ORF Pays Attention

The official Austrian media outlet ORF is belatedly noticing that Jews are under siege all over Europe. Our Austrian correspondent ESW has prepared a summary based on an article at the ORF website:

The Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is finally realizing that there are too many attacks on Jews to ignore the situation.

“European politicians are gravely concerned about the attacks on Jews. Following an arson attack in France, Italy is now shocked about a call not to buy from Jewish shops.”

The report then goes on to describe the attack on a Jewish girl in France and the attacks in Belgium. “We came to the conclusion that the situation is certainly an explosive one,” says a Belgian official. In Antwerp, a Muslim and a Jewish group issued a joint statement saying that “we have different views on the conflict, but that is no reason to carry this conflict into Belgium.” Jewish groups in Germany also voiced their concern, especially after the arson attacks in Denmark. In Great Britain approximately 20-25 attacks on Jews have been registered by a Jewish group called Community Security Trust.

– – – – – – – –

The Vatican has been heavily criticized: A spokesperson for the Vatican compared Gaza to “a concentration camp”. “Just look at the way these people are living,” said Cardinal Renato Martini, in charge of human rights at the Vatican. He echoed Jean-Marie Le Pen’s remarks, who also compared the Gaza strip with a concentration camp.

Cardinal Martini was immediately criticized by the Israeli defense ministry, a criticism he did not accept. “My point is not to defend Hamas, but to show that what is happening in Gaza is inhumane and terrible.”

Filip Dewinter’s New Year’s Speech in Antwerp

Our Flemish correspondent VH has translated a New Year’s Day speech from Filip Dewinter’s website. It’s a real rip-snorter of a piece, and recommended reading.



Speech at the New Year’s reception in Antwerp

by Filip Dewinter
Chairman of the Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) Party in Antwerp

Dear Friends,

On the skating rink at the Grote Markt in Antwerp it is not permitted, but here it is. So tonight by way of introduction, Sick Leave Cash by The Strangers}, by special request from non-politically correct Antwerp!

Dear Friends,

Antwerp is suffering from a peculiar and serious illness. The symptoms are well known: songs of The Strangers may no longer be listened to, children on school trips are required to eat halal food and separate swimming hours for men and women are actually being introduced in the Antwerp public swimming pools, and the cross on the mitre of Sinterklaas [St. Nicholas] is prohibited.

Along with the disappearance of the cross on the mitre of Sinterklaas, the nativity scenes also had to go from under the Christmas trees in the local schools. And if certain Islamic organizations have their say, no more Easter eggs will be handed out at the town hall and even the Christmas decorations in the city will have to go because of their non-neutrality.

That Muslims raise such demands does not surprise me. A municipal authority in which the CD&V [Flemish Christian Democrats] and N-VA [New Flemish Alliance, a Liberal Conservative party] take part in it and allow all this to happen shocks me much more. That Patrick Janssens [SP.A., Socialist Progressive Party] reveals himself to be an Islam-collaborator who owes his votes and election victory to the tens of thousands of Muslims is something we knew longer ago than today. But the fact that a Christian Democrat like Philip Heylen [CD&V alderman of Antwerp] last year actually launched the proposal to close down [demolish] half of the churches in Antwerp and convert them into mosques is beyond any imagination!

Dear Friends,
– – – – – – – –
This is how far it has gone! Not only are we no longer masters in our own city and in our own country… we are now also expected — whether it is about the non-politically-correct song of The Strangers, or the banning of the cross on the mitre of Sinterklaas doesn’t really make a difference — to engage in self-censorship and revisionism. Revisionism indeed, because the exclusion of the cross on the mitre of Sinterklaas is no more and no less than historical distortion. Sinterklaas was later declared the holy Christian Bishop Nicholas of Myra, who lived in Turkey in the fourth century, which was then still part of the Roman Empire. It was no coincidence that in 1087 the remains of Nicholas were brought by Italian merchants from Myra to Italy, to protect them from the advancing Muslims. Europe then stretched from Oslo to Jerusalem and from the Baltic to the Mediterranean Sea. Istanbul was still called Constantinople then and the Hagia Sophia was still a Cathedral, and not a mosque. I do not intend to rewrite our European history, not even for 100 million Muslims on European soil.

Dear Friends,

A lot has changed in the meantime. Europe has become ill and weak. It is called multicultural, permissive, and tolerant according to the newspeak. We have become afraid of our own shadow. We hardly dare to defend our culture, our civilization, our values and standards, just because we are afraid of being called racist or Islamophobic. On News Year’s Day, for instance, an authorized AEL demonstration took place in the heart of Antwerp, in which hundreds of young Muslims left a trail of destruction through the city. “Jews out”, “Jihad, Hamas, Hezbollah” and “Osama, we need you,” was chanted. A few days later, Islamic hotheads were caught in possession of Molotov cocktails and other weapons. The sad culmination was the attempted arson of a house of a Jewish family.

Dear Friends,

I first and foremost have a message; a message to the Muslims living here and to [Antwerp Mayor] Patrick Janssens.

To all the Muslims and immigrants who find our country, our way of life, to be worth nothing, who during demonstrations wave slogans such as “Osama, we need you”, who burn flags of our allies and find our society decadent and reprehensible, who despise the equality between men and women and the separation between Church and State: I want to point out to them the fundamental right for everyone in this country and also in Europe, to leave. Indeed, if you do not like it in this country and in this city, depart and return to the your country of origin!

Dear Friends,

I also have a message to Patrick Janssens. If the Vlaams Belang in Antwerp for example protests against ritual slaughtering, or the undemocratic Belgian Royalty, than never estimate the risks wrongly. On December 8, in response to our demonstration with 200 people, a police water cannon and two platoons of police in combat uniform were standing prepared, together with a number of special arrest teams to keep this peaceful demonstration under control. If the AEL demonstrates a few hundred meters away from the Jewish Quarter, you find a few officers on a bicycle enough to accompany the demonstration…

It is as if would ask the gendarmes of Saint Tropez in the films of Louis de Funès to stop the Nazis, or assign Inspector Clouseau the task of grabbing Osama Bin Laden!

Dear Friends,

Meanwhile, Patrick Janssens looks the other way and assigns all responsibility to the police force “who wrongly estimated the risks”. But we all know better! Janssens follows a policy of double standards. He pampers the Muslim immigrants and looks down on our own people. He is selling out Antwerp to Islam. He surrenders our city to Arab aliens who are already waving the green flag of Islamic fascism in the shadow of the cathedral!

Dear Friends,

This is not only about a strict and firm police performance; on whether or not to allow a demonstration; on the right to demonstrate in general and the freedom of expression in particular.

Dear Friends,

Patrick Janssens would do better serve an apprenticeship with his Socialist friends of the Dutch PvdA [Labor Party]. In a recent paper on the integration of foreigners, the Dutch Socialists admit their guilt. I quote: “Tolerance slowed down the integration in the Netherlands, so we now opt for confrontation. The mistake we should never make again is to swallow criticism of culture or religion out of tolerance. Integration has long been an ideal of tolerance and all would turn out to be fine. In practice this tolerance meant looking away from real problems. The stage of avoidance is now over. Politics has neglected for too long the feelings of loss and alienation that native Dutch experience with this parallel society of immigrants.” In the Netherlands, Theo van Gogh and Pim Fortuyn had to die as martyrs before the Socialists understood what it was all about. How far should it go until the left in Antwerp and in Flanders also understand what it is really all about? If Janssens in the name of tolerance tolerates “Jews Out” in Antwerp, we only have one answer: “Janssens Out!”

Dear Friends,

Janssens harvest what he sowed. The AEL has applied for a new permit for a demonstration this Saturday. It is no longer about the fate Palestinians in the Gaza Strip anymore, nor the military actions against Hamas! Radical organizations such as AEL see how far they can go; how the government responds, or should I say: does not respond. The heads are counted; the power balance is tested out. For my part the AEL may demonstrate at the Rode Weelweg close by the Hooge Maey [Landfill for garbage from Antwerp and other cities in the vicinity] where they belong, 15 km from here in “the middle of nowhere”! But no more demonstrations in Antwerp, nor in Borgerhout, nor on the Astridplein, nor on the Turnhoutsebaan! Keep the AEL out of Antwerp.

Dear Friends,

It is now five to twelve! We have no more time to lose! Half-hearted solutions have long since ceased to do any good! He who now hides his head in the sand is an accessory to the Islamization of our city! We must dare to send a strong signal!

This means that we must dare to enter into resistance, because our city is in distress. In distress, Antwerp residents know who their friends are, and namely us — the Vlaams Belang — out of necessity!

Videos of the Oslo Riots

Steen has found two YouTube videos of last night’s pro-Palestinian riots in Oslo:



The second video is below the fold.
– – – – – – – –


Steen’s report is here. I don’t have time to attempt a translation, but readers who understand Danish may want to check out what he has to say.

I can sometimes translate Danish newspaper articles — which are written in “Danish for Simpletons (or Americans)” — but Snaphanen is written in Steenish, which is another matter entirely…

Michiel Mans in the Crosshairs

Regular readers will remember the Dutch author Michiel Mans, who has written several articles for Gates of Vienna in the past. Like Gregorius Nekschot, Rechtser, and Geenstijl before him, Mr. Mans has drawn the attention of the Thought Police because of his dangerous politically incorrect writings.

Our Flemish correspondent VH has done the reading and translating, so I’ll let him tell the story.



Michiel Mans in the Crosshairs
by VH

They can’t get enough of it, the Dutch InterNazis. After Gregorius Nekschot (case pending), Rechtser.com (convicted: 1500 euros), HoeiBoei (pending) and many others who are on the hit-list of the Dutch subsidized Left (and/or in the ban-book of the Christian Democrat Minister of Justice Ernst Hirsh Ballin, who in a interview said that his wife said to him that Wilders offends all Dutch people with his film], now the columnist Michiel Mans of Het Vrije Volk is in the crosshairs of totalitarian Dutch InterNazis.

Once again the herd of little Freisler clones, who present themselves as a glossy ad for tolerance, prove to be nothing but the reincarnation of the scum that terrorized Europe over half a century ago. If history moves along a sinus wave, we’re getting pretty close to the bottom of the curve again.

Crime reporter and columnist Stan de Jong writes:

Reporting point against Rightist People strikes again

A letter just fell on the digital doormat. A letter from Marcel Vreemans, former editor of the Dutch blog “Het Vrije Volk” [The Free People] who was put on leave for a short while [because of disputed content of a few of his articles], but since then has been completely rehabilitated. But that is not the point. What matters is that the Meldpunt Discriminatie Internet (MDI [Reporting point of Internet Discrimination]) is on a manhunt again.

After Gregorius Nekschot, the writer and freethinker Michiel Mans is the new prey. Rumors that the Reichskulturkammer will be installed again next week could not be confirmed at this late hour. Vreemans asked me to post an article by him and of course I am delighted to do so. Here it comes…

From Het Vrije Volk:

Dutch Thought Gestapo aims for a New Victim: Michiel Mans

“The MDI is coming to you this winter” may be an opening for an evil development that will increasingly take hold of the blogosphere.

In a country where it is very seriously investigated whether a film can be banned or not, where cartoonists are pulled out of their beds with razzia-like techniques, where fulminating filmmakers are being massacred, where attempts are being made to strengthen the ban on “insult by blasphemy”, where the government develops a “standards and values” catalogue, where comedians are threatened and satire is strangled, where a patronizing decency-fundamentalism is prescribed by law… the facilitating and cultivating of an internet Gestapo is no surprise.

Recently the blog Lucaswashier [LWH] was startled by a bureau request or urgent “lead” of the MDI. This time it concerned a column by Michael Mans. If that could be quickly removed

———— Insert: The MDI letter:

– – – – – – – –

Recently the MDI received a report concerning your website. Underneath you will find the exact location [URL] as well as the explanation.

URL: www.lucaswashier.nl/?pv31 www.lucaswashier.nl/?p=7631

Expression 1. “Good, the Palestinians are — apart from breeding —a completely unproductive, violent, swanking and screaming redundant people. It would be the most humane to relieve them of their suffering. This may sound very heavyset and may well result in 10 police officers at the door, and thus needs some explanation.

Look here, when they scuffle and breed in obviously ever higher numbers anyway, and with ever higher number of victims when they reach their 932nd (honoragaincounterrevenge2) + Intifada³))2) x alla-u-aqbar* jihad³) period, clearing it out now maybe delivers in the balance much fewer victims in the end. Or else maybe extend that sturdy local fence along the entire area, and close it off hermetically for ten years.”

Aforementioned expression the MDI finds in violation of the anti-discrimination articles in the penal Criminal Code. Hereby therefore the request to remove the expression of your website.

Looking forward to hearing from you.
With kind regards,
D. Veenboer

———— End of insert

In a obvious satire on the Israel-Hamas conflict — humor is sometimes the only weapon that still keeps us standing in this crazy world — he makes a trade-off on which party can at best come off badly to put an end to the eternal cycle of violence in the Middle East.

Robert Engel of the blog LWH is unwilling to remove the column by Michiel Mans and even less so is the latter prepared to remove it from his own blog. But I fear that this will not be tolerated and Gregorius Nekschot soon can expect potentially new prison cell company. Not entirely coincidentally, the brave cartoonist shares the same blog-frontdoor with Michiel Mans, as if they already wanted to get digitally used to a future of huddling together behind bars.

————— Insert: The reply by Lucaswashier:

Dear Mister Veenboer,

With amazement I took note of your email in which you in accuse Lucaswashier, and particularly Michiel Mans, of discrimination. At Lucaswashier teasing texts may appear, but we do not cross the boundaries of the law.

It somewhat disappoints me that the obvious satire of the piece written by Michael Mans is not understood or willing to be understood by you.

If we were to remove the text, it would therefore mean that we are advocating the banning of theatre plays like those of Bloeiende Maagden [comedy group], New Year’s Eve TV show of Youp van ‘t Hek [comedian] and expressions such as those delivered by Hans Teeuwen [comedian] with the unveiling of The Scream [the sculpture in Amsterdam in honor of Theo van Gogh].

I mention here that our blog like no other attracts discriminatory remarks. Provided these remarks cross a line, we will not hesitate to remove them. Also we are bound by the law and act according to the law.

The expressions mentioned by you belong to freedom of expression because satire happens to be part of that. I request you study the text again and reconsider your point of view.

With kind regards,
Robert Engel

P.S. the URL you mention does not exist on Lucaswashier. It is about this text: www.lucaswashier.nl/?p=7631

————— End of insert

This is enough, it seems to me, of that ever-increasing terrorism against satire. Freethinkers like you, who once had been roaring, laughing at the ingenious humor of [the writer and poet] Gerard Reve in the run-up the “donkey trial” [Reve, a staunch old fashioned Catholic, wrote a scene in which he pretended to have amorous contact with a donkey that he pictured to be God; it was a hilarious case and Reve was finally acquitted], know how important it is to be able to make fun of one’s beliefs, opinions, and behavior. And how ridicule can actually make us rethink our position, and liberate us from the trenches of our own self-righteousness.

Of course, sometimes it is hanging by a thin cord, and eventually the judge decides, but such a crucial role in the public debate should remain protected from those who are too easily offended.

Maybe it’s time for permanent resistance and targeted counter-actions. Once again a loner relatively unknown to the general public has to defend his own case and in which the jurisprudence is ever further contaminated with the false poison of poor little chumps.

Michael Mans is a very civilized, honest democrat in heart and soul. Read his articles and learn to know him. One who would never surrender to discrimination or call for grave matters. One who will make use of satire to display his disgust at unbearable cases and acts of lesser friendly creatures. With this Gestapo-like witch hunt of the MDI, with in its wake more often than not narrow-minded public prosecutors and humorless judges, a vulnerable but necessary weapon is kicked out of the hands of a society that slowly gets used to the thought that causing an offense means the right to a lynching.

We should from now on draw a line, should revolt and massively show our solidarity with Michael Mans. Not because of his opinions, his good or bad taste, his abject or welcome analysis of world events, his poisonous or sweet vocabulary, but because he is a symbol of out deepest conviction to be able ridicule free of threats and prosecution.

With the power and endless repetition of our satire, we can make short work of often more than creepy clubs like the MDI and its entourage of coward hyenas.

We should work on public opinion in such a way, that there are few left who even dare to put satire in the dock.

By Marcel Vreemans

About the MDI:

The Meldpunt Discriminatie Internet (Complaints Bureau for Discrimination on the Internet) is derived from the subsidized Muslim Discrimination on the Internet (also MDI) and is part of the nationwide anti-discrimination conglomerate Magenta.

On the website of the latter they even try to picture themselves as a profitable tempting treat:

Magenta is a non-governmental organization that offers you a free idea: an inclusive society. All Magenta’s products are available in our online store. Here you can learn about our work, test the ideas and even take them home with you in a bag. […] Magenta was founded in 1992 and in 1994 it was the first organization fighting discrimination on and through the Internet. Today Magenta is still known for introducing groundbreaking projects, which makes it the focal point for other NGOs to learn from. Magenta is practical and non-ideological, and its main characteristic is to think outside the box and take risks.

Magenta and the MDI were founded by Ronald Eissens and his partner Suzanne Bonkhorst, two former militant Green Left peace activists looking for a new source of subsidy in the years after Communism fell along with the Berlin Wall. They started “anti discrimination” activities and even became internationally active, and nowadays also run Icare [Internet Center Anti Racism Europe] and Inach [International Network Against Cyberhate] to scoop up as much subsidy as possible. They are also involved in Kafka, an extreme left “anti fascist research group” that advises even the Government on Right wing extremism. Understandable that the handful of neo-Nazis are seen as the biggest threat to democracy, but for example the AFA and Hizb ut-Tahrir as organizations that do no need investigation an dare no threat at all.

The couple was accused of founding an Extreme Left Bastion. Ronald Eissens for instance was an active member of the fascist AFA blackhoods and cooperated in violent actions. He wrote for the AFA magazine Alert. The same AFA that stated in 2004: “On May 6 the racist Rightist populist Pim Fortuyn is commemorated by Rightist folk, amongst whom are many racists and fascists. It is also the day that two years ago Volkert van de Graaf [the murderer of Fortuyn] lost his freedom and received an inhuman prison sentence of 18 years. Therefore a call to show the Right that it is over and out with their freedom of movement.” But Eissens himself is — apart of his violent AFA activities — not squeaky clean himself. About the German people he wrote: “The Germans are the most violent people on earth.”

In 2004 the couple received from the taxpayers €106,115.70 to silence the same taxpayers. The MDI also keeps blacklists of critical journalists. The CIDI (Center and Information on Israel) once received a mail form Eissens about a journalist that stated: “This guy is blacklisted. He conducts a crusade against the Left.”

The anti-discrimination enterprise is set up outside constitutional authority to clamp down on the opposition to Multiculturalism (the Right and Conservatives). The anti-discrimination is nothing but a subsidy slurper and a coverup for political actions against native citizens, by trying to present a series of charges that can lead to “show trials”.

Eissens: “(Successful) prosecution gives the Complaints Bureau its necessary credibility and deterrent force.” And on subsidy: “MDI is now a fully state-funded by Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Internal Affairs.”

This MDI is, as may seem, an extreme-left organization. The MDI is a professional full-time witch hunt organization that aims only at the enemies of the Left: the law-abiding but critical citizens who refuse to silence themselves and had to decamp to the Internet because the whole MSM was already under the spell of the Left. The MDI for instance states on its website that the PVV and Geert Wilders are Extreme Right and thus must be fought.

The Government agrees with that and founded a Cartoon Team that was involved in the arrest of Gregorius Nekschot. The assistant of the National Coordinator for Counterterrorism (NCTb) was also the director of this team that was set up after the cartoon riots in Denmark. When this team was discussed in Parliament (without achieving any clarity), the CDA spokesman said: “it will be quite Leftist and so I want to know nothing about it.” The PvdA had said of the arrest of Nekschot: “Those who play at bowls must look for rubs.”

Only Martin Bosma (PVV) was spot on in Parliament:

Three years on a hunt for someone who makes drawings. The guardian of proper thought in word and deed, Prosecutor Velleman (peace be upon him) and his “Landelijk Expertise-centrum Discriminatie” [National Discrimination Expertise Center, another party in the witch-hunt] — a DDR relic that is happily continuing on, is already three years long pressing F5 to see if anything unacceptable comes up. How did that go? What informal Mitarbeiter [assistant] informed whom? What role did Abdul-Jabbar van de Ven [who filed a complaint against Nekschot] play in this, the one who wished my fraction leader [Wilders] should get cancer?

Chairman, Nekschot is not even sentenced yet, and perhaps now already the death penalty is waiting for him. Because without any judge involved, this artist may have to fear for his life. One police officer said: “your anonymity? You can forget about that now.”

Gates of Vienna News Feed 1/8/2009

Gates of Vienna News Feed 1/8/2009The latest word is that an agreement with Russia has been reached, and the flow through the gas pipeline will resume.

Also, look for the storming of the Israeli consulate in Montreal, as well as other Gaza-inspired violence around the world.

Thanks to AA, Abu Elvis, Insubria, JD, Tuan Jim, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
– – – – – – – –

USA
Citigroup Backs Bankruptcy Courts Cutting Loan Rates
Congress’ Plan Would Let AG ‘Ban Guns at Will’
Florida: Video: Protester Calls for Jews to ‘Go Back to the Oven’ at Anti-Israel Demonstration
Hackers Take Down Ring of Key Progressive Blogs
Is Feb. 10 Financial Doomsday for Thousands?
Marine Unit Operating in US Learns Skills to Fight Different Enemy
Obama’s ICE Candidate Pleads for Agents’ Pardon
Radical Changes Loom for U.S. Labor Policy
Video: Watch Obama Commercial They Don’t Want You to See
 
Canada
Pro-Palestinian Protesters Storm Israeli Consulate in Montreal
 
Europe and the EU
Agents Track Money to Find Terrorists
Danish Opposition: Bring Absalon Home
Denmark: Volunteer Soldiers Fired From Civilian Jobs
Denmark: Police Name Suspected Shooter
ECB Deems Britain Unworthy of Euro
Finland: Police Giving Few Details Over Jyväskylä Shooting
French, German Leaders Call for “Moralization” of Capitalism
Gordon Brown’s Decision to Sell Half of the UK’s Gold Reserves ‘Cost UK £5billion’
Greece: Police Looking Up Old Suspects
Home-Grown Cannabis Flourishes in Sweden
Italy: Tremonti Sees Crisis as a Videogame
Prague Cacophony, Czechs Overburdened With EU Presidency — Press
Sarkozy, Merkel, Blair Call for “New Capitalism”
Sweden: Women Only Gym Zones ‘Not Discriminatory’
UK: Gaza Conflict Fuelling Anger in UK, Muslims Warn Brown
UK: Police Warn British Jews of Revenge Attacks
 
North Africa
TV: Turkish Serials to be Banned in Egypt
 
Israel and the Palestinians
2nd Front? Rockets Land in Israel’s North
‘Ask Egypt to Let You Into the Gaza Strip’
Gaza: Hamas Must be Disarmed, Frattini Says
Gaza: WFP, 50 Thousand Have Received Aid Since Crisis Began
IDF Discovers Hamas Booby-Trap Map
Israel Shakes Up Information War
Mideast: Mahmoud Abbas’ Mandate, PNA Uncertain
 
Middle East
Economy: Turkey Increases Import Duties on Steel Products
Energy: BTC Pipeline Carries 70 Mln Tonnes of Caspian Oil
Gaza: First Lady Summit, Zapatero’s Wife Declines Invitation
Turkey: 40 Arrested Over Ergenekon Coup Plan
 
Russia
Bosnia Faces Collapse Without Gas
Drugs Seen Killing 80,000 Russians Annually
EU Announces Breakthrough in Russia-Ukraine Gas Dispute
 
South Asia
Attack on Gaza: OIC Should Form Peacekeeping Force, Says Zahid
Indonesia: PKS Warns Election Board After Party’s Gaza Rally Called a Violation
Indonesian Protesters Storm KFC Over Israeli Raids
Malaysia: Abdullah’s Anti-Israel Posturing
 
Far East
Japan: Government to Bring Antipiracy Bill Before Diet
Korea: Plan to Close Arab Culture Center Backfires
Muslim Separatists Burn Christian Homes in Philippines
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
John Robertson: Comment on Gideon Gono’s Book, Zimbabwe’s Casino Economy
Sudan’s Vice-President Meets US Evangelical Leader
 
Immigration
50 Million Invited to Europe
Afghan Man Stabbed to Death in Fight Between Rival Migrant Gangs Battling for Passage to UK
Denmark: Greenland Wants Own Immigration Law
Immigration: Morocco, 2 Spanish Centres for Repatriated Minors
Indonesia: 193 Foreigners Rescued After Boat Becomes Stranded
 
Culture Wars
Denial Ain’t a River in Egypt
 
General
Rise in US Unemployment Tipped to be Biggest for 59 Years

USA


Citigroup Backs Bankruptcy Courts Cutting Loan Rates

Jan. 8 (Bloomberg) — Citigroup Inc. agreed to support U.S. legislation that would let bankruptcy courts reduce mortgage rates for at-risk borrowers, breaking with other U.S. lenders that had helped kill the legislation last year.

Citigroup abandoned opposition during negotiations with Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, and Senators Charles Schumer of New York and Richard Durbin of Illinois, to limit the measure to mortgages they backed prior to the legislation becoming law. Citigroup declined to comment.

“The notion here is to create the environment for negotiation so that those who are holding the mortgages will not wait until bankruptcy,” Durbin said at a Washington news conference.

Congress has passed several measures in the past year to stem home foreclosures, including a $300 billion bill passed in July aimed at helping 400,000 borrowers keep their homes. Senate Democrats were unable in April to adopt the bankruptcy proposal. Republicans, and the banking industry, said the plan would raise costs because lenders would try to recoup losses in court with higher rates on other loans.

“This provision will do exactly what we would have hoped would have happened with other ideas and we could not adopt earlier with housing legislation,” Dodd said in a press conference with reporters in Washington.

[Return to headlines]



Congress’ Plan Would Let AG ‘Ban Guns at Will’

2nd Amendment critics are ‘ready to run wild’

A perfect storm is developing for Second Amendment opponents that could allow President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for attorney general — Eric Holder — to “ban guns at will” despite the 2008 affirmation from the U.S. Supreme Court that U.S. citizens have a right to bear arms.

The situation was described with alarm by Alan Korwin, author of Gun Laws of America, in a recent commentary.

He cited Holder’s known support for gun bans — the former Clinton administration official endorsed the District of Columbia’s complete ban on functional guns in residents’ homes before it was overturned by the Supreme Court.

And Korwin pointed to overwhelming Democratic majorities in Congress as well as Obama’s known support for gun restrictions and his presence in the Oval Office.

Thirdly, Korwin, one of many Second Amendment advocates raising concerns, cited a proposal already submitted to Congress at a time when its backers could not reasonably expect it to succeed.

The submission is H.R. 1022 by New York Democrat Carolyn McCarthy and 67 co-sponsors. It was introduced in February 2007 and the next month referred to the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, where it has stayed.

But that could change in the 111th Congress, sworn in today. And Korwin said the plan would allow the U.S. Attorney General — possibly Holder — to add to the list of guns banned to the public any “semiautomatic rifle or shotgun originally designed for military or law enforcement use, or a firearm based on the design of such a firearm, that is not particularly suitable for sporting purposes, as determined by the Attorney General.”

“In plain English,” Korwin said, “This means that any firearm ever obtained by federal officers or the military is not suitable for the public. That presumption can be challenged only by suing the federal government over each firearm it decides to ban, in a court it runs with a judge it pays. This virtually dismisses the principles of the Second Amendment.

“The last part is particularly clever, stating that a firearm doesn’t have a sporting purpose just because it can be used for sporting purpose — is that devious or what? And of course, ‘sporting purpose’ is a rights infringement with no constitutional or historical support whatsoever, invented by domestic enemies of the right to keep and bear arms to further their cause of disarming the innocent,” he said.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]



Florida: Video: Protester Calls for Jews to ‘Go Back to the Oven’ at Anti-Israel Demonstration

Like many other protests of Israel’s campaign in Gaza, this one ended badly ? police had to cool an ugly fight between supporters of Israel and Gaza, breaking up the warring sides as their screaming and chanting threatened to turn into something worse.

But some protesters at this rally in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., took their rhetoric a step further, calling for the extermination of Israel ? and of Jews.

Separated by battle lines and a stream of rush-hour traffic outside a federal courthouse last week, at least 200 pro-Palestinian demonstrators faced off against a smaller crowd of Israel supporters.

Most of the chants were run-of-the-mill; men and women waving Palestinian flags called Israel’s invasion of Gaza a “crime,” while the pro-Israel group carried signs calling the Hamas-run territory a “terror state.”

But as the protest continued and crowds grew, one woman in a hijab began to shout curses and slurs that shocked Jewish activists in the city, which has a sizable Jewish population.

“Go back to the oven,” she shouted, calling for the counter-protesters to die in the manner that the Nazis used to exterminate Jews during the Holocaust.

“You need a big oven, that’s what you need,” she yelled.

Millions of Jews were gassed and burned in crematoria throughout Europe during Adolf Hitler’s rule of Germany. The protest organizers, asked to comment on the woman’s overt call for Jewish extermination, said she was “insensitive” but refused to condemn her statement .

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]



Hackers Take Down Ring of Key Progressive Blogs

Several major blogs were in jeopardy after a Tuesday hack of their software provider had its owner ready to throw in the towel.

According to SoapBlox owner Paul Preston, the attack on its servers—which prompted SoapBlox’s Internet service provider to shut it down—was connected to a shadowy group called Astalavista, which claimed credit for the attack in the site’s altered source code.

“Consider this the ‘We’re Out of Business’ post,” Preston wrote on Wednesday morning. “Most of the servers have been taken off line because they were being used to hack and exploit other websites. The hackers install this crap on servers after they get in. SoapBlox’s ISP then takes the servers off line… It was a good ride, but it’s over.”

The affected blogs include American Liberalism Project, BeThink, Blue Hampshire, Blue Jersey, Blue Mass. Group, Minnesota Progressive Project, My Left Wing, Never In Our Names, Pam’s House Blend, RadicalRuss, Swing State Project and West Michigan Rising and other mostly state-focused political blogs of note.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]



Is Feb. 10 Financial Doomsday for Thousands?

New law could force companies into ruin

A new government regulation scheduled to take effect next month has thousands of retailers, thrift stores and small businesses worried they will be forced to permanently close their doors ? and destroy their merchandise.

The law is expected to have such a devastating impact that Feb. 10 is now unofficially known as “National Bankruptcy Day.”

Congress passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, or HR 4040, a retroactive rule mandating that all items sold for use by children under 12 must be tested by an independent party for lead and phthalates, which are chemicals used to make plastics more pliable.

All untested items, regardless of lead content, are to be declared “banned hazardous products.” The CPSC has already determined the law applies to every children’s item on shelves, not just to items made beginning Feb. 10.

The regulations could force thousands of businesses — especially smaller ones that cannot afford the cost of lead testing — to throw away truckloads of children’s clothing, books, toys, furniture and other children’s items and even force them to close their doors.

Children’s books

Valerie Jacobsen and her husband, Paul, support their family of 13 by selling literature at Jacobsen Books in Clinton, Wis. Her family has contracts with local libraries to buy and sell overstocked books — an arrangement that draws income for both parties.

However, Jacobsen told WND that lead testing is estimated to cost $100 to $400 for each of her used children’s books because she does not buy in bulk, and each batch of merchandise is required to be tested.

[…]

But now some thrift and consignment stores are in a panic over the new regulation because it extends to children’s clothing, shoes and other items as well.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]



Marine Unit Operating in US Learns Skills to Fight Different Enemy

More than 400 Marines, sailors and civilians are assigned to the specialized unit that trains around the United States to decontaminate and extract victims from a disaster site.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]



Obama’s ICE Candidate Pleads for Agents’ Pardon

Former federal investigator demands President Bush release Ramos, Compean

Upon hearing that he was one of Barack Obama’s candidates to head Immigration and Customs Enforcement, one federal investigative official’s first act was to write an urgent letter to President Bush ? insisting that he pardon former Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean.

Rev. Miguel Contreras, 53, has worked for ICE, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the former Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He is vice president of Christian Alliance Ministries Worldwide and department head of Christian counseling and social work at Northwestern Theological Seminary.

Last month, Contreras announced Obama’s transition team told him he was a candidate for assistant secretary of ICE.

It was then that he decided to write a letter on behalf of the imprisoned agents, the El Paso Times reported. He asked the president to pardon them or reduce their sentences.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]



Radical Changes Loom for U.S. Labor Policy

‘There are laws pending on the Hill … that would massively rewrite our nation’s employment laws’

The prospect of sizeable tax cuts in the Obama stimulus plan may have heartened U.S. business and Republicans alike, but a fierce battle is looming over radical changes to U.S. labour policy being vigorously pursued by the Democrats.

The fact that two Democrat-sponsored labour bills are set to be among the first legislation to hit the House floor as the 111th U.S. Congress begins this week is a clear signal the economic crisis has not derailed the new government’s pledge to advance labour’s cause.

Still, it will be a curious indeed to see the Democrats and the staunchly pro-labour Barack Obama push for a bigger voice for labour across the economy while at the same time presiding over a dissolution of the granddaddy of all unionized industries — the auto sector.

[…]

The Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act seeks to allow wage-discrimination claims from the date on which the violation is discovered rather than 180 days from when the violation occurs.

The Chamber argues the bill would essentially eliminate statutes of limitations in wage-discrimination claims, leading to a barrage of old and expensive lawsuits being brought against employees.

The Paycheck Fairness Act, meanwhile, seeks to allow unlimited punitive and compensatory damage awards under the Equal Pay Act, even when the wage disparity is unintentional. Provisions of the bill would also make it difficult for an employer to defend wage disparities.

“[It is] really going to turn over questions about the worth of jobs and how employees determine the worth of jobs to the courts,” Mr. Johnson said.

An even more daunting change is waiting in the wings — the Employee Free Choice Act. The Chamber calls it the Card-Check Act, seeing nothing free about it.

The bill, which has already passed the House in previous sessions — once co-sponsored by Mr. Obama and vice-president-elect Joe Biden — would allow a union to be certified once a simple majority have signed union cards.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]



Video: Watch Obama Commercial They Don’t Want You to See

Fox, CNN, MSNBC refuse ads questioning Barack’s eligibility

Barack Obama’s campaign officials and transition office repeatedly have rejected reporters’ requests for comment on questions raised over his lack of documentation regarding his birth and the resulting concerns over his eligibility to be president. Now a number of media organizations apparently don’t want questions raised either.

WND columnist Janet Porter told WND she found that out when her organization, Faith2Action.org, tried to purchase airtime to publicize information about the eligibility concerns.

She told WND that national networks that refused to sell her time for a 60-second commercial included CNBC, MSNBC, Headline News, CNN and Fox. Washington, D.C., outlets for the same organizations did the same.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]

Canada


Pro-Palestinian Protesters Storm Israeli Consulate in Montreal

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators stormed the lobby of the Israeli consulate in Montreal on Thursday, in protests of the 13-day long IDF operation in Gaza.

“Canada should immediately end diplomatic ties with the Israeli apartheid regime, starting with the expulsion of Israeli representatives from Canada,” one of the demonstrators was quoted as saying.

The protesters blocked access to the consulate, calling for the expulsion of its staff, until they were physically removed by police.

Slogans such as “fight the power,” “turn the tide,” and “end Israeli apartheid” were reportedly chanted during the demonstration.

           — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes [Return to headlines]

Europe and the EU


Agents Track Money to Find Terrorists

Investigators watch activity on 3,000 Internet gambling sites

LONDON — Staffers for Britain’s MI5 intelligence agency have formed a new version of Gambler’s Anonymous — assembling a team of spies trained to track Islamic terrorists who are using gambling websites to launder large sums of money that ends up funding al-Qaida groups around the world, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]



Danish Opposition: Bring Absalon Home

The Danish vessel Absalon, which currently heads Task Force 150 in the Gulf of Aden, has been good at catching pirates — but the overall mission is a failure if the pirates cannot be brought to justice, according to the Social Democrats and the Socialist People’s Party.

Social Democratic Defence Spokesman John Dyrby Paulsen says that as a result, the Absalon should be brought home when its current mandate ends on April 1.

“Absalon’s preventive effect just dissipates as pirates become aware that Absalon is unable to do anything other than put them ashore so they can resume their piracy the next day. Its absurd,” says Paulsen.

Socialist People’s Party Defence Spokesman Holger Nielsen also says his party will consider not renewing Absalon’s mandate.

The opposition statements come following yet another incident in which the Absalon detained five pirates who had unsuccessfully attempted to board a Netherlands-flagged vessel. Denmark’s Defence Minister Søren Gade has said that Denmark is unable to try the five pirates on board and cannot continue to detain them.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Denmark: Volunteer Soldiers Fired From Civilian Jobs

Home Guard soliders who served in Afghanistan for three months returned home to find they had been fired from their private jobs

[Comment from Tuan Jim: Guess it doesn’t just happen in the US. Pretty sad that these guys actually volunteered to help out their fellow soldiers — and they were only gone for 3 months — and they’d still get screwed over like this.]

A number of recruits in the Home Guard lost their civilian jobs when they accepted a voluntary three-month posting to Afghanistan. The Army Private and Corporal Association (HKKF) is now seeking to take a compensation case to court on behalf of one of the soldiers.

Flemming Vinther, president of HKKF, told public broadcaster DR said that the dismissals violated the law that secures the right to leave during military service.

‘The “national service leave and leave for UN duty” law is largely forgotten today because Denmark usually only dispatches professional soldiers that were already employed by the defence forces,’ said Vinther.

This was the case, until the armed forces recruited a team of volunteer Home Guard members to travel to Afghanistan last autumn to guard the military camps for three months.

The arrival of the 27 members from the Copenhagen District unit was the first time an entire unit of volunteers had been dispatched, many of them covering tasks vacated by soldiers on leave.

HKKF took on the case of the men as they are employed by the defence forces will deployed abroad.

Vinther said that the object of the possible case was to highlight focus on the laws governing military leave.

Three of the recruits who lost their civilian jobs have now taken up an offer of fulltime employment with the defence forces. One of the three — Mads — said that he is looking forward to being deployed again as a professional soldier.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Denmark: Police Name Suspected Shooter

[Comment from Tuan Jim: I’ve seen a few articles today about an increase in SE Asian crime activity in Scandinavia as well — this and Vietnamese pot growers in Sweden, etc]

Police have released the identity and picture of a man they are seeking in connection with a shooting incident two days ago at the Bali restaurant in central Copenhagen.

The owner of the restaurant was wounded when the attacker walked over to a table where the owner and a Singaporean guest were in conversation and began shooting. Both men are still in hospital, with the condition of the guest being described as critical.

Police have named the man they are seeking as Phi Hung Nguyen, 47, who is of Vietnamese descent and who has a previous heroin-related conviction.

The motive for the attack remains unkown.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



ECB Deems Britain Unworthy of Euro

The European Central Bank has deemed Britain unfit for monetary union even if it wants to join following the dramatic slide in sterling and the explosion in the UK budget deficit.

“Great Britain does not meet the entry criteria for the euro,” said Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, the ECB’s board member in charge of international affairs.

“The public deficit will rise to around 6pc (of GDP) in 2009 and even higher in 2010. Sterling’s exchange rate is not yet sufficiently stable,” he told Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]



Finland: Police Giving Few Details Over Jyväskylä Shooting

Police surrounded an apartment building in the Pupuhuhta district of town after being alerted of gunfire at 8 a.m. All of the victims were adults. When the police raided the apartment they found three people dead.

A total of eight people, including one woman and two children were in the flat at the time of the shooting.

Residents of the building were evacuated.

No Police Comment on Motives

The police are not commenting on possible motives for the shooting. Personal information on the victims is being withheld until all of the next of kin are informed.

The police said that at least two weapons were used in the shooting, which apparently involved a dispute among Roma living in the building.

Police say that they had sufficient manpower resources for the operation, and cooperation with the rescue services proceeded well. The actual entry into the apartment by police was delayed as members of the specially trained SWAT team had to be brought in from their day off.

Apartments adjacent to the stairway were cleared of residents, pending completion of the forensic investigation.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



French, German Leaders Call for “Moralization” of Capitalism

The leaders of France and Germany both called Thursday for the “moralization” of the global capitalist system, which they said needed to be re-examined by governments before the Group of 20 summit in London in April.

The destruction of capitalism would be catastrophic, but the system had to undergo an overhaul to stay viable, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in Paris at the opening of the economic symposium “New World, New Capitalism,” which he established as a response to the economic crisis.

He said modern-day capitalism based on speculation had been “perverted” and was “an immoral system”. He said a new role should be created for governments and moral values.

“Either we re-found capitalism or we destroy it,” Sarkozy said as he called for an economic system based on the value of work rather than finance.

“Purely financial capitalism has perverted the logic of capitalism,” the French president said. “Financial capitalism is a system of irresponsibility and … is amoral. It is a system where the logic of the market excuses everything.”

The French leader said the structure of a new system of regulation should be agreed on before April’s G20 summit in London…

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Gordon Brown’s Decision to Sell Half of the UK’s Gold Reserves ‘Cost UK £5billion’

Gordon Brown’s decision to sell off part of the country’s gold reserves 10 years ago cost the public purse nearly £5billion, official figures show.

[Comments from JD: Rule#1: Follow the money. Who bought the gold at this firesale price? Was it possibly the same bunch of firms that are now getting bailout money?]

In 17 auctions, Mr Brown as Chancellor of the Exchequer sanctioned the sale of 395 tonnes of gold.

Figures released by the Treasury show that the total proceeds from the sales was around $3.5billion. According to a Parliamentary answer, if the gold was sold last month, on December 15, it would have raised $10.5billion.

The difference — $7billion — would be worth £4.7billion if the proceeds were converted into pounds yesterday.

[…]

Philip Hammond, shadow secretary to the Treasury, said: “Gold traders confirm that it was because the Government announced in advance that it was planning to sell such a large quantity of gold that the markets became depressed.

“The low price Gordon Brown got for selling our gold wasn’t caused by bad luck. It was a staggering display of economic incompetence that has landed taxpayers with a £7 billion black hole.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]



Greece: Police Looking Up Old Suspects

Police are focusing their attention on questioning previous suspects and working out the whereabouts of a possible hideout as they try to trace the people behind the shooting of a police officer in Athens on Monday.

Sources said that police are going through the lists of suspects who have been linked to terrorist activity in the past, as well as those that have been added to the lists more recently.

A high-ranking officer, who wished to remain anonymous, told Kathimerini that the tactic is based on the belief that the members of Revolutionary Struggle, the group thought to be behind Monday’s attack, were once members of other groups.

“A group with the organization and operational capability of Revolutionary Struggle does not come together out of nothing,” he said.

One theory being examined is that Monday’s attack and the shots fired at a riot police bus on December 23 were the work of members of the group who decided not to follow the instructions of the organization’s leaders.

Officers have also been searching the area of Exarchia, where the attack took place on Monday, in a bid to locate a possible hideout used by Revolutionary Struggle. The police seem to think it quite likely that the gunmen will have fled to somewhere near the scene of the attack.

Eight people have been detained so far following searches in Exarchia but sources said yesterday that they are suspected of involvement in anarchist or anti-establishment activity but not of being terrorists. One of the eight was released yesterday after a court ruled that a sword found in his possession was a family heirloom. Another five were released on bail pending their trial, while two people were remanded in custody until their cases are heard.

Meanwhile, two Molotov cocktails were thrown at a police station in Patissia early yesterday. Two assailants sped off on a motorbike. A cafe in Holargos belonging to the Starbucks chain and an ATM in Menidi were also attacked with firebombs.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Home-Grown Cannabis Flourishes in Sweden

Marijuana in Sweden is increasingly being grown domestically rather than smuggled into the country, and police suspect Vietnamese crime networks are behind the proliferation in cannabis growing operations.

Around ten “greenhouses” were uncovered in Skåne in southern Sweden in 2008, reports the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper.

Police say that the operations begin when a house, usually in a rural location, is bought or purchased by one or two people from Vietnam.

The property is than transformed into a sophisticated marijuana growing operation, complete with remote-controlled growing lights.

“They manage the cultivation themselves, but I’m convinced there is someone above them who is earning money from the operation. These types of investments have become so expensive that the growers can’t afford them by themselves,” said prosecutor Pär Andersson to SvD.

The marijuana growing operations aren’t limited to Skåne, as police have discovered similar greenhouses in Ljusnarsberg near Örebro in central Sweden, as well as the villages of Agunnaryd and Örsjö in the Småland region of south central Sweden.

In the Småland raids, police confiscated nearly 80 kilogrammes of cannabis and two men were sentenced to prison for six and seven years, respectively.

But the most advanced and far reaching operations are concentrated in Skåne, where a dozen people have been given long prison sentences for illegal drug cultivation.

The increase in local cannabis cultivation in Sweden is in line with a larger trend in Europe.

According to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), marijuana traditionally supplied through smuggling is increasingly being replaced by local production, which in turn has resulted in higher profit margins for drug dealers and their associated criminal gangs.

Police say the influx of Vietnamese gangs to Sweden isn’t surprising, but follows a pattern seen in England and Canada.

Since the early part of the decade, criminal elements among the Vietnamese diaspora in both countries have increasingly devoted themselves to growing marijuana.

“Now it is thought that the expertise has also spread to the Vietnamese population in the Nordic countries,” said Johnny Gyllensjö, a member of the police cannabis task force, to SvD.

Gyllensjö explained that dozens of growing operations have been uncovered in both Norway and Denmark. Frequent visits by Swedish growers to their counterparts in both countries indicate that there may be links between all the operations.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Italy: Tremonti Sees Crisis as a Videogame

Monsters keep popping, economy minister says

(ANSA) — Paris, January 8 — Dealing with the financial crisis of the past months has been like playing a videogame, Italian Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti said on Thursday.

“As soon as you slay one monster, and think you can catch your breath, another one pops up and challenges you. In this crisis I think I’ve battled at least seven monsters,” the minister explained.

Tremonti made his remarks at a round-table discussion organised by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Nicolas Sarkozy dedicated to the topic “New World, New Capitalism”.

Looking at the financial crisis which exploded in the latter half of 2008, Tremonti observed that this was the product of a “debt society” created over the past few years by an “access to debt produced by a finance technology which has degenerated the structure of capitalism”. Speaking on the need for the free market to be governed by effective rules, Tremonti made a reference to Adam Smith, considered the father of capitalism, and said “the market’s invisible hand over the past ten years has been a little too visible”.

The ‘invisible hand’ was the metaphor which Smith used to explain his theory that an individual pursuing his own self-interest will tend to promote the good of the community.

During the round-table discussion Tremonti suggested that along with Smith, students of economics should perhaps also read Goethe’s Faust and remember that “borrowing credit is much like making a pact with the devil”.

Returning to the metaphor of the invisible hand, Tremonti added his own take and concluded: “God made us with two hands, so maybe we should use them both”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Prague Cacophony, Czechs Overburdened With EU Presidency — Press

Vienna — The Czechs are overburdened with the EU presidency they assumed on January 1, Austrian daily Der Standard writes today, adding that even the big countries´ best prepared diplomatic teams would be overburdened if they were to coordinate the EU in a situation like the current one.

It points to the problem with Russian gas supplies, to the armed conflict in the Gaza Strip and the financial crisis as the troubles the Czech Republic is faced with.

In addition, French President Nicolas Sarkozy continues behaving as a kind of natural EU head though the French EU presidency is already over.

Besides, there are problems such as the blockage of Croatia´s EU accession by Slovenia and the uncertain future of the EU´s Lisbon treaty, Der Standard writes.

The European cacophony in Gaza, including two-track diplomatic missions, are the result of the overburdening of the Czechs.

The European unity over the Russian-Ukrainian gas dispute that Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek and EC President Jose Barroso presented in Prague on Wednesday sounded rather like “whistling in a deep forest” that Moscow need not fear at all, the paper writes.

The united-Europe idea seems to face problems as well. Earlier this week, Topolanek presented “the three E” (energy, economy and Europe in the world) as the Czech presidency´s main pillars. One day later, Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg said in a press interview that relation to Russia is the Czech presidency´s´biggest challenge.

In terms of strategic thinking, Schwarzenberg is probably right. It would probably be the best for the Czechs, with their historical experiences, to fully concentrate on this topic. The rift over gas supplies provides optimal arguments for it, Der Standard continues.

However, apart from Schwarzenberg, there are the Civic Democrats (ODS), the Czech senior ruling party with a right-wing liberal orientation, whose officials are divided in their position on the EU, Der Standard writes.

Second, there is Czech President Vaclav Klaus, with his unchanging [sceptical] approach to the EU, it adds.

Klaus´s advocacy of decentralist Europe is not hostile to the EU alone. However, his conviction that national states can cope with world problems better separately rather than within a community of values and norms, is quite absurd in the face to the current crisis, the daily writes.

Perhaps the right purpose of the Czech EU presidency, with all its antagonisms, which actually mirror the joint European situation, is to generate absurd developments. After all, this would be honour for the country of [Jaroslav Hasek´s novel] Schweik and [Franz] Kafka, Der Standard concludes, alluding to absurdity as a common denominator of the two authors´ works.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Sarkozy, Merkel, Blair Call for “New Capitalism”

PARIS — The leaders of France and Germany appeared to put disagreements over economic policy behind them Thursday, calling on the U.S. to join global efforts to address the financial crisis.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, leading a two-day conference with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair on the future of capitalism, said the crisis has shown that no country can go it alone on economic policy.

[…]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the system “cannot continue as it is” and called for better-regulated financial markets.

[…]

Sarkozy: “In capitalism of the 21st century, there is room for the state,” he said.

[…]

Blair called for a new financial order based on “values other than the maximum short-term profit.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]



Sweden: Women Only Gym Zones ‘Not Discriminatory’

[Comment from Tuan Jim: I don’t have a problem with private gyms with women-only membership (got plenty of those in the US) — but mixing co-ed and women-only in the same gym seems pretty dumb — and more importantly, the ombudsman’s reasoning is patently ridiculous. I feel self-conscious occasionally when I’m at the gym in a t-shirt and shorts around many “beautiful people” — but I’m not going to ask for a private room — I just get over it and completely forget about it once I start running/working out, etc]

Sweden’s Equal Opportunies Ombudsman (Jämställdhetsombudsmannen — JämO) has ruled against a man from Malmö who disputed the right of a local gym to reserve a section for women only.

Mats Mellerup said he reported the Fitness24Seven gym in Malmö because, in his view, women were receiving a much better service for their money than the gym’s male members.

Mellerup said he became irritated on a number of occasions when the area set aside for women was empty while he had to stand around waiting for machines to become free in the main section of the gym, where both women and men were free to train.

In its response to the report, Fitness24Seven told the ombudsman it had reserved an area solely for women in order to provide a refuge from the preconceived notions of beauty and sexual overtones to which women were commonly exposed in the media and advertising sectors.

The gym argued that its initiative to create special zones for women, which mitigated “the negative effects of the gender power structure and the sexualization of the public arena”, ought to be viewed as a positive move.

In its ruling, the ombudsman’s office agreed that the gym’s policy constituted a justifiable exception to prevailing discrimination laws.

“JämO is of the opinion that enabling woman to have a protected zone when training is a legitimate goal, and Fitness24Seven has done so in a way that is necessary in the current case.”

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



UK: Gaza Conflict Fuelling Anger in UK, Muslims Warn Brown

[Comment from Tuan Jim: Nothing like a little blackmail to make your point.]

Anger within Britain’s Muslim communities over the Gaza conflict has reached “acute levels of intensity” that could have repercussions for national security, leading Muslims will warn Gordon Brown today.

In a letter to the prime minister, representatives of Muslim organisations will say the Israeli government’s use of “disproportionate force” to combat threats to its security has “revived extremist groups” and “empowered their message of violence and perennial conflict”.

The letter, a copy of which can be read on the Guardian’s Comment is Free website, also says that the “current, partisan and simplified narrative” emanating from the White House is of “serious and direct harm” to relations between the UK, North America and Arab countries.

Among the signatories are Dr Usama Hasan, imam of Al-Tawhid mosque, London, Dilwar Hussain, head of the policy research centre at the Islamic Foundation, Zareen Roohi Ahmed from the British Muslim Forum and Ed Husain, co-director of the anti-extremism thinktank the Quilliam Foundation. All are active in tackling extremism in the UK and overseas.

They say it is imperative for the UK to distance itself from the Bush government. The letter goes on: “We urge you to make concerted and successful efforts to convince the US administration of the dangers of its approach and to ensure the incoming Obama administration forges a more enlightened direction. We also believe the UK — bilaterally and as part of the EU — has an important role to demonstrate to Israel that the threshold of acceptable behaviour has been perilously transgressed.”

The letter adds: “As you are aware, the anger within UK Muslim communities has reached acute levels of intensity. The Israeli government’s use of disproportionate force … has revived extremist groups and empowered their message of violence and perennial conflict. For Muslims in the UK and abroad, we run the risk of potentially creating a loss of faith in the political process.”

Their intervention follows a meeting on Tuesday between Bill Rammell, foreign and commonwealth affairs minister, and 30 people drawn from Muslim organisations such as the Muslim Council of Britain and the Islamic Society of Britain.

In what was said to be a testy meeting, representatives told Rammell the government’s position on Gaza could provoke UK terrorist attacks. One of those present was Dr Hany el-Banna, youth worker and co-founder and president of the charity Islamic Relief.

He told the Guardian: “We are all working tirelessly to try and cool them down. I am telling them to change and bring something positive, but they see these images and they trigger extremist thoughts in the simplest individuals. Many millions of people will see these images in the media, what do you think the effect will be?

“The government is responsible for the country and its foreign policy. I don’t want something to happen here.”

Another participant in the discussion, Khurshid Drabu, said there was widespread concern about radicalisation. “What we are looking for is equality of treatment when international law is breached. When a Muslim country does that the weight of the world is on them, why does Israel have such impunity?”

A perceived double standard has alarmed the Young Muslims Advisory Group (YMAG), which the government launched last October to help prevent violent extremism. The group sent a letter to Brown this week saying government failure to condemn Israeli action against Palestinians was undermining efforts to reduce homegrown radicalisation.

The letter, first published in Muslim Youth, said: “We are in grave danger of sending a message to youth today that the mass murder of civilians can be justified if the right grievances are cited. In the current climate there is a real danger young people who witness the impotence of institutions that are supposed to be protecting innocent life will turn to other organisations in an effort to make their voices heard and the violence stop.”

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



UK: Muslim Extremists Hijack Radio Station’s Website ‘Because They Hate Cliff Richard’

The shocked owner of a radio station whose website has been hijacked by Muslim extremists believes it was targeted because they played a song by Cliff Richard.

Hackers removed the station’s home page and replaced it with haunting images and a message said to be on behalf of Ahmed Al-Qahtani — a suspect in the 9/11 attacks.

Radio Basingstoke owner and DJ Astrid Haigh-Smith was horrified to find her website pictured a spooky pair of green eyes above a woman on an altar.

The message, which was written in green on a black background, called on God to bless Muslim fighters, or Moujahidines, and warned the West not to insult Islam.

But Ms Haigh-Smith, 53, says she will not allow the fanatics to intimidate her and insists she will not change the station’s playlist.

The station, whose website had 140,000 hits last month, expressed their support for British troops over Christmas and played Cliff Richard’s version of Hallelujah.

The ageing popstar is famous for being a Christian and the Leonard Cohen song was Christmas number one for X-Factor winner Alexandra Burke.

           — Hat tip: Abu Elvis [Return to headlines]



UK: Police Warn British Jews of Revenge Attacks

Prominent British Jews have been advised to review their security arrangements after several were identified on Islamist websites as “financial supporters of Israel”.

As the Gaza death toll rises, police are increasingly concerned about the possibility of “reprisal” attacks on Jewish people and buildings. One post on an Islamic discussion forum, referring to an anti-Israel demonstration this weekend, said: “We need to take some weapons with us, preferably sub-machineguns.”

More than 300 police officers were on duty outside the Israeli Embassy in London last night because of fears of clashes between rival demonstrators.

Anti-Semitic incidents have increased in recent weeks with a synagogue firebombed in northwest London and anti-Israeli graffiti appearing in many Jewish areas.

In France yesterday a 15-year-old girl was attacked by ten youths as she left her school in Villiers-le-Bel, north of Paris. Three of her alleged attackers — aged between 13 and 15 and all from her own school — were arrested on suspicion of “aggravated violence and anti-Semitic insults”.

Scotland Yard’s protection command has been in contact with Jewish community groups to consult on security arrangements. A senior police source said: “The situation in Gaza has heightened concern for the whole Jewish community — not just high-profile people, but everyone.”

Last night Jewish groups arranged a solidarity march at the Israeli Embassy in London that was due to start after an anti-Israeli protest had finished. About 2,000 people were expected to attend the pro-Israel march and Scotland Yard said that it had been liaising with both sides to prevent trouble.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]

North Africa


TV: Turkish Serials to be Banned in Egypt

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, JANUARY 5 — With Turkish Tv serials becoming widely popular in Egypt, many Islamist MPs are pushing for banning them on official Egyptian Tv, claiming that these shows are sex-inspired and immoral, Turkish dailies reported. “Banning these serials is a must because they deprave our young people and increase divorce rates in this country”, Mohssen Radi, an Islamist member of the Egyptian parliament, said. “These shows promote secular values and present sexy girls and handsome men leading a life of luxury unavailable to the majority of Egyptians”, Radi declared. Due to the immense success of the Turkish Tv serial Nour, shown in Egypt and other Arab countries, many Egyptians have named their newborn girls Nour (Light) like the heroin of the romance show. The music has also become a popular ringtone. (ANSAmed).

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Israel and the Palestinians


2nd Front? Rockets Land in Israel’s North

NAHARIYA, Israel: Residents of this northern Israeli town awoke Thursday to one of their country’s worst nightmares: Rockets from Lebanon, and a possible second front in a battle that has raged for two weeks in the Gaza Strip.

No armed group claimed responsibility for the two Katyusha rockets that landed in Israel, and quiet returned to the border after a brief retaliation by Israeli artillery. But the point had been made: Israel may be tied up in an offensive aimed at halting rocket fire from Hamas in the Gaza Strip, but millions more Israelis are vulnerable to rockets from the north.

Israel now faces threats on two of its borders not from rival states but from Arab militant groups that answer to no recognized government.

Hamas rockets threaten about 1 million Israelis out of a population of 7 million, and Israel’s military believes that the rockets in the arsenal of the Lebanese group Hezbollah can hit most of the remaining 6 million.

“We’re all a bit traumatized at the moment,” said Sarit Arieli, 44, who awoke to the sound of the rocket’s impact in Nahariya and was standing outside the nursing home it hit several hours later. But she added, “I think we’re stronger than them.”

Thursday’s rockets were fired from territory under Hezbollah’s de facto control. But Hezbollah — which ignited a devastating 2006 war that left swaths of Lebanon in ruins — has said it does not want to drag the country into another conflict. The most likely suspects are thought to be small Palestinian factions operating in south Lebanon, who are known to possess Katyusha rockets.

The Syrian-backed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, for example, had warned it might open other fronts against Israel if the Gaza offensive continues.

Its officials refused to deny or confirm they were behind the rocket attack, but spokesman Anwar Raja in Syria seemed to voice support, telling the AP it was “a natural outcome … of the Israeli aggression.”

[Return to headlines]



‘Ask Egypt to Let You Into the Gaza Strip’

While world media coverage of the fighting in Gaza is generally deemed by Israeli officials to be fair, the Foreign Ministry expressed anger on Wednesday at the media’s focus on foreign journalists’ demands to be allowed into the Strip to witness the fighting firsthand.

“News reports from Gaza haven’t stopped flowing for a minute, both in print and in visuals, so the claim that we’re trying to hide something is contradicted by the evidence on every television screen,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor.

Foreign journalists have been blocked from entering Gaza since November. The Foreign Press Association filed a complaint last week to the High Court of Justice, which ruled that the government had to allow journalists to enter if conditions permitted. Foreign journalists understood the ruling as a court order to allow them into Gaza, while the IDF has argued that the escalation of fighting in the form of a ground offensive has created a new, more dangerous situation near the border crossings that gives the army the discretion not to open them.

“Why isn’t the international media trying its luck with Egypt?” Palmor wondered. Egypt shares a border with Gaza on the Strip’s southern side. “Instead they report on the Israeli cordon and not the Egyptian one. Both countries have the same interest in the same policy — Hamas is equally dangerous to Israel, to Egypt and to the Palestinian Authority.”

(The IDF Spokesman’s Unit released a statement on Wednesday saying that the army had permitted the entry of a limited embed press pool into the Gaza Strip and would be distributing footage from this pool.)

Foreign correspondents have taken issue with Israel’s reasons for closing the Strip to them, saying the IDF was being untruthful when it claimed conditions were too dangerous to open the crossings.

“If conditions permitted opening [the crossings] for five hours last Friday to let out 300 foreign nationals, what was the problem with stamping our passports and letting us in?” asked New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner.

The reality, say many journalists, is that Israel does not trust foreign journalists to report objectively. Several journalists who spoke to The Jerusalem Post mentioned last week’s statement by Government Press Office director Danny Seaman that foreign correspondents would use their time in Gaza to report Hamas propaganda unchallenged, conferring on it the respectability of a foreign news report.

According to the correspondents, Israel’s behavior is self-defeating, because their reporting could balance the images now coming out of Gaza by reporting more information than Hamas is releasing.

“My last visit in Gaza was on November 2 and 3. I’m not saying the place is a Jeffersonian democracy, but it’s not true that foreign journalists are not free to function, that they are somehow slaves of Hamas ideology. It’s simply false,” said Bronner.

Yet, regardless of the justice of the IDF’s blockade on foreign media entry, it was not appropriate for the media to turn the issue into such a major part of its coverage of the crisis, said analyst and former Middle East correspondent for the British Sunday Telegraph Tom Gross.

Major international outlets such as the BBC, CNN and Sky News have started most reports on Gaza in recent days by stating that Israel has not given their correspondents access to Gaza, he noted.

According to Gross, “the media are protesting too much. One British TV correspondent even compared Israel to the Burmese junta. They might ask themselves why they are not complaining, for example, about the difficulties of reporting from Afghanistan, where there are tens of thousands of American, British, French and other troops, and a very high civilian death toll.”

There is more coverage just of Israel’s cordon than of entire international crises elsewhere, Gross added.

“Viewers might wonder why the media are so obsessed with everything and anything to do with Israel but don’t seem interested in covering other conflicts, like the assault by the Sri Lankan military on the Tamil minority in recent days, or the massacre of 500 villagers, including aid workers, some of whom were set on fire in Congo last week,” he said.

Journalists should expect “some limits imposed in wartime. This isn’t a reality TV show or an episode of Big Brother. In any case, this hasn’t stopped international networks showing near round-the-clock reports and footage by their local Palestinian correspondents in Gaza,” said Gross.

The closure has led to real anger on the part of the foreign media.

“If Israel is the leading democracy in the region and has a system of justice to which its military and political authorities are responsible, why on earth aren’t they allowing journalists to do their job?” asked Aidan White, secretary-general of the Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists. “It’s clear the political and military leadership is seeking to control the media message coming out of the conflict.”

According to White, “there’s strong criticism in Israel of the Arab reports coming out of Gaza, which are dismissed as propagandistic. But you only get out of that trap by ensuring as much information coming out as possible. More information will always be closer to the truth than less.”

Not so, said Prof. Richard Landes, who researches media narratives. Already, he charged, the Western media are showing they are “complying with the image [coming out of Gaza], which is governed by Hamas.”

As examples, Landes cited the reports of a humanitarian crisis in Gazan hospitals.

“The Egyptian border right now is packed with doctors and tons of medical supplies that Hamas is refusing to let in. This is mentioned briefly, but then the report switches to a Hamas representative saying they don’t have medical supplies,” he said.

According to Landes, “the framing story is that the Israeli Goliath is pummeling the poor Palestinian David. Anything that doesn’t fit this story, like the medical supplies on the Egyptian border or the shooting of Fatah [activists] by Hamas [gunmen], isn’t getting out. It’s inexcusable for the media to repeat Palestinian claims as fact.”

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Gaza: Hamas Must be Disarmed, Frattini Says

(ANSAmed) — ROME, JANUARY 7 — In order for any ceasefire to succeed in Gaza it is essential that the Islamist Hamas movement be disarmed, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told parliament today. Israel, the minister explained, “cannot accept any truce as long as Hamas continues to build its military arsenal”. Since Israel launched its operation Hamas after Christmas, in response to repeated missile attacks on Israeli border towns, “there has been a dramatic rise in the number of civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip. Unfortunately, many of these were not Hamas militants but innocent Palestinian victims,” Frattini told the MPs. According to the foreign minister, “limiting the number of civilian victims is an important challenge for Israel”. (ANSAmed).

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Gaza: WFP, 50 Thousand Have Received Aid Since Crisis Began

(ANSAmed) — ROME, JANUARY 7 — The United Nations World Food Programme has managed to supply food aid to more than 50,000 people in Gaza since the start of the hostilities “despite the persistence of unsafe conditions”. Under normal conditions, reads a note from the WFP, the UN agency “supplies food aid to 265,000 non-refugee Palestinians. A further 15,000 people have received bread whilst tinned meat and high-energy biscuits have been delivered to 13 hospitals in Gaza — enough to feed 6,000 patients and medical staff for a month”. The WFP therefore “appeals to all parties” that a “humanitarian action” which “will allow a check on the needs of the most vulnerable in Gaza can be carried out and fully restore food distribution”. In this context, the WFP considers “the Israeli announcement of a daily 3-hour ceasefire starting today as a first positive step”. To guarantee the ability of the Programme to “continue to supply food aid to Gaza over the coming weeks and months, the opening of all thoroughfares along the border as soon as possible is vital, particularly in the Karni area, so as to avoid any interruption in restocking”. Currently, the WFP in Gaza has enough food stocks for the next few days (3,700 tonnes compared to a potential capacity of 7,500 tonnes) but, “due to the dangerous conditions it has serious difficulties in the preparation and distribution of this food to the people that need it”. The food available to the Programme is located partly in Ministry of Social Affairs storerooms, currently not being used for security reasons, and partly in the WFP warehouse in Gaza, which is inaccessible due to the fighting. WFP stock in Gaza should have been used for the distribution planned in October-December 2008. However, “it was only possible to bring them to Gaza in December due to closed thoroughfares. More food stocks are needed, not only for the period from January onwards but also to satisfy the needs resulting from the current conflict, once they have been verified”. (ANSAmed).

2009-01-07 18:06

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



IDF Discovers Hamas Booby-Trap Map

A map depicting Hamas’ best-laid plans on how to hurt IDF soldiers in Gaza was discovered by paratroopers in al-Atatra neighborhood Thursday. The map was translated on the scene and helped the troops in subsequent operations.

Chief IDF Intelligence Officer Brigadier-General Yuval Halamish explained that Hamas had divided the neighborhood into a number of areas distinguished by landmarks such as mosques, gas stations, and fuel depots.

“You can see that the neighborhood was divided into three areas of fighting, according to color, and inside the terrorists spread out a number of posts, planted explosive devices, and posted sharpshooters,” he said.

“Hamas makes cynical use of civilian homes, the entrances of which were booby-trapped in order to hurt IDF soldiers.” Explosive devices were also planted near gas stations despite the immediate danger to civilians, Halamish added. He said the layout had been thoroughly planned in preparation for a ground operation.

The map consists of precise drawings of all homes in the neighborhood as well as a color-coded key drawn in the top left-hand corner, which describes the type of explosive device planted at each site. Sharpshooters’ stations were also marked.

Halamish also described Hamas’ use of dolls in order to attract the attention of soldiers, and presented a picture of a doll placed at the entrance to a home. He said the doll was intended to draw soldiers to it so that an attack could be executed, following which the terrorists could kidnap their victims.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Israel Shakes Up Information War

Israel is shaking up the information war, signaling the end of legacy media’s influence. The big Internet story this week is Israel’s magnificent end run around the mainstream media. The IDF’s new weapons of war: YouTube and Twitter. According to the head of the IDF’s press team: “The blogosphere and new media are another war zone, we have to be relevant there.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]



Mideast: Mahmoud Abbas’ Mandate, PNA Uncertain

(ANSAmed) — GAZA/TEL AVIV, JANUARY 8 — Starting tomorrow the Palestinian National Authority will enter into an acute phase of institutional uncertainty with the end of Mahmoud Abbas’ (Abu Mazen) fourth year as president. The leader’s entourage is showing signs of security. “The conditions”, said Premier Salam Fayad today, “do not exist in order to vacate the presidency”. Furthermore, he added, electoral law, “ clearly establishes that presidential and legislative elections must be simultaneous”, and therefore in January 2010. This analysis has been passionately rejected for months by Hamas according to whom, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) does not have the right to serve as president for a fifth year. “January 9”, stated Osama Hamdan from Beirut, a Hamas leader, “will be the final day of the presidency of Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen)”. According to Hamas, starting tomorrow, Abu Mazen must be substituted by the President of the Palestinian Legislative Council Abdel Aziz Dweik, who has been in prison in Israel for the past two years and is in poor physical condition. From Madrid, where he met with Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) confirmed that he was ready to call legislative and presidential elections. “We are ready, according to the Constitution to call, as we have on several occasions in the past, legislative and presidential elections”, he said in a joint press conference with Zapatero at Moncloa Palace. Internally in Hamas there seem to be varying positions. A spokesperson of the Premier of the Hamas government, Ismail Haniyeh, Taher a-Nunu, stated today from Gaza that “for the moment, the main priority remains to face Israeli assaults and search for national Palestinian unity”. “This is not the right moment to question the legitimacy of Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen)”, stated Hamas leaders in Gaza. Mahmoud Abbas’ authority remains to be an evident problem for Hamas. His truce initiatives, negotiated with Egypt, were decidedly rejected by Hamas leaders who do not feel obligated to obey them. In particular, Hamas rejected the plan to hand over the Rafah zone, the crossing point between Egypt and Gaza to the Pna, or Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). (ANSAmed)

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Report: Hamas Stealing Aid Supplies to Sell to Residents

Grim picture of Gazans’ lives painted by reports emerging from Strip, claiming gunmen hiding in civilian homes, using residents as human shields, and hijacking trucks of humanitarian aid

A government or a gang? As the Israeli operation in Gaza wears on it appears Hamas has relinquished any visage of a socio-political party, abandoning its claim to govern the residents of Gaza in favor of engaging in open war at their expense.

A number of reports from the Strip paint a picture of very difficult humanitarian conditions, not least because of Hamas itself. The suspicion is that the group’s operatives have seized control of any supplies passing through the crossings — including those sent by Israel and international organizations.

Reports say Hamas takes a cut out of all aid that arrives, including flour and medicine. Supplies intended to be distributed without gain among the population is seized by the group and sold to the residents, at a profit to the Hamas government.

One such incident was recorded Monday, when a convoy of trucks carrying supplies through the Kerem Shalom crossing was opened fire upon and seized by Hamas gunmen. Similar incidents occurred with trucks carrying fuel.

In other cases, civilians are simply used as cannon fodder or human shields. Reports out of Gaza say residents who attempted to flee their homes in the northern area of the Strip were forced to go back at gunpoint, by Hamas men.

The organization is presumably interested in increasing civilian casualties in order to give rise to international pressure against Israel. Arab media reported that in an IDF strike on a UN school 30 civilians were killed, but there is no legitimate way to prove gunmen were among those killed as Hamas tends to bury these bodies quickly, thus eliminating evidence in Israel’s favor.

Other civilian complaints state that Hamas gunmen pull children along with them “by the ears” from place to place, fearing that if they don’t have a child with them they will be fair game to the IDF. Others hide in civilian homes and stairwells, UNRWA ambulances, and mosques.

In other reported cases Hamas gunmen hold civilians hostage in alleyways in order to provide themselves with a living barricade to ward off IDF forces. Reports somewhat more difficult to verify say the group’s men shot Fatah operatives in the feet to make sure the latter would not attempt a coup.

No one to turn to

These reports lead to the assumption that Hamas is attempting to exacerbate the atmosphere of a humanitarian crisis in the Strip, as this may promote an international ceasefire initiative. In any case the reports clearly show that the residents of Gaza have fallen prey to Hamas as well as the IDF.

Reports of alarming shortages are also forthcoming, as residents appear to lack water, flour, electricity, and any sign of a capable government. Chaos reigns as no one appears to know when electricity will be available, how to obtain water or food, or whom to address in order to evacuate the injured.

The “emergency numbers” given to residents have ceased to function, and citizens in need of assistance have only international organizations, the Red Crescent, and the hospitals themselves to turn to.

The Hamas leaders, aside from two addresses, have not been heard from. Their speeches were broadcast a number of times, but in any case many in the Strip can no longer access televisions, radios, or internet without electricity.

Despite this, no authoritative anti-Hamas sentiments have been heard from the Gazans. However Palestinian sources claim that grievances against the group are voiced in secret. The animosity towards Israel has not disappeared, say the sources, but it is now accompanied by bitterness towards the organization many are dubbing Iranian in its extremism.

           — Hat tip: AA [Return to headlines]

Middle East


Economy: Turkey Increases Import Duties on Steel Products

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, JANUARY 5 — In a sign of creeping protectionism, Turkey has recently announced that it has increased import duties on a number of steel products by as much as 8%, daily Today’s Zaman reported, quoting the Steel Business Briefing (Sbb) website. The move comes as steel consumption levels and prices around the world slump as a result of floundering construction and growth rates. The duty on hot-rolled coil (HRC), a semi-finished steel product that can be refined into a vast number of products for construction, has risen from 5% to 13%, while cold-rolled coil was said to have risen from 6 to 14%. SBB was reported as saying that HRC import duty for re-rollers is 5%, up from the previous 3%. Many are likely to point to such a decision on the part of the Turkish government as an attempt to protect domestic producers as well as a number of regional countries that have signed free trade agreements with Turkey such as Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. Turkey is presently ranked the 11th largest steel producer in the world and imports approximately 7 million tons of strip products annually. Russia and Ukraine are amongst the largest suppliers of scrap and semi-finished products. (ANSAmed).

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Energy: BTC Pipeline Carries 70 Mln Tonnes of Caspian Oil

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, JANUARY 7 — Nearly 70 million tonnes of crude oil has been transported via Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) Pipeline from June 2006 till the end of 2008, officials from BOTAS International Limited (BIL), operator of BTC’s Turkey section, said. According to Anatolia news agency the BTC Pipeline project, which is described as the “energy project of the century”, successfully carried the Caspian oil to the world markets through Turkey and nearly 70 million tonnes of crude oil has been transported with 650 tankers from the Haydar Aliyev Sea Terminal to Ceyhan town of Turkey’s southern Adana province since 2 June 2006. “We showed the world that a Turkish company can carry out such an important project at world standards. We have improved Turkey’s prestige in the world energy markets”, Salih Pasaoglu, BIL’s Director General, said. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline is a crude oil pipeline that covers 1,768 kilometres from the Azeri-Chirag-Gunesli oil field in the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. It connects Baku to Tbilisi and then Ceyhan, a port on the southern Mediterranean coast of Turkey. BTC is the second longest oil pipeline in the world after the Druzhba pipeline. (ANSAmed).

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Gaza: First Lady Summit, Zapatero’s Wife Declines Invitation

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, JANUARY 8 — Sonsoles Espinosa, Spanish Premier José Luis Rodriguez Zapateròs wife, has declined an invitation to participate in a summit of first ladies on Saturday in Istanbul, called by Emine Erdogan, wife of current Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayip Erdogan in order to make an appeal for peace in Gaza and to denounce the dramatic humanitarian situation in which 1.4 million Palestinians live. Zapatero with Erdogan “ introduced an Alliance of Civilizations initiative, but his wife”, wrote El Pais, “does not seem to be willing to follow in his footsteps”. Sonsoles Espinosa has declined the invitation because she had made prior commitments outside of Spain, assured diplomatic sources cited by the newspaper. Between Christmas and New Year’s, the Spanish “primera dama” was with the Capilla Real of Madrid at the Donnaregina Nuova Church in Naples for a series of baroque music concerts. Among those invited by Ermine Erdogan to Saturday’s meeting are the first ladies of Muslim majority countries like Queen Rania (Jordan); Princess Lalla Salma (Morocco); Sheikha Mozah (Qatar); Liri Berisha (Albania); Mihriban Aliyeva (Azerbayan), Sheikha Sabika Bint Inrahim al Khalifa (Bahrein), but also Carla Bruni, wife of French President, Nicolas Sarkozy. (ANSAmed)

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Turkey: 40 Arrested Over Ergenekon Coup Plan

(ANSAmed) — ISTANBUL, JANUARY 7 — Turkish police have arrested about 40 people, including retired generals, as part of an enquiry into a plan by the extreme right-wing underground lay group Ergenekon to overthrow the pro-Europe government of the moderate AKP party, led by Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan. The operation, according to the Anadolu news agency, was launched in six Turkish provinces, including Ankara and Istanbul. Apart from retired generals Kemal Yavuz, Erdal Senel and Tuncer Kilinc, the latter the former President of the National Security Council, among those arrested today are also a former police chief and Kemal Guruz, former president of the high commission for education, a strictly secular body which controls the universities. Some 86 people are already on trial over the Ergenekon case, including former military, judges, police, accused of trying to destabilise the country in various degrees with a precise strategy of tension, with unauthorised anti-Government demonstrations, political assassinations and attacks on the forces of law and order. The aim, according to the accusations, was to hit the Government of the Islam-based Justice and Development party (AKP), in power since 2002, and to force military intervention to defend the secular nature of the State. In the AKP Government the most secular political wing sees a dangerous drift toward religion by the State, a deviation from the secular constitutional principles established by the founder of modern Turkey, “Ataturk” Mustafà Kemal, which the military traditionally safeguard. (ANSAmed).

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Russia


Bosnia Faces Collapse Without Gas

Severed gas supplies threaten Bosnia with humanitarian and economic disaster as two smelters have closed down production and some 100,000 households have been left without heating and hot water in subzero temperatures.

Some heating companies were able to transfer to other heating sources such as heating oil, but supplies will last for 5 days and fuel distributors are scampering to purchase new amounts. Power companies have urged citizens to limit the use of electricity for heating and cooking in order to avoid power cuts and collapse of the entire power grid.

“We are unprepared for any crisis which we cannot influence,” said Rubina Cengic, columnist in Nezavisne Novine daily on Thursday, lamenting the fact that Bosnia had no alternative sources of gas, or any gas stockpiles. She added that it is an irony that it was this crisis that proved Bosnia to be a part of Europe. “We have been left without the gas like the rest of the EU.”

The gas supply to Bosnia was cut off entirely on Tuesday due to the Russia-Ukraine dispute that has affected gas flows to most of Europe. Bosnians on Thursday scrambled to find substitutes for heating and cooking in the middle of a cold snap around the country.

In the first 24 hours alone, people in the capital Sarajevo — which lies in the middle of the snow-capped Dinaric Alps — bought off all the stockpiles of electric heaters in the city’s shops.

Some travelled as far as to the town of Mostar in the south to buy heaters. Those who were too late had to resort to buying wood stoves and wood supplies.

Severed gas supplies on Tuesday afternoon forced Birac alumina smelter in the eastern town of Zvornik and ArcelorMittal smelter in Zenica to almost completely shut down production. Company officials said the haphazard shutdown could have devastating effects for the firms.

“Dramatic situation in the Birac factory,” was a headline in Sarajevo daily Dnevni Avaz on Thursday.

The population in Zvornik and Zenica depend almost solely on the two smelters for heating. Together with the Bosnian capital, in these three cities some 100,000 households or an estimated 300,000 people have been left without heating and hot water.

This has also affected many premises such as kindergartens, schools, hospitals, businesses and others, which depended on gas for heating or production. Local authorities said they will have to close most of them down unless gas supplies are reopened as soon as possible.

Meteorologists forecast a further drop in temperatures, expected to fall to -13 Celsius in the capital on Thursday night.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Drugs Seen Killing 80,000 Russians Annually

[Comment from Tuan Jim: The original article I read said more Russians die annually from heroin than in the Afghan war]

MOSCOW (Reuters) — Drug addiction kills 80,000 Russians each year, a senior Russian anti-drugs official was quoted as saying on Friday, while a human rights watchdog issued a report warning Russia’s drug treatment strategy needed reform.

About 70,000 Russians die annually from diseases linked to drug addiction, and another 10,000 are killed by overdoses, said Alexander Yanevsky, a department chief at the Drugs Control Service.

“Russia is situated in a drugs belt. There is heroin in the south, synthetic drugs coming in from the West and rising internal production of drugs,” Yanevsky said at a conference on drug control, reported RIA Novosti news agency.

New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) hit out at Russia’s failure to modernise or incorporate the best international practises in its addict treatment schemes and said the failures put drug users at increased risk of catching diseases.

“Patients in detoxification treatment are heavily sedated, making counselling efforts difficult or even pointless,” HRW said in a statement.

Detoxification centres are widespread, but since they don’t combine with rehabilitation programmes, their effectiveness is “negligible”, the report said.

Russian law also bans the opiate substitute methadone from being prescribed to heroin users, despite its successful use in many countries, HRW said.

“The lack of effective drug addiction treatment in Russia means that drug users who want to break their addiction cannot, and are condemned to a life of continued drug use,” said Diederik Lohman, from HRW’s HIV/AIDS programme.

“This leaves them vulnerable to HIV infection, other drug-related health conditions, and death by overdose.”

Last month the United Nations urged Russia and ex-Soviet Central Asia to stem drug trafficking from Afghanistan to Europe, saying the proceeds from a record opium crop were funding global terrorism.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



EU Announces Breakthrough in Russia-Ukraine Gas Dispute

[Comment from Tuan Jim: This is the most recent of my gas stories — the original link actually led to a story saying that there had been no agreements on monitors. Any other gas stories on this message are from earlier in the day.]

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin agreed Thursday on the terms for the deployment of gas monitors in Ukraine, paving the way for an end to a Europe-wide energy crisis, the EU presidency said.

In a surprising turnaround hours after EU-sponsored talks in Brussels broke down over the monitor issue, the EU presidency in Prague said Putin and his Czech counterpart Mirek Topolanek had achieved the long-awaited breakthrough.

Topolanek and Putin agreed during a telephone conversation “on the conditions of deployment of the monitoring commission at all locations that are relevant for the flow of gas,” the presidency statement said.

“This deployment should lead to the Russian supplies of gas to EU member states being restored,” it said, adding that details of the mission would be finalised Friday when EU monitors travel to Ukraine.

Topolanek had consulted German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the negotiations, the EU presidency said.

Earlier Thursday Putin said Moscow backed a proposal launched by Merkel to send EU experts to monitor flows of Russian gas through Ukraine, saying he thought “it should be done as quickly as possible.”

Despite the announcement of the deal, there was no immediate confirmation from either Moscow or Kiev and it remained unclear when Russia would resume energy supplies, which it cut on Monday because of a price dispute.

The knock-on effect of supply cuts to much of eastern Europe mean thousands of people have been left without gas at a time when many are facing temperatures below the freezing point.

The announcement of the deal with Putin was all the more surprising given the acrimonious remarks by both sides following the break down of talks in Brussels.

Czech Industry Minister Martin Riman told reporters in the Belgian capital earlier that Russian energy monopoly Gazprom had refused a proposal for independent monitors to check the flow of Russian gas through Ukraine.

“We are disappointed by Russia’s position because we believe that the Russian side has no reason to refuse this proposal and not to allow the resumption of supplies into Ukraine and European countries,” he said.

EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs also said Moscow had refused to sign a deal to restore supplies to around a dozen EU nations at least in part because it wanted its own observers stationed in Ukraine.

But the head of Gazprom pointed the finger at Kiev, saying it “ruined the signing of such a document” on the sending of a group of independent observers to monitor gas flows.

“We had the opportunity today to resume gas supplies (to Europe via Ukraine) but this has not happened today,” Alexei Miller said, according to Russian news agencies.

Russia is the world’s biggest natural gas producer and provides about one-quarter of the gas used in the European Union, or about 40 percent of the gas the bloc imports. About 80 percent of those imports pass though Ukraine.

Ukraine agreed to the monitors on Thursday and 10 to 12, drawn from the European gas industry and the European Commission, are due on the ground as early as Friday.

The monitors are to be tasked with checking how much gas is being piped from Russia to Ukraine, which is the main transit route for Russian gas to Europe.

Russia, which cut supplies for Ukraine’s domestic market on January 1 due to a payments dispute, has accused Ukraine of stealing gas intended for Europe.

While he conceded the crisis had hurt Russia’s image as a reliable gas supplier, Putin has insisted Moscow is not to blame and lashed out at Western media who he accused of taking Kiev’s side.

“Of course this is creating problems for us. But, forgive me for saying so, but I have not seen an objective evaluation of the situation.

“Foreign media, Western media are painting a completely unobjective picture of ‘Russia Shuts Gas to Europe’,” he said earlier Thursday at his residence outside Moscow.

With EU countries suffering gas cuts, the bloc’s leaders are growing increasingly impatient to see Moscow and Kiev resume the flow of gas critical for heating homes, schools and factories in bitter winter weather.

In Bulgaria the government begun rationing gas supplies to industries and temperatures in buildings plummeted. Seventy-five schools across the country closed until Friday for lack of adequate heating.

Serbia has switched 90 percent of its heating plants to crude oil after Russian gas deliveries were completely halted at midnight on Tuesday.

While in the snow-blanketed Bosnian capital Sarajevo, about 72,000 households remained without heating for a third day due to a total halt in Russian gas supplies.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Gas Totters Towards Bulgaria

Russia and Ukraine bowed to pressure from the European Commission and hammered out a partial ceasefire on the gas war paving the way for a quick restart of shipments to Europe.

If deliveries resume on January 9 2009, gas will reach Bulgaria on the evening of January 11 as filling up Ukrainian pipes will take 36 hours and a further six to 12 hours for it to get to the Bulgargaz network from the Ukrainian-Romanian border.

Naftogaz head Oleh Dubyna promised MEP Vladko Panayotov of Bulgaria’s predominantly ethnic Turkish party the Movement for Rights and Freedoms that the Orlovka gas compression station, which pumps gas to the Balkans, will be the first to reopen, Bulgarian news outfit Mediapool reported.

Tensions between Moscow and Kiev eased after both countries agreed to accept international monitors to keep an eye on the gas being pumped to Europe.

Negotiations between the two countries will continue, though, to work out a new agreement on Ukrainian supplies.

As an extra precaution against future gas supply disruptions, an international committee of independent EU experts and Brussels, Moscow and Kiev representatives will be set up to monitor the transfer of Russian gas via Ukraine to Europe.

Meantime, things got worse in Bulgaria where gas fed to industrial consumers was three quarters less. Bulgartransgaz cut off 72 businesses and lowered supplies to 153 other industrial customers, said Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev, adding that firms’ daily losses have spiraled off to 8.3 million leva.

However, experts said companies injured by the gas crisis had hardly any legal tools to demand compensation from state-run gas company Bulgargaz.

On the other hand, Evgenii Ivanov, executive director of the Confederation of Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria, said that big industrial gas users could seek damages if supplies are cut even for half a day.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Gas: Croatia E Slovenia Cut Off, Stocks Sufficient for Now

(ANSAmed) — ZAGREB, JANUARY 7 — Russian gas supply to Croatia and Slovenia stopped at midnight. The two countries depend for around 50% from Russian import of natural gas, mainly for heating. “Russia has left Europe without gas, I have no words for it”, said one of the leaders of Plinacro, the biggest gas distributor of Croatia. The company and the government have calmed the population explaining that regular supply to houses, schools and hospitals will not be compromised thanks to the presence of sufficient stocks, at least for some weeks. People have been asked to save on gas though. “If necessary the biggest industrial consumers will be taken off-line, while State company Hep which supplies hot water to centralised heating systems con switch to the use of oil”. Croatia can cover 60% of its own needs from its own resources, for the rest it depends entirely on Russian import. A similar situation in Slovenia, where national distributor Geoplin estimates that “the blockade will last at least 24 hours” according to information supplied by Gazprom. Sloveniàs reserves are enough for one and a half month of normal consumption, also at low temperatures, and part of the country’s requirement is imported from Algeria. (ANSAmed).

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

South Asia


Attack on Gaza: OIC Should Form Peacekeeping Force, Says Zahid

KUALA LUMPUR: The Organisation of the Islamic Conference may need to think about forming its own peacekeeping force in the wake of the conflict in the Gaza Strip.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said he had received requests to the effect from Muslim non-governmental organisations which felt the United Nations was unable to protect Muslims.

“I will take the matter before the cabinet on Wednesday. I will also talk to Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim about it as he attends OIC meetings,” he said after launching an Ade Nasution centre.

The centre is being used by Parti Amanat Nasional candidate Ade Daud Iswandi Nasution of Indonesia to garner votes among Indonesian workers here for the general election in Indonesia on April 9.

There are 950,000 registered Indonesian voters in Malaysia, equal to the number of voters in central Jakarta. Indonesians here can check their eligibility to vote by going online at the centre at Baazar UO in Jalan Chow Kit here.

Zahid agreed with former pri-me minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s suggestion to boycott goods from the United States, which supports Israel.

“In my opinion, the OIC should not be influenced by the US. Not all OIC nations will be favourable to a boycott of American goods but if we have the majority, then why not do it?”

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Indonesia: PKS Warns Election Board After Party’s Gaza Rally Called a Violation

Calling last week’s large demonstration in Central Jakarta by the Prosperous Justice Party, or PKS, against the Israeli offensive in Gaza a violation of election law, the Elections Supervisory Board said they would report the Islamic party to the police — a move the party says it won’t take lying down, warning the board to “be careful.”

The board, known as Bawaslu, said on Wednesday that the demonstration breached Election Law No.10/2008, which states that election campaigning can only be conducted during a 21-day period that ends three days before the legislative elections on April 9. “We will report the party to the National Police for breaking the law,” said Wirdyaningsih, a Bawaslu board member.

Adding to the party’s potential woes, the General Elections Supervisory Committee, or Panwaslu, said on Wednesday that it was also considering reporting the party to Jakarta Police.

Ramdansyah, the head of the committee, said it was meeting on Wednesday night to determine whether or not it would lodge a complaint with the city’s police today.

“However, it is highly likely the committee will report the case to police as it believes that the early campaigning is a violation of the law.”

The PKS have been criticized by a number of analysts for using the demonstration, which attracted as many as 10,000 protesters, for political purposes. Members of the party sported clothing branded with party slogans and a number carried signs advertising the party and the number eight, the party’s official number for the upcoming elections.

PKS chairman Tifatul Sembiring said on Wednesday that Bawaslu had failed to see the bigger picture.

“It has nothing to do with our campaign; it is a demonstration against Israeli Zionism that has violated human rights. We did not promote our party — we want to stop the Israeli attack.”

Tifatul said Bawaslu was exaggerating its claims that the demonstration was a campaign. “Peace is a universal issue, not the party’s issue. Bawaslu has to be careful. If it decides to go forward with its complaint, who knows? Maybe there could be a demonstration against Bawaslu.”

Wirdyaningsih said that there were clear campaigning elements contained in the demonstration.

“The PKS is a political party that will be contesting this year’s legislative elections. A number of people wore the party’s uniform. And when the head of the party gave a speech, it contained the party’s vision and mission.”

Jeirry Sumampow, the national coordinator for the People’s Voter Education Network, agreed that the PKS had violated the law. “It is clearly campaigning … The party’s logo was everywhere.” Jeirry said that sanctions for this kind of breach of the law was clear. “The party’s Jakarta branch could be disqualified from the election.”

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Indonesia: Surabaya Activists Block Synagogue, Burn Israeli Flags

Surabaya. At least 100 activists from Muslim organizations in East Java Province blockaded a synagogue and burned Jewish symbols in Surabaya on Wednesday to demonstrate support for Palestinians.

The protesters, led by Abdusshomad Buchori, the East Java head of the Indonesian Council of Ulema, or MUI, marched through central Surabya from Jalan Gubernur to Jalan Kayun where they tried to enter the Jewish assembly building.

The protestors burned Israeli flags and shouted slogans supporting Palestinians. They also raised a Palestinian flag in front of the building.

At least 10 demonstrators entered the property but were forced back by police before they were able to cause any damage.

The protesters then blockaded the gate to the building, which was established in the 1930s. Surabaya has been home to a small community of Jewish Indonesians who emigrated several generations ago.

About 200 police stood guard in front of the synagogue.

Rally participants demanded the Indonesian government take action over the Israeli attacks on Gaza and condemn Israel for causing the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians. The rally started at 10 p.m., but broke up after about 90 minutes.

State-run Antara news agency reported on Wednesday that hundreds of students staged a march in Serang, Banten Province, to protest against Israel’s offensive.

Protestors from organizations such as Al-Irsyad and hardline Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia took part.

They also staged a street performance depicting violent attacks by Israelis on Palestinians. “We demand the Indonesian government give significant help to Palestine, like deploying a peace force, in addition to sending food and medical supplies,” said Muhtar Anam, a field coordinator for the group.

The protestors also condemned US support of Israel and urged Muslims to express discontent by boycotting American products. “It’s not only a religion-related war, but also a humanitarian problem that should be everyone’s concern,” Muhtar said.

Antara also reported that at least 200 activists of the group Among Muslim Corps, or Kaum, protested in Bandung, urging the government to quit the UN because they believed it had become ineffective in its efforts to promote world peace.

“Whatever Israel and the US do, there’s nothing the UN can do, they only maintain peace after the chaos caused by the two countries is over,” said KAUM coordinator Suryana Nurfatwa.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Indonesian Protesters Storm KFC Over Israeli Raids

PALU, Indonesia (AFP) — Angry Indonesian demonstrators stormed a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant Thursday in protest against Israel’s military strikes on the Gaza Strip.

About 300 protesters gathered outside the US fast food outlet in Palu, Central Sulawesi, waving Palestinian flags, burning US and Israeli emblems and carrying banners condemning Israel as a “terrorist and criminal” state.

A handful of demonstrators then stormed the restaurant, overturning tables and chairs.

“KFC’s licence is from America, an important Israeli ally. In consuming US products it means that we give financial contributions to Israel’s military strikes on the Palestinian people,” protest coordinator Maful Haruna said.

The restaurant, which was closed following the protest, was set to reopen on Friday, management said.

In the Central Java city of Semarang, a small crowd of demonstrating students were foiled by police after they tried to go on a “sweeping” raid to round up Western nationals, local media reported.

A heavy police presence blocked the gates of the city’s Ciputra Hotel as student speakers called for a boycott of “Jewish” products, news website Kompas.com said.

Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, is a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause and does not recognise Israel.

The Israeli offensive against Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which began on December 27, has so far killed 702 Palestinians and wounded 3,100, Gaza medics say.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Malaysia: Abdullah’s Anti-Israel Posturing

It’s not surprising that Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has called on the United Nations to convene an emergency meeting of the general assembly to discuss Israel’s so-called invasion of the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip…

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Malaysia: Students in Mass Movement Against Israeli Atrocities

PUTRAJAYA, Jan 8 (Bernama) — School students nationwide will be galvanised into a mass movement aimed at instilling hatred against Israeli atrocities on Palestinians, said Education Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein.

Hishammuddin said the mass movement would involve those in the teaching profession and education ministry staff.

“Through the mass movement, the students will be exposed and reminded that the peace, justice and comfortable living environment can be easily robbed by people with greed,” he told reporters after presenting the ministry’s new year address here today.

The movement to be launched soon would involve all quarters including non-governmental organisations (NGO) and ministries to make the voice of young Malaysians heard globally.

Hishammuddin said the mass movement was approved at the Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi yesterday.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]

Far East


Japan: Government to Bring Antipiracy Bill Before Diet

The government plans to submit to the current Diet session a bill to provide a legal basis for missions to fight piracy, with attacks by pirates off Somalia increasing, sources said Tuesday.

According to the sources, the bill stipulates that piracy is a crime, a reference that is not included in existing Japanese law. Under the envisaged new law, the Japan Coast Guard and the Maritime Self-Defense Force will be authorized to participate in antipiracy missions. The law will allow JCG and MSDF vessels to escort not only Japanese-registered ships but also foreign ships, as well as empowering them to fire on pirate vessels in the course of carrying out their missions.

The government plans to work out the details with the Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner, New Komeito, with the intention of submitting the bill to the ordinary Diet session by March and having it passed during the session, according to the sources.

Until the new antipiracy law is enacted, the government is eyeing the dispatch of MSDF vessels to waters off Somalia in accordance with the SDF Law as a stopgap measure, they said.

The law is expected to consist of about six articles. In line with the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, it will define piracy as “any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed for private ends” by a private ship or a private aircraft.

Under the law, the JCG and the MSDF will be allowed to take part in antipiracy operations. The operations will be carried out principally by the JCG. But depending on how well armed the pirates in question are, the law will call for the dispatch of MSDF vessels when the operational requirements exceed the capacity of the JCG, the sources said.

Only acts of piracy that occur on the high seas, over which no state has jurisdiction, will be targeted by Japan’s antipiracy missions.

Unlike conventional Japanese policing action on the seas, under the envisaged law JCG and MSDF vessels will be allowed to escort foreign ships to prevent their missions from interfering with other countries’ antipiracy operations.

The law also will call for a crackdown on any act of “inciting or intentionally facilitating” an act of piracy. This is aimed at reinforcing antipiracy operations by authorizing the arrest of the captain and all other crew members of a pirate ship.

Meanwhile, the government does not intend to include any provision that would seek Diet approval for the dispatch of MSDF vessels on antipiracy missions, the sources said. It also plans to discuss the use of weapons in antipiracy missions and work out the details with the ruling parties.

Under current Japanese law, the use of force in seaborne policing activities is governed by the same principles that govern the use of force by police officers in the line of duty. This means JCG and MSDF members are not allowed to inflict physical harm on perpetrators except in self-defense or in the course of an emergency evacuation. But the new law will ease the restrictions on the use of arms, enabling them to fire on pirate ships during operations.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Korea: Plan to Close Arab Culture Center Backfires

Incheon local government’s decision to shut down an Arab cultural center has drawn a backlash from Arabian ambassadors in South Korea, according to government sources and lawmakers here Sunday.

If the situations remains unresolved, the issue is expected to damage the Lee Myung-bak administration’s push to establish closer ties with Arab and other nations rich in energy resources, they said.

Ambassadors from Arab states are criticizing the government for taking advantage of construction of the center to woo support from Arab states in its bid to host the Asian Games in 2014 and subsequently changing its position after winning the bid, they said. Incheon won the right to host the Games.

South Korea is the world’s fifth biggest oil importer, with annual purchases reaching around 900 million barrels, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

The Arab nations also make up 12 percent of Seoul’s total trade, ranking them fourth. Sixty-three percent of South Korea’s plant and construction orders are from the Middle East.

A group of ambassadors from Arab states held meetings last Thursday with a vice foreign minister and Incheon Mayor Ahn Sang-soo to protest the shutdown plan, the sources said.

During the meetings, the group led by ambassadors from Saudi Arabia and Oman argued that the closure would not only seriously tarnish South Korea’s image in the Arab world but also deal a blow to Seoul’s economic cooperation with Arab states, they added.

“Arab ambassadors expressed their strong discontent about the decision. They seemed to feel it was an insult to the whole Arab world,” Rep. Song Young-ghil of the main opposition Democratic Party, who attended a ceremony in Seoul to mark the National Day of the United Arab Emirates last Monday. “I’m very worried that this issue could escalate into a diplomatic dispute and even compromise our national interests.”

In an e-mail sent to Song Wednesday, Saudi Arabian Ambassador Abdullah A. Al-Aifan said any shutdown of a pure Arab culture center was tantamount to giving in to extremists opposing Muslim culture, the lawmaker said.

The ambassador pledged to take the issue to the Arab world unless the plan is reversed, he added.

Incheon officials had said the city would modify the center to one for various cultures, not just for Arabian culture.

But some Arab envoys claim the shutdown was decided following complaints by some local Christian groups that the center was serving as a tool to expand the religion of Islam here.

In June, South Korea and 22 Arab nations launched the Korea-Arab Society aimed at enhancing public understanding of Islamic culture and foster human networks. The society also aims to explore joint business and investment opportunities in South Korea and the Middle East.

The Arab world refers to 22 states in North Africa and the Middle East, which are home to 325 million people who speak Arabic and mostly practice Islam.

Currently, 13 Arab states have embassies in South Korea.

The 22 Arab member states of the society possess about 55 percent of the world’s oil reserves and some 30 percent of liquefied natural gas reserves, according to the foreign ministry. They account for 71 percent of Seoul’s crude oil imports and 48 percent of its natural gas imports, it said.

Sixty-three percent of South Korea’s plant and construction orders are from the Middle East.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Muslim Separatists Burn Christian Homes in Philippines

Muslim separatists have torched the houses of 30 Christian families in an attack on a southern Philippines village.

The military says rebels from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front are still occupying the farming hamlet of Sangay after raiding it on Wednesday.

Military spokesman Julieto Ando says there were no casualties and said the raid related to a land conflict.

The government suspended peace talks with the MILF last year after the rebels attacked Christian villages across the island of Mindanao.

The rebels were protesting the Supreme Court’s decision to block a proposed peace settlement that would have given them control over large tracts of land in Mindanao.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Philippines: No Peace Process Possible in Gaza

SOMETHING about the Gaza Strip situation should scare us Filipinos. It’s not the risks our OFWs in Palestine and Israel are exposed to. I mean the possibility that the Mindanao situation could end up being like the Israel-Palestine disaster.

I happen to agree with the very few analysts who don’t see the Israel-Palestine situation as a “disrupted” or “broken” peace process. Quite the opposite, every time there is a peaceful interregnum it is the “war process” that is broken or disrupted.

As Anne Applebaum has written:

“For the trouble with all of these peace efforts, peace conferences, peace initiatives and peace proposals is that none of them recognizes the most obvious fact about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: It’s not a peace process; it’s a war. At the moment, at least, both parties are still convinced that their central aims will be better obtained through weapons and military tactics than through negotiations of any kind. To be more explicit, Hamas and its followers believe that the continuing firing of rockets into southern Israel will, sooner or later, result in the dissolution of the Jewish state. The Israelis-both on the “peacenik” left and the more bellicose right-believe that the only way to prevent Hamas from firing rockets is to fight back. Intervention-whether by well-meaning Europeans, U.N. delegations, Russian envoys [or even Condoleezza Rice, who has wisely stayed home, so far]-can postpone the conflict but cannot halt the violence, at least not until one side or the other surrenders.”

So, I find the solemn calls from world leaders for a ceasefire nothing more than obligatory noises that they must make.

I share the pain and love for humanity of the diplomats, columnists and commentators who, in their hearts of hearts, write about the need for peace to reign in the Middle East. This peace, first of all means peace between Hamas and other militantly anti-Israel groups on one side and the heirs of Yashir Arafat (namely Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his companions) and the Israelis on the other side. You can even include on the Israel side the “mainstream” Arab countries.

Who the two sides in this Gaza Strip war has been blurred by the need for all Muslim leaders to make ministerial noises condemning Israel and protesting the deaths of Palestinians civilians in Gaza.

I am afraid that peace can only come when one side has won over the other.

For the Hamas Palestinians and their supporters, as well as the other Hamas-like militantly anti-Israel organizations and armies, will not rest until its goal of making Israel disappear as a state is achieved. Hamas and its brethren mean it when they say they want the annihilation of Israel.

Hamas does not care for the diplomatic posture of the rulers (and perhaps the majority of the peoples) of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Kuwait and the Emirates. These Arab countries have assimilated the United Nations’ doctrines. They want them to become a reality in the Middle East.

That is why they supported the now disintegrated Road Map to Peace in the Middle East and President Bush’s Annapolis Initiative. The “mainstream” Arab countries are willing to see a Middle East flourish with Israel as another state that is a major partner in making that region and its people more prosperous.

Hamas and its brethren, just like Iran (which the “mainstream” Arab states’ rulers fear), will be happier if Israel disappears.

The Israelis-except those whose thinking has come to accept the United Nations’ formulations as reality-know that malevolent design of Hamas. That is why the leaders of Israel decided on going after Hamas with full military might. They know the they must destroy Hamas and its brethren. For Hamas will not rest until Israel is destroyed.

An Israeli commentator said it right about the offensive in the Gaza Strip: They have to kill Hamas which has been killing Israel eight, 10, 12, 20 persons at a time-with rockets and earlier with suicide bombers.

Hamas is not a guerrilla outfit

Apart from having won the last Palestinian election and becoming the elected government of the Palestine Authority territory, Hamas has managed to develop its armed forces into a sort of proper and professional army.

It divided Gaza into five regions, each under a commander. Very much as Saddam Hussein did, it positioned its rocket launching equipment in population centers so that when Israel bombs them innocent civilians would be killed and international disgust would build up against Israel.

Now that Israeli ground troops are in Gaza, they are finding it hard to chase Hamas soldiers who can lose themselves among the people crowded in winding streets and then hide in apartment buildings.

One solution mentioned is for Egypt to be given control of Gaza. Will Israel accept that unless Egypt will agree to work for the destruction of Hamas?

___

Israel is being condemned by the world as it was condemned in 2006 for the war in southern Lebanon. There, Israel was also seen as the cause of a humanitarian crisis. It also lost the war.

In 2006 Israel was also reacting to cross-border provocation-from the Iran supported Hizbol-lah. There were air strikes and then a land offensive. As now in Gaza, Israel’s army fought in southern Lebanon in territories it had once occupied and withdrawn from, hoping for peace from that Lebanon-based enemy.

Israel failed to accomplish its political and safety-from-Hizbol-lah-attack goals.

All these years, Hamas has imitated Hizbollah. And Israel has had to make its history repeat itself.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]

Sub-Saharan Africa


John Robertson: Comment on Gideon Gono’s Book, Zimbabwe’s Casino Economy

[Comment from Tuan Jim: Very interesting (and long) book review explaining a number of the issues in Zimbabwe over the years]

To close off this very difficult year I gave myself the very difficult task of reading Gideon Gono’s book and writing some comments for you. My effort is attached and my only hope is that reading it will not be as painful for you as reading the book itself.

We have to hope for an early breakthrough, especially now that the Zimbabwe dollar has become virtually worthless. Immediate challenges for government are to get Parliament sitting again so that a Budget can be passed and the whole revenue and expenditure process can be put back onto a legal footing. For at least this reason, we should see some strenuous efforts being made in January, but the points in my summing up paragraphs on the last page of the attached will still need urgent attention. Whether they get the right kind of attention, from locals as well as foreigners, might well determine our future!

My most sincere thanks to you for all your support during the year and my warmest good wishes go out to you for a better 2009.

———————————————————————————————————————-

Five Curious Years result in a curious book — John Robertson

If you could start a sincere discourse in which you could honestly declare –

  • that you have received the President’s personal guidance at least twice a week for five years
  • that you proudly hold a conviction that every one of the President’s policy pronouncements met the highest possible moral, academic, philosophical and practical standards of excellence
  • that you hold a firm belief that the only reason for their failures has been the imposition of sanctions, and
  • that Zimbabwe’s survival of the international sanctions onslaught has led directly to your having achieved major breakthroughs in economic theory

– you too could write a book that would put an extraordinarily up-beat spin on Zimbabwe’s recent history. You might also be able to persuade yourself that, now that many banks in developed nations are having to be rescued, the brilliance of Zimbabwe’s monetary policies is no longer in doubt.

But first you would have to successfully impose a few new definitions on certain English words that would completely destroy your claims if their original meanings were to be used…

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Sudan’s Vice-President Meets US Evangelical Leader

A prominent U.S. evangelical Christian leader, Franklin Graham, received a visit from the President of Southern Sudan, Salva Kiir Mayardit, on Wednesday in Boone, North Carolina.

Graham is the president of the charity Samaritan’s Purse, which said it has spent more than $60 million in the South Sudan in support of four hospitals, new schools and food aid. He is also the son of the charismatic preacher Billy Graham, who gained a large following and was a friend to every living U.S. president.

President Kiir thanked Samaritan’s Purse for assistance during Sudan’s second civil war and for rebuilding 227 churches that were destroyed during the conflict.

During the war (1983-2005), the northern government of Sudan declared jihad against the partly Christian south, prompting some sympathy from Christians in the United States.

“Samaritan’s Purse did not run away from us,” President Kiir said. “They did not abandon us. We will never forget about you.”

Graham told Kiir’s ministers and reporters, “He has been a great friend to us. It is a great privilege.”

The Sudanese leader arrived to the town of Boone after spending Sunday through Tuesday in Washington, meeting with President Bush, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and other officials. Kiir, who is himself a Catholic, thanked Franklin Graham and the ministry “for working to strengthen the faith of believers who endured horrible persecution,” said a statement from Samaritan’s Purse.

“Faith is important to the people to determine their destiny,” he said, then describing forced conversions to Islam during the war, in which some Christians renounced their faith.

“Those who resisted are the real Christians,” he said. “And they will have to be supported to become stronger.”

Kiir became the leader of the semi-autonomous region of Southern Sudan after a 2005 helicopter accident took the life of Dr. John Garang, the founder of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), which is now the ruling party of Southern Sudan and a partner in the national government. SPLM has relied on foreign aid money to boost revenues from oil exports in its efforts to govern the vast southern region while contesting for power at the national level.

Samaritan’s Purse plans to rebuild another 110 churches in Sudan during 2009.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]

Immigration


50 Million Invited to Europe

AN EU job centre for migrants seeking work in Europe has been opened secretly in the West African state of Cape Verde.

The project is the second phase of a Brussels tax-funded plan to invite more than 50 million African workers into Britain and other members of the 27-nation EU bloc.

The advice centre, based in the island nation’s poverty-stricken capital Praia, follows a similar job centre opened in the desert African state of Mali in October.

The project is part of the EU’s controversial plan to help Africans find work legally in Europe.

The centre will provide details of job opportunities in EU states, including Britain, and provide training and support for potential migrants. It is being heralded as a “pilot scheme” by EU officials for other job centres across Africa and Eastern Europe.

But last night the timing of the scheme to invite a new wave of migrant workers to Europe was called into question as tens of thousands fear for their jobs across Britain and other EU states in the gloomy economic climate.

UKIP leader Nigel Farage asked: “What the devil are we doing opening up job centres in Africa when we have 400,000 projected to lose their jobs in the UK in the next six months?”

Matthew Elliott, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “As people all over Britain and Europe face redundancy and unemployment as the recession bites, it is ludicrous that the EU is frittering away taxpayers’ money on such inappropriate schemes.”

The project is part of EU Commissioner Louis Michel’s master plan for the “mobility” of workers between African states and Europe.

           — Hat tip: AA [Return to headlines]



Afghan Man Stabbed to Death in Fight Between Rival Migrant Gangs Battling for Passage to UK

A 30-year-old Afghan has been stabbed to death during a fight between rival gangs of illegal migrants heading for Britain. The brutal murder took place in ‘The Jungle’, a notorious stretch of wasteland in Calais where a journalism student from London was raped last summer.

More than 30 migrants were involved in a fight among the cardboard shelters which make up the camp on Wednesday night.

‘It was a battle among young men all trying to get aboard ferries heading for Dover,’ said a Calais ambulance service spokesman.

‘Numbers have increased dramatically in recent weeks, and there has been a great deal of tension as all try to use the same route into Britain.

‘Around 100 men claiming to be Afghans are living in the Jungle at the moment, and the victim was one of them.

‘Clubs, metal bars and knives were all used in the fight. The victim was stabbed a number of times and died at the scene. There was nothing we could do for him when we arrived.

‘The fight was between different ethnic groups trying to get aboard slow-moving lorries as they approach the ferry port.

‘Only a few migrants at a time can get past security checks, and that’s why there is so much rivalry.’

People smugglers charge the equivalent of up to £1000 a time for places aboard lorries, with many of the migrants offering their life savings for a route to the UK.

Armed riot police have been smashing up illegal camps like The Jungle in what was meant to be a crackdown aimed at keeping migrants out of Calais.

But local charities have increasingly been opening temporary shelters for them, as winter temperatures plummet below -5 C.

There are currently an estimated 2000 migrants sleeping rough in the Calais area, with most claiming to come from countries like war-torn Afghanistan and Eritrea.

Many others are economic migrants looking to take advantage of Britain’s generous welfare system after claiming asylum, or else to disappear into jobs in the black economy.

French immigration minister Brice Hortefeux has continually ruled out ‘any possibility’ of the building of any kind of permanent centre for Britain-bound migrants.

In 2002 an Anglo-French agreement led to the bulldozing of the notorious Red Cross Centre at Sangatte, near Calais, which had become a magnate for thousands of them.

While violence has been on the increase between difference groups, murders have been rare.

In September 2006 a young Eritraen was killed and six seriously wounded during a similar fight between rival groups.

A Calais police spokesman said a criminal enquiry had been opened into the latest murder, adding: ‘There’s no doubt that violence is on the increase as numerous different groups come to Calais to try and get to Britain.’

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Denmark: Greenland Wants Own Immigration Law

In November 2008, Greenland voted in favour of greater autonomy and the ability to gradually take over authority from Denmark over various aspects of life on the world’s largest island.

In his New Year’s speech to Greenlanders, Prime Minister Hans Enoksen, Siumut (Social Democrats), said that one area that the government will be working hard to bring about, is a speedy takeover of responsibility for foreigners and immigration. The reason is shortage of labour.

“We would like to work for quick takeover of the responsibility for immigration and for immigration legislation. We want to do this because we expect a major labour shortage,” Enoksen said.

“For this reason we will welcome foreigners who want to work in this country,” he said.

Rigid Danish rules

Head of the Greenland Representation in Copenhagen Tove Søvndahl Pedersen stresses that the aim is to ease the strict Danish rules.

“It can be awfully difficult to arrange residence and work permits. There is not always the necessary flexibility in the Danish Immigration Service. One aspect is that the casework is lengthy; another is that the rules don’t always agree with our reality. It could be, for instance, requirements for learning Danish,” Tove Søvndahl told Politiken.

The ability to take over immigration was part of the act that was adopted in a referendum in Greenland last November and which will be presented to the Danish Parliament in February. Under the act, Greenland will be able to determine its own immigration policy and take over border controls.

DPP: Unacceptable

Danish People’s Party Immigration Spokesman Søren Espersen says Enoksen’s statement is “entirely unacceptable”.

“It seems that we may be forced to introduce border controls from Greenland,” he says.

Although Greenland will not be able to issue residence or work permits for Denmark, Espersen predicts a chaotic situation:

“The people who live in Greenland are Danish citizens with Danish passports. In principle this means that a person who cannot get his or her spouse into Denmark travels to Godthåb (Nuuk) and obtains the permit there. I don’t think anybody will accept that.”

Air Greenland:pilot problem On the other hand, Michael Binzer, CEO of one of Greenland’s largest companies , Air Greenland, says it would be a good idea for Greenland to have its own immigration laws.

“We have experienced major problems in obtaining work permits for both pilots and mechanics from countries outside the EU. It would be sensible for Greenland to take over that particular area,” he says.

It was not possible to get a comment from Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen who is meeting Enoksen today.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Immigration: Morocco, 2 Spanish Centres for Repatriated Minors

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, JANUARY 8 — The Municipal government in Madrid has realised two centres for minors, 14 years old and under, who have illegally immigrated in the region, and will be repatriated to their country of origin. Speaking about this were sources in the city government, stating that the project, realised by the regional councillor’s office for immigration and cooperation for family and social affairs, cost a total of 2.4 million euro. The two centres are located in Teghramdt (Tangiers) and in Marrakesh. The first, already completed, was built on a three hectare surface and holds 40 people, the same size as the centre that will be completed by the end of the year in Marrakesh. The complex is made up of four buildings, and includes a kitchen, dining-hall, residencies, schoolrooms, and areas for sports and free time, as well as two warehouses where seminars and professional training courses will take place. The City of Madrid realised the initiative, the first in Spain, in collaboration with the Paideia Association, and with Moroccan public institution, L’Entraide Nationale. It has the support of the European Commission, which funded the project through the Aeneas program of the European International Aid Agency. (ANSAmed).

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Indonesia: 193 Foreigners Rescued After Boat Becomes Stranded

Banda Aceh. Almost 200 foreigners were rescued after the wooden boat they were in was found stranded near Weh island, off the northern tip of Aceh Province, on Wednesday, local residents and officials said.

The boat, beached on a small island 38 kilometers north of Sabang, the main town on Weh island, was discovered by a local fisherman, said Emka Munthadir, a local youth leader.

“A traditional fishermen organization then arranged to have the boat and its passengers towed to the Sabang navy base,” Emka said. A navy officer in Sabang said one of their vessels had provided an escort.

Once the boat arrived at the base, it was found that the passengers were made up of 177 Burmese and 16 Bangladeshis, all of them adult males, except for two teenagers, Emka said.

“They were in a pretty sad and weak condition. According to the information I heard, they had been drifting at sea for seven days after they had been hit by a storm,” he said, adding that many could no longer stand and appeared very weak.

“After they reached ground, some of them appeared absent minded. There was even one who appeared to have a fit,” Emka said, adding that the sick were rushed to the local hospital.

Emka said that questioning by police, immigration and navy officials established that the boat had been on its way to Malaysia when it was hit by a storm while in Thai waters. The boat had no name, no registration number and carried no flag.

The director of the Sabang general hospital, Sugono, said that 43 of the boat people were being treated at the hospital.

“They were suffering from dehydration, lack of food, and one even had a broken bone,” Sugono said.

Col. Yanuar Handwiono, the commander of the Sabang Naval Base, said that a further 36 boat people were being treated at the base’s hospital.

“The procedures say they should be put in quarantine, but because many of them are in such a weak condition, we’re providing them with humanitarian assistance and medical care first,” Yanuar said.

Those not hospitalized were currently being sheltered at the naval base, he added.

“We’re facing some difficulties because we can’t speak Bangladeshi or Burmese, nor they Indonesian,” the commander said. “A few understand a little English, but basic communication is difficult, possibly because they’re still traumatized.”

He said it was not yet known where they had set sail from nor what exactly their planned destination had been. The navy has reported the case to Jakarta and was coordinating with the local immigration office and Sabang municipal administration in handling the case.

Sabang Deputy Mayor Islamuddin said that the municipal authorities would provide the logistics needed to help the stranded foreigners. The local chapter of the Indonesian Red Cross was now helping take care of them.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]

Culture Wars


Denial Ain’t a River in Egypt

… There is little doubt that Israel’s refusal to allow the press into the combat zone is a direct result of the coverage American troops have enjoyed in Iraq. The Israelis saw from the first day that they were being portrayed as the aggressor; news was slanted toward reporting Palestinian casualties over Hamas’ yearlong bombing campaign and a “disproportionate” response on the part of Israel. It seems only prudent that Israel would seek to curtail the media’s ability to damage worldwide perception of their nation in this manner.

In Europe, thousands of Arab Muslims have begun protests against the Gaza invasion; assaults against Jews and firebombings of synagogues in France, Sweden and Britain have been reported. In the U.S., Palestinians and Hamas supporters protested in San Francisco and Fort Lauderdale. At the latter venue, protesters were heard to shout for Jews to “go back to the oven.” A scant few years ago, pro-Islamists would not have dared such action in America for fear of being fired upon — or at least severely beaten — by irate Americans still stinging from the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

What happened?

The establishment press happened. As this columnist has asserted (and will continue to do), this entity has effectively become our nation’s Ministry of Propaganda, and a frighteningly effective one. Poor leadership on the part of President Bush was wildly spun, transforming him into the most unpopular president since Herbert Hoover, despite his achievements in the War on Terror. Victories in Afghanistan and Iraq were themselves counted as defeats, creating self-fulfilling prophecies as public opinion turned against the actions and America’s enemies were emboldened. On the flip side, the story of the global economic crisis being directly traceable to ultra-liberal American lawmakers has not been reported at all…

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]

General


Rise in US Unemployment Tipped to be Biggest for 59 Years

Wall Street is expecting the biggest rise in America’s unemployment for almost 60 years when Washington publishes official data tomorrow, indicating that the world’s biggest economy is plunging into a deep and protracted recession.

Shares on Wall Street and the US dollar both sank yesterday amid grim evidence that the economy is deteriorating far more quickly than forecast previously. Traders also took fright after Intel, the world’s biggest maker of microchips, and Time Warner, the cable-television group, issued drastic profit warnings.

According to the ADP Employers’ Services survey, 693,000 workers lost their jobs in the private sector last month, well above expectations of 495,000. Yesterday’s private sector jobs data points to an overall increase in unemployment across America of about 700,000. That would represent the sharpest rise for 59 years.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]

A History of Optics, Part 3

The Fjordman Report


The noted blogger Fjordman is filing this report via Gates of Vienna.
For a complete Fjordman blogography, see The Fjordman Files. There is also a multi-index listing here.

Part 1 of this series is at Atlas Shrugs, and Part 2 is at Dhimmi Watch.



There is still much we do not know about optics in the ancient world. Every now and then, claims about the alleged existence of ancient eyeglasses or even telescopes have surfaced, but we currently possess no solid evidence to back these claims up, and if such devices ever existed they were later lost. The earliest known lenses were made of rock crystal, quartz, and other minerals, and have been used as burning glasses to concentrate the sun’s rays and use them for heating. The first lenses used as a reading aid were probably the so-called reading stones, magnifying glasses known in the Mediterranean region from about AD 1000. The Visby lenses, found in a Viking grave on the Swedish island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea, date from about the eleventh century AD and were made of rock crystal. The first eyeglasses had quartz lenses which were set into bone, metal or even leather mountings, but lenses were later primarily made of glass. We have definitive proof of eyeglasses for the correction of eyesight only from Europe, from the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries onwards. As scholar Joel Mokyr says (pdf):

[G]lass, although known in China, was not in wide use, in part perhaps the result of supply considerations (expensive fuel), and possibly in part due to lack of demand (tea was drunk in porcelain cups, and the Chinese examined themselves in polished bronze mirrors). Some past societies might well have made lenses given enough time and better luck: Islamic civilization for centuries had a magnificent glass industry, yet never came up with either spectacles or a telescope, despite the ubiquity of presbyopia and a strong interest in astronomy. In the later Middle Ages, glass making in the Islamic world declined, in part because of the devastation inflicted by the Mongols. But elsewhere knowledge must have played a central role. Tokugawa Japan had a flourishing industry making glass trinkets and ornaments, but no optical instruments emerged there either until the Meiji restoration. Not having access to the Hellenistic geometry that served not only Ptolemy and Alhazen, but also sixteenth century Italians such as Francesco Maurolico (1494-1575) who studied the characteristics of lenses, made the development of optics in the Orient difficult. The probability of a microscope being invented by someone who does not have access to geometry is very low.

It is possible that the first eyeglasses were made through trial and error by practical artisans with limited mathematical knowledge. Kepler in 1604 published a book about optics and explained that some people have bad eyesight because imperfections in the eye cause the rays to be focused at a point either in front of or behind the retina. He went on to describe how eyeglasses work to correct these defects, and a few years later developed his ideas to explain how the newly invented telescope worked. In other words: People had used eyeglasses for several centuries without having a full theoretical understanding of how they functioned. Nevertheless, for the progress of optics, access to Greek geometry was certainly an advantage.

The Kangxi Emperor (1654—1722) of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the longest-reigning Emperor in China’s history and often considered one of its best, was an open-minded man. Jesuit missionaries were involved in the glass workshop that he established in 1696, for instance Kilian Stumpf (1655—1720) who worked to produce decorative glass under imperial auspices in the early 1700s. Glass production reached its high point in the 1750s when Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1776) became involved in decorating European-style palaces and gardens for the Lofty Pavilion, but after this the interest in glass in China declined again.

Both glass and Greek optical theory were available to the Romans, yet as far as we know, Italians during the Roman era never made eyeglasses. Italians during the medieval era did. Scholars Alan Macfarlane and Gerry Martin place great emphasis on the development of clear glass technology and argue that this made an essential contribution to the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions; without it there would not have been barometers, thermometers, chemical laboratory equipment etc. However, they are careful to point out that glass was an enabling device, perhaps a necessary cause for some later developments but by no means a sufficient one. Even if clear glass had been widely available in Asia, it is not certain that it would have led to the discovery of the microscope or the barometer. In the East, there was not the same interest in deriving knowledge from nature. Medieval and early modern Europeans had both the glass and the particular curiosity. The most difficult case to explain is why eyeglasses, and by extension telescopes and microscopes, were not invented by Middle Eastern Muslims, who had access to essentially the same body of knowledge as did Europeans and produced a gifted optical scientist in Alhazen.

The first true eyeglasses are believed to have been made in the late thirteenth century AD, perhaps in the 1280s in northern Italy. The American scientist and inventor Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790) invented bifocals in the eighteenth century. Vincent Ilardi explains in his book Renaissance Vision from Spectacles to Telescopes, page 64:
– – – – – – – –

As in Italy, documentary evidence and artistic representations of eyeglasses in the fourteenth century are relatively few in other European countries. They occur much more frequently from the early fifteenth century onwards with the massive diffusion of spectacles. There is little doubt that the use of eyeglasses and the knowledge to construct them spread with reasonable rapidity across the Alps among clergymen, monks, merchants, and artisans who probably traveled with more frequency than has been realized. It should also be recalled that the papacy resided in Avignon for sixty-eight years (1309-77) and attracted suppliers and professional people along with clerics and many other visitors from all nations. France, in fact, produced the second undisputed and clear mention of spectacles in a medical treatise — Chirurgia magna — completed in 1363 by Guy de Chauliac (ca. 1300-1368), surgeon and professor of medicine at the University of Montpellier, little more than a day’s journey (96 km) from the papal court. Guy received his medical degree at Montpellier but also studied medicine at Bologna, and from about 1344 until his death he resided in Avignon at the service of three popes.

The birth of eyeglasses coincided with the birth of the Italian Renaissance. This was the age of Francesco Petrarca (1304—1374) or Petrarch, the prominent poet and Renaissance humanist who developed the sonnet and spread its use to other European languages. In the spirit of his age, he was inspired by the personalities and achievements of Greco-Roman Antiquity, writers such as Cicero and above all Publius Vergilius Maro (70 BC—19 BC), known as Virgil or Vergil, one of the greatest poets of the Roman era. The Florentine poet Durante degli Alighieri (1265-1321), or Dante Alighieri, wrote his famous Divina Commedia, the Divine Comedy. We have no positive proof that Dante wore eyeglasses, but it is quite possible that he was familiar with the newly invented device. It is likely that Petrarch had tried it.

The printing press introduced by the German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg (born before 1400, died 1467 or 1468 at Mainz) led to a rapid and enormous increase in the number of books in circulation in Europe and further encouraged the use of reading aids. It is a well-known problem that eyesight often fails as you get older, and failing eyesight could cut short the professional life of many workers. It is not coincidental that the usage of eyeglasses/spectacles spread during a period of economic growth and bureaucratic expansion. Alan Macfarlane and Gerry Martin explain in Glass: A World History, page 144-145:

The eyeglasses made of two bi-convex lenses suspended on the nose to help those with old age long-sight (presbyopia) were probably invented at around AD 1285 in northern Italy and their use spread rapidly in the next century, so that spectacles were a widespread feature of European life half a century before movable metal printing was invented by Gutenberg in the mid fifteenth century. The effects of this development in western Europe were immense. The invention of spectacles increased the intellectual life of professional workers by fifteen years or more… Much of the later work of great writers such as Petrarch would not have been completed without spectacles. The active life of skilled craftsmen, often engaged in very detailed close work, was also almost doubled. The effect was both multiplied, and in turn made more rapid, by another technological revolution to which it was connected, namely movable type printing, from the middle of the fifteenth century. Obviously, the need to read standard-sized print from metal types in older age was another pressure for the rapid development and spread of spectacles, and the presence of spectacles encouraged printers to believe they had a larger public.

By the sixteenth century spectacles had become very widespread in many regions of Europe and were sometimes exported to the Middle East and even to East Asia. The oldest certain references to double-lens spectacles using glass in China are from Ming Dynasty accounts of the sixteenth century and refer to Western imports. Macfarlane and Martin, page 147:

Earlier references to spectacles were to dark substances (often ‘tea’ crystal) used to protect the eyes against glare and dirt, for healing (crystals had magical properties) or to disguise the reactions of judges from litigants who appeared before them. It was from the middle of the seventeenth century that spectacles made of glass became fairly widespread. The tradition that glasses were as important for status and eye protection as to counter the effects of ageing continued up to the end of the eighteenth century. This is shown by Gillian’s account when he accompanied the Macartney Embassy of 1793-4: ‘The Chinese make great use of spectacles…The eye glasses are all made of rock crystal.’ He continues that ‘I examined a great number of polished eye glasses after they were ready for setting, but I could not observe any diversity of form among them; they all appeared to me quite flat with parallel sides. The workmen did not seem to understand any optical principles for forming them in different manners so as to accommodate them to the various kinds of imperfect vision.’

Eskimo (Inuit) peoples used “sunglasses” made with a very thin slit in a piece of wood or leather, but these were not made of glass lenses which could later by used for scientific instruments, which is why there were Eskimo sunglasses but no Eskimo microscopes. Sunglasses of the modern type date from the twentieth century, especially from the 1930s onwards when their popularity was spread by Hollywood movie stars and other celebrities.

The glass industry in the Netherlands was promoted in the sixteenth century with the aid of Italian glass/mirror makers and spread rapidly from Antwerp to Amsterdam and elsewhere. The demand for high quality glass lenses grew steadily, and in the seventeenth century the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632—1677) could make a decent living as a skilled lens grinder while working out his ideas. His trade may have caused the lung illness which ended his life. After making simple lenses (magnifying glasses), eyeglass makers eventually discovered how to use a second lens to magnify the image produced by the primary lens.

John Gribbin’s book The Scientists is a good popular introduction to the modern Western history of science, which is why I quote it here, but it does have a few weaknesses. Gribbin does not mention many contributors outside of the European tradition and he starts from the late sixteenth century, largely ignoring the medieval era. Organized science was founded in Europe between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries AD, but that does not mean that we should ignore contributions from others, for instance from Alhazen.

Leonard Digges pioneered the use of the theodolite in the 1550s in connection with his work as a surveyor, and Gribbin claims that his interest in seeing accurately over long distances led him to invent the reflecting telescope, and possibly the refracting telescope as well. It is true that there were a number of optical advances made during this period, but Digges wasn’t the only one to be involved in this work. By the end of the sixteenth century, experiments with combinations of lenses with or without a tube, and of combinations of concave mirrors and lenses, were fairly common among instrument and spectacle makers in Europe. This partly explains the rapid diffusion of the telescope in the early seventeenth century. Vincent Ilardi elaborates in Renaissance Vision from Spectacles to Telescopes, page 213:

About the same time of the alleged Danti’s construction of the two-lens telescopic device in Florence, another combination was tried in England (ca. 1563) by Leonard Digges (ca. 1520-ca. 1559), mathematical practitioner and designer of instruments. He constructed a tubeless magnifier composed of a combination of a concave mirror as an ocular and a convex lens as the objective appropriately positioned. It is significant to note that in the description of the device published in the Pantometria (1571) by his son, Thomas (ca. 1546-95), the principal purpose of the instrument was to construct topographical maps of distant city views. A similar construction was described by William Bourne around 1580. These descriptions have laid the basis for the still debated question of whether Elizabethan England had the telescope before Holland and Italy. These telescopes as described, however, were not very practical. If one looked in the mirror with his back to the lens he would see an inverted image; if he placed the mirror at an angle on his chest and bent his head downwards, he would see an upright image. Moreover, the instruments required a lens and mirror with large diameters, both of which…were not readily available in spectacle/mirror shops.

The public introduction of the telescope has traditionally been ascribed to the lensmaker Hans Lippershey or Lipperhey (1570—1619) in the Netherlands, or alternatively to the Dutch opticians Zacharias Janssen (ca. 1580-1638) or Jacob Metius (ca. 1571-1628). The earliest working telescope we know of with certainty appeared in 1608. Ilardi, page 219:

[D]evices comprised of a combination of lenses within or without tubes had been constructed or at least conceived from antiquity onwards to extend natural vision, but the first known practical applications of these devices seem to date from the late sixteenth century. In essence, the yet to be named instrument was in the minds and hands of many before they realized what they had. But it was only Lipperhey in Holland, the lucky optician, who first brought this first three-power spyglass to the attention of the European world. Its predecessor, the humble and by then all too common pair of spectacles, also was discovered by chance perhaps centuries earlier than the thirteenth century, but it was another lucky optician and a kindly Dominican friar, both residing in Pisa, who made it part of the historical record. Both instruments had many fathers, as we have seen, and were easy to duplicate in kind but not necessarily in quality. It is in this context that Galileo played the initial leading role in transforming a three-power spyglass of limited use into a twenty-plus power scientific instrument capable of searching the outer reaches of the universe, an instrument that deserved a new name, ‘telescope.’

Scholar John North supports this view in his book Cosmos, revised 2008 edition, page 360:

By the end of the thirteenth century, converging (convex) lenses were in use for reading spectacles (the Latin word spectaculum was used for a single lens at the beginning of the same century). There are numerous imprecise references in medieval literature to the possibility of seeing distant objects clearly, as though they were near at hand. By the seventeenth century there was a well-established trade in spectacle lenses, and in some ways it is surprising that the discovery of a method of combining them into a telescope — and later into a compound microscope — was so long in coming…Claims for prior invention have been made on behalf of various sixteenth-century scholars, such as John Dee, Leonard and Thomas Digges, and Giambattista della Porta, but they are without foundation and rest on an excessively generous reading of ambiguous texts. Some confusion has been created by the existence of medieval illustrations of philosophers looking at the heavens through tubes. Aristotle himself referred to the power of the tube to improve vision — it can improve contrast by cutting down extraneous light — but the tubes in question were always without lenses.

The English astronomer and mathematician Thomas Harriot (1560—1621) drew what he saw of the Moon through his telescope in August 1609, and we have information of similar attempts made elsewhere in Western Europe, but the studies made by the Italian (Tuscan) scientist Galileo Galilei (1564—1642) were particularly energetic and systematic. His influential book Sidereus Nuncius (Sidereal Messenger or Starry Messenger in English), published in March 1610, is generally seen to mark the birth of telescopic astronomy.

Galileo had heard reports about a new Dutch spyglass and made one of his own. He secured the best glass available and better methods for lens grinding and by late 1609 he had made a telescope with a magnifying power of twenty times. He later made several more of comparable power, one of which was sent to Kepler. Using this improved device, Galileo discovered the four largest moons of Jupiter early in 1610, which have become known as the Galilean satellites. He also found that the surface of the Moon is not a perfectly smooth sphere (as the Aristotelians believed) but is scarred by craters and has mountain ranges. These discoveries were presented in the Starry Messenger in 1610. Galileo was one of the first Europeans to observe sunspots. The study of sunspots had a long history in the Chinese astronomical tradition, yet had received little attention in Europe prior to the telescopic era.

That the Milky Way consists of many individual stars had already been suggested by a number of observers previously, Eastern and Western, but only with the aid of the telescope could it be proven that this was the case. Our name “Milky Way” goes back to Greek mythology. The infant Heracles, the mightiest of the Greek heroes (known as Hercules to the Romans), son of the god Zeus and a mortal woman, had been placed at the bosom of the goddess Hera while she was asleep so that he would drink her divine milk and become immortal. Hera woke up and removed him from her breast, in the process spilling some of her milk across the sky. The modern term “galaxy” consequently comes from the Greek root galaxies, “milky”. A galaxy is a system of stars, dust and gas held together by gravity. Here is how the website of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) explains it:

Our solar system is in a galaxy called the Milky Way. Scientists estimate that there are more than 100 billion galaxies scattered throughout the visible universe. Astronomers have photographed millions of them through telescopes. The most distant galaxies ever photographed are as far as 10 billion to 13 billion light-years away. A light-year is the distance that light travels in a vacuum in a year — about 5.88 trillion miles (9.46 trillion kilometers). Galaxies range in diameter from a few thousand to a half-million light-years. Small galaxies have fewer than a billion stars. Large galaxies have more than a trillion. The Milky Way has a diameter of about 100,000 light-years. The solar system lies about 25,000 light-years from the center of the galaxy. There are about 100 billion stars in the Milky Way. Only three galaxies outside the Milky Way are visible with the unaided eye. People in the Northern Hemisphere can see the Andromeda Galaxy, which is about 2 million light-years away. People in the Southern Hemisphere can see the Large Magellanic Cloud, which is about 160,000 light-years from Earth, and the Small Magellanic Cloud, which is about 180,000 light-years away.

The Magellanic Clouds are named after the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan (1480—1521), whose crew in the service of Spain performed the first circumnavigation of the world in history between 1519 and 1522. A bit unfairly perhaps, since millions of people had seen these galaxies before Magellan did. He also named the Pacific Ocean (Mar Pacifico) due to its apparent stillness, and his expedition, which he himself did not survive, established the need for an international date line as the (few) returning travelers found that they were a day behind their European families. However, even if numerous people had seen these galaxies, the fact that they and countless others are star systems similar to our own wasn’t proven until the work of the American astronomer Edwin Hubble (1889—1953) in the 1920s. He grouped them according to their appearance, spiral galaxies, elliptical galaxies, irregular galaxies etc.

After Galileo, further improvements to refracting telescopes were made in the seventeenth century. The Dutch mathematician and astronomer Christiaan Huygens (1629—1695), who had studied law and mathematics at the University of Leiden, was one of the pioneers. John Gribbin in The Scientists, page 120:

In 1655, Christiaan Huygens began working with his brother Constantijn (named after their father) on the design and construction of a series of telescopes that became the best astronomical instruments of their time…The Huygens brothers found a way to reduce chromatic aberration considerably…The brothers were also very good at grinding lenses, producing large, accurately shaped lenses that alone would have made their telescopes better than anything else around at the time. With the first telescope built to the new design, Huygens discovered Titan, the largest of the moons of Saturn, in 1655; this was a discovery only marginally less sensational than Galileo’s discovery of the moons of Jupiter. By the end of the decade, using a second, larger telescope also constructed with his brother, Huygens had solved the mystery of the peculiar appearance of Saturn itself, which he found to be surrounded by a thin, flat ring of material, which is sometimes seen edge on from Earth (so that it seems to disappear) and is sometimes seen face on (so that with a small telescope like the one Galileo used, Saturn appears to grow a pair of ears).

Many new discoveries were made in the course of the eighteenth century as well. The great astronomer Sir William Herschel (1738—1822) was born in Hanover, Germany, where his father Isaac was an oboist and brought up his sons to be musicians. William became an organist in England, and his sister Caroline later joined him there. His interest in music led him to mathematics, and from there on to astronomy. William Herschel is credited with the discovery of Uranus in 1781, the first planet to be identified with the telescope, and became famous after that. Technically speaking, Uranus can be seen by a person with good eyesight under optimal conditions, but only very faintly. It had never been recognized as a planet by any prior to the invention of the telescope, and even then it took a few generations.

Caroline Herschel (1750—1848) became William’s valued assistant, who was granted a salary from the king, like her brother, and could thus be viewed as the first professional woman astronomer. She personally discovered eight comets, the first one in 1786, and together with the Scottish science writer Mary Somerville (1780-1872) became the first honorary woman member of the Royal Society in 1835.

I will continue with the history of telescopic astronomy later but will first look into another invention, photography. The history of the camera is older than the history of photography. The basic principles behind the pinhole camera, a precursor to the camera obscura (Latin: dark chamber), were understood by Aristotle and the ancients Greeks in the fourth century BC as well as the Chinese engineer and thinker Mo Ti or Mozi in the fifth century BC. The school of thought which he founded, Mohism, flourished during the Warring States era (479-221 BC) prior to the unification of Imperial China. During this period it provided a crucial stimulus for Confucian thinkers Mencius and Xunzi, for Daoists and for Legalists, adherents of the militaristic-totalitarian ideology which enabled the Qin state to unify China under its First Emperor. However, Mozi’s optical ideas were not widely followed in China later.

One exception was the government official and polymath Shen Kuo or Shen Kua (1031-1095 AD). Leading members of the Chinese scholar-official elite in the Song Dynasty were often men of great intellectual breadth, and Shen Kuo was perhaps the most broadly accomplished of them all. Patricia Buckley Ebrey in The Cambridge Illustrated History of China, page 148:

During his official career, Shen designed drainage and embankment systems that reclaimed vast tracts of land for agriculture; he served as a financial expert skilled at calculating the effects of currency policies; he headed the Bureau of Astronomy; he supervised military defence preparations; and he even travelled to the Liao state as an envoy to negotiate a treaty. Over the course of his life he wrote on geography, history, archaeology, ritual, music, mathematics, military strategy, painting, medicine, geology, poetry, printing, and agricultural technology. Although often labelled a scientist, he wrote commentaries to Confucian classics and had deep interests in divination and Buddhist meditation.

In his major work Mengxi bitan or Dream Pool Essays of 1088, Shen Kuo experimented with the camera obscura as the Mohists had done. He had insights into many other subjects as well, ranging from meteorology and geology to fossils. However, these insights usually lacked clear-cut organization and were not made into coherent scientific theories. Although the Chinese did on occasion perform various experiments with mirrors and other optical tools, progress in optics stagnated in China after some initial advances. The clearest description of the camera obscura was made by Alhazen (Ibn al-Haytham) in the Middle East in the eleventh century. Toby E. Huff in The Rise of Early Modern Science, second edition, page 52:

In optics, which in early science probably played something like the role of physics in modern science, the Chinese, in Needham’s words, ‘never equalled the highest level attained by the Islamic students of light such as Ibn al-Haytham.’ Among other reasons, this was a reflection of the fact that the Chinese were ‘greatly hampered by the lack of the Greek deductive geometry’ that the Arabs had inherited. Finally, though we think of physics as the fundamental natural science, Joseph Needham concluded that there was very little systematic physical thought among the Chinese. While one can find Chinese physical thought, ‘one can hardly speak of a developed science of physics,’ and it lacked powerful systematic thinkers, who could correspond to the so-called precursors of Galileo, represented in the West by such names as Philoponus, Buridan, Bradwardine, and Nicole d’Oresme.

The camera obscura had been used to observe solar eclipses, but during the sixteenth century it was combined with convex lenses and/or concave mirrors, which projected more detailed images. There was an intense interest in sixteenth century Europe for long-distance visual instruments. The use of the convex lens in the aperture of the camera obscura was apparently first published by the gifted Italian mathematician Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576). Another Italian, Giovanni Battista Della Porta, published his Magia naturalis in 1558 and a much-expanded version of it in 1589. Della Porta thus helped to popularize the camera obscura.

The Dutch painter Johannes or Jan Vermeer (1632-1675), famous for beautiful paintings such as Girl with a Pearl Earring, is believed to have used the camera obscura as a visual aid. The same goes for the Venetian artist Giovanni Antonio Canal (1697—1768), better known as Canaletto, in his landscapes of Venice. I could add that the extent to which a particular artist did or did not use the camera obscura when working on a specific painting is often disputed among art historians. What is not disputed is that it was used by artists in Europe. The first cameras were room-sized. From the early seventeenth century, portable versions of the camera obscura the size of tent had been constructed. The German Johann Zahn (1631—1707), author of Oculus Artificialis Teledioptricus Sive Telescopium (1685), was among the first to create a version that was small enough to be practical for photography.

It is worth reflecting here on the nature of Western art, which is highly relevant to the history of photography. E.H. Gombrich explains in his classic The Story of Art, page 113-114:

Buddhism influenced Chinese art not only by providing the artists with new tasks. It introduced an entirely new approach to pictures, a reverence for the artist’s achievement such as did not exist either in ancient Greece or in Europe up to the time of the Renaissance. The Chinese were the first people who did not think of the making of pictures as a rather menial task, but who placed the painter on the same level as the inspired poet. The religions of the East taught that nothing was more important than the right kind of meditation…Devout artists began to paint water and mountains in a spirit of reverence, not in order to teach any particular lesson, nor merely as decorations, but to provide material for deep thought. Their pictures on silk scrolls were kept in precious containers and only unrolled in quiet moments, to be looked at and pondered over as one might open a book of poetry and read and reread a beautiful verse. That is the purpose behind the greatest of the Chinese landscape paintings of the twelfth and thirteenths centuries.

Chinese artists wanted to capture the mood of a landscape and did not consider it important that it was accurate in all details. In fact, they would have considered it childish to compare pictures with the real world. The Chinese house traditionally represented Confucianism and the harmony of the social order while the Chinese garden represented Daoism and the harmony of man with nature. A garden can itself be viewed as a form of poem or art, as it still is in East Asia. Even paintings of bamboo could carry a political message since the plant is the symbol of the Chinese gentleman, who bends in adversity but does not break. It was used in this fashion by Wu Zhen (1280-1354 AD), a leading Chinese painter during the Yuan (Mongol ruled) Dynasty, famous for paintings of landscapes and nature. Gombrich, page 116:

There is something wonderful in this restraint of Chinese art, in its deliberate limitation to a few simple motifs of nature. But it almost goes without saying that this approach to painting also had its dangers. As time went on, nearly every type of brushstroke with which a stem of bamboo or a rugged rock could be painted was laid down and labelled by tradition, and so great was the general admiration for the works of the past that artists dared less and less to rely on their own inspiration. The standards of painting remained very high throughout the subsequent centuries both in China and in Japan (which adopted the Chinese conceptions) but art became more and more like a graceful and elaborate game which has lost much of its interest as so many of its moves are known. It was only after a new contact with the achievements of Western art in the eighteenth century that Japanese artists dared to apply the Eastern methods to new subjects.

The aim of painting in China, Korea and Japan was to create a surface which conveyed a symbolic meaning, not to achieve a photograph-like mirror of the world. The materials, absorbent paper laid flat and large ink-filled brushes, encouraged a swift execution based on memory and strict rules. It resembled calligraphy more than Western art. Japan lived in a state of self-imposed national isolation from the seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century, but some information about Western ideas did trickle through, especially via Dutch traders. Alan Macfarlane and Gerry Martin in Glass: A World History, page 140:

In the late eighteenth century Kokan was fascinated by western realism and even made a camera obscura to help in creating perspective drawings. He wrote that ‘If one follows only the Chinese orthodox methods of painting, one’s picture will not resemble Fuji.’ There was only one way out. ‘The way to depict Mount Fuji accurately,’ he declared, ‘is by means of Dutch painting.’ During the eighteenth century perspective pictures became quite widespread in Japan. There are notable examples in some of the works of two of the most widely known Japanese artists, Utamoro and Hokusai.

Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) was a painter and printmaker whose father had produced mirrors for the shogun. He was far too talented to copy anybody slavishly, but he was more than willing to adopt foreign ideas, including European ones, and use them in a different way. Several Japanese artists during this period modified or abandoned the traditional Chinese-inspired artistic styles, but the artistic influence was two-sided. Japanese art in turn had a major impact on Impressionists and painters such as the Dutchman Vincent van Gogh (1853—1890) in the West, and Japanese wood-block prints with their curved lines inspired Art Nouveau or Jugendstil in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Indirectly, it is possible to trace this influence in the works of Scottish designer Charles Mackintosh (1868—1928), Austrian painter Gustav Klimt (1862—1918) and architects Victor Horta (1861-1947) in Belgium and Antoni Gaudí (1852—1926) in Spain. Indeed, entire cities such as Riga in Latvia came to be dominated by Art Nouveau architecture. Japanese art inspired many in the circle of Édouard Manet (1832—1883). He was influenced by the works of Diego Velázquez and the Italian Renaissance masters Raphael (1483—1520), Michelangelo (1475—1564) and Titian (b. before 1490, d. 1576) but was open for other impulses and befriended Claude Monet (1840—1926), the founder of French Impressionist painting.

The basic principles of the camera obscura were known in the Middle East, in East Asia and possibly elsewhere. What is special about Europe is that the camera was employed more extensively and actively here than anywhere else, not just for scientific purposes (for instance to observe eclipses) but for artistic purposes as well. The latter use appears to be virtually unique to Europe. In the Islamic Middle East, pictorial art met with religious resistance. It was much more culturally accepted in East Asia, but the European emphasis on photorealism was not shared by most Chinese, Korean, Japanese or Vietnamese artists. The first “cameras” were room-sized, but from the seventeenth century portable versions were constructed. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the camera obscura was embraced by artists as an aid to sketching and painting. It was this smaller box version of the camera obscura that was eventually used for photography. It is possible to view the invention of photography as the culmination of a centuries-long European quest for “photorealistic” depictions of the world, dating back at least to the development of geometrical perspective in Renaissance art.

The irony is that once this goal had been achieved, no painter could ever again hope to match photography for sheer detail and realism. It is thus not a coincidence that there was a proliferation of abstract painting in late nineteenth century and early twentieth century Europe. There were cultural and ideological reasons for this as well, no doubt, but technological changes played a part, too. Artists had to look for other goals. In addition to this, before the invention of photography, artists could make a living by painting personal portraits, but this traditional market disappeared almost overnight with the introduction of photography. In the early years, one of the most popular uses of the new invention was for portrait photography. If photography can to some extent be seen as an outgrowth of the Western artistic tradition, it also changed this tradition quite profoundly after its invention.

The camera obscura alone was not enough to give birth to photography. The images first had to be permanently captured, and this required advances in chemistry. I will turn to them next.

Pro-Palestinian Riots in Oslo

Our Danish correspondent Skjoldungen sends this brief report about tonight’s events in Oslo:

Oslo riotsNorway — Hamas’ only active supporter in the West — reaps its bitter fruit. A pro-Palestinian demonstration in Oslo tonight ended up in a massive riot. One policeman was badly injured, twenty arrests, tear gas, pepper spray, firebombs, looting, broken windowpanes etc. Mostly “cultural enrichers” but a few “Antifas” as well.

Evolving…

There’s video at VGTV. I couldn’t figure out a way to embed it here.

A report (in Danish) is at Hodjas Blog.

[Post ends here]

A Socialist Who Stands With the (Dead) Jews

Last weekend I posted about a notorious Socialist Party member of the Dutch Parliament, Harry van Bommel, who expressed solidarity with Muslim extremists by calling for a new intifada against Israel. Now it appears that he may be banned from joining the annual Auschwitz commemoration later this month.

Our Flemish correspondent VH has translated an essay on the topic by Carel Brendel:

Socialist Harry van Bommel shows his solidarity with murdered Jews

By Carel Brendel

Who said the Left and extreme Left-wing people only stand up for oppressed Muslims? The Socialist Party and the Left surely show their solidarity with Jews. With murdered Jews, to be precise.

The organization Nederland Bekent Kleur (NBK, Netherlands Admits Color) of super-activist René Danen and Trotskyite Miriyam Aouragh [of the International Socialists], for example organized a commemoration of the Kristallnacht of November 1938, the violent beginning of the persecution of Jews in Germany. That was an amazing example, because the NBK-activist Aouragh earlier stood out as a speaker in the commemoration of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder of the terrorist organization Hamas and the person who embedded the murder of Jews in the Hamas charter.

The former Mayor of Amsterdam, Ed van Thijn [PvdA, Labour] served as the fig leaf for this embarrassing display. This was not received with gratitude. The criticism in the Nieuw Israëlitisch Weekblad [“New Israelite Weekly”], a weekly magazine of the Jewish community, was devastating. Chief Editor Paul Damen painted Van Tijn as “A marionette for terrorist trash.”

It was remarkable that some participants in the commemoration hijacked by Leftists covered themselves with the keffiyeh or kefiya, also known as the “Arafat-shawl”. This shawl appears in all shapes and sizes. In this case the commemorators wore a red keffiyeh, the color of the terror movements Hamas and Hezbollah, those who strive for the destruction of Israel and Judaism. A quite sinister dress code for the commemoration of the beginning of the persecution of the Jews.

– – – – – – – –

If De Volkskrant blogger Sabra Dahhan has her say, all progressive people must take the keffiyeh out of the closet now as a protest against the Israeli violence in Gaza. Dahhan: “In past years, the fashion-minded Dutch almost forgotten about the Palestinian cause. They started wearing the keffiyeh and singing intifada purely and simply because it was ‘cool’. Perhaps more so now, with the situation in Gaza and — due to Harry van Bommel — the demonstrated sensitivity to Palestinian slogans and attributes, it is time for a new revival of the keffiyeh.”

This certainly seems to me to be a good tip, especially for Harry van Bommel, who shows solidarity with everything and everyone. Last Saturday (January 3) the SP parliamentarian chanted intifada, intifada in the company of Gretta Duisenberg. Earlier on, Van Bommel was very understanding towards Al-Yaqeen, the website of the Salafi hate preacher Fawaz Jneid. When it comes to the right cause, Dirty Harry even demonstrates in the company of Saddam supporters, Jihadists, Stalinists and neo-Nazis, for example during the Iraq demonstration on October 26, 2002.

At the same time, “Hamas, Hamas, all Jews to the gas” was also chanted. In that respect there was nothing new under the sun last Saturday in Amsterdam. On April 13, 2002, the Hamas motto was chanted out loud at the SP-supported anti-Israel demonstration, which has become notoriously known as “the greatest manifestation of anti-Semitism since 1945”. Shocked by the outburst of hatred, MPs for the CDA, ChristenUnie, D66, VVD and SGP demanded clarifications from the Cabinet [then made up of PvdA, VVD and D66]. The SP didn’t feel included, nor did the PvdA [Labour] or GroenLinks [Green Left].

This is not due to a lack of compassion for his fellow Jewish man. On January 25, the SP parliamentarian Van Bommel will be present in Amsterdam at the annual Auschwitz commemoration (in the agenda of the SP they write “Auswitz”). A nice opportunity to follow Sabra Dahhans’ clothing advice. Commemorating with a keffiyeh is in fashion these days. This way Harry van Bommel can show how far his solidarity with murdered Jews reaches.

Carel Brendel is the author of Het verraad van links [“The Betrayal of the Left”] (published by Aspekt)

VH adds this update:

Lodewijk Nasser of the Dutch blog Het Vrije Volk also wrote about the Auschwitz invitation yesterday. Van Bommel in the meanwhile states he has been misunderstood; by “intifada” he did not mean to call for violence, but for a nonviolent protest against the Israeli “occupation”. Today Lodewijk Nasser reports that the Auschwitz Committee is considering canceling the invitation to Van Bommel.

The Mask Comes Off

Under the pressure of the Israeli incursion, Hamas has morphed into a criminal gang, utterly lacking in any scruple or concern for the people they purportedly champion. One must assume that their nature has been the same all along, but now the mask is off.

Stealing food and reselling it at extortionate rates, grabbing children as shields, forcing people to remain in their homes to increase civilian casualty counts — there is no form of criminal activity, no extreme of depraved indifference, to which Hamas will not resort.

According to YNet News:

Report: Hamas Stealing Aid Supplies to Sell to Residents

Grim picture of Gazans’ lives painted by reports emerging from Strip, claiming gunmen hiding in civilian homes, using residents as human shields, and hijacking trucks of humanitarian aid

A government or a gang? As the Israeli operation in Gaza wears on it appears Hamas has relinquished any visage of a socio-political party, abandoning its claim to govern the residents of Gaza in favor of engaging in open war at their expense.

A number of reports from the Strip paint a picture of very difficult humanitarian conditions, not least because of Hamas itself. The suspicion is that the group’s operatives have seized control of any supplies passing through the crossings — including those sent by Israel and international organizations.

Reports say Hamas takes a cut out of all aid that arrives, including flour and medicine. Supplies intended to be distributed without gain among the population is seized by the group and sold to the residents, at a profit to the Hamas government.

One such incident was recorded Monday, when a convoy of trucks carrying supplies through the Kerem Shalom crossing was opened fire upon and seized by Hamas gunmen. Similar incidents occurred with trucks carrying fuel.

In other cases, civilians are simply used as cannon fodder or human shields. Reports out of Gaza say residents who attempted to flee their homes in the northern area of the Strip were forced to go back at gunpoint, by Hamas men.

The organization is presumably interested in increasing civilian casualties in order to give rise to international pressure against Israel. Arab media reported that in an IDF strike on a UN school 30 civilians were killed, but there is no legitimate way to prove gunmen were among those killed as Hamas tends to bury these bodies quickly, thus eliminating evidence in Israel’s favor.

Other civilian complaints state that Hamas gunmen pull children along with them “by the ears” from place to place, fearing that if they don’t have a child with them they will be fair game to the IDF. Others hide in civilian homes and stairwells, UNRWA ambulances, and mosques.

In other reported cases Hamas gunmen hold civilians hostage in alleyways in order to provide themselves with a living barricade to ward off IDF forces. Reports somewhat more difficult to verify say the group’s men shot Fatah operatives in the feet to make sure the latter would not attempt a coup.

No one to turn to

These reports lead to the assumption that Hamas is attempting to exacerbate the atmosphere of a humanitarian crisis in the Strip, as this may promote an international ceasefire initiative. In any case the reports clearly show that the residents of Gaza have fallen prey to Hamas as well as the IDF.

– – – – – – – –

Reports of alarming shortages are also forthcoming, as residents appear to lack water, flour, electricity, and any sign of a capable government. Chaos reigns as no one appears to know when electricity will be available, how to obtain water or food, or whom to address in order to evacuate the injured.

[…]

Despite this, no authoritative anti-Hamas sentiments have been heard from the Gazans. However Palestinian sources claim that grievances against the group are voiced in secret. The animosity towards Israel has not disappeared, say the sources, but it is now accompanied by bitterness towards the organization many are dubbing Iranian in its extremism.

It doesn’t matter how brutal, callous, and murderous Hamas is. The residents of the Gaza strip will never turn against the terrorists, because hatred of the Jews remains paramount. The destruction of Israel trumps all other concerns. They will agree to surrender their property and their children’s lives rather than turn against the thugs who rule them.

In a similar manner, Hamas and Hizbullah will aid and abet Iran in its quest to vaporize Israel, even though millions of innocent Palestinians will be killed in the blast, or live downwind and will die of radiation poisoning later. But this will be of no concern to any Muslims, except possibly the victims themselves.

The only thing that counts is the welfare of the Ummah at large. It doesn’t matter how many innocent Muslims have to die, as long as the cause of world Islam is served.

Everyone should remember this fact when they watch the weeping Palestinians every night on the TV news.



Hat tip: AA.

Gates of Vienna News Feed 1/7/2009

Gates of Vienna News Feed 1/7/2009The gas pipeline standoff between Russia and Ukraine continues. Large chunks of southeastern Europe are without gas, and the EU has given the Russians a 24-hour deadline to resume the flow of gas. There’s no word on what penalty the Russians will face if they fail to comply.

Thanks to AA, Abu Elvis, C. Cantoni, Diana West, Fausta, Insubria, JD, Steen, Tuan Jim, VH, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
– – – – – – – –

USA
$240,000 Dollars Awarded to Man Forced to Cover Arab T-Shirt
Another Constitutional Convention?
Fight Over “Margaritaville” Leaves GI Dead in Steamboat
Israel Against the Barbarians
Porn Industry Seeks Federal Bailout
Video: Kissinger: Obama Primed to Create ‘New World Order’ Policy Guru Says Global Upheaval Presents ‘Great Opportunity’
Why Does the New York Times Love Hamas?
Why Should Officers Risk Their Lives?
 
Canada
Canada: the Dangers of Hate-Hunting
Ottawa Blames Hamas for Civilian Deaths at School
 
Europe and the EU
Antwerp Authorities Put Limits on AEL Demo
Czech Senate Postpones Lisbon Treaty Ratification Until February
Denmark: Politicians Stay Out of School Prayer Dispute
France: Fear for Increasing Anti-Semitism Cases
Greece: Reaction to Officer’s Shooting
Housing: 63,000 Spanish Youth Receive Rent Contribution
Klaus Calls for Easing of Rules
Odense: Background of the Shooting Suspect
Spain: 332,000 Construction Jobs Lost in 5 Months
Sweden: Jews Under Increasing Threat
Sweden: Students Reported for Beating School Principal
The Netherlands: Police May Not Swear on the Koran
The True Extent of Britain’s Debt
UK: “Hit List” of Britain’s Leading Jews
UK: Britain’s Terror Threat Reduced
UK: Honoured at Last: the Policeman Killed by a Terrorist
UK: MI5 and How to Deal With Homegrown Muslim Extremists
UK: Synagogue Set Alight During Rise in Anti-Semitic Attacks in London
UK: The Day the Sea Froze: Temperature Plunges to Minus 12C…
UK: Violence Fears Over Rival London Protests
UK: We Cannot Afford to Ignore the Interests of Savers
 
Balkans
Bosnia: NATO, Italian in Charge of Sarajevo Headquarters
 
Mediterranean Union
Economy: Tunisia, 50 Million-Euro Loan From Italy
 
North Africa
Gaza: Algeria Gives a Quarter of Zakat to Gaza People
Morocco: Among First 10 Countries in Field of Off-Shoring
Morocco: Female Quotas for Next Local Elections
 
Israel and the Palestinians
Alan Dershowitz: the CNN Strategy
Gaza: Save the Children Provides Aid to About 6000
Gaza: Hezbollah on the Offensive Despite War Rhetoric
Israel: Use More Force
Middle East: Hamas ‘Executes Six Suspected Collaborators’
Why Israel Will Lose — Again
 
Middle East
Defence: Israeli Suppliers for Turkey Air Force F16 Fighter
Military: Turkish Soldiers to be Equipped With Latest Tools
Turkey: “Marriage School” to Counter Divorces’ Increase
 
Russia
Cold War! EU Gives Russia 24 Hours to Switch Pipeline Back on After 12 Countries Left Without Power
Hungary Restrictions Natural Gas Consumption
Lithuania Should Not Fear for Russian Gas
Moldovan Emergencies Commission Tackles Gas Supply Issue
Putin’s Gas Mace
Russia Has Cut Gas Supply to Europe, Says Ukraine
Schools Close, Industry Hit by Crisis Reaction to Russian Gas Freeze
Slovakia: Nuclear Plant to Reopen if Gas Freeze Lasts
The Battle of the Oligarchs Behind the Gas Dispute
 
South Asia
Dossier: Handlers Used Virtual Number to Contact a Mobile With One of the Terrorists
Indonesia: Jihadists the Last Thing Gaza Needs: Minister
Muslims Force Pop Star Rihanna to Cover Up
The MSM: Protectors of the Islamic Faith
The War Against Terror That No One Protested
 
Far East
Philippines: Two Bombs Explode in North Cotabato, Another One Found in Maguindanao
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
Navy Escorts 4 Vessels Off Somalia on Day One
 
Latin America
Venezuela: Times of Low Oil Prices
 
Immigration
UK: The Ethnic Cleansing of London: Immigrants Pour in, White Brits Leave
 
Culture Wars
America’s Identity Crisis
UK: Atheist Buses Denying God’s Existence Take to Streets
 
General
Leading American Muslim Publicly Threatens U.S. for Supporting Israel
Mr. Gore: Apology Accepted
The Special Relationship

USA


$240,000 Dollars Awarded to Man Forced to Cover Arab T-Shirt

NEW YORK (AFP) — An airline passenger forced to cover his T-shirt because it displayed Arabic script has been awarded 240,000 dollars in compensation, campaigners said Monday.

Raed Jarrar received the pay out on Friday from two US Transportation Security Authority officials and from JetBlue Airways following the August 2006 incident at New York’s JFK Airport, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced.

“The outcome of this case is a victory for free speech and a blow to the discriminatory practice of racial profiling,” said Aden Fine, a lawyer with ACLU.

Jarrar, a US resident, was apprehended as he waited to board a JetBlue flight from New York to Oakland, California, and told to remove his shirt, which had written on it in Arabic: “We will not be silent.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]



Another Constitutional Convention?

Is it time for a new Constitutional Convention?

A recent proposal for a new federal Constitutional Convention in Ohio failed, but another is now being considered in Virginia. While some people, rightfully concerned with the multi-billion dollar “bailout” of private companies and huge financial institutions by the U.S. Congress want to amend the United States Constitution to require a balanced budget, others, with entirely different motives, would like nothing more than to rewrite that document altogether.

I, too, share concern for the late action of Congress to give away taxpayer money to privately owned businesses, because such measures are without any justification under the Constitution already. And the prospect of powerful special-interest groups having anything to do with writing a new constitution should frighten anyone who loves the liberty we have enjoyed for over 220 years under our present form of government.

[…]

Throughout our history, many have warned of the dangers of a new Constitutional Convention. One of the first to recognize the perils of another Constitutional Convention was James Madison, the acknowledged “Father of the Constitution,” who warned:

Having witnessed the difficulties and dangers experienced by the first Convention which assembled under every propitious circumstance, I should tremble for the result of a second.

As recently as 1987, former Chief Justice Warren Burger, chairman of the U.S. Bicentennial Commission, commented on the prospects of another convention by stating:

There is no way, any more than the Continental Congress could control the convention in Philadelphia, to put a muzzle on a Constitutional Convention. Once it meets, it will do whatever the majority wants to do.. I would not favor it.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]



Fight Over “Margaritaville” Leaves GI Dead in Steamboat

An Army sergeant who offended two patrons of a Steamboat Springs sports bar when he played one of his favorite Jimmy Buffett songs, “Margaritaville,” has died of the beating inflicted by the pair, authorities said today.

Sgt. 1st Class Richard Lopez, 37, of Fayetteville, N.C., died at 4:16 a.m. Monday at Denver Health Medical Center, according to Steamboat Springs Police Capt. Joel Rae.

[…]

Rae said Lopez was obviously enjoying the song and that upset the two other patrons. The pair — whose names were not released — made disparaging remarks about the song’s selection, and the argument escalated on the street near the bar.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]



Israel Against the Barbarians

Yet here in America, and even more so in Europe, you will find millions of theoretically civilized people who find a moral equivalence between Israel and her sworn enemies — and even more millions who favor the Arabs.

In a recent Rasmussen Poll, 62 percent of Republicans in America sided with Israel, while a mere 31 percent of Democrats favored Israel in the current conflict.

As you may have noticed, the world’s media rarely if ever remarked about the thousands of missiles Hamas fired into Israel over the past few years. However, once Israel finally got around to announcing that enough was enough and went on the offensive, Condoleezza Rice and the European Union didn’t waste a second before crying “Foul!” and throwing a penalty flag.

This same pattern is followed each and every time Israel responds to unprovoked attacks. You can invariably count on the nations of the world agreeing that Israel is out of line. While it’s nice they can agree on something, it’s a shame that “something” never seems to be Islamic terrorism, Arab barbarism or slavery in modern-day Africa.

Can you imagine anyone in his right mind 67 years ago claiming that America was over-reacting to Pearl Harbor? Would anybody but an idiot have suggested that once America had sunk an equal number of Japanese battleships or killed an equal number of Japanese soldiers and sailors that we should have ceased hostilities and turned things over to European diplomats, especially after seeing how well those fellows had kept Hitler and Mussolini in check?

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]



Porn Industry Seeks Federal Bailout

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Another major American industry is asking for assistance as the global financial crisis continues: Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and Girls Gone Wild CEO Joe Francis said Wednesday they will request that Congress allocate $5 billion for a bailout of the adult entertainment industry.

“The take here is that everyone and their mother want to be bailed out from the banks to the big three,” said Owen Moogan, spokesman for Larry Flynt. “The porn industry has been hurt by the downturn like everyone else and they are going to ask for the $5 billion. Is it the most serious thing in the world? Is it going to make the lives of Americans better if it happens? It is not for them to determine.”

Francis said in a statement that “the US government should actively support the adult industry’s survival and growth, just as it feels the need to support any other industry cherished by the American people.”

“We should be delivering [the request] by the end of today to our congressmen and [Secretary of the Treasury Henry] Paulson asking for this $5 billion dollar bailout,” he told CNN Wednesday.

Flynt and Francis concede the industry itself is in no financial danger — DVD sales have slipped over the past year, but Web traffic has continued to grow.

But the industry leaders said the issue is a nation in need. “People are too depressed to be sexually active,” Flynt said in the statement. “This is very unhealthy as a nation. Americans can do without cars and such but they cannot do without sex.”

“With all this economic misery and people losing all that money, sex is the farthest thing from their mind. It’s time for congress to rejuvenate the sexual appetite of America. The only way they can do this is by supporting the adult industry and doing it quickly.”

So far, there has been no congressional reaction to the request.

           — Hat tip: Abu Elvis [Return to headlines]



Video: Kissinger: Obama Primed to Create ‘New World Order’ Policy Guru Says Global Upheaval Presents ‘Great Opportunity’

According to Henry Kissinger, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and former secretary of state under President Nixon, conflicts across the globe and an international respect for Barack Obama have created the perfect setting for establishment of “a New World Order.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]



Why Does the New York Times Love Hamas?

The paper of record refuses to call them terrorists, extols the group?s humanitarian efforts, and whitewashes its behavior during the now-broken cease-fire.

In the past week, the Fourth Estate?s Hamas cheerleaders have stripped away any pretense of being honest or neutral, with The New York Times continuing to take the side of the terrorist group in one of the most shameful journalistic episodes I have ever seen. In following The Times’ coverage for the past six months and checking external sources of information, one can see a clear pattern of propagandistic reporting favoring Hamas that selectively suppressed or willfully misrepresented information.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]



Why Should Officers Risk Their Lives?

Last week, Pennsylvania Republican Congressman Charlie Dent became another influential voice calling on President Bush to pardon two former border patrol agents convicted of shooting an unarmed drug smuggler who was trying to escape across the US-Mexico border. Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean are serving more than 10 years each for shooting Osvaldo Davila in the buttocks while he was fleeing from an abandoned van loaded with 750 pounds of marijuana.

[…]

How can you expect law enforcement officers to do their jobs if they risk prison time on the word of criminals they are paid to protect us from? Case in point: last month, just south of Tucson, Arizona, Mexican drug smugglers unloaded $1 million in drugs across the US border and fired automatic weapons at Border Patrol agents. The agents did not return fire because they fear losing their jobs or ending up behind bars like Ramos and Compean. Can you blame them?

During the trial, an Assistant US Attorney told the court that the agents had violated an unarmed man’s (Davila’s) civil rights. How they could prove he was unarmed is beyond imagination since he left the scene and wasn’t heard from until he became a witness against the same men who have the duty to keep him from being where he was in the first place. Furthermore, agent Ramos testified that he heard shots and saw his partner, Compean, on the ground. Then he saw Davila turn toward him, pointing what appeared to be a gun. Ramos fired at Davila, but was unaware that the man was hit because he watched him continue running and jump into a waiting van and flee across the border.

Notwithstanding the ludicrous nature of having an illegal alien drug smuggler be responsible for putting 2 border patrol agents in prison, this case underscores the serious disconnect between those who face crime in the real world and those who read about it in the safety and security of a law library.

The imprisonment of these 2 men is more than a national disgrace; it’s an example of a country that has lost its will to survive. When we put lawmen in prison based on the word of the lawless, how interested are the lawmen going to be in risking their lives for us?

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]

Canada


Canada: the Dangers of Hate-Hunting

If you believe the Criminal Code should be amended to make it easier for police to charge suspects with hate crimes, then you must believe there exists a hierarchy of hate; all hate is equally bad, but some hate is equally worse than others.

I know that’s a head-scratching tautology. Yet equally head-scratching is the belief that we may look inside a criminal’s mind, know with certainty what motivates him and determine, God-like, which motivations are more or less reprehensible than others — not merely which criminal acts are worse than other, but which of the thoughts behind those acts are worse as well.

Take for instance the husband who murders his wife (or the wife who murders her husband) because he has come to hate everything about her. He is so thoroughly disgusted by the way she talks, the way she chews, by her family and her constant belittling of his lack of career success that his loathing drives him to kill her.

Then consider the racist who has become so consumed by his hatred of Jews, Muslims, blacks, aboriginals or even whites that he bludgeons to death a member of the group he despises.

Is the second murder worse than the first? Is the victim in the former less dead because the hatred that led to his or her killing was personal rather than political?

The trouble with the recent proposal to extend the authority over whether to lay hate-crimes charges beyond prosecutors and Cabinet ministers to police is that it give politics and ideology even bigger roles in court than the existing hate-crimes statute does.

The existing law, passed in 2004, is bad enough, but at least it has been contained in the damage it can do by the need to have all hate-crime prosecutions sanctioned in advance by Crown prosecutors and even attorneys-general.

The new proposal, put forward by crusading Edmonton hate-crimes cop Stephen Camp, would let the law out of the box. Full-time hate-hunter cops such as Sgt. Camp could become, essentially, human rights commissioners with guns, badges and the power to arrest and lay charges.

Part of the prompting for Sgt. Camp’s amendments, apparently, is a November attack in Oshawa in which a lesbian couple was violently assaulted in front of their child by a man shouting insults about their orientation.

That’s appalling to be sure, but is it any worse than an assailant attacking a straight couple in front of their kids while shouting hateful insults about their honesty/fidelity/sobriety?

There is no difference, unless the political expressions of one attacker strike you as more important than the personal expressions of another.

The children in both instances will be equally emotionally scared. The assault victims will be equally hurt and take equally long to heal. The only difference is that some interest groups and some members of the public may be more offended by the expressed motives of one attacker over the other.

But our courts have no business using the criminal justice system to appease the political agendas of third parties. Yet it is third-party interests that hate-crimes laws serve the most…

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Ottawa Blames Hamas for Civilian Deaths at School

Harper government’s staunch support for Israel stands in sharp contrast with international reaction to incident

OTTAWA — Canada’s Conservative government says Hamas is responsible for civilian deaths at a UN school where Israeli mortar fire killed at least 40 yesterday, arguing they have used civilians to shield fighters.

The Harper government says a ceasefire can work only if Hamas not only stops rocket attacks but permanently disarms, maintaining a staunchly pro-Israel position as many other Western nations pressed for an immediate ceasefire.

The Israeli military operation in Gaza has now killed more than 660, including an Israeli mortar blast yesterday at a United-Nations-operated school in Jabalya, northeast of Gaza City, where at least 40 were killed. Six Israeli soldiers and four civilians have been killed.

Canada’s junior foreign minister, Peter Kent, said that despite sketchy details on the school strike, it is clear that Hamas “bears the full responsibility for the deepening humanitarian tragedy.

“We really don’t have complete details yet, other than the fact that we know that Hamas has made a habit of using civilians and civilian infrastructure as shields for their terrorist activities, and that would seem to be the case again today,” he said in an interview.

He added: “In many ways, Hamas behaves as if they are trying to have more of their people killed to make a terrible terrorist point.”

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the firing on the UN school “totally unacceptable,” but the Israeli military said its shelling was a response to mortar fire from within the school.

Canada’s position now places it among Israel’s most staunch supporters in the world during the 11-day military offensive in Gaza.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has called for an immediate ceasefire, as has a European Union mission — calling on Israel to stop its offensive but also on Hamas to end rocket attacks into Israel.

Like the United States, Canada insists that any ceasefire must be durable, but as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday stressed the need to “urgently conclude a ceasefire,” Mr. Kent seemed to attach greater conditions.

He said that Hamas must not only end its rocket attacks, but to “down arms and to cease and desist its terrorist activities,” and agree not to rearm.

“Canada believes there should be an immediate ceasefire, but only if it’s a permanent ceasefire, if it’s a durable ceasefire, and if Hamas is prevented or is willing not to rearm and resume its terrorist rocketing at some point down the road,” Mr. Kent said.

The comments from Mr. Kent, usually responsible for relations with the Americas, are the Conservative government’s most extensive since the Israeli military operation began; Prime Minister Stephen Harper has yet to speak of it, while Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon has issued written statements.

Mr. Kent also said that Canadian officials were working with Israeli officials to help 39 Canadian citizens leave Gaza. They were stranded yesterday for a second straight day when Israeli officials said it was too risky to try to bus them across northern Gaza’s Erez Crossing into Israel, then on to Jordan.

One of the Canadians seeking to get out of Gaza, Marwan Diab, said in a telephone interview that Canadian embassy officials told him by phone that the Red Cross would try to get him out today with his wife and four children, ages 9, 7, 5 and 3.

“They are very terrified, and they are not really able to handle it,” he said of his children.

Mr. Diab, 39, emigrated to Calgary in 1994 but said he has for several years spent part of each year in Gaza where he works for a mental-health organization.

“There is no safe place anywhere in Gaza,” he said.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]

Europe and the EU


Antwerp Demo Nipped in the Bud

[Translation by VH]

The unannounced pro-Palestine demonstration in Antwerp today did not get out of hand. The police picked up all possible activists, even before they could gather together. There were already 56 administrative and 1 judicial arrest accomplished. The latter was a man who carried a forbidden weapon on him.

It didn’t get to a demonstration, eventhough at circa 16:00 the Turnhoutsebaan was being blocked when a large group of youth that was hanging about had to be taken in custody. Actually the Islamic youth had called via sms to gather in the Kerkstreaat to move on together to the Cantral Station, but they didn’t make it that far.

Hanging About

The youngsters where already hanging about the Turnhoutsebaan and constantly got in and out the trams that go there. To lead them away safely, the police stopped traffic for a short while. because of the demonstration De Lijn [public transport company] took precautions. Bus number 23 was diverted so as not to have to go through the Kerkstraat and the trams on the Turnhoutsebaan also took another route.

Equally, there was mentioned that the event had been transferred ti the Groenplaats, but that was just a rumor. The number of arrests might increase, but major trouble is not expected anymore.

           — Hat tip: VH [Return to headlines]



Antwerp Authorities Put Limits on AEL Demo

[Translation by VH]

The Arabic European Legue (AEL) has filed a request for a demonstration this Saturday in Antwerp. The municipal authorities this morning where in talks with the AEL on the conditions for the manifestation to receive a permit. The AEL does not agree and now says that the police must make sure the demonstration will go well. They consider a definitive answer, that is expected tomorrow.

In short: The municipality demands a different route and that the AEL arrange an internal security service of at least one hundred well recognizable persons, older than 20 years, and they have to provide a list with the names of them. The City also demands a scenario and forbids the wearing of masks.

           — Hat tip: VH [Return to headlines]



Czech Senate Postpones Lisbon Treaty Ratification Until February

Prague — The foreign committee of the Senate, the upper house of Czech parliament, today approved a senior ruling Civic Democrat (ODS) senators’s proposal to postpone the debate and ratification of the EU reform Lisbon treaty until mid-February.

ODS Senator Vlastimil Sehnal justified the proposal by the need to ensure the votes of all seven ODS senators necessary to achieve the constitutional or three-fifths majority in the 81-member Senate necessary for the ratification of the document.

ODS Senator Jiri Pospisil pointed to the conclusions of the ODS national congress that recommended to give preference to the ratification in parliament of the Czech-U.S. treaties on the stationing of a U.S. missile defence radar base on Czech soil before the ratification of the EU Lisbon treaty.

The Senate has approved the Czech-U.S. radar treaties and the Chamber is to deal with them at the beginning of February while the government coalition has a problem to have the treaties approved in the Chamber of Deputies because of the objections raised by the opposition and of an uncertain position of the junior government Green Party (SZ).

The Chamber could take the final vote on the treaties at its session that starts on February 3.

Rostislav Slavotinek, head of the senators’ group of the junior ruling Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL), and Senate foreign committee chairman Jiri Dienstbier (for the opposition Social Democrats, CSSD) also supported the ODS senators’ proposal for the postponement of the Lisbon treaty ratification.

“I personally see no reason why the Lisbon treaty should be ratified immediately,” Dienstbier said.

ODS senators who are members of the Senate constitutional and legal committee and who pushed for the ratification postponement at a committee meeting on Tuesday recommended to postpone the vote on the document pending the passage of two bills — an amendment to the Senate order of procedure and a bill on relations between the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, or the “liaison bill.”

The liaison law is to ensure that the government respected the position of both parliamentary houses while discussing European laws and decisions.

The bill on the Senate order of procedure is to enable the Senate to address the European Court if the government or the European Commission failed to take the senators’ position into consideration.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Denmark: Politicians Stay Out of School Prayer Dispute

Parents of children at Jutland primary schools have complained about the practice of morning prayer

A state school in northern Jutland has been put in the limelight in recent days, after a parent of one of its students lodged a complaint about the school’s practice of having the children recite the ‘Our Father’ prayer.

Children at Houlkær School in Viborg start each school day with the prayer — something that did not sit well with one parent, who complained about the practice to atheist organisation Humanistisk Samfund.

Another parent of a child at Nørre Nissum School in Lemvig pleaded her identical case in an article in Kristeligt Dagblad newspaper. The two parents argue that, unlike at private schools, prayer has no place in a state-funded school.

Houlkær School plans to take up the issue at a parent-administrators’ meeting on 12 January.

But should the schools continue to conduct the prayer sessions, the issue may become a legal one. According to the Education Ministry, parents have the right to demand their children be excluded from prayer at state schools.

Nørre Nissum School has indicated it has no plans to abide by that rule. But the subject is one that many politicians are unwilling to address.

‘This issue is completely and exclusively a local one,’ said Marianne Jelved, education spokeswoman for the Social Liberals. ‘It’s nothing we’re going to take up at parliament.’

Jelved’s position was backed up by a number of other party spokespersons — including that of the left-of-centre Socialist People’s Party.

‘Parents may have a more difficult time having to live with the common rules, but otherwise we’ll end up with a state-run school where everything is controlled by MPs,’ said the party’s Pernille Vigsø Bagge.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



France: Fear for Increasing Anti-Semitism Cases

(ANSAmed) — PARIS, JANUARY 6 — Fear is on the rise in France for the increasing number of threats or anti-Semitism cases provoked by the conflict in the Middle East, according to two press releases by the Union of the Jewish students in France and the national authority for security service against anti-Semitism. “We must not allow that the conflict contributes negatively on our living together”, the president of the Union wrote. “We think that this situation is the consequence of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, exploited by some expremists supporters of Hamas with the excuse of supporting the Palestinian people, in order to express their hate to Israel”, the national authority for security service adds. Also SOS Racisme, which expressed preoccupation for the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Gaza, asked for this conflict “not to be imported on the French territory”. (ANSAmed).

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Greece: Reaction to Officer’s Shooting

Greek leadership and political parties on Monday emphasised that an early morning attack against three police officers in the Exarchia district directly targets the country’s democracy and all that has been attained by the Greek people through sacrifices and struggles.

A three-man police squad guarding a culture ministry building in the Exarchia district of Athens was attacked at approximately 3:05 a.m. Monday by three assailants using a with a Kalashnikov-type assault rifle and at least one more firearm, an attack that resulted in the serious injury of 20-year-old police officer Diamantis Mantzounis, who suffered two gunshot wounds, to the chest and leg.

Mantzounis, who was rushed to a nearby hospital by his colleagues, was diagnosed upon arrival as in extremely critical condition and immediately taken to surgery, where multiple injuries of vital organs in the abdomen and chest area ascertained. A second wound from a bullet, which had exited the officer, was also detected in his thigh.

A medical bulletin stated that, following the operation, which was successfully completed at 9 a.m., and several blood transfusions, the patient was in a very serious but stable condition, and due to the severity of his condition was placed in the Erythros Stavros (Red Cross) Hospital’s ICU.

Both President Karolos Papoulias and Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis sharply condemned the incident, reminiscent of past decades’ urban attacks by once-active ultra-leftist terror groups, most notably the now defunct “November 17” gang…

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Housing: 63,000 Spanish Youth Receive Rent Contribution

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, JANUARY 5 — So far 63,166 young Spanish citizens have received state aid totalling 210 euro per month as a contribution to rental expenses one year after the measure came into force, according to the data released today by the Housing Ministry, which stressed that 32.2pct of requests had been granted. In the fourth quarter of 2008 the number of those benefiting from the aid was up by 41.5pct, with 18,552 young people having begun to receive the monthly contribution. In the year since the measure was brought in, 196,141 requested have been submitted, and 130,113 have been accepted — 79.1pct of the total. Just before the measure came into force on 1 January 2008, the Housing Ministry had estimated that about 360,000 young people met the age and income requirements to have access to the aid. Madrid is the community which saw the largest request, followed by Catalonia and Andalusia. (ANSAmed).

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Klaus Calls for Easing of Rules

The European Union should weaken or even repeal its environmental, labour and health rules to help pull Europe out of economic recession, according to Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, the new holder of the EU’s rotating presidency.

In an article in today’s Financial Times, Mr Klaus confirms his reputation as the EU’s most politically incorrect head of state by pouring scorn on “global warming alarmists”, and by expressing the hope that the government will not use its presidency to advance closer EU integration…

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Odense: Background of the Shooting Suspect

Though he had a very violent childhood, the suspect in the shooting of the two Israelis in Denmark was considered a success story and a role-model. However, even then, he never did share the Danish ideals, holding hostile attitudes towards Israelis, Jews and even women.

———-

The Danish-Palestinian suspected of shooting the two Israelis in Odense, Denmark, last week had a very violent childhood but was thought to have turned around. In 2003 Wissam Freijeh even appeared in a municipal campaign to further education under the title “you choose yourself how your life will be lived.”

There he said that it’s not fun to be on welfare, because you get letters from the municipality the whole time. He felt he was under constant inspect and that he was going in a direction he hadn’t chosen for himself.

He therefore signed up to learn metal working and said that he enjoys his job since he can see that what he’s making can be used. It’s hard work, but it’s also fun. He is proud of earning his own money and is making more than on welfare.

In 2004, a year before he finished his apprenticeship, he said in an interview to Fyens Stiftstidende that he wanted to contribute to getting Danes to have a better opinion of foreigners.

As a teenager he was frustrated, criminal, hotheaded and violent towards teachers and students in his public school, but according to somebody who knows him since childhood, he grew up, got married to a woman of Palestinian origin, had two children, got an education and settled down. He broke off connections with some of his old friends.

According to the municipality he was one of the worst boys from the Odense neighborhood of Vollsmose, who changed his life and became a role-model for others, speaking up for education and working.

“I regret a lot, but I have a future,” he said, while he was a student at the manufacturing school.

Though the reason for the attack is not yet known and his court appearance was behind closed doors, like his three brothers and two sisters Freijeh was born in Lebanon and has radical points of view regarding the situation between the Palestinians and the Israelis. He was gang-ho when talk turned to politics. In discussion of the conflict in the Middle-East Freijeh spoke out patriotically and like many other Palestinians did not hide his hate to Israel and Jews. “It’s my land — Palestine,” he said in the 2004 interview.

However, several sources Fyens Stiftstidende spoke with are confounded by the fact that he’s now sitting in jail on suspicion of trying to kill two Israelis. An acquaintance since his school-days put it this way: he must have completely snapped.

Since after his years of violence, fights and break-ins, most of his acquaintances thought he was settling down.

A former colleague at the school says that he had respect for the work and for the others and there were never any problems with him. He came on time and fit in, coming to the Christmas party and other social events.

But the colleague does remember one episode where Freijeh’s background and attitudes collided with the old-time metalworker apprentice attitudes. There was a story in the media about a man who shot his wife because she left him. Freijeh thought it was reasonable because a woman shouldn’t leave her husband, that the man had a right to shoot her.

In May 2005 he got a job in his profession, but long-time problems with his hip made it harder and harder to him to continue as a metal-worker. Finally he had to give up due to hip dysplasia and he quit his job.

One of Freijeh’s friends, who used to meet in in Vollsmose regularly till the shooting incident, says that Freijeh was always cheerful. “Therefore it completely confounds me, that he could do that,” he says.

           — Hat tip: Steen [Return to headlines]



Spain: 332,000 Construction Jobs Lost in 5 Months

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, JANUARY 5 — Spain’s construction sector is in serious decline: around 332,600 jobs have been lost in the last five months bringing the number of unemployed in the sector to 520,000, according to data released by the Union General Trabajadores (Ugt-Mca) labour union. In a document, the union bemoans the inability of the Spanish economy to continue to create work and cushion the repercussions of the economic crisis, leading it to call for “urgent intervention” from the public administration to kick-start construction. According to Ugt, from the Government to the Regional authorities, through the autonomous communities to the provinces, the public sector must “plan and execute long term infrastructure, non-residential and protected building projects”. With respect to the infrastructure programmes, the union is expressing concern over the 17% reduction, over the first nine months of last year, of public works tenders from regional authorities and local administrations. The union also underlines the need for the national government, along with the rest of the public sector, to promote a change in the country’s productive model so that industry can substitute construction as the economy’s motor. In the meantime, the union is calling for urgent measures to dampen the effects of the crisis on families — above all for the 3 million unemployed and for temporary workers and those most vulnerable, including immigrants in particular. A report on the current state of the economy written by the Cajamar Foundation emphasises that the collapse in the construction sector principally affects the residential construction sub-sector, for which there “is no sign of a forthcoming stabilisation in its indicators”. According to the report, the pace of job-losses in the sector will remain as it is for the coming months and, in the first quarter of the year, the number of jobs in construction will fall to below two million. The pace of job losses could only be slowed, says the report, through a considerable increase in public works projects. (ANSAmed).

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Spain: Economic Crisis, Applications to Join Up Army Rose

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, JANUARY 6 — In the last few months, Spain is registering a peak in applications to join up the Army, the Navy and the Air Force. The decision is often due to the economic crisis and to the consequent increase of the unemployment. In 2008 the apllications to join up the armed forces were 78,575, accordign to Defence sources quoted by today by Spanish daily El Pais. Last January 1, the Army, the Navy and the Air Force counted on 81,607 soldiers, the highest number since the abolition of compulsory national service. If in 2002 the numbers of would-soldiers was equal to 0.73, in 2008 the average number rose to 3.42. The goal to be reached in December 2009 was equal to over 81,000 soldiers, according to the State forecasts. The plan was changed with the increase of another 5,000 units. (ANSAmed).

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Sweden: Jews Under Increasing Threat

Police in Sweden are on heightened alert following a spike in anti-Semitic attacks around the country in the wake of Israel’s campaign against Gaza-based Hamas militants.

A wooden staircase at a Jewish center in Helsingborg in southern Sweden was set alight twice in three days in the past week in a blaze police suspect was caused by flammable liquid spread over the stairs, according to the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper.

Technicians continue to examine the scene to determine the exact cause of the fire.

And late Sunday night the Israeli embassy in Stockholm was covered with graffiti proclaiming, “Crush Israel, you broke the ceasefire!” and included other proclamations such as “Die!” and “Murderers”.

Another embassy wall was also emblazoned with a graphic likening the Star of David to a swastika — something which has also been found at other locations around Sweden.

“What’s happening in the Middle East, and especially in Israel, always has repercussions for Jewish congregations in Europe. We also see it in Sweden,” said a source from the security department at the Jewish congregation in Stockholm to SvD.

The source told of other threats against members of Jewish congregations, including cases of graffiti, as well as an arson attack at a Jewish burial chapel in Malmà which occurred late on Sunday night.

“A door burned down and there was soot and smoke damage, but the object which burned extinguished itself,” said the source.

Anti-Semitic statements have also increased on blogs and internet forums.

“Legitimate criticism of the Israeli military and the attack against Palestinian civilians is mixed with anti-Semitic clichÃ(c)s and that’s where we end up with a mish-mash seen in commentaries and on blogs,” freelance writer and Swedish Committee against Anti-Semitism activist Jonathan Leman told SvD.

A similar rise in anti-Semitic opinions posted on blogs and internet forums occurred back in 2006 following Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, he said.

In Stockholm, police plan to increase surveillance around the offices of the Jewish congregation as well as the Israeli embassy.

“Of course congregation members are worried,” said the Jewish congregation source to SvD.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Sweden: Students Reported for Beating School Principal

Three students from a school in western Sweden have been reported to police for assaulting their principal.

Hans Ã…kerlundh, the principal at the Haga School in Dals-Eds municipality, was in the process of disciplining the students when they suddenly began hitting and kicking him, reports Sveriges Radio.

According to Ã…kerlundh, the students likely felt cornered, which may explain their reaction.

He added that the school planned on developing new procedures so that similar events don’t occur in the future.

“I believe that we can work together. Not only the police and the school, but also with these students and their parents, to look at how their school attendance should be,” said Ã…kerlundh.

As the students are minors, police don’t plan to pursue a preliminary investigation but will instead send the matter along to social services.

However, Per-Erik Vister of the nearby Ã…mal police force thinks police involvement could help send youth a message that such behaviour is not acceptable.

“I’d actually really appreciate it if the police got involved in the case because this is so serious,” he told Sveriges Radio.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



The Netherlands: Police May Not Swear on the Koran

Police officers will not be allowed to swear their allegiance to the force on the Koran, home affairs minister Guusje ter Horst told parliament on Tuesday.

As is the case with civil servants, they will only be able to use a Christian or a neutral oath. reports news agency Novum.

Members of the armed forces and civilians working for the defence ministry are allowed to use the Koran.

           — Hat tip: VH [Return to headlines]



The True Extent of Britain’s Debt

How much is Britain’s true national debt? Gordon Brown says 37% of GDP, the ONS says 43% of GDP — but this is just government debt. The reason Britain is in so much trouble is that our corporate and household debts are huge. It is the combination that makes us such a credit liability — but no one has ever put together a combination.

Until now.

Michael Saunders from CitiGroup has calculated “external debt” — ie, what Britain owes the rest of the world. It is not 40% but 400% of GDP, the highest in the G7 by some margin. The next down, France, is 176%. America, flagellating itself for blowing such a debt bubble, is just 100%. Japan is about half America. The below graph shows “external debt” — both in mid-2008, and five years ago.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]



UK: “Hit List” of Britain’s Leading Jews

FEARS grew last night that hate-filled Islamic extremists are drawing up a “hit list” of Britain’s leading Jews — bringing the Middle East conflict terrifyingly close to home.

TV’s The Apprentice boss Sir Alan Sugar and Amy Winehouse record producer Mark Ronson are among prominent names discussed on a fanatics’ website.

Labour Peer and pal of Tony Blair Lord Levy, Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Princess Diana’s divorce lawyer Anthony Julius are also understood to be potential targets.

British anti-terror expert Glen Jenvey is convinced online forum Ummah is being used to prepare a deadly backlash against UK Jews.

His warning came as Europe was hit by anti-Semitic attacks over Israel’s push into the Gaza Strip.

           — Hat tip: Steen [Return to headlines]



UK: Britain’s Terror Threat Reduced

Jonathan Evans said extremists had been “chilled” by a succession of court cases where their former comrades pleaded guilty to involvement in plots.

In a rare interview given by a serving head of MI5, he said they have been forced to “keep their heads down” following the 86 prosecutions in terror trials since January 2007.

However, he said the terror networks had not gone away, adding: “There is enough intelligence to show they have the intention to mount an attack here.

“There is a significant number of individuals in active sympathy. They are doing things like fund-raising, helping people to travel to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia.”

The security chief also predicted that the Israeli invasion of Gaza would see “extremists try to radicalise individuals for their own purposes”.

And he warned that the global economic crisis was bringing potential new dangers for the UK.

Our focus in the next few years will be international terrorism, al Qaeda and its associates, but we are also looking at the global economic crisis.

UK spymaster comes out of the shadows

“We have to maintain flexibility and respond to threats. The world will not stay the same,” Mr Evans said in an interview to mark the centenary of MI5.

Although he stressed there was no direct correlation between wealth and extremism, he said it was important to consider what would happen if the “West becomes less economically dominant”.

Mr Evans disclosed that the terrorists who caused the Mumbai massacre in November had indirect links to Britain.

And he stressed the importance of events in Pakistan and Afghanistan for the UK’s security, revealing that 75% of MI5’s investigations had connections with Pakistan.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



UK: Economic Crisis Increases Our Terror Risk, Warns MI5 Head

The world economic crisis could heighten the terrorism threat facing Britain, the head of MI5 has cautioned.

In an interview Jonathan Evans, the director general of the security service, said a potential shift in the balance of economic power away from the West could prove to be a “watershed moment” causing new risks to security to emerge.

The 2012 Olympics remained a major target, he said, but a “chilling effect” of 86 successful terror prosecutions over the past 18 months had diminished the overall threat faced by the UK. His most significant assessment was that the economic slump could leave the country more vulnerable to radicalisation, spying and terrorism.

Mr Evans did not specify how this might occur, but said history had shown that previous worldwide recessions had serious repercussions. “Where there have been watershed moments, there have been national security implications from that — a new alignment,” he said. “The world will not stay the same.”

“Our focus in the next few years will be international terrorism, al Qaeda and its associates, but we are also looking at the global economic crisis.” Among the threats are spying by Russia and China, which are understood to have stepped up espionage interest in key economic sites in this country. Mr Evans also said telephone calls had been discovered between members of the Pakistani Lashkar-e-Taiba group, accused of being behind the Mumbai bombings, and people in Britain, but these had not been of “security significance”.

British Muslims were still travelling to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia for terrorist training. Pakistan remained the main source of danger, with 75per cent of MI5 investigations revealing links between that country and extremists here.

           — Hat tip: VH [Return to headlines]



UK: Honoured at Last: the Policeman Killed by a Terrorist

He was stabbed to death while valiantly protecting fellow police officers from a knife-wielding Al Qaeda terrorist. Yet after his murder six years ago Stephen Oake was snubbed as ‘unsuitable’ when it was suggested he receive a George Cross.

At the time, Tony Blair was accused of betraying the memory of Detective Constable Oake, the first British policeman to be killed by Al Qaeda. Today, however, the Special Branch officer will finally be honoured for his bravery.

The 40-year-old father of three’s courage has been recognised with a Queen’s Gallantry Medal, one of nine royal bravery accolades announced today. His widow Lesley spoke of her pride at the ‘great news’ for herself and her family. ‘Steve’s actions on that fateful day in January 2003 were typical of a man who was committed to his job and to his colleagues,’ she said.

We are extremely proud that his sacrificial act of bravery has resulted in this prestigious award. ‘We accept this award not only on behalf of Steve but in recognition, too, of the bravery of the many officers that were involved on that day.’

Another officer in the Greater Manchester Police — a detective sergeant who wishes to remain anonymous — was awarded the Queen’s Commendation for Bravery for his part in the counter-terrorism operation.

The raid on a flat in Crumpsall, Manchester, led to terrorist Kamel Bourgass killing DC Oake and injuring several other officers. The detective sergeant went to the assistance of DC Oake and was stabbed in the arm. Despite his injury, he tried to restrain Bourgass, managing to punch him in the face, before being stabbed a second time. DC Oake, who was not wearing body armour, was wounded eight times and bleeding to death but clung desperately to his attacker to protect his colleagues until Bourgass was overpowered.

News of the award comes after a long campaign — spearheaded by the Daily Mail — to officially recognise DC Oake’s courage.

At the time of his death, then prime minister Mr Blair praised DC Oake’s bravery but it later emerged that a Cabinet committee questioned whether it was ‘greater than the call of duty’. […]

           — Hat tip: VH [Return to headlines]



UK: MI5 and How to Deal With Homegrown Muslim Extremists

MI5 has faced a series of criticisms about the way it has tackled the threat posed to Britain by homegrown Muslim extremists. Now the Security Service has decided to publicly celebrate its success, albeit cautiously.

In the wake of the July 2005 bomb attacks on London and a series of other plots, MI5 faced accusations they had not done enough to counter the threat of al-Qaeda. Officers were found to have had a number of terror suspects who launched plots under surveillance without stopping them.

Now, following a series of successful terror prosecutions, Mr Evans has given a relatively upbeat assessment of the battle against Muslim fundamentalists in Britain. The battle is not won, he says, but MI5’s actions are forcing them “to keep their heads down”. New challenges may now lie abroad, he said.

His interview is pat of a wider strategy to gradually open up the work of the security services to the public. The first interview by a director general of MI5 was timed to coincide with the centenary of the founding of the Security Service. But is part of a more gradual opening up in which the “spooks” come in from the cold. “I don’t view this as lifting the lid,” Mr Evans said. “As a secret intelligence agency it is important that quite a lot of what we do, we don’t lift the lid on..”

Nevertheless there is a recognition that MI5 has to be accountable and it now faces behind closed doors investigations by the Intelligence and Security and Committee of parliament. His last significant speech — in which he warned that al-Qaeda was attempting to recruit British Muslims as young as 15 — was delivered on the eve of a Government announcement of new anti-terror measures.

This time, there is no such political debate on the horizon. But there is a growing feeling that MI5 needs to explain its role to the public. MI5 also needs recruits, particularly from ethnic minorities, and the more it is seen as a shadowy organisation the harder that has become.

Mr Evans made great play of the Cheltenham Ladies College heritage of many of MI5’s agents of past years and the proud traditions of renowned interrogator Robert “Tin Eye” Stephens. But he also pointed out that the average agent is now aged under 40, that eight per cent come from ethnic minorities and 47 per cent are female — all signs of changing times..

           — Hat tip: VH [Return to headlines]



UK: Synagogue Set Alight During Rise in Anti-Semitic Attacks in London

The number of anti-Semitic attacks in London has risen sharply following Israel’s land assault on Gaza, Jewish community groups said today.

Their leaders have compiled a dossier of attacks against Jews which will be handed to seniors officers in the Metropolitan police.

The attacks include claims of:

  • An attempt to burn down a synagogue in north-west London.

    An assault on a Jewish motorist who was pulled from his car and punched.

    A gang of youths chanting anti-Semitic slogans as they tried to enter restaurants and shops in Golders Green.

The Community Security Trust, which is responsible for the safety of Jews in Britain, has also noted the emergence of anti-Semitic graffiti in Jewish areas across London. Slogans sprayed on walls include: “Kill Jews” and “Jews are scumbags.”

The trust has now logged 24 anti-Semitic incidents — most of them in London — in the past week. Police are said to be stepping up patrols in Jewish areas. Mark Gardner, the trust’s spokesman, told the Standard: “There has been a significant rise in the number of anti-Semitic incidents, especially when compared with what is usually a very quiet time of year for racist, anti-Jewish attacks.

“It is a pattern with which we and police are now sadly familiar, whereby hysteria is whipped up against Israel: and British Jews then suffer a wave of anti-Semitism.” The arson attack on the synagogue in Brondesbury took place on Sunday night. The arsonists first tried to smash open a window but failed because of the toughened glass in place to protect such buildings from terrorist attacks.

Mr Gardner said: “Having been thwarted they then appear to have attempted to set the front door alight with petrol, causing some damage to the exterior of the premises. Police, CST and fire brigade attended the scene..”

On New Year’s Eve, a man was pulled from his car just as he was about to drive off and assaulted by three men whom he described as being of Arab appearance. The victim did not suffer any serious injury. The same night a gang of youths alarmed locals in Golders Green by trying to enter Jewish shops while chanting anti-Israeli slogans.

Joey Ben-Yoav, manager of nearby Met Su Yan, a kosher Chinese restaurant in Golders Green, said: “It was scary. They were waving flags and shouting. It felt like if we went out they would hit us or something. “They walked past a few Jews and just shouted ‘Jew’ at them. They did not look like they were in the mood for making peace.”

           — Hat tip: VH [Return to headlines]



UK: The Day the Sea Froze: Temperature Plunges to Minus 12C…

…and forecasters say it won’t warm up until Sunday

Temperatures plunged so low today that the sea actually began to freeze as Arctic conditions continued to grip the UK.

In the exclusive enclave of Sandbanks in Poole, Dorset the surf had frozen solid as the waves lapping the shore began to frost over.

A half-mile stretch along the shoreline reaching about 20 yards out to sea is covered in ice on the expensive peninsula.

In southern England, normally immune to the worst of the cold weather in winter, temperatures fell as low as -12C — and the chill will go on for several days according to forecasters.

Benson in Oxfordshire and Chesham in Bucks were both close to -12C and the UK’s coldest areas, with other large parts of the south also recording -9C and -10C.

Snow flurries also moved south from Yorkshire and the Humber, leaving drivers facing another day of wintry chaos.

           — Hat tip: Fausta [Return to headlines]



UK: Violence Fears Over Rival London Protests

There were fears of violent street clashes in London today after it emerged that a mass pro-Israeli rally has been planned for minutes after a demonstration against the country’s attack on Gaza, the Evening Standard can reveal.

Police sources said riot officers are on standby amid concerns the two demonstrations may overlap, leading to angry confrontations.

Demonstrations against Israel’s military action are being held all week outside the country’s embassy in Kensington as the civilian death toll of the ground assault grows. Yesterday evening about 100 people gathered outside the building and shouted slogans against Israel’s campaign.

On Monday last week there were 12 arrests after 2,000 people surrounded the embassy in Palace Green to voice their anger.

The Standard has learned that a rally in support of Israel’s actions has been planned at the same spot this evening — half an hour after the pro-Palestinian demonstration is due to end. The pro-Israel rally has been organised by a group on Facebook called London Solidarity Stand for Israel. Within hours of it being set up 1,600 people had said they would come to the event with another 1,811 saying they might attend.

Organiser Moti Friedlander said the group had told police about their plans but they would probably go ahead with or without official approval. The 28-year-old property dealer from Hendon said: “It will be very hard to stop the demonstration now. We are British citizens who have friends in the Israeli army and we have a right to have our say. Hamas are terrorists who hide behind civilians.”

Local MP Sir Malcolm Rifkind said the plans were “risky” and called on both sets of demonstrators to work with police to ensure there was no disorder.

He added: “The right of peaceful protest is precious and needs to be protected. There are people who feel strongly on both sides of this issue and they must not be stopped from doing that.

Pro-Palestinian protest organiser Mohamad Sawalha, of the British Muslim Initiative, said: “It would be better for them not to organise it this way. It will be strange watching people support killing in Gaza. But this is a free country.”

Scotland Yard was not able to confirm whether it had given the pro-Israel rally the go ahead.

           — Hat tip: VH [Return to headlines]



UK: Warning Over Gaza Reprisals

High-profile British Jews were warned to review their security amid fears of reprisal attacks as bloody violence continues in Gaza.

Celebrities, politicians and wealthy business people were among prominent names highlighted on a series of controversial web forums. Among those singled out are The Apprentice boss Sir Alan Sugar, pop producer Mark Ronson, Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Labour peer Lord Levy. One terror expert warned that those listed should take the matter “very seriously”.

Mark Gardner, of The Community Security Trust (CST), said prominent Jewish individuals had been warned to beware of potential threats. He said: “We sent out a security advisory note when the violence began and updated it today. It is a constant process of liaison between us and the community. Our community is conscious, very conscious of security and expects to hear from us at these times.

“It is a notice reminding people to ensure security routines are properly implemented, that CCTV cameras are clean and working. We were aware of these chatroom postings and of course we have spoken to people, I cannot say everyone that is mentioned, but we have discussed it with some of them.”

Two popular Islamic websites hosted forums with calls for a list to be drawn up with the names of British people who support Israel. One user wrote: “It would be beneficial to start compiling a list so that we can write polite letters reminding them of the injustices of Israel.”

Glen Jenvey, a counter terrorism expert who monitors suspected extremists using website forums, said some are being used to prepare a backlash. He told The Sun newspaper: “The website has been used by extremists. Those listed should treat it very seriously.”

           — Hat tip: VH [Return to headlines]



UK: We Cannot Afford to Ignore the Interests of Savers

After years of being neglected, Britain’s beleaguered savers suddenly find themselves besieged by political suitors. The Tory leader David Cameron yesterday pledged to help “the innocent victims” of recession by abolishing the tax on savings for basic rate taxpayers and raising the tax free personal allowance for pensioners. The Conservatives are not alone in turning their attention to those with some money in the bank. Gordon Brown said at the weekend that he plans to do “more to help savers” in the run up to March’s Budget.

It is quite right that our politicians should pay some attention to this particular constituency. Savers have had a wretched time of late. The Bank of England has been busy cutting interest rates in recent months. The Bank’s base rate is now below the level of inflation, making it cheaper (in theory) to borrow money than to save it. Those who live off their savings and those buying annuities are being particularly hard hit.

Falling interest rates for savers also seem to offend our sense of natural economic justice. This economic crisis is, in part, a consequence of businesses and households loading up on cheap borrowing. The near collapse of the global financial system last October has taught us that an economy fuelled by debt is simply unsustainable. As a country, we need to start living within our means.

And yet there are big problems in trying to right the wrongs of the years of excess in a sudden burst of economic prudence, especially in the present environment of collapsing consumer confidence. Banks, businesses and households are in a state of deep shock at the bursting of the credit bubble. All these economic actors are retrenching frantically, reducing their lending, cutting their outgoings and paying off their borrowing. After years of reckless spending, they are furiously saving.

This might seem rational to each of them, but the consequence of this collective prudence is that spending power is being sucked out of the economy at a destabilising rate. Collapsing demand is likely to make this downturn even longer and more painful than it otherwise would be.

If ministers were to attempt to take drastic action to make saving more attractive, for instance by seizing back control of interest rates from the Bank of England and putting them up, it would crucify the wider economy. And savers would suffer as much in those circumstances as those who borrowed recklessly in the boom. It is also worth bearing in mind that if deflation were to take a grip on the UK this year (something many economists are predicting) the value of people’s savings would actually increase in relative terms. There is a danger that Government action to help savers could end up being counter-productive.

There should, however, be a middle way. In the immediate term, the Government could do more to protect the investments of savers, particularly those who rely on their investments to live, without undermining demand still further. Tax relief, as the Tories are advocating, could be the answer (although there is an inevitable risk that the extra income will simply be saved rather than spent).

It will be a difficult balancing act. And there will be powerful influences calling for the ministers to forget savers and focus exclusively on maintaining spending and employment. That would be a mistake. We need to get out of this economic hole, but, when that is done, the hard work of building a sustainable economy begins. We will need savers for that task ahead.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



UK: Welcome to 2009. Heads We Lose, Tails We’re All Doomed

Mind you, it’s not surprising that most people enter 2009 with a sense of foreboding. Unemployment is heading for three million and Gordon Brown’s brilliant plan for saving the world at our expense has fallen flat on its face.

The banks still won’t lend, even to each other, and home repossessions are expected to set a new record.

Even if you are fortunate enough to hold on to your house, you won’t be able to sell it — which is just as well since it will be worth about 50 per cent less than you paid for it.

That won’t stop the Government charging you ever higher taxes for the privilege of living in it. Over the Christmas holidays, it was confirmed that those of us lucky to live in a pleasant area, with a nice view and a low crime rate, are to be punished through big increases in council tax.

Either that, or you’ll find a gipsy site being built next door. Look on the bright side, though. You’ll get your drive tarmacked at half price — whether you want it or not — provided you don’t mind paying cash.

Labour is big on punishment. Ministers are pressing ahead with an exciting range of fines for householders who put out their rubbish on the wrong day, or put the wrong kind or rubbish in the wrong container, in the name of saving the polar bears.

Yet has just been revealed that all this recycling at gunpoint is a complete waste of time since the market for our carefully sorted refuse has collapsed and most of it is being left to rot in warehouses.

That’s going to mean higher council tax, too. Heads, we lose. Tails, we’re screwed.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]

Balkans


Bosnia: NATO, Italian in Charge of Sarajevo Headquarters

(ANSAmed) — SARAJEVO, JANUARY 5 — General Sabato Errico, who will be taking on the command of the NATO headquarters in Sarajevo in a week to replace US General Richard Wightman, has arrived today in Sarajevo. For the first time a non-American officer will be taking on the command of the Atlantic Alliance headquarters in Bosnia. NATO has been in the Balkan country since the end of the war (1992-95), when it deployed 60,000 soldiers on the field. After nine years in which it managed to stabilize the devastated and divided country, the Alliance yielded command of the military mission in Bosnia to the European Union in 2004 but kept control over the Sarajevo headquarters. General Errico will be taking on the position on 14 January, and the handing over ceremony is to take place in the Parliament in the presence of the highest-ranking Bosnian authorities. (ANSAmed).

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Mediterranean Union


Economy: Tunisia, 50 Million-Euro Loan From Italy

(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, JANUARY 6 — As part of the plan to support balance of payments, Italy has granted Tunisia a 50-million-euro loan (about 90 million dinar) (80% of which as a gift), which is to be paid back without interest over the next 34 years. The loan will be used to finance the acquisition, by the Tunisian public administration, of Italian equipment and materials in environmental protection and the development of human resources, culture, social services and healthcare. (ANSAmed).

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

North Africa


Gaza: Algeria Gives a Quarter of Zakat to Gaza People

(ANSAmed) — ALGIERS, JANUARY 5 — Algeria will donate a quarter of its Zakat, the compulsory alms which is the third pillar of Islam, for 2009 to the population of Gaza. “Helping our brothers in Gaza with financial aid is our duty” said Algeriàs ministry for religion, adding that all the country’s Imams would dedicate next Friday’s prayers to raising awareness over raising donations. The Zakat can be given during different periods, although traditionally in Algeria most of the population will make their contribution on the day of the Ashura — the tenth day of the Muharram, the first month of the hejira, which this year will be January 7. Initiatives to help Gaza in Algeria have multiplied. Yesterday hundreds of students demonstrated outside the central university in Algiers while a meeting was organised by government parties to condemn “the terrible holocaust” by Israel against the population of Gaza, declared the secretary of the National Liberation Front (FLN). Algiers has already sent several military planes loaded with around 100 tonnes of medical and food supplies. (ANSAmed).

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Morocco: Among First 10 Countries in Field of Off-Shoring

(ANSAmed) — RABAT, JANUARY 5 — Minister of Foreign Trade, Abdellatif Maazouz said Morocco, which was not on the Off-shoring map three years ago, ranks among the first ten countries in the field nowadays. “The arrival of major investors like Renault, Capgemini (ITs and consulting), Safran (professional electronics) is a positive thing, and would lead other renowned groups to follow suit,” the minister underlined, as Map news agency reports. The international crisis is an opportunity to reconsider our products portfolio and targeted markets, the minister said, adding that “it constitutes an opportunity to reach investors who went as far as Asia and who now seek closer markets”. Maazouz also stressed the necessity to make the utmost use of the free trade agreements Morocco signed with several countries, notably the Agadir Accord (Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan). (ANSAmed).

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Morocco: Female Quotas for Next Local Elections

(by Cristiana Missori) (ANSAmed) — RABAT, JANUARY 5 — A support fund for women standing for the elections on June 12, and the introduction of “female quotas” in Morocco’s city councils. These are the initiatives announced by officials following months of calls for intervention by a group of MPs to modify electoral regulations at the local level. Women who decide to challenge traditionalism and prejudice in Morocco will have 2,822 seats made available to them, or 12.08 percent of the total number of seats. This is an enormous step forward considering that in 2003, when the last local elections were held, women were totally marginalised. There were just 127 women elected out of 24,000, or 0.55 per cent. Thanks to new electoral rules, 30 women out of 34 were elected in 2007 through the female quota system, which led to women MPs in the Moroccan parliament urging the adoption of a bill to force local councils to make at least 33% of seats available to women. This has only partially been achieved with the new regulation on electoral mechanisms for local elections. In all areas the participation of women in managing public affairs is still a problem. In Morocco, their inclusion in Parliament and government dates from the 1990s. Some observers think that it is quite natural that at the local level there are no established models. According to a study carried out by the USAID organisation (United State Agency for International Development) in 2007 — the date of the last elections — the same parties which are keeping women away are “sick with misogyny and sexism”. Many women exclude themselves because there are still too many people who think that women who choose politics “are masculine or destined to remain spinsters”; or it’s a question of the working hours of politicians (not conducive to family life); or because the places where certain ideas are discussed or decisions taken (bars, cafes or clubs) are forbidden to them for socio-cultural reasons, or because they represent a real threat to their “morality”. Finally there is the question of money. Women often lack the means to take on long and costly election campaigns. The new fund just set up by the authorities to “encourage a female presence at the local level” aims at resolving this problem. The State will contribute to the fund, through the Ministry for the Interior which manages public funds. (ANSAmed).

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Israel and the Palestinians


Alan Dershowitz: the CNN Strategy

As Israel persists in its military efforts — by ground, air and sea — to protect its citizens from deadly Hamas rockets, and as protests against Israel increase around the world, the success of the abominable Hamas double war crime strategy becomes evident. The strategy is as simple as it is cynical: Provoke Israel by playing Russian roulette with its children, firing rockets at kindergartens, playgrounds and hospitals; hide behind its own civilians when firing at Israeli civilians; refuse to build bunkers for its own civilians; have TV cameras ready to transmit every image of dead Palestinians, especially children; exaggerate the number of civilians killed by including as “children” Hamas fighters who are 16 or 17 years old and as “women,” female terrorists.

Hamas itself has a name for this. They call it “the CNN strategy” (this is not to criticize CNN or any other objective news source for doing its job; it is to criticize Hamas for exploiting the freedom of press which it forbids in Gaza). The CNN strategy is working because decent people all over the world are naturally sickened by images of dead and injured children. When they see such images repeatedly flashed across TV screens, they tend to react emotionally. Rather than asking why these children are dying and who is to blame for putting them in harm’s way, average viewers, regardless of their political or ideological perspective, want to see the killing stopped. They blame those whose weapons directly caused the deaths, rather than those who provoked the violence by deliberately targeting civilians.

They forget the usual rules of morality and law. For example, when a murderer takes a hostage and fires from behind his human shield, and a policeman, in an effort to stop the shooting accidentally kills the hostage, the law of every country holds the hostage taker guilty of murder even though the policeman fired the fatal shot.

The same is true of the law of war. The use of human shields, in the way Hamas uses the civilian population of Gaza, is a war crime — as is its firing of rockets at Israeli civilians. Every human shield that is killed by Israeli self-defence measures is the responsibility of Hamas, but you wouldn’t know that from watching the media coverage.

The CNN strategy seems to work better, at least in some parts of the world, against Israel that it would against other nations. There is much more protest — and fury — directed against Israel when it inadvertently kills approximately 100 civilians in a just war of self-defence, than against Arab and Muslim nations and groups that deliberately kill far more civilians for no legitimate reason.

It isn’t the nature of the victims, since more Arabs and Muslim civilians are killed every day in Africa and the Middle East by Arab and Muslim governments and groups with little or no protests. (For example, on the first day of Israel’s ground attack, approximately 30 Palestinians, almost all Hamas combatants, were killed. On the same day an Islamic suicide bomber blew herself up in a mosque in Iraq, killing 40 innocent Muslims. No protests. Little media coverage.) It isn’t the nature of the killings, since Israel goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid killing civilians — if for no other reason than that it hurts its cause — while Hamas does everything in its power to force Israel to kill Palestinian civilians by firing its missiles from densely populated civilian areas and refusing to build shelters for its civilians…

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Gaza: Save the Children Provides Aid to About 6000

(ANSAmed) — ROME, JANUARY 5 — Save the Children has handed out aid to about 6,000 people in the Gaza Strip but, as noted in a statement from the organisation, “the violence is ongoing in the area, and has already caused the death of about 87 children.” The organisation’s staff has supplied food and basic necessities in the Gaza City, East Jabalyah, Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun and Un Al Nasser areas, and is planning to distribute goods also in the southern zone of Rafah. Yesterday, despite the precarious security conditions, after the Israeli ground operation got underway, Save the Children staff distributed aid, especially food, to children in Gaza and their families. According to the organisation, “the impossibility of brining into Gaza additional supplies as well as the lasting violence may bring aid distribution by the humanitarian organisation to a halt.” According to Valerio Neri, general director of the organisation, “the situation is growing ever more critical. Since the beginning of the fighting 87 children have lost their lives and 2000 families have had to leave their homes. The children not only have to deal with a lack of food, drinkable water, electricity and medical care, as well as not being able to attend school, but they must constantly deal with violence, fear and uncertainty.” Neri added that “the cold adds to the other problems and the health threats that children in Gaza and their parents have to cope with. Families are forced to leave their windows open during the night to prevent them the shaking caused by bombing from breaking them, as well as the resulting shards from hitting them. The children, for the most part, already poor and malnourished, are forced to spend the night in the cold.” (ANSAmed).

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Gaza: Hezbollah on the Offensive Despite War Rhetoric

(by Ziad Talhouk) (ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, JANUARY 5 — Lebanon’s Hezbollah has so far kept a defensive war rhetoric against Israel, indicating that it will not actively support Gaza by opening a “second front” with the Jewish state. “The Islamic Resistance (Hezbollah) is ready to stand up against any possible Israeli aggression,” said Hezbollah’s commander in southern Lebanon, Sheikh Nabil Qawouq. “The Israeli reinforcements along the borders do not scare us, but we do not take them lightly neither, so that the enemy would not take us by surprise,” he added. Gen. Claudio Graziano, chief of the UN peacekeeping force in south Lebanon (Unifil), has urged Lebanese Premier Fuad Siniora “to avoid turning south Lebanon into a launch pad for attacks against Israel and to prevent any dramatic development in the south”, according to the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat. But Saad Hariri, Sunni leader of Lebanon’s parliamentary majority which is hostile to Hezbollah, said he is “sure” the Shiite group, backed by Iran and Syria, will not attack Israel. “The Lebanese political parties know very well the consequences of war with Israel,” said Hariri from Paris. “I am sure that Hezbollah will not make any mistake this time,” added Hariri, in reference to Hezbollah’s cross-border attack in July 2006 that drew a devastating 34-day Israeli campaign in Lebanon. The Lebanese Daily Star noted that Hezbollah has stepped up declarations of support for Hamas, “but nothing in its words hints at possible military action.” For the pan-Arab daily Asharaq al-Awsat, “Hezbollah has refrained from entering the war because it knows the devastation Israel can inflict on Lebanon, based on the experience of 2006.” However, the head of Israel’s military intelligence, Gen. Amos Yadlin, did not exclude the possibility of an attack by Hezbollah to draw Israel into a “second front”. “We have our eyes on the north (of Israel) and are ready to any development,” said Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. But south Lebanon is also “under the strict watch by the Lebanese military and security forces as well as the Unifil,” according to As-Safir daily, while Asharq al-Awsat said the Army is monitoring Islamic Palestinian groups who might use south Lebanon to bomb Israel. (ANSAmed).

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Israel: Use More Force

As rockets poured into its country for years terrorizing and traumatizing its citizens, Israel was indeed guilty of reacting disproportionately ? it did nothing at all. Israel not only responded with disproportionate patience and waited an unconscionable amount of time before defending its homeland, but it also compromised its own military edge by pre-warning Hamas where they were going to hit and urging them to vacate citizens from the premises. Has Hamas afforded innocent Israelis that decency? No? How disproportionate!

What appears to be disproportionate is the wide and wailing claims by Hamas that they care about the lives of innocent women and children. Facts seem to work against them. Just last week, Israel forewarned Nizar Rayyan, a prominent member of Hamas, to leave his house where he had hidden a weapons cache. He refused to leave, and in true bravery, let one of his wives and eight of his kids die along with him. But then again, his kids appeared to be dispensable to him, as he sent his own son on a suicide mission in Israel in 2001 that killed two Israelis.

What stands out here as disproportionate is that Israel, the vilified enemy, cares more for the civilians of Gaza than their own people do, which is further evidenced by the fact that Hamas hides themselves and their ammo and explosives in schools, mosques, universities and even their own homes. Israel ushers their people to shelters, while Hamas uses their own people as human shields.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]



Middle East: Hamas ‘Executes Six Suspected Collaborators’

Jabaliya, 7 Jan. (AKI) — Hamas security officers have executed six Palestinians suspected of supplying information to the Israeli military and guiding its warplanes in its offensive in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli daily Yediot Ahranot reported on Wednesday. The Israeli assault is believed to have killed more than 600 Palestinians and injured nearly 3,000 since it began 12 days ago.

Among the alleged collaborators were three brothers, one of whom attempted before his arrest to swallow a cell phone SIM card believed to contain evidence of his conversations with Israeli security officials.

A fourth brother from the same family was executed last week after trying to flee from a bombed Gaza jail. He was imprisoned for collaborating with Israel in relation to the assassination of the head of the Salah al-Din Brigades, the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committee.

Reports on summary executions have also been received from other parts of the Hamas-ruled territory but the exact number of victims is unknown.

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



Why Israel Will Lose — Again

Clearly, the Palestinian Arabs and their allies, all of whom wish that the gas chambers of Nazi Germany had been big enough to fit all the Jews worldwide, are to blame for the endless violence. The Israel-Arab conflict isn’t about faux outrage over borders or supposed anger over refugees. It’s about the Arab desire to wipe Israel off the map. The Arabs aren’t concerned about an independent Palestinian Arab state ? after all, they’ve been spending billions on rockets instead of working toilets. When Israel handed over the Gaza Strip, including beautiful Jewish-built greenhouses, the Palestinian Arabs promptly razed the greenhouses and elected Hamas. The Arabs are concerned about killing Jews.

So the Palestinian Arabs aren’t any mystery. The real mystery is the utterly suicidal nature of the Israeli government.

Israel always concedes. Israel always leaves her enemies intact. Israel always stops short. This conflict continues because Israel refuses to end it.

But why?

There are three major reasons why Israel, like Europe, is more interested in appeasement than victory…

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]

Middle East


Defence: Israeli Suppliers for Turkey Air Force F16 Fighter

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, JANUARY 5 — Turkey has awarded two Israeli companies contracts worth a combined $141 million to provide pod-housed surveillance equipment for its Lockheed Martin F-16 fighters, military sources revealed. Elbit Systems subsidiary Elop will supply Long-Range Oblique Photography Systems (LOROPS) worth $87 million, and synthetic aperture radar systems valued at $54 million will be provided by Israel Aerospace Industries’ Elta Systems subsidiary. Deliveries will be made over four years, with the companies to work as subcontractors to Turkish electronics house Aselsan. Also dubbed ‘Condor 2’, Elop’s LOROPS system is housed within a modified 1,140 litre (300USgal) fuel tank and features electro-optical/infrared cameras for day or night reconnaissance, plus a video processing unit and datalink. Eltàs contract is for 1,140 litre tank-housed versions of its EL/M-2060P SAR sensor, which can cover 50,000 km (19,300 miles) per hour. This will record and transmit imagery to a ground exploitation station, which industry sources say will also be capable of receiving data from the LOROPS payload. (ANSAmed).

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Military: Turkish Soldiers to be Equipped With Latest Tools

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, JANUARY 5 — A modernization project will provide the Turkish Armed Forces (Tsk) with the latest technologies in various fields such as electronics, communication, defense, health, clothing and education, daily Today’s Zaman reported. The decision was taken during a symposium held in Ankara, hosted by the Undersecretariat for the Defense Industry (Ssm) with the support of the Defense Ministry and the Defense Industry Manufacturers Association (Sasad), and brought together defense-related individuals and institutions to launch a project called “Modernization of the Individual Private”. Meanwhile, the General Staff has prepared a conscription exemption bill for the brothers of soldiers killed in battle in order to improve the relationship between the Tsk and the public opinion. A previous law exempted only the second son of a family that had lost a son in battle from serving in the army, but the new bill aims to expand the scope of the law to cover all brothers of a fallen soldier. (ANSAmed).

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Turkey: “Marriage School” to Counter Divorces’ Increase

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, JANUARY 5 — The Turkish ruling Justice and Development Party (Akp) deputy, Osman Coskun, claimed a recent increase in the number of divorces and suggested that a “marriage school” should be established to counter this trend, daily Today’s Zaman reported. Coskun sent the project to Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, Education Minister and the State Minister for women and family issues, arguing that the number of divorce cases had increased significantly and that people should take marriage more seriously. “Families give greater importance to the financial aspects of marriage rather than to the question of whether their sons or daughters are really ready for marriage”, Coskun said, adding that “prospective brides and grooms should be taught about human psychology and sexuality as well as the cultural norms and personal development skills needed to maintain a healthy marital union”. According to Coskun “A medical report is necessary for a couple seeking to get married and a certificate showing the couple passed a course on marriage should also be required. If experts give lessons on marriage, this will eventually decrease the rate of divorce. According to statistics, the Aegean region ranks first on the list of the number of divorces and is followed by the Marmara, Mediterranean and Central Anatolian regions. Izmir has the highest number of divorce cases. (ANSAmed).

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]



Turkey: In Instambul the Largest Number of NGOs, Most Islamic

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, JANUARY 5 — According to research on NGOs in Turkey, there are a total of 80,212 associations, most of which are in Istanbul, and 14,744 of those are related to organizing courses on the Koran or the building of mosques, Hurriyet daily reported. Further research on NGOs made by Istanbul Public Accountant Financial Adviser (Ismmmo) has revealed there are a total of 80,212 charities and 4,471 foundations. Ankara, Izmir and Bursa follow as a popular location for NGOs in Turkey. The cities of Ardahan, Sirnak, Tunceli, Kilis and Hakkari do not host any such organizations. Out of the total number of NGOs, 14,744 work to raise funds to build mosques and organize Koran courses, 13,860 are concerned with sport, and income support and protection foundations rank third with 13,382. Human rights, women, children, the environment and the elderly are largely left out of matters of concern to NGOs. Earning the status of a foundation or of an association working for society’s benefit has many advantages such as the exemption from corporate tax. (ANSAmed).

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Russia


Cold War! EU Gives Russia 24 Hours to Switch Pipeline Back on After 12 Countries Left Without Power

Russia today shut off all gas supplies to Europe through Ukraine, leaving 12 countries without fuel in freezing winter conditions. As millions of people struggled to cope in sub-zero temperatures, the European Union said the continent had effectively been ‘taken hostage’ by a trade dispute. The Commission subsequently issued an ultimatum giving Russia and Ukraine a 24-hour deadline to resolve the situation or face an intervention.

It has also emerged that gas prices could soar in Britain if there is not a swift resolution to the crisis.

Moscow pulled the plug on three major pipelines after a pricing dispute with Ukraine. Supplies have dwindled throughout this week and today Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic confirmed their pipelines were empty.

Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Turkey are already out of gas. Italy suffered a 90 per cent plunge, France was down 70 per cent and Germany was affected for the first time. Britain, however, is unlikely to run out of gas as only two per cent of supplies come from Russia which can be replaced from other sources if necessary.

The cutoff has also showed the first signs of hitting the European economy as the Hungarian unit of the Japanese automaker Suzuki said it was halting production because of restrictions on industrial users of gas.

There is little sign of resolution to the row with Moscow and Kiev both blaming each other for cutting supply. Russia has accused Ukraine of ‘stealing’ about 15 per cent of the gas it ships across its former Soviet neighbour to European states. ‘Ukraine has stolen gas not from Russia, but from consumers who have bought the product and paid for it,’ Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said. Ukraine’s pro-West President Viktor Yushchenko blamed Moscow for the supply disruptions, saying Moscow would continue to close the gas taps to Europe or stop them altogether

Despite reassurances from Russia that the move would have little impact on Europe, the move has plunged many countries into crisis. Two Bulgarian cities are completely without gas while shortages in Slovakia has forced the government to declare a state of emergency. Bulgaria’s President Georgi Purvanov even suggested a nuclear reactor branded unsafe could be brought back into service to cover shortages.

The European Union has called for flow to be restored and branded the situation ‘completely unacceptable’. EU spokesman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen said: ‘It is unacceptable that the EU gas supply security is taken hostage to negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.’

Meanwhile, Ferran Tarradellas, spokesman for the EU energy commissioner, said: ‘It is indeed a crisis, a serious one.’

‘We are demanding that they restore gas supplies to the EU immediately.’ Last night, Britain’s biggest energy supplier warned gas bills could soar if the dispute over payment is not resolved soon. British Gas-owner Centrica said suppliers could be forced to import more expensive gas from continental Europe.

Wholesale gas prices — the price paid by big energy suppliers — jumped by almost a fifth on news that the stand-off is getting worse. Centrica warned that this could force suppliers to import more expensive gas from the continent.

A spokesman said: ‘Spot prices in continental Europe are higher than they are in the UK, but if the situation (between Russia and Ukraine) becomes protracted and there are continued shortfalls in gas supplies, then the situation in the UK is likely to change.’

Before yesterday’s jump, the price of gas on the wholesale market had fallen by about 30 per cent since the middle of last year, mirroring the big fall in the oil price.

This had been expected to lead to cuts in domestic energy bills of as much as 10 per cent, easing the burden on cash-strapped homeowners.

But a prolonged stand-off between the former Soviet partners could now scupper this. Freezing temperatures yesterday saw demand for gas in the UK reach its highest level since January 2004.

Britain’s reliance on gas imports is exacerbated by the lack of storage facilities in the country.

Britain only has capacity to store enough gas for 16 days, France has enough for 88 days and Germany 77.

But the Department for Energy and Climate Change said that it did not expect the dispute to affect gas supplies because the UK is not reliant on any single supplier.

It said: ‘We import less than 2 per cent of our gas from Russia and can replace this from other sources if we need to.’

Britain currently receives 56 per cent of its gas from the UK North Sea, with 15 per cent from Norway, 6 per cent from the Netherlands, and 1.5 per cent from other continental European countries.

Europe receives about 20 per cent of its gas from Russia, via the Ukraine pipelines.

Talks were due to resume between gas chiefs in Russia and Ukraine tomorrow as the EU demanded the two sides get round the table and resolve it this week.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Hungary Restrictions Natural Gas Consumption

Budapest, January 7 (Interfax Central Europe) — Hungary has imposed restrictions on natural gas consumption by large industrial, agricultural and commercial consumers, following a complete halt of Russian gas imports via Ukraine on Tuesday afternoon, Hungary’s gas pipeline operator Foldgazszallito said in a Wednesday morning statement.

Hungary limits industrial gas consumption Wednesday morning as imports via Ukraine stop

“To increase supply security, especially the supply security of protected consumers (residential and public users), Foldgazszallito ordered as of 8:00 CET a second round of consumption restrictions [involving consumers using 500-2,500 cubic meters of gas per hour],” Foldgazszallito said.

Industrial, agricultural and commercial gas consumers using more than 2,500 cbm of gas per hour were already ordered to limit their consumption at 20:30 CET Tuesday evening, according to a late Tuesday statement by Foldgazszallito.

The restrictions follow the complete halt of Russian gas imports to Hungary via Ukraine as of 15:30 CET Tuesday, in turn the result of unsuccessful negotiations between Russia’s Gazprom and its Ukrainian partners to settle gas price and transit terms for 2009. Gazprom already started cutting deliveries to Ukraine on January 1. Prior to the cut, Hungary imported more than 30 mln cbm of gas per day via Ukraine in the first days of January.

Foldgazszallito said that Hungary’s gas consumption totaled 68 mln cbm on Tuesday, while taking into account the restrictions on the largest consumers imposed Tuesday evening, consumption is expected to reach 64 mln cbm on Wednesday.

Foldgazszallito noted that total gas sources available in the pipeline system Wednesday — 52 mln cbm from underground storage, 9 mln cbm from domestic production, and 3 mln cbm from a smaller import pipeline via Austria — are just sufficient to meet expected demand, prompting the company to enact the second-round limitation on industrial users.

The company stressed that it is prepared to carry out further restrictions on consumption if necessary. According to rules applied by Foldgazszallito and the Hungarian Energy Office, a third round of restrictions would involve all remaining industrial, agricultural and commercial gas users. A fourth round of restrictions would involve all but a few public consumers, while residential gas users and a few selected public users would only be restricted as a last resort.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Lithuania Should Not Fear for Russian Gas

The probability that Lithuania may in the future get into a situation similar to that now faced by other European countries that are not recieving gas, is very unlikely, believes Kestutis Sadauskas, head of the representative office of the European Commission in Lithuania.

According to him, Russia is unlikely to be risking the welfare of Kaliningrad district residents, who receive gas via Lithuania. Moreover, the Russian energy concern Gazprom is interested in selling gas to Lithuania, which pays for it a very high price, because the gas monopolists suffer from the burden of debts. Meanwhile, Lietuvos Dujos claim that this situation is in a way beneficial to Lithuania, because the pressure of gas on the border has increased due to higher transit via Belarus, writes ELTA.

As reported, due to the dispute on gas between Ukraine and Russia the supply of gas to Europe via the transit through Ukraine has fully stopped. Lithuania has not experienced any difficulties because Russian gas reaches Lithuania via Belarus. Moreover, gas to Kaliningrad is supplied via transit through Lithuania.

“It would be very radical and difficult to understand if the gas supply was suspended and million of residents in Kaliningrad were left without gas. The main heating plants in Kaliningrad operate on gas,” the head of the representative office of the European Commission in Lithuania told ELTA.

According to Sadauskas, Russia”s economic interest is also highly important — Russia is interested in selling gas to Lithuania, because Gazprom already has many debts.

The debts of Gazprom reach several tens of billion of U.S. dollars, it has to return them, therefore it will be looking for markets. Russia is highly dependable on Europe — Europe is the main purchaser of gas,” Sadauskas said.

According to him, Russia will suffer a lot in the light of the conflict with Ukraine, because its image of a reliable energy supplier has cracked. Moreover, Europe can start considering alternative energy sources more actively and this is not beneficial to Moscow. On the other hand, this conflict has also raised questions regarding the reliability of Ukraine as a transit country. Purportedly the EU is yet not trying to decide who is more to blame, however, there are doubts regarding the statements of both parties.

“Ukraine”s statements about the necessity to suck part of the gas sound strange as well as Russia”s claims that Ukraine is stealing such a big amount of gas do — the reduction of gas supply was smaller than the amount needed by Ukraine,” Sadauskas underlined. According to him, even in the marginal case if the gas supply to Lithuania was ever suspended due to an argument between Russia and Belarus, our country would be able to use a reserve in a gas storage in Latvia for some time.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Moldovan Emergencies Commission Tackles Gas Supply Issue

Chisinau, 7 January /MOLDPRES/ — Prime Minister Zinaida Grecianii on 6 January evening chaired an extraordinary meeting of the governmental commission for emergencies to tackle the gas issue after Ukraine halted gas supplies to Moldova and the Balkan countries on the same day morning.

The government’s press service has specified that Ukraine cut off gas supplies to the southern gas measuring stations in Orlovka and Grebeniki. The existing stocks are enough to ensure the southern and central Moldova with gas for several days.

At the same time, gas supplies through the northern Ananiev-Cernauti-Pogoroceni pipeline have been doubled, which allows fully ensuring the northern districts and some industrial assets in the Chisinau municipality with gas.

First Deputy Premier, Economics and Trade Minister Igor Dodon said at the meeting that presently all Moldova’s districts are provided with power produced by the Chisinau-based power and thermal stations CET-1 and CET-2, the Balti-based CET-North, the hydroelectric stations in Dubasari and Costesti and the Transnistria-based Cuciurgan Power Plant. In addition, Moldova imports power from Ukraine as well. Dodon said that there is no power shortage in the country.

The participants in the meeting decided to allot 21,000 tons of crude oil from the state reserve to make sure that CET-1 and CET-2 operate normally and to save natural gas. Thus, if Ukraine fully stops gas supplies to Moldova, the two thermal stations will be able to provide the Chisinau municipality with heating for two weeks. At the same time, the commission worked out gas saving schedules for industrial consumers, which have been warned by the Moldovan gas operator Moldovagaz about the reduction of gas supplies starting from 7 January.

Grecianii told the participants in the meeting that she had sent two telegrams to her Russian and Ukrainian counterparts, Vladimir Putin and Yuliya Timoshenko, demanding the resumption of gas supplies to Moldova. Grecianii pointed out that Moldova has been observing its long-term contractual commitments with the Russian gas company Gazprom, adding that its misunderstanding with Ukraine should not affect the Moldovan consumers.

The prime minister said that the situation is under control and the government is undertaking all measures necessary to ensure the stable operation of social institutions, hospitals and enterprises and to supply gas and power to households. Grecianii also urged domestic consumers to save energy resources, according to the government’s press service.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Putin’s Gas Mace

Europe on the verge of an energy disaster. Gazprom has unexpectedly cut gas supplies through Ukraine to a fifth of previous levels. ‘It’s absolutely unacceptable,’ says the EU.

From the beginning of the year, the Russian gas giant turned the tap off for Ukraine, with which it argues over gas prices and transit fees. Late on Monday night, the supplies of gas that Europe imports from Russia through Ukraine also fell sharply. And those supplies satisfy a fifth of the EU’s overall gas demand.

Some countries are not receiving gas at all, others have seen their deliveries fall sharply. Over the course of a couple of hours Hungary, Bosnia, Bulgaria, and Greece saw their supplies of Russian gas stop altogether. Bulgarian prime minister Sergey Stanishev was so desperate as to personally call his Russian counterpart, Mr Putin, to persuade him that the EU must not fall victim to the Moscow-Kyiv row. Slovakia, in turn, has introduced a state of emergency for its economy.

Late on Tuesday the crisis reached France (a 70-percent fall in deliveries) and Italy (a 90-percent fall). Germany companies admit that are receiving less gas, but do not say how much less.

Though no country has so far reduced supplies for households or industry — because all have substantial reserves, and some import gas from sources other than Russia — the EU boiled with indignation.

‘Without prior warning and in clear contradiction with the reassurances given by the highest Russian and Ukrainian authorities to the EU, gas supplies to some member states have been substantially cut. This is completely unacceptable,’ the Czech presidency said in a joint statement with the European Commission.

Until now Prague ruled out European mediation in the Russian-Ukrainian gas dispute. But yesterday Czech minister for industry and trade Martin Rziman, on an urgent visit to Kyiv, said, ‘The situation has now changed radically.’

The Czech presidency does not rule out convening an EU-Russia-Ukraine summit. ‘This is an extreme option. For now, we are pressing both sides to reach a compromise,’ said Czech prime minister Mirek Topolanek.

Who is responsible for the crisis? Russia accuses Ukraine of stealing EU-bound gas. Ukraine denies this, though it admits that following the cut in supplies it is using some of the EU-bound gas to maintain proper pressure in the pipes. Otherwise, no gas would reach Europe at all.

Gazprom admits it has cut supplies at the request of the Federal Customs Service in order to ‘minimise the retention of gas in Ukraine,’ a practice that has had an adverse impact on the group’s earnings. Vladimir Putin instructed Gazprom to reduce daily supplies to Europe by 65 million cubic metres, as that is supposedly what Kyiv unlawfully retains. But the Ukrainian gas group Naftohaz said that as recently as Monday Gazprom supplied 315 million cubic metres daily, whereas at noon on Tuesday the figure was down to 58 million cubic metres — a fivefold decrease. Later on Tuesday, a Gazprom spokesman confirmed the figures.

‘Russia may entirely cut off natural gas supplies to Europe through Ukraine,’ president Victor Yushchenko warned in a letter to European leaders.

Gazprom deputy CEO Alexandr Medvedev accused Ukraine of shutting down three of the four pipelines that pump Russian gas to the EU. He said that of the 200-400 million cubic metres pumped into the system by Russia over the previous 24 hours, Ukraine had transferred only 40 million cubic metres.

Perhaps the conflict will be solved through negotiations tomorrow, as Naftohaz and Gazprom pledged to renew talks late yesterday. Also on Thursday the Russians will meet the European Commission in Brussels. TVN24 reported last night Poland had called for an urgent meeting of the EU energy ministers.

The Russian gas giant is using the crisis to promote its Nord Stream and South Stream sea-bottom pipelines that will make it possible to supply gas to Europe circumventing Poland and Ukraine.

The cutting off of supplies to the Balkans is also telling. There, Gazprom has been trying to block the construction of a rival pipe, the EU-backed Nabucco. It was to supply Europe with gas from non-Russian fields on the Caspian Sea and Central Asia through Georgia and Turkey.

Translated by Marcin WawrzyŔczak

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Russia Has Cut Gas Supply to Europe, Says Ukraine

RUSSIA was today accused of turning off the gas tap supplying Europe via Ukraine amid sub-zero temperatures.

The latest “gas war” between the Kremlin and Kiev escalated dramatically with reports that homes in eastern Europe were left without heating. The cost of gas on the wholesale market in Britain also soared, meaning consumers could face even bigger bills.

Slovakia declared a state of emergency as imports plunged and Hungary was reportedly limiting gas used by industry. Austria, Hungary, Greece, Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia and Serbia said their imports of Russian gas through Ukraine had stopped.

Italy said it had received a 10th of its usual supplies. Germany imports nearly 40 per cent of its gas from Russia, with four fifths of this coming through Ukraine.

Ukraine’s state gas company Naftogaz accused Russia’s Gazprom of halting supplies to European consumers this morning.. The Russians have accused Ukraine of failing to pay its bills and of siphoning off supplies intended for other European nations. Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin said the gas had been stolen “not from Russia but from western consumers because they have bought this commodity and paid for it”.

           — Hat tip: VH [Return to headlines]



Russia Stops All Gas Supply to Europe Via Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia shut off all gas supplies to Europe through Ukraine on Wednesday — leaving more than a dozen countries scrambling to cope during a winter cold snap. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin publicly endorsed the move and urged that international observers be brought into the energy dispute.

As Russia and Ukraine blamed each other for the crisis, the effects of the gas cutoff reverberated across the continent, where some countries have substantial reserves and others do not. Tens of thousands of people, mostly in Bulgaria, were without central heating.

“It is a shame that in the last two decades our rulers did not look for alternative sources of energy supplies. It’s again up to Moscow,” retired teacher Anelia Petrova said in Sofia, Bulgaria.

The EU accused both nations of using consumers as pawns in their quarrel. “It is unacceptable that the EU gas supply security is taken hostage to negotiations between Russia and Ukraine,” EU spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen said, demanding an immediate resumption of gas supplies.

U.S. national security adviser Stephen Hadley warned Moscow that using its energy exports to threaten its neighbors will undermine its international standing.

Russia supplies one-quarter of Europe’s natural gas, and about 80 percent of that is shipped through pipelines crossing Ukraine. Other smaller pipelines run through Belarus and Turkey.

Russia’s gas monopoly Gazprom stopped all gas shipments to Ukraine on Jan. 1 after the two countries failed to agree on prices and transit fees for 2009, but kept supplies flowing to Europe over Ukraine’s pipelines. Gazprom then sharply limited gas supplies moving through Ukraine on Tuesday and by Wednesday, Putin ordered Gazprom to stop all shipments of natural gas to Ukraine.

“This should be done publicly and in the presence of international observers,” he told Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller.

As of Wednesday, nations including Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Turkey all reported a halt in Russian gas shipments. Others — including Austria, France, Germany, Hungary and Poland — reported substantial drops in supplies.

In the Balkans, people celebrating Orthodox Christmas scrambled to find other sources of heat for their homes as authorities cut off some gas to conserve supplies. Croatia announced a state of emergency, which allows it to begin rationing to industrial users.

Schools and kindergartens in Bulgaria closed down as authorities tried to find alternative heating. In Bosnia, where gas operator Sarajevogas said the situation was close to a humanitarian disaster, woodcutters revved up chain saws to cut wood for fireplaces.

Romania and Bulgaria held national security meetings to address the issue, while Hungary and Slovakia, which receives all of its gas from Russia, began reducing natural gas deliveries to big industrial customers.

Norway, another big gas supplier to Europe, said it cannot do much to offset the Russian shortfalls because it was at near maximum production and pipeline capacity for exports.

EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, meanwhile, spoke with Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Yulia Tymoshenko, pressing for a quick resolution to the standoff.

“If this matter is not solved, it will raise very serious doubts about the reliability of Russia as a supplier of gas to Europe and Ukraine as a transit country,” Barroso said. “If Ukraine is trying to be closer to the European Union, it should not create any problems when it comes to the supply of gas to the EU.”

He said both countries agreed Wednesday to accept international monitors to verify the flow of gas.

On Thursday in Moscow, Ukraine and Russia will hold the first face-to-face talks since the breakdown of negotiations Dec. 31.

In 2008, Russia charged Ukraine about half what it charged its European customers for gas, a legacy of the Soviet era. Gazprom has long sought to charge Ukraine higher prices but Ukraine says if it pays more for natural gas, Russia should pay more for shipping that gas through Ukraine.

Ukraine, which has about 16 billion cubic meters of gas in a vast underground storage system, says it can weather the dispute until early April.

Gazprom, however, is losing substantial income during a peak season for gas consumption. It also will soon see an excess of gas in its system, which will create a costly storage problem.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Schools Close, Industry Hit by Crisis Reaction to Russian Gas Freeze

(VIENNA) — Eastern Europe took crisis measures in response to a complete cut in supplies of Russian gas on Wednesday, switching off heating in public transport, closing schools and curbing use by big industries.

Austria, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania reported a total halt in Russian gas supplies for the first time, while Bulgaria, Hungary, Croatia and Bosnia experienced a second day of complete stoppage, following a Russia-Ukraine dispute over gas prices.

While many remained confident their reserves would compensate for the Russian gas shortage for at least a few weeks, others had to resort to drastic measures.

Slovakia and Romania have declared a state of emergency.

Two fertiliser plants in Bulgaria, Neochim and Agropolychim, and many glass and metal-working plants, bread producers and breweries have halted production or face closure owing to the gas shortage.

In Hungary, the Japanese car manufacturer Suzuki announced it would close down until Monday.

In Sofia, mayor Boiko Borisov ordered heating in all public transportation to be switched off and buses running on gas were temporarily withdrawn from use, while gas-powered taxis, which make up 50 percent of the capital’s cabs, threatened to strike as they found gas stations closed.

Education Minister Daniel Valchev also ordered schools to be closed if temperatures dropped below minus 18 degrees Celsius (minus 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit), following a low of minus 16 degrees overnight, with colder weather expected in coming days.

The gas shortage in Bulgaria, which depends for 92 percent of its consumption on Russian gas, already led to a heating stoppage in the towns of Varna, Bourgas and Razgrada.

In Hungary, Croatia and Bulgaria, gas deliveries to major industries were reduced to guarantee supplies for households, schools and hospitals.

Slovakia and Austria were also considering such measures.

Hungary and Romania called on plants and factories to switch over to alternative fuels, if they could.

This was the case at Budapest’s Ferihegy international airport, which switched its heating system to oil consumption, as did a heating plant in the Slovenian capital Ljubljana and part of the power grid in Austria.

The Bosnian city of Sarajevo, where the majority of households rely on gas heating, was turning to alternative energy sources but only had enough reserves for another seven days, city officials warned.

In Bulgaria, major gas provider Overgas and the state-owned gas monopoly Bulgargaz halted all deliveries to major industrial customers except those that could not switch to alternative fuel.

Sofia also turned off facade lighting on public buildings to save electricity, as distribution companies warned of possible power outages after many people switched to electricity for heating.

Countries such as Hungary, Croatia, Austria and Romania said however that they could continue to rely on some domestic production, while Czech Republic noted it was still receiving gas from Russian and Norwegian sources via Germany.

Hungary has three billion cubic metres of gas in reserve, Austria 1.7 billion, Romania 2.2 billion. These stocks were estimated to be sufficient to provide for households through the winter.

In Bulgaria, 570 million cubic metres of gas in reserve could last for anything between one and three months.

Slovenia, whose gas consumption only makes up about 14 percent of total energy consumption, appealed to people to limit gas usage but had not taken any further measures to tackle the drop.

The governments in Croatia and Austria were holding meetings on Wednesday to discuss ways to tackle the crisis, which coincides with exceptionally cold weather. Temperatures have dropped to minus 20 degrees Celsius in Romania and minus 27 degrees in the Czech Republic.

Russia, the world’s biggest natural gas supplier, has halted gas supplies for European customers via Ukraine, following a gas dispute between the two neighbours which trade blame over the causes of the cuts now hitting customers in third countries.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Settle the Ukraine Gas Dispute

The European Union is, rather belatedly, waking up to the fact that the Russia-Ukraine gas dispute is more than a bilateral issue for Kiev and Moscow.

While Brussels would still prefer the two sides to settle the quarrel themselves, it is now considering the “extreme option” of a three-way EU-Russia-Ukraine summit…

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Slovakia: Nuclear Plant to Reopen if Gas Freeze Lasts

BRATISLAVA — Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Wednesday that Slovakia might reopen a power generating unit at Jaslovske Bohunice nuclear plant if a freeze of gas supplies from Russia continued.

“Should Slovakia continue to be a hostage of this bilateral conflict between Russia and Ukraine, I can imagine reopening of the shut-down unit at Jaslovske Bohunice nuclear plant,” Fico told a press conference.

On Dec. 31, Slovakia shut down the last unit of the Jaslovske Bohunice plant, meeting a commitment it made to the EU that paved the way for its 2004 entry into the European Union.

Fico had said previously that the Soviet-designed VI nuclear block might be reopened to offset the fallout of the global financial crisis.

Slovakia has always argued that the plant is safe and could have continued to operate until 2020 or 2025.

Earlier on Wednesday, the biggest Slovak gas company SPP curbed deliveries for industrial clients after Russia cut off all gas deliveries to Slovakia.

Economy Minister Lubomir Jahnatek said the total cut of Russian gas deliveries to Slovakia would not have a major impact on the country’s economy.

“This situation won’t last forever, its a question of a few days … There will be no big impact on the economy,” Jahnatek said.

SPP chairman Bernd Wagner said at the same press conference: “This is the first time in history there are no deliveries coming from Ukraine .. . . SPP is doing everything to secure deliveries to eastern and western Slovakia, our key priority is the household sector,”

He added: “Its inevitable for industrial users to comply with emergency regime which has been declared,” he added.

According to Fico, Slovakia will probably host a meeting of the “Visegrad Four” countries of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia on Thursday.

“This is the European problem, not only problem of Slovakia or the Czech Republic,” said Fico.

“Europe’s depencency on the Russian gas will increase, in the years 2020-2030, it will be much higher than today,” he added.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



The Battle of the Oligarchs Behind the Gas Dispute

Amonolithic, Putin-led Kremlin using the “energy weapon” to browbeat neighbouring Ukraine and beyond and threaten the rest of Europe with natural gas shortages: the image has become commonplace during the “gas spats” of the past few years. Yet those spats have a longer history than is generally appreciated — they began in 1992 — and, what is more, Vladimir Putin and Gazprom cannot win a prolonged gas war, and they know it.

The Soviet gas industry was born in Ukraine in the 1930s and the infrastructure was built from there. Ukraine remained a central part of the gas pipeline network even as the focus of activity moved to western Siberia. Carving up the Soviet Union along along the borders of its former republics made for an often unworkable allocation of physical assets. Vital assets for Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly, are located in Ukraine and thus no longer under its direct control: the pipelines are an obvious item, but, just as significantly, Ukraine controls most of the storage capacity of the Russian export system. On the other hand, Ukraine, a heavy industry country, has mostly depleted its gas reserves, making it dependent on gas from Siberia…

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]

South Asia


Dossier: Handlers Used Virtual Number to Contact a Mobile With One of the Terrorists

New Delhi: Amidst the clutter of telephone calls the Indian intelligence agencies were monitoring into and out of the Taj Mahal hotel on the night of the November 26 terrorist attack was one from a ‘virtual number’ — 12012531824 — generated by a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephony service based in the United States.

According to the dossier prepared by the Indian government outlining select details of what investigators have uncovered so far about last November’s Mumbai attacks, Pakistan-based “controllers/handlers used the virtual number to contact a mobile telephone with one of the terrorists. This conversation was intercepted and, thereafter, all calls made through the virtual number were also intercepted and recorded.”

Providing the first-ever details of the investigations into the VoIP account, the dossier says the virtual number was initially set up with a U.S. company, Callphonex, by an individual who identified himself as Kharak Singh from India.

The account was activated by a money gram transferred in the name of Mohammed Ashfaq. “Kharak Singh also requested Callphonex to assign five Austrian Direct Inward Dialling (DID) numbers because his clients called from different countries, including India,” the dossier says. The account was paid for by a money transfer of $238.78 through Western Union by one Javaid Iqbal who provided, as a form of identification, a Pakistani passport (No. KC 092481).

The dossier adds: “Investigations have revealed that Callphonex asked Kharak Singh if he was from India why the Western Union Transfer was coming from Pakistan.

No reply

Apparently, Callphonex received no reply. The VoIP interceptions yielded more evidence to Indian agencies as they revealed the use of three Austrian numbers “which were given to the terrorists by the controllers/handlers and conversations with these numbers by the terrorists were also intercepted and recorded,” the dossier notes.

These Austrian numbers, in turn, correspond to the DID numbers assigned by Callphonex to ‘Kharak Singh.’ The details of the VoIP account are one of multiple pieces of evidence the Indian government has laid out before Pakistan and all Delhi-based foreign envoys to prove its claim that the attacks on Mumbai were staged by elements from Pakistan.

Several ambassadors who were present at the region-wise briefings at the Ministry of External Affairs on Monday and Tuesday told The Hindu that they found the Indian dossier compelling. “It is fully in line with our own belief of how this incident was planned,” said one of the envoys from the group of 14 countries who lost citizens in the attacks.

In their oral presentations, Indian officials told the envoys of their belief that the ISI was indeed involved in the incident. Though this claim was not contested, at least one nation, the United States, has told India it is still not in a position to share this perception.

One of the transcripts contained in the dossier provides the answer to why the terrorists left their satellite phone behind on the Kuber with potentially incriminating data. “Did you open the locks for the water below,” a caller from Pakistan asked one of the terrorists at the Taj Hotel at 0126 hours on November 27, presumably in a reference to a pre-arranged plan to sink the trawler. “No, they did not open the locks. We left it like that because of being in a hurry. We made a big mistake,” the receiver of the phone call answered. “What big mistake?,” he was asked. “When we were getting into the boat, the waves were quite high. Another boat came. Everyone raised an alarm that the Navy had come. Everyone jumped quickly. In this confusion, the satellite phone of Ismail got left behind,” the terrorist replied. The dossier also notes in passing that the GPS set contained trackback points which “were the RV for their intended return after the attack.”

At Monday’s briefing for the 14 nations who lost citizens in the attack, one of the ambassadors asked Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon whether this meant the attack was perhaps not a suicide mission after all. Mr. Menon reportedly said that this was one of the issues which still needed to be probed.

The dossier also contains a second section in which India has attempted to draw attention to the contradictory nature of Pakistan’s response to the Mumbai attacks, Pakistan’s failure to respond appropriately to Indian requests for cooperation when evidence was provided to it about terrorist acts in the past, and an outline of Pakistan’s bilateral and international commitments and obligations.

The last section of the dossier contains an outline of what India expects Pakistan to do in the wake of the Mumbai attacks. “This was a conspiracy launched from Pakistan. Gaps in knowledge can be filled by investigation and interrogation of conspirators there,” the dossier states, adding, “Some of the actions that India expects Pakistan to undertake in extending cooperation to bring the terrorists to justice are: Hand over conspirators to face justice in India, hand over fugitives from Indian law based in Pakistan, Dismantle infrastructure of terrorism, Prevent terrorist acts from Pakistan, Adhere to and implement bilateral, multilateral and international obligations.”

The dossier notes that on the basis of the interrogation of Mohammed Ajmal Amir ‘Kasab,’ the lone terrorist to be captured alive, the role of Lashkar commander Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi in the training of the crew had been established. The terrorist group initially consisted of 32 persons but the team chosen for the operation was eventually whittled down to 10.

Other LeT commanders involved were Abu Hamza, ‘Kaahfa,’ and Yousuf alias Muzammil, the dossier says. Among the material evidence India has in its possession is the 11-seater inflatable dinghy the terrorists used to move from the hijacked trawler, Kuber, to Mumbai.

“An attempt was made by the terrorists to erase the engine number but it has been retrieved by investigators. The outboard motor number is 67 CL-1020015, manufactured by Yamaha Motor Corporation and imported into Pakistan and distributed by a company named ‘Business & Engineering Trends’ in Lahore.” Several items including toiletries, food articles, drums containing diesel and clothes “bear clear evidence of having been manufactured in Pakistan.” Photographs of all these items are provided in an annexure.

The transcripts in the dossier make it apparent that the six handlers were closely monitoring events in Mumbai through the live TV coverage which went on non-stop for 60 hours. “There are three ministers and one secretary of the cabinet in your hotel. We don’t know in which room,” a Pakistan-based caller tells a terrorist at the Taj at 0310 hrs on November 27. “Oh! That is good news” It is the icing on the cake!,” he replies. “Find those 3-4 persons and then get whatever you want from India,” he is instructed. “Pray that we find them,” he answers.

At the Oberoi at 0353 hrs on November 27, a handler phones and says:

“Brother Abdul. The media is comparing your action to 9/11. One senior police official has been killed.”

Abdul Rehman: “We are on the10th/11th floor. We have five hostages.”

Caller 2 (Kafa): Everything is being recorded by the media. Inflict the maximum damage. Keep fighting. Don’t be taken alive.

Caller: Kill all hostages, except the two Muslims. Keep your phone switched on so that we can hear the gunfire.

Fahadullah: We have three foreigners, including women. From Singapore and China.

Caller: Kill them. The dossier then notes that the telephone intercept records the “voices of Fahadullah and Abdul Rehman directing hostages to stand in a line, and telling two Muslims to stand aside. Sound of gunfire. Cheering voices in background. Kafa hands telephone to Zarar,” who says, “Fahad, find the way to go downstairs.”

In another call, to the Taj this time, a handler says, “The ATS chief has been killed. Your work is very important. Allah is helping you. The Vazir (minister) should not escape. Try and set the place on fire.”

At Nariman House at 1945 hrs on November 27, the handler ‘Wassi’ tells a terrorist: “Keep in mind that hostages are of use only as long as you do not come under fire because of their safety. If you are still threatened, then don’t saddle yourself with the burden of the hostages. Immediately kill them.” He then adds, “The Army claims to have done the work without any hostage being harmed. Another thing: Israel has made a request through diplomatic channels to save the hostages. If the hostages are killed, it will spoil relations between India and Israel.”

“So be it, God willing,” the terrorist replies.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Indonesia: Jihadists the Last Thing Gaza Needs: Minister

The government maintained Tuesday its stance of refusing to send Indonesian troops to the Gaza Strip despite mounting pressure from some Islamic groups to dispatch jihadists to the besieged Middle Eastern spot.

The Foreign Ministry said sending jihadists to Gaza to help Hamas fight Israel would not improve the situation, adding there were much more effective avenues Indonesia could take to help diffuse the situation.

A number of Islamic hardline groups, including the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) and Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI), have said they wish to send volunteers to Gaza under the banner of jihad and have called on the government to support them.

“Is conducting a jihad effective? We must ask Gaza if that’s what they need, and most probably they (don’t). There are other more effective ways to help … So far, sending jihadists isn’t an option,” Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda said.

AFP reported Tuesday that the 11-day-old Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip had claimed the lives of at least 635 Palestinians and wounded 2,900 more.

The toll shot up Tuesday when Israeli fire hit three schools, killing at least 45 people.

Speaking in his annual statement to the press, Hassan said what Gaza needed most was medicine and medical assistance.

“We are looking at the possibility of sending medical workers to field hospitals in the Egypt area of Sinai, which borders with Gaza. We’re awaiting clearance from Egypt, and the President has instructed the health minister to collect volunteers,” Hassan said.

Despite agreeing that the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip had nothing to do with religion, Islamic groups in Jakarta have hyped up the conflict between the two religious groups, paving the way for the Islamic-based Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) and other Islamic groups to seize the momentum ahead of the April elections.

Observers on Tuesday criticized nationalist parties for not shouting down calls by Islam groups to send volunteers to the war, which was defined by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Monday as a clash over the sovereignty of territory between Palestine and Israel, and not a religious matter.

“The nationalist groups should be more active in voicing their stance as Indonesia’s voice will be much more strong if the (the world) considers it to represent a pluralist Indonesia rather than only Islam,” University of Indonesia international relations expert Hariyadi Wirawan said.

He said a pluralist Indonesia would attract more sympathy from major non-Muslim countries, such as members of the European Union (EU), as well as powerful human rights groups world wide that see the attacks as a territory dispute and a human rights tragedy rather than an attack against Islam.

PKS, the FPI and HTI seized the spotlight immediately after Israeli began the attacks when the groups gathered thousands of supporters in Jakarta and other big cities in the country to rally against Israel and the US.

Other political parties and nationalist groups did not take part in the rallies, and media coverage has refused to voice their stance on the conflict.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



Muslims Force Pop Star Rihanna to Cover Up

[Translation by VH]

Door Luc van Kemenade

The British singer Rihanna (Robyn Rihanna Fenty) will give in to the demands of the Muslim population in Malaysia. The otherwise scantily clad pop star has promised to cover her body during a performance on February 13 in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur.

Umbrella

This is what the organizers of the concert told the press Tuesday. The Islamic Party of the Asian country warned that the “Good girl gone bad tour” of Rihanna — known for her hits Umbrella and Unfaithful — is “too sexy and dangerous”.

Strictly

A majority of the Malaysian population is Muslim [52% according to Factbook] and require strict compliance with the rules that assign women to cover up fram the knees up to the shoulders.

The 20-year-old Rihanna is not the first artist to adapt her show in Malaysia. In 2007, Islamic student organizations went out on the streets to protest against singer Gwen Stefani. She then also adjusted her show. Stefani called that an “enormous sacrifice.”

Penalty

Even Avril Lavigne and the Pussycat Dolls were earlier found to be too sexy. The Pussycat Dolls even received a fine of 3,000 dollars.

For that reason the singers Beyonce and Christina Aguilera abandoned their performances in Malaysia. Beyonce diverted to Indonesia and Aguilera decided to just skip that country completely.

—- Adding:

Rihanna banned in Indonesia

Most YouTube videos of Rihanna, like Umbrella”, are in the meanwhile banned in Indonesia. Viewers are shown the warning: “This video is not available in your country,” or “This video is not available in your country. Skipped to the next available video.” The same goes for a number of videos of Pussycat Dolls and Christina Aguilera.

Avril Lavigne’s and Beyonce’s videos though are in general unharmed by the wrath of the “majority”.

           — Hat tip: VH [Return to headlines]



The MSM: Protectors of the Islamic Faith

by Diana West

The Hindu of India broke several stories based on a dossier the Indian government just released pertaining to the jihadist assault on Mumbai that left 163 people killed at the end of November.

One of those stories, picked up by news organizations around the world, was about conversations the Indian authorities were able to intercept during the atrocities between the ten terrorists—or “gunmen,” as the MSM likes to style them—and their handlers in Pakistan.

The dossier includes selected excerpts of exchanges marked by their fiendish, bloodthirsty cruelty. The media, of course, has chosen to excerpt these excerpts. Guess what goes either missing entirely or gets buried in the B-matter?

Islam. While these few excerpts released by the Indian government contain orders to the terrorists to spare Muslims, and exhortations about Allah and Islam, these facts are treated as extraneous details of little consequence.

The AP gets around to mentioning “Allah” in paragraph 17, “Islam” in paragraph 18, and “Muslims” in paragraph 19. The New York Times coverage is even more deficient, parenthetically reporting on “Muslims” once in paragraph 18 and mentioning “Islam” in paragraph 25. And that’s it.

Here’s the problem with this oblique, Islam-lite coverage: Without understanding the Islamic context of these Mumbai attacks, we understand nothing about these Mumbai attacks. These attacks were not non-ideologically “terrorist” in conception and purpose, which is the common subtext of such media coverage. Rather, they were attacks conceived as acts of jihad against the West. And it is worth noting that the voices directing the attacks by phone saw fit to continue reminding the killers of that fact.

Thankfully, The Hindu has made the dossier available for downloading here.

Below are what I think count as important excerpts, and what the mainstream media saw fit to cut down or omit entirely…

           — Hat tip: Diana West [Return to headlines]



The War Against Terror That No One Protested

The jets bombed the daylights out of them. The ground forces invaded. At long last the murderous suicide-bombing terrorists were being suppressed in a military campaign. Their total defeat put an end to any notion that the terrorists and their sponsors would be granted their own state. Many civilians were killed and wounded, yet not a single protest was made against the invasion anywhere.

I refer to the conquest over the past few days by the army of Sri Lanka (once called Ceylon) of the holdout city of the Tamil independence rebels.. Kilinochchi was the last town held by the Tamil “Tiger” Rebels, a group considered a terrorist group by the United States. With it fell the last Tamil hope of setting up an independent state or even of getting autonomy inside Sri Lanka.

The Tamils do have their own state inside India but were not satisfied with that manifestation of “self-determination.” Kilinochchi, 579 kilometers north of Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo, was until recent months the center of political power for the rebels.

Over the years, 65,000 people have been killed in the war with the Tamils in Sri Lanka, almost all of them civilians.

Meanwhile not a single Solidarity-with-the-Tamil-Tigers protest has been organized on a single Western campus or in a single downtown square. Jewish leftists have not taken to the streets to demand an end to the war of aggression against the Tamils. Leftist websites have not proclaimed every injury of a Tamil civilian to be a Nazi-like war crime by Sri Lanka and an act of genocide.

The Eurocrats have not pontificated about how the Sri Lankan response to terror was out of proportion. The BBC did not describe the Tamil suicide bombers as activists. The International Solidarity Movement has not sent in protesters from the West to try to defend the terrorists. Communists and fellow travelers have not organized flotillas of boats carrying aid to the terrorists to “break the siege.”

Hundreds of non-governmental organizations claiming to be concerned about human rights have not rushed aid to the terrorists in the name of humanitarian concerns.

And then there was the eerie silence of Israeli politicians. Not one of them chose to lecture the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka about how the whole problem is their insensitivity to the needs of the “Other.” None of them explained to the Sri Lankans that if they did not capitulate to the demands of the Tiger terrorists, really radical and implacable enemies of Sri Lanka would arise from among the Tamils.

Ehud Barak did not demand that the Sri Lanka government enter talks with the Tigers and provide them with guns and funding. Israeli professors did not organize petitions of solidarity with the Tamil suicide bombers. Columnists at the far-left Israeli daily Haaretz have not turned out column after column explaining that the Tamil suicide bombings are all about the Tamils living under an inhumane siege. Israeli literary stars David Grossman, Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua have not produced poems and essays urging that the demands of the Tamil Tigers be met.

Israeli Minister of Education Yuli Tamir did not suggest to her Sri Lankan counterpart that poems by Tamil terrorists be introduced as part of the school curriculum there or that they be taught that Sri Lanka’s very existence is a catastrophe and a crime.

Strangely, not a single Sri Lankan professor who had a family member killed by terrorists has endorsed their demands — unlike several such professors in Israel. Not a single Sinhalese public figure has proposed that Sri Lanka be dismembered and stripped of its Sinhalese symbols and flag.

No Sinhalese members of parliament have proposed a change in the national anthem. No one in Sri Lanka has proposed dividing Colombo and handing over half to the Tamils. The UN did not denounce Sri Lanka for misrepresenting the traditional Tamil drink of Ceylon tea as Sinhalese cuisine.

Virtually no one knows that 65,000 civilians have died in Sri Lanka’s fight with the Tamil terrorists — in fact, most people couldn’t even find the country on a globe. The Western media have shown no interest in covering the story. In the first week of fighting in Operation Cast Lead, the number of Gazans killed, most of whom were terrorists, was far less than 1 percent of the number of Sri Lankans killed in their battle against terrorism.

But then again, Sri Lanka is just not as advanced a country as is Israel. No one bothered to explain to the Sri Lankan leaders that there can be no military solution at all to the problem of terrorism and that the only choice is to hold talks and meet the demands of the terrorists.

Those silly, naïve Sri Lankans ignored all the sage advice and just went ahead and solved their problem of terrorism with a military solution.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]

Far East


Philippines: Two Bombs Explode in North Cotabato, Another One Found in Maguindanao

COTABATO CITY, Jan. 7 (PNA) —- A grenade explosion occurred inside the compound of Iglesia ni Kristo church in Kabacan, North Cotabato Wednesday afternoon.

Senior Insp. Franklin Anito, Kabacan police chief, said the explosive went off at 2 p.m. Nobody was hurt.

The INK church in Kabacan had been subjected to bomb attacks in the past, along with another church, on Matalam Street.

But Anito said it was only now that the explosion occurred.

Police investigators remained clueless on the identities of the suspects and the possible motive.

It was the second explosion in town in two days.

On Tuesday night, a rifle grenade was fired by suspected extortionist group toward a newly-built 8th Avenue Lodging House on Rizal Avenue. Nobody was hurt in the attack.

Anito blamed the Red Spider extortion group as the attacker.

He said the hotel owner received extortion letter from the group demanding protection money and warned of grenade attack should the demand is ignored.

In Maguindanao, government security forces prevented what could be another bloody bomb attack in Maguindanao when they discovered a powerful improvised explosive device planted at a roadside.

Col. Julieto Ando, 6th Infantry Division spokesperson, said elements of the 64th Infantry Batalion conducting patrol in Barangay Labo-labo, Shariff Aguak town discovered the explosive at 10:30 a.m. fashioned from 81 mm mortar with 3310 Nokia mobile phone as trigger mechanism.

The bomb which was planted near Labo-Labo bridge could have destroyed the concrete bridge had it exploded, Ando said.

Ando said it was meant to kill passersby, including military vehicles.

Labo-Labo bridge connects the main highway linking Cotabato City and Gen. Santos City.

No one has claimed responsibility but Ando said the make of the explosive has the “signature” of rogue Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

Bomb experts deployed in Shariff Aguak defused the explosives about 30 minutes after it was discovered.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]

Sub-Saharan Africa


Navy Escorts 4 Vessels Off Somalia on Day One

ON BOARD HAIKOU — The Chinese navy joined its counterparts from other countries to fight Somali pirates and successfully escorted the first fleet of ships through the Gulf of Aden Tuesday.

Two navy destroyers and a large supply vessel escorted four Chinese merchant ships, one of which was from the Hong Kong special administrative region, off the coast of Somalia.

About 30 ships from the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong have sought the navy’s help to sail past the horn of Africa, where Somali pirates have created terror, especially in the past year.

The three navy ships entered the waters off Somalia around 1 am yesterday after having set sail from Sanya, Hainan province, on Dec 26. The UN Security Council and Somalia’s transitional government both have approved of China’s mission: to primarily escort Chinese merchant ships off Somalia’s coast.

Yesterday’s escort mission started at 11 am. The destroyer and flagship, the Wuhan, led the fleet, with another destroyer, the Haikou, making up the rear. The ships maintained a distance of 1 nautical mile during the 550-nautical-mile escort journey.

Liu Jianzhong, political commissar of the Haikou, told China Daily that the navy fleet would fulfill its responsibility of safeguarding China’s civilian vessels.

Mission commander, Rear Admiral Du Jingchen, said: “We will earnestly follow UN resolutions and relevant international laws strengthen coordination and keep a close watch to ensure the security of the vessels and crew being escorted.”

The UN Security Council adopted four resolutions toward the end of last year, calling on all countries and regions to help patrol the Gulf of Aden and the eastern part of Somalia’s coast to thwart piracy in one of the world’s busiest shipping channels.

In the latest incident, a Sierra Leone cargo ship, with 32 Chinese on board, threw off the pursuit of four pirate boats in the Gulf of Aden on Monday, the China Maritime Search and Rescue Center said.

The ship carrying more than 10,000 tons of silicate and oil-drilling equipment from Singapore to Djibouti, ran into the pirates around 3:50 pm.

The Ministry of Transport contacted the International Maritime Bureau immediately to seek help from nearby warships. The cargo ship was found secure around 4:20 pm.

The ministries of agriculture and foreign affairs have warned Chinese civilian ships not to sail close to Somalia’s coast.

The Chinese naval fleet’s commanding center said it had divided the waters into seven patrolling regions, spanning 550 nautical miles.

Twenty Chinese mainland and six Hong Kong vessels likely to pass through the waters between Jan 6 and 10 approached the navy yesterday to seek escort service in the Somali waters, the Ministry of Transport said.

The ministry has begun receiving applications from ships planning to sail through the region after Jan 10, too, a water transport department official said.

The government values the safety of overseas Chinese, and the navy fleet will also protect ships from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said at a regular press conference yesterday.

A spokesman for Hong Kong Marine Department said the agency will hand over escort applications from Hong Kong-flag vessels to the mainland authority. It has also informed 227 Hong Kong shipping companies about the naval fleet arrangement.

The Hong Kong Ship Owners Association said about 20 Hong Kong-flag vessels pass through the Gulf of Aden every month.

Gilbert Feng, assistant director of the association, said escort applications for ships sailing to the Gulf of Aden should be submitted to the Marine Department three to seven days before they reach the gulf.

Applications should include the name of the ship, the name of the owner, the expected date of arrival, a description of the cargo and the number of people aboard.

Taiwan shipping companies can apply to the Taiwan-based Straits Exchange Foundation, which handles Taiwan-related affairs, for the navy’s escort service.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]

Latin America


Venezuela: Times of Low Oil Prices

Energy

The goal that the Venezuelan basket of crude oil and derivatives averages USD 60 in 2009 in order to balance public accounts somehow appears highly unlikely to meet in this fiscal year, when a new election, inflation rates spiraling up and the sacrifices typical of a lean period are expected.

After the weekly average price exceeded USD 126 per barrel last July, the Venezuelan crude oil has plummeted. This is a matter of concern for financial authorities, but particularly for Venezuelans in general, as they know that a belt-tightening period follows when oil prices starts to plummet.

Between December 15 and 19, the last weekly quote released by the Venezuelan Ministry of Energy and Petroleum, the basket of crude oil averaged USD 32.14 per barrel, almost USD 100 below the peak recorded in mid-July. The 74.5 percent decrease provoked an unbalance in public accounts in the last quarter of the year, as well as a dramatic reduction in oil revenues from state-run oil company Petróleos de Venezuela.

This decline also resulted in removal, as of last November, of the so-called windfall tax, which fed the National Development Fund (Fonden), and suspension as of December of direct money transfers from Pdvsa to Fonden. Both mechanisms were in force as long as the crude oil price exceeded USD 35 per barrel, which was the crude oil price estimated in the country’s 2008 budget. However, a preliminary average price of USD 88.74 a barrel last year, it was possible to close 2008 somehow comfortably.

President Hugo Chávez’s government has announced new expropriations in 2009, despite the economic crisis. Additionally, yet another vote is expected to be held early this year and there are not public spending cuts on sight. In sum, the domestic finances are set to grow even more dependent on oil revenues, which at the end of 2008 accounted for 93 percent of total Venezuelan exports.

In its year-end message, the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) warned that “the planning of the development of the Venezuelan oil industry must take on the challenge caused by the fluctuation of oil prices.” “It is vital to set a strict order of priorities to maximize the return on investments, and delaying long-term projects or projects that are not urgent should not cause losses in assets.”

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]

Immigration


UK: The Ethnic Cleansing of London: Immigrants Pour in, White Brits Leave

While 1.8 million immigrants have moved to London from abroad over the last decade, native indigenous Brits have fled their capital city, making London the area with the largest internal migration of any area in the UK.

Research released by the Bank of Scotland showed that between 1998 and 2007 nearly 2 million people moved out of the capital to other parts of Britain, while 1.6 million moved to it — mostly from overseas. This 2 million was equivalent to more than a quarter (26 percent) of the city’s population in 2007.

London was the only region of the UK to experience a net population loss, which was 344,558. However, the capital’s population was boosted over the 10 years to 2007 by what the bank called “international immigration.”

The South East of England was the most popular region for people to move to from elsewhere in the UK, leading to a net increase of 550,889. More than 2.2 million people moved to the area, while almost 1.7 million left.

The South West recorded the second highest level of net internal migration, gaining 514,511 people. Northern Ireland gained 10,681 residents through internal migration.

The North East and North West were the only UK regions to see an overall decline in their population, losing 26,000 and 27,000 respectively.

Internal migration has boosted Scotland’s population by 157,757. Between 1998 and 2007 the report showed that 542,524 people moved to Scotland from other regions of the UK, while only 384,767 left.

The report was based on data sourced from the 2008 Population Trends provided by the Office of National Statistics.

           — Hat tip: VH [Return to headlines]

Culture Wars


America’s Identity Crisis

Americans who lack knowledge of our country’s history, Constitution and institutions really have no frame of reference to judge current politics and policies. Federal law requires public schools to teach about the U.S. Constitution on Constitution Day, Sept. 17, but it looks like American adults need those lessons, too.

The 2006 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) Civics Test revealed that the majority of eighth-graders could not explain the purpose of the Declaration of Independence. No wonder young voters are not shocked at those who talk about “interdependence,” globalism and becoming “citizens of the world.”

It’s not just that American citizens lack knowledge of historical and constitutional facts about our country, but they also show a declining appreciation of who we are. A survey by Harris Interactive reported that 84 percent of respondents believe we have a unique American identity, but 64 percent believe this identity is weakening, and 24 percent believe we are already so divided that a common national identity is impossible.

Political correctness in colleges and public schools over the last decade has gone a long way toward replacing patriotism with the trendy dicta of multiculturalism, diversity and global citizenship. Are we losing our identity as Americans?

[…]

A review of history textbooks used in public schools today reveals a big source of the problem. Textbooks now emphasize America’s faults and mistakes rather than our incredible achievements.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]



UK: Atheist Buses Denying God’s Existence Take to Streets

Atheist adverts declaring that “there’s probably no God” [and “Now stop worrying and enjoy life”] have been placed on 800 buses around Britain after an unprecedented fundraising campaign.

Organisers originally hoped to put the message on just a handful of London buses, as an antidote to posters put up by religious groups which they claimed were “threatening eternal damnation” to non-believers..

But after the campaign received high-profile support from the prominent atheist Prof Richard Dawkins and the British Humanist Association, the modest £5,500 target was met within minutes and more than £140,000 has now been donated since the launch in October.

Enough money has now been raised to place the message — “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life” — on 200 bendy buses in the capital for a month, with the first ones taking to the streets .

A further 600 buses carrying the adverts will be seen by passengers and passers-by in cities across England, Wales and Scotland, from Aberdeen and Dundee to York, Coventry, Swansea and Bristol.

In addition, two large LCD screens bearing the atheist message have been placed in Oxford Street, central London, while 1,000 posters containing quotes from well-known non-believers will be placed on Underground trains for two weeks starting on Monday.

They feature lines doubting the existence of God, and celebrating the natural world, written by Albert Einstein, Katharine Hepburn, Douglas Adams and Emily Dickinson.

It is the first ever atheist advertising campaign to take place in Britain, and similar adverts are now also running on public transport in America and Spain. […]

           — Hat tip: VH [Return to headlines]

General


Leading American Muslim Publicly Threatens U.S. for Supporting Israel

“One of these days, the U.S. will suffer more deaths than all those killed in this third Gaza holocaust. This will happen soon”

Not terribly surprising since he also once said that 9/11 was planned by America. As this report points out, however, Salah Sultan is not just another hate-preacher appearing on Arab TV; he also “holds U.S. permanent residency status and, according to one federal law enforcement official, travels regularly on a U.S. passport.” Moreover, he is on several prominent U.S. Muslim boards and committees — many of which (no doubt temporarily) removed his name from their websites and membership lists immediately after MEMRI translated and posted his tirade.

“Top American Islamic Cleric Threatens U.S. on Egyptian TV,” by Patrick Poole for Pajamas Media, January 7:

Islamic cleric Salah Sultan appeared on Egypt’s Al-Nas TV last week and delivered a warning of death and destruction for America. Not only did he attack the U.S. for its military support of Israel in its fight against the Hamas terrorist organization, but he vowed retaliation such that more Americans would be killed than those Palestinians (and, presumably, Hamas terrorists) killed in the present conflict in Gaza, emphasizing that this would take place “soon”:

“America, which gave [Israel] everything it needed in these battles, will suffer economic stagnation, ruin, destruction, and crime, which will surpass what is happening in Gaza. One of these days, the U.S. will suffer more deaths than all those killed in this third Gaza holocaust. This will happen soon.”

He also invoked a notorious Islamic hadith on the inevitable annihilation of the Jews by Muslims:

           — Hat tip: AA [Return to headlines]



Mr. Gore: Apology Accepted

You are probably wondering whether President-elect Obama owes the world an apology for his actions regarding global warming. The answer is, not yet.. There is one person, however, who does. You have probably guessed his name: Al Gore.

Mr. Gore has stated, regarding climate change, that “the science is in.” Well, he is absolutely right about that, except for one tiny thing. It is the biggest whopper ever sold to the public in the history of humankind.

What is wrong with the statement? A brief list:

1. First, the expression “climate change” itself is a redundancy, and contains a lie. Climate has always changed, and always will. There has been no stable period of climate during the Holocene, our own climatic era, which began with the end of the last ice age 12,000 years ago. During the Holocene there have been numerous sub-periods with dramatically varied climate, such as the warm Holocene Optimum (7,000 B.C. to 3,000 B.C., during which humanity began to flourish, and advance technologically), the warm Roman Optimum (200 B.C. to 400 A.D., a time of abundant crops that promoted the empire), the cold Dark Ages (400 A.D. to 900 A.D., during which the Nile River froze, major cities were abandoned, the Roman Empire fell apart, and pestilence and famine were widespread), the Medieval Warm Period (900 A.D. to 1300 A.D., during which agriculture flourished, wealth increased, and dozens of lavish examples of Gothic architecture were created), the Little Ice Age (1300 to 1850, during much of which plague, crop failures, witch burnings, food riots — and even revolutions, including the French Revolution — were the rule of thumb), followed by our own time of relative warmth (1850 to present, during which population has increased, technology and medical advances have been astonishing, and agriculture has flourished).

So, no one needs to say the words “climate” and “change” in the same breath — it is assumed, by anyone with any level of knowledge, that climate changes. That is the redundancy to which I alluded. The lie is the suggestion that climate has ever been stable. Mr. Gore has used a famously inaccurate graph, known as the “Mann Hockey Stick,” created by the scientist Michael Mann, showing that the modern rise in temperatures is unprecedented, and that the dramatic changes in climate just described did not take place. They did. One last thought on the expression “climate change”: It is a retreat from the earlier expression used by alarmists, “manmade global warming,” which was more easily debunked. There are people in Mr. Gore’s camp who now use instances of cold temperatures to prove the existence of “climate change,” which is absurd, obscene, even.

2. Mr. Gore has gone so far to discourage debate on climate as to refer to those who question his simplistic view of the atmosphere as “flat-Earthers.” This, too, is right on target, except for one tiny detail. It is exactly the opposite of the truth.

Indeed, it is Mr. Gore and his brethren who are flat-Earthers. Mr. Gore states, ad nauseum, that carbon dioxide rules climate in frightening and unpredictable, and new, ways. When he shows the hockey stick graph of temperature and plots it against reconstructed C02 levels in An Inconvenient Truth, he says that the two clearly have an obvious correlation. “Their relationship is actually very complicated,” he says, “but there is one relationship that is far more powerful than all the others, and it is this: When there is more carbon dioxide, the temperature gets warmer.” The word “complicated” here is among the most significant Mr. Gore has uttered on the subject of climate and is, at best, a deliberate act of obfuscation. Why? Because it turns out that there is an 800-year lag between temperature and carbon dioxide, unlike the sense conveyed by Mr. Gore’s graph. You are probably wondering by now — and if you are not, you should be — which rises first, carbon dioxide or temperature. The answer? Temperature. In every case, the ice-core data shows that temperature rises precede rises in carbon dioxide by, on average, 800 years. In fact, the relationship is not “complicated.” When the ocean-atmosphere system warms, the oceans discharge vast quantities of carbon dioxide in a process known as de-gassing. For this reason, warm and cold years show up on the Mauna Loa C02 measurements even in the short term. For instance, the post-Pinatubo-eruption year of 1993 shows the lowest C02 increase since measurements have been kept. When did the highest C02 increase take place? During the super El Niño year of 1998.

3. What the alarmists now state is that past episodes of warming were not caused by C02 but amplified by it, which is debatable, for many reasons, but, more important, is a far cry from the version of events sold to the public by Mr. Gore.

Meanwhile, the theory that carbon dioxide “drives” climate in any meaningful way is simply wrong and, again, evidence of a “flat-Earth” mentality. Carbon dioxide cannot absorb an unlimited amount of infrared radiation. Why not? Because it only absorbs heat along limited bandwidths, and is already absorbing just about everything it can. That is why plotted on a graph, C02’s ability to capture heat follows a logarithmic curve. We are already very near the maximum absorption level. Further, the IPCC Fourth Assessment, like all the ones before it, is based on computer models that presume a positive feedback of atmospheric warming via increased water vapor.

4. This mechanism has never been shown to exist. Indeed, increased temperature leads to increased evaporation of the oceans, which leads to increased cloud cover (one cooling effect) and increased precipitation (a bigger cooling effect). Within certain bounds, in other words, the ocean-atmosphere system has a very effective self-regulating tendency. By the way, water vapor is far more prevalent, and relevant, in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide — a trace gas. Water vapor’s absorption spectrum also overlays that of carbon dioxide. They cannot both absorb the same energy! The relative might of water vapor and relative weakness of carbon dioxide is exemplified by the extraordinary cooling experienced each night in desert regions, where water in the atmosphere is nearly non-existent.

If not carbon dioxide, what does “drive” climate? I am glad you are wondering about that. In the short term, it is ocean cycles, principally the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the “super cycle” of which cooling La Niñas and warming El Niños are parts. Having been in its warm phase, in which El Niños predominate, for the 30 years ending in late 2006, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation switched to its cool phase, in which La Niñas predominate.

Since that time, already, a number of interesting things have taken place. One La Niña lowered temperatures around the globe for about half of the year just ended, and another La Niña shows evidence of beginning in the equatorial Pacific waters. During the last twelve months, many interesting cold-weather events happened to occur: record snow in the European Alps, China, New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, the Rockies, the upper Midwest, Las Vegas, Houston, and New Orleans. There was also, for the first time in at least 100 years, snow in Baghdad.

Concurrent with the switchover of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation to its cool phase the Sun has entered a period of deep slumber. The number of sunspots for 2008 was the second lowest of any year since 1901. That matters less because of fluctuations in the amount of heat generated by the massive star in our near proximity (although there are some fluctuations that may have some measurable effect on global temperatures) and more because of a process best described by the Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark in his complex, but elegant, work The Chilling Stars. In the book, the modern Galileo, for he is nothing less, establishes that cosmic rays from deep space seed clouds over Earth’s oceans. Regulating the number of cosmic rays reaching Earth’s atmosphere is the solar wind; when it is strong, we get fewer cosmic rays. When it is weak, we get more. As NASA has corroborated, the number of cosmic rays passing through our atmosphere is at the maximum level since measurements have been taken, and show no signs of diminishing. The result: the seeding of what some have taken to calling “Svensmark clouds,” low dense clouds, principally over the oceans, that reflect sunlight back to space before it can have its warming effect on whatever is below.

Svensmark has proven, in the minds of most who have given his work a full hearing, that it is this very process that produced the episodes of cooling (and, inversely, warming) of our own era and past eras. The clearest instance of the process, by far, is that of the Maunder Minimum, which refers to a period from 1650 to 1700, during which the Sun had not a single spot on its face. Temperatures around the globe plummeted, with quite adverse effects: crop failures (remember the witch burnings in Europe and Massachusetts?), famine, and societal stress.

Many solar physicists anticipate that the slumbering Sun of early 2009 is likely to continue for at least two solar cycles, or about the next 25 years. Whether the Grand Solar Minimum, if it comes to pass, is as serious as the Maunder Minimum is not knowable, at present. Major solar minima (and maxima, such as the one during the second half of the 20th century) have also been shown to correlate with significant volcanic eruptions. These are likely the result of solar magnetic flux affecting geomagnetic flux, which affects the distribution of magma in Earth’s molten iron core and under its thin mantle. So, let us say, just for the sake of argument, that such an eruption takes place over the course of the next two decades. Like all major eruptions, this one will have a temporary cooling effect on global temperatures, perhaps a large one. The larger the eruption, the greater the effect. History shows that periods of cold are far more stressful to humanity than periods of warm. Would the eruption and consequent cooling be a climate-modifier that exists outside of nature, somehow? Who is the “flat-Earther” now?

What about heat escaping from volcanic vents in the ocean floor? What about the destruction of warming, upper-atmosphere ozone by cosmic rays? I could go on, but space is short. Again, who is the “flat-Earther” here?

The ocean-atmosphere system is not a simple one that can be “ruled” by a trace atmospheric gas. It is a complex, chaotic system, largely modulated by solar effects (both direct and indirect), as shown by the Little Ice Age.

To be told, as I have been, by Mr. Gore, again and again, that carbon dioxide is a grave threat to humankind is not just annoying, by the way, although it is that! To re-tool our economies in an effort to suppress carbon dioxide and its imaginary effect on climate, when other, graver problems exist is, simply put, wrong. Particulate pollution, such as that causing the Asian brown cloud, is a real problem. Two billion people on Earth living without electricity, in darkened huts and hovels polluted by charcoal smoke, is a real problem.

So, let us indeed start a Manhattan Project-like mission to create alternative sources of energy. And, in the meantime, let us neither cripple our own economy by mislabeling carbon dioxide a pollutant nor discourage development in the Third World, where suffering continues unabated, day after day..

Again, Mr. Gore, I accept your apology.

And, Mr. Obama, though I voted for you for a thousand times a thousand reasons, I hope never to need one from you.

P.S. One of the last, desperate canards proposed by climate alarmists is that of the polar ice caps. Look at the “terrible,” “unprecedented” melting in the Arctic in the summer of 2007, they say. Well, the ice in the Arctic basin has always melted and refrozen, and always will.. Any researcher who wants to find a single molecule of ice that has been there longer than 30 years is going to have a hard job, because the ice has always been melted from above (by the midnight Sun of summer) and below (by relatively warm ocean currents, possibly amplified by volcanic venting) — and on the sides, again by warm currents. Scientists in the alarmist camp have taken to referring to “old ice,” but, again, this is a misrepresentation of what takes place in the Arctic.

More to the point, 2007 happened also to be the time of maximum historic sea ice in Antarctica. (There are many credible sources of this information, such as the following website maintained by the University of Illinois-Urbana: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.south.jpg). Why, I ask, has Mr. Gore not chosen to mention the record growth of sea ice around Antarctica? If the record melting in the Arctic is significant, then the record sea ice growth around Antarctica is, too, I say. If one is insignificant, then the other one is, too.

For failing to mention the 2007 Antarctic maximum sea ice record a single time, I also accept your apology, Mr. Gore. By the way, your contention that the Arctic basin will be “ice free” in summer within five years (which you said last month in Germany), is one of the most demonstrably false comments you have dared to make. Thank you for that!

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]



The Special Relationship

On January 13, in one of his last acts as President, George Bush will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Tony Blair in thanks for Britain’s unyielding support of the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq. Mr Blair will follow Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Nelson Mandela and Walt Disney as recipients of a medal that is, jointly, America’s most prestigious civil tribute.

But it is the medal with which it shares that status, the Congressional Gold Medal of Honour, that will dominate the coverage. Mr Blair was awarded the medal in July 2003, since when he has allowed almost 2,000 days to pass without collecting it. He really ought to do so as a matter of urgency. The award was made not by the President but by the Congress of the American people. And it was granted not to Mr Blair as a lone individual but to him in his capacity as Prime Minister of the British people. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which this newspaper supported, the American people have honoured their allies the British and it is uncharacteristically ungracious of the former Prime Minister not to turn up to receive it.

Mr Blair is the first Prime Minister since Winston Churchill to be awarded the Congressional Medal. It is intriguing to wonder whether he might be the last. Certainly, the election of Barack Obama presages serious changes to the relationship between Britain and the US.

This is, in part, a matter of personal history. President Obama will not share with some of his predecessors any emotional ties with this country. But it is also more than personal. The British Prime Minister is already vying with the French President to be the first official visitor to the new administration. There will be plenty of national leaders heading to Washington in the hope that some of the Obama glint will rub off. Suddenly, with a new president in the wings and with the Iraqi intervention in its latter stages, the relationships between America and the nations that dissented over war can begin afresh.

In the new circumstances of 2009 the first big test for the relationship of Britain and America will come in Afghanistan. If the new president increases the American presence he will surely look to Britain to do the same. This test of friendship will come as serious questions are being asked, in the highest command of the United States military, about the effectiveness of the British contribution to the war efforts. These doubts are very much to the point. They expose the central flaw in British thinking about the special relationship. The medals awarded to Mr Blair were for saying all the right things at the critical moment. That is no small matter. To be a staunch and vocal ally at an historical turning point is the first requirement of an enduring relationship.

But it is not enough. Britain has tried to extend its military reach without committing the required resources. For fifty yeas after the Second World War, defence spending, as a proportion of national income, declined. Since 1997, even with the extra spending specific to Iraq and Afghanistan, it has remained flat, at 2.5 per cent of GDP. Too often weapons and ammunition have been faulty, vehicles have been unreliable, living accommodation inadequate. Now, the £4 billion aircraft carrier project has been delayed.

The doctrine of liberal interventionism, famously set out by Mr Blair in his speech in Chicago in 1999, implies a far bigger military budget. The case that the security threat to the world is now of a qualitatively different type, which needs to be confronted rather than appeased, is a cogent one. It is a threat that the United States faces. If Britain wishes to win the medals that come with special status, it is no good willing the end without the means.

           — Hat tip: Tuan Jim [Return to headlines]

Roundup of Anti-Semitic Attacks in Europe

The war in Gaza continues to be used as a pretext for violence (or attempted violence) against Jews in Europe. Our Flemish correspondent VH has translated a series of articles from various Dutch-language news sources in Belgium and the Netherlands.



Belgian synagogue attacked, tensions are rising

Because of the fighting in Gaza tension is rising between the Jews and Arabs in the Belgian cities of Antwerp and Brussels. During demonstrations in recent days there been destruction. Also an attempt was made to set a synagogue on fire.

This is reported by various Belgian media. [here and here]



Arson attempt on synagogue in Vorst, Brussels

Unidentified people have tried to set fire to the synagogue of the Brussels municipality Vorst [the synagogue Beth Hillel]. The damage was confined to scorched front doors, local police report. The perpetrators and their motives are still unknown.

Access door on fire

The incident at the synagogue in the Vroegegroentenstraat [by the Wallonian colonizers called “Rue des Primeurs”] occurred around 8:30 pm Monday when a fire was detected at the heavy front door of the synagogue. The fire was quickly extinguished and caused little damage, except that the entrance door was scorched black.

Arson

The initial findings showed that the door was deliberately set on fire, though it is still not clear how that happened. It was first thought by a Molotov cocktail, but that now seems out of the question. The local police suspect that gasoline was poured and lit or that a pile of paper was set on fire. The perpetrators and their motives are still unknown, but a link with the Israeli offensive in Gaza is not excluded.



Illegal Gaza demonstration in Antwerp

Today [Wednesday] at 15:00 in the vicinity of the Antwerp Central Station [note: that means right next to the “Diamond District”, also known as “Jerusalem of the North”], an unpermitted demonstration by pro-Palestine youngsters will take place. This is what press agency Belga was told by a “reliable source”.

Islamic youngsters would have sms’d each other today to demonstrate. It is not impossible it will come to riots after an attack today on a refugee camp in the Gaza strip, in which forty people died.

The police report that are ready to intervene, if incidents occur. The AEL (Arabic European League) would have nothing to do with the demonstration.



Turkish basketball fans jeer at players Israeli team

The conflict in the Gaza Strip has now also moved to the sports arenas. A match in the Basketball Eurocup games between the Turkish “Turk Telekom” and the Israeli “Bnei Hasharon” in Ankara was canceled after Turkish supporters threatened the Israeli players. The police, who were present with around 1500 troops, had to intervene to restore the calm. [see pictures]
– – – – – – – –
The offenses occurred when the two teams went into the arena to greet the fans. Suddenly the supporters of the home team, of whom some carried Palestinian flags, started to berate and threaten the Israeli players. They screamed, among other things: “Israelis murderers, leave Palestine.”

The “fans” also threw coins and lighters and tried to get into the arena. The police intervened and the Israeli players escaped to the dressing room. A few minutes later it was decided to cancel the match.



Increase of violence against Jews in Europe

Attacks on Jews and arson at Jewish meetings seem to increase in European cities since Israel began the attack on Hamas in the Gaza strip. Such incidents occurred in Belgium, France, Sweden, Denmark and Great Britain.

Arson at Jewish meetings

Last night a burning car rammed the door of a synagogue in Toulouse in the South West of France. A group of people were inside the building taking a course, but nobody got hurt. The damage to the building where the meeting took place was “limited” to a scorched black door.

In the Swedish city of Helsingborg yesterday, a meeting by Jews was disturbed when someone destroyed a window of the building where the meeting took place, and threw in a burning object. The rescue service arrived in time and was able to get the fire under control.

Shooting in Denmark

Last Wednesday, in a shopping center in the Danish city Odense, two Israeli citizens were shot. They were repeatedly harassed in the pervious days. The police arrested a 27-year-old Danish citizen of Palestinian descent.

Dozens of incidents in Great-Britain

In Great Britain, some twenty to twenty-five anti-Semitic incidents occurred. Amongst those was an attempt to set fire to a synagogue in North London. […]

The Belgian government asked the police to be extra alert after resent pro-Palestinian demonstrations resulted in violence and arrests. A letterbox of a Jewish residence in Antwerp was set on fire, and in Vorst [Brussels] a synagogue was set on fire.

France wants unity to prevail

The prime minister of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, said today not to tolerate violent acts in connection with the situation in the Gaza strip. Monday the minister of internal affairs Michèle Alliot-Marie held a meeting with important representatives of Jewish and Muslim groups, hoping to maintain national unity.

France has the largest Jewish and Muslim communities in Western Europe. In the past, anti-Semitic violence occurred more often when the tensions rose in the Middle East. In 2002 about 2,300 Jews left France, because they didn’t feel safe there anymore.

The Odense Shooter: A Model Citizen

In an exclusive at Snaphanen, Steen has used his skills as an internet gumshoe and tracked down the name of the suspect in the Odense shootings. The man accused of shooting two young Israelis at the shopping mall in Odense can now be identified as Wissam Freijeh.

Our Danish correspondent Kepiblanc has kindly translated Steen’s post:

A close-up snapshot of Sudden Jihad

It seems our initial diagnosis on the Odense-shooter, Wissam Freijeh, was correct. “I want to make sure that Danes will get a more positive perception of us immigrants,” said the metal worker and model immigrant a few years ago to the council of Odense municipality — after a career as “misfit”.

One 27-year old man, now indicted for the attempted murder of two Israelis, was used as a model example in an educational campaign

“It’s one’s own choice how to live.” With these words the Odense municipality presented the then 22-year old man WF on a home page encouraging young people to get an education. WF, now indicted for the attempted murder of two Israeli salesmen in the Odense Rosegarden Center, was used by the municipality as an example to show that education is the road ahead in the Danish society. During an interview published on a home page prior to the 2003 Union Congress for Young People and Education WF told how happy he was to be an apprentice metal worker. And in another interview in Aarhus Stiftstidende [Danish daily] 2004 — one year prior to graduation — he expressed his future goal thusly: “My wish is to contribute to an improvement in the way Danes look at us foreigners”.

In yet another lengthy interview five years ago in Fyens Stiftstidende [Danish daily], he said “Palestine is my country.”

From model citizen to Israel-hating gunman:

– – – – – – – –

“Wissam Freijeh is 22 years old married and with a Palestinian background. He is a metal worker apprentice, while his wife studies to become a teacher. Among other thing he produced the metal bars outlining the ‘Royal Danish Mail Bicycle Race’ last summer.

“It isn’t fun to live on welfare, getting official enquiries all the time. I feel like I am under surveillance and being pushed into something I do not like,” says Wissam. At present he is one year into an apprenticeship as a metal worker. It is a part-time job split between work and Manufacturing School. Additionally, he tries to enhance some of his basic education and at present he works at Boerge V. Jensen’s Metal Works. — It’s hard, but fun.”

Go over to Steen’s place for the Danish version, and to see a photo of the young model immigrant.



Steen’s sources:

Southall: The Capital of the Future Islamic State of Britain

The Ummah Jack


The Muslims of London are eagerly awaiting a sharia state in the UK, and Anjem Choudary has already announced what the new capital of Islamic Britain will be.

According to the BNP website:

Southall Will be Capital of Islamic Britain, Announces UK Chief Sharia Court Judge

Anjem Choudary, chief judge of the ‘Shari’ah Court of the UK,’ has announced that “when Islam takes over the UK,” Southall will be made the new capital city.

Southall is one of the most ethnically cleansed areas of London, where, according to the 2000 census, only 12 percent of the population is indigenous white British. Even that figure is likely to have dropped in the last eight years.

Choudary said the west London suburb should be the centre of Islamic power at a New Year meeting of his supporters, who cheered his every word as he called for Muslims to “rise up” and seize power in Britain. “We will rise up. We will rise up, my dear Muslims. One day we will have the Sharia here. And who knows, maybe even Southall can be the capital of the Islamic state when we conquer it.”

Choudhary is a Muslim lawyer who was chairman of the Society of Muslim Lawyers, an Islamist and is best known as a follower of Omar Bakri Mohammed, who was deported from this country. Choudary has urged Muslims to not cooperate with the police in fighting terrorism, and has called for the assassination of the Pope. He is also ‘Judge of the Shari’ah Court of the UK,’ a position formerly held by Bakri.

In a BBC interview Choudary was asked why he would not say with Omar Bakri Mohammed, “I condemn the killing of innocent people.” Choudary replied “At the end of the day, when we say “innocent people” we mean “Muslims.” As far as non-Muslims are concerned, they have not accepted Islam. As far as we are concerned, that is a crime against God.”

– – – – – – – –

Speaking at a conference on September 11th, 2008 in London, Choudary, referring to the high birth rate of Muslims, stated that “It may be by pure conversion that Britain will become an Islamic state. We may never need to conquer it from the outside.”

He also stated that “We do not integrate into Christianity. We will ensure that one day you will integrate into the Sharia Islamic law.”

In December 2008, Choudary publicly praised the Mumbai attacks in India by Islamic Extremists and stated that Muslims should reject Christmas as it is forbidden by Allah.

The Daily Telegraph quoted him as saying: “Every Muslim has a responsibility to protect his family from the misguidance of Christmas, because its observance will lead to hellfire. Protect your Paradise from being taken away — protect yourself and your family from Christmas.”



Hat tip: VH.