C, but researchers have long wondered whether the dwarf planet might boast enough internal heat to sustain a liquid ocean under its icy exterior. Now Guillaume Robuchon and Francis Nimmo at the University of California, Santa Cruz, say there is a good chance it does. They calculate that an ocean depends on two things: the amount of radioactive potassium in Pluto’s rocky core, and the sloshiness of the ice that covers it.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



‘Tatooine’ Alien Planets Should be Common, Scientists Say

The first alien planet with two suns in its sky has just been found, but many more of them are almost certainly out there, scientists say. At a press conference yesterday (Sept. 15), researchers using NASA’s Kepler space telescope announced the discovery of the planet, which is known as Kepler-16b. Like Tatooine — the home world of Luke Skywalker in the “Star Wars” films — Kepler-16b orbits a pair of stars rather than a singleton like our own sun. Though Kepler-16b is the first such “circumbinary” planet to be unambiguously detected, it won’t be the last, researchers said.

Astronomers had long suspected that binary star systems could sport planets. After all, they’ve seen dusty debris disks — the raw materials from which planets are made — cloaking young double stars. But binary systems are complex environments, Laughlin said, where gravity perturbations can toss alien planets out into space or send them barreling into one of their double suns.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

News Feed 20110915

Financial Crisis
» Beijing is No White Knight
» Budapest Accused of Fleecing Austrian Banks
» China to EU: We’ll Back the Euro if You Open Your Markets
» ECB, Central Banks Boosting Dollar Liquidity
» Germany: Liberals Threaten Greece and the Coalition
» Greece: Is More Belt-Tightening Worth it?
» Greece: A Tragic Farce
» Greek Debt Runs to Some 333 Billion Euros.
» Man Held in London Over UBS Rogue Trading
» Merkel and Sarkozy Support Greece
» Netherlands Considers Greek Bankruptcy Unavoidable
» Portugal to Slash Public Sector Posts in Cost Cutting Move
» Spain Says to Impose Wealth Tax to Battle Deficit
» Swiss Defend Their Island of Prosperity
» Ulterior Motives Seen Behind China’s Offer of Help to US, Europe
» Will German Indecision on the Euro Drag the Whole World Down?
» Worst Case Scenario for Euro Approaches
 
USA
» Jersey City Boy Allegedly Threw Baseball Bat at Cops During Afterschool Brawl
» NASA to Build Most Powerful Rocket in History
» NASA’s New Mega Rocket Would be Most Powerful Ever Built
 
Canada
» Advanced Birds Lived Alongside ‘Hairy’ Dinosaurs
» Feathers Preserved in Amber Reveal Colorful, ‘Fluffy’ Dinosaurs
 
Europe and the EU
» African Scandals Shake French Republic
» Belgium: Leterme Finds Asylum at the OECD
» Commission Pushes for ‘Europeanisation’ Of Border Controls
» Denmark: Social Dems ‘Did It’
» Finland: Halla-Aho Suspened for Two Weeks
» France: Islam; Praying in Paris Streets Banned From Tonight
» Germany: Lost Friedrich Der Große Sex Poem Uncovered
» Greenwashing After the Phase-Out: German ‘Energy Revolution’ Depends on Nuclear Imports
» Gun Ownership Shooting Up in Switzerland: Study
» History Brought to Life as Battle of Marathon Re-Enacted
» Italy: Unipol: Silvio Berlusconi is the Addressee of the Tape
» Jack Straw Urges UK to Back Palestinian State at UN
» Munich Conference: Trifkovic on Germany and Russia
» Neanderthals Ate Shellfish 150,000 Years Ago: Study
» Netherlands: Terrorist Worked as Imam in Tilburg Prison
» Norwegian ‘Wild Man’ Faked Famed Blog While Living in a Swedish Hotel
» Rumours Fly That Berlusconi Insulted Merkel’s Figure on Phone
» Stockholm Bomber’s Widow Arrested in UK
» Sweden: Drunken Elk Hides Kids’ Swing Set in a Tree
» UK: Liverpool Striker’s Controversial 9/11 Tweets
» UK: The Niqab Cuts Women Off From the World
 
Balkans
» Kosovo Unrest Picks Up Again
 
North Africa
» Cameron, Sarkozy Pledge Continued Help for Rebels on Visit to Libya
» Egypt Declares Camp David Accords With Israel ‘Not a Sacred Thing’
» Libya: George Washington Slept Here
» Sarkozy and Cameron in Libya: Heroes for a Day
» Tunisia: Salafists Aganist Alcohol Sellers, Huge Brawl
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» Britain Should Say Yes to Palestinian Statehood — And So Should Israel
» Palestine Must be Judenrein
» UK: Nicolas Soames and Sir Peter Bottomley the Only Tory MPs to Support EDM [Early Day Motion] In Favour of Palestinian Statehood
 
Middle East
» 9/11, Muslims and the Next 10 Years
» Israel Jordan Ambassador Evacuated Over Protest Fears
» Pakistan, Iran to Boost Bilateral Trade to $10 Billion From $1.2 Billion
» Stakelbeck: Former Saudi Wahhabi Radical Takes on the Koran
» The Man Who Could Trigger a World War
» Tunisia: Erdogan’s Visit, Israeli Flags Burnt
 
Russia
» Srdja Trifkovic: Beyond the “Strategic Partnership”
 
South Asia
» Accused of Proselytising, American Family Attacked by Indonesian Extremists
» Kabul Attack: ISAF and Taliban Press Officers Attack Each Other on Twitter
» Pakistani Cleric: Taliban Leader Mullah Omar Safe, Controls 70% of Afghanistan
 
Far East
» China Sentences Four to Death for Violence in Xinjiang
 
Australia — Pacific
» Canberra’s 9/11 Decade: Bureaucracy
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
» Five Spaniards Aboard Tanker Taken by Pirates
» U.N. Reports One Million Darfur Refugees Return Home
 
Immigration
» EU: Towards Strengthening Border Surveillance
» Immigrant Boat Adrift, 95 Rescued in Lampedusa
» Playground Joshing Has Become a Hate Crime
» UK: Asian Peer in ‘Children for Benefits’ Row
» UK: Ex-Tory Peer’s Pakistani/Bangladeshi Smear Ignores the Evidence
» UK: Immigrants Have Children for Benefits, Says Baroness Flather
» UK: Migrants Have More Kids for Big Benefits
 
General
» Ancient Meteorite Showers Responsible for Earth’s Gold, Study Finds
» Astrophile: The Most Surreal Sunset in the Universe
» Planet Like ‘Star Wars’ Tatooine Discovered Orbiting 2 Suns

Financial Crisis


Beijing is No White Knight

La Repubblica, Rome

The announcement by Italy of a flow of Chinese capital rushing in to support the Italian economy has raised hopes of Beijing riding up to rescue the euro. We must be wary of false hopes, however, writes La Repubblica. China is a prudent and discriminating investor

Federico Rampini

Will the Chinese buy up stakes in the public energy giant ENI — or the public electricity company ENEL? Can they acquire a share of the industrial group Finmeccanica — or the port of Genoa? Buy up shares in Unicredit Bank in exchange for taking part in long-term treasury bill auctions, and so fill the vacant seat of the departed Muammar Gaddafi?

To grasp what is behind these varied scenarios — or if these rumours are coming from Italy itself — we must reconstruct the map of Chinese investment around the world, Beijing’s financial strategies, and how the investments intertwine with the geopolitical interests of the world’s number two economy.

Two types of adjustments are underway in how China is managing its capital reserves: diversification away from the dollar and into other currencies; and a shift of government securities into blocks of shares in industrial companies — where possible, those of strategic importance to China. These adjustments are graduated, and at no time can they be permitted to upset the “stability of the global economic system.”

Those who are quick to interpret the Rome-Beijing contacts as a “vote of confidence” of the Chinese government in the solvency of Italy are much mistaken. The head of Spain’s government, José Luis Zapatero, fell into the trap when he prematurely announced massive purchases of Spanish debt securities by China that later were revealed to be rather modest.

Fleeting impact on the markets

In the midst of the systematic disaster of 2008, China’s strategists were called on by the United States to act as a “white knight”, and China responded. At home, though, furious controversy on the wisdom of the gallantry followed. At the worst time, with U.S. stock indices tumbled to historical lows, Chinese managers were accused by their political leaders of having wasted national resources to bring a relief to U.S. banks that was as risky as it was useless. Today, the outcome of this operation is less negative, but the scars linger as a cautionary tale to Beijing.

The players in Beijing are two financial behemoths. First, there is the “parent company”, the government body that, like a true ministry, looks after the monetary reserves of China’s central bank. These reserves are the commercial assets China has accumulated in global trading over the years, and they are the most sizeable in the world: 3,200 billion dollars [2.3 trillion euros]. The acronym of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange — “SAFE”, as in both “secure” and “strongbox” in English — is an efficient synthesis of its investment philosophy.

Just as speedily as China’s central bank reserves have been replenished by new commercial assets, the SAFE has invested, in the first half of this year alone, $ 275 billion [€ 200 billion]. That means that, if it wanted to, SAFE could buy up the entire Italian debt coming to maturity by the end of the year. But that would not exactly be very “safe” — which is why the central bank continues to reinvest most of its reserves in U.S. treasury bonds.

As for the ongoing diversification out of the dollar and into other currencies, the central bank in Beijing prefers — to stay on the “safe” side — German bonds and Japanese debt securities, all considered solid investments. The repeated announcements of massive Chinese buy-ups of assets of Mediterranean countries have always proved exaggerated. In July 2010, for example, rumours of support for Spain had only a fleeting impact on the markets. Instead of saving the country, SAFE had made only a modest purchase of 500 million euros worth of ten-year bonds.

A sign of the changing times

In October 2010, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited Athens, and there too hopes of large-scale purchases of Greek bonds proved fleeting. The only actual purchase was a stake in the management of the port of Athens by the Chinese logistics giant, Cosco. This episode illustrates another dimension of the Chinese strategy: the more aggressive one. The main player behind it is the China Investment Corporation (CIC), Beijing’s sovereign wealth fund. The CIC’s resources still come from the same source, the monetary reserves of the central bank.

But it is the CIC, with its greater freedom of action and more diverse functions, that is spearheading the penetration of China into the global economy. Its status gives it a “market orientation and purely economic-financial goals”. As a company, the CIC is accountable to its shareholders — which would be the government in Beijing. It cannot be ruled out therefore as a Trojan horse to tackle strategic objectives, such as acquiring advanced technology, management expertise, setting up bridgeheads in promising markets or in activities where China still needs to sharpen its competitive edge.

Geographically, China’s direct investments remain focused on the United States, at 42 percent, followed by Asia, at 30 percent. At just 22 percent, Europe trails in third place. Europe is also an example of how China is pursuing diversification of its industrial assets. Profiting from the crisis of 2008, the Chinese managed to wrest control of Volvo from Ford Motor Company.

The next summit of the BRICS states (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), which is to be held next week in Washington and which should discuss possible support for the eurozone, is a sign of the changing times. Today, it’s with the emerging powers that capital is to be found. Guido Mantega, Brazil’s Minister of Finance, has declared that the eurozone crisis is “the agenda of the day.” The world is well and truly upside down. Brazil and Russia, synonymous only yesterday with “payment default”, are now being chalked up with China on the list of potential “white knights”. Provided they want to play this gallant role, and that the rewards we offer are to their liking.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Budapest Accused of Fleecing Austrian Banks

Der Standard, 13 September 2011

The appreciation of the Swiss Franc threatens relations between Austria and Hungary. “Expropriation of banks: Vienna files a suit against Budapest,” announces Austrian daily Der Standard. The Austrian government’s anger towards its Hungarian counterpart isn’t abating over a plan to allow debtors to repay their loans at fixed — and advantageous — rates. Hungarians would be allowed to reimburse their loans in Swiss Francs at a rate of 180 forints rather than 240 and loans in euros at a rate of 250 forints rather than 280.

Losses would be absorbed by the banks, which outrages Austrian banks, which have holdings worth €5 billion in Hungary. Vienna asked the European Commission to examine the possibility of a suit before the European Court of Justice. Der Standard believes that Budapest is shooting itself in the foot because, by intervening in private contracts, it risks causing investors to flee.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



China to EU: We’ll Back the Euro if You Open Your Markets

China has offered to help save the euro in return for getting EU recognition as a ‘market economy’ — a new status that would help it to export more cheap goods to Europe. Chinese premier Wen Jiabao made the offer at a meeting of business leaders and officials organsied by the World Economic Forum in Dalian, China, on Wednesday (14 September).

“European countries are facing sovereign debt problems and we’ve expressed our willingness to give a helping hand many times. We will continue to expand our investment there”, he said. “Based on WTO rules, China’s full market economy status will be recognised by 2016. If EU nations can demonstrate their sincerity several years earlier, it would be the way a friend treats a friend”, he added.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



ECB, Central Banks Boosting Dollar Liquidity

The world’s leading central banks have decided on joint action to provide banks with extra dollar liquidity, the European Central Bank said on Thursday. “The governing council of the European Central Bank (ECB) has decided, in coordination with the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan and the Swiss National Bank, to conduct three US dollar liquidity-providing operations with a maturity of approximately three months covering the end of the year,” the ECB said in a statement. “These operations will be conducted in addition to the ongoing weekly seven-day operations announced in May 2010.” The announcement drove up sharply shares in European banks, and Europe stocks market surged by about 3.0 percent.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Germany: Liberals Threaten Greece and the Coalition

Financial Times Deutschland, 14 September 2011

Managing the Greek portfolio has become a stress test for Germany’s governing coalition of Christian Democrats and Liberals in Berlin. “The FDP is looking for a showdown with Merkel,” headlines the Financial Times Deutschland the day after the umpeenth dust-up between the Chancellor and her restive allies. Caught off guard by doubts about the solvency of Athens expressed out loud by Philipp Rösler, the (Liberal) Minister of Economy, the Chancellor has asked members of her cabinet to stop speculating in public about a bankruptcy in Greece, the newspaper adds. In vain. Unimpressed, the head of the FDP writes in a guest editorial in Die Welt that “the Germans, Germany itself, the financial markets and the Greeks need clarity” — a clarity that cannot be had “by imposing a code of silence”. The FTD notes that the discord in the German government has had appreciable consequences for other Member States of the euro zone, including an increase in interest rates on Italian bonds, which has prompted even U.S. president Barack Obama to express his concern.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Greece: Is More Belt-Tightening Worth it?

Eleftherotypia, 12 September 2011

“Cuts and more cuts, the strongest will survive,” runs a headline in Greek daily Eleftherotypia, following the government’s announcement of new budget cuts, totalling €1.7 million, aimed at bringing the deficit down to 7.6% of GDP as demanded by the troika (the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund).

The announcement, which ended 48 hours of suspense, was made at a time of a tense social and political climate and at a time when Greece’s European partners are talking more and more openly about the problem posed by remaining within the eurozone at any price and of exiting the single currency to return to the drachma, the paper says.

The new measures “show the triple failure of the government,” notes Eleftherotypia. First, it was unable to renegotiate with the troika the terms of its austerity plan in order to reduce its debt-reduction goals for 2011. Secondly, the executive recognises that it depends entirely on the demands of the troika and that it will have to adopt new austerity measures. Finally, the government’s austerity policies are unable to lead the country out of the crisis. “Adopting reforms, back against the wall, selling our sunshine to the Germans and being resigned to having a single salary per family will not suffice to contain the anger of the Greeks regarding these new, never-ending measures,” concludes the Athens paper.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Greece: A Tragic Farce

Ta Nea, Athens

Embed a tax into electricity bills: the most recent proposal from the government is an admission of failure of the measures taken in the last year and a half, writes Ta Nea. And the worst of it is that some officials are refusing to implement it.

Dimitri Mitropoulos

As in the dark tragedies of Shakespeare, the Greek political drama can be reversed by a single character. This character isn’t in a starring role, but he is crucial to how the scenes evolve, and not in a positive way, either. Someone like Iago in Othello.

All things considered, this analogy could be applied to Nikos Fotopoulos, the president of the Genop-DEI union (Greece’s public power corporation). Fotopoulos is dark, unshaven, dressed in black and has something theatrical about him. But the analogy fits mostly because this union boss stands centre stage at a critical moment in our national financial tragedy Desperate, the Papandreou government is combing about for around two billion euros to cover the deficit.

To get the money, it’s putting forward the idea of again taxing property, using electricity bills to identify the owners since not all properties have been registered with the modern cadastral offices. Rather usefully, DEI keeps records on the square metres, the age of the property and the neighbourhood. But having to fall back on DEI bills to bring in a new tax (which will be included in the calculation of the bill) is an admission of failure. The government is openly admitting that it has no trust in the mechanisms for tax collection — a sad commentary on the effectiveness of taxes up till now.

National elite turns against its own government

This year and next year, the government will impose a new extraordinary tax. It’s taking this step because for 20 months it has been struggling in vain to reform public administration, to sell off assets and eliminate some public bodies. There have been cuts to wages but no real reforms. The single salary scale for public servants will have so many exceptions that it will cancel itself out, while assigning civil servants to “non-active service” is just an obscure dodge to save the state from laying off employees.

For in reality, neither PASOK [the ruling Socialist Party] nor the New Democracy [right-wing opposition], dare lay their hands on the state. The state, after all, is their own creation, even if it is a monster. To avoid reforming it, the government prefers to reach into the pockets of all those Greeks who own property. It’s a bit of theatre with an invisible director, but, ironically, with walk-on roles for Fotopoulos and the bosses of the Genop-DEI who refuse to let their electricity bills be used to enforce the law imposed by the government.

And so the children of PASOK, who count the elite of the state among them, are rounding on their own government. Better for them that the country sink into bankruptcy than that their perks should be touched. In any event, the cost for the Greeks will be significant.

The problem is that no real tragedy — Shakespearean or financial — has a happy ending. In the end, we’ll have to pay…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Greek Debt Runs to Some 333 Billion Euros.

Financial experts consider Greek debt restructuring increasingly likely. They say that, in the event that such arrangements will be made, some 75 percent of the Greek debt should be written off.

“If we take into account how much debt Greece has and how weak its economy’s carrying capacity is, then we can think that maybe even three quarters of Greek debts should be forgiven to give Greece good opportunities to start growing again,” says Senior Vice President Jaakko Kiander from the pension insurance company Ilmarinen.

Senior Economist of the Tapiola Group Jari Järvinen agrees with this assessment.

“If we consider debt as relative to the GDP, then the problem is so big that I would estimate that some 75 percent of the debt should be written off, and I would continue from there with a credible stabilisation programme,” Järvinen says.

Sampo Bank’s Chief Economist Pasi Kuoppamäki says that potential restructuring arrangements need to be drastic.

“Greek debt would need to be significantly reduced—halved, for example. This would return Greece to a credible path. Even after that, it would need to exercise considerable budgetary discipline,” Kuoppamäki notes.

The repercussions

The big question about potential debt restructuring is whether or not such a step would elicit as violent a reaction from the markets as the bankruptcy of the US investment bank Lehman Brothers did in 2008.

           — Hat tip: KGS [Return to headlines]



Man Held in London Over UBS Rogue Trading

A man identified as 31-year-old Kweku Adoboli was arrested by police in London on Thursday after a rogue trader at Swiss bank UBS lost an estimated $2.0 billion (€1.46 billion) in unauthorised trades, sources said. The man, arrested before dawn in central London on “suspicion of fraud by abuse of position,” is in police custody, London police sources said.

Two minutes before trading began on the Swiss stock exchange, the bank issued a statement that it “has discovered a loss due to unauthorised trading by a trader in its Investment Bank.” The announcement is a severe blow to the bank’s retrieved reputation after the financial crisis which tarnished the standing of Swiss banking, as well as to its profit outlook and puts a question mark over the investment banking division. UBS said: “The matter is still being investigated, but UBS’s current estimate of the loss on the trades is in the range of $2 billion.” The bank added that it may also be forced to report a loss for the third quarter due to the unauthorised trade.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Merkel and Sarkozy Support Greece

El Periódico de Catalunya, 14 September 2011

“Merkel and Sarkozy take the reins on Greece,” headlines El Periódico. Following another day of tensions on financial markets, “Germany and France attempt to avoid an ‘uncontrolled’ default by Greece,” notes the Barcelona daily. The intervention of Berlin and Paris is expected to be in the form of a video-conference between German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Greek PM Georges Papandreou on Wednesday, September 14, “as a gesture to not abandon Greece to its fate”. The discussion is scheduled just ahead of a meeting of the European Union Council of Finance Ministers on September 16 in Wroclaw, Poland. The ministers must face the “delicate European economic situation” currently “prey to rumours” that have shaken it, adds adds El Periódico. The paper also notes the criticism that greeted the comments of US President Barack Obama, who recently stated that Italy and Spain are a serious “problem” for the euro. “It may be that Obama was not discerning,” the paper says, but he pointed out “the disarray of the world in the face of the sluggishness and the doubts in decision-making within the European Union”.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Netherlands Considers Greek Bankruptcy Unavoidable

THE HAGUE, 15/09/11 — The Netherlands considers Greek bankruptcy unavoidable, sources at the finance ministry said yesterday on news programme RTL Nieuws. Greece would not be able to meet all its debt obligations. The question at the ministry is no longer whether but in what way Greece will go bankrupt. The ministry is preparing a controlled way of going bankrupt to prevent other weak eurozone countries like Italy and Spain from running into problems, the sources said.

Faced by the statements from sources at his ministry, Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager did not want to repeat these in an interview with RTL Nieuws. He did say that all scenarios are being taken into account. In close consultation with other eurozone countries, all likely and unlikely scenarios are currently being prepared, he said. What exactly will happen if Greece goes bankrupt is unknown, as no country has ever collapsed in this way. A large portion of the Greek banks is expected to go bust and trade with Greece will be temporarily halted. Athens, at least if it wants to cooperate with a solution, will be put under the supervision of the IMF, but Greece will also still be able to involve itself as eurozone country.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Portugal to Slash Public Sector Posts in Cost Cutting Move

Portugal unveiled Thursday plans for a slimmed-down central administration with the axing of 27 percent of directors’ posts as creditors met to ensure the country’s bailout rules were being met.

“We urgently need to reduce costs and make the state more effective,” to “adjust the size of the state to its financial capacity,” public administration chief Helder Rosalino told a press conference following a cabinet meeting.

The plan, which proposes a saving of 100 million euros next year, includes the axing of 1,700 managerial posts from the state administration and 137 public companies.

By getting rid of positions and merging public institutions the government plans to reduce the number of state organisations by 38 percent.

Portugal agreed to cuts of at least 15 percent across its departments as part of a financial aid package put together by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund in May.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Spain Says to Impose Wealth Tax to Battle Deficit

Spain will impose a wealth tax in 2011 and 2012 to help slash the public deficit, Finance Minister Elena Salgado said on Thursday. The wealth tax, which had been suspended in 2008, would go to a weekly cabinet meeting Friday for approval, she said, in Spain’s latest effort to show markets it can meet its ambitious deficit-cutting targets. If reinstated in the same form, the wealth tax would hit about 160,000 people and boost state revenues by about 1.08 billion euros ($1.5 billion), the finance minister told a news conference.

The tax money would roll in during 2012 and 2013, “which are years when we have to carry on our effort to reduce the deficit in accordance with a stability agreement agreed with the European Union,” Salgado said. Spain had to press ahead with efforts to “favour financial stability and our growth,” she said. Salgado said “all possible liquidity” from the tax will go Spain’s 17 regional governments, many of which are loaded with debt and struggling to meet deficit-cutting targets.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Swiss Defend Their Island of Prosperity

The euro zone’s woes have made the invulnerable Swiss franc extremely attractive to investors. But the capital flowing into the country has made the franc too strong, hurting exports and domestic retail sales. Switzerland is now fighting to preserve its prosperity by pegging its currency to the euro.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Ulterior Motives Seen Behind China’s Offer of Help to US, Europe

As both Europe and the United States continue to struggle to find solutions to the escalating debt crisis, China has positioned itself as a potential savior. But will Beijing’s reward for help be a price worth paying? China’s offer to help the US and European nations through their debt crises may on the surface appear to be just a tactic designed to extract the full market economy status which it so desires. But officials in both the US and EU are wary of what geopolitical motives may lie behind Beijing’s flinging of a financial lifeline to the West.

China holds just over $3 trillion (2.2 trillion euros) in foreign currency reserves — almost 30 per cent of the global total — with 65 percent held in dollars and 26 percent in euros. As the debt crisis ravages the euro zone, Beijing has already committed to investing in Greece, Spain and Portugal while engaging in preliminary talks with Italy to provide Rome with financial assistance. With leaders in both Europe and the United States running out of options as the debt crisis escalates, China has picked its moment to ride to the rescue and use some of its huge financial clout to offer relief — once western powers “first put their own house in order.”

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Will German Indecision on the Euro Drag the Whole World Down?

Monetary union hasn’t worked, but Germany, Europe’s strongest nation, won’t face the consequences.

Does Germany sincerely want to be European? I pose this seemingly silly question because, as has long been apparent, Europe’s fate lies in that country’s hands. As the great engine room of the European economy, it has the power to save or break the euro. Germany could also choose to stop inappropriately imposing its own monetary disciplines on others, and leave the euro itself. In the spirit of altruism, this might indeed be the best thing it could do for its fellow Europeans. Yet torn between two constituencies — a policy elite that remains wedded to discredited ideas of European solidarity, and the great mass of the German people who do not see why they should be required to subsidise the profligacy of their ill-disciplined fellow travellers — Germany has become paralysed. Trapped by their history, the country’s leaders seem incapable of facing up to the choices that need to be made to bring the chaos of today’s related sovereign debt and banking crises to any kind of meaningful resolution. In its indecision, Germany threatens not just the future prosperity of Europe, including its own, but as is clear from the growing alarm of American and Chinese policymakers, that of the world economy as a whole.

There can be no more potent a symbol of how far the centre of economic gravity has shifted than the meeting scheduled for next week of “Bric” nations to discuss joint action to help the eurozone. For the developing world to find it necessary to come to the aid of once-”rich”, advanced economies is a turnaround most of us did not think we’d see in our lifetimes.

The longer Europe’s debt crisis persists, the more likely it is that some kind of catastrophic denouement will plunge the world back into deep recession and possibly even long-lasting depression.

Not since the Second World War has Europe been at such a perilous crossroads. A project intended to bring once-warring nations closer has ended up only tearing them apart. Throughout the continent, there is now almost universal disillusionment with the single currency and the alleged benefits its supporters claimed it would bring. Just as Germany yearns for the return of the deutschemark, peripheral nations look back longingly on the sometimes violent currency swings of pre-euro days as if it were a golden age. However unsettling the exchange rate turbulence of those times was, at least national governments were still in control of their own destiny. Now they’ve lost even the blessing of low and stable interest rates.

There was something almost pitiful about the spectacle of George Papandreou, the Greek prime minister, promising on bended knee during last night’s conference call with Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel to impose yet more job cuts and austerity in a desperate attempt to meet the demands of Paris and Berlin. By joining the euro, Greece and other peripheral nations lost much more than control over interest and exchange rates. They also lost the capacity to issue debt in their own currencies. As a result, they are being progressively forced into default, a fate hitherto reserved only for developing and third world nations. Just as bad, they have lost the discretion to apply counter-cyclical budget policies. The extreme mix of deflationary measures they have been forced into to regain competitiveness means they may not even be able to use automatic fiscal stabilisers to fight economic contraction.

A self-feeding spiral of economic destruction has established itself. Curiously for such a logical people, the Germans cannot seem to grasp that to inflict further punishment has become not just pointless but counter-productive. Germany has become like all disgruntled creditors: if it is not going to get its money back, then it is going to make the debtors suffer. Rather than thinking creatively about workable solutions, it obsesses only with the irrelevance of moral hazard and the perceived need to penalise miscreants.

As one who was once quite drawn to the idea of European Monetary Union, I can sympathise with the German dilemma. The economic dangers of such union without corresponding political and fiscal integration were always apparent, but as long as conditions remained benign, they were easy to ignore. Once set on a particular course, it becomes very difficult for the architects of that strategy to admit they were wrong. They’ll wriggle and squirm, and find any number of excuses for not changing course. What is more, the process of euro area integration has now gone so far it cannot be disentangled in anything other than a profoundly negative manner. Monetary union of necessity gives rise to intense financial integration, which in turn creates collective problems — when one government faces a debt crisis, this will lead to financial repercussions in other member countries. For every troubled debtor, there is a troubled creditor.

As Paul De Grauwe, professor of economics at the University of Leuven, has put it in a defining paper on the difficulties of the eurozone, “a monetary union can only function if there is a collective mechanism of mutual support and control. Such a collective mechanism exists in a political union. In the absence of a political union, the member countries of the eurozone are condemned to fill in the necessary pieces. What has been achieved, however, is still far from sufficient to guarantee the survival of the eurozone”. The problem is that Germany is determined not to go further. Indeed, it has now been told by its constitutional court that it mustn’t, never mind the concerns of ordinary Germans about being made liable for other people’s debts.

A happy, or even only mildly painful, ending to Europe’s debt crisis is becoming ever harder to imagine. Even if Germans could be persuaded of the merits of a full transfer union, it would take years to agree and implement the arrangements. It seems likely that markets would break the euro before we ever got there. Nor does kicking Greece and other offenders out of the currency help very much — though it is increasingly difficult to see how they can remain in. As Willem Buiter, chief economist at Citigroup, has explained, Greece’s exit would create a powerful and highly visible precedent. As soon as Greece had departed, markets would focus on the country or countries most likely to leave next. Deposits would flee all countries deemed at risk and head for the handful of “safe havens” likely to remain in the euro area. This deposit run in the periphery would in itself create financial havoc and a deep recession. There would also be a major banking crisis in creditor nations forced to take deep write-offs on their exposure to exiting countries, and a consequent collapse in credit in those nations. Disorderly break-up involving the forced exit of weaker members, though perhaps now inevitable, certainly offers no economic panacea.

So what would work? If Germany has become more the problem than the solution, then perhaps the departure of Germany itself is the least disruptive answer. Last week’s resignation of Jurgen Stark, holder of the Bundesbank flame on the European Central Bank board, in protest at ECB support for the European periphery, demonstrates that Germany is at the end of its patience. The euro hasn’t worked, and until a United States of Europe is formed, is most unlikely to. Time to face up to the truth

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Worst Case Scenario for Euro Approaches

With Greece progressively sinking deeper and deeper into crisis amid doubts about the country’s ability to remain in the Eurozone, the European press worries about the national and continent-wide consequences of Greek default, which appears to be increasingly likely.

“What will be left of the Eurozone in a year’s time? the question may appear brutal and inappropriate” writes Jean-Marc Vittori in Les Echos, “but it is critically important in the light of the chaotic chain of events in recent weeks.” The French editorialist continues:

“that cockpit of monetary policy, which is the European Central Bank (ECB), has been shot through with disagreement to the point where it has clearly emerged among its directors. There is no denying that, in these troubled times, monetary policy has become a dangerous art. In printing banknotes to purchase massive quantities of sovereign bonds, the central banks are going against the principles which justified their independence; and the money that they are creating may one day feed inflation. Not surprisingly, given these conditions, the task of forging a consensus has become increasingly difficult both in the American Fed and in the ECB. But, until now, discussions have been held behind closed doors. In resigning from the ECB’s board of directors, Jürgen Stark has paved the way for a new era in which it may no longer be possible to reach common decisions on the fate of the single currency. […] The Germans are unhappy with at least two aspects current ECB policy: the purchase of sovereign bonds, mentioned above, and interest rates that are too low for their country, which is the only Eurozone state to come under inflationary pressure. There are two possible escape routes: the upward path towards the creation of a European federal state, or a descent towards the break-up of the Eurozone. Given the scale of the problems that have to be resolved, decisions will have to be made very quickly.”

De Volkskrant is highly sceptical about Greece’s ability to pay its debts. “The sale of public companies has served no purpose,” remarks the Amsterdam daily, which points out that “although Athens promised to privatise the equivalent of five billion euros in state property, hardly anything has come through.” Three months after it made a commitment to the troika (composed of representatives of the ECB, IMF, and European Commission) to privatise 1.3 billion euros worth of public assets before the end of September,

“the Greek government has executed very few of the promised reforms, leaving the EU and IMF confused. […] The only state property that has been sold is a small holding in a telephone company, worth 390 million euros. […] There have been several projects to sell the national lottery, which have all proved to be empty political posturing. In the end excuses were invented, and none of the deals were finalised.”

Spain is particularly worried about the reprecussions of the Greek crisis: “The possibility of Greece going bankrupt in October threatens Spain,” headlines El Mundo. At a time when the risk premium on Spanish debt has crossed the alert threshold of 370 points “in spite of massive bond purchases made by the European Central Bank” (ECB), the daily argues that “the Greek crisis has created the need for an economic agreement that will have to be pushed through before the 20-N” (the early general elections in Spain, slated for the 20 November).

“The extreme vulnerability of this situation should force [Prime Minister José Luis] Zapatero to zealously implement the necessary reforms, but instead the leader of the government has led us into a labyrinth. In calling for a general election four months ahead of time, he has halted any progress. The enactment of key economic reforms has been neglected by his government, to the point where Europe, precisely because of this lack of effectiveness, was forced to insist that it approve changes to the consitution [to introduce the ‘golden rule’ for budgetary stability].” “The only possible option now is for Zapatero to retake control of the situation by quickly convening a meeting with [right-wing opposition leader Mariano] Rajoy and [socialist candidate Alfredo Pérez] Rubalcaba, so that they can accelerate the implementation of structural measures, like the modification of collective bargaining procedures and the introduction of more effective labour market reform, which the Spanish economy will need in the coming years.”

Countries where the single currency has yet to be adopted, are worried that they may be sidelined in decisions in decisions about the future of the euro. “Poland wants to decide the the euro’s fate,” headlines Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, which reports on yesterday’s meeting of Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Lithuanian and Latvian representatives in Brussels who were trying to work out a “common position concerning the vision of tightening co-operation within the euro zone.” The Warsaw economic daily hints that at the EU summit in October and December a decision “on starting negotiations on changing the Lisbon Treaty and transforming the currency union into the fiscal one” will surely be taken.

“Poland is building a coalition of countries willing to adopt the euro and therefore demand the right to participate in the debate about the shape of the currency union. Warsaw doesn’t want decisions about its future to be made only in Berlin or Paris.”

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

USA


Jersey City Boy Allegedly Threw Baseball Bat at Cops During Afterschool Brawl

A group of about 50 juvenile males who appeared “agitated” and were armed with baseball bats and bricks clashed in front of Ferris High School Monday, an altercation that led to the arrest of a 16-year-old male accused of throwing a baseball bat at a police officer. The altercation, which occurred at around 3:15 p.m., shortly after the school was dismissed, involved about 30 Hispanic males and 20 black males, according to reports. They had separated from a larger group of about 100 males who were “swarming” at the intersection of Montgomery and Brunswick streets, on the southeast corner of the Ferris campus, police said.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



NASA to Build Most Powerful Rocket in History

Two months after the final flight of the space shuttle, NASA has decided on a replacement that can take humans into space. But the vehicle won’t fly until 2017 at the earliest. Yesterday, the agency announced plans to build the most powerful rocket in history. If all goes to plan, the blandly named Space Launch System will have its first test flight in 2017 and be capable of launching humans beyond low Earth orbit.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



NASA’s New Mega Rocket Would be Most Powerful Ever Built

NASA announced plans today (Sept. 14) for a new giant rocket that will one day carry astronauts on deep space missions to destinations such as an asteroid or Mars. The next-generation launch vehicle is expected to be the most powerful rocket ever built, capable of taking human explorers to targets further in space than ever before, agency officials said. NASA intends to use the new Space Launch System (SLS) to fulfill a variety of launch capabilities, ranging from carrying 70 metric tons of material into space at first, to eventually being capable of hauling 130 metric tons, which is between 10 to 20 percent more thrust than the Saturn V rockets used to launch the Apollo moon missions in the late 1960s and early 1970s, agency officials said. “It’s fair to call this the largest rocket, most powerful rocket,” Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate said in a news briefing today.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

Canada


Advanced Birds Lived Alongside ‘Hairy’ Dinosaurs

By the late Cretaceous, about 80 million years ago, birds had evolved feathers for flying or diving, but they lived alongside dinosaurs with primitive feathers like hair. Both kinds of feathers have been found together, preserved in amber. The feathers offer a snapshot of late Cretaceous life, says Ryan McKellar of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. He identified 11 pieces of amber from the same Canadian deposit, dating from 79 to 78 million years ago. Two were donated by amateur fossil hunters, and the rest had sat unremarked in a museum for 15 years.

The amber, which is fossilised resin, contains fragments of feather between 2 and 8 millimetres long that were probably blown in as the resin dribbled down a tree trunk. Although small, they are exquisitely preserved. The dinosaur feathers are primitive, thin filaments that look similar to mammalian hair but are much thinner and lack the scales that cover ordinary hair. Some appear to have been arranged evenly in a pelt, while others are in tufts. Their colour ranges from medium to dark brown. McKellar thinks the simple feathers helped keep dinosaurs warm, and endured until the animals died out. By contrast, the preserved bird feathers resemble those of modern birds.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Feathers Preserved in Amber Reveal Colorful, ‘Fluffy’ Dinosaurs

About 80 million years ago, the flap of wings in a conifer forest let loose feathers that floated through the air before sticking to globs of shining tree sap below. Researchers in Western Canada have discovered these slicks of solidified sap, known as amber, contain a great variety of dinosaur and bird feathers from the Late Cretaceous period. They found 11 sets of feathers after screening more than 4,000 amber deposits in different museum collections. The feathers were so well-preserved that the researchers were even able to guess at what colors they might have been. They also contained samples of each of the four stages of feather evolution. “All the feathers are preserved down to micron scale, showing indentations and pigmentation,” study researcher Ryan McKellar, of the University of Alberta, told LiveScience. “It’s also the first time we’ve found protofeathers [feathers thought to belong to nonavian dinosaurs] preserved in amber.”

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

Europe and the EU


African Scandals Shake French Republic

Le Monde, 13 September 2011

“Robert Bourgi, the former ‘Mr. Africa’ who fires up the Republic,” headlines French daily Le Monde. Last weekend, this former unofficial advisor of President Nicolas Sarkozy accused former president, Jacques Chirac and his former prime minister, Dominique de Villepin of having “received several million dollars per year in stuffed attaché cases,” from African heads of state in order to finance electoral campaigns.

These revelations smell like “stink bombs,” deplores the Paris daily, noting that “Mr. Bourgi is not just anybody. He was a long-time collaborator of Jacques Foccart, father of the Elysée [presidential palace] Africa section, the inventor of these incestuous relations between France and its former colonies: covert financing to such and such a party in exchange for French support for the reigning African regimes” [known as Françafrique]. In a leader article called The Fifth — A Banana Republic? Le Monde notes that “coming after the musty smells of the Bettencourt case and the illegal surveillance of a Le Monde journalist, this gives a poor and sullied image of our democracy and is unsuitable to an electoral debate required for the high stakes of the moment”.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Belgium: Leterme Finds Asylum at the OECD

De Morgen, 14 September 2011

“Leterme flees politics,” headlines Belgian daily De Morgen. The Flemish-language paper explains that on September 16, the Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Angel Gurria will announce the appointment of the Belgian Interim Prime Minister, Yves Leterme as his deputy for a two year term. Yves Leterme will begin his new functions once a new federal government is established in Belgium, which seen the current rate of progress in the negotiations, could take some time. For his party, the Flemish Christian Democrats (CD&V), this is another “blow in just a few weeks,” after the announced departure from the government of Inge Vervotte, Minister for the Civil Service and Public Works. For Wouter Verschelden, editor-in-chief of the paper, the OECD post represents “an exit from the quagmire of national politics”. As of September, political leaders have been unable, for the past 458 days, to form a new federal government due to the on-going discord between French and Dutch speakers.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Commission Pushes for ‘Europeanisation’ Of Border Controls

Brussels — The EU commission is pressing ahead with a controversial draft bill on ‘europeanising’ the way border checks are introduced, allowing national governments to act on their own for only five days. The draft, seen by EUobserver, has already irked France, Germany and Spain who jointly oppose the idea of giving the EU commission a veto right over what so far has been the exclusive competence of national governments. Initially scheduled for the beginning of the week, the publication has been delayed until Friday (16 September), one day after the general elections in Denmark where border controls are a favourite topic of the populist Danish People’s Party.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Denmark: Social Dems ‘Did It’

Social Democrat leader Helle Thorning-Schmidt put an end to a decade in opposition for her party tonight, when her centre-left coalition mustered enough votes to win a slim five-vote majority in parliament.

The electoral win puts a woman in the prime minister’s office for the first time in Danish history while at the same time ousting the Liberal-Conservative government, and its backers in the right-wing Danish People’s Party.

Addressing a crowd late Thursday evening Thorning-Schmidt proclaimed “we did it”.

“Today is change-day in Denmark. The Social Democrats are ready to work,” Thorning-Schmidt told a crowd of party faithful gathered at Copenhagen’s Vega concert hall.

The centre-left had campaigned on a platform of reinvigorating the social welfare state, and in her acceptance speech Thorning-Schmidt pledged to work for a society that “included everyone, and where everyone got a second chance — and another second chance”.

Continuing a theme that has laced this general election, Thorning-Schmidt also pledged to seek broad-based compromise and called on “everyone”, politicians and ordinary voters alike, to take part in that effort.

The new Social Democrat-led government and its allies are projected to have won control of 92 seats in the 179-member parliament. The Liberal-led alliance of now-former PM Lars Løkke Rasmussen is forecast to end with 87 seats.

Election night proved bittersweet for Rasmussen. Despite the centre-right bloc being forced into opposition, his Liberal party surpassed the Social Democrats to become parliament’s largest party with 47 seats, one more seat than the party earned in 2007.

The strong result had Rasmussen cautioning Thorning-Schmidt not to get too comfortable in her position.

“Take care of the keys to the Prime Minister’s Office, they are only yours to borrow,” Rasmussen said during his concession speech.

While it was Thorning-Schmit that claimed victory as the country’s new leader, it was two of her allied parties, the centrist Social Liberals and the far-left Red-Green Alliance that were the election night’s biggest winners.

Both parties more than doubled their representation in parliament and will wield significant influence over a minority Social Democrats-Socialist People’s Party government.

Also adding seats was the Liberal Alliance, a centre-right party supporting lower taxes and a smaller state.

Both the Social Democrats and the Socialist People’s Party lost seats in the election, as did the Danish People’s Party — the first time the party has suffered an electoral setback since entering parliament in 1998.

Part of the responsibility for the centre-right’s defeat is also due to be pinned on the Conservatives, who lost more than half of their representation and is now parliament’s smallest party.

[Return to headlines]



Finland: Halla-Aho Suspened for Two Weeks

The Finns party MP Jussi Halla-aho was suspended for two weeks by his parliamentary group on Thursday afternoon following Facebook comments deemed inappropriate by the party.

On Wednesday Halla-aho had posted a message on Facebook advocating a military junta in Greece and tanks on the streets to crush protesters.

The parliamentary group’s decision to suspend Halla-aho was unanimous and Halla-aho himself agreed to it.

The approved disciplinary measure is two weeks shorter than the original month-long suspension demanded by party chair Timo Soini.

On Thursday, Soini said that the parliamentary group made the best possible decision in the situation. He noted that, once the punishment is suffered, there can be a new start with a clean slate.

While his suspension lasts, Halla-aho will continue his normal work as MP. He will also carry on with his work as the chair of the Administration Committee.

           — Hat tip: KGS [Return to headlines]



France: Islam; Praying in Paris Streets Banned From Tonight

(ANSAmed) — PARIS — Beginning this evening at midnight, holding Muslim prayers in the streets of Paris will be prohibited. The announcement was made by France’s Interior Minister, Claude Gueant, in an interview published today by the daily Le Figaro, which noted that “use of force” against those not complying with the regulation had not been ruled out. The minister underscored that a “convention” had been signed with Muslim associations so that a former barracks could be used as a place of prayer. For a long time Paris Muslims have met in the city streets on Friday, especially in the working class neighbourhood Goutte d’Or (18th arrondissement), due to a lack of space in mosques.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Germany: Lost Friedrich Der Große Sex Poem Uncovered

A poem about passionate sex written by Prussia’s Friedrich der Große (Frederick the Great) has been unearthed after being archived and — perhaps deliberately — lost for hundreds of years.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Greenwashing After the Phase-Out: German ‘Energy Revolution’ Depends on Nuclear Imports

Germany’s decision to phase out its nuclear power plants by 2022 has rapidly transformed it from power exporter to importer. Despite Berlin’s pledge to move away from nuclear, the country is now merely buying atomic energy from neighbors like the Czech Republic and France.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Gun Ownership Shooting Up in Switzerland: Study

More than a quarter of Swiss households have access to a gun, according to a study carried out by the Institute of Criminology at the University of Zurich. In a victim study carried out on behalf of the conference of cantonal police chiefs, Martin Killias at the Institute of Criminology found that around 27 percent of Swiss homes have access to a firearm. Furthermore, the number of gun licences has increased sharply in many cantons since 2008, the SonntagsZeitung newspaper reported.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



History Brought to Life as Battle of Marathon Re-Enacted

Sweating beneath heavy armour, a group of die-hard archaeology fans brought the Battle of Marathon to life this weekend on the coastal plain where the fate of Europe dramatically changed 2,500 years ago. Gathering from Europe, North America and Australia, the re-enactors staged a three-day event of combat, archaic culture revival and commemoration at Marathon Bay never before seen in Greece despite its rich archaeological heritage.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Italy: Unipol: Silvio Berlusconi is the Addressee of the Tape

(AGI) Milan — Preliminary investigations magistrate of Milan, Stefania Donadeo stated that “Almost all of the accused people have reported that the addressee of the telephone interceptions was not Paolo Berlusconi but his brother Silvio Berlusconi.” She asked for compulsory charges against the Italian Prime Minister within the investigations regarding the telephone interceptions between former Ds leader, Pietro Fassino and former Unipol president Giovanni Consorte.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Jack Straw Urges UK to Back Palestinian State at UN

The former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has called on MPs to support Palestinian plans for a unilateral statehood bid at the UN. The British government has not confirmed whether it will support the Palestinians if a vote goes ahead, although the US has already vowed not to back the move. Mr Straw has written to every member of parliament urging them to help admit the state to the UN and add their support to an Early Day Motion backing the bid. He said it would be the “best way” to restart peace negotiations. He said: “It is vital that the UK and other European countries have the courage to point the way forward.” He noted that the World Bank, the UN, the EU and the IMF had all judged the Palestinians as “ready for statehood” and added: “We all understand the fears that Israelis have for their security, but it will not enhance their security to deny the right of self-determination permanently to the Palestinians. Mr Straw was in charge of foreign affairs for five years, including during the invasion of Iraq.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Munich Conference: Trifkovic on Germany and Russia

… Dr Srdja Trifkovic, Foreign Affairs Editor of ‘Chronicles’ Magazine, further emphasised that “The global re-distribution of power, and the continued crisis in the European Union, means that Europe must rediscover the benefits of togetherness.” … Dr Trifkovic continued: “The likely return of Putin will be beneficial to unlocking the untapped potential of German-Russian relations as well as with other European partners such as France and Italy.” He added that this will be necessary in order to set Russia on the path to further modernization and help Russia “realize its full potential.”

           — Hat tip: Srdja Trifkovic [Return to headlines]



Neanderthals Ate Shellfish 150,000 Years Ago: Study

Neanderthal cavemen supped on shellfish on the Costa del Sol 150,000 years ago, punching a hole in the theory that modern humans alone ate brain-boosting seafood so long ago, a new study shows. The discovery in a cave near Torremolinos in southern Spain was about 100,000 years older than the previous earliest evidence of Neanderthals consuming seafood, scientists said. Researchers unearthed the evidence when examining stone tools and the remains of shells in the Bajondillo Cave, they said in a study published online in the Public Library of Science. There, they discovered many charred shellfish — mostly mussel shells — left by Neanderthals. They were able to date the shells by radiocarbon testing to about 150,000 years ago.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Netherlands: Terrorist Worked as Imam in Tilburg Prison

TILBURG, 15/09/11 — A radical Muslim arrested for murder in Spain in July has turned out to have worked as an Imam in a Dutch prison. Hasan B. was arrested in Madrid on 20 July at the request of the Moroccan authorities, who have requested his extradition. He was given the death sentence in Morocco in 1985 for involvement in murders of political opponents. The 44 year old man has worked for some time as an Imam in Tilburg Penitentiary (PIT). The justice ministry yesterday confirmed statements about this by various staff members of the prison. The man was hired as a temp by the ministry’s Spiritual Care Service. “Pending the investigation in Spain, no more use will be made of his services,” said a spokesman.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Norwegian ‘Wild Man’ Faked Famed Blog While Living in a Swedish Hotel

A Norwegian man who became a celebrity for documenting “a year” of living in the Norwegian wilds has confessed he spent much of the time living in a hotel in northern Sweden.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Rumours Fly That Berlusconi Insulted Merkel’s Figure on Phone

Italy’s gaffe-prone Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi appears to have insulted German Chancellor Angela Merkel using a vulgar phrase about her figure during a recent phone call.

The call between Berlusconi and a businessman was recorded by investigators during their search for evidence against the 74-year-old politician for a variety of charges including corruption.

Although the recording has not been released so the exact phrase Berlusconi used is unclear, it is said to be extremely insulting and concern Merkel’s physique.

Italian MP Rocco Buttiglione brought the gossip out of selected newspaper columns and into the open this week, according to Bild newspaper.

He told parliament: “If the rumours are true, which are not only circulating in journalist circles but also in parliament, that the Prime Minister has spoken about Merkel in an unspeakable, unpronounceable, unacceptable way, the situation would be dramatic. Someone who has reached out their hand to us would be spat at in the face.”

He said the rumours were already causing damage to German and Italian relations.

Berlusconi has already faced domestic outrage over the phone call for allegedly calling Italy a “shit country” that he planned to leave soon.

Merkel and Berlusconi have had public mishaps in dealing with each other in the past, with one example mentioned by Bild being in 2009 when Berlusconi arrived in Germany for a Nato conference. He got out of his car while on the phone and ignored Merkel, walking past her still talking on the phone.

Germany has been complaining that Italy is not doing enough to stem Europe’s brewing sovereign debt crisis and the countries clashed recently over reparations for victims of World War II.

The Italian practice of giving economic migrants from Tunisia travel documents, and effectively sending them elsewhere in Europe has also proved unpopular among the country’s neighbours.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Stockholm Bomber’s Widow Arrested in UK

A 28-year-old woman reported to be the wife of Stockholm suicide bomber Taimour Abdulwahab was arrested in the UK on Tuesday as part of an ongoing investigation into the attack. The woman is being held on suspicion of the preparation of terrorist acts, the BBC reports. According to the AP news agency, the woman is Mona Thwany, Abdulwahab’s widow.

           — Hat tip: KGS [Return to headlines]



Sweden: Drunken Elk Hides Kids’ Swing Set in a Tree

An elk drunk from eating fermented apples in southern Sweden ended its binge by making off with a family’s swing set and hiding it in the woods. A homeowner from Storebro in northern Kalmar County arrived home on Wednesday night to find his garden littered with bits of apple and other signs that an elk had been partying in his back yard, the local Östran and Barometern newspapers reported. The concerned homeowner also discovered that the children’s swing set which normally sat in the yard was missing. The man immediately called police, who contacted a local hunter to track down the inebriated elk who was thought to possibly be injured.

Drunken elk are common in Sweden during the autumn season when fermenting apples are plentiful, both on the ground and hanging from the branches of trees which many Swedes have in their yards. While police and the hunter failed to meet up with the prank-playing elk, they did eventually find the family’s swing set, propped up in a tree deep in the woods about 500 metres from their home.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



UK: Liverpool Striker’s Controversial 9/11 Tweets

Liverpool is investigating striker Nathan Eccleston for tweets about the Sept. 11 attacks. The 20-year-old Eccleston posted the comments on Twitter on Sunday, the 10th anniversary of the attacks in the United States. “I aint going to say attack don’t let the media make u believe that was terrorist that did it,” Eccleston tweeted. He also made a reference to O.T.I.S., which can mean Only the Illuminati Succeed. The comments were later removed, but have been widely repeated online. Liverpool’s principal owner is John Henry, whose Fenway Sports Group also owns the Boston Red Sox.

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: The Niqab Cuts Women Off From the World

I’m sitting in the doctor’s waiting room when I notice a small boy sitting on his mother’s lap, clapping. He is very sweet, smiling, laughing and enjoying himself. As I usually do when I see cute children, I look up at his mother and smile. Ordinarily, his mother would have smiled back, her heart surging with pride. She may have hugged her child ever so slightly, or patted him on the head, wanting to show off that he belonged to her. At least, this is often the response I get when I smile at mothers, letting them know that I think their child is lovely.

But this mother could not smile back at me. She could not interact with me across this crowded waiting room, as one woman to another. Between us lay her niqab, leaving only a slit for me to see her eyes. I looked straight at her eyes, smiled again and looked down at the boy. No response. Surely one can smile with the eyes, I thought…? But even if one can, does she know that such a thing is possible? And more importantly, given the barrier of the niqab, is she accustomed to having this sort of interaction with strangers?

A while later, this same woman and her child come out of the doctor’s office and she notices two women she knows sitting nearby. “Hello! Hello!” she shouts, waving at them. The women look at her blankly. “Don’t you remember me?” she squeals. The women look at each other, and then back at her. They have no idea who she is. After all, they cannot see her face. The woman tries several times to help them to remember, naming the place they met, talking about people they know in common. Still, the women have no idea. The woman in the niqab quickly looks around the waiting room and upon realising that there are only women in the room, she quickly lifts her veil.

‘Oh!’ The women exclaim. ‘How are you?’ ‘How lovely to see you!’ ‘How is X?’ And on the conversation goes. They chatter away for a few minutes and I sit, watching the scene in awe. Had this woman not been able to show these women her face, she would have left without having the experience of acquaintances running into each other, catching up, smiling, laughing, just as she had missed out on the friendly interaction with me just before.

While I believe absolutely in this woman’s right to wear whatever she wants, I do wonder why anyone would want to cover themselves in this way. I can only presume this woman’s choice to fully cover herself is a recent one, otherwise the white British women in the waiting room are unlikely to have previously seen her face in a public sphere. In choosing to cover herself completely, this woman chooses to cut herself off from society in many ways, and I cannot help but feel a little sad. There she is with her little boy — a boy who is able to be recognised, smile at people, interact with them and enjoy the freedoms that are forbidden to his mother. Yet she is the adult, and he is the child. Is there not something wrong with that?

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Balkans


Kosovo Unrest Picks Up Again

Another roadblock was put up Wednesday night in northern Kosovo, on the main bridge linking the Serb-dominated part of Mitrovica to the other side of town. Kosovar authorities tried to send police to the border crossings in late July, but Serbs reacted with barricades and skirmishes, killing a policeman.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

North Africa


Cameron, Sarkozy Pledge Continued Help for Rebels on Visit to Libya

The heads of France and Britain, leaders of the NATO bombing campaign to oust Moammar Gadhafi from power in Libya, have visited the country to meet with representatives of the rebel-led government they helped install. British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy completed a lightening-fast visit to Libya on Thursday, as the new leaders they helped put into power continued the fight to win control over the last pockets of resistance in their country.

The two men were greeted at Tripoli’s Metiga airport by Mahmoud Jibril, the vice-chair of Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC), and were quickly taken to the Tripoli Medical Center, where they toured three of the hospital’s wards. Crowds of medical staff gathered to shake the Cameron and Sarkozy’s hands and thank them for their countries’ support. “It’s extremely moving to see young Arabs turn towards these two great Western countries to say, ‘Thank you,’“ Sarkozy told reporters in Tripoli. “This proves that conflict between the West and the Middle East is by no means an inevitability.” Cameron pledged continuing support to Libya, saying the UK would look to unfreeze 12 billion pounds (13.8 billion euros/$19 billion) in Libyan assets to help the new government.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Egypt Declares Camp David Accords With Israel ‘Not a Sacred Thing’

Egypt’s prime minister triggered angry consternation in Israel on Thursday after declaring that the historic Camp David accords underpinning peace between the two countries were “not a sacred thing”.

Dramatically heightening tensions during an increasingly volatile time in Israel’s relations with the Arab world, Essam Sharaf’s suggestions that the 32-year treaty could be revised prompted disbelief in the Jewish state.

“The Camp David agreement is not a sacred thing and is always open to discussion with what would benefit the region and the case of fair peace,” Mr Sharaf told Turkish television. “We could make a change if needed.”

Coming just days after an angry mob stormed the Israeli embassy in Cairo, Israeli officials said they were staggered more by the timing of Mr Sharaf’s comments than their actual content. “Less than a week ago, we had the problem with the embassy,” an Israeli official said. “I don’t think a responsible prime minister should say things like that.”

Reeling from a noxious diplomatic row with Turkey and fearing that an expected Palestinian bid for statehood at the UN next week will heighten its growing sense of isolation.

On Thursday, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, raised the stakes by repeating his intention to deploy warships in the Mediterranean to challenge Israeli “aggression”.

“Israel cannot do whatever it wants in the eastern Mediterranean,” he said. “They will see what our decision will be on this subject. Our navy attack ships can be there at any moment.”

Israel has spoken of its determination to defuse tensions with Egypt in the wake of last week’s embassy raid.

Until yesterday, Egypt’s transitional military leadership had responded in kind, insisting that it wanted to uphold the Camp David accords, whose historic agreement in 1978 is widely seen as ending the cycle of Israeli-Arab wars that erupted in the preceding 30 years.

But, in the wake of the popular revolution that overthrew Hosni Mubarak, the former president, in February, Egypt’s present crop of transitional leaders have been forced to take into account the view of ordinary Egyptians, many of whom remain deeply suspicious of Israel. Mr Mubarak, by contrast, assiduously upheld the treaty with Israel, even assisting in imposing an Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip, which has a border with Egypt.

Public anger towards the Jewish state mounted after Israeli troops in pursuit of suspected militants inadvertently shot dead five Egyptian border guards, leading to last Friday’s riot at the embassy.

In the aftermath of the revolution, a number of civilian politicians likely to contest presidential elections in Egypt at the end of the year have said they want to revise “humiliating” aspects of the treaty with Israel.

In particular, they want the right to take fuller economic and military control of the Sinai region, which Israel occupied after the Six Day War of 1967 but handed back after the peace treaty of 1979, signed a year after the meeting at Camp David brokered by then US president Jimmy Carter.

Israeli officials in private say such demands are not unreasonable, and could even be beneficial given the growing lawlessness of the Sinai region. But the phrasing of Mr Sharaf’s comments, particularly that the treaty is not “scared”, is seen as incendiary.

“Others who have said this kind of thing have been presidential candidates but this is the prime minister — that is what is disturbing,” the Israeli official said. “He should be more careful.”

By making his comments to Turkish television, Mr Sharaf appeared to be attempting to burnish his populist credentials.

He spoke just after Prime Minister Erdogan had completed a visit to Egypt.

Seeking to present himself as a champion of the Palestinian cause, a stance that has won him huge popularity in the Arab world, Mr Erdogan has kept up a steady stream of invective against Israel in recent days.

Earlier this month he expelled Israel’s ambassador to Turkey, downgraded diplomatic relations and suspended defence ties after Israel refused to apologise for killing nine Turkish nationals during its botched raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla last year.

Increasing Israel’s sense of vulnerability, a last-ditch US bid to prevent the Palestinian Authority from making a controversial bid for statehood appeared to have failed yesterday, setting the stage for a major diplomatic showdown at the United Nations next week.

Palestinian officials signalled their determination to defy stiff opposition from Washington by pressing ahead with a formal application for UN membership after the annual session of the General Assembly opens in New York on Monday.

With Israel threatening “harsh and grave consequences” if the bid goes ahead, President Barack Obama sent his closest Middle East advisers, Dennis Ross and David Hale, to the West Bank to persuade Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, to back down.

But aides in the Palestinian city of Ramallah said that, although he would hear the Americans out, Mr Abbas would not be dissuaded from pursuing a cause seen as vital to his political survival. The Palestinian leader is due to address the General Assembly next Friday, Sept 23rd.

“We will see if anyone carries with him or her any credible offer that will allow us to look into it seriously and to be discussed win the Palestinian leadership,” said Riyad al-Malki, the Palestinian foreign minister. “Otherwise, on the 23rd at 12.30, the president will submit the application.”

[Return to headlines]



Libya: George Washington Slept Here

by Diana West

If a tree falls in a forest — no, if a bunch of al Qaeda and Hezbollah “flickers” seize power of the ninth largest oil state with NATO and US support — will anyone take notice?

Not the New York Times and pals — until it’s too late.

From today’s Old, Grey (Blind) Lady, Page One:

Islamists’ Growing Sway Raises Questions for Libya

TRIPOLI, Libya — In the emerging post-Qaddafi Libya, the most influential politician may well be Ali Sallabi, who has no formal title but commands broad respect as an Islamic scholar and populist orator who was instrumental in leading the mass uprising.

The most powerful military leader is now Abdel Hakim Belhaj, the former leader of a hard-line group once believed to be aligned with Al Qaeda.

“Once believed”? What a deceptively fuzzy term to use given that the US State Department, in its 2008 rundown of terrorist organizations, describes a 2007 “merger” between Belhaj’s “hard-line group” (the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group) and al Qaeda!

This same “merger,” not incidentally, was announced by Al Qaeda’s Zawahiri. Indeed, as this 2005 Jamestown Foundation paper argues it was Qaddafi’s opposition to the jihadist LIFG that changed his whole international footing. Jamestown writes: The internal challenge the LIFG posed to Qaddafi’s rule led him to “abandon his quixotic defiance of the United States and join the Bush administration’s war on terror, while the prospect of a LIFG takeover in Libya has facilitated American and European forgiveness of past transgressions.”

Don’t look now, but with massive American and European military and civilian support, that once-dreaded LIFG takeover of Libya is now in progress. It must be pretty far along if even the New York Times is taking notice…

           — Hat tip: Diana West [Return to headlines]



Sarkozy and Cameron in Libya: Heroes for a Day

European leaders are rarely celebrated as heroes, but this is precisely how Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron were treated in Tripoli on Thursday. As a reward for their military deployment against Moammar Gadhafi, the president and prime minister received a warm reception. The French appear to have gained the most in Libya.

But the French president may have to defend the selfless dedication of his country against the potential criticism that France acted alone out of strategic calculation to push the military operation through the UN, speculating on Libya’s oil riches just as the United States did ahead of their invasion of Iraq. Such suspicions have not been dispelled, because Sarkozy and Cameron obviously wanted to beat Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Libya with the quick visit. The new leaders in Tripoli have made the calculated move of announcing that their Western allies will be favored when contracts are awarded. Both the British and the French hope to recoup the costs of their military operations through lucrative deals for their companies back home.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Tunisia: Salafists Aganist Alcohol Sellers, Huge Brawl

(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, SEPTEMBER 15 — The incidents of intolerance which in Tunisia (as in other North African countries such as Algeria) see Islamic fundamentalists attacking clandestine sellers of alcohol are increasing. Yesterday evening in the streets of Menzel Abderrahem in the Bizerte governorate, were the theatre of a huge brawl in which hundreds of people took part and which had been sparked when Salafists tried to stop the clandestine selling of alcohol. According to Tunisie Numerique, the number of casualties has not yet been released (though many are thought to have been injured on both sides). The site underscored, however, that the fighting went on for a long time without any police forces intervening.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Israel and the Palestinians


Britain Should Say Yes to Palestinian Statehood — And So Should Israel

A no vote at the UN will boost Netanyahu, wound Fatah and discredit the Europeans as useless hypocrites

Britain doesn’t usually count for much in the Middle East, but this time it could make all the difference. As the Palestinians seek United Nations recognition as a state, a quirk of diplomatic algebra leaves Britain with a chance to play the decisive role — and to complete some unfinished business dating back more than 60 years. Barack Obama has already said the US will vote against any Palestinian move towards statehood at the UN general assembly now gathering in New York. Large swaths of Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East plan to vote for it. Which leaves Europe as the diplomatic battleground. If the leading European powers side with the US, the Palestinian initiative will be seen as a failure. If an EU majority backs recognition in some form, the Palestinians can claim symbolic victory.

Already negotiations are under way, both among the European nations and between the EU and the Palestinians, aimed at reaching a common, compromise position. France and Spain want to say yes, Germany and Italy are wary. Which leaves Britain with something akin to a casting vote in the “quintet” of leading European nations. How David Cameron jumps will be crucial in determining Europe’s stance, and therefore the fate of the Palestinian effort itself. For decades Britain has talked about punching above its weight. Now its weight really counts.

The backroom haggling concentrates on which UN body will make the decision — the general assembly or the security council — and what exactly they’ll be voting on. If the Palestinians aim high, they’ll apply to the security council for full UN membership, where Obama has promised they will be greeted by a US veto. Or they could go before the general assembly, where 140-odd countries are ready to grant the lesser prize of an upgrade in UN status, from observer to “non-member state”, with access to some of the major international institutions. Devil’s in the details and all that, but Britain’s attitude should be clear: we should say yes.

That’s because UN recognition of a Palestinian state in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967 will breathe fresh life into the ailing idea which, despite everything, remains the last best hope of Israeli-Palestinian peace — a two-state solution. By recognising a state of Palestine alongside Israel, the UN will entrench the notion that the only way to resolve this most stubborn of conflicts is for these two nations to divide the land between them into two states. In so doing it will halt the steady drift, born of despair more than enthusiasm, towards the so-called one-state solution — so-called because while it would bring one state, it offers no solution, just a single entity that would frustrate the yearning for self-determination of both sides.

The two-state solution has been on life support for years now, its health deteriorating since Binyamin Netanyahu returned to the prime minister’s office. Officially he subscribes to two states, yet his every policy action, typified by unceasing settlement building in the West Bank, puts that goal further out of reach. A loud yes vote at the UN would reverse that trend, renewing what has long been the global consensus: that the land of historic Palestine has to be shared between the two peoples who live there.

Here’s where Britain and Europe can give a little extra help. A new and insightful policy document by the European Council on Foreign Relations — titled Why Europeans Should Vote

Yes — suggests the new UN resolution could explicitly support the idea of “Israel alongside a Palestinian state, thereby entrenching Israel’s legitimacy and its permanence”. Having the general assembly, including its Arab and Muslim member states, vote for such a resolution would amount to de facto recognition of Israel — and reassure those who fear the country’s “delegitimisation”. The text might even reconfirm UN resolution 181, the original 1947 partition of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. Renewing 181 would complete two items of unfinished business. First, that Palestinian state promised 64 years ago never materialised: its land was gobbled up, the West Bank taken by Jordan, Gaza by Egypt and much of the rest by Israel. A yes vote next week would finally acknowledge the Palestinian right to lands they were meant to govern decades ago. Second, Britain abstained in 1947; now it has a chance to say yes to the partition of the land it once ruled.

Still, it’s the future we should be imagining, specifically the day after a US- and Europe-led no vote. Palestinian public opinion would surely conclude that the path of nonviolence and diplomacy had failed, shunned by the very countries who had repeatedly urged them to take it. In the ongoing argument within Palestinian society, the advocates of armed resistance would appear vindicated, their opponents humiliated.

Imagine the contrasting scene in Israel, where Netanyahu would be doing a victory dance. As Daniel Levy, co-author of that ECFR paper, told me, a European no vote would reward the Israeli PM’s stubbornness: “He will respect the EU even less, and it would entrench his rejectionism even more.” Bibi would taunt those who had warned of a September diplomatic tsunami as “liberal crybabies”, unable to see that tough intransigence always wins the day. A prime minister who should be on the ropes — assailed for watching as two former allies, Egypt and Turkey, make common cause against Israel — would instead be hailed as a maestro of international power politics.

If the prospect of boosting Bibi and discrediting Fatah does not deter European governments contemplating a no vote, perhaps they should think on their reputations in the region if the Palestinians are thwarted. Having praised those peoples who seized their own destiny through the Arab revolutions, they would have denied, however symbolically, that same path to the Palestinians. Obama is already fated to be condemned as a hypocrite by the Arab world, thanks to his promised veto. If the Europeans make the same mistake, they will lose whatever influence they retain in the Middle East. No one will listen to a word they say.

There are misgivings among Palestinians and their supporters, of course. Some worry that recognition of the Palestinian Authority would diminish the PLO, which represents the wider Palestinian diaspora. The glib answer is that the Palestinians of the occupied territories have been dominant since at least the Oslo accords, signed 18 years ago today, and that a UN vote will only formalise what is already true. More subtly, such a usurping of the PLO would only be in prospect if the Palestinians started implementing practical statehood, declaring interim borders on the West Bank and the like. And no one believes that is likely.

The truth is that, by itself, a positive UN vote will not change the lives of too many Palestinians. But a negative response would be a disaster, boosting Israeli hardliners, weakening Palestinian peacemakers and choking the near-dead two-state solution. All three of those arguments should resonate in European capitals, but the last two should hit home in Israel itself. That is why a wise Britain would vote yes at the UN — and why a shrewd Israeli government, one that understood the best form of security is peace, would vote exactly the same way.

[JP note: Nuts.]

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Palestine Must be Judenrein

Israel’s peace partner, the PA (Palestinian Authority), is showing its true colors. With the impending unilateral declaration of statehood on the agenda, PA officials are beginning to tell it as it is. In the past, this was only done in Arabic, while the messages to the media in Hebrew and English were frequently whitewashed to maintain the image. PA Ambassador to the US Maen Areikat said Wednesday (Sept. 14) that the future State of Palestine must be free of Jews, explaining to reporters in the United States that over the past 44 years, they have known nothing other than occupation and the time has come to bring this to an end. He boldly added this is best for both sides, Israel and Palestine. Such a state would be the first to officially prohibit Jews or any other faith since Nazi Germany, which sought a country that was judenrein, or cleansed of Jews, said Elliott Abrams, a former US National Security Council official.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Nicolas Soames and Sir Peter Bottomley the Only Tory MPs to Support EDM [Early Day Motion] In Favour of Palestinian Statehood

Nicholas Soames and Sir Peter Bottomley are the only Tory MPs who have signed an Early Day Motion supporting Palestinian membership of the United Nations. The EDM, tabled by Labour MP Ann Clywd on 5th September, has gained 79 signatures, mostly from within the Labour Party.

The premise of the EDM, supporting Palestinian statehood is that:

“the way forward is to recognise an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel and support its admission to the UN because this will be the most effective guarantor of a resumption of negotiations and will also be the best protector of the rights not only of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, but also of Palestinians living in Israel and of Palestinian refugees abroad”

Former Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, has also added his name to the list — only the second time he has signed an EDM since leaving government, and his first this year. Another Conservative MP, Robert Halfon, proposed an amendment to the EDM on the 7th September, calling for a “clear distinction” to “be drawn between moderate Palestinians such as those in the West Bank who are seeking a peaceful two state solution and terrorist groups in Gaza such as Hamas.” The amendment was proposed in light of comments by Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas in the Gaza strip, condemning the killing of Osama bin Laden, who he described as an “Arab holy warrior”. Halfon’s proposal states that only those areas of Palestine which “renounce terrorism, should be considered for statehood. Another Tory MP, David Amess, has signed in favour of such an amendment.

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Middle East


9/11, Muslims and the Next 10 Years

Having personally been to Ground Zero less than a month after the world’s turning point — 9/11 — I tracked the news from around the world to see how society, politics and religion are intersecting with one another 10 years later. Much has been written on Islam in and Muslims in the past decade, a lot of it filled with hate, prejudice and bias but a fair amount of valid criticism of the way the religion has been abused by its leaders. For every individual who has moulded Islam to fit into narrow confines, millions have risen to prove the opposite.

Over the next two decades, in 2030, the Muslim population is going to be:

  • Larger. According to the Washington-based Pew Research Center, “the world’s Muslim population is expected to increase by about 35% in the next 20 years, rising from 1.6 billion in 2010 to 2.2 billion by 2030”. This would take the total Muslim population to 26.4% of the world’s, from 23.4% today.
  • Younger today but ageing. “The so-called Muslim youth bulge — the high proportion of youth and young adults in many heavily Muslim societies — has attracted considerable attention from political scientists,” the report states. “Less notice has been paid to the fact that the Muslim youth bulge peaked around the start of the 21st century and is now gradually declining as the Muslim population ages. The percentage of 15- to 29-year-olds in Muslim-majority countries rose slightly between 1990 and 2000 (from 27.5% to 28.8%) but has since dipped slightly to 28.5% and is projected to continue to decline to 24.4% in 2030. While this is not a large drop, it means that the proportion of youth and young adults in many Muslim-majority countries has reached a plateau or begun to fall.”
  • Largely Sunni. “Sunni Muslims will continue to make up an overwhelming majority of Muslims in 2030 (87%- 90%),” the report states. “The portion of the world’s Muslims who are Shia may decline slightly, largely because of relatively low fertility in Iran, where more than a third of the world’s Shia Muslims live.”

This is going to change many things, primarily foreign policy that has in the past 10 years been woefully dominated by Islam. “In 1950, Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Turkey had a combined population of 242 million,” wrote Jack A. Goldstone in Foreign Affairs. “By 2009, those six countries were the world’s most populous Muslim-majority countries and had a combined population of 886 million.” Dealing with this population and religion is going to need some shift in attitudinal gears.

The currently young population will continue to drive the Arab Spring that is still in its infancy with many flowers still to bloom — Saudi Arabia, Somaila, Yemen and so on. Dictators in these regimes will have to contend with the younger and dynamic aspirations of the future. “But more than demographics — or perhaps because of it — it will be the spirit of the Arab people that will drive change,” I wrote in a previous blog post. “The Arabs, as their reputation goes, are a fiercely independent people.”

But is the Arab uprising “Islamic”? Between varied opinions, “I think, the issue is one of freedom, not religion and we’ll just have to wait and see how democracy shapes up in this freedom-starved region,” I wrote in a blog post titled, Is the Egyptian uprising Islamic?. “If after getting democracy, Egypt supports radical Islam, this ‘revolution’ would end up as the greatest tragedy of this North African nation — and the world.” This issue is not going to end with the 10th Anniversary of 9/11, it will continue to discuss it through the decade ahead. I’ll be tracking it here. In these years, I will watch my nephew grow into a man. In his eyes I see the compassion, the love and the intellect that defines the true Muslim — in body, mind and spirit.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Israel Jordan Ambassador Evacuated Over Protest Fears

The Israeli Prime Minister has ordered the evacuation of the embassy in Jordan. Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement came amidst fears about possible violent anti-Israel protests at the Amman embassy. Although Israeli diplomatic staff leave Jordan every weekend, the Prime Minister took the decision to have vacate the embassy early. A Facebook group planning a demonstration at the embassy has already attracted 3,000 supporters. Last Friday, the Israeli ambassador to Egypt had to be flown out of the country after a violent mob stormed the complex. Jordan and Israel signed a peace treaty in 1994 and have enjoyed largely peaceful relations in recent years.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Pakistan, Iran to Boost Bilateral Trade to $10 Billion From $1.2 Billion

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and Iranian President Mehmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday agreed to boost trade between the two countries, currently at $1.2 billion to $10 billion, according to a Pakistani daily. The two leaders said that an increase in collaboration between the two countries was important for enhancing trade volume compatible with their proximity and potential, according to a report in the Daily Times newspaper. Gilani and Ahmadinejad agreed that the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project and the import of 1000MW of electricity from Iran be expedited as Pakistan is facing an acute energy shortage, the report added.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Stakelbeck: Former Saudi Wahhabi Radical Takes on the Koran

He’s a former radical Wahhabi Muslim from Saudi Arabia who knew the Bin Laden family and once wished to follow in Osama’s footsteps.

Now Al Fadi (a pseudonym) is a Christian who spends his time challenging the Koran.

He’s the focus of my latest report for CBN News.

Watch at the link above.

           — Hat tip: Erick Stakelbeck [Return to headlines]



The Man Who Could Trigger a World War

by David Warren

The greatest threat to the world’s peace, at this moment, comes from a man named Recip Tayyip Erdogan. He is the prime minister of Turkey, at the head of the Justice and Development Party (“AK,” from the Turkish). A former mayor of Istanbul, he was arrested and jailed when he publicly recited Islamist verses (“the mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets are our bayonets,” etc.), in defiance of the old secularist, Ataturk constitution, which made it an offence to incite religious and racial fanaticism.

Erdogan’s credentials as an anti-Semite, but also as an anti-Communist, were established from his school days. He came from an observant Muslim family, and while nothing he says can be taken without salt, he claims an illustrious ancestry, of fighters for Turkish and Ottoman causes.

He is an “interesting case” in other respects. His post-secondary education was in economics; he is a very capable technocrat, and under his direction the Turkish economy was rescued. He is a dragonslayer of inflation, and public deficits; he took dramatic and effective measures to clean up squalor in the Turkish bureaucracy, and as the saying goes, “he made the trains run on time.” Erdogan is also a “democrat,” who has no reason not to be, because he enjoys tremendous and abiding domestic popularity. The party he founded came to power by a landslide, and has been twice re-elected. (He had a stand-in for prime minister at first, for he was still banned from public office.) There are demographic reasons, too, why Turkish secularism has been overwhelmed by Turkish Islamism. The Muslim faithful have babies; modern secularists don’t.

The “vision” of this politician, which he can articulate charismatically, is to combine efficient, basically free-market economic management, with a puritanized version of the religious ideals of the old Ottoman Caliphate. (Gentle reader may recall that I am allergic to visionary and charismatic politicians, who operate on the body politic like a dangerous drug.)

Erdogan’s vision has turned outward. His strategy has been to seek better economic integration with the West, while making new political alliances with the East — most notably with Iran. He now presents Turkey as the champion of “mainstream” Sunni Islamism, while trying to square the circle with Persian Shia Islamism. This could still come to grief over Syria, where the Turks want Iran’s man, Assad, overthrown, and the Muslim Brotherhood brought into a new Syrian government.

Turkey’s military was the guarantor of pro-western Turkish secularism, under the Ataturk constitution. With characteristic incomprehension of the consequences, western statesmen supported Erdogan’s efforts to establish civilian control over the generals — our old NATO friends. By imprisoning several senior officers on (probably imaginative) charges of plotting a coup, Erdogan was able to induce the entire Turkish senior staff to resign, last month. They did this because they had run out of allies. Hillary Clinton and company hung the only effective domestic opposition to Erdogan out to dry. Turkey’s powerful, western-equipped military is now entirely Erdogan’s baby, and the country’s secularist constitution is a dead letter. Erdogan, the Islamist, now has absolute power.

It was he who sent the “peace flotilla” to challenge Israel’s right to blockade Gaza (recognized under international law and explicitly by the U.N.). He made the inevitable violent result of that adventure into an anti-Israeli cause célèbre. He has now announced that the next peace flotilla will be accompanied by the Turkish navy. This will put Israel in the position of either surrendering its right to defend itself, or firing on Turkish naval vessels. There is no way to overstate the gravity of this: Erdogan is manoeuvring to create a casus belli.

He has made himself the effective diplomatic sponsor for the Palestinian declaration of statehood next week — from which much violence will follow. Every Palestinian who dies, trying to kill a Jew, will be hailed as a “martyr,” with compensation and apologies demanded.

He has been playing Egyptian politics, by adding to the rhetorical fuel that propelled an Islamist mob into the Israeli embassy in Cairo last Friday. He is himself in Cairo, this week, on a mission to harness grievances against Israel, in the very fluid circumstances of the “Arab Spring.” For action against this common enemy is the one thing that can unite all disparate Arab factions — potentially under Turkish leadership. The West is just watching, while Erdogan creates pretexts for another Middle Eastern war: one in which Israel may be pitted not only against the neighbouring states of the old Arab League, but also Turkey, and Iran, and Hamas, and Hezbollah. This is what is called an “existential threat” to Israel, unfolding in live time. It could leave the West with a choice between defending Israel, and permitting another Holocaust. In other words, we are staring at the trigger for a genuine world war. With Recip Erdogan’s twitching finger on it.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Tunisia: Erdogan’s Visit, Israeli Flags Burnt

(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, SEPTEMBER 15 — Israeli flags have been set fire to by hundreds of people who over the night awaited the arrival of Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan — who has begun a two-day visit — in front of the Tunis-Carthage airport. Reports were on the Tunisie Numerique site.

The act was intended to show solidarity with Turkey, involved as it is in a harsh diplomatic contest of wills with Israel which culminated in Israel’s ambassador being expelled from Ankara. No further incidents have been reported, in part due to substantial security in the form of hundreds of police officers

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Russia


Srdja Trifkovic: Beyond the “Strategic Partnership”

The E.U.-Russia Centre Conference, Munich, September 15, 2011

The “Strategic Partnership” between Berlin and Moscow is usually understood in the English-speaking world in somewhat simplified terms: Russian energy meets German technology with a lot of high-minded political rhetoric on top. In the meantime, the received wisdom goes, Germany remains firmly anchored in the Euro-Atlantic framework of political, economic and military institutions and relationships. In other words, Moscow may be Germany’s partner, “strategic” or otherwise, but Washington remains Berlin’s primary ally and its primary institutional focus is still in Brussels.

This may have been so over the years but it need not be so in the future. A foreign policy realist would argue that in the years ahead of us the German decision-making elite would be well advised to critically reconsider old assumptions and to develop an overall strategy of greater equidistance vis-à-vis Moscow and Washington. (Instead of equidistance, “more equal proximity” may be a better term.)

If German political, economic and civilizational interests are considered in realist terms, without the rhetorical ideological shackles of common values and ideals, it transpires that the Federal Republic has a more natural community of long-term geopolitical interests with Russia than with the United States.

The fundamental German-Russian compatibility is that they are traditional European nation-states pursuing limited objectives by limited means. By contrast, the leaders of the United States of both parties still subscribe to the notion of America’s exceptionalism and to the propositional creed rooted in Puritan millenarianism…

           — Hat tip: Srdja Trifkovic [Return to headlines]

South Asia


Accused of Proselytising, American Family Attacked by Indonesian Extremists

Only the intervention of the police prevented serious consequences for the parents and their two boys. The father had started two weeks earlier to teach English at a local Protestant school. The attack, which took place in South Sulawesi, was ordered by a radical local Muslim leader.

Jakarta (AsiaNews) — Only the intervention of police saved the lives of an American family that was attacked by an enraged mob spurred by a local religious leader. Muslim fundamentalists were incensed by charges that the head of the family was engaged in proselytising in the predominantly Muslim area. The latest of its kind (a few days ago clashes between Christians and Muslims left people dead and wounded in Maluku, this incident is further proof of Indonesia’s steady slide towards extremism, a situation that threatens the country’s constitutional foundation, namely its pluralism.

The attack came at night on 5 September in an area west of Palu, provincial capital of South Sulawesi. An American family, David Ray Graeff, 41, his wife Georgia, also 41, and their two sons Benjamin and Daniel, had been staying at Bukit Kabonena Permai housing compound for the previous two weeks. Mr Graeff had been hire to teach English language and literature at a local Protestant divinity school in the village of Uwera, Sigi District.

On that night, an extremist mob, spurred by a local Muslim leader, Muhammad Saleh bin Abubakar Alaydrus, from the local Nurul Khairaat praying group, attacked the family, accusing them of proselytising in the mostly Muslim area. For them, the presence of Americans was itself a “serious threat”.

In the course of their attack, the mob set fire to the family’s property, including a minivan.

Police, who had already been deployed in the area to pre-empt acts of violence, was able to intervene and prevent the worse.

However, the family had to be moved to avoid possible deaths and injuries, Southeast Sulawesi Deputy Police Chief Senior Superintendent Ari Dono Sukmanto said.

Indonesia’s good reputation as a pluralistic, multi-confessional society, has been tarnished by the attack in South Sulawesi and the clashes on the Maluku Islands.

Comments and articles in Indonesia’s press have highlighted the matter, as many see such incidents as a confirmation of the country’s possible Islamisation.

Indeed, Muhammad Saleh bin Abubakar Alaydrus, the Muslim leader that ordered the attack on the American Christian family in Palu, had joined in 2001 a government peace plan agreed in Malino to end sectarian violence between Christians and Muslims in Maluku.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Kabul Attack: ISAF and Taliban Press Officers Attack Each Other on Twitter

A 20-hour standoff between Taliban suicide attackers and Afghan and Nato troops sparked another conflict between their spokesmen who attacked each other on Twitter.

While shots and explosions rang out across central Kabul, the two enemies challenged each other on the microblogging site. The exchange highlighted the emphasis both sides now place on trying to win the propaganda war and Nato’s efforts to counter a virulent insurgent information campaign. The spat between the coalition press office, @ISAFmedia, and @ABalkhi apparently began when Nato responded to a tweet boasting that Taliban militants were still holding out in a tower block under siege by Afghan and coalition forces.

“Kabul still under siege as battle continues into second day…”, posted @ABalkhi, which is one of several accounts tweeting Taliban messages and has a little over 300 followers.

The international coalition quickly responded, saying: “Re: Taliban spox on £Kabul attack: the outcome is inevitable. Question is how much longer will terrorist put innocent Afghans in harm’s way?”

The Taliban spokesman, who uses the name Abdulqahar Balkhi on his account, responded: “i dnt knw. u hve bn pttng thm n ‘harm’s way’ fr da pst 10 yrs. Razd whole vllgs n mrkts. n stil hv da nrve to tlk bout ‘harm’s way’“ The coalition press office hit back citing a United Nations estimate that four fifths of civilian casualties, which are running at record levels, are caused by the insurgents. “Really, @abalkhi? UNAMA reported 80% of civilians causalities are caused by insurgent (your) activities,” the coalition, which has just over 11,000 followers, tweeted. The Taliban then questioned the credibility of the United Nations.

A team of Taliban spokesmen run a sophisticated propaganda outfit which is in daily contact with Afghan reporters using email, twitter, mobile phones and their website.

Propaganda statements claim responsibility for attacks within minutes, though the insurgent reports carry usually inflated and often wholly fabricated death tolls for “Nato invaders” and “American cowards”. By contrast the Nato press office often appears flat-footed and slow. Commanders point out that unlike the insurgents they must take time to check their information is accurate.

Twitter has also quickly become the preferred medium for reporting bomb attacks and security incidents in Kabul, with Afghan journalists tweeting details long before news hits television and radio bulletins. By Wednesday evening, the Nato press office appeared to be trying to provoke another exchange with the enemy. Challenging another Taliban twitter account, the coalition posted a link to a video of Gen John Allen, its top general, checking on his troops after the attack. “Does your boss do this?” the tweet asked. In recent weeks the coalition has tried to exploit intelligence reports which say Taliban foot soldiers harassed by coalition raids in Afghanistan are bitter their leaders remain in safety across the border in Pakistan.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Pakistani Cleric: Taliban Leader Mullah Omar Safe, Controls 70% of Afghanistan

Maulana Samiul Haq, a renowned Islamic scholar and leader of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-S) party, has said that the Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar is safe and sound, and is leading his movement with full strength, according to an Urdu-language daily.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

Far East


China Sentences Four to Death for Violence in Xinjiang

China has sentenced four people to death over unrest in the ethnically-torn Xinjiang region after vowing to crack down on “terrorism” in the troubled far-western area. Two courts in Xinjiang have sentenced four people to death after they were found guilty of masterminding and engaging in terrorist organizations, illegally making explosives, murder and arson. The official Chinese Xinhua news agency has reported that two others have received 19 years in prison for their participation in violent outbreaks in Xinjiang. Protests had broken out in July among the mainly Muslim Uighur minority against Chinese rule.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

Australia — Pacific


Canberra’s 9/11 Decade: Bureaucracy

Part II of a series on Canberra’s 9/11 Decade; part I is on the ADF.

This is ‘Lubyanka on the Lake’, Canberra’s most expensive public building since the new parliament. ASIO’s new HQ isn’t quite the proudest and most prominent spook-catching construction in the Western world: that title still resides with its sister agency, MI5, resplendent in Thames House, on the river just down from the British Parliament. Yet the imposing ASIO pile facing across the Lake to the High Court and parliament will stand as a symbol of what 9/11 did to Canberra.

So, also, will the shift of the Australian Federal Police from a relatively small HQ in Civic to the Barton Building in Kings Parade, just down from parliament. In the geography of Canberra power, the AFP has shifted from the periphery to the centre, and ASIO now sits on a high hill. The buildings are part of Canberra’s new counter-terrorism edifice, built and growing on the conviction that the jihadist threat is ‘persistent and permanent’.

At the start of the decade, the elements of the edifice cost $1 billion. By the end, it was $4 billion. After 9/11 and the Bali bombing in 2002, Canberra was driven by a dreadful fear, expressed in the statement that a terrorist attack on Australian soil was only a matter of time. This sense of inevitability has slowly faded, but the fear has driven policy shifts that continue. Here is Dr Chris Michaelsen, of NSW University Law Faculty, on the 9/11 decade:

ASIO’s budget has increased by 655%, the Australian Federal Police budget by 161%, ASIS by 236% and the Office of National Assessments by 441%. The legislative response has been unprecedented, too. Since 9/11, Federal Parliament has enacted more than 40 pieces of ‘security legislation’ which ensure that Australia has some of the most Draconian anti-terrorism laws in the Western world. In fact, it is the only Western liberal democracy that allows its domestic intelligence agency, ASIO, to detain persons for seven days without charge or trial and without reasonable suspicion that those detained are actually involved in any terrorist activity. This gigantic policy response has been at odds with the reality of the risk of terrorism in Australia. To date, not a single person has been killed in a terrorist attack on Australian soil in the post-9/11 era. About 100 Australians have died in terrorist attacks overseas, most of them in the Bali bombings. Indeed, chances of dying in a terrorist attack in Australia are close to zero.

If that ‘close to zero’ moment does happen in Australia, it seems certain it will be caused by Australians. That was another big shift over the decade. At the start, Canberra looked outward for the threat, to Al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah. Now it looks inward at its own people. In a speech looking back at the 9/11 decade, the Attorney-General, Robert McLelland, said the focus is on the danger posed by Australians who become radicalised:

Since 2000, there have been four major terrorist plots disrupted in Australia. To date, 38 individuals have been prosecuted as a result of counter-terrorism operations and 23 have been convicted. Significantly, 37 of the 38 people prosecuted are Australian citizens and 21 of the 38 were born in Australia.

Just as America needs to worry about how so much of its foreign relations is now run by its military, Australia needs to contemplate the way ‘security’ drives its decisions and policy options. Canberra’s counter-terrorism edifice forms part of the national security complex that is seeking to consolidate after an extraordinary period of growth. Those inside it prefer the term ‘national security community’, but the always-present elements of competition as well as cooperation mean that ‘complex’ is a more accurate description. The competition is inevitable because cash does not flow equally to all parts of the complex. The loser in Canberra’s security decade was Foreign Affairs, as the Lowy Institute has charted in detail. Agencies like the Australian Defence Force, ASIO and the AFP thrived in the 9/11 decade while DFAT lagged. Just to tilt that image a little, though, consider the point that one of major winners was not an obvious member of the security complex. Over the decade, the cash cascaded consistently into aid, and its custodian AusAID. The aid budget doubled in the 9/11 decade and will do it again this decade. The Howard Government put weak and failing states in the same frame as terrorism, and suddenly international aid looked like a good investment.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Sub-Saharan Africa


Five Spaniards Aboard Tanker Taken by Pirates

Five Spaniards are among a 23-strong crew captured on a Cyprus-flagged tanker off the coast of the West African country of Benin, Spain’s government said Thursday. “We are doing everything we can from our embassy in Ghana to resolve the situation,” said a spokesman for the Spanish foreign ministry, which confirmed that five of the crew were Spanish citizens. Pirates boarded and hijacked the tanker, taking her 23 crew hostage, in the early hours of Wednesday, according to the International Maritime Bureau. The coast of Benin, which neighbours Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer, has seen a steep increase in hijackings this year, with 19 ships coming under attack.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



U.N. Reports One Million Darfur Refugees Return Home

(AGI) Khartoum — One million of the 2.7 million refugees from the fighting between rebels and government forces in Darfur have returned home, according to the African Union/UN Hybrid operation in Darfur, referred to by its acronym UNAMID.

According to its director, Ibrahim Gambari, the UN peacekeepers were a contributing factor, who achieved “great success in reestablishing stability and security” in the western region of the Sudan, where violence “has dropped 70% in the last year.” .

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

Immigration


EU: Towards Strengthening Border Surveillance

La Voix du Luxembourg, 14 September 2011

“Immigration splits the EU,” leads La Voix du Luxembourg, following the vote in the European Parliament to strengthen Frontex, the European border surveillance agency, by requiring member states to share in its operations and by beefing up its capabilities. The newspaper, which published on its front page a photograph of the coffins of African migrants who died trying to reach the Italian island of Lampedusa, said that faced with the influx of refugees from North Africa in the spring, the European Commission had been the first “to seize the ball by proposing a strengthening of its powers and establishment of ‘mandatory solidarity’ among all member states”. Under the plan approved on Sept. 13, the member states will, among other things, put their own national border guards at the disposal of Frontex in the event of mass migration into the Schengen area. At present, “Frontex must rely on the goodwill of member states to deploy personnel and equipment in the missions of the agency.”

On September 16 as well the Commission should be presenting another instalment of the “new Schengen governance,” writes Le Figaro for its part: Brussels will now be able to suspend from the Schengen area any countries that fail to protect their sector of Europe’s common border. It’s a threat that especially affects Athens, notes the French daily. But this programme has not won unanimity within the EU: the Ministers of the Interior from France, Germany and Spain have already drafted a joint statement in which they refuse point-blank to surrender control over temporary checks at their own borders to the EU.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Immigrant Boat Adrift, 95 Rescued in Lampedusa

(AGI) Palermo — Another boat of immigrants has made landfall on Lampedusa. 95 Tunisians, including 2 little girls, reached Lampedusa during the night after being rescued at 30 miles from the island by a Guardia di Finanza patrol boat. All the migrants were transshipped on another Guardia di Finanza ship because the boat adrift had an engine failure which made it impossible for it to continue its course.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Playground Joshing Has Become a Hate Crime

Children’s innocence is being corroded by the thought police.

Four months ago, I was having a chat with some mums at a local recreation ground when I heard a tale that froze my bone marrow. They told me that the six-year-old son of a mutual acquaintance had been reported by his school to the local authority after saying to a friend of ethnic origin: “Your skin is the colour of poo.” This was deemed to be a racially motivated incident. No matter that every little boy thinks no sentence is complete without a mention of excrement. Rare is the day when I’m not told: “Mummy, you’re a poo,” or the ever popular: “You smell like a poo,” while many evenings end with the recitation: “Twinkle twinkle little poo.”

Would I find this scatological assault offensive if I was of African or Asian origin? I doubt it. Futhermore, the “poo” joke happened in a classroom in Britain’s most liberal city, where the citizens are so right-on they tend to embrace both hoodies and further immigration. Clearly it is right for teaching staff to be sensitive about how banter concerning a child’s appearance could be interpreted, but surely it’s not beyond anyone’s ken to tell a child firmly that lavatorial jibes are unacceptable. Instead, the parents of the accused boy were distraught to find a silly bit of playground joshing was logged with the bureaucrats as a hate crime.

I don’t blame the head or teachers, who were only following Orwellian diktats foisted on them by the state. The 2000 Race Relations Act obliges teaching staff to report all “hate speech”, and you can imagine the accusations of “cover-up” that could dog any staffer who dared to exercise restraint and common sense in such instances. It’s the same brand of PC bullying that saw my sister-in-law reduced to tears in Hackney when a teacher reprimanded her for saying “Wendy house”, instead of “play house” — so turning a charming reference to Peter Pan into an act of wanton sexism.

Such attitudes leave parents in a quandary about how they maintain their children’s natural state of openness. How should I, for example, respond to my seven-year-old son when he comes home and tells me about a new boy in his class, who is “nice and clever” and has “brown skin”. The remark is made in the same spirit as his comment that a new girl has “blonde hair”, so why am I left anxious that I should, perhaps, have warned him not to repeat the remark in school? Everyone’s innocence is being corroded by the thought police.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Asian Peer in ‘Children for Benefits’ Row

Britain’s first female Asian peer sparked outrage today by claiming Pakistani and Bangladeshi families are having lots of children in order to claim extra benefit payments. Baroness Flather was branded “deeply irresponsible” and “out of touch” following her comments in the House of Lords. The 77-year-old crossbencher said: “The minority communities in this country, particularly the Pakistanis and the Bangladeshis, have a very large number of children and the attraction is the large number of benefits that follow the child.” Lady Flather admitted the claim was “politically incorrect” but added: “I think it is about time we stopped using children as a means of improving the amount of money we receive or getting a bigger house.”

Her comments caused dismay among community leaders. Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation which aims to promote understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims, said: “This is deeply irresponsible. As a prominent Asian woman she should know better but it shows how out-of-touch she is from our community. I would invite her to come and show me these families.”

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Ex-Tory Peer’s Pakistani/Bangladeshi Smear Ignores the Evidence

Former Tory peer Baroness Flather used the opportunity of the welfare reform bill’s second reading in the House of Lords to attack Pakistani and Bangladeshi families for having too many children.

Specifically, she lays the charge that they do so to claim more benefits.

The Daily Mail faithfully reports that she told the Lords:

“The minority communities in this country, particularly the Pakistanis and the Bangladeshis, have a very large number of children and the attraction is the large number of benefits that follow the child. “Nobody likes to accept that, nobody likes to talk about it because it is supposed to be very politically incorrect.”

According to the BBC, she went on to compare Pakistani and Bangladeshi families unfavourably with Indians and Jews:

“Indians have fallen into the pattern here. They do not have large families because they are like the Jews of old. They want their children to be educated.

“This is the other problem — there is no emphasis on education in the Pakistani and Bangladeshi families.”

Not only does this ‘slice ‘em and dice ‘em’ analysis leave a bad taste in the mouth, but it also only has a loose relationship with any actually evidence.

First, although birthrates are higher among Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities, they are not so much higher as to assert there is a general culture of very large families.

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Immigrants Have Children for Benefits, Says Baroness Flather

The UK’s first female Asian peer has used a debate in the Lords to criticise Pakistani and Bangladeshi families for having too many children. Baroness Flather suggested people in some minority communities had a large number of children in order to be able to claim more benefits. The peer, born in Lahore before the partition of India, said the issue did not apply to families of Indian origin. The cross-bencher said benefit cuts could help to discourage extra births.

Baroness Flather, speaking during a debate on the government’s welfare changes, said: “The minority communities in this country, particularly the Pakistanis and the Bangladeshis have a very large number of children and the attraction is the large number of benefits that follow the child. “Nobody likes to accept that, nobody likes to talk about it because it is supposed to be very politically incorrect.” The 67-year-old said that immigrant families must stop having lots of children “as a means of improving the amount of money they receive or getting a bigger house.”

Indians ‘different’

The former Tory peer also claimed Indian families had a different mentality to Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities in the UK. “Indians have fallen into the pattern here,” she told peers. “They do not have large families because they are like the Jews of old. They want their children to be educated. This is the other problem — there is no emphasis on education in the Pakistani and Bangladeshi families.” Baroness Flather called for a gradual reduction in benefits in order to discourage large families and suggested payments should be reduced after a couple’s first two children. She said: “I really feel that for the first two children there should be a full raft of benefits, for the third child three-quarters and for the fourth child a half.”

Baroness Flather’s comments were not well-received by Labour work and pensions spokesman Lord McKenzie. Concluding the argument for the opposition, he told the Lords: “I had not expected the treatise on the family sizes of the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities and hope I don’t again.” Welfare reform minister Lord Freud, replying to the debate, did not refer to Lady Flather’s comments. The Welfare Reform Bill is the biggest shake-up of the benefits system for 60 years. A universal payment to replace income-related work-based benefits, such as child tax credit, is planned, as are stricter rules for people losing their benefits if they refuse a job.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Migrants Have More Kids for Big Benefits

ASIAN parents breed big families to claim more benefits, says Britain’s first woman Asian peer. Baroness Flather called for child benefit to be capped after the second child to deter mega broods. And she accused politicians of sweeping the issue under the carpet for fear of appearing politically incorrect. The former barrister, 77, said: “The minority communities in this country, particularly the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, have a very large number of children and the attraction is the large number of benefits that follow the child. “Nobody likes to accept that, nobody likes to talk about it because it is supposed to be very politically incorrect. It is about time we stopped using children as a means of improving the amount of money they receive or getting a bigger house. I really feel that for the first two children there should be a full raft of benefits, for the third child three quarters and for the fourth child a half.” The baroness, born into a wealthy Indian family, was speaking during a debate on the Welfare Reform Bill which aims to cap benefits a family can receive at £26,000. She said in some countries parents relied on children in old age, but added: “This doesn’t apply here — every old person has a pension and will be looked after.”

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

General


Ancient Meteorite Showers Responsible for Earth’s Gold, Study Finds

Researchers say they have evidence that most of the gold floating around world markets and jewelry stores today was carried to Earth billions of years ago by meteorites, long after the planet’s formation.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Astrophile: The Most Surreal Sunset in the Universe

One of the most memorable scenes in the Star Wars series features Luke Skywalker on a dusty hill, watching a pair of suns set in tandem. Skywalker is standing on the fictional planet of Tatooine, but it turns out that similarly surreal sunsets are visible in reality — from the newly discovered exoplanet Kepler 16b, which orbits two stars. A word of caution for any Earthlings hoping to glimpse a double sunset though: you’d need to travel for 200 light years first, and once you got there, you wouldn’t be able to stand on the planet itself — it is gaseous.

At the heart of the newly discovered binary solar system, an orange star and a smaller red one orbit each other every 41 days, separated by about half the distance between Mercury and the sun. The orange dwarf and its red-dwarf partner have 69 and 20 per cent of the sun’s mass, respectively. The clues that the planet is there were picked up by NASA’s Kepler space telescope.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Planet Like ‘Star Wars’ Tatooine Discovered Orbiting 2 Suns

It’s a real-life Tatooine. A spectacle made popular by the “Star Wars” saga — a planet with two suns — has now been confirmed in space for the first time, astronomers revealed. Scientists using NASA’s Kepler space telescope captured details of a giant planet in orbit around the pair of binary stars that make up the Kepler-16 system, which is about 200 light-years away.

“This discovery is stunning,” said study co-author Alan Boss at the Carnegie Institute in Washington. “Once again, what used to be science fiction has turned into reality.” When Tatooine was depicted on film, many scientists doubted that such planets could really exist. Now there’s proof. “It’s possible that there’s a real Tatooine out there,” said John Knoll, visual effects supervisor at the special-effects firm Industrial Light and Magic, which was behind the “Star Wars” films. “Kepler 16b is unambiguous and dramatic proof that planets really do form around binaries.”

The new discovery is expanding the bounds of what scientists, as well as filmakers, can conceive, he said. “Again and again we see that the science is stranger and cooler than fiction,” Knoll said during a NASA press conference today. “The very existence of these discoveries gives us cause to dream bigger, to question our assumptions.” The planet, dubbed Kepler-16(AB)-b, passes in front of both stars in view of the satellite, regularly dimming their light. Each star also eclipses its companion as they orbit each other. Altogether, these motions allow scientists to precisely calculate the masses, radii and trajectories of all three bodies.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

News Feed 20110914

Financial Crisis
» Banks: 3 Trillion in Aid and Still Fragile
» Beijing as the Euro’s Savior: Europe and China Bound by Mutual Fears
» Britain Draws Up Survival Plans for Life After the Euro to Avoid Plunging Into Another Recession
» Cyprus: Russia to the Rescue With a 2.5 Bln Euro Loan
» Emerging Nations Crafting Plan to Come to Europe’s Aid
» ‘Europe in Danger’ Over Eurozone Crisis
» Europe’s Banks Are Staring Into the Abyss
» Eurozone Crisis Could Rip EU Apart: Officials
» Fitch Threatens to Lower Spanish Debt Rating Outlook
» Greeks Vow to Rebel Against New ‘Monster Tax’
» Italy: Chinese Visit for ‘Commercial Investment Not Bonds’
» Loose Talk on Greek Default Could ‘Cost Billions’
» More Poor People Now in USA Than 50 Years Ago
» Poland Warns of War ‘In 10 Years’ As EU Leaders Scramble to Contain Panic
» Spain: Uncertainty on Greece Weighing Economy Down, Zapatero
» The “Opportunities” And Risks of Beijing’s Purchase of Italian Debt
 
USA
» Frank Gaffney: A Tale of Two Obamas
» Jewish Arab Blogger ‘Cuffed, Questioned’ In 9/11 Flight Ordeal
» Koch: NY Race Proves Obama Can’t Take Jewish Vote for Granted
» Stamp Out Anti-Science in US Politics
» The Terrorist Next Door: American Muslims Face Growing Prejudice
» Woman Says That Arrest After 9/11 Flight Was Ethnic Profiling
 
Europe and the EU
» First Poll Since Norway Killings: Right-Wing Populists Face Test in Denmark
» Frankfurt Shooter Deep Into Jihad: Prosecutors
» Norway: WikiLeaks: Life in Norway for Jews
» Norway: After the Massacre: Anti-Semitism, Islam, And Norway
» Norway: After Utøya, Voters Elect Moderation
» Refugee From Muslim World Sees European Caliphate
» Sweden: 725 Euro Fine for Man Who “Abused” His Son
» UK Musicians Suspended Over Israel Proms Row
» UK: Anger in Lancashire That Forced Marriage Will Not be Criminalised
» UK: Hungry for Justice — EDL Leader Released
» UK: Our Best Tribute to 9/11 is to Keep Calm and Carry on
» Victims Group Asks Hague to Investigate Vatican
» WWII Reparations Case: ‘Germany Doesn’t Feel Obliged to Pay More’
 
Balkans
» Kosovo: Crisis in North, Serbs Set Up Roadblocks
 
North Africa
» Egypt: Al Aswany: Revolution Done, Now for Democracy
» Erdogan’s Call Irritates the Muslim Brotherhood
» Erdogan Attacks Israel in Cairo, Offers Himself as Leader of Arab World
» Libya: Press; Sarkozy-Cameron Mission to Tripoli Tomorrow
» Libya: Sarkozy-Cameron Duo to Steal Limelight From Erdogan
» Libya: Clashes Between Rebels at Tunisian Border, Press
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» Abbas: State Request to UN Irreversible Decision
» Nude Models on Dead Sea, Photography Project in Doubt
 
Middle East
» Erdogan Rallies Arab League Against Israel
» EU: Erdogan’s ‘Dangerous Macho Posturing’
» Russia Fearful of “Terrorists” Coming to Power in Syria
» Saudi Arabia: Prince Walid Denies Model Rape Allegations
» The Christians of the Near East and Islamist Ideology
» Turkey’s Erdogan Struts the Arab Street
 
South Asia
» Afghanistan: Taliban Blitz Rocks Kabul
» NCJP Report Highlights Violence and Abuses Against Pakistan’s Minorities
 
Immigration
» 31 Afghans Picked Up After Landing in Salento Area
 
Culture Wars
» Australia: Breakfast Bans Would Make Monkeys Out of Mums
» Sweden: Slap Gets Father Child Abuse Record
 
General
» Eco-Loon Science: 24 Hours of ManBearPig Day
» Super-Earth Discovered in a Habitable Zone

Financial Crisis


Banks: 3 Trillion in Aid and Still Fragile

Le Figaro, 12 September 2011

“Euro crisis: banks under pressure,” headlines French daily Le Figaro. The idea of a Greek default being no longer taboo, “the Old Continent’s banks are under tremendous pressure on stock markets,” the paper says. Three French banks, BNP Paribas, Société Générale and Crédit Agricole are on the front line with holdings of about €37 billion of Italian public debt and holdings of nearly €6 billion of Greek public debt. Although Moody’s rating agency could downgrade their credit rating this week, “the question of whether the European banks holding State bonds from fragile Eurozone members are sufficiently capitalised is widely debated,” Le Figaro notes. As is whether or not the Member States should fly to their rescue.

But as Spanish daily Público says in a headline, three years after the failure of Lehman Brothers, “saving the banks has already cost €2,000 billion” in direct State aid, to which must be added the €3,000 billion (of which €500 billion by the European Central Bank) injected by central banks to add liquidity to the international financing system. “The current relapse proves that the government support given to the banks didn’t reactivate the economy,” the paper says, adding “What’s the use of saving the global banking system to the detriment of the taxpayer’s money?”

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Beijing as the Euro’s Savior: Europe and China Bound by Mutual Fears

While a hard-up America can only admonish those involved in the euro crisis, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is offering to be the savior. Beijing’s price: more political credit and economic power. The EU must not be intimidated, however — its bargaining position is better than it may seem at first.

A few years ago, critics from the United States and Europe gave their trading partner China a less-than-favorable name: In an insulting bit of latent racism, they dubbed the emerging superpower a “yellow peril.” They warned of an army of Chinese minimum wage laborers, who would destroy entire industries in the West — and with them millions of jobs. They also warned of growing political influence from the East, which could ultimately even lead to an erosion of human rights.

In recent months, the critics have gone quiet — because they have far more important problems to worry about. Problems with many zeros on the end. At around $15.2 trillion (€11.1 trillion), the US government’s debt at the end of 2012 could be as high as the amount of money the country generates in a year.

In Europe, the debt prognosis is hardly any better. Italy: €1.9 trillion (approximately 120 percent of annual economic output); Greece: €472 billion (150 percent). The debt clocks of America and the euro countries are ticking relentlessly, and the slogan “Money rules the world” is being given a new meaning. In record time, it seems the current global balance of power is shifting — in favor of China.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Britain Draws Up Survival Plans for Life After the Euro to Avoid Plunging Into Another Recession

Economists believe the EU would be unlikely to survive a disorderly break-up of the euro and say that even stronger economies could contract by as much as 25 per cent in the aftermath.

Amid a mounting sense of inevitability that Greece will default on its massive debts and be forced to leave the single currency, the U.S. urged EU governments to use ‘overwhelming force’ to address the debt crisis.

U.S. treasury secretary Tim Geithner, who will take the unusual step of attending a meeting of EU finance ministers in Poland tomorrow, admitted Washington had been ‘behind the curve’ in tackling its own financial crisis but urged Europe to act decisively.

Yesterday ratings agency Moody’s downgraded the credit ratings of two of France’s largest banks, Societe Generale and Credit Agricole, because of their exposure to Greek debt causing panic on French stock markets.

The ratings agency left France’s largest bank, BNP Paribas, on review, saying its profitability and capital base gave it an adequate cushion to support its Greek, Portuguese and Irish exposure.

Last night, following emergency video-conference talks between France, Germany and Greece, the country’s three leaders insisted they were certain Greece’s future remained inside the eurozone.

But even the most die-hard pro-Europeans appear to accept that the eurozone is in terminal trouble.

Former Liberal Democrat leader Lord Ashdown, a long-time supporter of the single currency, asked in an interview with The Spectator whether he thought the euro could survive in its current form, replied: ‘No, I don’t.’

‘The most likely outcome is probably a core euro, a euro that has Germany, Austria, Finland and the Benelux countries in it — you’d have to have France in there for political reasons, even though economically they wouldn’t come up to the mark precisely — and maybe Sweden.

Martin Callanan, Conservative leader in Brussels, said: ‘The thing is in absolute crisis. Everybody is panicking over here.

‘And it seems to me the least worst option is to accept the inevitable for Greece to default on its debt, leave the euro and devalue its currency and then give it space to restructure’.

But he warned that Britain could be caught in the fallout as the eurozone collapses.

Andrew Lilico, chief economist at analysts Europe Economics, said the collapse of the euro would almost certainly mean the end of the EU.

‘The EU is most unlikely to continue without the euro,’ he said. ‘Sudden and disorderly collapse of the EU would induce a massive further phase of recession.’

He referred to predictions by the Swiss bank UBS of a 20-25 per cent contraction in gross domestic product for strong countries and 50 per cent for weak countries.

‘I happen to think that the UBS figures are somewhat emotional,’ he said. ‘But it would certainly involve a recession on a scale beyond modern experience or comprehension in a Western democracy.’

In an extraordinary sign of alarm across the globe, five big developing countries said they were ready to discuss bailing out Europe.

The leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — the ‘BRICS’ countries — are to meet at the annual World Bank and International Monetary Fund summit next week to talk about providing emergency assistance.

The head of the World Bank said the global economy had entered a new ‘danger zone’ and that the ‘time for muddling through’ was over.

Robert Zoellick said: ‘Unless Europe, Japan, and the United States can face up to responsibilities they will drag down not only themselves but the global economy. They have procrastinated for too long on taking the difficult decisions, narrowing what choices are now left to a painful few.’

Treasury sources believe that Germany is now resigned to the eurozone breaking down in its current form and a new European ‘inner core’ being created. There is an increasing expectation that this will mean a new EU treaty.

Downing Street confirmed that officials were working on ‘contingency plans’ aimed at trying to insulate Britain from a full-blown crisis in the eurozone, but refused to speculate about what form they would take.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, in a speech on the economy, warned: ‘The economic context is much worse than before. Yes, facts have changed.’

Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls warned of the danger of a ‘massive economic catastrophe’ on a larger scale than the banking crash in 2008.

‘The issue now isn’t really Greece, it is what is happening in Spain and in particular Italy,’ he said.

Polish finance minister Jacek Rostowski, who will chair a meeting of EU finance bosses tomorrow, said the EU could be destroyed by the debt crisis.

But the president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, insisted that the answer to the growing threat to the euro was a more, and not less, integrated EU.

           — Hat tip: Gaia [Return to headlines]



Cyprus: Russia to the Rescue With a 2.5 Bln Euro Loan

(ANSAmed) — NICOSIA, SEPTEMBER 14 — Russia is in the process of negotiations on a loan for cash-strapped Cyprus, daily Financial Mirror writes quoting Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin as saying to Interfax news agency. However, he did not say what sum is to be lent, even though previous reports said the Cyprus government was in talks for a 2-2.5 bln euro five-year loan either from or set up through the Russian government to refinance maturing debt and plug a deficit hole. Cyprus has around 1 bln euros in debt maturing in early 2012. Russia, one of the world’s top forex reserves holders, is among several countries that are likely to become lenders to Cyprus, but it is not holding bilateral talks about financial aid to any other euro zone country. Dailies Politis and Phileleftheros cited government sources as saying consultations were underway with Moscow but nothing had been finalised. Phileleftheros said the two sides were very close to a deal. Yields on Cypriot bonds on secondary markets have surged in recent months after repeated downgrades of the euro zone minnow by ratings agencies concerned over fiscal slippage, and exposure of the island’s banking sector to Greece. Current high yields have fanned speculation that the island could be a candidate for an EU bailout because its borrowing options seem limited. Politis said the interest rate on the loan, which would be for up to 5 years, would be 4.5%.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Emerging Nations Crafting Plan to Come to Europe’s Aid

In a stunning reversal of fortune, it has emerged that the so-called Brics nations, the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — who almost alone in the global economy have weathered the financial crisis sitting atop huge international reserves — are planning to come to Europe’s aid. Brazilian finance minister Guido Mantega on Tuesday said that the Brics states are to hold a meeting on 22 September to discuss co-ordination of an EU rescue plan. “We will meet next week in Washington to decide how to help the European Union to get out of this situation,” he said.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



‘Europe in Danger’ Over Eurozone Crisis

EU leaders issued dire warnings on Wednesday that the 60-year-old European Union could be torn apart by the eurozone debt crisis, as the risk of Greece defaulting grows. Polish Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said that the bloc which now counts 27 member states could be destroyed by the debt crisis dragging down the currency area. “Europe is in danger,” Rostowski told the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. “If the eurozone breaks up, the European Union will not be able to survive, with all the consequences that one can imagine.” European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso agreed with the Polish minister.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Europe’s Banks Are Staring Into the Abyss

Where now for European banks? Sir Howard Davies, former chairman of Britain’s Financial Services Authority, said on BBC Radio’s Today programme on Tuesday morning that he thought the French government was only days away from having to recapitalise the country’s banking system for a second time. It’s hard to disagree. The panic seems to have been temporarily stemmed by a statement from BNP Paribas to the effect that it wasn’t having the problems widely reported of finding dollar funding. There was also an emphatic denial of discussions over state intervention. But no-one is kidding themselves. Italy had to pay the highest spread since joining the euro to sell its bonds on Tuesday. There are growing fears over whether Europe’s largest borrower can stay the course.

The eurozone sovereign debt crisis is meanwhile exacting a devastating toll on the European banking system as a whole, the UK included. With their high exposure to eurozone debt, the problem is particularly acute for the French banking goliaths, BNP Paribas and Societe Generale. BNP alone has a eurozone sovereign debt exposure of some €75bn, amounting to roughly 6pc of total assets, including €14bn of Greek debt and €21bn of Italian government bonds. And that’s just BNP. The other two major French banks, SocGen and Credit Agricole each have exposures of a similar order of magnitude. Collectively, French banks have €56bn of Greek sovereign bonds alone. They’ve so far only written down this Greek debt by around 20pc, or in line with the restructuring agreed at the time of the last bailout.

That’s nowhere near mark to market. In the increasingly likely event of Germany kicking the Greeks out of the eurozone altogether, Greek debt will become close to worthless. Greece is already effectively a cash only economy. Most forms of credit has effectively dried up, the Greek banking system is finished, and capital controls to prevent what little money that remains from leaving the country are surely only a matter of time. European banking must prepare for the worst as far as Greece is concerned. As for the remainder of the eurozone sovereign exposure, there’s been no write down at all among banks on these bonds. If there’s a wider problem of default, the bad debt recognition has yet to come.

How come European banks have got so much of the stuff? Well ironically, this is one lending decision gone wrong that the banks cannot be blamed for. In response to the original banking crisis, regulators ordered banks substantially to increase their liquidity buffers. Government bonds are generally viewed as the most liquid and least risky assets to hold, so that’s where the money went. That these regulatory obligations also helped governments fund their ever growing deficits is by the by. In any case, nowhere is the law of unintended consequences more in evidence than in financial regulation. By seeking to address the last crisis with greater liquidity buffers, regulators succeeded only in sowing the seeds for the next one. A banking crisis that transmogrified into a sovereign debt crisis now shows every sign of transmogrifying back into another banking crisis.

Much of the selling pressure on European banks has come from the US. American investors and lenders look at Europe and see a Continent apparently incapable of gripping its problems. With the debt crisis approaching some kind of self evident denouement, there’s no-one in charge, only denial and blame. Policymakers seem more concerned with the irrelevancies of moral hazard than on finding solutions. If it wasn’t so tragic, it would be laughable. Europe is fiddling while Rome burns.

When the banking crisis first broke, Europeans tended to regard it as wholly an Anglo-Saxon problem. There was some recapitalisation of French and German banks that went on in late 2008, early 2009, but it wasn’t nearly as big as in the UK and the US, and within a year, the French banks had in any case largely repaid all their state support. Problem over, it was thought. The same refusal to face up to underlying solvency concerns continues to dominate Contintental attitudes to the crisis. There is a collective sense of denial. BNP for one insists that it is in nothing like the same poor shape as many UK and US banks back in 2008. Profits are still buoyant, delinquency subdued, and capital more than adequate, BNP insists. Unfortunately, that’s not what the markets are saying.

Record quantities of European term funding are set to mature in the first quarter of next year. It’s not clear that the European Central Bank can cope with the sort of liquidity support that banks will require if markets refuse to refinance it. Europe’s financial and monetary system is falling apart. Since French banks are widely thought of as essentially arms of the French state, is there actually any point in recapitalising them? In France, the public subsidy issue which has so exercised the Vickers Commission on banking in the UK is taken for granted. Banks are understood to be underwritten by the state, and therefore require less capital and can hand the benefits of cheaper funding onto to their customers. Why not then just make this implicit support explicit?

You only need to take one look at what happened to Ireland to see why. In the early days of the crisis, the Irish government promised to stand behind all banking liabilities. By doing so, it ended up pushing the entire country into bankruptcy. No. France and Germany need to recapitalise their banks. The sooner they do so, the sooner the wider programme of debt forgiveness necessary to set the European economy back on a sustainable footing can begin.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Eurozone Crisis Could Rip EU Apart: Officials

AFP — The eurozone crisis could wreck the European Union, top EU officials warned on Wednesday as the leaders of Germany and France held talks with Greece to avoid a default and widespread chaos.

The pressure rose on all fronts with United States again expressing great concern, with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner saying European states “now recognise they are going to have to do more” to resolve to the crisis.

Highlighting the threat to the global economy, Geithner is to exceptionally attend talks between European Union finance ministers and central bankers in Poland on Friday.

           — Hat tip: KGS [Return to headlines]



Fitch Threatens to Lower Spanish Debt Rating Outlook

(ANSAmed) — MADRID — Fitch Sovereign Credit Rating Director Douglas Renwick maintains that Fitch rating agency threatens to lower the rating outlook of the Spanish debt again, due to economic slow-down and failure by autonomous communities to meet the deficit targets. Bloomberg news agency reports. The future credit’s rating is “clearly expected to be on the downside”, Renwick stated. “The regional deficit performance adds to pressure on the central government to make the needed cuts “ Renwick added. In the first semester, the autonomous communities’ deficit amounted to 1,2% of the GDP, nearly reaching the maximum 1,3% limit set for the entire 2011. Currently, Fitch rates Spain AA+, although with a negative outlook due to weak economic growth, possible failure to meet deficit targets and increased use of public funds to rescue the bank sector. This could trigger further decrease of credit rating outlook.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Greeks Vow to Rebel Against New ‘Monster Tax’

The Greek government’s new real estate tax, a desperate bid to meet its budget goals and secure fresh foreign aid, will hit the population hard. Greeks have almost their entire wealth invested in property — and are more worried about the tax than about the prospect of a national insolvency or leaving the euro.

Jannis Foteinos doesn’t look especially wealthy. The 57-year-old pensioner is wearing sandals and socks and ordinary-looking glasses, and he doesn’t have that many teeth left. He lives in the working class Athens district of Aigaleo. But he owns two apartments, one 100 square meters in size, the other 130, and he is outraged at the new real estate tax introduced by the embattled Greek government on Sunday.

“We might as well shoot ourselves,” he said. The government aims to collect €2 billion ($2.72 billion) in extra revenue by imposing a tax averaging €4 per square meter for two years in a desperate bid to stave off insolvency by meeting its budget goals and thereby qualifying for the payout of further aid from the euro zone and International Monetary Fund.

For people like Foteinos, the tax entails another financial burden they can ill afford. The former shop owner recently had his monthly pension cut by €200. Now he could face a tax bill of some €1,000 in the coming days. Given that prospect, he doesn’t really care that politicians from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition have started talking openly about the possibility that Greece will go bankrupt or even have to leave the euro zone.

In fact, he wouldn’t mind getting the drachma back. “Everyone here has had bad experiences with the euro,” he said. That may be a little exaggerated. But for many Greeks, the real estate tax poses a bigger problem than the currency. “I can’t judge whether the drachma would be better or worse,” says Irida Thanopolous, 40, who runs a small street café nearby. She is a little embarrassed to admit that she owns six apartments. She bought one with her husband, the other five were part of her dowry. That amounts to almost 500 square meters which will now be liable to tax. “That is totally tragicomic,” she said.

Many Investments in Property

Thanopolous doesn’t just have six apartments. She also has three jobs. She and her husband run a clothing store next to the café, and she spends her weekends typing up documents for a law firm. Together with the rental income, she has a net monthly income of €4,000. That isn’t much for a family with two teenage children, says Thanopolous. The apartments are meant to secure their standard of living.

Many Greeks did the same as Thanopolous. Because the drachma wasn’t a hard currency, they invested their savings in property. Some 85 percent of the people’s wealth is invested in houses and apartments. That explains the outraged response to the surprise tax. “Monster Tax,” left-wing newspaper Eleftherotypia screamed in a headline, while conservative Eleftehros Typos commented: “The citizens will go bankrupt.”

The country’s well-oiled protest machine has already been fired up. The influential Federation of Real Estate Owners said it would only accept the tax if no other extra contributions were levied. The trade union of state energy utility DEI, which is to collect the tax and switch off the power supply to owners who refuse to pay up, said it would block the process by refusing to issue electricity bills. The threat is credible because virtually all DEI employees are union members…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Italy: Chinese Visit for ‘Commercial Investment Not Bonds’

Tremonti and Bank of Italy met Chinese fund officials

(ANSA) — Rome, September 13 — A delegation from China’s largest sovereign fund came to Italy to evaluate commercial investments not purchase government bonds, sources have told ANSA.

Representatives from the China Investment Corporation met Italian Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti, Infrastructure Minister Altero Matteoli and other ministers as well as officials from the Bank of Italy in Rome on September 6.

The delegation is reported to have been led by Lou Jiwei, the head of CIC.

Speculation about whether the Chinese government would buy Italian bonds emerged on Tuesday as yields on Italian five-year bonds reached their highest level since the introduction of the euro a decade ago.

On Monday the Financial Times newspaper reported that Italy had asked China to make “significant” purchases of Italian debt.

Spreads on five-year bonds were at 447 points late morning, while the spread between the 10-year Italian bond against the German bund rose to 440 points in early trading, before dropping back to 397.3 points later in afternoon trading. It was the first time that the 10-year spread against the German bund had risen above 400 basis points since the beginning of August.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Loose Talk on Greek Default Could ‘Cost Billions’

Members of Angela Merkel’s government have been openly discussing the possibility of a Greek bankruptcy, a debate the chancellor sought to quash on Tuesday. The statements made by her junior coalition partners have unsettled markets and could “cost billions,” German commentators warn.

Against the background of increased pressure from the United States for a more resolute approach to the euro debt crisis, German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday moved to crush speculation within her government about a possible Greek default.

The future of Europe is tied to the common currency, Merkel told the Berlin public radio station RBB. “For that reason everyone needs to weigh their words very carefully,” she said. “What we don’t need is disquiet on the financial markets. The uncertainties are already great enough.”

Her comments were viewed as an indirect jab at Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Philipp Rösler, who distanced himself from the government over the weekend with a newspaper commentary. In the piece for the conservative daily Die Welt, the leader of her junior coalition party, the increasingly unpopular pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), said “there can no longer be any taboos” in the debate over the euro crisis, including, if necessary, “an orderly bankruptcy of Greece, if the required instruments are available.”

Merkels comments also appeared to be aimed at Bavarian Governor Horst Seehofer, who is the leader of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the sister party to the chancellor’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Seehofer has raised the possibility of a Greek exit from the euro zone in recent days.

Merkel’s attempt to silence grumbling over Greece within her coalition came ahead of a Tuesday meeting with Finnish Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen. Helsinki has demanded extra guarantees from Greece in exchange for its approval of a second bailout package, but Berlin rejects special rules that would create an additional burden for other euro-zone nations.

Pressure From Obama

With the next meeting of European finance ministers set for Friday in the Polish city of Wroclaw, US President Barack Obama urged EU leaders to prove their commitment to resolving the issue in an interview with Spanish journalists published on Tuesday.

“It is difficult to coordinate and agree on a common path when you have so many countries with different policies and economic situations,” Obama said, according to daily El Mundo’s website. “In the end, the big countries in Europe, the leaders in Europe must meet and take a decision on how to coordinate monetary integration with more effective coordinated fiscal policy,” he said, according to news agency EFE.

Concern about the global effects of the euro crisis is so great in the US that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will also attend the EU finance ministers’ meeting on Friday — an unprecedented move on his part. Obama also pointed to the looming dangers posed by Spain and Italy. Rome inspired fresh alarm on Tuesday with a sharp rise in interest rates on government bonds floated in an auction that day. Even a report in the Financial Times saying that Italy had asked China to purchase billions worth of its government bonds failed to ease fears about massive public debt in the country.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who was also scheduled to meet with European Commission President José Manuel Barroso on Tuesday afternoon, pledged that new austerity measures would be approved in Rome the next day. Meanwhile, market turmoil continued on Tuesday thanks to myriad uncertainties across the euro zone that also included fresh concerns about the stability of banks in France.

On Tuesday, German commentators set their sights on Greek default speculation among their own politicians, with some lamenting what they see as a dangerous indiscretion…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



More Poor People Now in USA Than 50 Years Ago

(AGI) Washington — There are more poor people in the USA than ever before in the past 50 years with recent surveys putting the figure at 45 million at the end of 2010. Poverty levels have risen for the third year in a row to 15.1% due to the recession between December 2007 and June 2009. Estimates drafted by the US Survey Office show a 0.8% rise in the number of the poor between 2009 (43.6 million) and 2010 .

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Poland Warns of War ‘In 10 Years’ As EU Leaders Scramble to Contain Panic

Germany, France and the European Commission are scrambling to contain panic and “quash rumours” about a eurozone break-up amid repeated off-piste messages from other senior EU politicians. But even amid their desperate efforts, the finance minister of Poland, the country that currently represents the EU to the world as holder of the bloc’s rotating presidency, warned of war on the continent within 10 years if the eurozone collapses.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Spain: Uncertainty on Greece Weighing Economy Down, Zapatero

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, SEPTEMBER 14 — Spain’s economy will grow by two tenths of a point in the third quarter of the year compared with the same period in2010, a rate similar to the one seen in the second quarter. This was said today to the Spanish Congress by Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in the penultimate government monitoring session before the dissolving of the Chambers for early elections on November 20. However, Zapatero said that confirmation of growth estimates of 1.3% for all of 2011 made by the government would depend on the evolution of financial tensions caused by uncertainty on the situation in Greece. “As of today the approximations we can made is that a slight recovery will be seen, and the final growth figure on an annual basis will depend on the circumstances as concerns financial tension and the economic and confidence outlook,” the prime minister said. Confidence which currently “goes well beyond Spain’s borders,” he added.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



The “Opportunities” And Risks of Beijing’s Purchase of Italian Debt

Two economists talk about a report in the Financial Times to that effect. “It’s nothing new. China has been looking at our market for some times,” says one. “It is a warning to the UCB. If it buys our debt, someone else will be the big player,” says d’Orlando.

Rome (AsiaNews) — China’s purchase of Italian public debt “is nothing new. It should not cause any alarm. Beijing has been buying Italian bonds for quite some time,” an Italian economist told AsiaNews. “Of course, if it should turn out that it holds 4 per cent of Italian debt that would be news, good news that is,” he added. The economist entertains cordial relations with Beijing and Chinese businessmen.

According to the Financial Times, China holds about 4 per cent of Italy’s € 1.9 trillion debt (US$ 2.6 trillion). Citing Italian sources, the newspaper said that the recent visit by “Lou Jiwei, chairman of China Investment Corp, one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds” was a sign of China’s interest in Italian bonds.

In his visit to Italy (which follows a visit to Beijing by the head of Italy’s treasury, Vittorio Grilli), Lou held talks with Italian Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti and representatives of the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (Deposit and Loans Bank), during which Tremonti negotiated the mass purchase of Italy’s public debt even though he expressed reluctance for what he once described as “reverse colonisation”.

“To talk about colonisation in today’s world and with the existing international financial system is absurd,” an economist told AsiaNews. “Tremonti knows it and perhaps sought a valid alternative to the usual buyers. The collapse of the eurozone or the default of some European nations would be hard blow to Beijing. An ‘international governance’ espoused by some governments would be even worse. This is why the purchase is going ahead.”

According to Maurizio d’Orlando, an economist and economic commentator for AsiaNews, “this is not surprising. What the Italian government wants is simple but misconceived. By leaking the information, Italy has for all intents and purposes let the European Central Bank know that it wants Europe to buy Italian public debt. If the ECB does, Italy then would have more buyers lined up; in this case, China.”

Beijing “is trying to do with Europe what it has done with the United States,” d’Orlando explained. “Since it cannot move away from an export-driven economy, and continues to hold the yuan below its real value, it must prop up export markets for its own goods. So far, the Old Continent has defended itself with import rules and non-tariff barriers, like quality requirement on imported goods”.

“What China is doing is something else,” d’Orlando noted. “It wants to turn the euro into an international reserve currency to counter the dollar. However, this is a dangerous policy, for Europe as well. It could increase the EU’s trade deficit with China, which until recently, was not very big. This can be inferred from the fact that the Chinese exchange rate is lower than the rate that the one based on the purchasing power parity, which is to the advantage of Chinese exporters.”

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

USA


Frank Gaffney: A Tale of Two Obamas

Barack Obama was even more prominently featured in the news on Sunday than is usual for a President of the United States, what with his four appearances that day in 9/11-related events. These opportunities afforded him the chance to appear dignified, non-partisan and, well, presidential. A more illuminating sense of the man and his presidency, however, was provided by a curiously bipolar treatment of Mr. Obama in that day’s Washington Post. Call it a tale of two Obamas.

On the one hand, columnist Dana Milbank scathingly described what he called “President Irrelevant.” Milbank not only chronicles the jaded response of many Republicans to Mr. Obama’s pitch for his new jobs bill. He also describes the unconcealed lack of enthusiasm congressional Democrats are now exhibiting for the leader of their party…

           — Hat tip: CSP [Return to headlines]



Jewish Arab Blogger ‘Cuffed, Questioned’ In 9/11 Flight Ordeal

A half-Jewish half-Arab blogger has complained of being handcuffed and locked up after she raised the suspicions of security during a flight from Denver to Detroit on the anniversary of September 11. Shoshana Hebshi, who has a Saudi Arabian father and a Jewish mother, was one of three passengers detained and held in custody for several hours after they appeared to be spending too long in the plane toilets. Airline staff raised the alert and two F-16 jets were sent to follow the flight until it landed, at which point three passengers were taken away for questioning.

Ms Hebshi, who is married with a child, said she thought flying on 9/11 would be easy because people would avoid flying and so queues would be short. But she said that when she saw “what looked like the bomb squad” arrive before the flight departed she started to rethink her decision. “Before I knew it, about ten cops, some in what looked like military fatigues, were running toward the plane carrying the biggest machine guns I have ever seen,” she claimed in a blog post about the experience. [One] slapped metal cuffs on my wrists and pushed me off the plane. The three of us, two Indian men living in the Detroit metro area, and me, a half-Arab, half-Jewish housewife living in suburban Ohio, were being detained.”

According to her account Ms Hebshi was then strip-searched, placed in a cell for several hours and a background check was done. Finally, all three were released and an FBI agent “apologised for what had happened and thanked me for understanding and cooperating”. “I feel violated, humiliated and sure that I was taken from the plane simply because of my appearance,” she wrote. “I believe in national security, but I also believe in peace and justice.” A spokesman for the Detroit branch of the FBI said they were erring on the side of caution due to the date.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Koch: NY Race Proves Obama Can’t Take Jewish Vote for Granted

The stunning Republican victory in New York’s special election Tuesday should make President Barack Obama realize that Democrats no longer can rely on the Jewish vote, former New York City Mayor Ed Koch tells Newsmax.

[…]

Obama “should make it clear to both Turkey and Egypt that, if you engage in a war against Israel, you are engaging the United States,” Koch said.

[…]

The 9th District, one of the most solidly blue in the country, spans parts of the New York boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens. It has a large number of Orthodox Jewish voters who heeded Koch¹s call to vote for the Roman Catholic Turner against the Jewish Weprin.

[…]

“We should never forget that there are more Christian supporters of Israel in this country than Jewish supporters. We are a small number, but fortunately for us we live in the right states, Florida being one of them.”

           — Hat tip: Egghead [Return to headlines]



Stamp Out Anti-Science in US Politics

On climate change: variations are “natural, cyclical environmental trends”. That “we can’t say with assurance that human activities cause weather changes” and that climate problems in Texas are best solved through “days of prayer for rain”.

You would probably be even more disturbed to be told that these are the opinions expressed by potential Republican candidates for the US presidential nomination. It’s alarming that a country which leads the world in science — the home of Benjamin Franklin, Richard Feynman and Jim Watson — might be turning its back on science. How can this be happening? What can be done?

We have to hope that the people of the US will see through some of the nonsense being foisted on them by vocal minorities. It is time to reject political movements that reject science and take us back into the dark rather than forward into a more enlightened future.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



The Terrorist Next Door: American Muslims Face Growing Prejudice

Ten years after the 9/11 attacks, America’s Muslims have become the country’s internal enemy. Conservative forces have seized upon the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” as a rallying point. Amid all the hate, Americans have lost sight of the real problem: the fact that their country has become paranoid.

Even on hot summer days in Virginia, Brigitte Gabriel receives visitors looking as if she were dressed for the opera. She has her hair teased up, copious amounts of pearls adorning her neck and arms, and her feet clad in rhinestone-studded sandals. This is her uniform in the war against what she sees as the barbarians of radical Islam. On three occasions, Gabriel has been the subject of declarations by al-Qaida, she says, and her name is probably on various death lists. Indeed, Gabriel, who emigrated to the US years ago from Lebanon, is America’s siren on all things Islamophobic, and her speeches are one indication of how the country may have changed since the attacks of September 11.

Gabriel’s position can be summarized as follows: The US is suffering from terminal cancer and is infected with rampant Islamist cells that are eating away at the country, its liberties and its constitution. “Our enemy,” writes Gabriel, “is not an organization of people living overseas plotting to attack. Our enemies are the neighbors next door, the doctors practicing in our hospitals, and the workers who share our lunch break. Our enemies are terrorists driven by a dangerous ideology and clothed in deception who operate under cover and laugh about the advantages our sensitivity training, gullibility, and political correctness give them.”

Some 300,000 copies of Gabriel’s first book, which contains these sentences, have been distributed. TV stations now set aside ample airtime for her and her ideas. She has been invited to give presentations to US Senate committees, the FBI, the US Special Operations Command, the Joint Forces Staff College, the Republican Party, the Tea Party movement and Christian conferences. Brigitte Gabriel, who pronounces her name as if it were French, is an idol in the conservative half of America’s deeply divided society — but remains a reviled figure in the other half.

On the Death Lists

Speaking face-to-face, she seems much nicer than the woman who she is on TV, where her interviews often sound like fanatical yapping. The interview with SPIEGEL took place in a palatial home on the Atlantic coast, with windows that look out over a finely manicured lawn.

She is staying here with friends, she says, but it feels as if she has invited us into her own home. The living room matches her style, with cathedral ceilings and expensive furniture made of chrome and leather, but the question of where she lives remains open. Her whereabouts have to be kept secret, she says, because of al-Qaida — and the death lists. A man with a revolver is standing guard at the door.

By way of introduction, Gabriel recounts the story of her childhood. It is the story of a Christian family that survived the mayhem of civil war in Lebanon. She talks about the ordeal of a young woman who watched helplessly as her home fell into the clutches of Muslim fanatics. She recounts how Lebanon, which once had a Christian majority, became a Muslim country. Her point is that the same thing cannot be allowed to happen to America.

Gabriel contends that until Sept. 11, 2001 she was an apolitical woman who wanted to enjoy life. But the attacks of that day reopened old wounds, she says. “I was sitting here,” she recalls, as her eyes turn a steely gray, “in America, 8,000 miles away, 20 years later, and I had to answer the same question from my own children that I had asked my father: Why are they doing this to us?” Her father’s answer, slightly modified, became the title of her first book: “Because They Hate.”

She founded the organization ACT! for America, which was initially called the American Congress for Truth. Today, she says, it boasts 170,000 members across the country: “We are the largest grassroots movement for national security.” Local groups are encouraged to take action against overly politically correct teachers, excessively tolerant members of Congress and local newspapers that publish “derogatory” articles about the US or Israel. ACT! for America, says Gabriel, is a rallying point for “people who are fighting to save America.”…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Woman Says That Arrest After 9/11 Flight Was Ethnic Profiling

A suburban Toledo woman who is half-Jewish and half-Arab says that she and two Indian Americans were detained Sunday by armed officers on an airplane at Detroit Metro Airport and then jailed and strip-searched — an incident that civil rights leaders say was one of many cases of law enforcement targeting minorities on the 10th anniversary of 9/11. But federal officials say they were told that some passengers on board were acting suspiciously, and responded accordingly. After landing in Detroit, the Ohio woman, Shoshana Hebshi, wrote on a blog that has received national attention that she and the men were handcuffed, jailed, strip-searched and interrogated because of their ethnicities.

“They … needed to make sure all my orifices were free and clear,” Hebshi wrote. And she said an FBI agent told her there were “50 other similar incidents across the country that day,” raising questions about whether law enforcement targeted certain groups on Sept. 11 because of their appearance. FBI Special Agent in Charge of Detroit Andy Arena told the Free Press that the FBI did interview the woman and the men, but said: “We treated her well.” “The FBI did not arrest anybody or direct anyone to be arrested,” Arena said Tuesday. After determining “there was no criminal or terrorist activity … they were released.”Arena said there were other reports of suspicious activity across the U.S. on Sept 11; he added that the FBI does not profile.

The suspicious activity prompted authorities to scramble F16 jets to tail the plane while it was in the air. Upon landing, it was ordered to a remote area. Then, “all of a sudden, a SWAT team went through … saying, ‘Please place your hands on the seat in front of you,’ “ passenger Belinda Duggan of Troy told the Associated Press. In an e-mail to AP, Wayne County Airport Authority spokesman Scott Wintner said airport police “responded appropriately by following protocol and treating everyone involved with respect and dignity.”

Hebshi said that, finally, after being fingerprinted and allowed to call her husband, she was told she and the men were being released and that nothing suspicious was found on the plane. She said an official apologized and thanked her for understanding and cooperating. Hebshi said she received another call of apology from an FBI agent Monday, before she wrote her blog post. “I can understand they were just doing their job,” she told the news service. “My beef is with these laws and regulations that are so hypersensitive. … Even if you’re an innocent bystander, you have no rights.”

The anniversary of Sept. 11 brought a renewed focus on terrorism, a focus that ended up scapegoating some innocent people, say Muslim leaders. On Twitter and blogs, many expressed concern about the way Hebshi and the men were treated. The incident came after a decade in which Arab Americans, Muslims and South Asians say they’ve been increasingly harassed and humiliated by law enforcement. A spokesman for Frontier Airlines, Peter Kowalchuk, did not comment about whether the three passengers were singled out for their ethnic appearance, saying Frontier was “following security protocols and in response to concerns expressed by passengers on the aircraft and our flight attendants” about “the suspicious activity of two gentlemen.” He did not explain what the suspicious activity was. A spokesman for Wayne County Airport Police, who helped detain the three passengers, did not return calls seeking comment.

Hebshi is a freelance writer, editor and stay-at-home mother of twin six-year-old boys who lives in a Toledo suburb. She said in the blog that she and two men she happened to be seated next to were detained and jailed without explanation. “Armed officers stormed my plane, threw me in handcuffs and locked me up,” she wrote, saying that what happened to her was an example of how “in the name of patriotism we lost a lot of our liberty, especially those who look like me.”

Civil rights advocates say the incident — and others like it across the U.S. on Sept 11 — indicate that federal law enforcement might have profiled and questioned minorities on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. “It’s obvious that the FBI detained and questioned so-called suspicious-looking persons due to the anniversary of 9/11,” said Dawud Walid, head of the state branch of the Council of American-Islamic Relations. “More than 300 people were questioned by the FBI over an ‘unconfirmed’ threat that there would be an attack on the anniversary. Of course, all were cleared. The search of that innocent woman, who is half Arab, and her Indian travel companions was a case of flying while ethnic-looking on 9/11.”

Hebshi, who describes herself as a “dark-skinned woman of Arab/Jewish heritage,” said: “I feel violated, humiliated and sure that I was taken from the plane simply because of my appearance.” She added: “I was forced into a situation where I was stripped of my freedom and liberty that so many of my fellow Americans purport are the foundations of this country and should be protected at any cost.” Hebshi posted her essay on a blog that she says tells “the stories of everyday life.”

A Detroit FBI spokeswoman, Special Agent Sandra Berchtold, said the FBI received a report of “suspicious activity” on the flight, but would not say what that activity was.

A spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration, Jim Fotenos, did not comment on the allegations of profiling. He said the TSA “was notified of passengers allegedly behaving suspiciously.” “Out of an abundance of caution,” the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) “scrambled F16 jets to shadow the flight until it landed safely,” he said. Fotenos also did not explain the suspicious behavior. After landing, Hebshi said that cops surrounded the plane and proceeded to arrest them without any explanation.

One officer grabbed her arm hard, and then “he slapped metal cuffs on my wrists and pushed me off the plane. The three of us, two Indian men living in the Detroit metro area, and me, a half-Arab, half-Jewish housewife living in suburban Ohio, were being detained. The cops brought us to a parked squad car next to the plane, had us spread our legs and arms.”

Hebshi said she has never had any trouble with the law and while on the plane, “I never left my seat, spoke to anyone on the flight or tinkered with any ‘suspicious’ device.”

Contact Niraj Warikoo: 313-223-4792 or nwarikoo@freepress.com

[JP note: See Hebshi-Holt’s 9/11 account ‘Numb’ here www.interfaithfamily.com/relationships/marriage_and_relationships/Numb.shtml Numbskull indeed.]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Europe and the EU


First Poll Since Norway Killings: Right-Wing Populists Face Test in Denmark

Just two months after the politically inspired massacre in Norway, a right-wing populist party, one of Europe’s most influential, will face a test of voter sentiment at the ballot box. The Danish People’s Party has been instrumental in tightening at least 20 laws pertaining to immigration and migration.

The path to the right-wing outsiders leads straight through the hallowed halls of Christiansborg Palace, right on past the red and white national flag, the “Danebrog,” as well as the portrait gallery of past politicians and finally right under the heavy chandeliers in the country’s political control center. This, it seems, is the place where the Danish People’s Party feels most at home.

The neo-Baroque palace is home to the royal reception rooms of Queen Margrethe, the Supreme Court, parliament and the Danish government. The space is also kept free for the People’s Party because Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen doesn’t have his own majority with his Liberal party and the conservatives. Whether or not the center-right minority government is re-elected in national elections on Thursday and can continue to govern will hinge largely on the People’s Party’s performance at the ballot box.

At the moment, People’s Party chief Pia Kjaersgaard, who has become something of a cult figure, is being shielded from the press. Morten Messerschmidt, 30, a rising star in the party, spoke to SPIEGEL at Christiansborg.

‘We Are Proud of Our Policies’

Messerschmidt is a member of the European Parliament and one of the party’s strategic thinkers. He combats the political stigma of being defined as right-wing or xenophobic. “We are conservative,” he says. “We are the only party that stands for national identity and tradition.”

Messerschmidt speaks quickly, as if he wants to forestall any objections. “We are proud of our policies, and there is no greater success than having your policies get adopted by others,” the alert young politician says. And that, he says, is why he believes in his party’s re-election prospects.

For weeks now, however, Social Democratic challenger Helle Thorning-Schmidt, 44, with her three-partner, left of center “Red Block” has been two to four percentage points ahead of the “Blue Block” comprising of the Liberal party, the conservatives and the right-wing populists.

Thursday’s vote will be the first indicator of the national standing of a right-wing populist party in Europe since the massacre in Norway . In July, Anders Behring Breivik murdered 77 people in Oslo and on the island of Utøya. It will also be a test of one of Europe’s most influential right-wing populist parties. In the manifesto he wrote before embarking on his murder spree, Breivik even referenced the anti-immigrant Danish nationalists. “He also had contact to Socialists,” Messerschmidt retorts, unblinking.

For 10 years now, the People’s Party has backed the minority government in Copenhagen — causing a sustained shift in the country’s political climate. So far, the nationalists have succeeded in pushing through legislation to tighten at least 20 laws pertaining to immigrants and asylum seekers. Traditionally liberal Denmark is now the country with the most conservative legislation for foreigners in Europe — an achievement that makes the People’s Party proud.

Its members are fond of fomenting fears of “Eastern European criminal gangs” and refer to the Muslim religion as a scourge, saying, “Islam is a fascist ideology.” The party flatly rejects the European Union and has called for a “strengthening of Danishness.” One party strategist recently demanded that proof of “blood ties” to Denmark should be a prerequisite for Danish citizenship. The statement was quickly retracted.

Rhetoric like that attracted up to 13.9 percent of the vote in 2007 elections for the Danish People’s Party. The degree to which right-wing populist sentiment has become acceptable to society in Denmark is underscored by the discovery only a few weeks ago of a far-right underground movement…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Frankfurt Shooter Deep Into Jihad: Prosecutors

German prosecutors on Wednesday said the Kosovar man accused of killing two US airmen at Frankfurt’s Airport in March had a long fascination with Islamist propaganda, contradicting his previous statements.

Arid Uka, 21, has admitted to shooting and killing Senior Airman Nicholas J. Alden, 25, and Airman 1st Class Zachary R. Cuddeback, 21, as they prepared to depart to Afghanistan. Two other military personnel were wounded in what has been called the first ever jihadist attack on German soil. As Uka tried to shoot a fifth person, his gun jammed, according to authorities. In court last month he said that his motivation for the shooting was essentially spontaneous — inspired by a Islamist propaganda video on the internet falsely claiming to show an Afghan woman raped by US soldiers.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Norway: WikiLeaks: Life in Norway for Jews

There are about a thousand Jews in Norway. This is what life is like for them.

The Norwegian self-image

Norwegian society, however, has obstacles to effectively combating [antisemitism]. First, a deep-seated fundamental belief by Norwegians that their national character is deeply and essentially “good,” makes Norwegians reluctant to accuse one of their own of a sin perceived to be as odious as anti-Semitism. Second, whether an anti-Semitic (or racist) statement has been made is determined by the speaker, not the offended group. Even unacceptable statements are forgiven so long as the speaker insists upon his or her good intentions. Third, Norway follows a social model based on consensus rather than individualism, so Norwegians are somewhat more prone to have difficulty differentiating between individuals and groups.

Former Prime Minister Kare Willoch

Over the last two months, a former prime minister, Kare Willoch, and a preeminent commentator on U.S. policy, Ole Moen, were accused of making comments that were anti-Semitic. On December 30 in a television debate program, when asked about the prospect for progress in the Middle East with Obama leading negotiations, Willoch said, “it doesn’t look good, because he has chosen a Jew as a chief of staff.”

Mona Levin, a Jewish columnist who also participated in the television debate, later wrote a column in which she accused Willoch of both anti-Semitism and racism for sending a message that Jews can’t be trusted and blacks are easily manipulated. She also commented on a feeling of hatred she perceived from him during the television debate, noting he pointedly said “you people,” although her family has lived in Norway since the 19th century. Many voices in the media (including Willoch’s own) have risen to his defense. Willoch has for years been an especially strident voice against Israeli policy.

Prominent political commentator, Ole Moen:

Ole Moen is the most frequently quoted academic on US policy. During the election, he predicted that Americans would never elect either a black man or a woman due to the racism and sexism that he believes permeates American society. On January 9 Moen said Obama “has appointed many Jews and pro-Israel people in his administration. …This makes me have little hope for significant change (in Middle East policy.)” Despite complaints by a prominent commentator that Moen characterized Jews as a group and appears to have assumed Jews don’t have independent opinions as individuals, because they’re Jewish, no apology was offered. Both Willoch and Moen publicly and repeatedly rejected the characterization of their comments as anti-Semitic.

The Embassy official

In mid-January, a first secretary at the Norwegian embassy in Saudi Arabia used the MFA’s email system to send out a fundraising email appeal for Gaza with images comparing Israeli soldiers with Nazi soldiers, urging recipients to forward it as a chain letter. The MFA said it would be dealt with as an internal personnel matter and there has been no further public information given on the disposition of the case.

The Chief Rabbi

The chief Rabbi of the Oslo Synagogue reportedly receives a pile of hate mail each day. Typical salutations on such mail are, “Murderers,” “Maybe Hitler was right,” “May hatred toward you Jews grow and strengthen,” and so forth.

Life for ordinary Jews:

One orthodox Jewish family in Oslo chose not to take their children to synagogue, as their appearance on the street makes them especially vulnerable. Some Jewish parents are walking with their children to school as an added security measure. There have been reports of bullying at school, where Jewish children are subject to insults. A recent expose on anti-Semitism in a major paper found that “Jew” has become an epithet among both Muslim and Christian teenagers. One Muslim teenager interviewed commented that his friends say that the Israelis “aren’t people.” When pressed by the reporter on what that meant, he responded, “well of course we know they’re people, but when we say they’re inhuman, we mean they aren’t good people.”

Antisemitism is easier to express than criticism of Hamas

For all of these reasons, latent anti-Semitism is more likely to be expressed publicly, if indirectly, and in turn increase anti-Semitism in society at large. Offended Norwegians feel constrained about protesting anti-Semitism, since they would be questioning the Norwegian self-image. Post believes that the “legitimization of rage” practiced by the Norwegian media, in which outrage over Israeli policy is encouraged, has contributed to an atmosphere in which anti-Semitism is easier for ordinary Norwegians to express; there is no corresponding freedom to attack Hamas, however, sine the local narrative predominantly blames Israel.

Official sympathy for Hamas

Although the [Government of Norway] would deny it, there are clear signs that contacts with Hamas go beyond a tactical desire for dialogue to a level of sympathy for Hamas positions. The [Foreign Minister Stoere] once told DCM for example that one could not expect Hamas to recognize Israel without knowing which borders Israel will have. While the FM expresses some sympathy for Hamas’ positions only in unguarded moments, other prominent Norwegians go further.

Mohammed Hamdan, leader of Norway’s Islamic Council, is the brother of Osama Hamdan, Hamas leader in Lebanon:

Osama Hamdan is the brother of the former leader of the Islamic Council in Norway, Mohammed Hamdan. Mohammed Hamdan played a key role in contacts between Muslims and the Norwegian authorities after the publication of the Mohammed cartoons. This thus gives Hamas leader Osama Hamdan a very good channel to the Norwegian government.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Norway: After the Massacre: Anti-Semitism, Islam, And Norway

Anti-semitism in Norway is rampant among Muslims, and encouraged by media and leftist politicians. Plus, the response to psychopath Anders Breivik’s act may trend towards further Jew-hatred.

Dr. Michal Rachel Suissa is a Jewish Amazigh (Berber) refugee from Morocco, working as an associate professor in medicinal chemistry at University College of Oslo. She regularly lectures and has written many articles on minorities in the Middle East, human rights in the Muslim world, and the use of religion as a weapon against Jews and minorities. She is the director of the Center Against Anti-Semitism (CAA) and the editor of the quarterly magazine SMA-Info on Israel and Anti-Semitism. I asked her a few question regarding racism, anti-Semitism, and Islam in Norway.

Does Norway have a racism problem?

Suissa: Racist or xenophobic political parties do not exist in Norway. We may identify some individual examples of racist behavior, racist comments in the media, and even racist violence and murders committed by individuals, but these cases do not have an organized character and should not be considered as a particular Norwegian phenomenon. On the contrary, comparing with other countries, the low level of such behavior in Norway has been more striking.

Several churches were burned down in the 1990s. Can we call that religiously motivated violence?

Suissa: As far as we know, all church fires resulting from arson in Norway were committed by people with connections to a Satanistic or “Black Metal” milieu. The majority of the cases were solved and the culprits have been sentenced. In my opinion, this has nothing to do with the recent atrocities.

Has there been a public discussion about Muslim immigration?

Suissa: Immigration is a topic that has been discussed in Norway for many years, as in other countries. Occasionally there may be a reference to Muslim immigration, but this generally has to do with a perceived low level of integration or assimilation into Norwegian society by some Muslims; in particular, Muslim women. Even Muslim leaders and spokesmen have made critical comments about Muslim practices of marriage and such phenomena as cousin marriage, genital mutilation, and honor killing. But I see no difference between Norway and other Western countries in this respect. In my experience, the majority of Norwegians definitely favor cultural and ethnic diversity within the common liberal constitutional polity they have created in this country, but in a way that safeguards hard acquired basic rights and values of their own constitutional democracy, such as equal rights for women and gays, freedom of critical expression, etc.

Is there a clash of opinions about these issues?

Suissa: There is no way to deny that there have been verbal confrontations over issues of this kind with local proponents of Islam. This kind of debate may be rather difficult in Norway, as the risk of being labeled a racist or “Islamophobic” by the media and some Muslims is very high. I have not observed similar debates with Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs or other religious groups. I do not experience Norwegian society as “muslimophobic” at all, but I do see how concerned people are when it comes to political values brought to Norway by some Muslim immigrants, such as circumcision of girls, forced cousin marriage, and the support of death sentences for homosexuals. Open warnings and threats from fundamentalist Muslims have also been a part of this picture.

What’s the role of the media?

Suissa: An undebated problem is that Norway has practically no completely free mass media, as they are all financially supported on an annual basis by the government and therefore have an observable tendency to echo politically correct opinions. As it is not politically correct to criticize any aspect of Islam, anyone who dares to address simple questions like: “How long can we turn a blind eye to the fact that Mecca is still a forbidden city for non-Muslims, while the number of mosques in Norway is growing like mushrooms after the rain?” is guaranteed to be labeled a racist. In Norway, as in the rest of Europe, there is in effect a ban on telling the truth about these matters, and that frustrates people.

Some newspaper reports claim that anti-Semitism in Norway is extreme, even by European standards.

Suissa: There is no evidence that antisemitism is more extreme in Norway than elsewhere, although a general rectification or “Gleichschaltung” of public information and lack of alternative channels has no doubt had an effect on public opinion in a small language group. We do however have a recent public report on the presence of anti-Semitic behavior among schoolchildren, published by the municipal authorities in Oslo on June 7, 2011. It provides clear evidence that Muslim youths are overrepresented in the group mobbing Jewish schoolchildren. The children testified that the word “Jew” has again become a common insult among pupils in Norwegian schools, and that most of the Jew-hatred is committed by Muslim pupils. Our Information Center, the CAA, has said that for years, but Norwegian authorities have tried to downplay, ignore, or otherwise remove this from public debate.

So is it Muslim immigration that is mainly responsible for the spread of anti-Semitism in Norway?

Suissa: No. Anti-Semitic attitudes, both direct and concealed, have been both created and maintained by mainstream Norwegian media, such as the state broadcasting organization NRK and Oslo’s largest newspaper Aftenposten. There are also politicians and journalists who make a career by castigating Israel at any given opportunity. This goes along with a biased and negative description of Israel’s friends in Norway, as well as a brisk support to Hamas and the PLO. Hence, radical Muslim immigrants must necessarily have noticed that their anti-Semitic and even racist attitudes are often met with significant support, direct or indirect, by Norwegian media and some political spokesmen.

In an anti-Israeli demonstration led by the Norwegian minister of finance and other left-wing notables directed against the military operation in Gaza, many young Arabs marched through the streets of Oslo chanting: “Itbah al yahood!” (Kill the Jews!). This did not occur during the Holocaust, but in January 2009 in the streets of Oslo. Norwegian and Muslim children saw their leaders walk hand-in-hand with radical Islamists. This affects people’s attitudes, and the results of this kind of leadership are summarized in the report I mentioned.

The responsibility for Jew-hatred in Norway lies with the “mind-designers” who recklessly use the media and their political platforms to distort reality and depict Jews as the world’s most dangerous people, in the words of former Prime Minister Thorbjørn Jagland (now secretary general of the Council of Europe): “If there is something that is a threat to world peace, then it is the Israeli occupation.” Such often-repeated statements are among the unquestionable sources of Jew-hatred in Norway.

How would you describe the government’s stance toward Israel?

Suissa: Over the years it has made an easily observable u-turn. From being an ardent supporter of the young Jewish homeland and a formerly neutral peace broker in the Arab-Israeli negotiations, Norway has under its present government taken a decisive step to ally politically with the Palestinian side and to leave her former friend by the roadside. This is another aspect of Norwegian politics downplayed by the media. One of the foremost advocates of this change of Norwegian foreign policy in recent years and the man who irreversibly took sides with the Palestinian Arabs in the conflict is Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre. His role in changing his country’s relationship with the international community has to a great extent passed without significant debate in Norway. Norwegians have been generally satisfied by living in their own growing welfare bubble, isolated from the evils of the world and very content by having their country ranked number one among countries worth living in.

What can you tell us about Gahr Støre?

Suissa: He came to political office after having been headhunted by leaders of the Labour Party. As a former career bureaucrat he also had to prove his mettle among the radical fringes of his new party. He did so by clarifying Norway’s stance towards all the parties of the conflicts of the Middle East; he was the first Western leader to recognize and establish political and economic ties to organizations like Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban, and recently the Somalian terrorist organization al-Shabaab. His most important slogan is: “Dialogue.”

What does the Utoya massacre mean for Norway’s Jewish community?

Suissa: The majority of Jews in Norway try to conceal their Jewish identity. We have three very small congregations which represent a few hundred observant Jews. For the time being there is a full silence, as most Jews have reacted instinctively with fear, afraid of becoming victims of the ongoing blame game. I know this for fact, as some of them have let me know in private conversations. The media were quick to make headlines of the allegation that the murderer was “pro-Israeli.” I see this as part of the massive media propaganda to silence the “right-wing” opposition, which is also generally positive towards Israel.

Are there already any reactions to the massacre which you would describe as anti-Jewish or anti-Israel?

Suissa: I do not fear that the recent atrocities by themselves will increase anti-Semitism in Norway, and I do not see at the moment any reactions to the massacre and bombing which I would describe as anti-Jewish or anti-Israeli. I am however quite worried that the witch hunt directed against the political opposition by the largely left-wing media may make it even more difficult to express solidarity with Israel in public. We have seen examples of anti-Israeli incitement — not the least of which came from the foreign minister — just prior to the terrorist massacre, which I fear may settle as a rock bottom “truth,” in particular among the less historically informed younger generations who were traumatized by the terrorist, and this scenario worries me a lot. After the publication of the report on anti-Semitism in June, the minister had the courage to state that our politicians did have a responsibility for the situation, saying that: “A jargon of slang terms which may have unintended and very grave consequences, may easily take root. Those of us who have the political responsibility must talk about this and counteract such expressions.” Unfortunately, he had forgotten his own piece of good advice — as late as the day before the shooting he met his expectant colleagues with unmistakably anti-Israeli slogans, saying to his cheering young audience: “The Palestinians must have their own state. The occupation must end, the wall must be torn down, and this must happen now!”

One of the more long-term negative consequences of this brutal terrorist act in Norway is a limitation of the freedom of speech. People have become terrified of being connected to the mass-murderer, whom the media describe as a “conservative Christian fundamentalist.” This tag is sufficient to paralyze half of the Norwegian population, where the majority of the supporters of Israel and the Jews are found. At present we observe a form of slanderous media defamation of Christians which in some cases has already acquired an eerie resemblance to classical anti-Semitism. This witch hunt, spreading like a steppe fire, has already paralyzed conservative bloggers in this country, and I fear others will also suffer before the media may end up with the classical compromise of blaming the Jews.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Norway: After Utøya, Voters Elect Moderation

Aftenposten, 13 September 2011

“Conservatives jubilant,” headlines Norwegian daily Aftenposten, following regional and municipal elections won by the opposition, led by Erna Solberg. The Social Democratic Party of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg nonetheless remains the leading party with 31% of the vote. As for its partner within the ruling ‘red-green’ coalition, the Socialist Left, it tallied its worse score at municipal elections since 1979. A month and a half after the massacre of young Social Democrats perpetrated by right-wing extremist Anders Breivik, voters thus chose moderate parties. The Conservatives are the winners because they obtained their best score at municipal elections since 1979, the paper explains. Their rise is at the expense of the other major right-wing party, the Progress Party (FrP populist and anti-immigration), of which Breivik was a member, and which felt the backlash of the July 22 attack. In Oslo, the FrP’s score was clearly a “disaster”, writes leader writer Harald Stanghelle, for whom this “national tragedy undoubtedly mobilised the voters but didn’t lead to upheaval in Norwegian politics”. The election will nonetheless “have major political implications because it is the beginning of the end of the coalition as we know it today,” Stanghelle predicts.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Refugee From Muslim World Sees European Caliphate

For more than 30 years, Bat Ye’or, a refugee from Egypt, has been writing about dhimmis — Christians and Jews living under oppression in Muslim lands for over a millennium. Now, she has a new book, “Europe, Globalization and the Coming Universal Caliphate,” that looks at Muslims living in lands that once were Christian but today call themselves multicultural.

She predicts Europe will not remain multicultural for long. She is convinced that Europe, sooner rather than later, will be dominated by Islamic extremists and transformed into “Eurabia” — a term she has popularized but did not coin. It was first used in the mid-1970s by a French publication pressing for common European-Arab policies.

Immigrants can enrich a nation. But there is a difference between immigrants and colonists. The former are eager to learn the ways of their adopted home, to integrate and perhaps assimilate — which does not require relinquishing their heritage or forgetting their roots. Colonists, by contrast, bring their culture with them and live under their own laws. Their loyalties lie elsewhere.

Ye’or contends that a concerted effort is being made not only to ensure that Muslim immigrants in Europe remain squarely in the second category but also that they become the means to transform Europe politically, culturally and religiously. Leading this effort is the Organization of the Islamic Conference, established in 1969 and which, a few months ago, no doubt upon the advice of a highly compensated public relations professional, renamed itself the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

The OIC represents 56 countries plus the Palestinian Authority. It claims also to represent Muslim immigrants — the “Diaspora” — in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia. It is pan-Islamic: It seeks to unify and lead the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims. In a manual first published in 2001, “Strategy of Islamic Cultural Action in the West,” the IOC asserts “Muslim immigrant communities in Europe are part of the Islamic nation.” It goes on to recommend, Ye’or notes, “a series of steps to prevent the integration and assimilation of Muslims into European culture.”

The IOC, she argues, is nothing less than a “would-be, universal caliphate.” It might look different from the caliphates of the Ottomans, Fatamids and Abbasids. It might resemble, instead, a thoroughly modern trans-national bureaucracy.. But, already, the OIC exercises significant power through the United Nations, and through the European Union that has been eager to accommodate the OIC while simultaneously endowing the U.N. with increasing authority for global governance.

In the eyes of OIC officials, no problem in the contemporary world is more urgent than “Islamophobia” which it calls “a crime against humanity” that the U.N. and the E.U. must officially outlaw. The OIC also has specifically “warned” the “international community” of the “dangers posed by the influence of Zionism, Neo-Conservatism, aggressive Christian evangelicalism, Jewish extremism, Hindu extremism and secular extremism in international affairs and the ‘War on Terrorism.’“

Funding for terrorist groups flows generously from individuals in oil-rich OIC countries. Violence directed against those it views as enemies of Islam is defined as “resistance” — even when civilians, including women and children, are the intended victims….

           — Hat tip: Steen [Return to headlines]



Sweden: 725 Euro Fine for Man Who “Abused” His Son

(AGI) Stockholm — Giovanni Colasante, a municipal councilor in Canosa di Puglis, arrested on August 23rd has been fined 725 euro by a Swedish court for abuse inflicted on his 12-yearold son. The court in Stockholm found him guilty of “having deliberately caused the boy pain by pulling his hair,” behavior that in Sweden is considered ‘abuse’.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



UK Musicians Suspended Over Israel Proms Row

Four members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra have been suspended for calling on the BBC to cancel the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra’s Proms appearance earlier this month.

Cellist Sue Sutherley and violinists Tom Eisner, Nancy Elan and Sarah Streatfeild were among those who signed a letter to the Independent on August 30. They claimed Israel was an apartheid state and called for the BBC to cancel the concert. Each indicated their membership of the LPO alongside their signature. Their suspensions are expected to be for up to nine months.

In a joint statement, LPO chief executive Timothy Walker and chairman Martin Hohmann said players’ views were a private matter and the orchestra had no political or religious affiliation. But they added: “The orchestra would never restrict the right of its players to express themselves freely, however, such expression has to be independent of the LPO itself and must not be done in any way that associates them with the LPO. The company has no wish to end the careers of four talented musicians, but the board’s decision in this matter will send a strong and clear message that such actions will not be tolerated by the LPO. For the LPO, music and politics do not mix.” The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra’s Proms September 1 performance was repeatedly disrupted by anti-Israel protesters inside the Royal Albert Hall.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Anger in Lancashire That Forced Marriage Will Not be Criminalised

CAMPAIGNERS against honour violence in Lancashire have slammed news that the government has backed away from plans to criminalise forced marriage.

The Home Office said that, despite pressure from MPs to do so, a move to make a specific law categorising forced marriage as illegal is not going to be pursued.

Local campaigners said the news was a ‘backwards step’ in the fight against honour violence.

Anjum Anwar, chair of Woman’s Voice in Blackburn, said: “Forced marriage is not a marriage. It’s a criminal act and must be dealt with as such.

“How can a government not legislate against criminal behaviour?

“This news really upsets me. I work with victims of forced marriages and I know how it ruins lives. Ask those women if they are the victims of criminal behaviour and you will get a very clear answer.”

Salim Mulla, from the Lancashire Council of Mosques, said: “Forced marriage is not acceptable and this decision from the government sends out completely the wrong message.

“It is obviously a criminal act and the government cannot ignore it.

“This will disappoint so many people in Lancashire who have been working hard on the issue.”

Earlier this year, the Home Affairs committee urged the government to create a new crime, saying that there needed to be a criminal sanction to help prevent people breaching forced marriage protection orders.

The court orders, created in 2007, are the government’s key legal tool to protect potential victims and are used to forbid families from actions such as taking people abroad for marriage, seizing passports or intimidating victims.

If someone breaches an order they can be jailed for up to two years.

Blackburn County Court is one of only 15 in the country to hear Forced Marriage Protection Order (FMPO) applications.

           — Hat tip: An EDL buck [Return to headlines]



UK: Hungry for Justice — EDL Leader Released

THE leader of the English Defence League, Stephen Lennon, has been released from Bedford Prison on bail until his trial for assault at the end of this month. Mr Lennon, who calls himself Tommy Robinson, was held in custody at Bedford Prison for a week after breaking bail conditions by attending a demonstration in London. The EDL said their leader was on hunger strike while in prison, because he was a ‘political prisoner’ and because he believed the food served was halal. While at Bedford Prison he is understood to have been kept in segregation both for his own safety and over concerns about disruption at the prison.

A source said: “There was a big concern because he is so high profile, so they kept him away from the other prisoners. He was classed as a vulnerable inmate. It is a diverse prison and they were worried what might happen. There are also a lot of people from Luton in there as it’s the nearest prison and there were concerns there might be a riot.” The source said Mr Lennon was held in an underground cell where he was allowed a television, and that his exercise was taken in a yard boarded off so he could not be seen by other inmates.

They added: “His hunger strike only lasted 24 hours and then he gave up.”

But Mr Lennon said yesterday morning (Tuesday September 13) that he had not consumed anything other than water while in custody. He said: “I had a Nando’s last night when I came out and I was up all night ill — I thought I was going to have to go to hospital. I lost a stone while I was in there.” Mr Lennon denies assaulting a man at an EDL protest in Blackburn in April, and said he was looking forward to the trial at Preston Magistrates Court on September 29. “I will go to court and I will walk out of court,” he said. “The man who I’m supposed to have assaulted has come forward and said it wasn’t me. I’m going to keep on breaking these bail conditions — they just want to stop my involvement with the EDL. I’m not allowed to send emails, faxes, texts. That’s against my human rights and civil liberties. I will say what I want, when I want.”

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Our Best Tribute to 9/11 is to Keep Calm and Carry on

London remembered Britain’s 9/11 deaths at the weekend with due dignity. That was as it should be. These are moments when the public city collects itself to console private grief. It also happens when London remembers past wars. It will happen when the Tube bombs of 2005 are likewise memorialised.

But we need to be careful to remember what we are remembering, and perhaps what we should not remember. The 9/11 memorials in both London and New York were massive. Apart from the parades and ceremonies, there have been television specials, newspaper supplements, photographic exhibitions, essays and concerts. Variously, 9/11 was said to have been “a declaration of war”, “a day that never ended”, a “moment that changed the world”. Tony Blair’s claim that the attack “rewrote the rules of the game” was repeated endlessly in the cliché that “nothing will be the same again”. While for the bereaved these words are understandably true, for the recalled event as such they could hardly be in greater contrast to the brave plea of New York’s then mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, within hours of the 9/11 attack. He told his citizens to “continue with your normal lives”, go to the park, see a show, buy a pizza, show respect for Muslims. Above all, deny the terrorist what he most wants, proof that he has shattered America’s way of life and induced it to declare war on Islam.

Sometimes we might therefore stop and ask what, in any circumstance, the enemy most wants us to do. That especially applies to terrorism, whose potency lies not in the act itself but in the victim’s reaction to it. The terror lies in the response. Osama bin Laden’s objective was to elevate the craft of terror into a spectacular criminal act and then rely on America so to over-react as to turn his deed into a war between nations, religions and civilisations. He did not initially succeed. It is worth recalling that in the aftermath of 9/11 virtually the entire Muslim world expressed shock and sympathy for America. The PLO leader, Yasser Arafat, publicly gave blood for the people of New York. That was before George Bush and Tony Blair victimised Bin Laden in Muslim eyes and promoted al Qaeda’s cause by doing just what he wanted — and declared war on him. The outcome was the invasion and occupation of two states, thousands more Western deaths and tens of thousands of Muslim ones, and billions of dollars taxed from the pockets of the infidel. The West unquestionably feels less safe now than it did before 9/11.

Were he alive today, Osama bin Laden would have delighted at the 9/11 memorials. What to New Yorkers may have been a commemoration, to al Qaeda must have seemed a magnification and celebration of all their deeds. New York at the weekend was reported to be in “total lockdown”, for fear of a terrorist attack, while VIPs were forced to stand behind bullet-proof screens lest an undiscovered sniper took a shot at them. Defying terrorism required 9/11 to be treated as a criminal act by a demented gang, successful only through a failure by the West’s police, espionage and aviation security. The appropriate response was by those same agencies. Today defiance means acknowledging the grief of the bereaved but also using the occasion to show a civic community ruled not by fear but by normality and a readiness on the part of citizens to accept a degree of risk for the sake of civil liberty. Remembering should not be equated with “war”, militarisation or even politics.

As in New York, so in London, the bravery to be recalled was that of those civilians who helped the stricken, not grandees who failed to protect the city or belligerent politicians who aided the enemy cause by over-reacting. Most important of all, now is the time to abate over-reaction. Central London this past decade has slid into being a parody of a terrorised city. Its security is lopsided. Last week in Edmonton yet another youth was stabbed in a park in the under-patrolled streets of the poorer suburbs. At the same you could have stood in Parliament Square safe in the knowledge that probably 500 policemen were within gunshot range, guarding Downing Street, Buckingham Palace, Whitehall, Parliament and Scotland Yard from the spectre of terrorists. The Palace of Westminster is surrounded by car-bomb barricades and Downing Street looks like something in Baghdad’s green zone. The lobby of the House of Commons is patrolled by policemen carrying machine guns. I remain mystified at what use could be made of these ferocious weapons in any such crowded place. They are also brandished in the high street outside the Evening Standard’s Kensington offices. All this achieves is to tell the world, and especially tourists, that London is a dangerous and terrified place, under hourly threat from al Qaeda and to be avoided above all during the Olympics.

There could be no better way of commemorating the dead of 9/11 (and in London’s case of 7/7) than by dismantling the apparatus of a terrorised state. There could be no better way than to refuse disproportionate reaction, and allow the city to revert to life as normal. There are risks in any city, and there will occasionally be crimes and outrages from fanatics. But we must learn to take these things in our stride. We expect the citizens of Edmonton to risk life and limb every day. Why not expect the same around Westminster?

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Victims Group Asks Hague to Investigate Vatican

Pope accused of covering up ‘torture, rape and sexual violence’

(ANSA) — Brussels, September 13 — A coalition representing the victims of clerical sex abuse on Tuesday asked the International Criminal Court in the Hague to investigate Pope Benedict XVI and three top cardinals.

The coalition said high-level Vatican officials should be prosecuted for what it describes as “widespread and systematic torture, rape and sexual violence committed by priests and others associated with the Catholic church”.

In addition to calling out the pope, the group specifically accused cardinals Angelo Sodano, Tarcisio Bertone and William Levada of a cover-up.

Cardinal Bertone is the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Sodano is his predecessor and Cardinal Levada is the Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith, the post formerly held by the pontiff, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

“Crimes against tens of thousands of victims, most of them children, are being covered up by officials at the highest level of the Vatican,” said Pam Spees, an attorney representing New York-based rights group Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which filed the complaint together with Chicago-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

“In this case, all roads really do lead to Rome,” she added.

The Vatican said it had no immediate comment at this time.

It is unlikely that the ICC, the world’s first permanent war crimes court, will take on the case since it does not have jurisdiction in the Vatican, which never ratified its founding treaty.

The statute for the court, agreed at an international summit in Rome in July 1998, lays out its task of bringing to justice major world figures accused of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity, which include rape, sexual violence, assault and torture.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



WWII Reparations Case: ‘Germany Doesn’t Feel Obliged to Pay More’

This week The Hague addresses a dispute over whether Italian courts can skirt German sovereignty in demanding reparations for Nazi war crimes. In an interview with SPIEGEL Online, victims’ lawyer Martin Klingner discusses the implications of the case for his clients and future international war reparations.

In a case that could have consequences worldwide, Germany and Italy are squaring off this week at the United Nation’s highest court in a jurisdictional dispute over the right of Italian courts to demand compensation for the victims of Nazi war crimes.

Hoping to quell what has been called “judicial tourism,” Germany applied for proceedings in front of the World Court in December 2008, arguing that Italian courts have violated German sovereignty by addressing civilian claims for Nazi war crimes. The row originated from the case of Luigi Ferrini, who in 1944 was deported to Germany as a forced laborer. After an Italian Supreme Court ruled he should be compensated by Germany in 2004, a flood of similar cases have been filed in the country.

Italian courts argue such cases are admissible because state immunity is trumped by crimes against humanity. Germany, on the other hand, worries that a breach of state immunity could create a dangerous precedence for exceptions in World War II cases and beyond.

“The consequences would be severe,” German director-general for legal affairs, Susanne Wasum-Rainer, warned judges of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Monday. “All inter-state peace settlements concluded after an armed conflict will be put into jeopardy by allowing domestic courts to re-examine and reopen them.”

Greek Case Also Involved

Judges at the ICJ also expect to hear from Greece, where in 1997 a court ordered Germany to compensate survivors and relatives of those massacred by Nazis in the village of Distomo. Greeks remember the Distomo massacre as one of the worst atrocities of the Second World War. Some 218 people, including women and children, were murdered there on June 10, 1944 by a unit of an elite Nazi SS killing squad.

When the ruling for Germany to pay out some €28.6 million ($37 million) was never enforced, Greek plaintiffs turned to the favorable Italian courts, where a judge enforced the original ruling by ordering the seizure of German property in Italy.

Martin Klingner, a lawyer for the Distomo victims’ families spoke with SPIEGEL Online about the case at The Hague and what potential rulings could mean for Germany and future war reparations.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Klingner, please explain what’s going on at The Hague this week.

Klingner: The Federal Republic of Germany is suing Italy because in various court cases involving victims of Nazi war crimes and their families, Italian courts ruled that their justice system had jurisdiction [to demand reparations].

SPIEGEL: What about Germany’s claims of state immunity?

Klingner: The highest Italian court in Rome has said that Germany cannot claim state immunity … in cases of war crimes, grave human rights violations and in particular crimes against humanity. Here, the principle of of state immunity no longer applies, and the state that committed the crimes or its successor cannot claim immunity.

SPIEGEL: Is this just another trial dealing with the idiosyncrasies of international law?

Klingner: Germany suing Italy is special because on the surface it appears to only deal with international law when, in fact, it will indirectly affect the victims [of Nazi crimes].

SPIEGEL: How does the Greek village of Distomo — the site of a 1944 Nazi massacre — come into play?

Klingner: In the case of Distomo, there was a final judgement in Greece, but the Greek court’s decision can’t be enforced in Germany because it needs the permission of the Greek government, which it doesn’t have. With this, the victims turned to Italy in order to facilitate an enforcement on German property in Italy.

SPIEGEL: Is compensation your clients’ first priority?

Klingner: If you speak to survivors, they will tell you, ‘We’re not just doing this for us. It’s not all about the money, it’s about getting what happened to be seen as a crime.’ If the countries responsible for committing crimes are brought to justice, then this has a preventative function, they say.

SPIEGEL: What do you expect from the court ruling?…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

Balkans


Kosovo: Crisis in North, Serbs Set Up Roadblocks

(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE/PRISTINA, SEPTEMBER 14 — In the north of Kosovo, local groups of Serbian residents set up numerous roadblocks during the night to protest the announcement by authorities in Pristina that they will assume control of two customs posts in Jarinje and Brnjak, the sites of violence in July. The press in Belgrade has reported that roadblocks have been set up along the road between Kosovska Mitrovica and Zvecan, between Mitrovica and Ribarici, around Leposavic and in other places in northern Kosovo where the Serbian majority rejects Pristina’s authority. The mandate of KFOR, the NATO force in Kosovo, is set to expire, which assumed control of the two border posts following clashes on July 25 and 26. An ethnic Albanian police officer was killed during the violence, and Serbian extremists set the Jarinje customs post ablaze. Incidents erupted after Pristina sent special police units and their own customs officials to take control of the two border crossings in order to enforce an embargo on Serbian goods in response to a similar measure taken by officials in Belgrade. Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo are preparing to do the same thing now, confirming that they will send their police and customs officers to Jarinje and Brnjak on September 16 when the KFOR mandate expires. And they have said that they are seeking to do so with the support of KFOR and EULEX, the European mission in Kosovo. Yesterday, Serbian President, Boris Tadic, launched a harsh warning to Pristina, saying that Belgrade will not accept this decision and that Pristina and the international institutions present in the country (KFOR, EULEX, UNMIK) will be held responsible for any new outbreaks of violence. EULEX and KFOR, said Tadic, must adhere to their neutral status and not side with Pristina. The situation in the north was called “calm but tense” today by the Serbian media.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

North Africa


Egypt: Al Aswany: Revolution Done, Now for Democracy

(ANSAmed) — NAPLES, SEPTEMBER 14 — “The hardest part was toppling Mubarak’s government. There are difficulties now but I am sure that Egypt will find the way towards full democracy”. Alaa Al Aswany is optimistic. The writer, who became famous the world over with his novel “The Yacoubian Building”, is now telling the story of his country’s transformation in “The Egyptian Revolution”. The Cairo author, launching the book at Feltrinelli in Naples, has spoken about his experience as a writer taking part in the country’s revolution. “I was in Tahrir Square, I was there for weeks, taking part in all the protests. But I am not a politician, I am a novelist. I found myself involved in change and I told its story from a literary point of view”. The book is a collection of articles written by Al Aswany during the revolution in a number of newspapers opposing the Mubarak regime, all of them ending with the words: ‘The only solution is democracy’. “The sentence is a take on a very common saying in Egypt, according to which the only solution is Islam,” the writer explains.

Al Aswany is optimistic about his own future because, as he says, “I took part in change. Before January 24, Mubarak was the undisputed boss of Egypt, he had two million soldiers and the support of western countries, first among them the US. In his position, I would also have felt untouchable, yet the day that the judge made him read out the list of charges he faced, I understood that the power of people really can do anything”. Al Aswany talks about this power over some dramatic pages. “I am put in mind of the shots fired by snipers placed on rooftops by Mubarak: they would shoot, a protester would fall, but the crowd would not give up,” he says.

Yet the Egyptian author does not hide the difficulties of transition. “Today, there is a counter-revolution being taken forward by those who prospered under Mubarak. This explains the attack on the Israeli embassy a few days ago. They want to show the revolution in a bad light and distract attention from the what Egyptians want now. The suspension of trials against civilians in military courts is a clear sign of a handover of power by the army,” he says.

With regard to Egypt’s international future, Al Aswany sees renewed relations with Erdogan’s Turkey in a positive light. “He is an elected leader and must answer to the people. It is also a good model in terms of the political integration of Islam,” says the author, who is convinced that Egypt will now become closer with the Palestinians. So when will democracy arrive? Al Aswany says that it could take as much as two years but “Egypt today is like an open window at 4 o’clock in the morning. It is still dark but the light is fighting to emerge. And when you look outside, you know for sure that dawn will come”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Erdogan’s Call Irritates the Muslim Brotherhood

Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s call for a secular state in Egypt has raised Muslim Brotherhood’s anger , Al Arabiya reported. Addressing a meeting of the Arab League in Cairo on Sept. 13 Erdogan stated the necessity of adopting a secular constitution in Egypt. Muslim Brotherhood’s spokesman Muhammad Ghozlan rejected this call, saying ‘the experience of other states cannot be applied in Egypt’. He regarded Erdogan’s calls for secular constitution in Egypt as interference into other country’s internal affairs. Founded in 1928, Muslim Brotherhood is the world’s oldest and one of the largest Islamic groups, which is regarded as the largest political opposition organization in Egypt. Erdogan kicked off his visit to Egypt on Tuesday as part of a tour of North African Arab countries. He had talks with the Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces of Egypt Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, Prime Minister Isam Sharif and the Secretary General of the League of Arab States Nabil al-Arabi. Erdogan is scheduled to visit Tunis on Sept. 14. He will leave Tunis for Libya on Sept. 15 to hold talks with the Head of the Interim Transitional National Council Mustafa Abdul Jalil.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Erdogan Attacks Israel in Cairo, Offers Himself as Leader of Arab World

The Turkish prime minister describes Gaza blockade as a “crime”, says a Palestinian state is “not an option but a necessity”. In reference to Syria, he says, “The legitimate demands of the people cannot be repressed with force and in blood,” reminding his audience that Turks and Arabs are brothers.

Cairo (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan began a tour of Arab nations yesterday. In Cairo, where he arrived with a huge entourage of 280 business people, ministers and advisers, the Turkish leader signed trade agreements with Egypt, declared his full support for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and renewed his attacks against Israel.

Erdogan made two public appearances yesterday. One before the foreign ministers of the Arab League and the other at a short press conference. At both, Israel starred as the greatest opponent of peace in the region. Erdogan mentioned the nine Turkish civilians killed aboard the Mavi Marmara during last year’s flotilla to Gaza, and the five Egyptians killed during a terror attack near Eilat last month.

“The barrier to peace in the region is the mentality of the Israeli government,” Erdogan noted.

Urging Arab states to raise the Palestinian flag, he described the Gaza blockade as a “crime”, and the establishment of a Palestinian state “not an option but a necessity”.

In an interview with the paper el-Shourouk, he said that Israeli leaders have failed to read the situation and lost supporters, even in the United States. When former US Defence Secretary Gates, a former CIA director, says that Netanyahu is a danger to Israel, pushing the country towards international isolation, that can be taken as a major sign. Many kept silence. Turkey chose to act, he said.

In a reference to Syria, the Turkish leader appealed for freedom and democracy. “The legitimate demands of the people cannot be repressed with force and in blood,” he said. “Freedom and democracy and human rights must be a united slogan for the future of our people.” What is more, “Turks and the Arabs are linked by brotherhood for hundreds of years. We share the same culture and the same faith”.

Such words echoed those of US President Barack Obama, who in his meeting with Erdogan stressed Turkey’s leadership role in the Arab world.

Some years ago, top officials in the Italian Bishops’ Conference and Vatican diplomacy expressed the same ideas.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Libya: Press; Sarkozy-Cameron Mission to Tripoli Tomorrow

(ANSAmed) — PARIS, SEPTEMBER 14 — The French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, and the French philosopher, Bernard Henri-Lévy will tomorrow travel to Tripoli and then on to Benghazi, according to the website of the French newspaper Le Monde. Sarkozy ,Cameron and Henri-Lévy, the philosopher who over the last few months has forged close ties with members of Libya’s rebel forces and has pusher for International intervention against the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, will travel to a hospital in the Libyan capital and will meet the leaders of the National Transitional Council (NTC), Mustafa Abdel Jalil and Mahmud Jibril. Le Monde says that the meeting will be followed by a brief press conference. Cameron and Sarkozy will then fly to Benghazi, the city that became the focal point of the rebellion, where they will speak in Freedom Square.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Libya: Sarkozy-Cameron Duo to Steal Limelight From Erdogan

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, SEPTEMBER 14 — Oil and contracts in the new Libya are so widely coveted that even the passing hours appear to be crucial. This, at least, is the message from the interventionist movements of the political leaders of France and the UK, Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron, who are looking to accelerate plans for a potential semi-surprise visit to Tripoli.

The arrival of the French President and the British Prime Minister would steal the limelight from Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who according to reports in recent days will arrive tomorrow in the Libyan capital, which remains well disposed towards him, despite the excessive pro-Gaddafi balance in Ankara’s diplomatic circles.

The website of the French newspaper, Le Monde, says that Sarkozy and Cameron will travel tomorrow to Tripoli and then Benghazi, alongside the French philosopher Bernard Henri-Lévy. There has been no official confirmation, clearly for security reasons, but an indication comes in the form of the mobilisation of 160 French police, who are leaving for Libya, where the two leaders will address crowds grateful for Anglo-French bombings of Gaddafi targets. The acclaim is also a useful diversionary tactic in France, on the day that debate gets underway between socialist candidates for the country’s primary elections. Preparations for the trip are thought to have been going on for two weeks, on Sarkozy’s side at least, but the unofficial announcement has caught Erdogan by surprise, after the Turkish Prime Minister had officially trumpeted his visit some days ago as his final trip in the region, after today’s visit to Tunisia and yesterday’s triumphant appearance in Cairo, the capital of North Africa’s Arab Spring.

The diplomatic flocking to Tripoli has been increased further today by the US, with the most senior official yet to set foot in Libya, Jeffrey Feltman, the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, also in the country.

It seems that the two European leaders are travelling to Libya to reap the economic and oil dividends of a political and military effort that has led NATO to give its decisive support to the anti-Gaddafi rebels, while Turkish diplomats led by the Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, were mediating until the end between the Libyan leader and rebels, showing a balanced approach that, at first, was appreciated by many, but which eventually became counter-productive as the rebel victory began take shape. Indeed, Ankara only recognised the National Transitional Council as the “legitimate representative of the Libyan people” at the beginning of July. The NTC has said publicly that it will favour companies heralding from countries that showed the most support for the uprising, showing particular favour not only to France and the UK, but also to the US and Qatar. In spite of this, the signals sent out to Erdogan by Mahmoud Jibril, the second-in-command of the NTC, and by a spokesperson for the organisation, have been encouraging. Forgetting the series of fantasy diplomatic formulas that marked Turkey’s failed mediation (“road map”, “guarantees”, “rapid ceasefire”, “third way”), the two men underlined the help given to those injured in the fighting and said that they hoped for a return of Turkish businesses.

Ankara, the historic heir of the Ottoman empire, has significant economic interests in Libya, over which it once ruled, as shown by the 20-25,000 Turks repatriated from Libya, who have abandoned — at least for now — the roughly 30 billion dollars in investments and interests linked especially to property.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Libya: Clashes Between Rebels at Tunisian Border, Press

(ANSAmed) — TUNISIA, SEPTEMBER 14 — In Libyan territory along the border with Tunisia near the border crossing Ras Jedir, there have reportedly been skirmishes — with much shooting taking place — within the ranks of the rebels. Reports were from the local correspondent of TAP, who did not add any details.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Israel and the Palestinians


Abbas: State Request to UN Irreversible Decision

(ANSAmed) — CAIRO — A request for full-fledged membership of the Palestinian state to the UN is an “irreversible” Arab decision, said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) while speaking with the Egyptian press, reports MENA, before the UN General Assembly meeting in New York next week. The Palestinian President underlined that the initiative is not a “unilateral” move and that this does not mean what the Palestinians do not want peace negotiations. “We are doing this because there are not any negotiations,” he said. “We are not trying to isolate Israel and we do not want to be dragged into a confrontation with the USA,” Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) commented, underlining that the U.S. government provides the Palestinian National Authority with 470 million dollars per year.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Nude Models on Dead Sea, Photography Project in Doubt

(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, SEPTEMBER 14 — Three days before another mass photo shoot, photographer Spencer Tunick is still not sure whether he will be able to photograph thousands of nude volunteers on the shores of the Dead Sea. According to Israeli military radio, the necessary permits have not been granted yet and opposition to the project is mounting. Previously, Tunick has already done photographs with thousands of nude models in places all over the world. The choice to shoot at the Dead Sea also falls within the context of efforts to publicise the area on an international level as one of the “wonders of the world”, according to military radio. Tunick intends to photograph between 1000 and 3000 volunteers at sunrise on Saturday in a secret location on the Dead Sea. The volunteers will be transported to the site on coach buses. But strong opposition to his project has come from religious circles and several members of Parliament are now working to prevent the realisation of the project, which in their opinion, “hurts the feelings” of the people they represent. This idea has bewildered Tunick’s volunteers, who say that “it is not easy to hurt someone’s feelings at 4am in a desert zone”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Middle East


Erdogan Rallies Arab League Against Israel

ecep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, warned Israel it must “pay a price for its aggression and crimes”, in a passionate speech in Cairo, cementing a foreign policy shift that has alarmed Israel and worried the US. Mr Erdogan’s comments on Tuesday, the first full day of a trip intended to boost Turkey’s role in a region in flux, ranged far beyond the dispute over Israel’s deadly raid on the Turkish-based ship, the Mavi Marmara, last year. The Turkish leader said it was “an obligation” to support the Palestinians in their efforts to gain UN recognition as a state. “The Palestinian flag has to flutter at the UN,” he told a foreign ministers’ meeting at the Arab League’s Cairo headquarters. “Let’s raise the flag of Palestine to the sky and let it be a symbol of justice and peace in the Middle East.”

Mr Erdogan’s trip is seen as an attempt to capitalise on popular Arab admiration for his perceived willingness to take a tougher line towards Israel than other countries in the region.

But the deepening rift has been of great concern to the US, which counts both Israel and Turkey as close allies. Mr Erdogan’s comments came as two senior US administration officials travelled to Israel for talks aimed at staving off the Palestinian vote at the UN. David Hale, Washington’s Middle East peace envoy, and Dennis Ross, a senior White House adviser, are due to hold meetings with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, on Wednesday and Thursday. Their hastily arranged trip, just days before the two leaders will travel to New York for the UN General Assembly, appears designed to forge an eleventh-hour deal that would stop the Palestinians from pressing ahead with their bid for full membership. “Our hope is that we get the parties back into a frame of mind and a process where they will actually begin negotiating again,” Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, said on Tuesday. Mr Hale and Mr Ross visited the region last week but came back empty handed, and analysts say there is little hope for progress from the latest trip. “If the administration is trying to put together a cleverly packaged formula [for more talks], it would be a disaster,” said Aaron David Miller, a former senior US diplomat now at the Woodrow Wilson Center. “I would prefer a UN resolution to another false start.”

Mr Erdogan has expelled Israel’s senior diplomats, threatened to send warships to guard aid convoys to Gaza and described the Mavi Marmara raid — in which eight Turks and a US-Turkish dual national were killed — as a “cause for war”. “His positions on Israel are 100 per cent,” said Nasr Ali, a demonstrator who came to express his support for Mr Erdogan outside the Arab League. “His stance is much better than that of Arab leaders. He was first to expel Israeli diplomats from his country.” Huge billboards carrying Mr Erdogan’s picture against the backdrop of the Egyptian and Turkish flags were erected in Cairo, emphasising his message of regional unity. One supporter held up a sign saying: “If Erdogan had been our leader we would have liberated our Jerusalem.” But Emad Gad, an analyst, said Cairo seemed reluctant to rush into Ankara’s embrace. “The ruling military council and the government probably believe that this is not the right time to launch a strategic co-operation with Turkey. “The Turks are in a moment of strength and we are in one of weakness.”

Mr Erdogan called for the Israeli blockade of Gaza to be lifted and mentioned five Egyptian soldiers killed last month on the border with Israel as its forces pursued assailants who had mounted an attack inside Israeli territory. Many Egyptians have been angered at what they considered their government’s feeble and confused response to the killing of its soldiers. The killings were the reason cited by demonstrators for invading the Israeli embassy in Cairo on Friday.

Turkey’s new stance on Israel has come as part of a reversal of previous close ties, which prospered in the 1990s but frayed in recent years. Israel said it carried out the Mavi Marmara raid in self-defence in protection of a legal blockade on Gaza. Turkish officials said Mr Erdogan’s tour, which will later take him to Tunisia and Libya, will also mark Ankara as an unhesitating supporter of the rolling revolutions of the Arab spring.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



EU: Erdogan’s ‘Dangerous Macho Posturing’

EU Politicians Slam Turkey’s Anti-Israel Course

Turkey’s prime minister is keen to position himself as a leader in efforts to rebuild the Arab world. At the same time, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has grown aggressive in his verbal attacks on Israel. European Union politicians are now criticizing the Turkish leader, calling for a more moderate tone.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not only using his tour of several Arab states for self-promotion, but for verbal attacks against Israel as well. “No one can play with Turkey or Turkish honor,” Erdogan said in Cairo on Tuesday. Israel lost Turkey as a strategic partner after the Israeli military attack on the humanitarian aid flotilla to the Gaza Strip in May 2010.

During the Arab Spring, Erdogan has presented himself as a new power, a model leader and a “rising star” with “near pop-star status” in the region, as the New York Times has described the Turkish leader. His multi-day trip to Egypt, Tunisia and Libya is meant to strengthen his role in the region.

However, Erdogan has also linked his solidarity with the Arab world to a strident anti-Israel foreign policy. Indeed, the political battle lines between Turkey and Israel have been intensifying in recent weeks:

Erdogan expelled senior Israeli diplomats in early September. If the tension between the two countries wasn’t thick enough already, this step only served to escalate the dispute between them.

Ankara halted its military cooperation with Israel and announced an increased Turkish military presence in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. All trade ties with Israel are currently frozen and Erdogan is threatening “further sanctions.”

At the same time, Erdogan is presenting himself more and more as an advocate for the Palestinians. More than once, he has vociferously considered visiting the Gaza Strip, a move Israel would regard as an affront.

Erdogan doesn’t shy away from verbal attacks, either. On Monday, he said Israel had behaved like a “spoiled child” and accused Israel of supporting “state terror.” He described Israel’s military action against last year’s flotilla to Gaza as a “cause for war.”

The conflict could also put Ankara’s relationship with the European Union to the test. The dispute over the deadly military raid on the Gaza flotilla, which left nine Turkish activists dead, could grow into a diplomatic crisis between Turkey and the EU. Indeed, among high-profile politicians in the European Parliament, criticism of Erdogan is growing…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Russia Fearful of “Terrorists” Coming to Power in Syria

(AGI) Moscow — Russia is not backing down on its support for the regime of Syrian dictator, Bashar el Assad, saying that should he fall “terrorist organizations” could come to power.

The sentiment came from a high Russian official, who said, “If the Syrian government shows itself incapable of governing, there is a high possibility that radical elements and terrorist organizations would take over” in Syria. Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev expressed the same fears in the past few days.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Saudi Arabia: Prince Walid Denies Model Rape Allegations

(ANSAmed) — DUBAI, SEPTEMBER 14 — A spokeswoman for Kingdom Holding company, an investment company controlled by the multi-billionaire prince Walid Ibn Talal, has stated that rape allegations against the Saudi prince, who is accused of having raped a Spanish model are “totally and completely false”. This was reported by the daily newspaper Gulf News. The New York Times yesterday reported a Spanish judge’s intention to re-open a sexual assault case related to a rape that allegedly occurred in 2008, on a yacht on the island of Ibiza. The trial had previously been kept confidential and was dismissed in 2010, due to lack of evidence. “The event did not occur” stated spokeswoman Hiba Fatani, explaining that “the prince was not in Ibiza in 2008 and has not been to Ibiza for over ten years. His yacht, the Kingdom 5KR, had not reached the island yet and the prince never rented another one”. The woman, known only as Soraya, was allegedly raped on a yacht after having been drugged. Medical and toxicological investigations have detected the presence of drugs in urine and evidence of sexual intercourse; however, no evidence of rape was found. “This is certainly not the first time that somebody passes oneself off for a prince for his own purposes. However, while we do accept that a young woman might have been deceived, we would not expect this from the New York Times,” Faitani said.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



The Christians of the Near East and Islamist Ideology

At the 23rd European week on Euro-Mediterranean religious history, a series of interventions illustrate the great saga of the Churches of Antioch, from martyrdom to deportations, but also passionate evangelization and inter-religious and cultural dialogue. An overview by the editor of AsiaNews on the current situation of the Churches of the Near East in the throes of radical Islamism.

Gazzada (AsiaNews) — From September 6 to 10 last, the 23rd European Week focusing on the life history and tradition of the Christian communities of Antiochian tradition (Maronite, Byzantine, Syriac, Chaldean, Armenian, Malankara, … ) was held in Gazzada (VA).

These weeks are organised by the Fondazione Ambrosiana Paolo VI and the Catholic Sacro Cuore University and are held in the magnificent setting of Villa Cagnola, an eighteenth-century jewel. The specific theme was “From the Mediterranean to the China Sea. The irradiation of the Christian tradition of Antioch in Asia and in its religious universe. “

Over the course of very intense days of academic study and debate on the various Christian experiences in Turkey, Persia, Central Asia, India, China, the characteristic of the Antiochian tradition emerged, a tradition capable from the outset of communicating with the surrounding cultures and religions, along with a strong sense of Christian identity. The conference was attended by personalities and scholars from around the world. Among them, some witnesses to the current life of these churches, such as Msgr. Louis Sako, Chaldean Archbishop of Kirkuk, and Fr Samir Khalil Samir, an expert on Islam and professor in Beirut.

The concluding day, Sept. 10, was devoted to the situation of these churches, often subjected to severe persecution. The director of AsiaNews was asked to present a paper entitled “Islamist Ideology and situation of Christians in the Middle East”, which we publish below. The Paul VI Foundation is already drafting a publication that will include all the interventions of the conference proceedings.

Radical Islam has always been present in Islam, but it has emerged in recent decades thanks to the Muslim Brotherhood (founded in Egypt in 1928) and with the support from the Saudi Wahhabi ideology. It supposes a literalist interpretation of Islam and a return to the origins of Islam — that of Mohammed and the four caliphs — as a way to reaffirm the dignity of the Muslim communities in the world.

Their enemies are the corrupt Islamic governments (almost all) the atheist and colonial West, the State of Israel, and finally Christians, often banded together with the West, although the Islamists often target the Christian communities who were present in the Middle East long before Muhammad.

The choice of violence and terrorism seen as a religious act in praise of Allah that purifies the world by destroying the enemies of Islam is linked to the Islamic world.

What weight does this interpretation of Islam have?

A survey by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion published by AsiaNews [1] March 4, 2009, showed that at least 30% of respondents in several Muslim countries — Egypt, Palestine, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Jordan and Morocco — supported the use of bombs and murder to achieve political and religious purposes.

A large majority supported the goal of al Qaeda to “push the U.S. to remove its bases and its military forces from all Islamic countries”. These include 87% of Egyptians, 64% of Indonesians, 60% of Pakistanis.

Other aims of al Qaeda also received wide support. Among these, “the strict application of sharia law in all Islamic countries and the unification of all Islamic countries into a single Islamic state or Caliphate” received the support of 65% of Egyptians and 48% of Indonesians, 76% Pakistanis and Moroccans. “Keeping Western values out of Islamic countries”, another of the organization’s goals gained the support of 88% in Egypt, 76% in Indonesia, 60% in Pakistan and by 64% in Morocco.

Support for figure of Osama bin Laden — still alive at the time — was more contentious With the exception of Egypt (with 44%), and the Palestinian territories (with 56%) in other countries, “positive feelings” towards him reached 14% in Indonesia, 25% in Pakistan, 27% in Morocco; 27% in Jordan, 9% in Turkey and 4% in Azerbaijan.

We can say that this mentality is still present, even after the death of Osama bin Laden. Tony Blair, former British prime minister, in an interview with the BBC (09/10/2011) said that the West “had beaten Al Qaeda militarily,” but it has not yet won “from the ideological point of view.”

There is therefore a discreet influence of this Islamist mindset in the Muslim world. It is enhanced by two other factors:

1) the silence of the moderate or modernizing Muslim world, that wants a reform of Islam based on a new interpretation of the Koran and Sharia law subject to universal human rights;

2) the spread of Islamist thinking through the preaching in mosques and Islamic schools.

Because of this, in recent decades Islamic propaganda has been on the steady increase in countries in the Middle East with mosques, movies, books, videos, use of the veil, the beard, the practice of Sharia law. Such propaganda has silenced the moderate voices and urged Christians to increasingly take refuge in their communities, at most resisting this new type of colonization, by remaining anchored to their tradition.

The political use of Islam was accelerated in 1979 with the Iranian revolution and the assault on the Twin Towers in New York in 2001. However, it mainly feeds on a sense of crisis that pervades Muslim communities, who feel out of place in the modern world, incapable of producing influential and desirous cultures while at the same time wanting to live their religious faith.

The (easy) option is a return to the original Islam, the religious formalism proposed by the imams, who are repeating patterns taken from the past in every aspect of life: work, daily living, gender, justice, value of women, apostasy, etc..

The governments of the Middle East, all extremely fragile, depend on aid from Saudi Arabia and suspend the already marginal political value of the Christians — a minority — often they do not defend Christians, but prefer to leave more room in society to Islam, though sometimes they appeal for society to be protected from terrorism.

The West, for its part, by supporting the cause of Israel, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, has also chosen a conflictual path in the relationship, while maintaining economic ties, and relegating cultural and religious dialogue to last place.

Not to mention the tendency in the West to blame itself for all the problems of the Arab world, attaching them to its colonial past. A West that defends sharia as an untouchable cultural element, which defends all the rights except that of religious freedom … it must be said that these positions of the West strengthen Islamism, which is convinced of the West’s “predator” and “atheist” character and he sees in the oppression of Christians (“Crusaders”) a victory for these positions.

This situation of insecurity, war, cultural oppression is emptying the Middle East of Christians. Emigration is the road chosen by many, often forever.

In Lebanon, at the time of the Constitution in ‘46, about 60 years ago, there was a small Christian majority, compared to Muslims and Druze. Now nobody wants to do a census, but Christians have fallen below 40% (perhaps 35%). And this is undermining the country’s political balance. In other countries of the region, like Turkey, we see the Christian presence in free fall: in the space of a century it has dropped from about 20% to 1%.

Some years ago the Custody of the Holy Land presented some striking data. It claims that between 1840 and 2002, the Christian population of Jerusalem fell from 25% to 2%. In 1863, Bethlehem was an almost entirely Christian city with 4400 Christians to 600 Muslims. Even in 1922 there were still 5838 Christians and only 818 Muslims. But in 2002 the City of David is home to only 12 thousand Christians, while Muslims are now 33,500.

Dr. Bernard Sabella, of Bethlehem University, a scholar of labour migration, says that since 1948 at least 230 thousand Arab Christians have left the Holy Land; since the war of 1967 35% of the Palestinian Christian population has emigrated. It is expected that in 2020, Christians will represent only 1, 6% of the total population. The unstable political situation, tensions with Israel which slow development and job prospects, the growth of Islamism among Palestinian Muslims (in a population that once was the most secularized in the Middle East); any violent incident against churches and Christian schools, especially in Gaza are all contributing factors to Palestinian emigration.

The case of Iraq

The situation of Christian communities in Iraq is even more emblematic. Since 2003, the year of the U.S. invasion and ouster of Saddam Hussein, the country has become unstable, insecure, with fundamentalist groups that fight foreign troops, but also their Iraqi “allies”, Muslims or Christians.

The lack of security, the slowness with which the political alliances and governments were formed have increasingly deteriorated the situation.

In this sense, Christians have suffered the same trials and violence as other groups — Sunnis, Shiites, Yazidi, Arabs, Turkmen, etc. ..

The Christians were, however, a particular target of violence, to the point that many bishops feared the existence of a plan to rid Iraq of Christians, similar to the 1970s when there was one to drive Christians from Lebanon.

The culmination of this open persecution emerged in the Oct. 31, 2010, terrorists attack on the church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Baghdad. In the afternoon, while Sunday Mass was being celebrated, a group of youths — 14-15 years of age — fully armed with machine guns and grenades entered the church and began to shoot, detonating their grenades among the faithful gathered for the Eucharist . 55 people were killed, among them many children, women, elderly as well as two priests, along with about 70 wounded [2].

The attack was immediately claimed by the “Islamic State of Iraq”, a cell of al Qaeda in Iraq. In their rambling statement, they claim that the attack was retaliation against the Egyptian Church, “guilty” of incarcerating two Christian women who wanted to become Muslim.

It is important to note that since then they say that all Christians of the Middle East have become “legitimate targets” of the war of Islam against idolatry and against the “pollution” that Christians bring to Arab culture [3], referring to the church targeted in the attack as a “dirty den of idolatry.” [4]

Christians are therefore “legitimate targets” for allowing more dialogue between East and West, for having encouraged a growth in the values of modernity Arab culture, for affirming the dignity and equality of women and men, for offering education to girls, for nurturing a mature secular state, for accommodating all religious minorities.

This explains why in all these years in Iraq priests, bishops, but also lay faithful — Christian university students, male and female, university professors, professionals — have been targeted.

Al Qaeda is against the Christian faith and its contribution to the advancement of society, wanting to return the country to primitive Islam, where the woman stays at home and does not study, where there is no culture if not the literal study of the Koran, where pluralism is absent from society.

The bombing of the church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help has led many Muslim intellectuals to (re) discover the value of the Christian presence in the Middle East, and some have launched the slogan: Let us save the Christian presence in the Arab world [5].

The invitation of the Synod on the Middle East

One important coincidence is that a few days before the attack in Baghdad the Synod on the Churches in the Middle East had just concluded at the Vatican, where the importance of the presence of the Eastern Churches in the fabric of the Middle East was stressed.

And the Synod launched the urgent invitation to Christians to “remain” in the Middle East, not for masochistic voluntarism or blindness, but in the name of the vocation and mission that Christians have in these lands [6].

The Synod’s invitation to “stay” was voiced by Benedict XVI to the Christians of the Holy Land, during his trip in May 2009 [7].

This “stay” is an integral part of the search for a more complete religious freedom, but also that of a constantly growing collaboration as equal citizens of Middle Eastern society.

Arab Spring

A historic occasion for the implementation of this mission is the turbulence that is crossing many countries of the Middle East.

The so-called “Arab Spring” or “jasmine revolution” that began in Tunisia and spread to Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and especially Syria.

All of these riots started because of hunger (rising food prices), unemployment, injustice, corruption. The many young people who participated in the demonstrations were asking in particular for dignity and work, but also democracy and constitutional reforms to eliminate the personal dictatorships that dominated their country for decades, enriching themselves and groups linked to them.

The demonstrations were mostly non-violent and without Islamic confessional elements. Indeed, especially in Egypt, the friendship between Christians and Muslims was openly stressed and the demand that the constitution ensure full citizenship to all the minorities remains.

It is true that the situation of greater freedom created by with the fall of dictators (in Tunisia and Egypt and now in Libya), is bringing out the highly organized Muslim Brotherhood or fundamentalist groups linked to al Qaeda, (in Libya), who make their influence felt.

It is possible that in future elections in these countries, fundamentalist forces may gain the upper hand, aided by their organization and perhaps even the ignorance and illiteracy of the masses.

The fear of a future dominated by fundamentalists has pushed and is pushing almost all the Christian leaders to see every change of regime in a negative way and to condemn the “Arab Spring”.

Not so among the Christian laity, who instead are divided between advocates of change and supporters of these regimes.

The most typical example is Syria for months in revolt at first, non-violent, but now in danger of generating a civil war. The leaders of Christian churches, however, continue to defend Bashar el-Assad. In the words of Melkite Greek-Catholic Patriarch Gregory III Laham, “We are not afraid of Islam. We are afraid of a chaos taking over, similar to that in Iraq. “ [8]

The pope, for his part, called on Christians to pray, but he also asked the parties to find ways of reconciliation, also seeing just demands in the requests of the anti-Assad protesters.

It is a critical moment of discernment for the Christians of the Near East, to augment the demands for justice with the need for order, security and freedom. And that is part of their mission and of their “staying”.

Concluding this overview, it is worthwhile to at least touch on some important paths that are emerging in these times and which mark that a change is underway in the Middle Eastern world:

a) increasingly the Muslim world, including Muslim institutions, are openly condemning terrorist violence;

b) many Muslim intellectuals have spoken out in defence of Christians and their presence in the Middle East, and for their contribution to society, without which their lands would become “barbaric” and places of perpetual ethnic wars;

c) facing the threat of extinction of Christians in the Middle East, the various churches are seeking ways to collaborate and to evangelize together, e with a much more solid ecumenism than in the past (see in particular Turkey, Iraq, the Holy Land);

d) the Christian communities of the Diaspora do an excellent job in supporting religious freedom in their communities of origin, but are tempted by a singularly conflictual approach to the Islamic world, without being of real help to the mission of Christians in Middle Eastern societies;

e) the West (see the U.S. and Europe) seem less interested in a Middle Eastern solutin in justice, peace and respect for human rights. Their only concern is maintaining economic ties without any political or cultural dialogue;

f) the churches of the West are engaged in charity and in solidarity with the churches of the East, but hesitate to suggest ways of engagement in

Middle Eastern societies inspired by the social doctrine of the Church; at the same time they fail to influence their governments to bring political and cultural pressure to bear on the Middle Eastern States.

[1] Cfr.: AsiaNews.it, 04/03/2009, Islamic countries reject al Qaeda, but also American policy.

[2] For the massacre’s story told by the injured, s. AsiaNews.it, 11/25/2010 The martyrs of the massacre in Baghdad, a sign of unity for all Iraq’s Christians (by Simone Cantarini) and AsiaNews.it, 11/30/2010 I try to forget, but I will always see the blood stained church of Baghdad (by Giulia Mazza).

[3] Cfr AsiaNews.it, 11/03/2010 Al Qaeda threat: Christians are legitimate targets.

[4] Cfr. CBN News, 11/05/2010, Al Qaeda Group Promises Attacks On Iraqi Christians.

[5] For all, s. AsiaNews.it, 11/13/2010 Christians in the Middle East essential for the survival of the Arab world.

[6] Cfr the nn 106-110 of Instrumentum Laboris on “The Catholic Church in the Middle East:Communion and Witness”, Vatican City, 2010; the No. 5 of “Message to the People of God” (cfr. AsiaNews.it, 10/23/2010, Synod for the Middle East: a Message to the People of God ).

[7] Cfr. AsiaNews.it, 05/10/2009, Pope prays Christ will give “his courage” to the Christians of the Holy Land.

[8] Cfr. AsiaNews.it, 08/09/2011 The Pope’s appeal and the fears of Christians in Syria.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Turkey’s Erdogan Struts the Arab Street

It is deeply ironic and from some perspectives profoundly troubling that the hero of the moment in the chaotic political turmoil that is now the Jasmine Revolution is not an Arab at all, but the leader of the Middle East’s old imperial power, Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday capped months of persistent efforts to turn Turkey away from its European focus and refashion it as a power broker in the Middle East with a highly charged speech in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, aimed at arousing the political passions of ordinary Arabs.

Erdogan capitalized on his record as an outspoken populist by calling for regional backing for a vote at the United Nations later this month for recognized Palestinian statehood.

The United States, ostensibly Turkey’s ally in the NATO alliance, is siding with Israel on this question, has warned that the move will do nothing to promote a peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians, and says it will use its UN Security Council veto to nullify the move. But Erdogan’s willingness to bulldoze through the usually nuanced and opaque positions taken by Middle Eastern leaders on the Israel-Palestinian issue resonates with ordinary Arabs.

A Pew Research Center poll conducted in March and April found that 79 per cent of Egyptians, 72 per cent of Jordanians and 64 per cent of Lebanese have confidence in Erdogan as a regional leader. The Arab embracing of Erdogan comes almost a century after the Arab Revolt demolished the Turkish Ottoman Empire that had ruled the Middle East for centuries.

And while that collapse led to a revolution in Turkey that created a secular democracy with Islamic tinges — now seen by many as a model for the Middle East — in the rest of the region the Arab Revolt produced a period of French and British colonialism which morphed into the authoritarian regimes now facing turmoil on the streets.

Erdogan’s emergence as the champion of reform, however, comes more from the lack of any credible voice within the Arab states than from his own vision for the region. Since he was first elected in 2003, Erdogan’s foreign policy has been more a series of lucky stumbles than the pursuit of clear and logical policy. He leads the Muslim faith-based Justice and Development Party. His domestic drive, as well as overseeing an economic boom, has been to erode the army’s ultimate authority to protect the secular constitution. This tack towards overt religious conservatism in politics has been aided by the abrupt rejection, especially by France, of Turkey’s efforts to join the European Union.

Instead, Erdogan has turned the country’s attention toward making Turkey a major player in a regional game of influence where Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt carry the big sticks.

Erdogan’s most telling move was in May last year when his government allowed and encouraged a Turkey-based anti-Israeli group to send a flotilla of ships to try to breach Israel’s blockade of Gaza, aimed at preventing weapons from being supplied to militant group Hamas, which controls the enclave. Eight Turks and one Turkish-American were killed on one of the ships when activists attacked a boarding party of Israeli commandos. Earlier this month a UN report said Israel had the right to stop the flotilla, but used excessive force.

Erdogan used the occasion to try to ramp up his Arab street cred and demanded an apology from Israel.

That was never going to happen, but Erdogan, with what sounded like manufactured outrage, expelled the Israeli ambassador to Ankara. This has in part disguised how wrong-footed Erdogan has been in his response to the so-called Arab Spring. Erdogan opposed the UN-backed Western intervention in Libya, where Turkey had contracts worth about $15 billion with the regime of Moammar Gadhafi. After his visit to Cairo, Erdogan is going on to Tripoli to try to repair relations with Libya’s new interim government. He has also stumbled and fumbled in his dealings with another old friend under attack from protesters on the streets, Bashar Assad, president of neighbouring Syria. Erdogan’s first instinct was to support Assad, but he had to do an about-face when floods of Syrian refugees crossed the border and Turks made clear their support for the Syrian protesters. Erdogan now says Assad has lost the right to rule and should go, but he warned on Tuesday that Syria faces a civil war that could destabilize the region.

jmanthorpe@vancouversun.com

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

South Asia


Afghanistan: Taliban Blitz Rocks Kabul

TALIBAN killers launched a vicious attack on Kabul today — targeting key buildings in a devastating blitz. During a day of carnage the US Embassy, Nato HQ and other buildings in the heart of the Afghan capital were struck while suicide bombers attacked police buildings. The stand-off began when six Taliban killers stormed a building opposite the two HQs before firing rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns. This latest attack came just two days after the tenth anniversary of 9/11. It was the THIRD major attack in Kabul since June, showing a worrying new trend in the war there.

Wounded

A spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force said: “A small group of insurgents attacked the vicinity of the US Embassy and International Security Assistance Force Afghanistan headquarters today, firing from outside the compound using small arms and rocket-propelled grenades. The attack started around 1.30 pm (local time). “Afghan National Security Forces and coalition forces immediately responded to the attack, and are still on the scene. There are no reports of ISAF casualties at this time.” The American Embassy and Nato confirmed no staff were wounded in the attack. But Afghan officials said at least one Afghan copper, a civilian, and two Taliban fighters had been killed in the violence. The Interior Ministry said a total of nine people were wounded across the city. They include four injured by two suicide bomb attacks in the western part of the capital.

[JP note: Koranic students perform their version of ‘Ballroom Blitz.’]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



NCJP Report Highlights Violence and Abuses Against Pakistan’s Minorities

The commission’s Human Rights Monitor 2011 not only describes human rights violations but also offers proposals to improve society and help the country. The study includes emblematic cases of persecution and data on blasphemy murders and indictments against non-Muslims. In 2010, 40 people were charged for blasphemy; 37 were murdered.

Lahore (AsiaNews) — The National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) of the Catholic Bishops’ conference of Pakistan has released Human Rights Monitor 2011, an annual report on religious minorities in Pakistan that describes in detail the violence they had to endure last year and in the first part of this year. In addition to proving an exhaustive overview of the situation, it also provides proposals to guarantee all Pakistanis more rights and freedom.

In the preface, NCJP’s executive secretary, Peter Jacob, remembers a talk he had with activist and journalist Aziz Siddiqui before the first edition was released in 1997. The “NCJP kept doing this report all these years with limited means and skills,” Jacob writes, yet the “journey to improve human conditions and reclaim human dignity must continue with zeal and with all possible means.”

The 2011 report contains stories, comments, complains about discrimination. It highlights the various forms they take: forced seizures of land, attacks against churches and other places of worship, violations of religious freedom, forced conversions, racist verbal abuse and discrimination, anti-minority laws, crimes against women, abuses by law enforcement agencies and political groups, and last but not least, the country’s blasphemy legislation and its effects on Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Specific cases are described to illustrate the deadly violence of the ‘black law’. The cases of Robert Fanish Masih, a Christian man accused of blasphemy who died in prison, (see Fareed Khan, “Punjab: young Christian man accused of blasphemy killed in prison,” in AsiaNews, 18 July 2009) and that of Asia Bibi, a 45-year-old Christian mother of five sentenced to death on the same charges (see Jibran Khan, “Christians, Muslims, NGOs mobilise for Asia Bibi, against “obscene” blasphemy law,” in AsiaNews, 15 November 2010) are updated.

The report also looks at the murder of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer (Jibran Khan, “Punjab governor assassinated, he had called for Asia Bibi’s pardon,” in AsiaNews, 4 January 2011) and the death of two Christian brothers, charged with blasphemy and killed in front of a courthouse (see Fareed Khan, “On trial for blasphemy, two Christian brothers murdered in Faisalabad,” in AsiaNews, 19 July 2010)

Christians as well as members of other religious minorities like Hindus and Sikhs are victims of abuses, harassment as well as psychological and physical violence. Ahmadis, who are deemed heretical by mainstream Muslims because they do not consider Muhammad as the last prophet, fare even worse.

Women are attacked in the sanctity of their home or in their place of work. Some are abducted and forced into prostitution; others are forced to marry Muslim men and convert to islam.

The study notes that last year at least 40 people were charged under the blasphemy law, including 15 Christians, 10 Muslims and 6 Ahmadis.

About 37 people were killed with the law as their justification, including 18 Christians and 16 Muslims.

Between 1986, when the law came into effect, and 2010, 1,081 people were charged under it, including 138 Christians, 468 Muslims and 454 Ahmadis.

Last year, 32 Christians were forcibly converted to Islam out of 43 cases. (DS)

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

Immigration


31 Afghans Picked Up After Landing in Salento Area

(AGI) Lecce — Thirty-one Afghans who landed illegally on the Salento coast have been picked up by carabinieri and finance police. According to the migrants they arrived aboard a large rubber dinghy that sailed from Greece.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

Culture Wars


Australia: Breakfast Bans Would Make Monkeys Out of Mums

IF you buy junk food at a drive-through in NSW it may astound you to learn from new mandatory labelling that popcorn chicken is basically fat suspended in a superstructure of chicken eyeballs. This will no doubt shock the people who missed the memo that health food doesn’t come in buckets.

Last week the Cancer Council NSW continued its war on fast food with an assault on Bubble O’Bill, the Paddle Pop lion, the Coco Pops monkey and Toucan Sam, long-serving avian ambassador of Froot Loops cereal. Should the Cancer Council succeed, parents can rest assured any food promoted by a jungle creature in drag will be taken off the shelves and replaced, presumably with a plain olive green box.

Once again the food nannies will have succeeded not only in taking the fun out of another meal but in removing what effectively has served as a warning sign for parents that products are junk food. Foods such as Nutri-Grain, many mueslis and “healthy breakfast spreads” such as peanut butter and Nutella are promoted not by cartoons but by sports people.

If Nutella had a cartoon bird on it perhaps people would have worked out faster that just because a marathon runner promotes it, chocolate isn’t a breakfast food. Certainly the San Diego mother who sued Nutella for selling her fake health food would have had a harder time proving she was not a complete idiot.

Bans on food and beverage advertisements for products that are high in fat, salt and sugar are defended with studies such as the 2006 Access Economics report on obesity in Australia that claimed it cost us $8.3 billion. Obesity certainly is a serious health problem with links to cancer and diabetes, but picking on the fun foods as the sole culprits and treating parents like idiots reveals an agenda based as much on cultural prejudice as health consciousness.

Mass-produced, commercial junk food is easy to recognise; certainly the mascots help. However, posh food is often as bad for your health but is rarely marketed with anything as crass as a cartoon toucan. Wagyu beef has become increasingly popular in part because it has a high fat content and consequently is full of flavour. Perhaps a Pokemon-style cow mascot would help us remember at the butcher that Wagyu is not a healthy alternative to lean beef, fish or lentils.

At the ice cream fridge the poshest ice creams have the highest milk fat content. That’s why they are so delicious. While Paddle Pops are clearly labelled junk food by the presence of the Paddle Pop lion, Maggie Beer’s ice cream has a picture of very dignified and grown-up looking treats on the box. Eating a little of either won’t hurt you but if you’re planning to watch The Notebook, the Lion represents more value for your money.

My waistline has been enhanced by a range of foods both healthy and unhealthy, gourmet and gourmand. There are a remarkable number of kilojoules in fast and slow, fancy and plain, wholesome and junk, the amount of sugar in “diet” foods being an obvious case in point.

The Cancer Council’s bans won’t address the avalanche of kilojoules available in our prosperous society. What they can look forward to is enabling parents such as the San Diego Nutella mum to blame food producers or the government for their failure to meet a basic parenting requirement: feeding their kids properly.

           — Hat tip: Nilk [Return to headlines]



Sweden: Slap Gets Father Child Abuse Record

An Italian who chastised his 12-year-old son in public while on holiday in Sweden has been found guilty of child abuse.

Stockholm District Court said Giovanni Colasante, an official from the southern Italian town of Canosa di Puglia, “intentionally inflicted pain on his son by pulling him by the hair” for about five seconds during an argument in Stockholm.

Colasante, who denied the charges, was arrested after witnesses approached the family and called police. He spent three nights in jail before returning to Italy and was not present in court for the hearing.

It was not immediately clear whether he would appeal against the verdict.

The case has generated front-page headlines in Italy, where it is being called a parenting “culture clash” between northern and southern Europe. But even Italians who say parents should not slap their children question whether Colasante’s offence deserved jail.

Colasante told Italy’s RAI television he was “humiliated” by the experience and that his son felt guilty for having put his father through the ordeal.

“I had to give up a holiday, and it put into question my relationship with my son, because he now in some ways feels responsible for what happened,” Colasante said, his wife sitting by his side.

In Sweden there is zero tolerance for parents who hit their children, and anyone who does in public is often confronted by bystanders or reported to police.

Sweden was the first country in the world to outlaw corporal punishment in 1979, according to the country’s Ombudsman for Children.

Noting that boy had not received any injuries, the court said the abuse was regarded as a misdemeanour and waived a fine of €800, saying Colasante’s time in jail was sufficient punishment.

           — Hat tip: McR [Return to headlines]

General


Eco-Loon Science: 24 Hours of ManBearPig Day

Today is ManBearPig day. World renowned carbon trader and masseuse enthusiast Al Gore will be kicking off the celebrations by showing wall-to-wall eco-porn videos of weather doing scary things; stock markets across Europe will be collapsing in sympathy with the Prince of Wales’s recent claims that economic growth is unhealthy and we must all live more “sustainably” (ie in abject poverty); and here on this blog we plan to commemorate this glorious event with fun, games and some of our favourite South Park, Simpsons, and Eco-loon propaganda videos.

Altogether now: “GLOBAL WARMING! WE DIDN’T LISTEN!!!!”

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Super-Earth Discovered in a Habitable Zone

Whispers that the Milky Way is filled with planets have turned into a roar. Earlier this week, astronomers announced the discovery of 600 more exoplanet candidates, including one “super-Earth” which may be habitable. The news strengthens many astronomers’ suspicions that habitable planets are common and that more exciting discoveries are likely as better telescopes become available.

Called a super-Earth because it is only 3.6 times more massive than Earth and possibly rocky rather than gaseous, it resides in a 58-day orbit on the inner edge of its orange star’s habitable zone. If protected by a thick, cloudy atmosphere, it could have liquid water on its surface. Called HD 85512b, the exoplanet is only the second small world to be found inside a habitable zone and lies just 36 light years away in the constellation of Vela. That is close enough for future telescopes to scour it for signs of life.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]

News Feed 20110913

Financial Crisis
» Berlusconi Tells EU ‘Austerity Package Will Pass’
» GOP Balks at Taxes to Finance Jobs Plan
» Greece: ‘Temporary Work Suspensions’ Brought in
» Italy: PD Claims Austerity Package Hits Lower Classes Harder
» Italy: Bond Spreads Reach Highest Level in a Decade
» Rome ‘Turns to China for Help During Debt Crisis’
» Texas Coal Company Announces 500 Layoffs, Sues to Block EPA Regulation
 
USA
» A Nightmare That Could be Worse Than 9/11
» As American as Apple-Pie: How Anwar Al-Awlaki Became the Face of Western Jihad
» G.O.P. Gains House Seat Vacated by Weiner
» Surprising Facts About America’s Poor
» The Corporate Enemy
» Uncle Sucker Blesses Taliban’s “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” HQ in Qatar
» Why Obama’s Jobs Bill Could be Bad for Charity
 
Europe and the EU
» Anti-Paedophilia Assocs Bring Charges Against Ratzinger
» Euro Parliament Storm Over Berlusconi Visit
» Fiat Chief Hails New Firing Rules
» Italy: Record Compensation of Ustica Victims’ Relatives
» Spain: Half Hour of Agony for De La Vega Bull, Protests
» Total’s Caspian Gas Discovery
» UK: ‘He’s Very Loving and Caring’: Mother Defends Teenage Thug Son Who Hurled Brick Into Four-Year-Old Girl’s Face
» UK: Blind Brits and Sighted Yanks
» UK: George Osborne Allegations: Andy Coulson’s ‘Favourable’ Editorial
» UK: Lager, Lies and Missing Knives
» UK: Lemmingland Ten Years on
» UK: Migrant Jobseekers Who Don’t Bother to Learn English Will be Stripped of Benefits, Pledges Cameron
» UK: Twinings’ Earl Grey Brew-Haha is Just the Start
» UK: TUC [Trade Union Conference]: NUJ to Call for Support Against Far-Right Groups
 
Balkans
» Libya: Rebels ‘Execute 85 Mercenaries, Including 12 Serbs’
 
North Africa
» Cairo Mob Attacked CNN: ‘They Were Animals’
» Egypt: Erdogan Visits, Welcomed by Students to Al-Azhar
» Erdogan in Cairo Seekings Backing Against Israel
» Libya’s Interim Leader Makes Landmark Tripoli Speech
» Libya’s New Leader Calls for a Moderate Islam
» Libya: Rebel Leader Says Country Will be Based on ‘Moderate Islam’
» Libya: Amnesty Says Rebels Responsible for Possible War Crimes
» Mgr Martinelli Supports Rebels’ Good Intentions in Building the New Libya
» Rasmussen: Libya Could Fall Into the Hands of Extremists
» Rising Leader in Egypt Has Astonishing Plans: ‘Exterminate Christians, Close Pyramids, Sphinx’
» Turkey’s Erdogan Arrives in Cairo to Roll Up His Sleeves to Establish Robust Relations
» Turkey-Egypt: PM Erdogan Welcomed by Thousands in Cairo
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» Caroline Glick: Lessons From the Embassy Takeover
» Recognition of Palestinian State a Must, Erdogan
» UN Vote on Palestine Will Set Back Peace
 
Middle East
» Erdogan Stokes the Flames
» ‘Israel Ostracized Over Aggressive Policies’
» Libya, Syria, Egypt and Middle East Unrest — Live Updates
» Luttwak States Al Qaeda is “Dead and Buried”
» Report: Turkish Warplanes Now Able to Fire at Israeli Targets
» Syria: State Media: Al Qaeda Militiamen Entering From Iraq
» Turkey, Prime Minister Take on Leadership Role in the Middle East
» Turkey Dispatches 3 Warships to Eastern Mediterranean
 
Russia
» David Cameron ‘Would Have Been a Very Good KGB Agent’
» On the Anniversary of 9 / 11, The Great Mosque of Moscow Demolished
 
South Asia
» A Cornishman’s Six Months in Helmand Province
» Afghanistan: Kabul US Embassy Attack: Live
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
» Kenya Kidnapping: Fears Grow for Deaf Wife
» South Africa: Modern Day Genocide
» UK Police in Kenya to Aid Briton’s Murder Investigation
 
Immigration
» Algeria: Two Dead Bodies on Boat, 15 Missing
 
Culture Wars
» UK: East London Pride Will Go Ahead, Despite Ban on Marches
 
General
» 9/11 Anniversary: Al-Qaeda Releases New Video Applauding Arab Spring
» By Reacting to 9/11 With Self-Recrimination, The Western Elites Have Strengthened the Hand of Brutal Islamism

Financial Crisis


Berlusconi Tells EU ‘Austerity Package Will Pass’

Italy’s economic plan ‘ambitious’ says EU pres

(ANSA) — Brussels, September 13 — Italy’s 54-billion-euro austerity package to balance the budget by 2013 will be approved by confidence vote in the House on Wednesday, Premier Silvio Berlusconi told the European Union on Tuesday.

Berlusconi was in Brussels meeting with European Council President Herman van Rompuy to discuss the package of spending cuts and tax hikes, which van Rompuy called “ambitious”.

“Implementing [the austerity package] across the board is crucial,” said the EU president, adding his approval of an Italian bill to change the Constitution so balanced budgets will be a requirement for local governments.

Berlusconi insisted that the entire package would be passed by the House “with a vote of confidence” despite criticism from the opposition, which Berlusconi said was “ruining Italy” more than it was hurting his own reputation.

The austerity package was altered several times in the Senate, raising jitters on the financial markets, before meeting approval there last week.

Berlusconi reassured viewers on one of his television channels Wednesday that the bill was through being tinkered with.

Italy was forced to bring its balanced-budget goal forward by one year in August in exchange for bond-buying by the European Central Bank to keep Rome’s debt crisis from spiralling out of control.

Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti said Sunday the package will be flanked by moves to rev up Italy’s near-stagnant economy, funding public works and other job-creating schemes with the revenue from the sale of fourth-generation mobile-phone licenses.

Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, who has been closely following the package’s passage, said last week Italy’s low-growth problem was “dramatic”.

Critics of the austerity package claim that, in itself, it does little to lift the economy.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



GOP Balks at Taxes to Finance Jobs Plan

The prospects for President Barack Obama’s $447 billion jobs plan grew dimmer Monday as he unveiled the fine print of how it would be paid for—primarily through tax increases that Republicans said would destroy jobs, not create them.

Mr. Obama proposed limiting itemized deductions for families with taxable income of $250,000 or more a year, ending tax breaks for oil companies and corporate jet owners, and cutting out a tax break for investment-fund managers. The White House says the tax changes would take effect in 2013 and estimates they would raise $467 billion in additional revenue over 10 years.

Republicans in Congress, who had been striking a more conciliatory tone about backing at least parts of the proposal the president unveiled last Thursday, disputed the White House contention that the plan would cause no additional job losses for the struggling economy.

“It would be fair to say this tax increase on job creators is the kind of proposal both parties have opposed in the past,” said Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio). “We remain eager to work together on ways to support job growth, but this proposal doesn’t appear to have been offered in that bipartisan spirit.”

Mr. Obama made a new pitch for his plan at the White House Monday and has said he intends to campaign against Congress and Republicans in 2012 if they don’t pass the bill.

“We’ve got to decide what our priorities are,” he said. “Do we keep tax loopholes for oil companies, or do we put teachers back to work? Should we keep tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, or should we invest in education and technology and infrastructure?”

We’ve got to decide what our priorities are,” he said. “Do we keep tax loopholes for oil companies, or do we put teachers back to work? Should we keep tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, or should we invest in education and technology and infrastructure?”

Despite Mr. Obama’s demand that Congress act on the legislation quickly, neither the jobs nor tax proposals are likely to be approved or take affect any time soon. Senate Democratic leaders are expected to bring the bill to a vote in the coming weeks, but it is not expected to pass.

[…]

From the outset, Republicans said Mr. Obama’s jobs bill—which comprises tax cuts for employers and employees and a raft of government spending measures, including funds to states to rehire teachers and first responders—was unlikely to pass intact, a point White House officials privately conceded. But GOP leaders had signaled in recent days that they may support an extension of a payroll-tax cut in 2012 and changes to help the long-term unemployed.

Despite the White House’s hope that Republicans would have a change of heart after their political standing decreased after the acrimonious debt ceiling debate this summer, GOP reaction to Mr. Obama’s proposal on Monday expressed a familiar sentiment, although in a less combative tone. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.) said the parts of the jobs bill involving spending aimed at stimulating economic growth were unacceptable to Republicans.

“Anything that is akin to a stimulus bill is not going to be acceptable,” he said. “Over half of the total dollar amount is so called stimulus spending. We have been there, done that. The country cannot afford more spending like a stimulus bill.”

[…]

[Return to headlines]



Greece: ‘Temporary Work Suspensions’ Brought in

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, SEPTEMBER 13 — Amid pressure from the country’s European creditors, Greece’s government is urgently executing the temporary suspension from work of excess staff in state-owned businesses and other public organisations.

The junior secretary for Administrative Reform, Ntinos Rovlias, last night presented to Parliament the list of the first 151 companies or state-owned businesses for whom the temporary suspension of employees will be applied. Meanwhile, the secretary for businesses with state-owned stakes (DECO) has sent out a circular letter activating the suspension of staff. The circular states that all directors of state-run businesses and organisations will have to send a letter by September 26 to the secretary, listing names of excess staff, who must represent at least 10% of the total number of employees for each company or body. According to Greek newspapers, the operation will begin with at least 3,500 workers being temporarily suspended from their jobs.

The first employees to be included in the lists will be those who have earned their right to a pension, those of pensionable age and those with lower qualifications to others, such as a primary school certificate. The Kathimerini newspaper says that an amendment will be presented in Parliament in the next few days, according to which a further 200,000 employees of public listed companies will be temporarily suspended.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Italy: PD Claims Austerity Package Hits Lower Classes Harder

(AGI) Milan — D’Alema said the onerous measures of the austerity package are necessary, but they hit the lower classes harder. “Unfortunately, the government’s austerity package in its present form is necessary “, but “we believe that it doesn’t distribute the burden of the crisis equitably, as it mostly affects the lower classes, the working class”, Massimo D’Alema said shortly after arriving at a PD event in Milan. In particular, he criticised the decision to raise VAT, because “it is a tax on the consumptions of all citizens”. D’Alema also said that there are no measures in the austerity package “to boost economic growth and employment”.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Italy: Bond Spreads Reach Highest Level in a Decade

Minister confirms talks with Chinese government

(ANSA) — Rome, September 13 — Yields on Italian five-year bonds reached their highest level since the introduction of the euro a decade ago on Tuesday at an auction that highlighted investor concern about the country’s economic future.

The new record was set as Treasury sources confirmed that the Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti had met a Chinese investment delegation last week amid speculation that Italy was asking the Chinese government to buy its bonds On Monday the Financial Times newspaper reported that Italy had asked China to make “significant” purchases of Italian debt.

Spreads on five-year bonds were at 447 points late morning, while the spread between the 10-year Italian bond against the German bund rose to 440 points in early trading, before dropping back to 404 points. It was the first time that the 10-year spread against the German bund had risen above 400 basis points since the beginning of August. The European Central Bank has been buying Italian bonds for more than a month but a surge in bond yields has revived concern about Italy’s financial state and raised doubts about whether the government’s 54-billion-euro austerity package goes far enough. The Treasury sold a total of 6.485 billion euros worth of fixed-rate BTP bonds, just under its maximum target of 7 billion euros, but had to pay a record yield of 5.6%, from 4.93% at the last auction on 4 billion euros of five-year paper.

China declined to confirm or deny reports of a meeting between Tremonti and Chinese officials regarding the acquisition of Italian debt.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Rome ‘Turns to China for Help During Debt Crisis’

Rome, 13 Sept. (AKI) — Italy has held talks with China in an effort to convince the world’s second-largest economic power to purchase a significant amount of bonds and shares of strategic companies to help it emerge from a debt crisis that has sent volatility through international financial markets, according to the Italian Treasury, confirming earlier news reports.

Finance minister Giulio Tremonti met with a group of Chinese officials last week to talk about potential bond purchases by the China’s sovereign wealth fund, the China Investment Corp, or CIC, the Treasury said, confirming reports by the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times. The Italians have also tried to convince China to acquire large percentages of state controlled companies like Eni and Enel, respectively the country’s biggest oil and power companies.

CIC chairman Lou Jiwei, China’s ambassador to Italy Ding Wei, and Italy’s state-controlled Cassa Depositi e Prestiti also attended the meeting.

China already holds 4 percent of Italy’s debt, according to the Financial Times.

Worries about Italy’s ability to pay off its 1.9 trillion euros in debt has caused the interest rate in its bonds to rise and raised questions about the future of the euro currency if the third-biggest economy in the 17-member monetary block defaults on its obligations.

Prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government is trying to pass a measure that would reduce spending by more than 50 billion euros to satisfy concerns by the European Central Bank, which has purchased large blocks of Italian bonds to increase demand.

It is not immediately known if China has agreed to the purchases.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Texas Coal Company Announces 500 Layoffs, Sues to Block EPA Regulation

by Laclan Markay

It was sadly ironic that Texas energy company Luminant announced it would lay off 500 employees on the same morning that President Obama unveiled legislation designed to promote job growth. The company said that a new rule from the Environmental Protection Agency will force it to cease operations at two electricity generating plants, and close three coal mines.

“We have hundreds of employees who have spent their entire professional careers at Luminant and its predecessor companies,” Luminant CEO David Campbell said in a news release. “At every step of this process, we have tried to minimize these impacts, and it truly saddens me that we are being compelled to take the actions we’ve announced today.”

The company cited the EPA’s new cross-state pollution rule as the impetus for the decision, and noted that it had worked to identify other means of reducing emissions, but that “meeting this unrealistic deadline also forces us to take steps that will idle facilities and result in the loss of jobs,” Campbell said.

Campbell also announced that the company has filed a lawsuit against the EPA in an effort “to achieve [EPA emissions] goals without harming critically important Texas jobs and electric reliability.” The suit seeks to block the cross-state pollution rule for Texas companies, and to grant a stay to Texas companies to prevent them from having to comply with sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions standards by the existing January 1, 2012 deadline.

But though the company called the regulation unrealistic policy, it also said that it will seek emissions reductions. “Luminant supports continued efforts to improve air quality across the state and nation,” the company’s release stated. “Since 2005, for example, Luminant has achieved a 21 percent reduction in SO2 emissions, while at the same time increasing generation by 13 percent.”

Faced with potential economic damage from the cross-state pollution rule and other EPA regulations, other groups have also spoken out for environmental solutions that do not imperil the nation’s economy.

In Missouri, for instance, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity established a state-level coalition to push for “reasonable environmental regulation that continues the pursuit of cleaner air while balancing economic priorities.” While clean coal has problems of its own, the emphasis on economically sound environmental policies seems to be gaining steam as the EPA steps up its regulatory efforts.

Even groups generally on the political left have spoken out against those regulations while still noting the importance of environmental concerns. The president of the St. Louis chapter of the AFL-CIO, a member of the Missouri clean coal group, called on the EPA to “consider a balanced approach that gives us cleaner air without sacrificing jobs and increasing energy prices.”

[Return to headlines]

USA


A Nightmare That Could be Worse Than 9/11

After 9/11, an event that Americans and their allies will never forget, the United States focused on a war on terrorism. There is, however, a threat that has been largely ignored—the threat of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP), noted by Investor’s Business Daily. In 2004 and 2008, the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack (also known as the EMP Commission) released its reports on how to protect the United States from an EMP. Despite its recommendations, little progress has been made in protecting the country from an EMP attack and its catastrophic consequences.

An EMP is a high-intensity burst of electromagnetic energy caused by the rapid acceleration of charged particles. Nuclear and non-nuclear weapons or geomagnetic storms can cause an EMP. An EMP would disrupt electronics, transmission distribution centers, fuses, and power lines, sending the United States back to the 19th century. While an EMP does not kill people, millions would die as the distribution of food, transportation, and delivery of a basic health care would collapse.

Manmade causes of an EMP include a nuclear weapon detonated at a high altitude. Intercontinental-range ballistic missiles are one of the possible means of delivery for such a scenario. Short-range, less technologically challenging, nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles launched off U.S. shores would deliver a similarly devastating attack. North Korea currently possesses nuclear weapons, and its missiles can reach Hawaii and Alaska. Iran continues to improve the range of its ballistic missiles and work towards obtaining nuclear weapons capability. A robust missile defense is essential for protection from this type of attack. Such a missile defense system, composed of Aegis ballistic missile defense capable ships; Aegis Ashore, a land-based missile defense component; and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle capabilities, can deprive the opponent of the opportunity to deliver a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile and cause an EMP in the first place.

But an EMP could be inflicted without an organized group behind it. With the right equipment, a lone terrorist could cause a blackout of a city—with commercially available equipment. Time is running short. For about $200 million, the United States can harden the major transformers associated with large metropolitan areas. This would allow more people to survive the consequences of an EMP. If the electrical power grid were destroyed, it would take years to replace critical transformers, since only a few countries build them; it takes more than a year to make one transformer. The United States can and has the obligation to prevent another “failure of imagination.” The time to act is now.

[Return to headlines]



As American as Apple-Pie: How Anwar Al-Awlaki Became the Face of Western Jihad

ICSR [The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation] is pleased to announce the release of its newest report, As American As Apple Pie: How Anwar al-Awlaki Became the Face of Western Jihad, by Research Fellow Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens. This study provides the first forensic analysis of Anwar al-Awlaki’s work, which tracks his ideological path from a supposedly moderate preacher to an al-Qaeda recruiter.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



G.O.P. Gains House Seat Vacated by Weiner

A little-known Republican businessman from Queens, channeling voter discontent with President Obama into an upset, won election to Congress on Tuesday from the heavily Democratic district in New York City last represented by Anthony D. Weiner.

The Republican, Bob Turner, a retired cable television executive, defeated Assemblyman David I. Weprin, the scion of a prominent Democratic family in Queens, in a nationally watched special election.

Mr. Turner, speaking earlier in the night to his boisterous supporters at the Roma View restaurant in Howard Beach, Queens, cautioned that “it ain’t over till its over.” But his campaign spokesman said in a message via Twitter that Mr. Turner anticipated what he described as a “strong win.”

Mr. Turner’s supporters, sipping beer and mixed drinks and munching on cherry tomatoes and mozzarella, cheered as Representative Peter King, Republican of New York, said the election was going well for Mr. Turner. Mr. King attributed Mr. Turner’s strength to disenchantment with Mr. Obama’s stance on Israel…

[Return to headlines]



Surprising Facts About America’s Poor

In his address to the joint session of Congress last week, President Barack Obama called for $477 billion in new federal spending, which he said would give hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged young people hope and dignity while giving their low-income parents “ladders out of poverty.” And today, the U.S. Census released its annual poverty report, which declared that 46.2 million persons, or roughly one in seven Americans, were poor in 2010. What President Obama didn’t tell America as he was pleading for more spending—and what the Census Bureau didn’t report—is what it really means to be poor in America.

In a new report, Heritage’s Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield lay out what the U.S. government’s own facts and figures really say about poverty in the United States. The results might surprise you, especially if your view of poverty is the conventional one, perpetuated by the media—namely, destitute conditions of homelessness and hunger. In reality, though, the living conditions of those defined as poor by the government are much different than that popular image. The following are facts about persons defined as “poor” by the Census Bureau:

  • 80 percent of poor households have air conditioning
  • Nearly three-fourths have a car or truck, and 31 percent have two or more cars or trucks
  • Nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite television
  • Two-thirds have at least one DVD player and 70 percent have a VCR
  • Half have a personal computer, and one in seven have two or more computers
  • More than half of poor families with children have a video game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation
  • 43 percent have Internet access
  • One-third have a wide-screen plasma or LCD television
  • One-fourth have a digital video recorder system, such as a TiVo

As for hunger and homelessness, Rector and Sheffield point to 2009 statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture showing that 96 percent of poor parents stated that their children were never hungry at any time during the year because they could not afford food, 83 percent of poor families reported having enough food to eat, and over the course of a year, only 4 percent of poor persons become temporarily homeless, with 42 percent of poor households actually owning their own homes. Want an international comparison? The average poor American has more living space than the average Swede or German. You can read even more of those facts in their report, “Understanding Poverty in the United States.”

None of this is to say that the poor have it easy. Sadly, one in 25 will become temporarily homeless during the year, and one in five poor adults will experience temporary food shortages and hunger at some point in a year. But exaggerating the conditions of poverty does not do America any good, as Rector and Sheffield explain:

The poor man who has lost his home or suffers intermittent hunger will find no consolation in the fact that his condition occurs infrequently in American society. His hardships are real and should be an important concern to policymakers. Nonetheless, anti-poverty policy needs to be based on accurate information. Gross exaggeration of the extent and severity of hardships in America will not benefit society, the taxpayers, or the poor.

Those exaggerations about the symptoms of poverty don’t solve the root causes of the problem, either. As Rector and Sheffield write, “Among families with children, the collapse of marriage and the erosion of work ethic are the principal long-term causes of poverty.” In order to truly benefit the poor, they say, welfare policy must require able-bodied recipients to work or prepare for work as a condition of receiving aid. And it should strengthen marriage in low-income communities, rather than ignore and penalize it.

Poverty is a serious problem that requires serious solutions. But policymakers and the public need accurate information about what poverty in the United States really means. Only then can they implement the right policies to help those Americans who are truly in need.

[see embedded links at original URL]

[Return to headlines]



The Corporate Enemy

A report of a recent speech from Sarah Palin has the New York Times almost purring with pleasure. She made three interlocking points, says the paper. First, that the United States is now governed by a “permanent political class”, drawn from both parties, that is increasingly cut off from the concerns of regular people.

Second, that these Republicans and Democrats have allied with big business to mutual advantage to create what she called “corporate crony capitalism”. Third, that the real political divide in the United States may no longer be between friends and foes of Big Government, but between friends and foes of vast, remote, unaccountable institutions (both public and private).

These points are directly applicable to the UK (and much of Europe), and are much the same that I have addressed in three separate pieces, this one, then this one and especially this.

The New York Times has it that some Palin’s ideas cross the political divide, but the real issue is that the nature of the political divide has changed. We no long have the left-right divisions, or the distinction between state and free market. What has happened, as I argue in the third of my pieces, is that the line has moved from vertical to horizontal, the upper part occupied by the political classes and the corporates — with no distinction between private and public sectors.

That is in fact, where the battle lines are now drawn, something which Palin understands. If the sensitive little souls from UKIP got over their wounded feelings and used their brains, they too might realise that. The EU is only a tiny part of the overall problem. It is one corporate amongst many.

On top of the political classes, therefore, our enemies are the corporates. The battle is to be fought with them as a whole. And that is going to need a lot more than a referendum, or any of the other ideas we’ve seen coming from a eurosceptic camp that seems unable to comprehend that the battle has moved on.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Uncle Sucker Blesses Taliban’s “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” HQ in Qatar

by Diana West

On September 10, the Islamic jihadists of Afghanistan, commonly known as the Taliban, massively struck at a US military outpost with a truck bomb that left a 20-foot-deep crater, wounding scores of Americans, mainly with concussions.

On September 11, President Barack Hussein Obama read Psalm 46 at Ground Zero: “Come, behold the works of the Lord, how he has wrought desolations in the earth.” As Robert Spencer pointed out, “The only people who think that 9/11 was an act of the Supreme Being wreaking desolations on the earth are…Islamic jihadists.”

On September 12, the Times of London reported that the Taliban were opening political headquarters in Qatar — with US blessings.

This isn’t just surrender, it’s submission, and it is veritably and openly preached by the 44th president of the US. Unless the GOP candidates delve deeper and more seriously into this existential threat, hands-on and eyes open, we will be buried by a cascade of falling dominoes — not countries this time around (although that too) so much as our core institutions as they turn ever more Islamic.

From The Australian today:…

           — Hat tip: Diana West [Return to headlines]



Why Obama’s Jobs Bill Could be Bad for Charity

The aim of philanthropy — as stated by John D. Rockefeller — is for the wealthy to step in and provide services that government won’t. The two were supposed to act in concert, not in competition.

The Obama jobs bill, however, creates a new battle between the charity world and government.

The main source of funding for his $447 billion jobs bill is a limit on the deductions for those individuals making $200,000 a year or more (apparently, $200,000 is the new $250,000 when it comes to defining “wealthy.”).

Specifically, the proposal would limit the value of itemized deductions to 28 cents for each dollar of income deducted. Currently, the value of deductions for high-income earners is 35 cents on the dollar if they’re in the top 35% tax bracket.

The argument for the limit is that the top earners are getting a bigger tax break for deductions than those in lower brackets. Why should someone earning $1 million a year, in other words, deduct 35 cents for every dollar of giving while someone making $40,000 a year could only deduct 25 cents.

Yet the limits would likely reduce charitable giving because deductions are a big reason the rich give (despite the fact that the wealthy say they give out of kindness not tax breaks). And if they can deduct less, they’ll give less.

“Limiting the itemized deduction would certainly lead to a significant decrease in charitable contributions. If charities have less resources, they’ll be forced to choose between laying off employees or cutting needed services,” William C. Daroff, vice president for Public Policy at the Jewish Federations of North America told the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Cutting philanthropy to fund the jobs program may, in fact, reduce overall jobs and services for the needy, some say.

The program is “exactly the wrong direction to go in,” Sandra Swirski, executive director of the Alliance for Charitable Reform told the Chronicle.

Charities, of course, may be just as inefficient as government when it comes to creating jobs. And they will cry foul for anything that threatens their own budgets.

What’s more, this idea was floated in 2009 and quickly rejected — in part because of fierce lobbying from non-profits.

Yet funding a jobs program by reducing charitable gifts does seem to be a strange way to improve the economy.

Who do you think is better at creating jobs: charities or government?

[Return to headlines]

Europe and the EU


Anti-Paedophilia Assocs Bring Charges Against Ratzinger

(AGI) Amsterdam — Paedophilia victims association files charges against the Pope for his alleged role in crimes against humanity. Charges brought by US-based SNAP — Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests — and by the Center for Constitutional Rights were filed against Pope Benedict XVI and three high-ranking members of the Roman Catholic Church at the International Court of Justice, in The Hague. The two organisations backed allegations with a 20,000-page report, accusing the Vatican of “tolerating” sexual abuse against minors worldwide and of “protecting” culprits.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Euro Parliament Storm Over Berlusconi Visit

Greens and LibDems protest. President says “I’ll see him for two minutes”.

STRASBOURG — Today’s visit by Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi to Europe’s three main institutions has turned up the temperature in the EU’s corridors of power. Criticism and protests had begun to fly even before the opening of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, visibly embarrassing the president of the chamber, Poland’s Jerzy Buzek, who had confirmed the meeting with the Italian prime minister shortly beforehand. The president of the European Council, Belgium’s Herman Van Rompuy, and the Portuguese president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, had to issue statements to explain the motives for the meetings. EU sources let it be known that the requests had arrived from the Italian Prime Minister’s Office last week, officially to illustrate Italy’s newly approved budget but — according to Centre-left opposition politicians — to sidestep Silvio Berlusconi’s appointment with magistrates in Naples.

The point was raised at Strasbourg by former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, who as leader of the Liberal Democrats represents Antonio Di Pietro’s Italy of Values (IDV) and who asked Mr Buzek for an explanation. But the harshest attack came from the Greens’ co-leader Rebecca Harms, who protested to Mr Buzek that the meeting with Silvio Berlusconi was “inappropriate” on “the day when he should have been in court”. There was no comment from the Socialist leader, Germany’s Martin Schulz, who had a spectacular clash with Mr Berlusconi at Strasbourg in 2003 when was called a “Kapò” [a concentration camp prisoner put in charge of other prisoners — Trans.]. Members of Mr Schulz’s group applauded the protests of Liberals and Greens. People of Freedom (PDL) group leader Mario Mauro defended the visit by the prime minister, who, “love him or hate him, is the prime minister of one of the EU’s founder nations which is in Europe for its history and for the role it has played in the defence of democracy”. Mr Mauro accused Ms Harms of using an “intimidatory tone” and the Greens of “being in no position to issue certificates of democracy”. Faced with a forest of raised hands from MEPs wanting to intervene, Mr Buzek called for an end to the argument, reassuring the chamber that today’s was only a “courtesy visit”, not an official one, and that he would be able to set aside for it only “a couple of minutes” because of other engagements. Shortly afterwards, the Prime Minister’s Office confirmed that Mr Berlusconi would only be taking a “courtesy greeting” to Mr Buzek subsequent to the official appointment with Mr Barroso, calling the protests of MEPs “tendentious”. But the Greens’ leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit announced that he would return to the issue this morning. Mr Schulz will also have to take a stance to dispel any suspicions of opportunism since today he is due to announce his candidature for the presidency of the European Parliament following a power-sharing deal with the PPE (the parliamentary group to which the PDL belongs)…

English translation by Giles Watson

www.watson.it

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Fiat Chief Hails New Firing Rules

Norm in fiscal package ‘absolutely civilised’ says Marchionne

(ANSA) — Frankfurt, September 13 — Fiat chief Sergio Marchionne on Tuesday hailed new rules that would make it easier to fire workers in Italy.

Speaking at the Frankfurt Motor Show, Marchionne said the rules, contained in the government’s new fiscal package, were “absolutely civilised”.

Asked about street protests against the norms, which will allow firms to go outside national contracts to forge local agreements on sacked workers, the Fiat and Chrysler CEO said: “I don’t want to talk about people getting angry.

“The move that (Labour Minister Maurizio) Sacconi made with article 8 (of the package) is extremely important,” said Marchionne, who has been pushing for years for greater hire-and-fire flexibility and has struck plant-specific accords which have angered the same large left-wing union that led last week’s general strike, CGIL.

“It (article 8) will start to give not only Fiat but also everyone who wants to invest in Italy the certainty that enables them to manage,” he said.

“Sacconi’s move resolved very many problems, We have the certainty we can manage things, which was the important thing for us”.

Fiat had threatened to leave Italy unless the factory-specific deals opposed by CGIL went through.

Industrialists and economists have been calling on governments for years to free up Italy’s labour market.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Italy: Record Compensation of Ustica Victims’ Relatives

(AGI) Palermo — The Defense and Transport Ministries have been ordered to compensate relatives of Ustica victims 100 million euros. The judge for the third civil section of the Palermo Court, Paola Proto Pisani, sentenced the Ministries of Defence and Transport pay a record compensation of one-hundred million euros in favor of some of the relatives of the 81 victims vittims who perished in the Ustica air disaster. The relatives will be paid because the State showed itself to be unable to guarantee air safety. The argument that a bomb destroyed the DC9 has been excluded as has the hypothesis of structural flaws. The judge maintained that it was the responsibility of the Ministries to insure passenger safety.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Spain: Half Hour of Agony for De La Vega Bull, Protests

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, SEPTEMBER 13 — The death throes of ‘Aflijido’ (“Aflicted”), a 608-kilo bull injured in the Toro De La Vega bullfighting tournament — the controversial festival in Tordesilla (Valladolid) in which the bull is followed and stabbed by dozens of spears by the public to then bleed to death — lasted over half an hour, until 11:30 today. Giving the fatal blow to the animal before about 35,000 people, according to the town council, was Oscar Zamorano — who had previously won the trophy for having struck down the De La Vega bull on horseback. Protests against the Tordesilla bullfighting tradition were held by hundreds of animal rights activists from Madrid, Murcia, Valencia and Catalonia, who for years have been demanding that the medieval tournament be abolished, calling it a “barbaric act”: in contrast with its being declared part of Cultural Heritage by the Castilla y Leon council. Wearing green t-shirts, the animal rights activists this morning conducted a symbolic act to the cries of “break a spear in favour of the bull” and slogans like “torture is not culture” and “animal rights immediately”. Animal rights activists read to the Tordecilla mayor, the Socialist José Antonio Gonzalez Porcela, a manifesto signed by journalists, writers, sportsmen, musicians and figures in the entertainment world in which it is demanded that the hotly-debated “fiesta” be banned. Thousands also took part in the online campaign through the website ‘rompeunalanza.com’. “The bull suffers not only physically,” said veterinarian Marta Jimeno, from the Party Against Animal Mistreatment (PACMA). “For more than 40 years we have known from a scientific point of view that they feel emotions, and therefore panic, fear, frustration, claustrophobia, and anxiety when they are followed, even when taken from the herd and loaded onto a truck.” For this afternoon animal rights associations have called a demonstration in Madrid’s Plaza de Callao to demand that the declaration of the De La Vega bullfighting tournament being of cultural interest be lifted and that the practice be abolished once and for all.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Total’s Caspian Gas Discovery

Total, Europe’s third largest oil company, announced last Friday that they have made a major gas discovery in the Caspian Sea.

The discovery, made in the Absheron block off the coast of Azerbaijan, is thought to have large pockets of gas spread over a 270-square-kilometer field and holds about 350 billion cubic meters of natural gas and 45 million metric tons of gas condensate, according to SOCAR, the state oil company of Azerbaijan.

It is likely that additional reserves will be discovered as the exploration of the field advances. Participants in Absheron are Total (40 percent), SOCAR (40 percent), and Gaz De France (20 percent).

This discovery will benefit Total, Azerbaijan, and the entire southern Caucasus, making the Southern Gas Corridor from the Caspian to Europe one step closer to reality. The discovery confirms Azerbaijan’s potential to become a significant supplier of natural gas to Europe, making the Caspian basin a competitive source of gas in addition to Gazprom’s depleting West Siberian fields and vast but expensive-to-exploit Yamal peninsular fields in the north of Russia.

Total has been working in Azerbaijan since 1996 and already pumps 13,000 barrels of oil a day. The group owns 10 percent of the South Caucus Pipeline Company and 5 percent of the Baku-Tsibili-Ceyan Oil pipeline. Total’s senior vice president for exploration Marc Blaizot stated that the techniques developed by the company in its Caspian work would help it find more gas in similar basins off Britain, Brunei, Malaysia, and Egypt.

The gas find has far reaching geopolitical implications for the South Caucasus nation. With Azerbaijan emerging as a natural gas leading potential supplier, Europe views Azeri gas as a way to break Russia’s grip on the continent’s gas market. The European Union and Azerbaijan are expanding their relations. In January 2011, an important declaration on the Southern Gas Corridor was signed by Baku and Brussels.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev stated that Azeri energy policy “has one purpose—to promote the interests of the Azerbaijani nation and deepen regional cooperation.” Development of the Shah Deniz II, Absheron, and other gas reserves will benefit the entire region, providing funds for Azerbaijan’s development and a source of gas outside of the Russian network for Europe.

This discovery may irritate major gas suppliers, such as Russia and Iran. As additional gas exporters, such as Azerbaijan, step up gas exports, the geopolitical clout of the current leaders diminishes.

The United States should continue to encourage development of energy infrastructure in the region. As Matthew J. Bryza, the U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan, told the Trend News Agency, “The United States looks forward to continuing our work with Azerbaijan and the countries and companies developing the Southern Corridor…. We hope that the Southern Corridor will lead the way for future projects that will strengthen prosperity and stability throughout the entire South Caucasus.”

[Return to headlines]



UK: ‘He’s Very Loving and Caring’: Mother Defends Teenage Thug Son Who Hurled Brick Into Four-Year-Old Girl’s Face

Kallan Richardson, 18, was locked up for a year yesterday after leaving little Jersey-Lou Perry unconscious with a broken nose and two smashed teeth.

The thug had hurled a brick through the window of a van — striking the little girl square in the face.

But following his sentencing hearing at Grimsby Youth Court, Richardson’s mum Louise, 33, said her son was not the thug he had been portrayed to be.

She added: ‘It was an act of criminal damage gone wrong.

‘He’s a very good lad — he’s very loving and caring. It has been very stressful.

‘I understand it has been very stressful for the other family but it has been very stressful for us as well.

‘I have not brought an animal up. Only an animal would do that to a child. Nobody is going to throw a brick at a child for nothing.’

She told the court: ‘This incident has got out of hand. I know what he did was reckless. I am just really sorry for the family. We are just very sorry.’

And speaking before the hearing, Kallan told of his ‘sleepless nights’ since the incident last April.

He said outside court: ‘I never knew there was a kid in there. I would never have done it. You would have to be some sort of sick-head.

‘I am remorseful. I have got a two-year-old brother. I have had sleepless nights and was physically sick when I found out what happened.

‘It was a bad act — a terrible act. I am full of remorse for it. It was in the heat of the moment.

‘I would never have done it in a million years if I had known those kids were in the van. There was no intention to hurt her.

‘I wasn’t aiming the brick at the window. Knowing that there are kids in the car, why would you do that?’

District judge Daniel Curtis told Richardson as he sent him to a young offenders’ institution: ‘You committed a very serious offence indeed. As a consequence of your actions, a four-year-old child was seriously injured. It was reckless and it was dangerous.

‘This is a case that has caused considerable concern locally and nationally. A small child was very seriously injured.’

After the hearing, Jersey-Lou’s angry mother, Laura Mussell, 22, dismissed Richardson’s claims that he was remorseful — and branded the one-year custodial sentence ‘disgusting’, claiming it should have been far longer.

           — Hat tip: An EDL buck [Return to headlines]



UK: Blind Brits and Sighted Yanks

So, for those pro-Palestinian demonstrators who disrupted the Proms and forced the BBC to take its live broadcast off the air, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra was a proxy for the “repressive” Israeli state. We are all entitled to engage in non-violent protest, but I do get that Groundhog Day feeling whenever our anti-Israeli agitators rear their ugly heads. For decades now, we have heard the same mantra from this blinkered brigade. The world around them might change — 9/11, the 7/7 bombings, global jihad, evil doings by regimes from Iran and Sudan to Uzbekistan and Syria — but they remain stuck in their “anti-Zionist” loop, forever claiming that they are merely concerned with the protection of human rights.

Perhaps we should recognise the fact that anti-Israeli sentiment is so hardwired into Britain’s cultural DNA that it is unlikely ever to be erased. This partly stems from the contrasting, historic enchantment with the Arab world displayed by so many eminent people in this country, notably such celebrated adventurers as T E Lawrence and Freya Stark. Couple this with the antipathy towards Jews fostered during the British Mandate — when militant Zionists gave their British overlords a run for their money — and it is easy to see how it has come about.

The British in Palestine showed scant sympathy even for the desperate Holocaust survivors hoping to start new lives there, but whose boats they prevented from docking. My late (Jewish) father-in-law, then a British Army major stationed in Haifa, once left a dining table in disgust at a senior officer’s joke about the latest boat full of refugees: “We should pull the plug and drown the lot!”

The anti-Israeli convictions of later British generations may come from different sources, but are no less ingrained. They stem partly from the national predilection for championing the underdog, and Israel long ago stopped being that. Even if the underdog is now represented by Hamas, which delights in the killing of Israeli civilians, the attitude seems to be “so be it”.

It has also long been “cool” to be anti-American — which sits comfortably with being anti-Israel. Americans, of course, have never romanticised the Arab world. When Yanks look at the Middle East, they don’t come over all misty-eyed (cue theme music from Lawrence of Arabia) at a mystical landscape spoilt by a pushy little Jewish state. They see a vast region of despotic regimes, surrounding a solitary democracy which — while not beyond criticism — shares their own, enlightened, Western values.

Americans regard not only Israel, but the wider Jewish socio-cultural influence, in a different light to Brits. This was brought home to me during a recent visit to New York. I gave a talk at the Holocaust Memorial Library about my mother Vali Racz, a Righteous Among the Nations, to an audience of high-school history teachers from across the US. They had come to Manhattan for a two-week summer seminar on the Holocaust, so that they could be better equipped to teach the subject to their pupils. Full of questions, they seemed eager to learn.

There were few Jews among the teachers, and many taught in schools with few, if any, Jewish children. One teacher, Sam, came from a school in Massachusetts that he told me had a high proportion of refugee children from turbulent countries such as Honduras, Ecuador and Guatemala. “They’ve never even met a Jew,” he said. “But they are fascinated by the story of the Holocaust, because it’s all about betrayal, fear, courage, loyalty — concepts they understand”.

I can’t imagine a group of teachers from our political-correctness-mired British comprehensives spending a fortnight of their summer holiday enriching their knowledge of the Holocaust. A seminar on diversity studies, on the other hand, sponsored by the Guardian and with a keynote speech from Ken Livingstone — now that could get them fired up.

Monica Porter’s book about her mother is Deadly Carousel: A Singer’s Story of the Second World War

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: George Osborne Allegations: Andy Coulson’s ‘Favourable’ Editorial

Andy Coulson, the former editor of the News of the World who would later serve as the Conservative Party communications chief, allegedly helped George Osborne by running a favourable editorial amid allegations the future Chancellor had taken cocaine with a dominatrix, it has been claimed.

In October 2005, both the News of the World and the Sunday Mirror ran front-page stories carrying claims from Natalie Rowe that George Osborne, then the shadow chancellor, had taken drugs at parties in the early 1990s. Mr Osborne vehemently denies the allegations. In the same edition the News of the World, then edited by Andy Coulson, ran an editorial column which, it is claimed by Ms Rowe’s lawyer, gave the allegations a favourable angle and helped prevent severe damage being inflicted on the future Chancellor’s political career.

“That editorial could have gone completely the other way,” said Mark Lewis in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “It could have said, for example, whilst we do not believe that George Osborne took drugs he showed a serious error of judgement being at the party or being at the flat where drugs were taken, where there was an allegation of prostitution. He showed that error of judgement and therefore he’s not right to be in the heart of politics.

“The decision on which spin to give to the story by the editor of the News of the World particularly was something that determined his future in politics.” Mr Osborne has been credited for later pressing David Cameron to bring Mr Coulson into Conservative HQ. The editorial said the allegations posed “tough questions” during the then leadership contest within the Tory party, in which Mr Osborne was leading Mr Cameron’s campaign, but added: “Shadow Chancellor George Osborne was a young man when he found himself caught up in this murky world. “ It said it was for voters to judge the conduct of Mr Cameron’s team at election time, were he to win the leadership contest. The next election would be more than four years away. “Osborne — who runs party leadership hopeful David Cameron’s campaign — has now owned up to his encounters with a cocaine-snorting call-girl. And robustly condemns drugs for the destruction they wreak. Last week we said that the Tory leadership is Cameron’s for the taking. Nothing published since then has made us change our mind.”

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Lager, Lies and Missing Knives

There’s been much written in today’s newspapers about the rival clashes between equally obnoxious extremist groups outside of the American Embassy in London yesterday.

Muslims Against Crusades (MAC) and the EDL clashed on a number of occasions at separate locations around central London resulting in dozens of arrests. While the MAC were outside of the American embassy in a provocative and tasteless demonstration, a ceremony was taking place to remember the 67 British victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

Not to be outdone, the EDL turned up swigging cans of lager and shouting racist abuse. This was, apparently, their attempt to restore dignity to the solemnity of the ceremony and to “defend” the memory of those people who died.

Hope Not Hate has long said that MAC & EDL are exactly the same disease as each other. We condemn them both. Neither represents either the religions or the flags or the communities who they claim to speak for, represent or defend. What is interesting however, is the claim that two EDL members were stabbed by Muslims. It managed to make quite a few of the reports of the event as the EDL-having further disgraced themselves and their country’s national flag-went for some kind of martyrdom of their own, possibly to match even the supposed hunger strike of their mini-Fuhrer Tommy Robinson.

The truth however is far more interesting. There would appear to be an actual absence of the two victims. Their stabbings have been reported in newspapers, but apparently not to either the police or indeed, hospitals. The EDL of course, never let truth get in the way of their constant campaign of violence and lies directed against the Muslim community. Serial racist and moron Bill Baker of Essex is already writing that it is now “open season on all Muslims”. No doubt that was the real intent behind the news of the mysterious stabbings.

The EDL were led in London yesterday by UDA run-away Leon McCreery, the man who once covered his face to threaten to burn down Hope Not Hate’s offices. It looks like Leon has had to move to the south of England having upset some members of the Infidels, the EDL break away group. He’s just been named by members of the group as their “most wanted”.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Lemmingland Ten Years on

The tenth anniversary of 9/11 has been marked by a fresh outbreak in Britain of the political equivalent of auto-immune disease: treating the mortal enemies of the west as the victims of the west, while treating the west’s defenders as its mortal enemies. One thing al Qaeda got right about Britain and Europe (but not about the patriotic heartlands of the US) was that they no longer had the will to fight and die for their beliefs because they no longer knew what they were. Surely, however, even al Qaeda could not have envisaged quite how stunningly incapable the western intelligentsia and political class would be of grasping the difference between civilisation and its would-be destroyers, and how comprehensively they would therefore play into the Islamists’ hands — even now, ten years on. For the chattering classes seem determined to give al Qaeda a helping hand in reducing the west to a state of paralysis and impotence. According to liberal opinion, every single thing America did after 9/11 was wrong. The strategy of pre-emptive war was wrong. Better, apparently, that Saddam should still be in power developing his nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programmes! Better that the Taleban were still in power training al Qaeda! Then we would all be so much safer!

So the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were wrong. The security measures taken against Islamic terrorism at home were wrong. Indeed, opined a Times writer, how worse than useless was this ‘war on a medieval world view’ (which after all only killed a few thousand people) when the British and US government could have been doing something really useful, like fighting climate change — over whose course, as we all know, mankind has such purchase. In the Guardian the esteemed thinker Francis Fukuyama, whose earlier thesis that the global triumph of democracy had brought about the end of history was not altogether borne out by the events of 9/11, marked the anniversary by dismissing al Qaeda as ‘a mere blip or diversion’, with the US ‘overreaction’ to 9/11 turning anti-Americanism into ‘a self-fulfilling prophecy’ — the murder of almost 3000 Americans in the attacks on New York and Washington clearly being inspired by a ‘blip’ that had nothing to do with anti-Americanism.

Also in the Guardian, Mehdi Hasan identified the ‘preachers of hate and division’ — not as Islamist fanatics but as those who warn against them. The only victims mentioned in this article were not the murdered Americans on 9/11, nor the Muslim and other victims of Islamist terrorism across the world, but Muslims in Britain who were now apparently too terrified to speak in public for fear of being labelled an extremist (with the exception, it seems, of Mehdi Hasan). And last week on BBC News Hard Talk, former New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani repeatedly laughed incredulously at the assumptions of his interviewer, BBC correspondent Stephen Sackur. Wouldn’t you admit, said Sackur, that American policy after 9/11 in Afghanistan and Iraq was a mistake? Why should I admit that? said Giuliani when he had finished laughing; the US has foiled 42 separate terror attacks since then because of that security policy put in place by President Bush. Sackur tried again. But surely, he said, the police security strategy of targeting the Muslim community ‘gets in the way of the healing’. Giuliani laughed again even more incredulously. Well they would hardly target synagogues or churches he said. Of course the police targeted the mosques. It was from the mosques that the terror plots were coming. This is no more bad for Muslims than it was bad for Italian/Americans when I went after the Mafia in New York!

No wonder Giuliani laughed — he must have thought he’d wandered onto the set of a BBC comedy show by mistake. Sackur prayed in aid the remarks made by the former head of MI5, Baroness Manningham-Buller, in her Reith Lecture when she attacked the war in Iraq. Leaving aside the fact that since she ran MI5 rather than MI6 she presumably has no special insight into foreign affairs; and leaving aside also the fact that she was in charge of the Security Service when it so spectacularly failed to grasp that Islamic radicalisation within the UK was such a terrible problem, her remarks helped illuminate why the British ruling class just doesn’t get it, even today. For the former head of the Security Service revealed a depth of ignorance which was truly terrifying. She insisted that 9/11 was merely a crime, not an act of war, and different only in scale from any other crime. But what made me fall off my chair was this passage:

‘There are a few Muslims who argue that democracy, the right to elect a secular government, does not accord with Islamic principles. .It is perhaps worth noting that the modern Muslim Brotherhood does not subscribe to these non-democratic principles and actually condemned 9/11.

‘But I still find it difficult to accept that the terror attacks were on ‘freedom’ or ‘democracy’ as some have claimed. The young men who committed the crime came from countries without democratic rights or freedoms, with no liberty to express their views in open debate, no easy way of changing their rulers, no opportunity for choice and well-aware that the west often supported these autocratic rulers, for them as for many others an external enemy was I believe a unifying way of expressing their own frustrations.’

A few Muslims? It is a principle of Islam, common to all four schools of the religion, that there can be no secular authority that takes precedence over Islamic law. The Brotherhood most certainly adheres to this principle. Insofar as it condemns violence against the west, it makes clear that it does so for purely tactical reasons. Its supreme spiritual leader Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi enjoins instead that Muslims should take over the west for Islam by flooding it with Muslims and infiltrating its institutions. As for al Qaeda being inspired by frustration with Arab rulers, has this woman never read the works of Osama bin Laden, as in his Letter to the American People where his first requirement is that America should become an Islamic state? How can the inspiration for those who turn themselves into human bombs be frustration at their lack of democratic freedom when so many Islamic terrorists have been highly educated within the west? If they are so frustrated by lack of democratic freedoms, who do they constantly declare their intention to snuff out those freedoms?

And how does ‘taking out their frustration on the west’ explain this, the wholesale persecution of Christians by Islamists across the Third World? How does it explain the assassination of the Pakistani regional governor for his stance against Islamist extremism — and the quarter of a million who took to the streets in Pakistan in support of this murder? How does Manningham-Buller square her theory about ‘frustration’ or Palestinian ‘grievances’ with the sermon delivered by Qaradawi last January, when he called for the killing of every Jew in the world? Why does she ignore the hallucinatory levels of demented Jew-hatred and religious fanaticism that actually inspire Islamic terrorism? How can such a person ever have been appointed to run Britain’s Security Service?

The one person who does understand what is at stake here is Tony Blair — who is of course treated as if he is a war criminal or insane or both. In his interview on the BBC Radio Four Today Programme at the weekend, Blair ran the gamut of the usual canards from interviewer John Humphrys: going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan was a disaster, this distracted the US and UK from catching bin Laden, the wars radicalised British Muslims, Saddam was no threat to the west, his removal had empowered Iran, and so on and on. Patiently, Blair tried again and again to return the conversation to reality. It was wrong, he said, to think of al Qaeda as just an isolated bunch of criminals; they were at the extreme end of a spectrum of Islamic thinking which was visible in attacks in Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan and across the world. No effect on Humphrys. It was absurd to say, said Blair, that the war in Iraq had radicalised British Muslims when the killings in Iraq were b eing perpetrated by other Muslims and what the UK and US were trying to bring them was democracy. No effect.

It was wrong, he said, to say that he way to deal with Iran should have been to keep Saddam in power; the way to deal with Iran was to stop it getting nuclear weapons, if necessary by force. No effect.

After listening to this absurd farrago of illogicality, ignorance and false assumptions being hurled at Blair, I looked up my own Daily Mail column that was published on September 12 2002. I wrote then:

‘Any new regime in Iraq must fulfil only one criterion for us: that it will not pose a threat to the rest of the world. And the same goes for the other countries in Bush’s axis of terror: Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia. The US hopes that sorting Saddam will deliver to these other states the simple message: unless you desist from terror, you’re next.

‘If these states don’t put their houses in order, then the west has a moral duty to act against them too if the world is not to be held to ransom forever. Those who say war with Iraq threatens the stability of the whole region need a reality check again. The whole point is to upset the stability of the region, because the region has bankrolled, armed and trained terrorists for decades.’

The real problem with the US and UK reaction to 9/11 was that they did not follow through. It was Iran which destabilised Iraq post Saddam, Iran which was killing coalition troops there just as it had attacked western interests ever since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Saddam and the Taleban were threats to our interests from their sponsorship of terror and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction which they intended to use against the west (and contrary to received wisdom, WMD programmes were found in Iraq that had been in existence up to the start of the war). But we should have gone on to deal with Iran, Syria, Pakistan and Saudi as well. Instead, the US and UK have now reached the even more perverse situation where, having mucked up Iraq and Afghanistan by half-hearted or incompetently-prosecuted wars and giving the enemy the clear impression that the west is not prepared to stay the course, the US and UK have been busy helping topple regimes that were, to some extent at l east, helpful to the west while failing to deal with the mortal threat posed by Iran and its ally, Syria.

The jubilation at the fall of Gaddafy and Mubarak is, to say, the least, premature. Indeed, it is stupidity of the first order. As Conservative Home reported, David Cameron spoke optimistically about the ‘Arab Spring’ and described people in Egypt and Libya ‘seizing an alternative to the poisonous narrative of the extremists’ and that ‘the spread of democracy and rights’ was the trend rather than the ‘spread of extremism.’ Stating that al Qaeda was ‘politically defeated’, Cameron said: ‘Al Qaeda’s [has] had almost nothing to do with the Arab Spring. They’ve been irrelevant.’ How can he possibly be so ill-informed? An al Qaeda commander is reportedly in charge of armed brigades in Tripoli, weapons caches have gone missing, weapons have reportedly been smuggled from Libya to Hamas, the rebels are being aided by Iran and other jihadists are in their ranks.

In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood is poised to take a dominant position in the government, the mob almost lynched diplomats at the Israel embassy last week, Coptic Christians are being banned from public office and attacked. We don’t yet know what will happen in these countries; but the likelihood is currently very high that the UK, US and France will end up replacing tyrants and despots who were helpful to the west by tyrants and despots who intend to destroy the west. The former Bishop of Rochester, the Pakistan-born Michael Nazir-Ali — who has said that al Qaeda has been in the forefront of the Libyan revolt — has written of Islamic jihadi ideology on which he is an expert:

‘Such an ideology expects Islam to dominate rather than to accept a subservient place in world affairs. It promotes pan-Islam and the ultimate rejection of nation-states, even Muslim ones…its ultimate aim is a single Islamic political, social, economic and spiritual entity. …This is not to mention Shi’a radicalism which, in the form of Hizbollah, is now present on the borders of Israel. The radical Shi’a crescent is waxing all over the Middle-East and it has enormous security implications for states in the area and beyond.’

Back in the 1990s, Nazir-Ali warned the British government that large numbers of British Muslims were being dangerously radicalised. What’s the difference between his situation then and now? In the 1990s, ministers simply didn’t believe him when he told the truth about the Islamisation of Britain and the need to defend the west against a civilisational attack; his warnings were ignored. In 2009, he was effectively driven out of office in the Church of England because he told the truth about the Islamisation of Britain and the need to defend the west against a civilisational attack.

That is how Britain has travelled in the past ten years since 9/11 — steadily towards the edge of the cliff. And Lemmingland is still travelling in exactly the same direction.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Migrant Jobseekers Who Don’t Bother to Learn English Will be Stripped of Benefits, Pledges Cameron

Jobseekers whose poor English is stopping them getting work will be forced to attend free language training or face losing their benefits, the Prime Minister said today.

Under new rules coming into force, Jobcentre Plus advisers can mandate people onto training courses if they believe they lack the correct skills to find work.

Benefits claimants with poor English skills, which are preventing them from getting into employment, will be referred to specialist free English language training courses.

If claimants refuse to attend any of the classes recommended to them, they could have their benefits stopped.

Speaking during a visit to a work and welfare support centre, David Cameron said: ‘We are getting rid of the old idea that you can get your welfare without conditions being put on that.

‘We’re saying that if there’s something you need to help you get a job, for instance being able to speak English and learn English properly, it should be a requirement that you take that course, do that study in order for you to receive your benefits.

‘That’s good for you because it’s going to help you get a job, it’s good for the taxpayer because we won’t be wasting money on welfare that’s unnecessary, and it’s good for the economy because we want more people in work creating a bigger, more productive economy.’

Government estimates the policy could affect as many as 67,000 unemployed who are currently claiming benefit even though they don’t have a basic grasp of English.

The Prime Minister said job centre staff had asked for the condition to be implemented.

Mr Cameron spoke as he visited the A4E centre in Brixton, south London, which provides training and advice to people getting back into work.

He said a wide package of reforms covered by the Welfare Reform Bill — which had its second reading today — would help form ‘the biggest back-to-work programme there has been in this country since the 1930s’.

Mr Cameron added: ‘What we’re doing is saying to everyone who has been stuck on benefits, whether jobseekers allowance or incapacity benefit, these organisations will help you get work.’

Mr Cameron, who spent more than an hour meeting staff and clients with Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, said training providers such as A4E would be paid by the Government by results.

‘So the more people they get into work, the more money they get,’ he said.

‘And crucially, the more people who have really been out of work a long time and are very challenged, and may have been on incapacity benefit for years, they’ll get paid serious money for getting those people back in work.’

           — Hat tip: An EDL buck [Return to headlines]



UK: Twinings’ Earl Grey Brew-Haha is Just the Start

First Twinings changed its much-loved Earl Grey recipe — now, thanks to a health drive, Heinz is changing its HP Sauce formula.

I knew something was up when my wife started stockpiling tea. You only had to open a cupboard in our kitchen and a box of tea bags or loose-leaf would tumble out. Whenever we went shopping, even to the smallest grocery store in the remotest village, she would scour the shelves, eyes desperately hunting down her prize. What she was looking for was the Holy Grail of the tea drinker — a box of original Earl Grey. Twinings, inexplicably, decided a few months back to change the recipe to produce a taste that connoisseurs of the traditional blend found revolting.

Twinings called it The Earl Grey, with the definite article acting like a sheepish acknowledgement that it had done something it shouldn’t. It most certainly was not the Earl Grey; indeed, some questioned whether it was even tea at all. My in-house taster likened it to dishwater mixed with perfume. After being inundated with complaints, Twinings has restored the original blend, though not to the shops. Customers can order it online for roughly the same price as the old tea — but you have to spend £35 to avoid the £3.95 delivery charge. I suspect its devotees will not be happy until it is back on the supermarket shelves.

Doubtless, the executives of the American food giant Heinz will have been watching the Earl Grey brew-haha with mounting alarm, because a similar campaign is growing against the changes it has made to another much-loved product: HP Sauce. For more than 100 years, bottles of the brown stuff have been a staple of kitchen tables across the land. No roadside caff worthy of the name would be without its HP alongside the tomato ketchup. Made from a recipe that includes tomatoes, malt vinegar, molasses, dates, tamarind and a secret concoction of spices, it is defined by its familiar tangy taste. Like Marmite, people loathe it or love it — and those that love it certainly don’t want it changed.

But Heinz has done just that in order to conform to the demand by government health chiefs that food should have less salt. The company has signed up to the Health Department’s so-called Responsibility Deal, a programme of targets for reducing the level of fats and salts used by food manufacturers. So, whereas the previous HP recipe contained 2.1g of salt per 100g, it now has 1.3g — a 38 per cent cut that for aficionados is enough to make all the difference to the taste. They say it is now too sour. Marco Pierre White, the Michelin-starred chef, who was eating sausage and mash in a pub recently, sent the meal back because he thought it was off. “It was the HP,” he said. “It was definitely dodgy. I had no idea they had changed the recipe.”

The HP case is different from the Twinings one in that the latter’s wounds were self-inflicted, whereas Heinz feels itself under pressure from the Government to make its foods healthier. This Responsibility Deal began in the spring and its impact is about to be felt. Indeed, all of us who have a favourite food or drink might find our taste buds sorely tested over the next few years as manufacturers change products to meet their pledges under the initiative.

Many of our best-known companies and supermarkets have signed up, promising to reduce calorie and salt content. While they include producers of such obvious calorie-busting fare as burgers and pizzas, who eats so much brown sauce that its salt content is going to make any difference? Given that it is usually being splattered onto a full English breakfast or squeezed onto a bacon sandwich, the sauce is probably the healthiest part of the meal. What are we going to have next — Mars Bars without sugar? Scotch without alcohol? The most famous advocate of HP sauce was said to be Harold Wilson, the Labour prime minister, though in fact he always professed a preference for Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce. I have no idea what its salt levels are, but will it now have to change at the behest of the health police?

The argument comes down to honesty and transparency. Heinz had already launched a reduced salt and sugar version of HP Sauce, yet it went ahead and changed the recipe of the classic version too, without making clear to customers that it had done so. Why not preserve the original and allow people to make the choice for themselves? And if you do change the recipe, should you really market the product as “original and genuine”?

If Heinz thought it could get away with changing an old stalwart such as HP Sauce without anyone noticing, then it was mistaken. It reckoned without the highly developed palates of people who were virtually weaned on the original and whose ability to spot an imposter is as finely tuned as the most accomplished wine taster — or Earl Grey tea drinker. As for me, I am going to stockpile jars of Colman’s English Mustard — just in case.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: TUC [Trade Union Conference]: NUJ to Call for Support Against Far-Right Groups

National Union of Journalists submits emergency motion to TUC conference over alleged attacks on the press by members of the English Defence League

The National Union of Journalists intends to call on delegates at the TUC conference to publicly condemn alleged attacks on the press by members of the English Defence League. The union has submitted an emergency motion to the conference over the alleged attacks, which it claims included a photographer being set on fire and another journalist sexually assaulted at an EDL rally earlier this month.

The motion, which the NUJ hopes to have accepted and added to the agenda of the conference today, calls on TUC members to publicly condemn the actions of the EDL, as well as campaigning against far-right groups and offering assistance to affiliate unions if their members are threatened. It also calls on the police to take action to identify and prosecute EDL supporters who attack trade unionists.

The NUJ claims to have received numerous reports of journalists being harassed, racially abused, and having bottles and fireworks thrown at them by the anti-Islamic group. The motion submitted to the TUC conference calls the alleged attacks “a violation of press freedom and an attack on our democracy”. “Far-right attacks on media workers are aimed at deterring them from carrying out their work and are designed to intimidate trade union members and stop the media reporting on far-right activity,” it adds. A spokesperson for the Met police confirmed that the the force was investigating an allegation of assault at the rally in which a 17-year-old had his clothing set alight and suffered minor burns. No arrests have been made over the incident.

Speaking to the Press Gazette, an eye-witness backed up the union’s description of the attacks and accused the EDL of a “history of attacking members of the media”. “I think they turn on photographers because we are more visible than writers who can blend in more easily,” he said. “They don’t like journalists covering their events because it leads to reports and pictures coming out showing their violence.”

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Balkans


Libya: Rebels ‘Execute 85 Mercenaries, Including 12 Serbs’

Belgrade, 13 Sept. (AKI) — Libyan rebels who control most of the country after defeating Muammar Gaddafi’s military, have executed 85 foreign mercenaries, including 12 Serbs, in the city of Misrata alone, Serbian media reported on Tuesday.

Belgrade daily Press said the executions took place in the state insurance building in Misrata after it was taken by the forces loyal to rebels’ National Transitional Council (NTC). Among the killed mercenaries, who fought on Gaddafi’s side, were also nine Croats, 11 Ukrainians and ten Colombians, the paper said.

The report was also confirmed by Zagreb daily Vecernji list whose correspondent in Misrata, Hasan Hajdar Dijab, said many mercenaries had been killed in fighting, but those arrested were shot in the head.

It quoted a rebel commander in Misrata Abdelaziz Madini as saying “those killed weren’t soldiers but executioners who came here to kill for money”. He said other mercenaries who surrender would have a fair trial.

Balkans military analysts said they were not surprised by the report, because hundreds of veterans of 1990s Balkans war have sought engagement abroad after the end of the Balkan wars in 1995 and fought for money in various African and Asian countries.

In a related development, the human rights organization Amnesty International (AI) said in its latest report that both sides in the Libyan conflict committed crimes, especially Gaddafi’s forces, but “crimes committed by rebels weren’t negligible either”, it added.

Amnesty International has called on Libya’s National Transitional Council to take steps to prevent human rights abuses by anti-Gaddafi forces.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

North Africa


Cairo Mob Attacked CNN: ‘They Were Animals’

CNN journalists described the Friday mob that attacked them during the riot at the Israeli embassy as “animals.” One other journalist was called a spy and was almost raped. The worldwide news site reported a scene that brought back ugly memories of the gang rape of CBS reporter Lara Logan earlier this year during the Arab spring uprising against the Mubarak regime. …

The rioters also attacked Egyptian journalists, including a reporter for Egyptian state television. Many correspondents ran for their lives. After the brutal and vulgar assault on CBS correspondent Logan, the Uncoverage.net website noted, “The assault on Lara Logan illustrates just how much order has recently broken down in the MidEast region which is now far more dangerous for Westerners.”

           — Hat tip: Egghead [Return to headlines]



Egypt: Erdogan Visits, Welcomed by Students to Al-Azhar

(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, SEPTEMBER 13 — Hundreds of students from the Al-Azhar university, the foremost religious university, welcomed Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on his arrival this morning to meet with the Grand Imam Ahmed El Tayyeb and Mufti Ali Gomaa. “Erdogan, our Friend” and “Welcome Free Leader” are some of the slogans chanted this morning by students. As his first stop, this morning Erdogan paid homage to the Turkish cemetery in Cairo where over 4,000 soldiers who died in World War I are buried. Without their sacrifice, Erdogan said according to the MENA new agency, the Turkish Republic would not have been free. In the morning Erdogan is scheduled to speak before Arab League foreign ministers and meet with Prime Minister Essam Sharaf.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Erdogan in Cairo Seekings Backing Against Israel

(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, SEPTEMBER 13 — Seen by analysts and commentators as the representative of a possible model of democracy for Egypt to follow, bridging Islam and secularism, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Cairo last night with a wealth of prestige enhanced by his hard line against Israel. As the first stop on a tour through the countries of the Arab Spring, which tomorrow will see him travel to Tunisia and to Libya on Thursday, Egypt will be the first testing ground to measure Turkey’s ability to also become a key regional player in the Arab world, at a time when Ankara’s relations with Israel are at an all-time low. Accompanied by nearly 170 businessmen and a significant number of ministers, between today and tomorrow Erdogan will have a densely-packed agenda of encounters with high-ranking Egyptian officials and his visit to Cairo also comes while Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), and EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, will also be in the Egyptian capital. He will have a discussion with them on the Palestinian initiative to present a request for Palestine to become part of the UN during the next General Assembly meeting in New York. Welcomed last night at the airport by Egyptian Premier, Essam Sharaf, today Erdogan will meet with the head of the Supreme Military Council, Hussein Tantawi, which essentially has been governing the country since the fall of President Hosni Mubarak.

This morning Erdogan will speak at the meeting of Arab League Foreign Ministers and unconfirmed reports have stated that he will also make a visit to the nearby Tahrir Square, the focal point of the protest which led to the radical change in regime. Turkey’s undeclared objective, according to numerous observers, is to seek backing in Egypt against Israel. Extremely harsh statements on Israel by the Turkish premier preceded Erdogan’s trip to Cairo, which somehow ignited the fuse that caused the popular protest to erupt in the Egyptian capital with an attack on the Israeli Embassy. In a controversial interview with Al Jazeera, the Turkish premier also called the violent Israeli boarding in international waters last year of the pro-Palestinian flotilla headed to Gaza with humanitarian aid a ‘reason for war’ and a ‘bone of contention’. Also, in a long interview with Egyptian daily, al Shorouk, he called Israel “a spoiled child” which, in addition to practicing “state terrorism” against the Palestinians, does not want to accept the fact that “the world, and the Arab world in particular, has changed”. But beyond the issue of Israel, according to the press in Ankara, Erdogan will be the bearer of a message to the Arab and Islamic world on the one hand, and to the West on the other. The setting, according to sources in Cairo, will reportedly be the Opera House, although some sources in the press have stated that Erdogan will speak in the evocative Great Hall at Cairo University, where in 2009 Barack Obama held his first speech to the Islamic world. It is expected that Erdogan will say that the Arab world must not fear democracy and secularism, and the Western world must not be afraid of the political developments in the region which, he will repeat, will not bring about the creation of Islamic regimes. Today Erdogan will meet with the leaders of the Egyptian Muslim community (Grand Imam of Al Azhar, Ahmed el Tayyed, and Grand Mufti of Egypt, Ali Gomaa), as well as the leader of the Coptic church, Pope Shenouda III, to support this belief.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Libya’s Interim Leader Makes Landmark Tripoli Speech

(Reuters) — Libya’s interim government chief, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, made his first speech to a crowd of about 10,000 in the capital Tripoli on Monday — a sign of growing confidence from the former rebels. Abdel Jalil arrived in Tripoli on Saturday for the first time since his allies chased Muammar Gaddafi out of the city, a move that political analysts saw as key to his credibility. The chairman of the ruling National Transitional Council called on the movement’s fighters not to engage in reprisal attacks against remnants of the Gaddafi government. Repeating a call made before, he also said that Islamic sharia law should be the new Libya’s main source for legislation. “We need to open the courts to anyone who harmed the Libyan people in any way. The judicial system will decide,” he told the crowd, calling for no attacks on former Gaddafi allies. We seek a state of law, prosperity and one where sharia is the main source for legislation, and this r equires many things and conditions,” he said, adding that “extremist ideology” would not be tolerated.

Abdel Jalil had been running the provisional administration from the eastern city of Benghazi, cradle of the revolt that overthrew Gaddafi in late August. NTC officials told Reuters they did not advertise the public appearance for fear pro-Gaddafi elements would try to disrupt it. The crowd cheered, waved the independence tricolour flag. Balloons, fireworks, music and the smell of popcorn gave the gathering a carnival atmosphere. “The most important thing was what he said about building a nation of laws, and his reassurances about extremism, from the left or the right, Islamists or secularists,” Osama Gheriani, a 30-year-old dentist, told Reuters. “It’s a moderate country. This was the most important point.”

Some of the hesitation in Abdel Jalil’s arrival in Tripoli after the fall of Gaddafi seemed to stem from long-standing regional rivalries and from a sense that Tripoli — run by rebel brigades that swept in from towns and provinces eager for a share of power — may not be a safe place for every official.

The NTC’s timetable which sets out plans for a new constitution and elections over a 20-month period, should start once the NTC declares Libya’s “liberation.” It has yet to do so and it is unclear exactly how the disparate groups which have taken over the country will define what constitutes “liberation.” Several parts of the country’s south and three major towns — Bani Walid, Sirte and Sabha — are still controlled by forces loyal to Gaddafi. “Bani Walid, Sirte and Sabha are now under siege by Gaddafi forces. We are betting that our brothers in those cities will fulfil their expectations and you will see them do so soon,” Abdel Jalil said.

(Additional reporting by Joseph Nasr in Berlin; writing by Barry Malone; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Libya’s New Leader Calls for a Moderate Islam

Mustafa Abdul Jalil, chairman of national transitional council, says women will play a part in the revolution

The leader of Libya’s transitional government used his first speech in Tripoli to call for unity and moderation as he sought to allay fears of factional splits among the country’s new rulers. Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the chairman of the national transitional council, addressed a crowd of about 10,000 people in the re-named Martyrs square on Monday night.

Amid fears that differences could now spill over between the NTC, which was originally based in Benghazi, and other rebel factions, Jalil was at pains to stress the moderate credentials of the new Libya. He said Islamic sharia law should be the main source of legislation but added: “We will not accept any extremist ideology, on the right or the left. We are a Muslim people, for a moderate Islam, and will stay on this road.” Jalil also emphasised that women had played an important part in the revolution and would continue to do so.

“Women will be ambassadors,” he said to cheers from women and girls in the crowd waving flags. “Women will be ministers.” Many of the women were dressed in the red, black and green of the revolution.

Among the prominent Islamist figures is Abdul Hakim Belhaj, a former fighter in the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group a militant organisation that long opposed Gaddafi and now the commander of the Tripoli military council, which has called for the resignation of the Mahmoud Jibril, the US-educated acting prime minister. One source close to the NTC told the Associated Press: “Abdul Jalil is trying to keep the peace, and it’s a struggle between both sides, between the two powerful camps. He’s trying to maintain a balance between the two camps, and keep the international community happy. It’s very difficult.”

In his Martyrs’ Square speech, Jalil pointedly praised the different groups involved in toppling Gaddafi, including those who were not under the direct control of the council in Benghazi, some of whom feel they have not been given their fair share of credit for their part in the uprising. The co-founder of the February 17 coalition — a reference to the date of the first uprising — last week criticised the performance of the NTC’s executive committee. Saoud Elhafi said he was particularly unhappy about the appointment of ministers “without consulting us or other organisations. From what I see, they are a bunch of business people”.

Jalil’s message of reconciliation extended to the remaining Gaddafi forces and the families of former government figures who he said should not be held responsible for the crimes of their relatives. “We are Muslims, people of forgiveness,” he said, urging people to let the law run its course. His appeal came on the eve of publication of an Amnesty International report which found that rebels as well as pro-Gaddafi forces perpetrated killings, torture and other abuses during the uprising against the Libyan regime. Jalil said he was confident that the remaining resistance by Gaddafi loyalists would soon be overcome. “Bani Walid, Sirte and Sabha are now under siege by Gaddafi forces,” he said. “We are betting that our brothers in those cities will fulfil their expectations and you will see them do so soon.”

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Libya: Rebel Leader Says Country Will be Based on ‘Moderate Islam’

Tripoli, 13 Sept. (AKI) — The leader of the rebel’s political wing delivered his fist speech in Tripoli since Muammar Gaddafi was toppled at the end of last month saying he plans to create a democracy based on “moderate Islam.”

Speaking to thousands of people in Martyr’s Square, Mustafa Abdul Jalil warned against settling scores against Gaddafi’s supporters.

We are a Muslim nation, with a moderate Islam, and we will maintain that. You are with us and support us — you are our weapon against whoever tries to hijack the revolution,” he said

A new report by human rights group Amnesty International blamed rebels for committing war crimes against Gaddafi forces like torture and revenge killings, especially when they retreated from the eastern part of Libya.

Jalil said that woman would play a part in running post-Gaddafi Libya and said that Sharia law , the law based on the Koran, would be the primary source for laws to government the North African country.

Jalil served as Gaddafi’s justice minister prior to joining rebels during the popular uprising that evolved into a full-blown civil war.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Libya: Amnesty Says Rebels Responsible for Possible War Crimes

Tripoli, 13 Sept. (AKI) — Troops loyal to Muammar Gaddafi and the rebels that successfully fought to oust the Libyan leader both share responsibility for war crimes committed during the seven-month civil war, according to a new report by human rights group Amnesty International.

The 107-page report “The Battle for Libya: Killings, Disappearances and Torture” reveals that while Gaddafi forces committed widespread crimes under international law during the conflict, forces loyal to the National Transitional Council (NTC) have also committed abuses that in some cases amounted to war crimes.

“The new authorities must make a complete break with the abuses of the past four decades and set new standards by putting human rights at the centre of their agenda” said Claudio Cordone, senior Director at Amnesty International.

“The onus now is on the NTC to do things differently, end abuses and initiate the human rights reforms that are urgently needed.”

The London-based group said it found evidence of what may be “crimes and abuses” committed by Gaddafi’s forces “including indiscriminate attacks, mass killing of prisoners, torture, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary arrests. In most cases it was civilians who bore the brunt of these violations.”

But it also found “a settling of score” committed by rebels led by the NTC when Gaddafi’s military retreated from eastern Libya “including lynchings of Gaddafi soldiers after capture,” the report said.

“The NTC is facing a difficult task of reining in opposition fighters and vigilante groups responsible for serious human rights abuses, including possible war crimes; but has shown unwillingness to hold them accountable,” the report says. “So far, NTC officials have not provided details of any measures taken to address such concerns.”

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Mgr Martinelli Supports Rebels’ Good Intentions in Building the New Libya

Currently in Italy for health reason, the bishop of Tripoli will return to Libya on Thursday where he hopes to meet the rebel leader. Mustafa Jibril says the country’s new order will be inspired by Sharia but will be against Islamic extremism. Amnesty International accuses the rebels of serious human rights violations.

Tripoli (AsiaNews) — “We must back the rebels’ good intentions rather than take their words to extremes,” said Mgr Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli. He spoke to AsiaNews about the recent speech made today in Tripoli, by Mustafa Abdel Jibril, president of Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC).

Speaking before a crowd of thousands of people, the NTC leader said the new state would be inspired by Sharia but would not move towards extremism.

Despite concerns by some experts about Islamist risks in the country, Mgr Martinelli believes that Jibril “is a man of good will, willing to move the country towards a new future.”

In Italy for health reason, the prelate plans to go back to Tripoli on Thursday. “I hope to meet rebel leaders very soon to see what the new Libya will look like,” he said.

In the meantime, the country is still far from being stable. In Sirte, Bani Walid and the south, fighting is still going on with many civilians caught in the crossfire between pro- and anti-Gaddafi forces.

Today Libya’s former strongman released a new TV message in which he said he would fight until victory.

Tiziana Gamannossi, an Italian businesswoman in Tripoli, said that life was getting back to normal in the capital, but that residents in villages and towns still under siege are not getting any aid. Some reports are saying that civilians are being killed.

“In Tripoli, stores reopened. Water, diesel fuel and bottled gas are available again. People are confident,” she said.

However, the health situation is still bad despite the work of the Red Cross and Doctors without Borders (MSF).

Revenge actions between tribes and families are still out of control and are causing many victims.

Today Amnesty International released a report accusing the rebels of serious human rights violations against Gaddafi loyalists.

The report also refers to the lynching of black Africans suspected of being mercenaries hired by Col Gaddafi, as well as revenge killings and the torture of some captured pro-Gaddafi soldiers.

The NTC has criticised the Amnesty report, saying that rebels “are not the military, they are only ordinary people,” who made mistakes, but that these could not be described as “war crimes”.

According to Gamannossi, an international force should be deployed to stop the spiral of violence that is devastating many families. However, the rebels have rejected that idea so far. (S.C.)

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Rasmussen: Libya Could Fall Into the Hands of Extremists

(AGI) London — Without a stable government, Libya is in danger of falling into the hands of Islamic extremists, alerted NATO’s secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, he underlined that we cannot exclude the possibilitythat extremists would “try to exploit” the situation and the current power vacuum.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Rising Leader in Egypt Has Astonishing Plans: ‘Exterminate Christians, Close Pyramids, Sphinx’

by Bob Unruh

A rising leader in the radical Islamic movement in Egypt that has become a major political player since the demise of Hosni Mubarak’s regime says Christian churches may need to be blown up and Christians exterminated to allow the advance of Islamic law, or Shariah.

The comments come from Sheik ‘Adel Shehato, a senior leader with the Egyptian Islamic Jihad terrorist group. The sheik was jailed in 1991 because of his positions but was released earlier this year in the revolution that removed Mubarak from power.

His interview with the Egyptian daily Roz Al-Yousef was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

What’s up with Islam? Read “Everlasting Hatred: The Roots of Jihad” and find out

The sheik, a senior jihadist leader, responded to a question about using violence against Christians, who make up a substantial minority in Egypt.

“Are you against blowing up churches?” the newspaper interviewer asked Shehato.

“Yes and no,” he replied. “The Christian is free to worship his God in his church, but if the Christians make problems for the Muslims, I will exterminate them. I am guided by the Shariah, and it stipulates that they must pay the jizya tax while in a state of humiliation.”

“These positions of yours frighten us, as Egyptians,” the interviewer said.

“I will not act [in ways] that contradict my faith just in order to please the people. … We say to the Christians, convert to Islam or pay the jizya, otherwise we will fight you. The Shariah is not based on logic but on divine law. That is why we oppose universal, manmade constitutions.”

MEMRI, which was founded in 1998 to monitor Middle East media, is an independent, nonpartisan nonprofit group that has offices in Washington, London, Rome, Jerusalem, Baghdad, Shanghai and Tokyo.

Advisers include winners of Nobels, the President Medal of Freedom and the U.S. Congress Gold Medal, such as Elie Wiesel, James Woolsey, John Bolton, John Ashcroft, William Bennett, Paul Bremer, Alan Dershowitz and Edgar Bronfman.

Among the many assertions made by the senior Islamic leader was that the Egyptian pyramids need to be closed down to tourists.

“There will be tourism for purposes of [medical] treatment, but the tourism sites of the pyramids, the Sphinx, and Sharm Al-Sheikh will be shut down, because my task is to get people to serve Allah rather than people. No proud Muslim will ever be willing to live off tourism profits, because the tourists come to drink alcohol and fornicate. [If they] want to come, they must comply with the conditions and laws of Islam. We will explain to them that, according to the Shariah, the pyramids are [from] a pagan and polytheistic age.”

He continued with a description of the new state of arts and culture in Egypt, should he be in power.

“In Islam, there is no such thing as art. Painting, singing, and dancing are forbidden. Therefore, in the state there will be nothing but Islamic culture, for I cannot teach the infidel culture. . We will return to the decent culture of the Muslims and the Muslim forefathers, and to Islamic history,” he said.

The far-reaching interview included his plans for worldwide government.

“As Muslims, we must believe that the Quran is our constitution, and that it is impossible for us to institute a Western democratic regime,” he said. “I oppose democracy because it is not the faith of the Muslims. . According to Islam, it is forbidden for people to rule and to legislate laws, as Allah alone is ruler. Allah did not hand down the term [democracy] as a form of rule, and it is completely absent from the Arab and Islamic lexicon.”

He said, “Once Allah’s law is instated (sic), the role of the people will end and Allah will reign supreme.”

A leader like himself would have no need to know what people want, he said.

“There is no consultation [by government leaders] with commoners, such as workers and fellahin, nor is there consultation over issues that contravene the Shariah,” he said.

Muslims such as Mubarak who led Islamic nations but without strict adherence to Shariah were apostate, he warned.

“They are apostate infidels, as opposed to infidels like the Jews and Christians, and anyone who doubts that they are infidels is an infidel,” he said.

Especially, he warned, Muslims must be wary of Christians and cannot be friends.

“I must support the Muslim and oppose the Christian,” he said. “If there is a Christian who does me no harm, I will maintain limited contact with him. Islam [discusses] certain degrees of contact with the Christian, namely: keeping promises, dealing honestly with him, treating him kindly, and befriending him. The first three are allowed, but the fourth is deemed dangerous, for it contravenes the verse that says, ‘O you who believe! Do not take my enemy and your enemy for friends.”

A worldwide Islamic kingdom, he explained, is a given.

“Of course we will launch a campaign of Islamic conquest throughout the world. As soon as the Muslim and Islam control Egypt and implement the Sharia, we will turn to the neighboring regions, Libya and Sudan to the south. All the Muslims in the world who wish to see the Shariah implemented worldwide will join the Egyptian army in order to form Islamic battalions, whose task will be to bring about the victory .

He said international relations will be simple.

“There are Muslims and there are infidels. We will have ambassadors in every country. We want to call all other countries to join Islam, and that will be the task of the ambassadors. If [they] refuse, there will be war,” he said.

WND previously reported jihadists are boasting of the “paradise” the region is becoming since Mubarak was removed from power.

Additionally, there have been reports of a on a growing possibly jihadi threat not only inside the United States, but inside the U.S. government.

           — Hat tip: TV [Return to headlines]



Turkey’s Erdogan Arrives in Cairo to Roll Up His Sleeves to Establish Robust Relations

Prime Minister Erdogan arrived in the Cairo airport with six ministers, ready to make as many possible relationship-building agreements with what he calls one of the most important countries in the region

Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who landed in the Cairo airport late last night, emphasised that he brought with him six of his ministers to focus on setting up a tangible strategic alliance between both countries. During an interview with El-Ashera Masaan (Ten at Night) programme, the 57-year-old said he aims to come to as many mutual agreements with Egypt as possible during his visit, saying his vision exceeds mere bilateral international understandings. Among Erdogan’s targets is cancelling the need for visas for travel between Egypt and Turkey. Military agreements are in also the cards, he said. “During my visit we will discuss what Turkey will offer Egypt, and what Egypt will offer Turkey in order to increase international cooperation between us,” he said. “Turkey has been backing the Egyptian uprising from day one … it was quite expected,” Erdogan explained.

Much to Erdogan’s popularity in the Arab World, Turkey has robustly supported the ongoing revolution in Yemen, has backed Syrians against the domineering regime of Bashar Al-Assad and was seen as supportive of Egypt’s own January 25 Revolution. “When we look at the region, we will find that Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt and Turkey are the most important countries. For this reason, there has to be some sort of cooperation among these nations,” Erdogan elaborated. Erdogan received a warm welcome at the Cairo Airport. Actually, the welcome mat was laid weeks leading up to his arrival, when many Egyptians posted his photo as their profile picture after he decided to reduce Turkish representation in Israel in a downgrade of diplomatic relations. That decision came after the Jewish state confirmed last week that it would not apologise for the May 2010 raid on the Mavi Marmara aid ship, in which nine Turks were killed. In Egypt, many criticise the comparatively weak reply by the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) to Israel’s killing last month of Egyptian soldiers at the border — an incident that has greatly disturbed the relationship between the countries. Critics say SCAF should have reacted similarly to Turkey.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Turkey-Egypt: PM Erdogan Welcomed by Thousands in Cairo

(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, SEPTEMBER 13 — Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has arrived in Cairo, the first stop of his four-day tour of Egypt, Tunisia and Libya from September 12 to 15, Anatolia news agency reports adding that more than 1,500 Egyptian people gathered at Cairo Airport to welcome Turkish premier. They carried large photographs of Erdogan and banners which read: “Welcome Prime Minister Erdogan”, “Egyptian and Turkish peoples hand in hand for future”, “Erdogan: Hero of Egypt” and “Turkish-Egyptian brotherhood”. Erdogan and his Egyptian counterpart Essam Abdel Aziz Sharaf came from the tarmac at Cairo airport hand-in-hand to greet Egyptian people.

Erdogan is set to meet Ahmed al-Tayyib, Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar; Ali Juma, Grand Mufti of Egypt; Minister of Defense Mohamed Hussein Tantawi and Arab League Secretary-General Nabil al-Araby on Tuesday.

After addressing the Arab League Foreign Ministers’ Council Meeting, Erdogan is set to meet Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Abdel Aziz Sharaf. Erdogan and his Egyptian counterpart will sign a Joint Political Statement about establishment of a High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council. They will hold a joint news conference following the signing ceremony. Turkish premier will partake in a dinner to be hosted in his honor by Egyptian Premier Sharaf and deliver a speech at the Cairo University International Law Forum. He will also meet leaders of leading political parties, representatives of non-governmental organizations and Turkish businessmen investing in Egypt before proceeding to Tunisia on September 14

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Israel and the Palestinians


Caroline Glick: Lessons From the Embassy Takeover

We are able to consider the lessons of the weekend’s mob assault on the Israeli embassy in Cairo because the six Israeli security officers who were on the brink of being slaughtered were rescued at the last moment and spirited out of the country. If the Egyptian commandos hadn’t arrived on the scene at the last moment, the situation would have been too explosive for a sober-minded assessment of the rapidly deteriorating situation with our neighbor to the south.

Any assessment of the weekend’s events must begin by recounting a few key aspects of the assault. First, this was the second mob attack on the embassy in so many weeks. During the first assault, an Egyptian rioter scaled the 20-story building where the embassy is housed, tore down the Israeli flag, and threw it to the frenzied mob below which swiftly burned it. Rather than being arrested for the crime of assaulting a foreign embassy, the rioter was embraced as a hero by Egypt’s military regime. The governor of Giza awarded him an apartment and a job…

           — Hat tip: Caroline Glick [Return to headlines]



Recognition of Palestinian State a Must, Erdogan

(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, SEPTEMBER 13 — “Recognition of Palestinian state is the only thing to do. It is not an option, but a must,” Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has said today as reported by Anatolia news agency. Erdogan added that Israel-Palestine issue was a matter of humanity. “As I have mentioned on every occasion that Palestinian cause is a struggle to raise and poise a nation’s honor. It is not only the cause of Palestine and Palestinians, but it is the cause of every state and every nation who are in favor of justice, rights, rule of law and humanity,” he said at the Arab League Foreign Ministers’ Council Meeting in Cairo, Egypt. “Israel-Palestine issue is not a matter between the two states. It is actually a matter of humanity, a matter of decades. It is a decisive matter for the Middle East and for global peace. Recent developments in our region cannot overshadow the fact that Israeli-Palestinian dispute was the basic issue in the Middle East,” he said.

Erdogan said “Palestinian people should acquire the state they have longed for a long time. Recognition of Palestinian state is the only thing to do. It is not an option, but a must.” “We have to support Palestinian people’s rightful and legitimate struggle. If God wills it, we will have the chance to see Palestine in a quite different status at the United Nations by the end of this month. To this end, we have to work together with our Palestinian brothers. Let’s contribute to efforts to ensure peace and stability in the Middle East,” he concluded.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



UN Vote on Palestine Will Set Back Peace

by Alan M. Dershowitz

The upcoming votes at the Security Council and General Assembly of the United Nations, which will accord the Palestinians some form of statehood, without requiring them to negotiate with Israel, will set back the peace process considerably.

As Egypt and Turkey increase tensions with Israel, the Palestinian Authority seeks to isolate the Jewish state even further by demanding that the United Nations accord Palestine recognition as a “state” without a negotiated peace with Israel. President Mahmoud Abbas described his playbook for seeking U.N. recognition while bypassing the step of negotiating a two-state solution: “We are going to complain that as Palestinians we have been under occupation for 63 years.”

What exactly happened 63 years ago? The U.N. recommended partitioning the former British mandate into two states: one Jewish, the other Arab. Israel and most of the rest of the world accepted that partition plan, and Israel declared itself the nation-state of the Jewish people. The United States, the Soviet Union and all the great powers recognized this declaration and the two-state solution that it represented.

The Arab world unanimously rejected the U.N. partition plan and the declaration of statehood by Israel. The Arab population within Israel and in the area set aside for an Arab state joined the surrounding Arab nations in taking up arms.

In defending its right to exist, Israel lost 1% of its population, many of whom were civilians and survivors of the recent Holocaust. Yet the current Palestinian leadership still insists on calling the self-inflicted wounds caused by its rejection of a two-state solution the “nakba,” meaning the catastrophe.

By claiming that the Palestinians “have been under occupation for 63 years” (as distinguished from the 44 years since the Arab states attacked Israel in 1967 and Israel occupied some lands of the invading nations), the Palestinian president is trying to turn the clock back to a time prior to Israel’s establishment as a state based on the U.N.’s two-state proposal. In other words, the push for recognition by the U.N. of Palestine as a state, based on Mr. Abbas’s complaint that the Palestinians have been under occupation for 63 years, is an attempt to undo the old work of the U.N. that resulted in Israel’s statehood 63 years ago.

Mr. Abbas’s occupation complaint also explains why he is so adamant in refusing to recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Every Arab state is officially a Muslim state and yet, as in 1948, none of them is prepared to accept the permanent existence of a state for the Jewish people in the Middle East. Certainly some, including the Palestinian Authority, are prepared to mouth recognition of Israel as a state, so long as the so-called right of return remains for four million so-called refugees who, if they were to return in mass, would soon turn Israel into yet another Arab state.

Mahmoud Abbas is generally a reasonable man, and many of the things he has recently said about the need for the two-state solution are also reasonable. But he talks out of two sides of his mouth: one for consumption by the international community and the other for consumption by the Palestinian street. His complaint about a 63-year occupation is clearly designed to signal to his constituents that he won’t give up on the ultimate goal of turning Israel into a Palestinian state.

If the General Assembly recognizes Palestine as a state without the need to negotiate with Israel, it will, in effect, be undercutting many of its own past resolutions, as well as many bilateral agreements reached between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Such recognition would set back the prospects for a negotiated peaceful resolution and would encourage the use of violence by frustrated Palestinians who will gain nothing concrete from the U.N.’s hollow action but will expect much from it.

We saw what happened when the Palestinian people came close to achieving statehood in 2000-’01—a prospect that was shattered by Yasser Arafat’s rejection of the Clinton-Barak peace plan. Arafat’s rejection, which even the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. at the time, Bandar bin Sultan, later called a “crime” against the Palestinian people, resulted in a bloody intifada uprising among Palestinians in which thousands of Palestinians and Israelis were killed. The U.N. will be responsible for any ensuing bloodshed if it stokes the flames of violence by raising Palestinian expectations while lowering the prospects for a negotiated peace.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has urged the Palestinians to return immediately to the negotiating table without any preconditions. There is no downside in doing so, since everything would then be on the table for negotiation, including the borders, the right of return, recognition of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, the settlements and anything else the Palestinians would seek as part of a negotiated two-state peace.

The job of the U.N. is to promote peace, not to retard it. So instead of discouraging negotiations by promising recognition, the U.N. should be demanding that the Palestinian leadership and the Israeli government begin negotiations immediately without any preconditions. That would be a positive step.

[Return to headlines]

Middle East


Erdogan Stokes the Flames

While it seems clear that Egypt is sliding towards anarchy, many questions remain about who is responsible for the drama at the Israeli Embassy in Cairo last Friday, an incident that very nearly turned into the lynching of six Israeli security guards and a diplomatic scandal on par with the hostage crisis at the United States Embassy in Iran in 1979. To add to the suspense, the visit of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Egypt, which began on Monday, is stirring a lot of speculation. Israel’s main Muslim partners, now estranged, are ostensibly conspiring on their own. Yet this superficial impression, bolstered by Erdogan’s angry anti-Israeli rhetoric, yields only additional question marks.

Turkey and Egypt are bitter rivals for influence in the Muslim world; if anything dramatic comes out of Erdogan’s visit, it is more likely to be born in contention than in collusion.

Though both Israel and Egypt tried to downplay it, the incident on Friday very nearly turned into a disaster, and is likely to rattle their already strained relationship in a major way. Reports have it that Cairo had warned Jerusalem in advance about the danger of a mob attack. [1] The diplomats were safely whisked out to the airport, where they boarded a plane back home, but less fortunate were six Israeli security guards who remained stranded in the embassy as angry mobs broke inside. They were finally rescued by Egyptian special forces, who smuggled them out of the embassy dressed in traditional Arab garb and headwear.

“Several hours into the mass protest in Cairo, the mob succeeded in breaking two of the three doors that led to the security room at the embassy,” a report in the Israeli news site Ynet reads. “When the mob reached the final door, the guards could hear the noises from outside as well as loud bangs on the door … Using every object they could find, the guards built barriers near the door in the hop es of preventing intrusion.” [2]

Though Israeli officials claimed that the media exaggerated the danger to the lives of the guards, it is clear that the situation had the potential to turn into a disaster. Apparently, for a long period in the beginning of the standoff, Egypt’s de facto ruler, Field Marshal Mohammed Tantawi, who heads the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), mysteriously could not be located to answer the calls of Israeli and American officials. The forceful American reaction and the massive pressure the Barack Obama administration brought to bear on Egypt were arguably decisive in arranging the rescue of the guards. [3]

To be sure, the Egyptian government made all the right noises vis-a-vis Israel after the incident, pointing out how severe the clashes were (reports vary, but four people died and around 500 to 1,000, including dozens of policemen, were apparently wounded) and announcing that it would try over 100 suspects. Condemnation of the attack poured in from many corners of Egyptian society, including from unexpected ones. [4]

However, some of the behavior of Egypt’s rulers is very suspicious — not least the unexplained absence of Tantawi during a critical moment. One of the first responses of the SCAF to the incident was to reinstate the emergency laws that existed under the rule of the ousted former president Hosni Mubarak, and which were a key focus of the demands of the demonstrators in Tahrir Square. [5]

According to Kamran Bokhari, an analyst for the American think-tank Stratfor, the attack served in some ways the domestic interests of Tantawi and the SCAF:

The tensions involving Israel are not exactly completely negative from the point of view of Egypt’s military leadership. The Egyptian military authority is interested in delaying, as much as possible, the transition toward civilian rule. What that means is essentially postponing elections as long as possible. Given the current mood within Egypt, the military government doesn’t exactly have the leverage to be able to postpone those elections. That said, an issue like tensions with Israel can be used by the government in Cairo to be able to pull off that kind of postponement of elections. But, nonetheless, the situation right now is very premature and it’s not really clear whether the Egyptian authorities will be able to make use of the incident with Israel to manage domestic politics. [6]

The attack on the Israeli Embassy came at a period of soaring internal tensions in Egypt, and quickly became entangled with the growing discontent against the military rule. As Egyptian journalist Zeinab El-Gundy writes, “The Israeli Embassy crisis forced political groups to deal not only with national security and regional matters but also domestic issues, especially the decision taken by the ruling military council (SCAF) and the cabinet to revive the use of emergency laws.” [7]

Against this background, therefore, it is rather odd that Turkey’s Erdogan jumped on the opportunity to link his visit to Egypt, officially planned to give an ambitious boost to the ties between the two nations, to his aggressive anti-Israeli campaign following the publication of the Palmer report earlier this month. According to some reports, he might be preparing to give a fiery anti-Israeli speech in Tahrir Square in Cairo, and the Egyptian government is concerned t hat this would embarrass it and could incite further clashes. [8]

The Turkish government has issued a number of extravagant threats against Israel in the past week or so, including that of sending war ships to escort future Turkish aid ships headed for Gaza, as well as to harass Israeli gas mining projects in the Mediterranean. There is a side plot to this story as well, and the show of naval might is more likely directed at Cyprus rather than Israel. “Israeli officials have said, however, the Turkish muscle flexing in the Mediterranean is aimed at Cyprus, as much as it is at Israel,” writes Israeli journalist Herb Keinon. “Turkey has threatened Cyprus about going ahead with plans to begin drilling for offshore gas deposits, with Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu threatening earlier this month that Ankara would show the ‘necessary response’ if Cyprus went ahead with the plans.” [9]

Much of the Turkish campaign against Israel, and specifically the military part , is most likely bluff and bluster, yet Erdogan could potentially try to stir Muslim sentiments against the Jewish state during his trip to Egypt. These latter sentiments are extremely explosive, and could create trouble; some analysts fear that riots could start in places like Cairo and in the Jordanian capital Amman.

There are also clearly forces working to normalize relations between Israel and Egypt. Even as Erdogan landed in Cairo, a senior Israeli military official was in the Egyptian capital, ostensibly to discuss “Sinai security arrangements”. [10] It is safe to assume that Turkey and Egypt are not teaming up against the Jewish state.

However, what is truly concerning is the rise of internal tensions, and the spread of chaos inside Egypt. Whether or not the government is able to stem populist anti-Israeli rhetoric — there is the possibility that it may be, in fact, secretly inciting it — it will likely take some time before the Israeli ambassador can return safely.

In the long term, Egypt is in serious danger of becoming a major source of instability for Israel and the region.

Notes

1.   Report: Israeli ambassador was advised to stay home on eve of Cairo embassy attack, Ha’aretz, September 12, 2011.
2.   Embassy under siege: Israeli guards fired in the air, Ynet, September 11, 2011.
3.   See Tantawi didn’t respond to Netanyahu, Barak during crisis, Ynet, September 10, 2011 and US told Egypt it must rescue Israeli embassy workers or suffer ‘consequen ces,’ sources say, , Ha’aretz, September 10, 2011.
4.   Attack on Israeli embassy unites Egypt in surprising ways, Ha’aretz, September 11, 2011.
5.   Egypt reinstates emergency laws after embassy attack, Ha’aretz, September 11, 2011. 6. Dispatch: Challenges Following the Attack on the Israeli Embassy in Cairo, Stratfor, September 12, 2011.
7.   Egyptian parties criticise attack on Israel embassy, as well as SCAF, Al Ahram, September 12, 2011.
8.   Egypt fears Turkey’s Erdogan will use visit to stir up anti-Israel sentiment, Ha’aretz, September 13, 2011.
9.   Erdogan expected to lambast Israel on Cairo trip, Jerusalem Post, September 12, 2011.
10.   Top IDF official in Egypt to discuss Sinai security arrangements, Ha’aretz, September 12, 2011.

Victor Kotsev is a journalist and political analyst.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



‘Israel Ostracized Over Aggressive Policies’

Saudi dailies criticize Israel for strained ties with Turkey, Egypt and PA; ‘Any measure taken against Israel is considered either anti-Semitic or act of terror,’ one daily says

Prominent Saudi newspapers slammed Israel Monday for its “aggressive” policies in light of the Jewish state’s straining ties with Turkey and Egypt and the impending Palestinian bid for UN recognition. “Israel has convinced the world that any measure taken against it is either anti-Semitic or an act of Arab or Islamic terror,” the newspaper Alriyadh said in an editorial. “The Arab revolutions have renewed the popular belief that Israel has remained the epitome of aggressive behavior, being an entity propagated by an international plot backed by Europe and the US.”

The editorial addressed Israel’s crisis with Turkey, claiming that Ankara rejected the “contempt that Israel showed towards it.” The Almadina daily tackled the issue as well, declaring that the Jewish state “is more isolated than ever,” as indicated by the expulsion of its ambassador from Ankara, the attack on its embassy in Cairo and the Palestinians’ insistence on turning to the UN for the recognition of a state within the 1967 lines.

Jerusalem refused to respond to the Saudi reports, but addressed the recent remarks made by King Abdullah the II of Jordan, who claimed that his nation and “the future Palestine are stronger than Israel is today.” Political sources said that the “king’s statements should be monitored due to the internal sensitivities within the kingdom. The situation in Jordan is very delicate.” A government official said that King Abdullah’s remarks should be taken with a grain of salt. “The king has strong ties with the US, and has strong interests with Israel,” he said. “We should keep that front calm, and follow the developments.”

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Libya, Syria, Egypt and Middle East Unrest — Live Updates

  • Libya’s interim leader says Islam will be main source of law
  • Gaddafi loyalists kill 17 guards in Ras Lanouf
  • Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s to give speech in Egypt

[…]

10.33am: Erdogan is due to speak at around 11am to the Arab League, which is meeting in Cairo. He is also due to give a press conference this afternoon. The Turkish leader was given an enthusiastic welcome when he arrived in Egypt for the start of his “Arab Spring” tour. Reuters says there was a rapturous crowd of thousands at Cairo airport.

They clapped and cheered as the two men came off the tarmac hand-in-hand. Many appeared to be from Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, who look up to Erdogan because of his success in bringing Islamists into mainstream Turkish politics. “Erdogan, Erdogan — a big welcome from the Brothers!” one large banner said, while others had large photos of Erdogan with “Turkey-Egypt hand in hand for future” and “Hero Erdogan” written on them. “I have come here to say ‘thank you’ because he says things no man can say,” said Hani, a 21-year-old university student. Erdogan took a microphone set up for the occasion to address the crowd, saying “Peace be upon you” and “Greetings to the Egyptian youth and people, how are you?” in Arabic.

10.18am: Washington’s Middle East Institute is anxious about Turkish-Israeli relations

In its editorial in its journal it warns: “If Israel feels that it is increasingly isolated, again rightly or wrongly, the dangers of conflict do escalate.” It calls for calm on both sides. “One should hope for cool heads and cautious diplomacy, with revolutions still simmering and Israel jittery.”

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Luttwak States Al Qaeda is “Dead and Buried”

(AGI) Udine — Speaking in Udine today where he is attending the Hypo Alpe Adria Bank Convention, in commenting the video-message posted by Al Zawahiti, the American political analyst and economist Edward Luttwak said today that al Qaeda is “dead and buried” while the real threat comes from the Turkish government. “if one wishes to perceive an Islamic threat nowadays, this lies instead in the Turkish government,” he said, “which persecutes its own Kurdish citizens and violently represses moderate Muslims stating that being moderate is a crime.” ..

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Report: Turkish Warplanes Now Able to Fire at Israeli Targets

Ankara’s Star Gazete says country’s new F-16 radar system modified to recategorize Israeli targets as hostile. Order said to come directly from PM Erdogan’s office; naval, submarine radar systems to be changed next

           — Hat tip: KGS [Return to headlines]



Syria: State Media: Al Qaeda Militiamen Entering From Iraq

(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, SEPTEMBER 13 — Al Qaeda militiamen are operating in Syria, having entered then country from Iraq, and are taking part in operations “against the army and security forces”. This is according to official media outlets in Damascus today, which for months have justified the regime’s crackdown on peaceful protesters, accusing demonstrators of being “armed terrorists”.

Quoting a “senior official from Iraqi border control” on the Syrian border, the Syrian newspaper Al Thawra says that “armed men from the Al Qaeda organisation are entering Syria from Iraq across the common border and are carrying out attacks against security forces and the Syrian army”.

The source adds that Iraqi forces arrested dozens of Al Qaeda militiamen two months ago as they were attempting to cross over into Syria. The paper says that three deliveries of weapons intended for Syria have so far been intercepted at the border, most of them from the Iraqi provinces of Ninawa, in the north of the country, and Anbar in the west.

For years, since the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, the Syrian regime has been accused from various sides of financing and enlisting Al Qaeda militiamen heading to Iraq, in order to carry out attacks against the US army.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Turkey, Prime Minister Take on Leadership Role in the Middle East

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan recalled Israel the spoiled child of Middle East and is seeking to capitalize on Turkey’s increasing stature and influence across the Arab world with his latest ‘Arap Spring Tour’ starting with Egypt.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeared in front of large and eagerly waiting Egyptian crowd as soon as he landed in Cairo airport to kick off his ‘Arab Spring tour’, which is also going to involve visits to Libya and Tunisia in addition to Egypt. Turkey’s Prime Minister, rapidly gaining on the trust and faith in the eyes of regions’ folk is seeking to grow his regional celebrity and capitalize Turkey’s status as a role model for Arab states fitfully inching toward democracy. His visits are perfectly timed at a moment when the revolutions of the Arab Spring in Egypt, Libya and Tunusia, as those countries are going through a tough period. The established order in the region for the last 30 years has crumbled and the currently leaderless states of Arab Spring Movement are seeking for a leader from outside, an oppurtunity Recep Tayyip Erdogan doesn’t want to pass by. Israel’s uneasy peace with all of its neighbors, in particular, Egypt and the current fragile status of Turkey Israel relations seem like to favour the ambitous and cunning Prime Minister of Turkey.

Turkey tries to seize the political leadership role over Arab world

Turkey was once a close ally of Israel, arguably the only one in the always problematic Middle East region. Turkey increased its rapidly growing stature across the Arab world when it downgraded diplomatic relations with Israel and expelled Israel’s ambassador to Turkey this month after Israel refused to issue an apology for the commando raid last year aboard an aid ship trying to break the Gaza blockade. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in fact an Arabic originated name, was already lionized across the region for his commitment to Islamist politics,comments on pluralistic constitutional democracy and energetic economic development. In Egypt, after Hussnu Mubarak’s downfall , aspiring Islamist politicians often try to label themselves as “the Egyptian Erdogan.” Erdogan visited famished Somalia last month with a contingent of Turkish diplomats, artisans and bussinessmen and expressed Turkey’s solid policy helping the poor in need. He mentioned that Turkey is a big power in the world, inhe rits the power remained from former Turkish Civilisations and Ottoman Empire.

Turkey Prime Minister Erdogan arrived in Egypt, his influence grow

Egypt has long viewed itself as a leading voice in the Arab world, until Turkey’s influence has risen steadily with its growing economic power and its confident policy in the Middle East region, notably towards Israel, which has drawn praise from many Arabs. There will be rivalry over a regional role for sure. Egypt is not in a position to play such a role at the moment so Erdogan is trying to seize the opportunity of altering conjuncture. However Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan will use his visit to Cairo as a barometer to measure just how popular he is in the Arab World but many Arab leaders may not be as enthusiastic about seeing him feed on this popularity. Prime Minister Erdogan is due to visit Tunisia on Wednesday and hold talks in Libya on Thursday. He even planned to visit Gaza stripe [sic], but the visit isn’t officialy declared as yet.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Turkey Dispatches 3 Warships to Eastern Mediterranean

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has dispatched 3 warships to the Eastern Mediterranean to ‘defend against Israeli vessels’

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has dispatched 3 warships to the Eastern Mediterranean to ‘defend against Israeli vessels’ and ensure ‘freedom of navigation’ for his country’s ships, Today’s Zaman reported.

The move, only the latest in Erdogan’s bellicose rhetorical assault on Israel, comes on the same day he called Israel’s boarding of the Gaza-bound Mavi Marmara in 2010 “grounds for war” adding only Turkey’s “greatness and patience” had averted conflict.

During the boarding action 9 Turkish nationals who participated in a mob that attempted to lynch the commandos were killed when non-lethal weapons the boarding party was equipped with as their primary arms proved insufficient to stop the lethal threat necessitating the use of live fire.

While the UN Palmer Report criticized Israel’s use of force resulting in the deaths as “excessive,” it also concluded Israel’s blockade of Gaza was “legal and appropriate” under international law.

But Erdogan, whose government has rejected the UN stance in the Palmer Report, insists Turkish ships will provide protection for ships bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza and confront Israeli warships outside of Israel’s territorial waters if necessary, according to the report.

State news agency Anatolia released late on Sunday what it said was an original Turkish-language transcript of an interview Erdogan gave to Al Jazeera television last week.

It included elements not broadcast as well as original wording for sensitive comments that had been transmitted only in Arabic translation.

“Right now, without a doubt, the primary duty of Turkish navy ships is to protect its own ships,” Erdogan said.

“This is the first step. And we have humanitarian aid that we want to carry there. This humanitarian aid will not be attacked any more, as it was the case with Mavi Marmara.”

Israel’s government, however, has said that while it wants to ease tensions with its former ally it will continue the Gaza-blockade.

The prospect of a Cuban Missile Crisis style showdown at sea with Turkey, a NATO power and fellow ally of the United States, has led Washington to appeal for restraint and led to a quiet decision for brinksmanship — and continued enforcement of the blockade — in Jerusalem.

Turkey has downgraded diplomatic ties with Israel and halted defense-related trade after the Jewish state’s confirmation last week that it would not apologize for the raid on the Mavi Marmara in May 2010 in which nine Turks were killed.

Israeli officials have, to date, been divided on how to respond to Turkey. But amid the diplomatic upheavals of the ‘Arab Spring,’ a spike in terror, Iran’s nuclear program, and the imminent Palestinian Authority statehood bid at the United Nations, Erdogan is just one more puzzle to solve.

           — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes [Return to headlines]

Russia


David Cameron ‘Would Have Been a Very Good KGB Agent’

David Cameron visited Russia today for talks with Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev. The talks touched on trade, commerce, technology, and intelligence sharing, amongst other issues. A sensitive topic was the matter of the murder in London in 2006 of the former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, and the Russian government’s refusal to extradite the man suspected of the murder, Andrei Lugovoi — now state deputy in the Russian Parliament, the State Duma.Relations have been strained between Russia and this country in the years since the murder — and this is the first visit to Russia by a Prime Minister since 2005. Mr Cameron touched on the Li tvinenko murder in a speech to a university in Moscow. The Guardian reports:

“In his speech on Monday morning, Cameron tackled this head on for the first time on Russian soil. He said: “Our approach is simple and principled. When a crime is committed, that is a matter for the courts. It is their job to examine the evidence impartially and to determine innocence or guilt. The accused has a right to a fair trial. The victim and their family have a right to justice.”“

On a lighter note, President Medvedev told Mr Cameron he “would have been a very good KGB agent”. Medvedev, who should know these things — his Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, having been a rather successful agent, responded to Cameron’s recalling of a trip to Russia on his gap year. Mr Cameron said:

“‘I took the Trans-Siberian Railway from Nakhodka to Moscow and went on to the Black Sea coast. There, two Russians — speaking perfect English — turned up on a beach mostly used by foreigners. They took me out to lunch and dinner and asked me about life in England and what I thought about politics. When I got back I told my tutor at university and he asked me whether it was an interview. If it was, it seems I didn’t get the job!”

Mr Medvedev joked:

“I’m pretty sure that David would have been a very good KGB agent. But in this case he would never had become Prime Minister of the UK.”

In an alternative universe, perhaps the KGB agent Kameronovich would have been successful in Russia. Perhaps he, and not Putin, would have enlivened the Kremlin with macho photo opportunities in wild outdoor conditions…

In fact, how do we know Mr Cameron isn’t a KGB agent?

[JP note: Because we know he is an EU agent/Muslim Brotherhood operative/Mexican drug cartel mule/villain of choice.]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



On the Anniversary of 9 / 11, The Great Mosque of Moscow Demolished

For the chief mufti of Russia, it was not well oriented toward Mecca, and needed to be rebuilt. Criticism from other Islamic leaders: “insane” initiative, it was a historic building.

Moscow (AsiaNews) — It was long overdue, but the demolition of the mosque in central Moscow in view of its total reconstruction has raised controversy among the Muslim community and a fresh criticism of its greatest exponent. Built at the beginning of ‘900, the Great Mosque was demolished on 11 September.

Albir Krganov, vice president of the central administration of the Muslims, described the day as “the tragedy of Moscow on the anniversary of the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers.” Quoted by Interfax, the religious leader asked why the demolition took place precisely on 9/11 and “moreover on a Sunday.” Before him, other representatives of the Muslim community had criticized the demolition of the mosque — considered by many as a place of historical importance — railing against the head of the Council of muftis of Russia, Ravil Gainutdin, the project promoter. “It is regrettable that the decision to demolish a historic place of worship has come precisely from those who bear the highest spiritual title, that of Mufti,” read a joint statement by the Islamic leaders, released by Interfax-Religion.

The news that the Grand Mosque in the capital was to be demolished after the end of the month of Ramadan had already been confirmed on the eve of Eid ul-Fitr by the same Gainutdin. For years, as head of the Tatar community in Moscow, Gainutdin “argued the inadequacy of the Great Mosque, claiming that it was not perfectly oriented towards Mecca,” the statement says. For this reason the mufti continued to claim that the building had no historical value, a belief not shared by their colleagues in other Muslim organizations. Moreover, according to the joint statement, “Gainutdin had always highlighted the architectural similarity between the city’s Great Mosque and Great Synagogue. But this is no reason to endorse its demolition. “

Muslim leaders have, thus, asked the federal government and leading figures in Russia’s secular and religious spheres, to “raise their voices in defense of Russian Islam,” noting that the authorities had “the right” to demand Gainutdin abandon his “insane idea to demolish the historic building of the Great Mosque.” The statement was signed by: the head of the Central Committee of Muslims of Russia, Talgat Tajuddin, the Mufti of Moscow and central Russia, Albir Krganov; leaders of the Committee of Muslims of all Russia, the head of the Committee of Muslims of St. Petersburg and Northwest Russia, Jafar Ponchayev, the mufti of the regions of Rostov, Chelyabinsk, Kurgan and Astrakhan and the autonomous district of Khanty-Mansiisk.

In 2008, the Grand Mosque was included on the list of buildings of cultural value, but removed the following year after Gainutdin began his battle for its demolition. Built in 1904 with funding from the Tatar merchant Salikh Yerzin, its destruction had been threatened before the Olympic Games in 1980, located next to the Luzhniki stadium in Vypolzovy Avenue. At the time, it was saved thanks to the intervention of religious leaders and ambassadors of Arab countries. International political leaders such as President Sukarno of Indonesia (in 1955), Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser (1957) and the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi (1969) had all prayed in the central mosque.

According to a recent survey by the authoritative Levada Center, 69% of Russians say they are Orthodox Christian and 5% Muslim. Catholic, Protestant, Jews and faithful of other religions count for less than 1%.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

South Asia


A Cornishman’s Six Months in Helmand Province

A bomb disposal expert from St Austell is coming to the end of a gruelling six month tour in Afghanistan.

Sergeant Miles Truscott, who is in the Royal Air Force, has been working as a High Threat Bomb Disposal Operator.

Working in a team of four, Mr Truscott, 34, has been rendering safe bombs and Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).

Since April the team has dealt with more than 40 devices in several parts of Helmand Province.

Sgt Truscott said: “When the Afghans find an explosive device we get called and we have to deal with them.

“We don’t know what we’re dealing with until we get on the ground. It’s the point between being tasked to arriving on the job, that is probably the most nervy part.

“Once we arrive everyone gets into the swing of what we’re supposed to be doing.”

‘Extreme heat’

The team has to walk down a cleared path to the site of the device which is designed to kill and main military personnel.

Sgt Truscott said: “At that point you’re thinking about the training, what I am going to do? You’re running through the possible outcomes.

“When you can see what you have in front of you things become a bit simpler, because you know you have to make the device safe and remove it from the ground.”

The Cornishman usually has to lie on the ground to deal with devices like IEDs.

He said: “Your concentration is totally on what your actions are, and finding what we need to find to neutralise the devices.

“You’re not thinking about anything else at all. I need the rest of the team to keep their eye on what else is going on, to keep me safe.”

Afghanistan endures dry hot cloudless summers with temperatures in July reaching 49 degrees celsius.

Sgt Truscott said: “The heat has been a real problem. We arrived in the April so we felt the build-up to the extreme heat.

“When we’re having to move on foot it does get quite demanding.”

Sgt Truscott said he was looking forward to coming back to Cornwall to see his girlfriend, parents and to sample a pint of his favourite beer.

           — Hat tip: An EDL buck [Return to headlines]



Afghanistan: Kabul US Embassy Attack: Live

Live coverage of the Taliban’s coordinated attack across the Afghanistan capital Kabul, in which Nato’s headquarters and the US embassy are among those targeted.

  • Blasts and gunfire across Afghan capital Kabul
  • Taliban claims responsibility for attack
  • Embassy district under attack
  • Insurgents take refuge in high-rise building overlooking area

Latest

13.33 Jerome Starkey, The Times man in Afghanistan, responds to the claim by the head of Nato that insurgents are trying to derail the handover of security to Afghan forces: Rasmussen talking tosh. Why would insurgents try and derail transition? They want the foreigners out. Surely this is another show of force?

13.32 In full, the latest statement from ISAF on the Kabul attacks:

A small group of insurgents attacked the vicinity of the U.S. Embassy and International Security Assistance Force Afghanistan headquarters today, firing from outside the compound using small arms and rocket-propelled grenades. The attack started around 1:30 p.m. (local). Afghan National Security Forces and coalition forces immediately responded to the attack, and are still on the scene. Coalition forces are providing air support. There are no reports of ISAF casualties at this time.

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Sub-Saharan Africa


Kenya Kidnapping: Fears Grow for Deaf Wife

The British woman abducted by an armed gang who murdered her husband in a remote Kenyan resort is deaf and will have difficulty communicating with her kidnappers, friends have revealed.

There are growing fears that Judith Tebbutt, 56, has been taken across the nearby border into lawless Somalia after she was seized by six gunmen who broke into the couple’s £560-a-night beach hut at Kiwayu Safari Village in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Her husband, David, 58, died from a single gunshot to the head as he tried to protect his wife from the kidnappers.

Friends of the couple, who are from Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire, paid tribute to Mr Tebbutt but said they feared his wife would struggle to cope with the devastating ordeal.

A close friend of the couple — who have a 25-year-old son, Oliver — said Mrs Tebbutt, who is a social worker helping people with drug and alcohol problems, relied on a hearing aid.

The friend, who asked not to be named said: “Judy only has around 30 or 40 per cent hearing and wears a double hearing aid.

“If she has them in and they are working then she is fine, but if she does not have them or once the batteries run out then she will have great difficulty hearing what people are saying to her.

“It is heartbreaking to think of her in this awful situation. Helpless and having seen her husband murdered.”

Mr Tebbutt, who worked as a finance director for publisher Faber & Faber and was a member of the Book Trade Charity, was described by friends and colleagues as “caring and dedicated” professional.

Ian Stevenson, professor of publishing at University College London, said: “He was one of the nicest people in publishing. I’ve known him for 15 years and he has had a very distinguished career.”

The couple, who were keen travellers and had visited Kenya before, had spent a week on safari in the Masai Mara before flying to Kiwayu on Saturday to relax by the beach for the last days of their trip.

The Kenyan authorities are trying to establish who had carried out the attack on the resort, which is popular with celebrities including artist Tracey Emin and singer Mick Jagger.

A massive sea, land and air search failed to find any sign of the kidnappers who are believed to have escaped from the resort in a speed boat.

A Kenyan security source, familiar with kidnap situations in the region said: “It’s going to be difficult to admit that once she’s in Somalia, the whole thing becomes a very different ball game.”

It is feared she may have been snatched by an opportunistic Somali gang who may try to sell her to al-Shabaab, Islamists who control large parts of the territory near the Kenyan border.

It has emerged that the British Government considered using forces training on the other side of Kenya for a possible release assault, but those plans will not be implemented if it is confirmed Mrs Tebbutt is being held in Somalia.

British forces are also available in Uganda and the Royal Navy frigate HMS Somerset is currently on counter-piracy patrol in the Arabian Sea.

Kiwayu Safari Village, a two-hour speedboat ride through a mangrove delta north of the popular tourist destination of Lamu island, was closed today.

Its managers had flown to Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, with Mr Tebbutt’s body, which is now in the care of the authorities who are liaising with the British High Commission.

           — Hat tip: An EDL Buck [Return to headlines]



South Africa: Modern Day Genocide

It is clear from most articles published in the international media, that the international community does not realize that in South Africa a genocidal war is being waged against a small minority. This minority is the Boer nation, also sometimes known as Afrikaners, who are descendants from a combination of mainly Dutch and French colonialists. Most of these people have ancestry in Southern Africa going back to at least 350+ years and most of them sees themselves are born and bred Africans

[…]

Two injustices

The situation pre 1994 was that there were around 75000 of these white farmers in South Africa, actively farming. South Africa never had to import any food during this time. Currently, it is estimated that there are less then 7000 white farmers still actively farming and this has led to South Africa having to import food. The ANC regime is following a policy of so-called land redistribution and restitution, which have led to the current situation. Of farms removed from whites and turned over to blacks, less than 10% still produce at all and those which still do produce, produce at much lower yields than before.

The second part of the situation is much more serious. This concerns the wholesale killing of white farmers, mostly in absolutely brutal and vicious fashion. In many cases, women are also raped and it is made clear by the attackers that the attacks are racially motivated. The ANC government simply refuses to act and this led to huge resentment by the white community in general. Just recently a well-know farmer, Eugene Terre’blanche was murdered on his farm. This man was also the leader of a small far rightwing organization, who’s only aim is the restoration of the Boer republics. Note that these republics were internationally recognized, but were taken from the Boer people by England after protracted wars.

Facts and figures

In order to demonstrate the numbers killed since 1994, I will also try to compare it to situations in the world.

1.In South Africa, the number of people killed in farm murders, are around 313 /100000/ year. This is more than 7 times higher than the average in the world. Compare this to crab fishing in Alaska, which is widely considered one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, which have death rates of only 262/100 000/year.

2.In these attacks more than 60% of those murdered were whites. This should be seen in the context of white being les than 10% of the population.

3.Latest figures show that more than 3600 whites, mostly Boer people, have been murdered in farm attacks, since 1994.

4.Currently figure show that 55 people are murdered in South Africa every day.

5.Farming is currently listed as the most dangerous occupation in South Africa.

6.It is estimated that in South Africa, a woman is raped every 17 seconds.

With figures like these, how anyone can still argue that white Boer people in South Africa is not being wiped out, is simply beyond me. These numbers of killed is much worse that the numbers killed in war zones such as Iraq. Still the international community however believes that South Africa is a model state where every singe person is safe and treated equally. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Links to more views and proof

[follow URL above for more links]

           — Hat tip: An EDL buck [Return to headlines]



UK Police in Kenya to Aid Briton’s Murder Investigation

UK counter terrorism detectives have arrived in Kenya to help investigate the murder of a British holidaymaker, the Metropolitan police has said.

It is feared the shot man’s kidnapped wife may have been taken to Somalia.

The couple, believed to be David and Judith Tebbutt from Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire, were staying at the luxury Kiwayu Safari Village.

There are reports Kenyan police have arrested a local man on suspicion of helping to co-ordinate the attack.

The BBC’s security correspondent Frank Gardner said there were now two investigations under way in Kenya — a murder investigation by the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, and a second wide-scale manhunt by the Kenyan authorities. The Kenyan authorities remain the lead investigators.

UK detectives are also helping in the repatriation of Mr Tebbutt, he said.

Our correspondent said it is now believed Mrs Tebbutt was taken at gunpoint to the Somali mainland in a pre-planned operation to seize western hostages.

Her abductors are suspected to be from the Islamist extremist group Al-Shebab or pirate gangs in Somalia, he added.

‘Innocent tourist’

A colleague paid tribute to “dependable and wise” David Tebbutt The BBC’s Will Ross, near the resort in Kiwayu, said it had been reported that the man who had been arrested had allegedly been forced, at gunpoint, to be an accomplice and guide the attackers to where the tourists were staying.

He said there had been questions over whether the attackers had inside help — there were 18 cottages spread across the resort, yet the gunmen had gone to the only one with guests.

There have also been suggestions of possible family links between people in villages in the north coast of Kenya and south Somalia.

The couple were attacked on the first night of their stay at the resort on Saturday night, following a trip to Kenya’s Masai Mara reserve…

           — Hat tip: An EDL buck [Return to headlines]

Immigration


Algeria: Two Dead Bodies on Boat, 15 Missing

(ANSAmed) — ALGIERS, SEPTEMBER 13 — A short distance away from the coast of the city of Bejaia on a boat adrift at sea, the Algerian Coast Guard found the bodies of two men who authorities believe were trying to reach Italy. According to initial investigations reported on El Watan’s website, the men were part of a group of immigrants who were trying to reach the beaches of the island of Lampedusa in the middle of August. There is no news of the other 15 “harragas” (the name in North Africa for people who try to illegally leave the country) and they are officially considered missing by the Algerian authorities. The Algerian authorities have managed to identify the victims by checking the memories of the mobile phones found near the two dead bodies. They are two young men, a 22 year old and a 25 year old, from Marsa (in the province of Skida) and Annaba.

Their family members have already been called to the morgue in the hospital in Bejaia, where the bodies were taken for official identification. The group reportedly left on August 17 in the middle of Ramadan (quite an irregular circumstance) from the deserted beach of Guerbez in the province of Skikda. Since then there had not been any news about the immigrants. A likely hypothesis is that the boat had a malfunction when it was already miles from the coast. There is practically no hope of finding the missing people from the group alive, a source told El Watan. In recent days another three bodies have been found at sea, but it does not look like there is any connection between the two findings.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Culture Wars


UK: East London Pride Will Go Ahead, Despite Ban on Marches

East London’s Pride parade will go ahead later this month despite the Home Secretary’s ban on marches.

Organisers say the procession through Hackney and Tower Hamlets on September 24 has not been affected by the ban, which is in place until the beginning of October. Scotland Yard requested an intervention to prevent the English Defence League from marching in Tower Hamlets on September 3 amid fears that their presence could result in serious public disorder. But the ban did not distinguish between groups and other marches, including an anti fascism counter protest, were blocked. Theresa May said she was supporting the “operational judgment of the police” when she granted the 30 day ban, which was the first in 30 years.

Jack Gilbert, spokesman for Rainbow Hamlets, said: “We knew within 48 hours of the ban being announced by the Home Secretary that our event wouldn’t be affected. The message for Pride is that east London has a vibrant community and it’s a chance for us to celebrate our diversity.” As part of the celebrations for LGBTQ life, the parade will start from Hackney Town Hall Square at 12.30pm and travel to Oxford house in Bethnal Green. A festival will then run until the evening with markets, entertainment and debates. Organisers are expecting anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 people to join the festivities. There had, however, been some confusion among supporters over whether the event could go ahead or not. Mr Gilbert added: “People were concerned because they didn’t understand the nature of the ban.” Campaign group Unite Against Fascism complained earlier this month that it was not clear exactly what was allowed under the guidelines. By law, neither the police nor the Home Office has the power to stop static protests which resulted in both the the EDL and UAF held standing demonstrations in the East End on September 3.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

General


9/11 Anniversary: Al-Qaeda Releases New Video Applauding Arab Spring

Al-Qaeda has released a video applauding the Arab Spring uprisings to mark the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, who took control of al-Qaeda after the killing of Osama bin Laden, said he hoped the revolutionaries would found Islamic states and embrace Sharia Law. The 62-minute-long video also featured old film of Osama bin Laden warning Americans against enslavement by major corporations and “Jewish money capital”, according to a group which monitors Islamist extremist propaganda.

The video was released as many analysts believe the terror network is struggling to cope with the loss of a string of leaders and has found its jihadist message undermined by popular protests against authoritarian regimes which have swept the Middle East.

During a long speech, al Zawahiri said al Qaeda supported the uprisings as “a form of defeat for the United States” according to SITE Intelligence. Al Zawahiri said: “America is denying the fact that it is not facing individuals or groups but the whole ummah [Muslim community] of Islam. After the martyrdom of Sheikh Osama, the Islamic face of the revolutions was shown,” he said. “America’s arrogant nature will push it to deny the facts that it is facing a rising ummah and that it may be a cause of defeat and its fall, with permission from Allah.”

Al-Zawahiri has led al Qaeda since Bin Laden was shot dead after a decade on the run during a raid by United States Navy SEALs on his Abbottabad hideout in May. A string of senior leaders have been killed or captured since then, leading Leon Panetta, new US defence secretary, to predict defeat of the network was within reach. The film showing bin Laden was footage captured in the Abbottabad raid according to SITE.

[JP note: Al-Qaeda putting the pun into Arab Spring — this is a coming-together leap of Islam’s political and military wings rather than a seasonal attribute?]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



By Reacting to 9/11 With Self-Recrimination, The Western Elites Have Strengthened the Hand of Brutal Islamism

In the years before 2000, as the director of the ephemeral Centre for Millennial Studies, I scanned the global horizon for signs of apocalyptic activity, that is, for movements of people who believed that now was the time of a total global transformation. As I did so, I became aware of such currents of belief among Muslims, some specifically linked to the year 2000, all predominantly expressing the most dangerous of all apocalyptic beliefs — active cataclysmic: that is, the belief that this transition from evil to good demands massive destruction, and that we true believers are the agents of that destruction, warriors of God, Mujahidin. Death cults, cults of martyrdom and mass murder… destroying the world to save it.

Nor were these beliefs magical, like the far better known Christian, but largely passive-cataclysmic, Rapture scenarios where one must await God’s intervention. They had practical means and goals. In the same year 1989, that Bin Laden drove the Russians from Afghanistan, Khomeini issued a global fatwah against Rushdie, and the West trembled. Iran and Afghanistan, however, like so many utopias born of such death cults, proved terrifyingly dystopic — acid in the faces of unveiled women. But these bitter new heavens on earth also showed remarkable staying power… and spreading power. So when Bin Laden struck with such spectacular force on 9-11, he took hi s Jihad, already declared in 1998 against America (the “Second AD”), to the next level. He put deeds to words.

We, in the West, were taken totally by surprise. Who are these people? Why haven’t we heard about them before? (NB: the blogosphere, which first “took off” in the early “aughts” (‘00s) is largely the product of a vast number of people turning to cyberspace for information that their mainstream news media had conspicuously failed to deliver.)

What was the logic of such a monstrously cruel attack that targeted civilians? A warning shot to pay attention and address grievances? Or the opening shot in a battle for world domination? Was this primarily an act of retribution for wrongs suffered, i.e., somewhat rational? Or global revenge at global humiliation, i.e., a bottomless pit of grievance?

Some of us said, “What can they possibly believe to make them hate so?” Others, “What did we do to make them hate us so?” And while both are legitimate questions, over the last decade, the “aughts”, we have split into two camps, each of which will not allow the other question’s consideration.

A Frenchwoman said to me in 2003, “after 9/11, there are two kinds of people: those who understand that we are at war, and those in denial.” Some pointed to a culture of genocidal incitement in the ideology of this religious enemy. They identified the totalistic reasoning, and warned that what these Mujahidin said in their own language was radically different from how “moderate” Muslims portrayed them to the West.

Others dismissed and downplayed these issues, pointing to rational and moderate trends among Muslims, and insisted that the vast majority are peaceful and moderate who can be reached by dialo gue, and that rounding up the tiny percentage who are terrorists can be, and should be, a matter of criminal proceedings. They showed more concern for the tendency of fascist war-mongering movements to appear in Western culture than deal with far more advanced such trends in Muslim political culture; they favored a moral relativism that permits one to spread the blame. Some showed a near-messianic will to self-criticize: “Aren’t we guilty of terrorism when we let people starve to death?” opined Derrida. Others delighted in moral inversion: Chomsky “reminded” us that the USA is the world’s worst terrorist. After all, those alleged civilians were really little Eichmanns, cogs in the wheel of a genocide of “people of colour”.

At one extreme, then, we find racists and xenophobes who want to get rid of all Muslims; at the other, oikophobes, who don’t even believe there’s a Muslim-inspired terror, but that 9/11 — the whole threat — was invented by fascist Western politicians looking to establish their dictatorships. “My side right or wrong,” vs. “Their side right or wrong.” Both end up supporting fascism — ours, or theirs.

By and large, we tend to label these two directions of political thinking “Right and Left.” Using this distinction, however, reflects primarily the “policy” postures involved rather than serious political thought. Since the “Left” adopts a discourse and posture of accommodation, it seems like the party of peace and understanding; anyone pointing out the evidence for implacable enmity, and the counter-indicated effects of pursuing peace with such a foe, seems like the party of war.

Now if it were merely a matter of different emphases, this could be a productive tension. Indeed, I’m convinced that there are a host of r ightfully troubled thinkers who, despite strong liberal and progressive impulses, nonetheless acknowledge the evidence and want to talk about it. There is a hugely creative and productive conversation still waiting to take place, one that would include people from all faiths and ethnicities, of people genuinely committed to societies committed to the freedom and dignity of all their people. One that was not afraid of its own shadow.

But during the aughts that conversation has not place: on the contrary, the “Left” has asserted a strong grip on the public sphere, exiling those who begin to pay attention to the problems with Islam rather than focus on the sins of the West, muffling both their voice, and the Muslim voices to which they point. I remember Fox News interviewing me on 9/11. When I identified this as part of an apocalyptic global Jihad, the interviewer informed me that that was impossible because — h ere quoting President Bush, “Islam is a religion of Peace.” They never played the interview and didn’t come to interview me again.

Those who doubt the wisdom of pursuing messianic demands for self-criticism and openness on the West at this time, who suggest we exercise our free speech and lay some of the moral onus here at the feet of Muslim spokesmen, who themselves so loudly denounce our racism and prejudice, but tolerate so much among their own — such people have rapidly found themselves labeled “Right-wing” and exiled from the “mainstream.” “If I speak of Muslim anti-Semitism,” confessed one French colleague to me in 2005, “it’s the last invitation to speak at a conference that I’ll get.”

As a result of this animosity, the adversarial “Right-Left” axis has reached dysfunctional proportions. The “Left” views the right as at best mean-spirit ed, increasingly as malevolent; the “Right” views the Left as traitors and fools, as useful infidels. And these two camps now so bitterly speak about each other, that the presidential campaign of 2012 looks like a nightmare of inappropriate candidates. And in the meantime, our disarray fills the sails of our apocalyptic enemy. As one of my friends said to me recently, “I thought that Mayan 2012 stuff was ridiculous. Now I see how global disaster really could happen by then.”

And among the elements that played into making this situation far worse, one of the cruelest winds blew from Europe and from the “progressive Left.” It’s worth remembering that the week before 9/11, the UN had assembled at Durban all the major “human rights” NGOs, representing the “best of the Left,” to fight racism world-wide, an assembly that turned into an orgy of hatred aimed at two Western democracies, by a voting bloc with members who still engage in slavery. When the “Magnificent 19” struck, they had every reason to believe that they would be cheered on by a Western elite, a global tribe, called “Left-wing”, inebriated with anti-Americanism.

And they were, to some extent, right. Although the initial European response to 9/11 was sympathy for the US — the next day, Le Monde wrote “Nous sommes tous des américains“ — it did not take long for anti-Americanism to emerge. Ten days later, Jean Baudrillard wrote a masterpiece of what Nietzsche would call ressentiment in a Le Monde: “It’s natural to want to strike at such a suffocating hegemon as the USA… They did it, we wanted it.” According to Nidra Poller, within weeks of the event, le tout Paris resounded with this kind of Schadenfreude. “America had it coming.” When Michael Moore’s sophomoric Fahrenheit 9-11 came to Europe, crowds stood and cheered.

No good deed goes unpunished by the envious. The French find it easier to forgive the Germans for conquering them, than the Americans for saving them, twice. When David Marash resigned as editor in chief of Al-Jazeera English because it was so anti-American, he commented that it was the British, not the Arabs, who were the worst — and by that he meant the products of a media elite that clusters around a BBC-Guardian nexus.

The anti-American Left, like courtiers in a 21st-century production of the emperor’s new clothes, embraced Jihadis who struggled so mig htily against American hegemony. The “peace” rallies of 2003 against Bush’s war in Iraq brought the pacifist Left and the Mujahidin together in common cause. One Pakistani participant in Islamabad wore a headband with “Kill Jews”; Berkeley radicals would not be outclassed in their demonizing. And yet, too few were disturbed by the oxymoron of an anti-Semitic peace rally. They failed to note that in apocalyptic politics, my enemy’s enemy is my enemy.

When Bin Laden’s men took out the Twin Towers, they, in a typical act of cognitive egocentrism, thought they would bring down the arrogant and empty tyrant of the US. What they did accomplish, however unintentionally, was to fend their foe — us — into two self-recriminating and dysfunctional halves. These halves, who so inaccurately identify themselves as “Right” and “Left,” seem to despise each other more than they do an enemy who passionately hates both of them — us! — a foe that hates all we collectively believe in about those messy and productive societies that treasure tolerance and dignity and freedom.

Demotic polities that protect everyone’s rights and request everyone’s disciplined participation, are rare historical accomplishments. They’re based on the difficult civil meme: “whoever is right, my side or not.” They need high levels of ability among their citizens for self-criticism, compromise, positive-sum behavior, and mutual trust and respect. Eli Sagan, one of the more astute observers of these issues notes: “Democracy is a miracle, considering human psychological disabilities.” However imperfect our democracies, they are as valuable as they are vulnerable.

Among the many memes widely circulating in Western circles, one of the most absurdly noxious is “Who ar e we to judge?” All the great progressive victories of demotic polities — equality before the law, freedom of religion and dissent, respect for those disadvantaged by “might makes right,” women, workers, weak — arises from harsh value judgments on the authoritarianism that exploits them: patriarchy, exploitation, cruelty. Not judging too quickly — admirable; not judging at all — folly. We end up ferociously judging ourselves, and giving others, whose values and motives are far more base, a free pass. In doing so we illustrate Pascal’s warning, “the more we want to be angels, the more we become beasts.”

So when, in order to seem peaceful, we abandon non-westerners to brutal political cultures in the name of some quasi-religious commitment to cultural relativism, we betray everything we claim we support. Such attitudes seem particularly inadvisable when facing an apocalyptic foe dedicated to the destruction of all our progressive values.

If the only people who fight Islamic triumphalism are really on the Right, their solutions will obviously favour harsh responses. Liberals and progressives would, presumably, struggle harder to come up with more creative and less violent forms of effective resistance. So it constitutes a catastrophic loss of creative energy to have a “Left” that believes that somehow, if only we were nicer to Muslims, they’d be nicer to us, one that views as an alarming embarrassment anyone who points out the Islamic contribution to the problem, as a saboteur of this effort at placation, an “enemy of peace.” It also represents a colossal betrayal of genuine Muslims moderates who really do want to live in a vibrant civil society that respects everyone; where Muslims respect infidels, and infidels respect Islam.

If the aughts were a debacle of culture wars in the West an d a period of growing radicalization in Islamic circles, let the teens be a period when finally, we turn around this self-destructive behavior. The wellbeing of billions of people on this planet depends on our commitment to Western progressive values.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

News Feed 20110912

Financial Crisis
» Balkans: Bankers Cite Risk of Regional Recession
» Greece: New School Year Starts Without Books
» Greece: Suicide Rate Rising, Experts Warn
» Italy: ‘Unchanged’ Austerity Package to be Passed Wednesday Says PM
» Russia Says Euro-Crisis Could ‘Detonate’ In Neighbouring Countries
» Spain: Brussels Demands Region Deficit and Debt Control
 
USA
» 9/11: The Day the World Changed
» America’s Religious Double Standard
» Sen. Lieberman and Former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld on Failures to Recognize Islamic Terrorism After 9/11
» September 11, 2001: In Memoriam
 
Canada
» 56% of Canadians Think Divide Between West and Muslim World is ‘Irreconcilable’, Poll Finds
» Divide Between West, Muslim Societies ‘Irreconcilable’: Poll
 
Europe and the EU
» Chirac Allegedly Given ‘Bags of Cash’ By African Leaders
» Explosion at Nuclear Plant in Southern France
» Greece to Build First Official Mega-Mosque in Athens
» Italy: Prosecutor Charges Manslaughter in Erotic Game Death
» Sweden: Terror Suspects ‘Linked to Somalia’s Al-Shabab’
» Travellers Face Slavery Charges as UK Police Raid Site at Dawn
» UK: 9/11 Anniversary Memorial: EDL and Muslim Groups Clash in London
» UK: 9/11: The Dark Day That Brought Out the Worst in Britain
» UK: Archbishop of Canterbury to Retire Next Year
» UK: Dozens of Arrests Mar 9/11 Commemorations in London
» UK: MPs Who Repaid Expenses Got Money Back in Secret Deal
» UK: The Hip Hop Cop Shop: Police Opened Fake Rap Music Store and Snared 30 Gangsters for Drugs and Gun Offences
» UK: Why I’m Sceptical About William Hague’s Eurosceptism
 
North Africa
» Arab Nations to Get $58 Billion to Reward Reform
» Erdogan, Abbas Meet in Egypt Ahead of UN Bid
» Erdogan in Cairo, First Stage of “Arab Uprisings” Tour
» Gaddafi Loyalists Assault Refinery, Killing 15 Guards
» Gaddafi Forces Counterattack in Ras Lanuf and Bani Walid
» Italy to Unfreeze 2.5 Billion in Libyan Funds
» Libyan Insurgents Find Resistance at Bani Walid
» Libya: Strong Loyalist Resistance in Bani Walid
» Libya: The War for Radical Islam, And a Defeat for the United States
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» IDF Wants Cameraman in Each Battalion
» Labour Party Voting on New Leader
 
Middle East
» Ankara Moves Three Frigates, Press
» Durban III Promises Wave of Islamophobia Whines
» Genel Energy Partners With UK Company to Dominate Oil Reserves
» Iran Praises Sacking of Israeli Embassy in Cairo
» Iran’s Dirty 9/11 Secrets
» Iraq: Cleric Calls for Halt to Attacks on US Troops
» Israel’s Raid Last Year on an Aid Flotilla in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea Was “No Different” Under International Law Than What Somali Pirates Are Doing in the Aden Gulf, Turkish Transportation Minister Binali Yildirim Said Thursday.
» Medvedev Tells Cameron of Russia’s Support for Syria
» Saudi Government to be Sued Over 9/11 Attacks
» Syrian Activists Call for “Day of Rage” Against Russia
» Syrian Sunni Cleric Who Signed Protest Statement Dies Mysteriously
» Turkey Says NATO Radar Not Against Russia, Used for Defense
» Turkey Warships to Gaza a ‘Grave’ Threat, Israeli Minister Says
» Turkish PM Saw Gaza Raid as ‘Grounds for War’
» Turkish President Calls Israel Ungrateful, Burden to Its Allies
» Turkish Prime Minister Says Navy Will Escort Future Aid Ships to Gaza
» Turkish Premier Speaks to Al-Jazeera
» U.S. Offers the Taliban New Middle East Headquarters
» US Backs Opening of Taliban Office in Qatar: Report
» USA Authorizes Taliban ‘Embassy’ In Qatar
 
Russia
» Gul: Norway Attack Reflects Threat Pose by Extreme Right Ideologies
 
South Asia
» Indonesia: Moluccas: Three Dead and 60 Wounded in Clashes Between Christians and Muslims
» Indonesia Sends in Police After Ambon Clash
» Pakistan: No Rights or Drinking Water for Residents in One of Islamabad’s Christian Ghettoes
» Pakistan’s Energy Crisis and U.S. Interests
» US Predators Kill 4 ‘Militants’ In North Waziristan Strike
 
Far East
» Japan’s Industry Minister Resigns for Calling Fukushima ‘Town of Death’
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
» Pirates Kidnap British Wife, Husband Shot Dead in Raid on Luxury Kenyan Holiday Resort
 
Latin America
» Guatemala Presidential Elections, Forerunner Extreme Right
 
Immigration
» 98 Tunisian Migrants Land in Lampedusa
» How 2m East Europeans Signed to Get UK Benefit
» More Tunisians Land in Lampedusa During Night
 
Culture Wars
» 9-11, Ten Years Later: Islam’s Unmitigated Success
 
General
» 9/11 Anniversary: The End of Islamic Extremism is Far From Nigh
» Frattini Addresses Rise in ‘Christianophobia’
» Looking Back on Sept. 11

Financial Crisis


Balkans: Bankers Cite Risk of Regional Recession

(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, SEPTEMBER 12 — Within the global crisis, there is the risk of a recession for the entire Balkan region, announced the governors of the central banks of Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia and Albania in meeting today in Becici (Montenegro).

It was noted that in 2011 all the countries in the region will see positive growth rates, though the levels will be below forecasted ones, adn world problems have resulted in a slow down in foreign investment in the entire Balkan region. Prevention, improvement in the system for resisting extreme situations and crisis management are the three main pillars of defence against financial instability, said the Balkan governors, who meet twice a year: first before the spring summits and in autumn before the IMF and World Bank meetings.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Greece: New School Year Starts Without Books

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, SEPTEMBER 12 -Today marks the start of the new school year for some 1.3 million children and 180,000 teachers in the Greek school system, as well as the launch of the education ministry’s ‘New School’ initiatives. For most parents, children and teachers, however — as ANA reports -, the new start will be overshadowed by the lack of the set school textbooks, which for the first time in many years will not be ready to be distributed to students beginning the new year.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Greece: Suicide Rate Rising, Experts Warn

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, SEPTEMBER 12 — Suicides rates have been rising in Greece since the start of the economic crisis, according to statements made by the head of “Climax Plus”, a suicide helpline operating under the auspices of the health and social solidarity ministry, on Saturday to Athens News Agency (ANA). September 10 has been established as ‘World Suicide Prevention Day’ by the WHO. Psychiatrist Kyriakos Katsadoros said that calls to the 24-hour 1018 helpline ‘Intervention for Suicide’ have more than doubled in 2011 compared to the previous year, with one in four callers reporting serious financial difficulties. He said this confirmed that the economic crisis was creating a vicious circle of problems and was one of the factors that had a negative impact on the mental health of individuals. Katsadoros said the helpline had received roughly 2,500 alls throughout 2010 while calls in the first eight months of 2011 had already exceeded 5,000. “The alarming factor is not just the huge increase in the number of calls but also the fact that the reasons why people seek help have changed. In 2008 and 2009, most callers suffered from pscyhological problems. Those who now call us have financial difficulties and are at a dead end,” he said. According to an announcement by the WHO, the economic crisis and the insecurity this causes could lead to an increase in suicides, which are more frequent among the unemployed than those in work. A person without work is two to three times more likely to kill themselves than someone in work, while an increase in unemployment by 3% is linked to a 4.5% increase in suicides in the general population. Greece traditionally ranks low in European rankings for suicide rates, with the Hellenic Statistical Authority recording 4,042 deaths due to suicide from 1999-2009. Of these, 3,288 were men and 754 were women. In recent years, however, the rate of suicide in the country has been tending to increase. For example, there were 391 suicides (333 men and 58 women) in 2009, up from 328 suicides (268 men and 60 women) in 2007. There are no statistics for non-fatal suicide attempts, which are estimated to be 10 to 20 times as many.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Italy: ‘Unchanged’ Austerity Package to be Passed Wednesday Says PM

No more tinkering, Berlusconi vows

(ANSA) — Rome, September 12 — Italy’s 54-billion-euro austerity package to balance the budget by 2013 will be passed “unchanged” by the House on Wednesday, Premier Silvio Berlusconi said on Monday.

The package of spending cuts and tax hikes was altered several times in the Senate, raising jitters on the financial markets, before meeting approval there last week.

Italy was forced to bring its balanced-budget goal forward by one year in August in exchange for bond-buying by the European Central Bank to keep Rome’s debt crisis from spiralling out of control.

“The budget bill will be passed unchanged on Wednesday,” Berlusconi said on one of his television channels.

Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti said Sunday the package will be flanked by moves to rev up Italy’s near-stagnant economy, funding public works and other job-creating schemes with the revenue from the sale of fourth-generation mobile-phone licenses.

Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, who has been closely following the package’s passage, said last week Italy’s low-growth problem was “dramatic”.

Critics of the austerity package claim that, in itself, it does little to lift the economy.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Russia Says Euro-Crisis Could ‘Detonate’ In Neighbouring Countries

Russian finance minister Kudrin in St. Petersburg on Saturday urged the EU to help its default-prone members. “Perhaps the price is great, but if we don’t (save them) we will be faced with a greater crisis, which will detonate in other countries, including ours,” he said, according to Reuters.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Spain: Brussels Demands Region Deficit and Debt Control

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, SEPTEMBER 12 — The European Commission has asked Spain to monitor the deficit and debt of its regions and to take further steps to add to those already approved, if existing measures fail to reach pre-arranged targets. According to the Commission’s annual report on the sustainability of public finances in EU countries, which was quoted by the EFE agency, Brussels is “favourable” to the general direction taken by the Spain’s proposed package of cuts, but has made other suggestions, one of which is for the country “strictly to apply existing deficit and debt control mechanisms for regional governments”. Brussels also wants Spain “to adopt extra measures in case budget and economic development falls short of expectations”. The Commission is “favourable” to the Spanish stability programme for 2011 and 2012, in line with the targets of reducing deficit to below 3% of GDP in 2013 and to 2.1% in 2014.

In the structural budget, an average cut of 1.5% of GDP is predicted between 2010 and 2013 according to European recommendations and an extra 0.3% in 2014. Debt, meanwhile, is expected to go from 60.1% of GDP in 2010 to 69.3%, with a slight decrease in 2014. The report underlines the risk of the stability target not being reached on a regional scale. “Regions represent a large part of total public spending, and 9 out of the 17 autonomous communities exceeded their deficit targets for 2010,” the Commission says. It also points out that Spain, which has already strengthened its deficit control mechanisms, has committed itself to adopting further austerity measures if necessary. Brussels has called for the budged strategy identified for 2011 and 2012 to be implemented, and for deficit to be corrected in line with recommendations of the Council regarding excessive deficit. The necessary measures include maintaining public spending under the medium-term growth rate of GDP, through the introduction of an obligatory regulation on spending at all levels of public administration. Implementation of pension reform to put back the pensionable age has also been demanded, as has a review of the parameters for pension plans in line with life expectancy.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

USA


9/11: The Day the World Changed

Out of a clear blue sky two planes crashed into the Twin Towers. On the tenth anniversary of those horrific events Sarah Joseph, Jeremy Henzell-Thomas, and Imam Zaid Shakir look back on a decade of violence, and reflect on ways to construct a different future.

September 11th, 2001 is a date etched into the hearts and minds of the global population. Almost 3,000 people died on that day — public deaths watched by millions, seared into the collective consciousness. It is no cliché to say the world changed that day, yet few would suggest it has changed for the better, or the responses to it have made us safer. Two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan costing $1.25trillion, and the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives; deadly drone attacks; the rapes and tortures at Abu Ghraib and Bagram; the legal black hole that is Guantanamo Bay; the degradation of domestic liberties; post-traumatic stress disorder of survivors, and much more are all directly linked to that day. The Madrid bombings; the London bombings; Prevent strategy in the UK; Homeland Security in the US; indefinite detention without trial; demonisation of Islamic terms and values, and the rapid rise of the Far-Right are all linked by association.

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



America’s Religious Double Standard

In a recent Brookings Institute poll on the attitude of Americans towards freedom of faith and religious tolerance, nearly 90 percent of Americans agreed that America was built upon religious freedom and tolerance; 95 percent accept that books of faith must be given respect even by those who do not believe in them. However, when it comes to the attitude towards Muslim-Americans, an entirely different picture emerges. Despite supporting the freedom to exercise one’s faith, 48 percent of Americans say they are uncomfortable with Muslim women choosing to dress differently. As for the right to peacefully assemble, 46 percent of Americans are unwilling to have a mosque built near their homes. Moreover, 41 percent of Americans say that they are uncomfortable with Muslim elementary school teachers — a sign of deep suspicion in American society.

It is clear from the Quran that “there should be no compulsion in matters of faith,” and the Prophet Muhammad states, “faith is a restraint against all violence.” While the teachings of Islam conform to the ideals of freedom, of faith and of religious tolerance, attacks like Sept. 11 make most Americans think that a “conflict” exists between Islam and the American way of life. One can see why the American public has developed an attitude towards Islam that could be perceived as a double standard. As a practicing Muslim-American youth, it is clear to me from personal experiences that Islamophobia in America stems from a misunderstanding of Islam. But according to the survey, 6 in 10 young Americans are comfortable with expressions of Muslim religious practice. Such an attitude towards Islam among the youth is an encouraging sign of what is to come. In the future, I am confident that Americans — with the youth leading the way — can overcome Islamophobia and work together with the Muslim-American community in establishing a peaceful society.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Sen. Lieberman and Former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld on Failures to Recognize Islamic Terrorism After 9/11

[see URL for links and video]

This tenth anniversary of 9/11witnessed the further deracination of the term “Islamic” from the official lexicon of counterterrorism. Much of the mainstream media coverage and official commemorations steered clear of using the correct term “Islamic terrorism “. The blogosphere persists in using this appropriate term for identifying the 19 well educated, middle class Salafist Muslim young men from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Yemen who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks on America that took 2,977 innocent lives. They were simply deemed ‘terrorists’ according to the media and commemoration presenters including former President Bush and President Obama. The coverage focused appropriately on the grief of the families who lost loved ones on 9/11, but nary a whisper about who were the perpetrators. All done for fear of being offensive to Muslims. This was misleading and foster denial evident in the comments made by David Beamer, father of Flight 93 victim, Todd Beamer in our NER interview.

Stephen Coughlin, castigated by Heshem Islam, former Muslim outreach aide to Bush Defense Undersecretary Gordon England as “a Christian zealot with a pen” was forced out as a consultant to the Joint Staff for his promulgation of the Threat Doctrine of Jihad. Coughlin drew attention to this deracination of the official government counterterrorism lexicon following the revelations of the 9/11 Commission Report. in the immediate aftermath of Maj. Nidal Hasan massacre at Fort Hood in November 2009 Coughlin noted this In an Iconoclast post,

In a brutal second briefing by Coughlin -see extracts here- the brief culminates in a devastating chart illustrating the depths of myopia our intelligence and counter terrorism agencies have sunk to in denying the threat and realities of Jihad.

Note how cleansed of Islamic Jihad the lexicons used by the FBI and the Intelligence community have become compared to the 9/11 Commission Report in 2004.

In another Iconoclast post, following a Florida security Council security briefing in West Palm Beach in January, 2010, a panel composed of Coughlin, counterterrorism investigative journalist Patrick Poole and former FBI agent John Guandolo drew attention to the ‘missing I word” from the initial Fort Hood massacre report issued by the Pentagon. We noted these comments from a Washington Timesreport by columnist Bill Gertz:

Patrick S. Poole, a counterterrorism consultant to government and law enforcement, said the Pentagon report did not address the problem of political correctness in the military “that allowed for Maj. Hasan’s continued rise despite his poor performance.” Mr. Poole said an “atmosphere of intimidation” exists in the military regarding Islamist threats that “prevented any substantive complaints to [Maj. Hasan’s] increasingly extremist statements.”

“Everyone along the way was content to give him a pass,” Mr. Poole said.

Former Army Secretary Togo D. West Jr., who co-led a Pentagon review of the shooting, dismissed concerns that Maj. Hasan’s religion was a factor in performance reviews during his career as an Army medical counselor.

When asked whether the immediate problem at Fort Hood, Texas, was Islamist radicalization, Mr. West declined to single out Islamists. “Our concern is not with the religion,” he told reporters at the Pentagon. “It is with the potential effect on our soldiers’ ability to do their job.”

Mr. West said “radicalization of any sort” is the issue and that “our concern is with actions and effects, not necessarily with motivations.”

Adm. Vernon E. Clark, a former chief of naval operations and the investigation’s other co-leader, declined to answer when asked whether political correctness led to the Army security failures. He suggested that the matter is addressed in a secret annex to the report that he and Mr. West helped produce.

The only two persons of note to draw attention to this airbrushing treatment of Islamic terrorism during the tenth anniversary of 9/11 were Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Chairman of the US Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee and former Bush Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, who was at the Pentagon when Islamic terrorists flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the building killing 54 passengers and 125 military and civilian personnel.

Lieberman commented on this phenomenon in a recent speech at the National Press Club in an article in The Hill, “Lieberman: Obama’s concern with offending Muslims is hurting the war effort”:

The Obama administration’s fear of offending Muslims will hurt the U.S. war against terrorism, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Thursday in a speech blasting the president’s new counterterrorism strategy.

[. . .]

“The administration still refuses to call our enemy in this war by its proper name: violent Islamist extremism,” Lieberman said, speaking at a National Press Club event hosted by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START).

“To call our enemy ‘violent extremism’ is so general and vague that it ultimately has no meaning. The other term used sometimes is Al Qaeda and its allies. Now that’s better but it is still too narrow and focuses us on groups as opposed to what I would call an ideology, which is what we’re really fighting.”

[. . .]

“I assume the refusal of the administration to speak honestly about the enemy is based on its desire not to do anything that might feed into al Qaeda’s propaganda that we’re engaged in a cold war against Islam,” he said. “But that is so self-evidently a lie that we can and have refuted it and I think we’ve done so effectively.”

On Sunday’s Fareed Zakaria’s CNN program, Global Public Square, Rumsfeld excoriated both the Bush and Obama Administrations for not recognizing the 800 pound Gorilla of Islamic terrorists who perpetrated 9/11 and what followed in the asymmetrical wars we have fought in the Middle East and South Asia. As Rumsfeld emphasized this obsequious PCness has “gotten worse under President Obama.” All Zakaria could respond with was…”But Obama killed Bin Laden”. To which Rumsfeld responded, “of course”.

[Links and video at URL]

[Return to headlines]



September 11, 2001: In Memoriam

by Pechorin

Ten years ago our nation was attacked by Islamic terrorists. No words can alter the facts of that day. No ceremony can undo it. Only through our actions looking to the future can we change the significance of that day. As Lincoln said at Gettysburg, it is for us the living to be dedicated to the great task remaining before us.

In the circles of our elite it is social suicide to speak of Islam as a civilizational threat. It is true that rhetoric of clashes of civilizations can be overblown. It is true that Islam is not a strictly monolithic block. But it is wrong that these facts should forestall serious discussion of the leading political-civilizational struggle of our day.

Political correctness stifles discussion across society. Consider this graph from Google ngrams, measuring the frequency year by year of the usage of “Islamic threat” in a large collection of digitized books. Use of the phrase increases with the rise of Islamism, with the threats to Salman Rushdie, even with the first attack on the World Trade Center. Then, in the late 1990′s, a more organized and serious threat emerged, and attacked in turn the American embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi, the USS Cole, and finally, ten years ago today, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

During these very same years, usage of the phrase “Islamic thread” stopped its rapid increase, and began to fall dramatically.

[See link for graph]

Not reacting blindly to threats is a virtue, one we could have used to avoid our misadventure in Iraq. Not reacting to threats is folly. Reacting to threats by stopping talking about them beggars description.

           — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness [Return to headlines]

Canada


56% of Canadians Think Divide Between West and Muslim World is ‘Irreconcilable’, Poll Finds

A majority of Canadians believes conflict between Western nations and the Muslim world is “irreconcilable,” according to a new national survey that revealed a strong strain of pessimism in the country leading up to Sunday’s 10th anniversary commemorations of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. The survey of 1,500 Canadians, conducted over three days last week for the Montreal-based Association for Canadian Studies, showed 56% of respondents see Western and Muslim societies locked in an unending ideological struggle, while about 33% — just one-third of the population — held out hope that the conflict will eventually be overcome.

ACS executive director Jack Jedwab said the finding has “serious ramifications” for Canadian policies aimed at bridging divides between cultures, which are based on the premise that citizens believe significant progress in mending such religious and cultural conflicts is achievable. The dark view expressed in the survey “contradicts a fundamental idea in multicultural democracies like ours, that conflicts between societies can be resolved through dialogue and negotiation,” said Jedwab. “This is also a key element in multiculturalism, where Canada is often seen elsewhere in the world as a model in conflict resolution.” He adds: “If a majority of Canadians feel it is irreconcilable, what does this imply for the various projects and programs in place that aim to bridge gaps?”

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Divide Between West, Muslim Societies ‘Irreconcilable’: Poll

A majority of Canadians believes conflict between Western nations and the Muslim world is “irreconcilable,” according to a new national survey that revealed a strong strain of pessimism in the country leading up to Sunday’s 10th anniversary commemorations of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S.

The survey of 1,500 Canadians, conducted over three days last week for the Montreal-based Association for Canadian Studies, showed 56 per cent of respondents see Western and Muslim societies locked in an unending ideological struggle, while about 33 per cent — just one-third of the population — held out hope that the conflict will eventually be overcome.

Another 11 per cent of those polled didn’t answer the question.

ACS executive director Jack Jedwab said the finding has “serious ramifications” for Canadian policies aimed at bridging divides between cultures, which are based on the premise that citizens believe significant progress in mending such religious and cultural conflicts is achievable.

           — Hat tip: An EDL buck [Return to headlines]

Europe and the EU


Chirac Allegedly Given ‘Bags of Cash’ By African Leaders

African leaders gave former French President Chirac and his premier Villepin briefcases full of cash during election campaigns, Robert Burgi, a former aide, told Journal de Dimanche. Bourgi said he “took part in handing over several briefcases to Chirac in person.” Chirac is on trial for corruption. He denies charges.

           — Hat tip: Rembrandt [Return to headlines]



Explosion at Nuclear Plant in Southern France

PARIS (AP) — An explosion rocked the Marcoule nuclear plant in southern France on Monday, the country’s nuclear safety body and local authorities said.

It was not immediately clear how serious the accident was or whether there were any victims. The Marcoule site is located in Langedoc Roussillon, in southern France, near the Mediterranean Sea.

Evangelia Petit of the Agency for Nuclear Safety said Monday an explosion had taken place but declined to provide any further details. Officials in the Gard region confirmed Monday’s explosion but also would not elaborate.

The local Midi Libre newspaper, on its web site, said an oven exploded at the plant, killing one person and seriously injuring another. No radiation leak was reported, the report said, adding that no quarantine or evacuation orders were issued for neighboring towns.

Three other people have been hospitalized with lighter injuries in the explosion, the paper said.

The accident occurred at 11:45 a.m. (0945 GMT, 5:45 a.m. EDT) in a plant that treats nuclear waste operated by a subsidiary of France’s EDF electricity company, the report said.

In Vienna, an official at the IAEA, who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on record, said the agency was in contact with French authorities “trying to learn more about the nature of the explosion.”

           — Hat tip: An EDL buck [Return to headlines]



Greece to Build First Official Mega-Mosque in Athens

by Soeren Kern

The Greek Parliament has approved a controversial plan to build a taxpayer-funded mega-mosque in Athens.

The move comes amid thinly veiled threats of violence by thousands of Muslim residents of the city who have been pressuring the government to meet their demands for a mosque or face an uprising.

The September 7 vote to speed up construction of the first official mosque in Athens —- the only capital in the European Union without a state-funded mosque —- was supported by 198 out of 300 deputies from the left, right and center.

The mosque plan was included in an environment ministry bill regulating illegal construction. The plan calls for renovating an existing state building —- on a disused navy base- — in the industrial district of Votanikos near the center of Athens.

The plan commits the Greek government (by way of the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs) to pay for the construction of a temporary mosque which will be built within the next six months. A larger 1,000 square meter (3,300 square feet) mosque with enough space for 500 worshippers at a time will be built in the same area by the end of 2012, at an estimated cost of around €16 million ($21 million).

The announcement comes as massively indebted Greece battles a growing recession that has left nearly one million Greeks out of work. Greece recently needed a €110 billion ($146 billion) three-year bail-out package to rescue the embattled economy from bankruptcy.

Officially, Greece has a Muslim population of around 500,000, mostly of Turkish origin. But in recent years, tens of thousands of Muslims have migrated to Greece from Africa, the Maghreb [North Africa], the Middle East and Central and Southeast Asia.

Many of the estimated 200,000 Muslims living in Athens are illegal immigrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Nigeria and Pakistan. It is now estimated that Greece — — which is the number one gateway for illegal immigration to Europe —- has an illegal immigrant population of around 2 million; this in a country where the total population is only 11 million.

Muslims in Greece pray in makeshift mosques in basement apartments, coffee shops, garages and old warehouses. In Athens alone, there are more than 100 unlicensed Muslim prayer sites in locations scattered across the city.

The Greek parliament’s decision to approve the mosque is the latest chapter in a long-running story that dates back to the 1930s and centers over the question of whether Greece —- which is predominantly (97%) Christian Orthodox —- should officially cater to followers of Islam.

Athens has not had an official mosque since 1833, when the Ottomans evacuated the city after nearly 400 years of Turkish rule. Today the Turkish-dominated Muslim enclave of Thrace in north-eastern Greece is the only place where the Greek government officially supports Islamic sites and shrines.

In the run-up to the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, the late King Fahd of Saudi Arabia offered to finance a mega-mosque in Paiania, a suburb about 20 kilometers (12 miles) east of downtown Athens, near the international airport. But that plan was abandoned in the face of opposition from the Greek Orthodox Church.

In 2006, the government promised to spend €15 million ($20 million) for an Athens mosque by 2009. But that plan was also abandoned.

In 2007, Muslims took matters into their own hands. Using a donation of €2.5 million ($3.4 million) from a Saudi businessman, a small non-profit organization called the Greek-Arab Educational and Cultural Center transformed an old textile factory in Moschato, a southern suburb of Athens, into a 6,000 square meter (19,500 square foot) prayer site that can accommodate more than 2,000 worshippers at a time.

Nevertheless, plans for building a large state-sponsored mosque have been stalled as a result of bureaucratic wrangling as well as opposition from local politicians, especially those belonging to the center-right opposition party New Democracy and the populist LAOS (Popular Orthodox Rally).

In recent months, however, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and his allies in parliament decided to push ahead with the mosque project after the Muslim Union of Greece —- a group that claims to represent all Muslims in Greece (and is also linked to the Muslim Brotherhood) —- staged a series of provocative mass public prayer sessions across Athens aimed to pressure the government into building a mosque.

In November 2010, for example, Muslims held open-air prayers in 15 locations across Athens. In one instance, over 1,000 Muslims took over the square in front of the main building of the University of Athens and held public prayers inside the portico on the first day of the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. More than 7,000 police officers were needed to keep the peace.

In August 2011, the Greek government gave Muslims permission to celebrate the Islamic holy month of Ramadan at the Olympic Stadium of Athens. The initiative was aimed at averting the chances of large crowds of Muslims gathering in downtown city squares.

In September 2011, however, Muslims celebrated Eid al-Fitr, the end of Ramadan, by holding open-air prayers in public squares near the city center. The Muslims were harassed by local residents who threw eggs and yogurt at them. Members of Chrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn) a far-right nationalist group also threatened to physically remove the Muslims from the square; they were held back by riot police.

Analysts say the Papandreou government is pushing the mosque project out of fear that the Muslim rallies will become violent sooner rather than later.

Like many other European cities, Athens has experienced Muslim-related violence in recent years. In May 2009, for example, more than 1,000 Muslims clashed with police in downtown Athens after Muslims accused a police officer stepping on a Koran at a coffee shop during a police check.

Nearly 50 protesters were arrested during the uprising, while seven Muslim immigrants and seven policemen were hospitalized. More than 70 cars were torched and around a dozen businesses were destroyed in the clashes. A day earlier, an even larger crowd of around 1,500 Muslim immigrants rallied before the march degenerated into violence. Police used tear gas to disperse the crowds.

Since then, at least 15 makeshift mosques have been attacked by unknown arsonists. At one event, at least three people in Athens were hospitalized after arsonists set fire to a coffee shop used as a Muslim prayer center for immigrants. In May 2011, arsonists set fire to a makeshift mosque in the Kallithea district of Athens causing damage but no injuries.

Muslims say the violence proves they need an official mosque. But recent polls show that more than half of Greeks are opposed to the mosque plan and say their government should not be financing religious institutions.

           — Hat tip: Steen [Return to headlines]



Italy: Prosecutor Charges Manslaughter in Erotic Game Death

(AGI) Rome — A young woman died during an erotic game and a man who took part in the incident has been arrested for manslaughter. The man was charged with the assault of a second, injured woman. The Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office has requested that the engineer arrested in the death of the 23 year old woman be remanded to jail. Monday, Preliminary Investigating Magistrate Marco Mancinetti will rule on the request based on the results of the questioning of the suspect in court to confirm the arrest.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Sweden: Terror Suspects ‘Linked to Somalia’s Al-Shabab’

Gothenburg, 12 Sept. (AKI) — The four suspected terrorists arrested in Sweden over the weekend are linked to armed Somali Islamist group Al-Shabab, according to news reports on Monday.

Kulan Mohamud Abel, Mahamud Abdi Aziz, Mahmood Salar Sami, and Mohamud Abdi Weli were arrested on Saturday in Gothenburg on suspician of plotting a terrorist attack, Sweden’s Security Service said. Gothenburg is Sweden’s second-largest city.

Three of the suspects are of Somali origin and the fourth is Iraqi, CNN reported.

“Police suspect the men were about to carry out a terrorist attack with firearms and bombs,” Gothenburg regional daily GT reported on its website, without naming who gave it the information, “Police sources have told GT the suspects are linked to the terror network Al-Shabab.”

Al-Shabab has an alliance with Al-Qaeda and has not shied away from using terrorist tactics in its fight to control Somalia. In 2010 the group claimed responsibility for a suicide attack in Ugandan capital Kampala that killed around 75 people who gathered to watch the televised broadcast of the World Cup soccer finals.

Uganda leads a military coalition of African countries deployed in Somalia to keep the troubled country out of the hands of radical Islamic militants.

Authorities have not released specifics of the alleged plot but police on Saturday evacuated hundreds of people attending an art fair in Gothenburg.

GT said a controversial artist who has depicted Prophet Mohammed as a dog had planned to attend the fair.

Lars Vilks has received numerous death threats.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Travellers Face Slavery Charges as UK Police Raid Site at Dawn

FIVE IRISH Travellers, four men and a woman, were arrested in England yesterday by heavily-armed officers in a dawn raid, suspected of enslaving dozens of immigrants and homeless UK citizens for up to 15 years.

Twenty-four alleged victims, mostly eastern European, but including a number of British, were found held in appalling conditions in rundown caravans and a garden shed on the Travellers’ caravan site in Little Billington in Bedfordshire.

Last night, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Constabulary indicated charges against the five under the Slavery and Servitude Act will follow over the next two days, while they continue to search for three others suspected of involvement.

The alleged victims held at the Green Acres caravan park were allegedly brought there after being offered work laying tarmac or doing house maintenance, but were allegedly held captive, forced to seek work and hand over their earnings.

Some of the alleged victims had been recruited at welfare benefit offices, employment exchanges, charity soup kitchens, or at aid organisations helping those suffering from alcoholism or with drug addictions.

“They’re recruited and told if you come here we’ll pay you £80 a day, we’ll look after you, give you board and lodgings. But when they get here, their hair is cut off them, they’re kept, in some cases, in horseboxes, dog kennels and old caravans, made to work for no money, given very, very small amounts of food.

“Some are treated a little bit better, but they were told they could not leave and if they did they would be beaten up and attacked,” said Det Chief Insp Seán O’Neil of the constabulary’s major crimes unit.

Detectives have been investigating the slavery allegations for up to four years, he said, though the constabulary says it struggled to act until new anti-slavery legislation was passed in 2010 and witnesses were prepared to make formal statements.

Last night, the 24 were still receiving medical care, though a number are badly malnourished. One was fouled with excrement when discovered as they slept four to a caravan, while two were freed from a garden shed by police, who raided at 5.30am.

“The men we found at the site were in a poor state of physical health and the conditions they were living in were shockingly filthy and cramped. We believe some of them had been living and working there in a state of virtual slavery, some for just a few weeks and others for up to 15 years,” said Det Chief Insp O’Neil.

Yesterday’s raid followed an approach from a former victim, who alleged he had been held by a gang who repeatedly beat him and threatened him with even worse consequences if he tried to escape.

Privately, police believe that they have made a major breakthrough in an investigation into such activities.

The five arrested yesterday, in the operation that involved 200 officers, some heavily-armed, were still being questioned late last night at several police stations. Weapons and drugs are alleged to have been found.

           — Hat tip: McR [Return to headlines]



UK: 9/11 Anniversary Memorial: EDL and Muslim Groups Clash in London

Yesterday’s 9/11 memorial service in London was blighted by clashes between the English Defence League (EDL) and Muslims Against Crusades (MAC). Around 40 people were arrested and a man was stabbed. As crowds gathered to mourn those lost in the 9/11 terrorist attacks ten years ago, two groups of extremists scuffled and shouted slogans at each other. Militant Muslim group MAC burned the US flag during the minute’s silence being held outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square. The group chanted “USA terrorists” and held anti-American placards. Meanwhile the EDL held aloft anti-Muslim placards and shouted abuse.

EDL supporters swigged beer and threw glass bottles at the MAC protesters as police tried to disperse the groups to prevent a confrontation. Many EDL members resisted arrest and scuffles with police broke out. A smaller counter-demonstration was held nearby, with protesters holding signs reading “Muslims Against Extremism” and “If You Want Sharia, Move To Saudi.” Later in the evening two EDL members were stabbed by Muslim youths outside the JD Wetherspoon pub on Edgware Road, near Marble Arch,, according to reports. The condition of the two victims is unknown but the spokesman said they remained conscious following the incident. A man present at the Grosvenor Square memorial, whose cousin died in the 9/11 terror attacks, said: “They shouldn’t be allowed to do it. It’s very disrespectful. It’s too loud. “They can say what they want but not with the loudspeaker. They shouldn’t obstruct the service.”

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: 9/11: The Dark Day That Brought Out the Worst in Britain

The tragic events of 9/11 were immediately followed by a grotesque and shameful fusillade of anti-Americanism, which still resonates today. I had already written my column that day. I still recall, although almost everything else from that morning is wiped from my memory, that the subject of it — this column that no one would ever see — was Tony Blair’s upcoming appearance at the TUC conference. Because I had been engrossed in producing my copy for the next day, September 12, 2001, I had not heard any news. In the early afternoon, I filed my piece and turned on the television. A few moments later, the telephone rang.

The then editor of The Daily Telegraph, Charles Moore, asked me to write the new column from the personal point of view of an expatriate American. In fact, it would have been quite impossible to do anything else. I would not have been capable — am still not capable — of writing about the event in a way that is not personal. What was it like to watch the country (and for me, as it happened, the city) in which you had grown up being attacked in the most monumental, catastrophic way — not just from a geographical distance, but from the semi-detachment of exile? I’ve spoken to many expatriates about this experience since, and most of them shared the same sense of irrational survivor’s guilt: I should have been there.

A few weeks later, the daughter of some close friends in New York came to London. Over lunch, we talked about that day and its aftermath. She told me about the posters that had appeared in the streets when there was still hope that victims might be found and identified — photographs of loved ones with heartbreaking messages (“Have you seen my daddy?), and about how she had spent the first night relighting candles that had blown out on the impromptu memorials. It was only when she reached across the table to take my hand that I realised that I was crying. “I’m sorry,” I said, “This is the first time I’ve spoken to another American since…” Another American? Only weeks before, I would not have said that. The United States was the country I chose to leave and to which I had felt only a vestigial tie for many, many years.

Indeed, since I had spent virtually my entire adult life here and taken British nationality, I generally referred to myself as an American-born Briton. (For complex personal reasons, I did not even visit the land of my birth for more than 30 years after leaving it.) September 11 made a bonfire of that little vanity. From that day, I became an American who lives in Britain. But it was not just the terrorist attack that had produced this resurgence of loyalty to the United States. It was the grotesque fusillade of anti-Americanism that burst immediately — and I mean immediately — onto the British scene in its wake.

Anyone who claims that the latest fashionable wave of political hatred for the US has been provoked by the Iraq war should look at the press coverage that sprang up in the first 48 to 72 hours after the attacks. When the invasion of Afghanistan — let alone Iraq — was only a possibility on the horizon, when the death toll was climbing into the thousands, and when people here were still desperately trying to contact American friends and family, sections of the British media were already engaged in a frenzy of vitriolic retribution.

The Guardian led the way, of course, with a now infamous series of comment pieces which reiterated the same vengeful theme: America had got what it deserved. Its pages were filled with callous triumphalism (“They can’t see why they are hated”, “A bully with a bloody nose is still a bully”) alternating with frank threats: until the US changes its policy on the Middle East, it will continue to suffer terrorist attacks — which turned out, thankfully, to be wrong. (Oddly, there were no claims that the Spanish had got what they deserved after the later Madrid bombings, even though that incident was related to the Islamist goal of re-establishing the caliphate.)

The then comment editor of The Guardian, Seamus Milne, wrote a column last week in which he defended his choice of articles at that time with a bizarre post hoc justification: since America had indeed become enmeshed in military invasions after the attacks, this proved that his contributors had been right all along. He and his comrades (I use the word advisedly) still seem incapable of grasping what was so profoundly offensive about this coverage: it was not a matter of politics, but of basic human decency. Would they accost a widow at her husband’s funeral to shout that the idiot got what was coming to him, because he had smoked two packs of cigarettes a day and never taken any exercise? What sort of people behave like this? What sort of country had I chosen to live in?

Then the BBC followed with an outrageous edition of Question Time, in which the audience shrieked abuse at anyone on the panel who uttered a word of sympathy for the US, and openly cheered the idea that the attacks were justified. Some of my New York friends were rung from London within days by people they had known for years to be told: “You know what everybody is saying here — that America got what it deserved.”

Well, not quite everybody. When I wrote about this vicious campaign in the following weeks, I was deluged with letters from readers (in those days, people still wrote letters to columnists rather than posting comments on a website) who were as appalled as I was, and deeply ashamed of the picture that was being created of British public opinion. Many of them had personal experiences of America — of studying or travelling there. Others recalled friendships and camaraderie with American servicemen stationed here during the Second World War. Here, at last, was the Britain I thought I knew.

But the other Britain — which can orchestrate an instant hate campaign against people who have just suffered a shocking bereavement — is, 10 years on, in full flood. Now the refrain is: America lost an opportunity to examine its role and question its assumptions. Why, in other words, couldn’t it have revelled in the kind of self-doubt and identity crisis that has become Europe’s chronic condition? I am willing to predict that America’s fundamental optimism is what will see it through, while Europe tears itself apart in moral confusion and historical guilt. The US is a country that (still) knows what it stands for and why it exists, and it will continue to offer that self-belief to the waves of immigrants who arrive, wanting to be free.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: Archbishop of Canterbury to Retire Next Year

(AGI) London — The archbishop of Canterbury and primate of the Anglican Church, Rowan Williams, intends to retire next year.

He is retiring almost a decade ahead of schedule, without waiting for his seventieth birthday — the customary retirement date — to be celebrated on 14 June 2020. The 61 year old archbishop intends to dedicate the rest of his life to scholarly pursuits.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



UK: Dozens of Arrests Mar 9/11 Commemorations in London

Around 40 people were arrested by police following disorder sparked by protests that marred the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, Scotland Yard said. A crowd of 100 activists from radical Islamic groups including Muslims Against Crusades (MAC) congregated outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square yesterday, while members of the English Defence League (EDL) staged a counter-demonstration. Trouble later flared between the two groups and two men were stabbed outside a pub in an incident believed to be connected to the protests.

The radical Islamic supporters gathered in the central London square as families of British 9/11 victims prepared for a remembrance ceremony in the September 11 memorial garden.

Protesters set fire to a US flag during a minute’s silence held to mark the moment when the first hijacked plane hit the World Trade Centre, while others shouted slogans including “USA terrorists” and brandished anti-American placards. After two hours the MAC demonstration left the area, shortly before the start of the memorial service. But that resulted in chaotic scenes in central London as Islamic protesters and EDL supporters participated in an unplanned 90-minute march along Park Lane and Edgware Road to Regent’s Park Mosque. On several occasions police were forced to intervene to keep the two groups apart, while traffic was brought to a standstill.

A Met Police spokesman said: “Four people were arrested during the afternoon for alleged public order offences and were taken to south London police stations. “The (Islamic) demonstrators were subsequently escorted by police to the Central London Mosque. A number — believed to be four or five of this group — were arrested during this journey.”

He added that around 20 demonstrators opposed to the Islamic groups were arrested for breach of the peace in the Oxford Street area. Meanwhile, police said 11 people were arrested outside The Tyburn pub on Edgware Road, near Marble Arch, after two men were stabbed. The force spokesman said the men, who are both believed to be opponents of the Islamic groups, were injured in the incident at at 6pm, over two hours after the main protests had ended. The condition of the two victims is unknown but the spokesman said they remained conscious following the incident.

One of the Grosvenor Square memorial service attendees, who did not want to be named, said the protesters should have been stopped from standing just across the road from the embassy and using a loud speaker system. The man, whose cousin died in the terror attacks, said: “They shouldn’t be allowed to do it. It’s very disrespectful. It’s too loud.”

He added: “They can say what they want but not with the loudspeaker. They shouldn’t obstruct the service.” Tom Clarke, who lost his sister Suria, a 30-year-old PR executive, in the attacks on the World Trade Centre, said he would have preferred it if the protesters had not staged the demonstration. But he added: “I would much rather live in a country where people are allowed to do that than one where they aren’t. I would defend their right to protest and have the right to say what they want.”

A small group of Muslims staged a demonstration opposing the radicals, holding up placards reading “Muslims Against Extremism” and “If You Want Sharia, Move To Saudi”. Abdul Sallam, 41, travelled down to London from his home in Glasgow to show the strength of his feelings. He said: “I’m a Muslim. What they’re doing is bringing shame on all Muslims.

“This is not part of the teachings of Islam. “Islam is all about peace, but what they want to do is hate other people.”

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



UK: MPs Who Repaid Expenses Got Money Back in Secret Deal

Dozens of MPs who repaid money amid public outrage at their expenses claims were quietly refunded under a secret deal with the Commons authorities, it has emerged.

They include Cheryl Gillan, the Welsh Secretary, who pocketed £4.47 which she had voluntarily returned after The Daily Telegraph disclosed that she had billed the public purse for dog food.

Sir John Butterfill, a former Conservative backbencher, received £15,000 back after previously announcing that he would return money which he had received to help run the servants’ quarters at his Surrey mansion.

The MPs were offered the expenses deals following the Legg audit of claims dating back to 2004 which was ordered in the wake of the expenses scandal.

Under the terms of the review’s remit — which was determined by the MPs themselves — the audit team could only ask for money back if claims were in breach of the notoriously lax rules at the time.

As many MPs had voluntarily repaid sums in excess of the amounts identified by Sir Thomas Legg, head of the audit, they were secretly offered the opportunity to claim the money back.

Figures released following a Freedom of Information request show that 26 MPs applied for the refunds.

Evidence of the issues comes after the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) announced it is “actively considering” giving MPs freer rein over budgets again, and checking their spending retrospectively.

The Commons authorities had previously only published partial details of the mass payback that ensued when abuses became public two years ago.

But they have now spelt out the sums returned by each politician, including travel and office expenses as well as notorious spending on second homes.

The material released shows that Liam Byrne, the shadow work and pensions secretary, also benefited from a rebate.

As the scandal broke he repaid £3,618.42. That included £1,757 claimed for a property purchase with his brother, and £500 for phone bills and excess rent.

He argued that MPs were “well paid” and had to take responsibility for errors by the Fees Office.

However, according to the Commons, the member for Birmingham Hodge Hill later asked for £1,349.41 back after Sir Thomas demanded just £111.84 for mobile telephone costs.

Other disclosure to come from today’s documents include the fact that Tony Blair returned £388 in unspecified second home expenses last March — his only repayment.

Mr Blair, who has made millions since leaving Downing Street, was criticised for claiming thousands of pounds for renovating his second home days before quitting as an MP.

Liberal Democrat Treasury Chief Secretary Danny Alexander repaid £1,933.29 in mortgage interest in the run-up to the general election.

           — Hat tip: An EDL buck [Return to headlines]



UK: The Hip Hop Cop Shop: Police Opened Fake Rap Music Store and Snared 30 Gangsters for Drugs and Gun Offences

Criminals and drug dealers were caught in an undercover sting after police officers posed as staff in a fake hip hop music shop.

A total of 37 armed criminals and drug dealers, including 30 gang members, have been jailed for a total of more than 400 years following the ‘sting’ operation in the shop, called Boombox, in Edmonton, north London.

Codenamed Operation Peyzac, the £500,000 operation involved undercover officers kitting out as a fully-operating rap and hip hop music store, with a private back room which was used to carry out deals with drug and gun sellers, and the store was wired with CCTV and recording equipment.

The ‘shop’ operated for more than 12 months and officers, who were trained in the sort of music they were selling, were able to film the trading of firearms, ammunition and drugs.

On one occasion they captured a man on CCTV selling undercover police four guns. He had travelled to the shop on a busy bus with the loaded weapons hidden in a plastic bag.

Another man was filmed handing over cocaine with a street value of £4,000.

In April 2010 652 officers carried out simultaneous raids on 35 addresses across north and east London and Leeds.

As well as guns and drugs, police also uncovered swords, knives, a stun gun and CS gas during the swoops, and one gun was found hidden in compost.

The pictured criminals, aged between 16 and 41, were charged with various offences including drug dealing, trafficking guns and money laundering. They were jailed, or given community sentences or fined.

Two of the criminals’ images were not released by police.

Further raids at other London addresses revealed a large number of weapons, including knives and swords, two air rifles and a samurai sword.

They also found large amounts of Class A drugs and cash. Due to the strength of the evidence gathered, those arrested were charged and then convicted at Wood Green Crown Court between August 2010 and last Friday.

In total 21 firearms were removed from the streets. The men were jailed for firearms offences and for dealing drugs including crack cocaine, heroin, crystal meth, ecstasy and cannabis.

The enterprising officers came up with the plan following a tip-off gangs were operating in the neighbourhood after five young men were murdered in nearby Enfield between January and July 2008, including four teenagers.

The shop is in Edmonton, the are where Colombian student Steven Grisales was knifed and killed, and where a 15-year-old boy was stabbed as he walked to Silver Street train station.

Superintendent Lucy D’Orsi said she was proud of the ‘out of the box thinking’ that led to opening the shop allowing cops to infiltrate gangs in the crime-ridden area.

She said that Boombox had turned a ‘negligible’ profit, but added: ‘Let’s just say I wouldn’t take it to Dragons’ Den.’

She continued: ‘We looked at the age profile of the people we wanted to get intelligence out of and came up with the shop because it reflected their interests.

‘Eventually people came in offering drugs for sale, firearms for sale or stolen property for sale — a whole raft of stuff basically.

‘The undercover officers did brilliantly in handling all the situations thrown at them, and in gaining the trust of individuals coming into the shop wanting to engage in criminal activity.

‘They were given training in the types of music the shop would offer, as well as the running of the shop.’

Detective Chief Inspector Paul Harwood, the senior investigator, said they were responding to the community who had pleaded with them to stop the cycle of violence and crime on their streets.

DCI Harwood said: ‘Operation Peyzac is seen as one of the most innovative and successful covert operations run by the Met and this is attributed to the bravery and dedication of the undercover officers which was recognized with Judges Commendations.

He said that because of the overwhelming evidence gathered in the shop, 34 of the subjects pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity.’

James Jones, 27, of Tottenham, North London, was running a gun factory, and was also discovered with a ‘mobile conversion kit’ which he carried in a rucksack and which could be used to turn blank-firing pistols into full operative guns.

He was jailed for seven years after being convicted of manufacturing firearms and ammunition and possession of a firearm.

Others jailed included Junior Homer, 21, of Edmonton, who was sentenced to 10-and-a-half years in jail after being convicted of conspiracy to supply firearms, conspiracy to supply drugs, receiving stolen goods and passing counterfeit currency.

Kasheef Hardy, 25, of Green Lanes, north London, was jailed for 10 years for conspiracy to supply a firearm and ammunition.

Michael Ludia, 19, of Upper Holloway, north London,was punished with four years imprisonment for conspiracy to supply firearms consecutive to a five years and a six months sentence for five robbery offences.

DI Rob Murray, who ran the operation from day-to-day, said he didn’t know if any musical careers had been launched using the recording booths in the shop, but added: ‘I think a few potential careers have been put on hold for a while.’

The convictions are not part of one conspiracy, and instead cover a number of different criminal operations in Edmonton.

Cops found many of the criminals had links with three suburbs near the shop — Upper Edmonton, Edmonton Green and Lower Edmonton, and in the 12 months after mid-October 2009 the rates of highly violent crime in those areas fell by 6.9 per cent, 34.5 per cent and 45 per cent respectively.

           — Hat tip: An EDL buck [Return to headlines]



UK: Why I’m Sceptical About William Hague’s Eurosceptism

by Norman Tebbit

What are we to make of the sudden re-emergence of William Hague from his disengagement of recent times to a new bout of Euroscepticism? The more I read the text of his interview, the more puzzled I am that so much has been read into it. I can only surmise that the newspaper in question wanted a headline to sell more copies. Indeed, I bought one myself.

Of course it is good news that Hague has refound his zest for work, but to be comfortable in the Foreign Office, which these days acts like a branch office of the Brussels authorities, hardly seems compatible with holding the sort of views of the Eurosceptic wing of the Parliamentary Conservative Party, let alone those of most Conservative voters, many Labour voters and many of their former supporters who no longer vote at all or have defected to UKIP.

Of course Hague deserves credit for realising that “the idea that you can have a single currency without a closer fiscal union was always a great mistake”. He would have been more right had he said then, and repeated now, that the fiscal union has not got to be just “closer”, but as close as that in USA or the UK, and that requires political union too.The more interesting question is what should be our policy to minimise the damage to ourselves and of course if possible to our trading partners in the wreckage of the Eurozone. As I understand it, so far it amounts only to encouragement to pusue a policy to delay, but worsen, the final crash.

I am pleased too that the Foreign Secretary says we should pull away from Brussels, although that statement was in indirect speech, perhaps to avoid upsetting the Eurofanatic Lib Dems. His words were “we would like to see powers returned from the EU to the United KIngdom”, but he would not been drawn on which powers, leaving that to Tory back benchers. Sadly, I would be more impressed if the Government had not gone along with every EU demand that has been made upon us since May last year and got nothing in return, not even for giving consent to the botched bail-out of Greece. It is a great pity that there is a lot less in this outburst of Euroscepticism than the headline writer, and no doubt Mr Cameron would like us to believe.

[JP note: It’s a toss up whether the Foreign Office is a branch office of the Brussels authorities or the Muslim Brotherhood, but my money is on the Camel Corps.]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

North Africa


Arab Nations to Get $58 Billion to Reward Reform

MARSEILLE, France (AP) — Wealthy countries and international lenders promised more money Saturday to encourage democratic reforms in Arab nations, promising at least $58 billion.

After Tunisia and Egypt ousted their authoritarian regimes earlier this year, eight of the world’s most developed economies along with rich Arab countries and a raft of development banks had pledged in May to give $40 billion in support to their nascent democracies and hopefully keep them on the path to open government.

Those uprisings set off a cascade of revolts across the Middle East, and the Group of Eight and others are now increasing their pledges and expanding the recipients to include Morocco and Jordan.

So far, at least $58 billion has been promised to the four countries — $38 billion from development banks through 2013 and more than $20 billion from the G-8 and the wealthy Arab countries.

Saturday’s meeting was notable for its inclusion of Libya, where rebel forces recently took control of most of the country and are working to create a government to replace Moammar Gadhafi’s brutal regime. Libya is not yet officially part of the program but could soon receive funding, according to Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty.

Libya’s vast oil wealth means it is unlikely to need substantial aid over the long term, but its oil exports slowed to a trickle during recent fighting, and the country is still waiting for funds that were frozen under Gadhafi to be handed over to them. Flaherty indicated that the program could bridge the gap.

“We did not discuss quantum, but we discussed, yes, the reality that the Libyans may require some assistance in the short term,” Flaherty said.

Earlier in the day, British Treasury chief George Osborne said officials would also commit to lifting sanctions on Libya, unfreezing its assets, and also “significantly get oil production going as quickly as possible.”

Libya’s new ambassador to France Mansour Seyf al-Nasr called the meeting “a success.”

Tunisia’s finance minister, Jelloul Ayed, also praised the meeting.

“A very successful meeting. The financial commitment that we obtained today is a general commitment,” he said, noting that it would be determined later how much each of the Arab countries gets.

In another step for Libya’s Transitional National Council, it won recognition Saturday from the International Monetary Fund, according to the organization’s chief, Christine Lagarde. She said she would dispatch teams to Libya to help with technical assistance and policy advice as soon as it was safe.

The money is intended to help support “transparent, accountable government” and “sustainable and inclusive growth” in North Africa and the Middle East, according to a statement from the nine international and regional lenders who pledged the $38 billion.

           — Hat tip: An EDL buck [Return to headlines]



Erdogan, Abbas Meet in Egypt Ahead of UN Bid

CAIRO — Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Monday kicks off an ‘Arab Spring’ tour in Egypt, where a diplomatic flurry is underway ahead of a Palestinian push to win UN statehood and as Israel’s regional ties hit a new low. Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas is also visiting Cairo to attend an Arab League meeting later Monday and for talks with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who will stop in Egypt on her way to Israel.

Erdogan will also visit Tunisia and Libya, where popular uprisings such as that in Egypt have toppled long-standing autocratic regimes, as he bids to forge stronger ties with Arab nations as Ankara’s relations with Israel sour. Turkey has expelled the Israeli ambassador and cut trade ties with the Jewish state over the storming by Israeli naval commandos last year of a convoy of ships trying to reach Gaza in defiance of the blockade, killing nine Turks.

Egypt’s relations with Israel have also worsened, with protesters ransacking the Jewish state’s embassy in Cairo forcing the ambassador to flee after the killing of six Egyptian policemen on their common border last month as Israel hunted militants after a deadly attack.

The Palestinians’ determination to push for UN membership has triggered wide concerns in Israel, where Defence Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday called for the 15-member inner security cabinet to convene for a debate on Israel’s complex regional relations.

A strong supporter of the Palestinian cause, Erdogan arrives late Monday in Cairo and the next day he will address a ministerial meeting of the Arab League and hold talks with top Egyptian officials aimed at boosting ties. Monday evening Abbas will attend a special Arab League committee meeting devoted to the Palestinian-Israeli crisis, just days before heading to New York to seek UN membership for Palestine. Abbas is expected to submit a formal request on September 20 for the United Nations to accept Palestine as its 194th member.

Washington said it would veto any bid to the Security Council, arguing that a Palestinian state should be set up only through negotiations. If that happens the Palestinians say they will turn to the General Assembly, where they expect to easily win votes to upgrade their representation from observer body to non-member state. “We will go to the United Nations to obtain an international recognition to the state of Palestine, despite the obstacles and dangers, including US threats to halt 470 million dollars in annual assistance,” Abbas told a Jordanian newspaper.

Ashton, meanwhile, will meet Abbas and Arab foreign ministers at the League’s Cairo headquarters, ahead of travelling to Israel, as the European Union remains divided over the Palestinian UN bid. He has already received indirect support from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon who Friday said Palestinian statehood was “long overdue” but the European Union remains divided. At talks in Poland earlier this month EU foreign ministers urged both Israel and the Palestinians to return to direct peace talks while offering to take a lead role in hammering out a solution acceptable to all sides. “Our idea is to work to find the grounds for a resolution that would be acceptable to the different parties,” said French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe. “It is possible to find such a balance.”

Erdogan is much admired on the Arab street due to his strong challenge to the Jewish state and his government is a fervent supporter of the Palestinian UN bid. He renewed his criticism of Israel in an interview with the Egyptian newspaper Al-Shorouk published on Monday.

“Israel has become a spoiled child… Not only does it practice state terrorism against the Palestinians, but it also started to act irresponsibly,” he said. “Israel does not want to admit its mistakes or that the world around it has changed,” he added. Turkey and Egypt are due to sign a “declaration of strategic cooperation,” during Erdogan’s first visit to Cairo since the former president Hosni Mubarak was ousted by a popular uprising in February, the government daily Al-Ahram newspaper reported Monday, quoting Egypt’s envoy to Ankara.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Erdogan in Cairo, First Stage of “Arab Uprisings” Tour

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA — Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is on his way to Cairo for the first stage of a four-day tour that will also take him to Tunisia and Libya, three countries that have become synonymous with the revolutions ongoing in North Africa. Today’s Turkish newspapers state that Erdogan, the leader of the emerging regional power “model” based on a mix of economic growth, moderate Islam and democracy, wants to tighten relations with the new administrations, in order to play a key role in rewriting the new order of an area where old dictators have fallen by the wayside. Leading a delegation made up of six ministers and around 170 entrepreneurs, Erdogan will hold meetings today and tomorrow with figures including the head of Egypt’s Supreme Military Council, Hussein Tantawi, the country’s de facto head of state, to revive “strategic cooperation” between Turkey and Egypt in military, diplomatic and economic fields.

In order to avoid embarrassment for their Egyptian counterparts, a proposed deviation to take in Gaza through the border crossing at Rafah has been cancelled in the wake of the ongoing crisis with Israel, which has made Erdogan very popular in Arab countries. The Turkish Prime Minister, however, is due to speak tomorrow at the opening of a meeting of Arab League Foreign Ministers, in a speech that it is hoped will rival that made by the US President, Barack Obama, in 2009, in which he called on Egyptians not to fear democracy and secularity, two equally important factors in promoting freedom.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Gaddafi Loyalists Assault Refinery, Killing 15 Guards

(AGI) Ras Lanuf — Forces loyal to Col Gaddafi last night stormed a refinery about 20 km from the residential areas of Ras Lanuf. Eyewitnesses reported that the attack on the strategic coastal oil centre in eastern Tripolitania, killed at least fifteen guards deployed to protect the installation, wounding two others. The assailants managed to break into the installation and damage the buildings.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Gaddafi Forces Counterattack in Ras Lanuf and Bani Walid

(AGI) Benghazi — Muammar Gaddafi’s forces have mounted a counterattack in Ras Lanuf and in Bani Walid. The first was a surprise sortie near the Ras Lanuf refinery where at least 15 insurgents were killed, while the second attack came in Bani Walid, 150 kilometres from Tripoli, where insurgents are facing significant loyalist opposition after a 4 day battle .

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Italy to Unfreeze 2.5 Billion in Libyan Funds

(AGI) Tirana — Italy has been authorized by the United Nations to unfreeze 2.5 billion euro belonging to Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini announced. Frattini received the news before he flew from Tirana, Albania to Munich. The funds belong to the Central Bank of Libya, the Libyan Investment Authority, the Libyan Foreign Bank, the Libyan National Oil Corporation and the Libyan African Investment Company.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Libyan Insurgents Find Resistance at Bani Walid

(AGI) Tripoli — The militia of the National Transitional Council are finding strong resistance by Gaddafi’s forces at Bani Walid. The city that the rebels have not yet succeeded to expunge, not even with the support of NATO forces, is located 150 km South-East of Tripoli. According to reports, growing ethnic and tribal divisions are behind the unexpected difficulties in conquering the Geddafi loyalist stronghold lying in the middle of the desert.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Libya: Strong Loyalist Resistance in Bani Walid

(ANSAmed) — ROME, SEPTEMBER 12 — With Libya’s NTC forces advancing on Sirte, rebels are facing string resistance in Bani Walid from troops loyal to the former Libyan leader. Following yesterday’s clashes, dozens of civilians have fled the city, though local residents say that many are stranded because of a lack of petrol.

A military commander of the National Transitional Council, Abdallah Abu Ussara, said that fighters have not yet received orders to launch an offensive, while the lay-out of the city, with its numerous hills, makes a rapid advance difficult.

“Bani Walid is full of weapons, they are in every home. There are snipers everywhere stopping us from advancing,” said one of the fighters, Sami Saadi Abu Rueiss, who also reported episodes of “betrayal, by people pretending to be among the revolutionaries but who are in fact with Gaddafi”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Libya: The War for Radical Islam, And a Defeat for the United States

by Guy Millière

This is the first time in history that Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood welcome what is supposed to be a “ victory “ for Western forces.

It is the presence of members of Islamic-terrorist movements among Libyan “ rebels “ — as well as the many atrocities committed by “ rebel “ forces against black Africans — that the mainstream media are now largely ignoring.

Winning the war took five months — not exactly a demonstration of strength and may instead appear as a demonstration of weakness: if the U.S. military combined with the French and British armies needed five months to defeat a Third World dictator who had agreed to disarm, how can they possibly dissuade better equipped dictators?

Winning the peace looks like an impossible task, especially as nobody is in charge of this mission. The commander of the Tripoli Military Council, Adbelhakim Belhadj, is the former head of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, an al-Qaeda affiliate. The commander of the Benghazi Military Council, Ismail Al Salabi, is a former high level member of the same group.

Article 1 of the Draft Constitutional Charter for the Transitional Stage says : “ Islam is the Religion of the State, and the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia). “

Those who have guns in Libya today are people who have a jihadist past, and who, until recently, maintained close links with people against whom the U.S. military is now battling in Afghanistan.

Some members of the provisional government, the National Transitional Council (NTC), also belong to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. The President of the NTC, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, was Minister of Justice under Gaddafi until the war began. He was President of the Tripoli appeals court when the Bulgarian nurses were sentenced to death, and he twice upheld the death sentences. He was a zealous servant of the regime until the last minute. When he was dispatched by Gaddafi to negotiate with the “ rebels “ at the beginning of war, he defected.

At best, Libya will become a country where an appearance of democracy will cover the reality of an authoritarian Islamic regime.

At worst, the country will slide into a prolonged civil war, and become a rear base for radical Islam.

When the war to topple Saddam Hussein began in 2003, and many in France were organizing protests, and chanting “ no war for oil, “ French political leaders, almost unanimously, began denouncing a “ unilateral action “ undertaken without the approval of the UN. Jacques Chirac and Dominique de Villepin gave moral lessons and proclaimed that “ no one can use force to install democracy “ — as if the only systems that can be installed by force are dictatorships.

At the time, France was a member of the so-called “ peace camp, “ along with Germany and Russia ;and France had a good reason to support “ peace “: French oil companies and the French government had signed lucrative contracts that, with the overthrow of Saddam, went up in smoke.

A few months later, although weapons of mass destruction could not be found, “ weapons of mass corruption “ were ; and led to well-stocked bank accounts, many of them French.

In mainstream European and American media, links between Saddam Hussein and various Islamic terrorists movements were largely ignored, and atrocities committed under Saddam Hussein were, too. When jihadi [holy war] terrorists started to hit U.S. troops and the population, they were described merely as “ insurgents. “

Even though many mistakes were committed, at the end of 2008, Iraq was a stable country : elections were held despite massive death threats to voters; a free press existed, and newspapers proliferated. Winning the war had taken three weeks. Winning the peace required five years, during which many American soldiers and many innocent Iraqis died and were added to the two million victims of the former regime who were found in mass graves.

°°°°

In 2011, a war was fought to overthrow Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, and it is not over yet. No one has mobilized : officially, it was, and still is, not a war but a “ humanitarian operation “ to “ protect civilians. “ Nevertheless, it was, and still is, a war ; and the protection of civilians was apparently a mere pretext. Nothing was done to protect civilians from the “ rebels “ or from Gaddafi’s forces. The new Libyan authorities, who have no incentive to boost the numbers, talk now of at least 50,000 dead.

If the war in Iraq was not a war for oil — and is it necessary to recall that U.S. oil companies have not been very well treated by the new Iraqi authorities ? — this time, in Libya, it is really a war for oil: as revealed by a document recently released by the French daily, Liberation, it is very specifically a war for French oil contracts.

No one has yet denounced “ unilateral action. “ Although the operations were supposed to be carried out on behalf of a motion from the United Nations Security Council, they have exceeded by far the text of that motion, and have reduced it to a scrap of paper.

Further, this time there have been no organized demonstrations by people with progressive leanings against the war in Libya, probably because the war in Libya is a war in which Western powers helped people who are basically similar to those whom they consider enemies of the West.

French leaders have denounced nothing because this time they were the prime instigators. They cannot even complain : even though most of the operations were conducted by the U.S. military, the U.S. government let France step forward and present the “ victory “ over Gaddafi as a “ French victory. “ What was denounced by French leaders as immoral in Iraq suddenly became moral to them : the goal in Libya was to install “ democracy “, and force had to be used.

France has good reasons for changing its moral standards and for being in the “ war camp “ this time, but these reasons are not the result of a change in policy: Sarkozy is not a “ pro-American “ President ; he follows the old cynical rules of the “ Arab policy of France “ in the new context resulting from the Arab revolts. The French Government has agreements with the new power in Tripoli, and hopes they will pay off.

No one knows yet whether there are networks of corruption, but extremely dangerous weapons, such as heat-seeking missiles, have left the arsenals of the former Libyan regime and may have ended up in the hands of groups linked to al-Qaeda in the Sinai, in Gaza, and in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Whatever his crimes were (and he committed horrible crimes), Muammar Gaddafi no longer had links with terrorist groups: he had agreements with American and European intelligence services, and, since 2003, when he agreed to give up weapons of mass destruction programs, cooperated with them in the fight against al Qaeda and international terrorism.

The fact that the war was won without ground troops, except special forces, means that the “ victors “ will have no way to stop factional fighting if it occurs ; and in a country as divided as Libya, the outbreak of factional fighting is highly probable.

With respect to France, if the war in Libya was a war for oil, it could also prove to have been a war for radical Islam.

August 21, Hamas praised the Libyan “ rebels’ “ victory. August 23, Hezbollah released an official statement hailing the “ great victory for the Libyan people. “ The Muslim Brotherhood sent its congratulations one day later, August 24.

Today, not only is Libya very far from being a stable country, but if it stabilizes quickly, it will be a miracle.

In a recent article about Libya, the military historian Victor Davis Hanson wrote that the only thing worse than starting a stupid war is losing it. The war in Libya was an extremely stupid war, launched against the will of the U.S. military and Defense Department. It ends with a “ victory “ that could easily become a defeat for the West and for the United States.

[Return to headlines]

Israel and the Palestinians


IDF Wants Cameraman in Each Battalion

Ever since warfare began, the purpose of ambushes has been to surprise and kill enemy soldiers. The IDF has realized that in modern warfare against the Arabs claiming the Land of Israel, the purpose of an ambush is more often to make Israel look bad. A new term has thus been coined: “delegitimization ambush.”

The weapon of choice against the “delegitimization ambush,” the IDF thinks, should include cameras as well as Facebook and Tweeter accounts.

The IDF will therefore place combat photographers in its battalions as part of “the struggle over image and consciousness” being waged against the Arabs who claim the Land of Israel, IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai said.

He explained the new methodology of war in a lecture he delivered Sunday at the 11th international conference of International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), Herzliya.

“Almost every event that takes place in Gaza or Judea and Samaria at any given time appears on the international stage, with the involvement of an international group and through the social networks,” he said. Besides damaging Israel’s image, these attacks hit its economy, erode the trust in its judicial system and hurt Israel academically and culturally. Therefore, the IDF understands that the [damage to] public consciousness is worse than the actual violence.

“The goal is to have a cameraman in every battalion who can document the events in real time, as fast as possible, in order to give us material that will help us tell the story from the Israeli perspective,” Mordechai said.

“These ambushes take place almost every Friday ay Bilin and Naalin,” he explained. An unnamed IDF officer recently said that the leftist-incited disturbances at Bilin and Naalin had abated over the summer because the anarchists behind the events were putting their efforts into the “tent protest” in Tel Aviv.

           — Hat tip: An EDL buck [Return to headlines]



Labour Party Voting on New Leader

(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, SEPTEMBER 12 — Nine months after the break-up led by Defence Minister Ehud Barak (who founded the new parliamentary list, with centrist tendencies) over 60,000 members of the Israeli Labour Party are today voting for a new party leader among four candidates. They are asked to choose between Member of Parliament Shelly Yehimovic (who leads in the polls, in part because she is in tune with the issues which emerged this summer in social protests); former union leader and Defence Minister Amir Peretz; former minister for social assistance Yitzhak Herzog and Amran Mitzna, a former general in the reserves well-known for his social commitments. The outcome of the voting will be announced tonight. If none of the candidates receive at least 40% of the votes, another vote will be held between the top two.

Over the past ten years, the press notes that at the head of the Labour Party have been seven different leaders. Gradually its party base has diminished and is now only the fifth party in the Knesset (with eight seats out of 120) after Likud, Kadima, Israel Beitenu and Shas. Today the newspaper Maariv reports that the decline in the Labour Party is shown by the decision for the first time not to hold a celebratory demonstration for Yitzhak Rabin in November, on the anniversary of his assassination (1995). The official explanation is that the Tel Aviv’s municipal square, where the attack occurred, is undergoing renovations.

However, the newspaper claims that in reality the organisers are concerned that public turnout would be significantly reduced.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Middle East


Ankara Moves Three Frigates, Press

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, SEPTEMBER 12 — In the context of the crisis with Israel, Turkey is sending three warships to the eastern Mediterranean: the report was made by a Turkish daily that is well informed about government activities and which provided indications concerning the rules of engagement in the event of a potential clash with Israeli vessels. The newspaper, Sabah, specified that the vessels are frigates that have been mobilised in the context of an operation named “Freedom of the seas” to intervene in case Israel acts against ships 12 miles from its shores. The frigates — the newspaper added — will protect civilian ships that are bringing assistance to the Gaza Strip and will behave like Turkish fighter planes that tackle Greek ones in the skies of the Aegean. Sabah reported that should the Turkish warships meet an Israeli ship outside of Israel’s territorial waters (which, as mentioned, extend 12 miles), they will move up to 100 metres away from the vessel belonging to the Jewish State and will “disable its weapons systems”. This was added without providing further details other than the comparison with dog fights between jet planes. In highlighting the indiscretion, the English-speaking website of the Zaman newspaper noted that the foundations for a “potential naval clash” are being laid down between the two former allies.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Durban III Promises Wave of Islamophobia Whines

Scores of states are meeting at the United Nations later this month for a hatefest that promises to be so odious that a dozen Western countries, including the United States, have already announced that they will not attend. It’s called Durban III, the third iteration of a conference first held in South Africa 10 years ago that was intended to issue a clarion call against “racism, xenophobia and related intolerance.” Instead, the day turned into an anti-Western, anti-Semitic jamboree so execrable that several Western ambassadors stood up and stormed out. Some participants enthusiastically likened Israel to Nazi Germany.

So now the same crew is planning another of these encounters. It promises to be little different — except for one thing. This time a major agenda item promises to be angry screeds against Islamophobia. Think about it. Isn’t it a bit ironic, at best, that the Islamic states will bewail the inequities they perceive just a few days after the 10th anniversary of 9/11, a few miles from the site where the World Trade Center once stood?

Pakistan is usually the leader of these complaint campaigns — Pakistan, where dozens of young women are killed each year, often buried alive, for saying they want to choose their own husbands; where 36 people died a couple of weeks ago when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a mosque during midday prayers. Of course, Pakistan is hardly the only nation feeding Islamophobia. Not so long ago, the United Arab Emirates Supreme Court ruled that a man is free to beat up his wife and children — as long as he does not leave marks. Saudi Arabia asked a hospital to surgically mutilate a young man’s spinal cord as penalty for injuring another man in a fight. During the famine in Somalia this summer, Islamic militants forbade aid workers to bring food for thousands of Somalis who were literally starving to death.

Is it any wonder that many people look askance at Islam — and paint their disdain with a broad brush? Western nations, of course, suffer abhorrent violent acts of their own. In Oregon this summer, a father was accused of stabbing his wife and four young children to death before setting fire to their home. That was certainly not an isolated crime. But there’s an important difference. Those heinous acts in the Islamic world are almost always carried out in the name of the religion. That’s why so many people, right now, are calling for an Islamic Reformation.

I would argue that an Islamic Reformation is already under way, even though no one is calling it that. Those hundreds of thousands of young demonstrators — in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Syria and elsewhere — have been demanding dignity, prosperity, freedom and democracy, more or less in that order. All of those characteristics are the mortal enemies of Islamic militancy. Did you hear even one of those demonstrators, in any of those states, calling for Islamic jihad? A sterling illustration of this principle is the nearly 3 million Muslims who live in the United States, prosperous and free. A new Pew Research Center study found that “Muslim Americans are overwhelmingly satisfied with the way things are going in their lives” and “rate their communities very positively as places to live.” What’s more, “just 1 percent say that suicide bombing and other forms of violence” are justifiable.

Those attitudes are not unique to American Muslims. Another Pew study found that the vast majority of Arabs polled opposed Islamic extremism. Among Palestinians, for example, 78 percent said they were concerned about it. American Muslims are not taking part in Durban III. For Pakistanis and others there to bleat about Islamophobia, the rest of us should simply shake our heads and realize that it’s a lame attempt to render themselves immune from criticism of their extremists’ venomous behavior. The Protestant reformation 500 years ago brought on more than a century of repression and war before settling out. Let’s hope this one moves faster.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Genel Energy Partners With UK Company to Dominate Oil Reserves

A new Anglo-Turkish partnership that emerged with the merger of UK company Vallares and Turkish businessman Mehmet Emin Karamehmet’s Genel Energy has revealed plans to dominate the vast reserves of oil in the Kurdish autonomous region of northern Iraq. The partnership, led by ex-BP CEO Tony Hayward, also plans to invest elsewhere in the Middle East, once the dust of the Arab Spring settles.

Responding to questions from the Hürriyet Daily News on the sidelines of a press meeting in Istanbul, Hayward said Vallares would deal with the regional Kurdish administration, not Baghdad. Eventually, the Kurdish region will have a “significant say” in what is going to be finally approved in Iraq’s expected hydrocarbons law, he said. Mehmet Sepil, the CEO of Genel Energy International, said the firm expected the law to be approved in Baghdad by the start of next year.

The complex partnership will be completed through an all-share reverse-takeover in which Vallares will issue new shares worth $2.1 billion to acquire 100 percent of Genel, giving Vallares and Genel’s current owners equal stakes in the combined business.

“The only approval we need is from the Kurdistan Regional Government, and we expect that approval to come before the end of September,” Hayward told the Daily News on Thursday. “All of the indications in Kurdistan show that things are only going to get better. I think this is a good time to invest in the region.”

Sepil said the new company would be listed on the London Stock Exchange in around four weeks and that it would offer 50 percent of its shares to the public. “In the end, the company will rank among the top 100 companies in the U.K.,” Sepil said.

Sepil said he would have a stake of 14 percent in the new company, down from his current 29 percent, while Karamehmet’s stake will fall from 56 percent to 28.

Pragmatic Realism in Region

Commenting on possible risks regarding stability in northern Iraq, Hayward spoke of a “pragmatic realism” that has emerged between the regional government and Baghdad. “This means [one] can invest,” he said. “[The two governments] have agreed to revenue-sharing mechanisms. Payments are being received and I think all indicators show that things are only going to get better. There will be some bumps in the road, but the train and its direction are clear.”

He also said when the oil law dispute is resolved the Kurdish administration “will have a significant say in what is finally approved.”

“[Kurds] have a significant standing both in the Iraqi Cabinet and in parliament,” he told the Daily News. “This law is important for all foreign investors in Iraq, not only for those who are investing in the region.”

Northern Iraq has attracted more than $10 billion in energy investments from more than 40 companies from 17 countries. Sepil said he expected similar consolidations in northern Iraq, adding that Genel, whose headquarters will be Ankara, aims to be among the few companies left in northern Iraq at the end of the next wave of consolidations.

Noting the seismic political shift in the Middle East, Sepil said Genel would like to invest in other locations, especially in North Africa, including Libya, after stability is established.

After the press meeting in Istanbul, Hayward and Sepil headed to Arbil in northern Iraq

[Return to headlines]



Iran Praises Sacking of Israeli Embassy in Cairo

Cairo, 12 Sept. (AKI) — The Iranian Parliament “gives its full support” to the “ransacking” of the Israeli embassy in Cairo that happened late Friday, said senior Iranian lawmaker Esmail Kowsari, state media reported.

Israel evacuated 86 diplomats and family members from the Egyptian capital after thousands of protesters on Friday demolished a security wall built around the embassy, allowing a small group to breach the building. Six Israeli embassy staff were under siege for some hours until Egyptian commandos freed them.

The deputy head of Iran’s Majlis Parliament Committee on National Security comments were carried by state-sponsored news organisations like Irna and PressTV.

In the wake of Iran’s Iranian Revolution, Iranian students seized the American embassy where they held 52 American members of the staff hostage for 444 days from November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attack was a challenge to 32 years of peace between Israel and Egypt, and a “very near disaster” was averted. He told his government cabinet that the embassy is a symbol of “peace between us and Egypt.

“This peace is being challenged, and those who are challenging it are challenging not only the policy but also the state known as Israel,” he said.

Egypt became the first Arab country to recognize Israel when the countries signed a peace treaty in 1979.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Iran’s Dirty 9/11 Secrets

By Kenneth R. Timmerman

It has taken nearly ten years, but the real story of Iran’s direct, material involvement in the 9/11 conspiracy is finally coming to light. And it’s being revealed not by the U.S. government or by Congressional investigators but by private attorneys representing families of the 9/11 victims in U.S. District Court.

Just one week before the 9/11 Commission sent its final report to the printers in July 2004, diligent staffers discovered a six-page classified National Security Agency analysis summarizing what the U.S. intelligence community had learned about Iran’s assistance to the 9/11 hijackers.

They happened upon the document by chance. It had been tucked away at the bottom of the last box in the last stack of classified documents they were reviewing. But it was so explosive that several Commissioners pushed hard to make sure the information it contained was included in the final report, despite intense push back from the intelligence community.

The page and a half section that made the final cut (see pages 240-241) details repeated trips to Iran by 8-10 of the “muscle” hijackers between October 2000 and February 2001. Flying in from Saudi Arabia, Damascus, and Beirut, the future hijackers were accompanied by “senior Hezbollah operatives” who were in fact agents of the Iranian regime.

The information was so explosive that the CIA lobbied hard to get it expunged from the final report, in part because they had detected some of the movements as they were occurring but failed to appreciate their import. “They saw them as travel through Iran, not travel to Iran,” a senior 9/11 Commission staffer told me at the time.

By the time the staffers had read into the 75 source documents on a Sunday morning out at NSA headquarters at Fort Meade, MD, the Commission was pushing up against the end of its mandate and could not do any additional work. The information was so serious and had such clear geopolitical import that it “requires further investigation by the U.S. government,” they concluded. Many of the Commissions and senior staff who were aware of the document find assumed someone else would pick up the ball.

But as attorney Thomas Mellon, Jr. and his colleagues representing Fiona Havlish and other 9/11 widows and family members discovered, no such investigation was ever carried out. Not even the Congressional intelligence committees would go near the subject, despite direct appeals from the Havlish plaintiffs and a review of many of the original still-classified documents cited in the report.

I was engaged by the Havlish attorneys in 2004 to carry out the investigation the 9/11 Commission report called on the U.S. government to handle. We had no governmental authority, hardly any budget, and no access to classified intelligence or intelligence assets. But what we found and made public starting this May is enough to hang a fish. Put simply:

• The Islamic Republic of Iran helped design the 9/11 plot;

• provided intelligence support to identify and train the operatives who carried it out;

• allowed the future hijackers to evade U.S. and Pakistani surveillance on key trips to Afghanistan where they received the final order of mission from Osama bin Laden, by escorting them through Iranian borders without passport stamps;

• evacuated hundreds of top al Qaeda operatives from Afghanistan to Iran after the 9/11 just as U.S. forces launched their offensive;

• provided safe haven and continued financial support to al Qaeda cadres for years after 9/11;

• allowed al Qaeda to use Iran as an operational base for additional terror attacks, in particular the May 2003 bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Key elements of our proofs are in bullet points at the end of this article. For those wishing a more detailed account, here is a partially-redacted affidavit I provided to the Court that traces the Islamic Republic of Iran’s relationship al Qaeda back to the early

           — Hat tip: Janet Levy [Return to headlines]



Iraq: Cleric Calls for Halt to Attacks on US Troops

More severe military operations will resume if American forces do not depart on time, he says

Baghdad: Iraq’s fiercely anti-American cleric Moqtada Al Sadr Sunday called on his followers to suspend attacks against US troops to ensure they leave Iraq by a year-end deadline. But the Shi’ite cleric, whose Mehdi Army militia fought US forces until 2008, warned that if they did not depart on time, military operations would resume and be “very severe”. “Because of my eagerness to accomplish the independence of Iraq and have the invader forces withdraw from our holy land, it has become imperative for me to stop military operations… until the invader forces complete their withdrawal,” Al Sadr said in a statement read out by his spokesman Salah Al Ubaidi.

“If not, the military operation will start again and with new approaches, and it will be very severe.” American troops are scheduled to withdraw fully by December 31, more than eight years after the 2003 invasion, but Iraq’s leaders are currently negotiating with the United States on whether to retain US military trainers beyond 2011.

Security agreement

Al Sadr warned last month that US military trainers who stayed in Iraq after the end of the year would be targets. About 43,000 remaining troops are due to leave Iraq under a security agreement between the two countries. While Al Sadr’s Mehdi Army has for the most part been demobilised, US officials say splinter groups have continued to attack US soldiers. “We shall soon see whether the Promised Day Brigade and others affiliated with Al Sadr’s organisation continue to conduct attacks against US forces and the Iraqi government, or if these are just words without the deeds to back them up,” US military spokesman Colonel Barry Johnson said in an emailed response to Al Sadr’s statement. Although violence in Iraq has dropped dramatically from the height of sectarian fighting in 2006-7, bombings and killings occur daily and Sunni insurgents and Shiite militia are still capable of carrying out lethal operations.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Israel’s Raid Last Year on an Aid Flotilla in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea Was “No Different” Under International Law Than What Somali Pirates Are Doing in the Aden Gulf, Turkish Transportation Minister Binali Yildirim Said Thursday.

“Israel’s act in these waters is no different than the pirates in the Aden Gulf,” Yildirim told the Hürriyet Daily News during a meeting in Istanbul, referring to the diplomatic feud between Israel and Turkey over Israeli commandos’ deadly raid May 31, 2010, on a Gaza-bound aid ship, killing nine Turks.

“Except for the 12-mile coastal shore, the waters are open to everyone’s use. No country has the right to prevent us from using our law-granted rights,” the minister added.

On Friday, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Turkey “will apply all necessary preventive measures in order to ensure its navigational freedom,” noting that the country has the longest coastline bordering on the East Mediterranean.

Yildirim on Thursday expressed agreement with Davutoglu’s earlier comment that Israel does not have the right to implement a 20-mile zone of territorial waters along its shores.

“No one has the right to take over these waters. If they do, they will get their response from us,” the transportation minister said.

Referring to Israel’s demand for 20 miles of territorial waters due to the sea blockade of Gaza, Yildirim said Israel has the right to only 12 nautical miles in the eastern Mediterranean.

“The way that Israel is acting by not obeying international law is sea banditry,” he said, adding that Turkey would not accept the unlawful implementation. “Stretching from Gibraltar Strait to the Gulf of Iskenderun, 23 nations have the right to travel freely in [these] international waters.”

Accusing Israel of violating international maritime laws, the minister said “there is nothing we will do about the current situation” as long as Israel refuses to apologize for the raid on the Mavi Marmara aid ship.

Israel “will not apologize to Turkey” and will not lift its blockade on Gaza, Israeli Transportation Minister Israel Katz, said on Israeli public radio Wednesday, Agence France-Presse reported.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Israeli Navy is “a strategic arm” of the state, adding, “this is a long and strong arm,” daily Hürriyet reported Thursday. His comments followed Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s statement Tuesday that Turkish Navy ships would “show up” more frequently in the eastern Mediterranean.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak played down the diplomatic crisis with Ankara on Thursday, saying the current dispute “will pass,” AFP reported. Describing the dispute over Gaza as “spilled milk,” Barak added, “We are the two countries that are most important to the West in the region.”

Turkey late last week downgraded its diplomatic relations with Israel to the second-secretary level and suspended all military contracts after a long-awaited UN report on Israel’s flotilla raid was leaked to U.S. media on Sept. 1.

[Return to headlines]



Medvedev Tells Cameron of Russia’s Support for Syria

(AGI) Moscow — The Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, told British Prime Minister David Cameron of Russia’s support for the regime of Syrian strongman, Bashar al Assad and warned Cameron of the risks of new sanctions at the U.N. against Syria.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Saudi Government to be Sued Over 9/11 Attacks

A U.K.-based insurance syndicate is suing the Saudi government to recover more than $215 million it paid out to victims of the 9/11 attacks.

In a complaint filed Thursday in a Johnstown, Penn. district court, Lloyd’s Syndicate alleges that the government of Saudi Arabia provided direct operational and financial support to al-Qaida and its affiliates in the years leading up to the September 11 attacks.

“Absent the sponsorship of al Qaeda’s material sponsors and supporters, including the defendants named herein,” the suit claims, “al Qaeda would not have possessed the capacity to conceive, plan and execute the September 11 attacks.”

The complaint extensively quotes counter-terrorism officials affirming that financial resources are crucial to al-Qaida’s ability to launch attacks. It also gives specific examples linking the Saudi government to al-Qaida financing.

Saudi-funded charities, such as the Muslim World League (MWL), World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) and the al Haramain Islamic Foundation, have allowed al-Qaida to sustain its global network, it says.

The complaint alleges the groups, in addition to providing funding, organized recruitment of al-Qaida fighters, training camps, and reconnaissance missions and weapons delivery.

Highlighting the Saudi government’s involvement, the complaint notes that the Saudis appointed Mohammed Jamal Khalifa to serve as director of MWL and IIRO’s offices in the Philippines and Indonesia.

Khalifa, bin Laden’s brother-in-law, met with Abu Sayyaf, a terrorist group aiming to establish an Islamic state in the Philippines, during its early years, providing it with important start-up financing and organizational support.

The lawsuit also expounds upon the Saudi government’s historical links to al-Qaida.

The Saudi regime was aware of Osama bin Laden’s jihadist efforts from the very beginning, it says. “More fundamentally, the jihadist worldview bin Laden was promoting was firmly grounded in Wahhabi ideology and the Western Cultural Attack narrative, as promoted by the Saudi regime itself over a period of many years.”

Filed on behalf of Lloyd’s Syndicate by Cozen O’Connor law firm, the suit is not the first to blame the Saudi government for aiding terrorists. A federal appeals court previously dismissed the Saudi government as a defendant in a similar case, but ruled that other organizations affiliated with the Saudi government could remain defendants.

In 2009, the Supreme Court chose not to hear the case. The government said that the Saudi government’s funding of the Islamic charities was not clearly linked to terrorist groups.

           — Hat tip: An EDL buck [Return to headlines]



Syrian Activists Call for “Day of Rage” Against Russia

(AGI) Damascus — Syrian activists have dubbed tomorrow a “day of rage” against Russia, which they feel is too soft on the regime of Bashar al-Assad. “Do not support murderers. Do not kill Syrians with your positions” are written on the Facebook page of the “Syrian Revolution.” “We want to express our anger with Russia and its government,” the activists explained as they called for 24 hours of demonstrations throughout the country.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Syrian Sunni Cleric Who Signed Protest Statement Dies Mysteriously

by Irfan Al-Alawi

The death in a Syrian hospital of Dr. Ibrahim Al-Salqini, the 77-year old Sunni Mufti of Aleppo and dean of theology at Damascus University, and a widely respected Sufi, has provoked suspicion about his passing, as reported in Western media, including the Los Angeles Times of September 6.

Salqini suffered a stroke and entered the hospital for treatment after he was visited by state security agents, according to Syria’s opposition network, the Local Coordinating Committees. At the start of September, Salqini delivered a Friday sermon interpreted as a challenge to the Al-Assad dictatorship. While he was undergoing medical treatment, his family was prohibited from visiting him.

While Syrian state media claimed that the government’s high clerics participated in Salqini’s funeral, irregular thugs known as “shabiha” joined security personnel in assaulting the mourners when they reached the burial site.

Salqini was one of a group of Aleppo Sunni clerics who issued a protest declaration last month against the repressive actions of the Al-Assad government. The petition denounced the shedding of the blood of the innocent, and described the state authorities as “the stronger party,” with the greatest responsibility for the situation. The declaration called for “the rulers and others with the reins of power in their hands” to “stop the violence immediately,” to “open up space for freedom of opinion and expression,” to cease arbitrary arrests, release all prisoners of conscience, and speed up constitutional reform, especially the removal of Article VIII, which defines the Ba’ath party as the leader of the Syrian state and society.

Signatories to the Aleppo declaration had included Salqini, Dr. Muhammad Abu’l Fath, the mentor of Salqini, and other well-known religious authorities, including Dr. Mahmoud Akkam and the respected Sunni elders Muhammad Zakaria Al-Masud, Muhammad Nadeem Al-Shihabi, Abdullah Al-Masud, and Yusuf Al-Hindawi.

Sheikh ‘Abd Al-Fattah Al-Bayanuni, another prominent Syrian Sunni spiritual leader, sent a message to Dr. Abu’l Fath in which he praised the late sheikh for showing “patience in the face of the harm caused by oppression and ignorance,” and as one of the religious “scholars of the country, who, like stars in the sky, guide the believers through darkness on land and sea.” Al-Bayanuni warned that without such religious models, the Syrian Muslims would lose their way.

Another Syrian Sheikh, Muhammad Al-Yaqoubi, praised Salqini as “a man of the house of knowledge… who combined understanding of religious doctrine with piety, showed a good example in writing and in morals, and served all the people through his work. He offered mercy and love to those far from his presence.”

The official Syrian news agency SANA claimed on September 7 that Salqini had died of a stroke, and announced that the regime of Bashar Al-Assad had offered condolences to Salqini’s family, along with similar statements by the official Grand Mufti of the Republic, Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun, and the governor of Aleppo, Ibrahim Khallouf.

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Turkey Says NATO Radar Not Against Russia, Used for Defense

Turkey has said NATO’s pending deployment of an early warning radar system is only for defense and only against arms, referring to the possibility of missiles from non-state actors as well.

On Thursday, President Abdullah Gül told reporters, upon his return from Moscow, that Russia is a strategic partner and that NATO’s to-be-deployed radar system is only for defense purposes. He said he discussed these issues with his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, stressing Russia’s increasingly cooperative and close role with the world’s largest military alliance.

Turkey has recently agreed to host an early warning radar system as part of NATO’s missile defense system aimed at countering ballistic missile threats from neighboring Iran. The Turkish and U.S. governments said last Friday that the radar system will help spot missile threats coming from outside Europe, including potentially from Iran. The system, provided by the United States, is to become operational later this year.

The Turkish president also said arms that pose a threat to NATO members could not only emanate from states, but from non-state organizations as well. “For this reason, this is totally for defense purposes. We are also closely discussing and consulting on this issue with the Russian side,” Gül added.

Muslim Turkey, with NATO’s second biggest military, has become a bigger player in the Middle East, emboldened by its booming economy and a more Islamic identity, seeking stronger ties with Muslim countries in the Middle East, like Iran. Turkey has also sought stronger ties with Russia, which has said a NATO missile defense system could threaten its security if it develops the capability to down Russian nuclear missiles. However, Russia’s NATO envoy said a radar system in Turkey would not threaten Russian security.

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Turkey Warships to Gaza a ‘Grave’ Threat, Israeli Minister Says

Israeli Intelligence Minister Dan Meridor on Friday described a threat by the Turkish prime minister to send warships to escort any aid vessels trying to reach the Gaza Strip as “grave and serious.”

“These remarks are grave and serious, but we have no wish to add to the polemic,” Meridor said on army radio. “It is better to stay quiet and wait. We have no interest in aggravating the situation by replying to such [verbal] attacks.”

Late on Thursday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkish warships would escort any aid ships trying to reach Gaza in defiance of an Israeli naval blockade, in a bid to protect them from Israeli forces.

“Turkish warships will be tasked with protecting the Turkish boats bringing humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip,” Erdogan told Al Jazeera television, according to an Arab-language translation of his comments in Turkish.

“From now on, we will no longer allow these boats to be the targets of attacks by Israel, like the one on the Freedom Flotilla, because then Israel will have to deal with an appropriate response,” he warned.

Erdogan was referring to the clash on May 31 last year when Israeli commandos stormed a six-ship flotilla in international waters in a bid to stop it from breaching its naval blockade on Gaza.

During the ensuing confrontation, Israeli troops killed nine Turks on board a Turkish ferry, sparking a diplomatic row between the two countries that has strained relations to breaking point.

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Turkish PM Saw Gaza Raid as ‘Grounds for War’

(Reuters) — Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan saw “grounds for war” with Israel last year after a deadly raid on a Turkish ship headed for Gaza, according to a transcript of a recent interview. State news agency Anatolia released late on Sunday what it said was an original Turkish-language transcript of an interview Erdogan gave to Al Jazeera television last week. It included elements not broadcast as well as original wording for sensitive comments that had been transmitted only in Arabic translation. Among previously unpublished elements, Erdogan said Israel’s deadly raid last year on a Turkish ship headed for Gaza would have justified going to war: “The attack that took place in international waters did not comply with any international law. In fact, it was grounds for war. However, befitting Turkey’s greatness, we decided to act with patience,” he said.

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Turkish President Calls Israel Ungrateful, Burden to Its Allies

Israel is “ungrateful” and a burden to its allies, Turkish President Abdullah Gül said Thursday, calling on Tel Aviv to consider an “honorable peace” with its Arab neighbors.

“Look at the scene when [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu speaks in the U.S. Congress. It is impossible for him to receive that reaction in his own parliament,” Gül said, speaking while on his way to Yaroslavl, Russia, to attend an international conference on “The Modern State and Multiculturalism.”

In his comments, Gül also highlighted the favors he said were done by Turkey on Israel’s behalf.

“They [display] a certain ingratitude as if we have to do this, however. I mean, there is no reciprocity. [This is] a country that burdens even its allies. Let them do [all] the thinking from now on,” he said.

“They [Israel] came to us [about] an apology four times over, [and] this friend of ours [Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu] received our approval, but they backed down at the last moment,” Gül said, referring to Ankara’s demand that Israel apologize for its deadly raid last year on a Gaza-bound aid ship, an incident that killed nine Turks.

“Israel is like a small island in a region inhabited by several hundred million Arabs. When the Arabs were governed by undemocratic regimes, it was possible from Israel’s perspective to come to terms with those leaders,” the Turkish president said. “Take a look at when military cooperation [between Israel and Turkey] began to develop. Democracy is on the ascent, however, and no democratic country can follow a dishonorable policy by disregarding its own citizens’ wants and sensitivities. For that reason, Israel must think about an honorable peace.”

Speaking about the ongoing uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, Gül also recounted an initiative he undertook regarding the turmoil in Bahrain while taking King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa on a tour of Istanbul. The Turkish president said he spoke to al-Khalifa about the fate of 12 doctors who treated people injured in clashes in Bahrain and were involved in anti-government protests initiated by the country’s Shiite majority.

“I told the King of Bahrain that the initiative for dialogue would be strengthened if [he were to] release them [the doctors]. He made a promise to me, and we learned yesterday the doctors were freed. Of course, the Shiites who have their hopes vested in us are very satisfied,” he said.

Gül also called for Turkey to act with self-confidence and raise democratic standards in responding to the recent flare-up of the conflict with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. “[The PKK] have no interest either in the Kurdish issue or in the rights and the justice of citizens in eastern Anatolia,” he said.

In his comments, Gül also expressed his views about online social media, of which he is an avid user.

“In the old days, there were coffeehouses and gardens. People would sit down, talk and exchange ideas. Today, however, people do not even have the time to greet their neighbors,” he said. “That is why they use social media because the Turkish people are not as cold as people of some countries; they are warm-blooded and talkative.”

“I love children’s messages best because it is clear they write them themselves without the assistance of their elders. There are even those who call me ‘Uncle Abdullah,’“ the president said.

He also explained he had feared he would get negative reactions about a photograph he posted on the Web site Twitter of him with a Cadillac convertible.

“The great majority liked it, however. A citizen took our photograph with his cell phone just as I was making a U-turn while driving the car,” he said. “Truthfully, I kept wondering for days as I glanced at the newspapers which one would publish [the photograph].”

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Turkish Prime Minister Says Navy Will Escort Future Aid Ships to Gaza

Turkey’s prime minister has said Turkish warships will escort Turkish Gaza-bound aid ships in the future.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Al-Jazeera television that the navy will accompany the aid ships to protect them from raids like the one Israel launched on a flotilla trying to break the Gaza blockade last year, when nine pro-Palestinian activists were killed.

Erdogan’s comments to Al-Jazeera were carried by Turkey’s Anatolia news agency late Thursday.

Turkey has already announced it would increase patrols in the eastern Mediterranean in response to Israel’s refusal to apologize for the raid. But it was the first admission that Turkey intends to send warships to protect ships trying to break the blockade.

Israel has expressed regret for the loss of lives but insists its forces acted in self-defense

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Turkish Premier Speaks to Al-Jazeera

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that Turkish vessels carrying humanitarian aid would never be subject to any attack again.

In a televised interview with Al-Jazeera, Erdogan said about the freedom of the seas in the Mediterranean, “for the time being, Turkish vessels are obliged to protect their own ships. This is the first step. We are going to send humanitarian aid to the region. And Turkish vessels carrying humanitarian aid will never be subject to any attack again.”

“Turkey does not make the same mistakes with Israel in the international waters. Turkey’s state and military decency do not allow such mistakes. Our goal is to stand against atrocity in the world and support those who are desperate,” Erdogan said. “There are desperate people here. Israel bombed those desperate people for 15-16 days. Those people are trying to live in tents now. We want justice for them.

“There are 1.5 million people there and they cannot be ignored. Our historical, cultural and humanitarian ties with them entail us to make such a decision. We cannot remain silent against their living conditions,” Erdogan added.

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U.S. Offers the Taliban New Middle East Headquarters

Hoping to bring the 10-year Afghan conflict to a close, the U.S. endorsed Taliban plans to open political headquarters in Qatar by the end of 2011. According to The Times the move is intended to spur peace talks with the Taliban and bring the group formally to the negotiating table. This renewed commitment to peace comes after Saturday’s attack on American forces in Afghanistan where 77 servicemembers were injured.

The “office of the self-styled Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” will be the first officially recognized office for the Taliban since being routed from power in 2001.Qatar volunteered to host the new location, when Washington insisted the ‘embassy’ be outside Pakistan’s area of influence.

“It will be an address where they have a political office,” said one Western diplomatic source, who declined to be named. “It will not be an embassy or a consulate but a residence where they can be treated like a political party.” The diplomat stressed that the Taliban would not be permitted use the office for fundraising or in support of their armed struggle in Afghanistan. The Times understands that the Taleban is seeking assurances that its representatives in Doha, the Qatari capital, would be free from the threat of harassment or arrest.

The agreement comes after more than a year of talks between Western diplomats from Britain, the U.S. and the Taliban.

[JP note: Commitment to dhimmitude not peace.]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



US Backs Opening of Taliban Office in Qatar: Report

London: The United States has endorsed plans for the Taliban to open political headquarters in the Gulf state of Qatar by the end of the year, British newspaper The Times reported on Monday. The move is designed to allow the West to begin formal peace talks with the Taliban, Western diplomats told the paper. The office of the self-styled Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan would be the first internationally recognised representation for the Taliban since it was ousted from power by the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

Western diplomats told The Times it was hoped that opening a Taliban office in Qatar would push forward the prospect of talks intended to reconcile insurgents with the Afghan government and bring an end to the decade-long war. Washington is believed to have insisted that the office be located “outside Pakistan’s sphere of influence”, the report said. “It will be an address where they have a political office,” one Western diplomatic source, who was not named, told The Times. “It will not be an embassy or a consulate but a residence where they can be treated like a political party.” The diplomat stressed that the Taliban would not be allowed to use the office in the Qatari capital, Doha, to raise funds.

The Times reported that the Taliban was seeking assurances that its representatives would be free from the threat of harassment or arrest. Britain, which has the second largest contingent of troops in Afghanistan, declined to say whether it supported the creation of a Taliban office in Qatar. “This is a matter for the United States,” a Foreign Office spokeswoman said. The US ambassador to Kabul said last week that the Taliban must feel “more pain” from increased military pressure before progress can be made in peace talks. “The Taliban needs to feel more pain before you get to a real readiness to reconcile,” Ryan Crocker said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



USA Authorizes Taliban ‘Embassy’ In Qatar

(AGI) London — Qatar is assuming an ever greater role in international diplomacy. After having served as a bridge builder between Arab countries and supporting the Libyan rebels, they have now obtained the go-ahead from the US for the opening of a representative office, a sort of embassy, for the Taliban in Doha by the end of the year. The objective is to launch direct peace negotiations between western nations and the Koranic students. The seat of the so-called “Emirates of Afghanistan” in Doha will be the first recognized international representative since 2001.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

Russia


Gul: Norway Attack Reflects Threat Pose by Extreme Right Ideologies

Turkish President Abdullah Gül said Thursday that the July attack in Norway, which left dozens of people dead, showed that terrorism and extremism were not connected to any specific religion or geography.

Delivering a speech at the Global Policy Forum, taking place in Russian city of Yaroslavl, Gül said that the recent attack in Norway showed that extreme rightist ideologies posed a threat to security in the world.

Curing illnesses such as xenophobia in the West needs more efforts than dealing with the problems of the East associated with underdevelopment, Gül said.

Democracy is the strongest force that makes a country powerful and competent. The survival and international prestige of a state are assured when that state receives its power from its own people, Gül also said.

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South Asia


Indonesia: Moluccas: Three Dead and 60 Wounded in Clashes Between Christians and Muslims

Accidental death of a Muslim taxi driver in Ambon sparks violence. The Islamic community spread the rumour that he had been attacked by Christians. Police intervention restores calm, but some stray bullets killed two people. Houses and properties of religious minority burned.

Jakarta (AsiaNews) — The toll from violent clashes yesterday between Christians and Muslims in Ambon, capital of the Moluccas, in the eastern Indonesian archipelago is three dead and about 60 wounded. The violence was triggered after the accidental death of a taxi driver who crashed his motorcycle. However, during the funeral a rumour was spread that Darkin Saimen — who lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a house — was attacked by a group of Christians. Riot police were called in to quell the reaction of the Islamic community. The officers fired shots, some stray bullets hit Djefry Siahaan (teacher in Ambon) in the stomach and Cliford Belegur (school student) in his left side, causing death.

Gen. Anton Bahrul Alam, national police spokesman, said that the autopsy confirmed the death of taxi driver in the crash. “The doctors found no sign of violence,” said the officer, who adds that in the subsequent clashes, there were injuries and damage to public buildings. Anton, also declined to specify the names of the two factions who fought each other, avoiding mention of the religious faith of each. “These groups are known for some time [for their mutual hostility] … — said the spokesman — We will not mention their names, but we assure you that [since 9 last night, ed] the situation is now come back under control.”

Local sources, on condition of anonymity, told AsiaNews that the Muslim mob set fire to several Christian houses, forcing the occupants to leave the buildings. Meanwhile in Jakarta top politicians have gathered in a meeting to find solutions to the crisis given the extreme delicacy of the situation, they refuse to talk about “confessional” violence, instead referring to clashes between people belonging to “factions”. Djoko Suyanto, a senior official for Legal Affairs, confirms that politicians and security officials “will be holding a summit this evening” to restore harmony in the theater of violence.

In the past there have been harsh conflicts in the Moluccas of a confessional nature between Christians and Muslims that have caused deaths and injuries. The arrival in 1999 in the area of thousands of Muslim settlers, coming from other parts of Indonesia, triggered the conflict, which continued until 2002 and caused at least 9 thousand deaths in repeated incidents. The signing of a peace treaty between the two sides in February 2002 — the Malino Peace Treaty, signed in South Sulawesi — put an end to the conflict.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Indonesia Sends in Police After Ambon Clash

Indonesia has deployed hundreds of security personnel to Ambon, a city with a history of major sectarian violence, after clashes left three people dead, a police spokesman said Monday.

The violence erupted in the Maluku provincial capital on Sunday after rumours spread through text message that a Muslim motorcycle taxi driver had been attacked and killed by Christians, according to reports.

Two groups, one believed to include the taxi driver’s family, reportedly clashed after his funeral armed with machetes and rocks.

Police said the violence, which also left dozens injured, had simmered down but deployed security forces to the area in case of further fighting.

“We’ve sent 200 paramilitary police members and 200 police officers from Makassar,” national police spokesman Anton Bachrul Alam said.

Officers were investigating the person responsible for spreading the texts, who had already been identified, he added.

“We urge the people in Ambon not to do any provocative acts through SMS (text message). It’s the source of the conflict as it’s misleading,” he said.

Ambon and other islands in the Maluku chain were the scene of a sectarian conflict that left a total of more than 5,000 Christians and Muslims dead between 1999 and 2002…

           — Hat tip: An EDL buck [Return to headlines]



Pakistan: No Rights or Drinking Water for Residents in One of Islamabad’s Christian Ghettoes

Such is the fate of hundreds of residents of the France Colony, a walled area of some 600 dwellings, some of them one-room hovels for up to seven people, living in inhuman conditions and poor sanitation. Residents slam the authorities for their lack of concern about their fate and the government for its empty promises. An educational project by the Masihi Foundation could improve things.

Islamabad (AsiaNews) — Forced into a ghetto without basic human rights, Pakistani Christians often lack drinking water and decent sanitation, with up to seven people living in one-room hovels, children included. Many call the France Colony home, an area in central Islamabad that is isolated from the rest of the city by a wall. Despite complaints, nothing has changed. Now, there is a glimmer of hope after the Masihi Foundation set up a school for local children, providing them with books, bags and uniforms free of charge, a project activists hope to bring to the rest of the country.

With 1.6 per cent of the population and some 3 million believers, Pakistan’s Christian minority is the country’s second largest religious minority after Hindus. For a long time, it has been the victim of marginalisation and violence, made worse by the progressive Islamisation of the country launched by General Zia-ul-Haq in the mid-1980s.

Most Christians are rural migrants. When they arrive in the cities, they are forced to live in so-called colonies, virtual ghettoes, and take humble jobs as cleaners and sanitation workers with a status comparable to that of India’s untouchables.

The France Colony (pictured) is in the heart of Pakistan’s Federal Capital of Islamabad. It gets its name from the fact that the old French Embassy was located in the area. It has 600 dwellings, surrounded by a wall. Access is provided by one main entrance, plus three or four rarely used openings, on the other side of the compound.

Muhammad Saddique, a local Muslim, said that the wall was built after local “rich and noble Muslim families” called on city officials to protect them from the eyesore of the ‘Christian ghetto. However, this has forced Christians to use only the main gate.

Yaqoob Masih, a France Colony resident, blames the Capital Development Authority (CDA) for depriving “us of our basic rights,” such as “the right to clean drinking water” and “hygienic conditions”.

The irony is that “90 per cent per cent of the population in the France Colony works as cleaners for CDA and keeps the capital clean. Yet, their own colony has unhygienic conditions.”

The colony residents live in overcrowded spaces with no access to basic facilities,” Shahid Masih, another resident, said. “Residents have not been given ownership rights despite repeated promises by the federal government. I live in one room with a family of seven”.

Sheeba Sadiq also lives in France Colony. “Each incoming government makes populist claims about rights regularisations.” But “in the second decade of the 21st century, we are still living in subhuman conditions.”

Yet, amid the degradation, one initiative has brought some hope for a better life to the Christians of France Colony.

Earlier this year, the Masihi Foundation, a Pakistan humanitarian organisation, set up its own school in the area, providing free English medium quality education to the residents of France Colony.

It is the first programme of its kind for a Christian community living in the capital. Students get free books, bags, uniforms and other educational material.

Activists are hoping to replicate the initiative in other parts of the country.

“I am grateful to the Foundation for thinking about us,” colony resident Abid Masih said. “I want my children educated so that they can live a better life.”

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Pakistan’s Energy Crisis and U.S. Interests

John C.K.Daly

On 7 October 2001, the opening phase of “Operation Enduring Freedom” U.S. military campaign began, which quickly drove the Taliban and its al-Qaida affiliates from Kabul on 12 November.

Since then, 1,760 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan along with 942 International Security Assistance Force soldiers, a total of 2,702 foreign military dead, with no end in sight.

In a March 2008 article Richard Holbrooke, then a foreign policy adviser in Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, coined the term “Af-Pak” in an article to describe the broader regional context of military operations in Afghanistan, acknowledging that in order to win in Afghanistan, Pakistan to the east must be pacified as well.

Holbrooke’s neologism was a belated acknowledgement that U.S. military operations had in fact begun across the Durand Line, the Afghan-Pakistan border in 2004, which Pashtuns on both side of the border have regarded as an artificial construct since its unilateral declaration by British authorities in India in 1893. In 2004 the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s Special Activities Division undertook the attacks on targets in northwest Pakistan using unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) drones, primarily in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) along northwest Pakistan’s Afghan border.

Carried out with the connivance of Pakistani President Asif Zadari, the UAV attacks have intensified, greatly increasing anger throughout FATA.

Now however, there are faint glimmers of new thinking in Washington that two new weapons for the “hearts and minds” of Pakistanis may have appeared — the light bulb, and potable water.

If all goes well, then the U.S. government is to sign off on providing Islamabad with $1 billion to complete its Diamer-Bhasha dam, with the offer reportedly being finalized during the upcoming Pakistan-U.S. strategic dialogue on energy later this month. If approved, the project will be the U.S. government’s largest foreign aid project to Pakistan.

The Diamer-Bhasha dam straddles the Indus River in Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan region of occupied Kashmir. The Diamer-Bhasha dam when complete would both produce 4,500 megawatts of electricity as well as store 8.5 million acre feet of water that Pakistan could use for irrigation and drinking.

What is most extraordinary about Washington’s purported efforts is not only that it is willing to delve into the Pakistani energy cesspool, but it is willing to do so in an area that has been contested by Pakistan and India since 1947, the major source of Muslim guerrilla insurgency for the last 64 years.

Apparently there are elements in Washington’s bureaucracy realizing that Pakistan’s population’s increased access to reliable electricity and water sources are in fact useful corollaries to UAV strikes in wining “hearts and minds.”

It is not as if Pakistan’s energy woes are new — since 2006 Pakistani energy analysts have warned of an impending energy crisis. Pakistan’s government has implemented rolling blackouts across the country and earlier this year government officials announced that it will take at least seven years to build up electrical generation capacity to support the entire country. The black outs have taken a huge economic toll on Pakistan’s textile industry and have resulted in plant shutdowns and layoffs.

Any U.S. aid will doubtless have a fair percentage of its money “diverted” — President Zadari, when merely Prime Minister Bennazir Bhutto’s husband, was known as “Mr. Ten Percent’ for his alleged take on foreign projects.

That said, the issue remains one of “hearts and minds,” as the U.S., according to Holbrooke’s comments, now increasingly view the “Ak-Pak” theater of military operations as a unified one.

So, what can Islamabad offer its disaffected population to support the central authorities?

Electricity and access to water could go a long way towards convincing incipient jihadis that their government does indeed care, and that supporting it as opposed to tacking it could produce further benefits.

Consider — the Obama administration for fiscal year 2012 is requesting $120 billion for military operations in Afghanistan, a figure which pales into insignificance alongside the modest $1 billion allocated to complete Pakistan’s Diamer-Bhasha dam.

While doubtless a significant amount of this aid will disappear down Pakistani corruption ratholes (surprise), it would still seem on balance a bargain in every sense of the word, as jihadis could stay at home, read to their children after dark and cook their dinners, and electricity and water would seem to be more amenable elements in winning Pakistani “hearts and minds” than further Predator UAV strikes…

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US Predators Kill 4 ‘Militants’ In North Waziristan Strike

US Predators killed four “militants” in Pakistan’s Taliban-controlled tribal agency of North Waziristan today, ending a 19-day-long lull in attacks.

The unmanned, CIA-operated Predators or Reapers fired a pair of missiles at a vehicle and a compound in the village of Hisokhel in the Mir Ali area, Pakistani intelligence officials told AFP.

The target of the strike has not been disclosed. No senior Taliban or al Qaeda operatives were reported killed in today’s strike.

Mir Ali is a terrorist haven

The Mir Ali area is in the sphere of influence of Abu Kasha al Iraqi, an al Qaeda leader who serves as a key link to the Taliban and supports al Qaeda’s external operations network. Taliban leader Hafiz Gul Bahadar and the Haqqani Network also operate in the Mir Ali area. Moreover, Mir Ali is a known hub for al Qaeda’s military and external operations councils.

           — Hat tip: An EDL buck [Return to headlines]

Far East


Japan’s Industry Minister Resigns for Calling Fukushima ‘Town of Death’

Japan”s industry minister, Yoshio Hachiro, has reportedly stepped down in the wake of the criticism he drew after he describing the nuclear no-go area surrounding the damaged Fukushima power plant as a “town of death”.

Hachiro, who was the new in charge of handling the country’s nuclear crisis, resigned right after eight days into the job, the Telegraph reports.

The politician caused further trouble when he joked with reporters about infecting people with radiation from his clothes following a tour of Fukushima.

The departed minister”s comments about a “town of death” apparently angered the displaced residents of the region as the government is unable to provide them with a firm timetable for their return.

According to the paper, his departure is thought to be a blow to the nation”s sixth new prime minister in five years, Yoshihiko Noda, who apologised for the minister”s “inappropriate” comments after he stepped down.

It marks a trembling start to Noda”s new tenure as he attempts to restore the morale of the nation and boost the momentum of the recovery process following the departure of his strongly criticised predecessor, the paper said.

           — Hat tip: An EDL buck [Return to headlines]

Sub-Saharan Africa


Pirates Kidnap British Wife, Husband Shot Dead in Raid on Luxury Kenyan Holiday Resort

Pirates have murdered a British tourist and kidnapped his wife from an exclusive Kenyan resort.

David and Judith Tebbutt were attacked at night by a gang carrying guns within hours of arriving in a beach cottage close to the border with lawless Somalia.

Armed bandits arrived at the private resort by speedboat at midnight on Saturday, stormed into the couple’s secluded hut, which had just a piece of cloth as the door, and demanded all their money.

It is thought Mr Tebbutt, 58, who is finance director of publishers Faber and Faber, tried to stop the gang but he died from a single gunshot wound to the chest.

The pirates then forced Mrs Tebbutt, 56, into the motorboat and locals reported that they sped off north in the direction of Somalia.

Despite helicopters, speed boats and a spotter plane deployed in the search, no sightings of her have been reported.

Last night, there were suggestions Mrs Tebbutt had been taken by an Islamist group Harakat al-Shabab al Mujahideen, an extremist group based in Somalia, The Times said.

The couple’s family were too upset to talk last night as they waited anxiously for further news.

If Somali pirates are to blame, it would be the first time they had moved on to land to capture western hostages in what, at sea, has become a lucrative multi-million pound business in ransom demands.

All the other hostages — including British couple Paul and Rachel Chandler — have been taken during raids on ships and yachts in the Indian Ocean.

The Foreign Office confirmed it has sent a team from Nairobi to work with Kenyan authorities to secure Mrs Tebbutt’s release.

Kenyan police commissioner Matthew Iteere, who revealed the identity of the couple, said: ‘So far we are treating it as a bandit attack. We’ve not received any hint pointing at a terror group.

‘The gunmen gained entry very easily because only a piece of cloth was used in the place of the door at their cottage. They may contact us demanding a ransom. Maybe they are from Somalia but we cannot be certain.’

The couple are believed to have travelled to the Kenyan coast for the second part of a two-leg trip which had earlier seen them enjoy a safari in the Masai Mara game reserve.

A local hotel owner said: ‘The attackers were a gang of armed Somali men who broke into the resort and killed the man. They then took the woman. We don’t know where she is.’

The couple, from Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire, have a 25-year-old son. They had only checked into the Kiwayu Safari Village resort, near the island of Lamu, hours earlier at 4pm.

They were the only holidaymakers at the resort that boasts around-the-clock security with 21 guards who patrol alongside six police officers.

A total of 18 bungalows are spread out over a mile of beach. Couples are charged £600 a night in September — the off-season, but the cost is nearer to £900 a night during the December peak season. Mick Jagger, actress Imelda Staunton and artist Tracey Emin have stayed in the bungalows and it had been considered by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge for their honeymoon.

Despite its setting near a national reserve, the resort is barely outside the safety zone from the Somali border recommended by the Foreign Office.

A statement posted on the Foreign Office travel advice website said: ‘We continue to advise against all but essential travel to within 30 kilometres of Kenya’s border with Somalia. There have been previous attacks by Somali militia into Kenya. Three aid workers were kidnapped in July 2009, and two western nuns in November 2008.’

Last night neighbours of the Tebbutts described them as a ‘delightful’ couple who loved travelling together after their son Oliver had left home.

Mother of two Fiona Jones said: ‘They go on holiday a lot. They are hugely friendly people. They’re always stopping and saying hello.

‘David used to be a very keen runner, and stopped because he had problems with his knees or hips. I can’t remember which, but he had an operation to replace both.

‘But he and Judith were still very active. They liked to walk to town, and were also very keen gardeners.

‘They have a beautiful garden, where they keep chickens.’

Another neighbour said: ‘They moved here in the early 80s. Oliver is a super boy. This will be absolutely terrible for him.’

Neighbours said he studied at Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design in London, and now makes bespoke wooden furniture in the West Country.

The kidnapping follows the ordeal that Paul and Rachel Chandler went through when they were held by Somali pirates for more than a year. Retired civil engineer Mr Chandler and his wife, now aged 60 and 57 respectively, had left their Kent home and were near the Seychelles when they were kidnapped from their 38ft yacht on October 23, 2009.

Describing their story later to the Daily Mail, they recalled their terror as gun-toting pirates stormed their yacht, their anger that a nearby Royal Navy ship failed to intervene and their brutal treatment at the hands of their captors.

They revealed how their family paid £280,000, only for the pirates to refuse to let them go, and how they were told they were going to be killed days before they were finally freed. They were released on November 14, 2010 — after 388 days — when a ransom of £625,000 was paid.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: ‘We can confirm two British nationals were attacked overnight at a beach resort north of Lamu, near the Kenya-Somalia border. One was killed and another kidnapped.

‘We have deployed a consular team from our High Commission in Nairobi and are offering all possible support to the family of those involved. Our thoughts are with them at this difficult time.

‘We are working to secure the safe and swift release of the British national who has been kidnapped and ask those involved to show compassion and release the individual immediately.’

           — Hat tip: Gaia [Return to headlines]

Latin America


Guatemala Presidential Elections, Forerunner Extreme Right

(AGI) Guatemala — The forerunner is retired General Otto Perez Molina, candidate of the opposition extreme-right Patriotic Party. After the tallying the first ballot of votes in the presidential elections held in Guatemala yesterday, Perez Molina is the at the lead with 37.16% of the votes in the first 5% of the votes counted. In any case, also the other two most voted candidates are right-wing.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]

Immigration


98 Tunisian Migrants Land in Lampedusa

(AGI) Lampedusa — New landing of migrants in Lampedusa. Ninety eight Tunisian, among them one woman, reached last night the Favaloro pier. They were preceded on Saturday by 577 others, women and children included, who arrived in Lampedusa on 9 unseaworthy vessels. At this point some 1200 migrants are guests of the Lampedusa reception center. Their transfer is in pending.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



How 2m East Europeans Signed to Get UK Benefit

FRESH evidence of how Labour “opened the floodgates” to workers from eastern Europe has emerged — with details showing how nearly two million signed up to one key “control” scheme.

Figures given to Parliament revealed that in total, two million applications were accepted for the Worker Registration Scheme from citizens of the A8 countries of eastern Europe, which joined the EU in 2004.

The scheme, which began in May 2004 and ended on April 30 this year, was designed to establish the incomers’ legal right to work in the UK and to claim certain benefits.

The figures, from Immigration Minister Damian Green, revealed the nationalities of applicants.

Poland was the biggest source of would-be workers at 1.2 million. It was followed by Lithuania, Slovakia, Latvia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Estonia and Slovenia, from which only 1,700 applications were received.

The table also revealed how rarely people were turned down, with 1.92 million approved and just 13,368, 0.7 per cent, refused.

Previous research has suggested how even the high figures on the scheme will significantly underestimate total immigration, as some, including the self-employed, were not required to register and an unknown number will simply not have done so.

The figures fuelled further criticism of Labour for giving the A8 citizens full working rights here when most other EU countries kept them out of their jobs markets for as long as possible. The numbers arriving vastly outstripped Labour’s predictions of just 13,000 a year.

           — Hat tip: An EDL buck [Return to headlines]



More Tunisians Land in Lampedusa During Night

(ANSAmed) — LAMPEDUSA (AGRIGENTO), SEPTEMBER 12 — More immigrants landed last night in Lampedusa: 98 Tunisians, including one woman, landed at 1:40 on the Favarolo pier after being rescued by a Guardia di Finanza patrol boat.

Saturday a total of 577 people from Maghreb landed on the island, while another 36 landed on Linosa, all of whom departed from Tunisia’s shores aboard 8 large boats. In the reception centre in Lampedusa, where several protests have been reported in recent days, at present there are 1,200 immigrants.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Culture Wars


9-11, Ten Years Later: Islam’s Unmitigated Success

Address at The Rockford Institute, September 8, 2011

by Srdja Trifkovic

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I thought that the Muslims had made a big blunder. At first I believed that they had scored an auto-goal: this was the sort of thing that would shake up the Western world, wake it up to the fact that the Islamic demographic deluge—a process that had been in full swing for some two decades prior to 2001—would now be subjected to some long-overdue critical scrutiny to which the politicians would have to respond. I hoped that the end-result might be the kind of formative, life-altering awakening that, particularly in the case of Western Europe, would prevent our further slide into self-destruction.

This pretty illusion lasted for about 48 hours. It disappeared as soon as I saw President George W. Bush go into the mosque in Washington D.C. later that same week, dutifully taking off his shoes before declaring that Islam was the religion of peace and tolerance, that the perpetrators of 9-11 did not really understand Islam and were distorting the message of the Prophet. When in addition I saw identically intoned editorials in Le Monde, The Guardian, Corriere della Sera, The Independent, or the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, it became clear to me that the Western elite class was behaving in 2001 exactly the way it did in 1937 and in 1981.

Why those particular years? Well, in 1937 the Moscow Trials were at their height. The trials of Comrades Kamenev, Zinoviev and others were followed by those of Marshal Tukhachevsky and a host of other Red Army officers. They were some of the most egregious misuses of the quasi-judicial process ever used in history. And yet, just as the Gulag machine was switching into high gear, the apologia of Stalin in the Western world was reaching a hysterical pitch. If you read Arthur Koestler’s “Darkness at Noon,” or—at the opposite end of the moral divide—Walter Duranty’s New York Times dispatches from Moscow, you’ll know what I am talking about. The lies, the inability or unwillingness to tell the truth about what was going on in Moscow in 1937 was a sure sign of a strange phenomenon: The more murderous, the more outrageously antihuman Communist behavior became, the more determined the Western elite class was to come to its defense, as subsequently witnessed by Mao, Tito, Che and Ho.

Fast-forward to 1981, when the AIDS epidemic was officially recognized as such. Its direct link with promiscuous homosexuality was soon established and remains undeniable. Lo and behold, that same instant the grandsons and granddaughters of Walter Duranty & Co. suddenly discovered that the Gay Lifestyle is one of the most valuable contributions to our multicultural civilization, worthy of praise and emulation. Any attempt to link that particular “lifestyle” and its idiosyncrasies—such as hundreds of partners, randomly encountered—with the grim harvest of death was banned. Contrary to evidence it was asserted that AIDS could happen to all of us at any moment. It became a metaphysical evil unconnected to any particular form of human behavior, just like “terrorism” was to become two decades later.

The aftermath of 9-11 proves that the spirit of celebrating death and depravity is alive and well all over the Western world. The events of that day triggered off an immediate and massive wave of officially sanctioned Islamophilia, akin to the elite class Sovietophilia at the height of the Purges and sodomophilia amidst the AIDS epidemic. It soon transpired that, far from committing a blunder, the Muslims scored an incredible coup on 9-11. They effectively tested the limits of “tolerance” of the Western elite class at an entirely new order of magnitude—and they found out that there are no limits! It became obvious to the Muslims that the more outrageous you are in your stated intentions—and nobody has been more frank in this respect than the founder of Islam, both in his alleged revelations and in the Hadith—the more determined your Western fellow travelers will be to assure their subjects that Muslim intentions are not like that at all.

The geopolitical harvest for the Jihadists has been rich and rewarding. The biggest prize of them all was Turkey. Not only was it the most populous of the ostensibly secularized Muslim societies but it was also once ruled by radical reformers most determined to break with the Islamic mindset and tradition and to turn Turkey into a modern European nation-state…

           — Hat tip: Srdja Trifkovic [Return to headlines]

General


9/11 Anniversary: The End of Islamic Extremism is Far From Nigh

by Michael Nazir-Ali, former Bishop of Rochester

It is often described as the day that changed the world but, in fact, 9/11 only brought home to the West what had been simmering, and sometimes breaking out violently, in different parts of the world for nearly half a century.

The effects on America and Europe were nothing short of traumatic. There was an immediate questioning of a growing “globalism” and the emergence of a siege mentality. Heightened security has eased people’s minds, but there still lurks a basic anxiety about when, and where, the next attack will be. Siren voices sometimes ask us to believe that 9/11 was caused by the pathological actions of a few, and that all Muslims should not be blamed for acts of terror. It is true that there are many moderate Muslims who condemn unequivocally what has been done in the name of their religion and assert that Islam had nothing to do with it. But we still need to ask how terrorism on such a vast scale was possible.

Apologists, both Western and Muslim, claim that Islamist extremism and terrorism have been bred by resentment of Western power. The military dominance of Israel, the roots of the Kashmir dispute, the megalomania of the Shah of Iran, and Suez are all seen to be examples of Western hubris and ill-will towards the Muslim world. We can acknowledge that these have contributed to anti-Western sentiment in the Muslim world, but it would be a serious mistake to believe this provides a complete account of the extremism and the terror that has resulted from it.

At the heart of extremism is an ideology, a world-view — and not just concerning the perceived wrong done to the Muslim Umma (or people). Such an ideology expects Islam to dominate rather than to accept a subservient place in world affairs. It promotes pan-Islam and the ultimate rejection of nation-states, even Muslim ones. It may be that some extremists chatter about an Islamic state, in this part of the world or that; however, its ultimate aim is a single Islamic political, social, economic and spiritual entity. For many, the restoration of the Caliphate is integral to this project and, given past history, we should not be sanguine that Western powers will not collude with it if they believe it promotes a temporary self-interest. Such a vision of pan-Islam is not restricted to the Muslim world as it is now but also includes lands “lost” to Islam whether that be India, Palestine, East Timor, South Sudan or the Iberian countries.

Since the death of bin Laden, there have been reports of the demise of Islamist extremism itself. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is true that al-Qaeda leadership in Pakistan and Afghanistan has been weakened, but it has not been eliminated. If we think of al-Qaeda more as a franchise than a monolithic organisation, it is flourishing as Al-Shabaab in Somalia, AQ in the Arabian Peninsula, in Iraq and in Jordan. In addition, there are the murderous Lashkars in Pakistan, where the Taliban still operates with impunity; in Afghanistan, the Taliban still retain significant capacity.

This is not to mention Shi’a radicalism which, in the form of Hizbollah, is now present on the borders of Israel. The radical Shi’a crescent is waxing all over the Middle-East and it has enormous security implications for states in the area and beyond. The so-called Arab Spring is not a single event but a mosaic of different interests and people. An element of youthful idealism has been present and secular points of view have been represented, but well-organised Islamist programmes are at the fore. The re-emergence of politicised Salafism in Egypt, and the violence associated with it, has already given the Coptic Christian community cause for concern. In Libya, al-Qaeda and the Taliban-related fighters have been in the vanguard of the struggle to oust Gaddafi. People whom the West would bomb in other circumstances have been the beneficiaries of Western air cover in Libya.

So what should be done about the rise of this kind of Islamism? In the Muslim world, the answer is clear. Democracy is not enough in itself or it could simply become a tyranny of the radicalised. It must be accompanied by internationally backed guarantees of liberties for women, non-Muslims and even moderate Muslim opinion. There must be one law for all and the equality of all before the law. A common view of citizenship will prevent the re-appearance of the dhimma for non-Muslims, under which they are little better than subject peoples without equal rights.

In the West, too, citizenship is where to begin. This means the West will need, once again, to acknowledge the Judaeo-Christian tradition and aspects of the Enlightenment that have made it what it is. How can we expect others to integrate when we are suffering from amnesia about our own identity? The time for post-imperial hangovers is over. It will mean dismantling the structures of isolation that have been built up in the name of multiculturalism, and the encouragement of mobility and engagement across religious and communal divides. We need more integration in housing and schools; greater mobility in higher education and employment. We need a commitment to English as the lingua franca and the teaching of history that reveals the “golden thread” of a cohesive world-view.

We should be clear that integration does not necessarily imply assimilation. It is possible to be fully integrated as citizens but also to hold on to our culture, religion and language.

The chattering classes, who criticised the police for their absence during the recent riots, are now disparaging about their visible presence this weekend — but it is well-planned security that has deterred a repeat of 9/11. While being alert to the importance of personal liberties, and to the misuse of power, we will have to accept some curtailment of our preferences to live in even relative peace in the next 10 years.

* Michael Nazir-Ali is now President of OXTRAD, the Oxford Centre for Training, Research, Advocacy and Dialogue

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]



Frattini Addresses Rise in ‘Christianophobia’

(AGI) Munich — Speaking to religious leaders at the XXV International Meeting for Peace organized by the St Egidio Community in Munich, Germany, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini spoke today of the growing “Christianophobia” that is spreading in various parts of the world.”I am thinking,” said the minister, “of the rise in abuse and discrimination addressed at religious minorities.” .

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]



Looking Back on Sept. 11

The 10th anniversary of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks is a chance for all of us to reflect productively.

The 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 is this Sunday. This anniversary should be an opportunity for us to take a step back, analyze what happened that day 10 years ago, consult our values and reset our course. In the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, after mourning the victims, many Americans demanded retaliation against the terrorists. But those attacks showed us what happens when people resort to violence to achieve their objectives. Reflecting on the pain and suffering the violence of Sept. 11 caused should check our instinct to retaliate against it with violence of our own. We should be above the bloodlust of revenge; we should reject the doctrine of “an eye for an eye” precisely because we’ve seen its tragic consequences on our own soil.

As Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “The end of violence or the aftermath of violence is bitterness. The aftermath of nonviolence is reconciliation and the creation of a beloved community.” Violent and bitter reactions to the attacks are understandable, but they play directly into the terrorists’ game. Taking that bait has led to a cycle of violence that has only taken thousands more innocent American men and women from us, not to mention thousands of other innocents overseas. The last 10 years are a reminder that violence destroys, whether it is done in the name of a distortion of religion or in the name of liberty and democracy. If we want the cycle of violence and aggression to stop, we must be the ones to stop it. Instead of our reaction being anger and vengeful hatred toward the perpetrators of the attack when the video footage is inevitably played and replayed this weekend, we should take our cue from the reaction of the heroic first responders. We should challenge ourselves to react as they did — with compassion for their fellow men and women, with bravery and courage in the face of danger, and by setting aside their self-interest for the good of others. If we can react to events with these same qualities, rather than dwelling on the understandable immediate emotions of anger or hurt, we will have gained the moral high ground. Retaliating with anger and force cedes that ground.

Furthermore, we shouldn’t let others use the attacks to sell us the myth of “security.” When someone says they are selling security, what they are really selling is the fear of insecurity, and fear is what makes us retaliate with violence and anger. We should not settle for security; we should strive for peace. The two are not the same. Erecting walls, physical, social and otherwise, against others out of fear may give the illusion of security, but it is not a solution. It does not only lock “them” out; it locks “us” in. As Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote, “A tranquil life is also had in dungeons.” Rather than locking ourselves in a tighter and tighter cell, we should use the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 to remember those lost, reflect on that excruciating pain, and firmly reject anything that causes more of that pain and loss. Rather than coiling into a ball of fear and anger, we can show our moral character. We can defy the terrorists who attacked us that day and refuse to let them rule over us by rejecting fear and embracing love, by opening ourselves up instead of shutting ourselves off and by replacing desire for revenge with compassion for each other. Embracing that spirit of unity and togetherness is the way to truly honor those we lost on Sept. 11, 2001.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]