Greece: Brussels Investigates State Aid to Cereal Sector
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, DECEMBER 14 — The European Commission has opened a formal inquiry into Greece’s aid to its cereal sector. The aid was distributed as a 150 million euro loan to the Unions of Agricultural Cooperatives with State guarantee, as well as a subsidy on the interest that has to be paid on this loan. Brussels doubts that this plan is compatible with European regulations on State aid. The opening of the inquiry allows the EU Commission to examine the measures more closely and gives third parties a chance to make comments, without harming the procedure.
The Commission took its decision after a report from 2009 and the following investigation by Brussels into alleged State aid to cereal producers. Greece approved the measures in 2008, after which a series of decision on Ministry level implemented the aid that is now under investigation. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Greek Protests Descend Into Chaos as Rioters Clash With Police on Streets of Athens
Protesters clashed with riot police across Athens today, torching cars and hurling petrol bombs as demonstations against the government’s latest austerity measures turned nasty.
Police fired tear gas and flash grenades as the violence escalated outside parliament and spread to other parts of the capital.
Angry unions triggered the 24-hour strike to protest new labour reforms and pay cuts as Greece struggles to reshape its economy under conditions set by a £100billion international bailout.
The ugly scenes mirrored those from May when three people died when a bank was torched during demonstrations.
Trouble: Demonstrators face riot police during clashes in Athens today after protests against a new wave of austerity measures turned nasty in the Greek capital
A riot police member was attacked with petrol bombs during the protest
Protesters knocked out the windows and set fire to a police bus during the clashes
The strike also grounded flights, closed factories, disrupted hospitals and shut down trains, ferries and buses across the country.
It was the seventh strike this year by unions appalled at a wave of austerity policies meant to pull Greece out of its worst financial crisis since World War II.
In Athens, youths wearing black masks and ski goggles used sledgehammers to smash paving stones and hurled the rubble at police.
A post office near parliament briefly caught fire, forcing employees and bystanders to run for safety.
Christmas shoppers fled as rioters hurled petrol bombs wrapped in bundles of firecrackers, causing small explosions when they landed. Rioting youths torched several cars, overturned trash bins and vandalized storefronts, tossing Christmas decorations into the street.
Under attack: Riot police try to avoid a petrol bomb outside a luxury hotel during clashes
Anger: Greece is stuck in its deepest financial crisis since the Second World War and huge cuts are affecting public services, leading to the demonstrations
Wednesday’s violence occurred after some 20,000 protesters marched to parliament during a general strike against a new round of labor reforms
At least 10 people were detained and five were hurt, including a conservative politician who was beaten in the street by protesters. Two people were injured in Athens and three in Greece’s second largest city, Thessaloniki, where another anti-austerity protest turned violent.
The violence erupted after 20,000 protesters marched to parliament in Athens chanting ‘No sacrifice for the rich!’
Crippled by high budget deficits and a mountain of debt, Greece was saved from bankruptcy in May by an international rescue loan package. In return, the Socialist government slashed pensions and salaries, hiked taxes, raised retirement ages and eased restrictions on private sector layoffs.
On Tuesday, the government won a key vote in parliament on new labour reforms that include deeper pay cuts, salary caps and involuntary staff transfers at state companies…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Islamic Finance Body Okays France’s Sukuk Model
A top Islamic finance body has approved France’s model to issue local sukuk, or Islamic bonds, which would ease their listing on the Paris financial market, a French official revealed on Wednesday.
The Accounting and Auditing Organisation for Islamic Financial Institutions has approved the model aimed to marry France’s tax laws with the Islamic financial instrument, said Thierry Dissaux, the chief executive officer of the French Deposit Guarantee Fund.
“The news is that … AAOIFI sharia (Islamic law) scholars have approved the issuance model presented to them end of November, with some technical adjustments,” he told a forum at the Dubai International Financial Centre.
Bahrain-based AAOIFI reviews and amends accounting and auditing standards for Islamic financial institutions.
Islamic law proscribes the paying of interest for a service as well as speculation, and prohibits investment in sectors such as pornography, gambling, weaponry, alcohol or pork products.
Although Dissaux said there were “no obstacles for the development of Islamic finance in France,” he pointed out that several issues came up, notably that of Islamic financial instruments in a secular system.
Arnoud de Bresson, the head of Paris Europlace, which promotes the Paris financial market, told the forum earlier that France has made legal and tax changes to accommodate Islamic financial products.
“We have made a series of legal and tax adjustments to integrate transactions and concepts that comply with Islamic ethical principles in our financial system by ensuring their tax neutrality with respect to conventional finance,” he said.
Paris is vying to develop its own market for Islamic finance following the pattern of London, which has become in few years a flourishing centre for Islamic finance.
Britain has a Muslim population that some estimates put at over two million people, while France has roughly six million Muslims, around 10 percent of its population.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Merkel Vows Not to ‘Abandon’ Euro Nations
German Chancellor Angela Merkel moved Wednesday to silence fears of a eurozone break-up, saying that although some members faced tough challenges, Europe’s paymaster would not desert them.
“No one in Europe will be left alone, no one in Europe will be abandoned. Europe succeeds when it acts together and I would add, Europe succeeds only when it acts together,” Merkel said in a speech to parliament.
Merkel said that some in the 16-nation eurozone faced an uphill task in repairing their public finances but she expressed confidence that the single currency would survive.
“It is undeniable that some eurozone countries face difficult challenges but it is also undeniable that the euro has shown itself to be crisis-proof,” Merkel said.
“We should keep reminding ourselves what would have happened during the turbulence of the financial crisis if we had all had our own currencies.”
Ireland last month became the second eurozone member after Greece to seek a bailout, tapping a €750-billion ($1-trillion) temporary mechanism set up by the EU and the International Monetary Fund.
There are fears that rising borrowing costs might force other countries in the eurozone, most notably Portugal and Spain, to follow suit, leading to fears in some quarters that the single currency might fall apart.
Merkel wants EU leaders this week to agree on setting up a new, permanent crisis mechanism for after 2013 that would include private investors in the costs of any future bailouts.
The German leader also wants the EU’s governing treaty to be tweaked so that the crisis mechanism can operate without incurring objections from the country’s constitutional court.
Berlin additionally wants Brussels to be able to keep a closer eye on member states’ budgets, a sine qua non for taking on greater responsibility for their finances.
Germany and France however reject a proposal from Luxembourg and Italy for joint eurozone bonds, something which would help weaker eurozone countries borrow money more cheaply — but push up the cost for Berlin and Paris.
Earlier on Wednesday, Luxembourg’s foreign minister warned Germany and France not to act with “pride and arrogance” at an EU summit likely to focus on the eurozone crisis later this week.
In an interview with daily Die Welt Jean Asselborn said solutions must be agreed upon by all 27 member states and not dictated by just two leaders.
“I can only warn Germany and France from a claim to power that expresses a certain pride and arrogance, which disregard the fundamental European principle of solidarity,” he said.
Asselborn also criticised the behaviour of Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy in the last year.
“In my opinion there were scenes this year in which France and Germany created a problem ahead of an EU summit, then came to Brussels and dramatically said, ‘We have solved the problem and fixed Europe,’“ he told the paper.
Clear decisions that calm financial markets and lay out future rescue mechanisms must be reached during the summit on Thursday and Friday, Asselborn said.
The attack on Germany and France is likely connected to the two countries’ refusal to support euro bonds.
But Asselborn said he was “fairly certain” that euro bonds would be introduced in the future to help struggling EU members get credit, and would be an attractive investment for Asian and American investors.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Redistribution on Steroids
Rep. Cleaver [D] has proposed a $48 billion earmark
When absurdity gives way to hilarity, you must be talking about politics.
In the midst of a colossal global concern for the economic stability of our great nation, Emanuel Cleaver, Missouri’s 5th Congressional District representative, has one small earmark on his wish list that deserves some attention.
Cleaver has listed a new earmark — one of several — and he promises to “fight for every one.” But this is a whopping $48 billion package that must go down as the grandaddy of all earmarks.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: MPs’ Expenses: £14m Worth Written Off After Only Trickle of Illegitimate Funds Refunded
Nearly £14million of taxpayers’ money was paid to MPs in questionable expenses claims last year.
The Auditor General yesterday refused to sign off the House of Commons’ accounts on grounds that MPs provided little or no evidence they had run up the costs legitimately.
They pocketed £830,000 in expenses without providing any receipts to back them up.
Commons officials last night admitted that just £16,000 owed by nine MPs is ever likely to be recovered.
Another £11.3million was paid out in cases where MPs could provide no evidence that the costs were incurred as part of their Parliamentary duties.
They include £4.7million of travel payments, £3.8million of communications costs and £2.8million of subsistence handouts and telephone calls.
Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, was denied access to a further £1.8million of payments, which are under police scrutiny as part of the criminal probes into MPs accused of fraud.
The findings are particularly stark as the payments are for the 12 months to the end of March, which shows MPs continued to make dubious claims even after the scandal broke in spring last year.
They come as the first politician to be convicted over the expenses scandal faces up to seven years in prison.
Expenses: Sir Peter Viggers claimed for a duck island under the old expenses system. The former Gosport MP later sold it for £1,700 for charity
Former Labour MP David Chaytor, 61, admitted three charges of false accounting involving £18,350 and will be sentenced next year…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Women Are Biggest Recession Losers as Female Unemployment Hits High
Women are the biggest victims of the recession, with female unemployment hitting its highest level for more than two decades, official figures revealed today.
More than one million women are unemployed, desperately searching for a job but failing to find one, according to the Office for National Statistics.
This is the highest number of unemployed women since 1988, and experts warned yesterday that this is just the beginning of a female ‘no jobs’ crisis.
Between August and October, the figures show more than 260 women every day, including weekends, joined the unemployment queue.
But, with 5.5 people competing for every job, their chances of success are slim.
The scale of the problem is likely to get worse, not bettter, with women more likely to work in the public sector which is facing job cuts of around 330,000 over the next four years.
Yesterday Douglas Alexander, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, described the figures as ‘deeply concerning.’
Over the last two years, nearly 280,000 women have been made unemployed, putting an unbearable strain on the family finances if they are in a relationship or have children.
In the worst cases, they will be the only breadwinner. In most cases, their husband or boyfriend will be working, but the family may not be able to survive on a single income for very long.
To add to the pressure, the price of ‘everyday’ items such as food and soft drinks are rising at their fastest rate since records began.
For those who keep their job, the average private sector pay rise of two per cent is far below inflation, which is currently 3.3 per cent. The public sector is facing a pay freeze.
The figures show the number of women who have been unemployed for more than a year has doubled over the last two years to 277,000.
Dr John Philpott, chief economic adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, said: ‘Women are taking a big jobs hit.
The Office for National Statistics’s figures show the North East has the highest rate of unemployment at 9.7%
Fiigures show unemployed has tipped over the crucial 2.5million mark, rising 35,000 in just three months…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Unloved Euro Considered Too Valuable to Ditch
The crisis rattling the euro has shaken Germans’ confidence in the currency but despite the grumbling, the advantages for the world’s number two exporter far outweigh the downsides, analysts and politicians say.
At the end of June, with a fiscal crisis in Greece hammering the 16-country eurozone, a poll showed most Germans wanted to scrap the euro and bring back the beloved Deutsche mark, the emblem of their post-war economic might.
A more recent survey suggested the anti-euro faction had dropped to 36 percent, still a high proportion for Europe’s biggest economy and founding member of the European Union.
“The euro has never really been loved in Germany,” said Frank Engels, an economist at Barclays Capital, recalling it was dubbed the “teuro,” a play on the German word for “expensive,” in response to perceived rising prices.
Many Germans believe that Berlin is bailing out other eurozone nations seen as profligate at a time when Germany itself is undergoing painful austerity measures.
“More and more Germans fear they are going to have to pay for mistakes made by other countries in the euro area,” said Martin Koopmann, a political scientist.
And daily Bild, the country’s largest paper, has often railed against Germany putting its hand in its pocket, recently asking: “Are we going to have to pay for the whole of Europe?”
A former head of the German employers’ federation, Hans-Olaf Henkel, argued in a recent book “Save our money — Germany is being sold out” that the eurozone should be split between a richer north and poorer south.
However, for now at least, such voices are on the margins, although Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble this month warned of “the danger of an anti-euro party,” which does not yet exist.
For Engels, the advantages of the euro for Germany’s exports are clear. The common currency has “enormously lowered” the costs of trading with its main partners, the analyst said.
If the Deutsche mark were still in existence, its value would likely have soared against the currencies of other eurozone countries because it would have been seen as a “safe haven” bet on the foreign exchange markets.
But this in turn would have harmed exports, credited with pulling the German economy out of a deep recession suffered in 2009.
Conscious of growing anti-euro sentiment, German politicians have pulled out all the stops to convince their citizens of the currency’s advantages — and the dangers inherent in a possible collapse.
“If the euro fails, then Europe fails,” Chancellor Angela Merkel told parliament at the height of the crisis.
But the message is not getting through, argues Koopmann. “We need politicians who can get across the positive aspects of the euro, while explaining why, in times of crisis, you have to pay the price.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
US Banks Are on the Hook to the PIIGS by Over $350 Billion
Last night, the BIS released its latest quarterly review, as always chock full of useful information. The one major item that caught our eye was the updated exposure toward the PIIGS countries by various foreign banks. And specifically the brand new category that had never been disclosed before by the BIS, namely the “other exposures” category, which per a rather closeted footnote is defined as: “other exposures consist of the positive market value of derivative contracts, guarantees extended and credit commitments.” This is exposure that appears for the first time in an official BIS document. And it is sizable: while total foreign claims stood at $2,281 billion, the newly disclosed category accounts for a whopping two thirds of a trillion: $668 billion. How generous of the BIS to share this data which as recently as 2 years ago may have been considered as material, and these days is merely dismissed with a laugh. After all who cares unless the potential loss has at least 12 zeroes in it. Yet what is most significant for the US taxpayer, who is now dead set on proving that St Sebastian was an amateur when it comes to (in)voluntary martyrdom, is that US exposure to the P(I)IGS (Italy excluded, for the time being — give it a few months), has just tripled as a result of this revelation. While before it was “common knowledge” that US banks have nothing to lose should Europe go down the drain, it has now been revealed that US banks actually have $353 billion in exposure, of which $233 billion is of this newly revealed “other category.”
And now that it is pro forma common knowledge that should the PIGS fails, that at least a few domestic banks would be wiped out, it also should be appreciated why the ECB will do everything to prevent an impairment to bondholders: with just under $2.3 trillion in potential partial or full losses on total exposure, the domino effect would blow up Europe overnight, then promptly wipe out the US and the rest of the world with it.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Video: Stockman: A Leveraged Buy-Out of the American Economy
After recently debunking the economic “recovery’s” flagrantly misrepresented employment data, the OMB’s David Stockman makes a third appearance in as many months (previously here and here), this time on Dylan Ratigan. And as always, it is a must see: key soundbite: “We have had a Fed engineered serial bubble, that has created the appearance of wealth, that has caused people to consume beyond their means through borrowing, and that has flushed the income and wealth of our society up to the top, as a result of the Fed turning the financial markets into a casino. These are pure casinos, they are not capital markets, they are not adding to the productive capacity of our economy, they simply are a bunch of robots trading with each other by the millisecond as a result of the Fed giving them zero cost overnight money, and giving them all kinds of hand signals on what to front-run.”
It is almost as if Stockman reads Zero Hedge… And he continues: “The Fed is destroying prosperity by funding demand that we can’t support with earnings and productions, causing massive current accounts deficits and the flow of funds overseas and the build up in China, OPEC and Korea of massive dollar reserves which is a totally unsustainable, unsupportable system, and we are coming near the edge of where that can continue to remain stable.“ Ironically, Stockman is spot one when he notes that America incurred enough debt to have effectively LBOed itself. The net result, as every PE principal knows all too well, is a husk of an entity, whose most valuable assets have been bled dry. At this point, the last straw for America will be the inevitable rise in interest rates (at some point over the next five years, the Fed and Treasury will have to sell a combined $5 trillion in debt — that alone will destroy the supply/demand equilibrium and send rates surging) which will result in either debt repudiation or outright bankruptcy. The only good outcome is that the great experiment of LBOing America by the kleptocratic elite is coming to its sad conclusion.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
American Copts Rally at UN
by Mary Abdelmassih
United Nations (AINA) — Thousands of Egyptian American Copts, led by Coptic bishops and clergymen representing other Christian denominations, protested on December 14 in front of the United Nations in New York against the on-going opersecution of their Coptic brethren in Egypt (video of rally).
The message given by the bishops of the Coptic church was “Enough is Enough” and that Copts will no longer keep quiet as they have reached the limit of their endurance of persecution and must speak out. They condemned the use of live ammunition on Coptic protesters and the Media attack on Pope Shenouda III (AINA 10-28-2010).
Copts everywhere welcomed the presence of Coptic Bishops in the rally, which they considered a sign that the mother church in Egypt is endorsing it and is “telling the whole world that Copts need your support,” said one of the protesters.
The rally at the United Nation was preceded by a joint prayers service at the Armenian Orthodox Church of St. Vartan in Manhattan, in which bishops of the Coptic Church in the United States, Canada and Australia, were joined by the Armenian Orthodox Bishop, representatives of Iraqi churches, including Reverend Andrew of the Syriac Catholic Church, which suffered a bloody terrorist attack on Our Lady of Deliverance church in Baghdad on October 31 (Baghdad church massacre).
After the joint church service, Coptic Bishops gave speeches in which they for the first time criticized President Mubarak, “who do not want to give us the right to pray,” and the Egyptian government which is not doing enough to “protect its Coptic citizens from Muslim on-going attacks on them,” and openly accused State Security of instigating attacks against the Copts.
They condemned the Egyptian police for firing at unarmed Coptic citizens. They asked for equal rights in their Egyptian homeland and freedom of religion.
The Bishops called on Copts and Christians worldwide to keep up the pressure on the Egyptian government to abandon its discriminatory policies against the Copts, “as we pressured the racist regime of South Africa until it abandoned racism.”
Bishop Sourial of Melbourne, Australia, who came over to New York to join the rally, gave what he called in his own words a “politically incorrect” speech, demanding the full rights of the indigenous Copts and condemning the daily attacks and injustices against them. He called for the release of innocent Coptic detainees in the prisons of the Egyptian government, saying that while some criticize Copts for demonstrating peacefully “we find ‘others’ using weapons and trying to solve their problems through violence, bombings and suicide attacks.” He reminded people of the massacre of the Copts in Nag Hammadi in January 2010, “whose blood is still calling out for justice.”
Bishop David, of the Diocese of the North American coast Coptic churches, criticized the use of violence by security forces against Coptic protesters in the church incident at Omraniya on November 24, “which was the latest in a long series of attacks on Copts, for no reason but because they are Christians,” adding “and in most of these events justice did not takes its course.” He said that there are no measures followed by the Egyptian government to secure the safety of the Copts”.
He demanded from the Egyptian Government, as a signatory of the Declaration of Human Rights, equal rights for the Copts. He repeated what Pope Shenouda said last week that “Coptic Blood is not cheap” (AINA 12-11-2010) and confirmed that Pope Shenouda is in retreat at St. Pichoy monastery in Wado-Natroun “because of what happened to his children in the Omraniya incident.”
The Omrania incident, dubbed by many Copts as “Omraniya Invasion,” took place on November 24, at the St.Mary and St. Michael’s Church in Talbiya Omrania, when security forces hurled bricks, fired tear gas as well as live ammunition on protesters, to occupy the church premises. These clashes claimed the lives of four Copts, 79 severely injured, 22 blinded or semi-blinded through tear gas, and 179 detained including woman and children, on false charges (AINA 11-27-2010).
After the church service, the march, led by the clergy who were holding photos of Pope Shenouda, went to the United Nations.
Christians held photos of victims of Muslim violence and of Coptic girls abducted, raped and forced to convert to Islam. They chanted “Why, why. do we have to die?” and “We Need Justice” as well as other slogans asking for killing of Christians in Egypt to be stopped, as well as the burning of churches and Coptic homes.
The rally then went on to the headquarters of the Egyptian mission to the United Nations where Bishop David presented a petition on behalf of the Copts with demands to the Egyptian government so that peace would prevail in Egypt.
The Coptic demands addressed to President Mubarak included full human rights for Copts in Egypt, same rights as Muslims in building their places of worship, justice for the innocent lives lost in Omraniya, and Nag Hammadi, as well as the immediate release of Coptic detainees of Omraniya and Pastor Metaos Wahba, imprisoned for years on false charges of marrying a Muslim girl to a Copt.
The petition called on the Egyptian government to take necessary measures to protect the persecuted Copts in Egypt and bring to trial those who are abusive to Pope Shenouda and who threaten him publicly.
The New York rally is the first in a series of demonstration planned by the Copts in all continents during this week, to protest persecution of Copts and mainly the incident of St. Mary and St. Michael’s Church.
| — Hat tip: Mary Abdelmassih | [Return to headlines] |
Cap-and-Trade Rebranded as ‘Clean Energy Standard’?
We now know how cap-and-trade will be rebranded for the start of the 112th Congress — and we also know the Republican weak spot in the Senate.
As reported today by Energy & Environment News,
[A] proposal for a clean energy standard, which has been batted around for years and introduced most recently by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), has created a buzz on and off Capitol Hill in recent weeks.
What is a “clean energy standard” (CES)?
Graham’s CES is essentially a national renewable electricity standard (RES), where nuclear power and so-called “clean coal” qualify to meet the RES. Reportedly, Sens. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) and Tom Carper (D-Del), and Energy Secretary Chu are open to it.
Why should a CES be opposed?
1. A CES is a carbon cap. Like an RES, mandating that a certain amount of electricity is “renewable” means capping the amount of electricity that can be produced by burning fossil fuels. We just spent the last 12 years killing cap-and-trade — the last two years of which the beast had us by the throat — why would we now support just “cap”?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Cuccinelli Beats Post in Battle Over Obamacare
Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post notes that the decision by a federal judge in Virginia that a provision of President Obama’s health care law is unconstitutional “thrusts state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli into the national spotlight” because he was vindicated by the ruling.
But the Post has done its best in a series of editorials to insist that Republican Cuccinelli has been way off base in his actions as Virginia Attorney General, including in the health care matter.
On October 30, 2009, before he was elected, the Post ran an editorial, “Mr. Cuccinelli’s bigotry,” predicting that “As attorney general, he would be an embarrassment to Virginia.” It took offense at his comments critical of homosexuality. The Post declared, “If he is elected attorney general, Mr. Cuccinelli would drive away qualified lawyers from an office that functions as the state government’s law firm, and, given his bizarre ideas, he would very likely become an embarrassment for the commonwealth.”
In the November 2009 general election, Cuccinelli obtained 58 percent of the vote to Democrat Steve Shannon’s 42 percent.
Now, one of his “bizarre ideas”—opposing the health care law on constitutional grounds—has been upheld by a federal judge.
Endorsing Shannon, a Post editorial called Cuccinelli “a provocative hard-liner” and the author of “far-fetched initiatives.”
No wonder the Post is losing subscribers and depending more and more on its controversial subsidiary, Kaplan, to keep it financially afloat.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Feds Bust Suspected Yemeni Terror Ring in N.C.
Federal agents have raided several convenience stores and a mosque in tiny Henderson, N.C., while arresting at least two Muslim men in connection with the raid.
Authorities suspect the stores were operating a so-called hawala money-transfer network supporting terrorist activities in Yemen, including al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, WND has learned. AQAP’s leaders include fugitive al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who has been linked to 10 major terror plots in the past year alone.
Mohamed Mohamed Nagi, 33, and Abdullah Ahmed Almuwallad, 32, have been charged with food stamp fraud. Additionally, Almuwallad has been charged with transporting stolen cigarettes and possession of the illegal stimulant cathinone, more commonly known a khat. Khat is popular in many countries of the Arabian peninsula and the Horn of Africa, but in Yemen it’s a full-blown national addiction.
FBI agents have had both men under surveillance for several months. Federal, state and local law enforcement agents on Thursday searched four stores in Henderson, located about 40 miles north of Raleigh, N.C., including the stores where Nagi and Almuwallad worked. Agents converged on the targets using a helicopter and unmarked cars.
At least two of the stores — Dabney Pit Stop and Brothers Food Mart — are owned by Abdo Ali Saleh, 39, a Yemeni national who immigrated to the U.S in 1997 on a student visa, federal authorities told WND.
Saleh also operates a mosque and madrassa behind another store he owns, Henderson Furniture Outlet Inc., which also has been under surveillance.
Authorities described the small mosque, which serves about three dozen Muslims, as a “place of interest” and Saleh as a “person of interest” in the investigation. Saleh has not been charged with a crime, but sources say charges may be pending…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Is Barack Obama in Bed—So to Speak—With Julian Assange?
The fanatical hard Left—those communists, socialists, and radicals currently in power—view anything that is bad for our country—massive Intelligence leaks, disastrous oil spills, escalating unemployment, chaos on our borders, military setbacks, et al—as a thundering success. To them, anything that undermines the United States brings them closer to their Grand Plan of toppling Big Bad America and transforming it into the kind of totalitarian Banana Republic they never tire of glamorizing.
That’s why it is clear to me that the potential damage from the Australian-born Julian Assange’s release of 250,000 classified State Department and Pentagon cables on November 28—and an equal number last July— is part not only of this Australian’s wish to harm our country but also the American Left’s premeditated and malevolent plan to destroy America. And let us not forget that Assange’s assault began in April 2010 with nearly 80,000 documents “dumped” for public consumption, as well as another 400,000 that the Marxist Assange released in October 2010—all of which he claims are just the tip of the iceberg.
THE ACCOUNTABILITY FACTOR
Clearly Assange is delighted that his leaks have gained international attention. And so delighted are the Russians with his anti-American raison d’etre that they suggested he be rewarded with a Nobel Prize!
It is obvious that “president” Obama is pleased as well. Hence the complete lack of reaction or sanction not only from Attorney General Eric Holder, who seems never to have met a thug he didn’t like, but especially from Mr. Obama himself, who to this day cannot bring himself to speak out against Assange.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
LTC Lakin, American Hero
by Diana West
Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin didn’t rush into a foreign battleground yesterday; he walked into a Ft Meade, Md. military courtroom. He didn’t fire a weapon and vanquish the enemy; he pled guilty to disobeying three orders related to deployment, and not guilty to the most serious charge of “missing movement.” But Terry Lakin put his life, in the sense of his distinguished 23-year career as an Army surgeon, his income, his pension, and his freedom, on the line from his devotion to his sworn duty to the US Constitution.
All members of the US military take the following oath:
I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same ….
To Terry Lakin, “true faith and allegiance” were more than words; they were calls to action. And so he took action in his belief — given that President Obama has never authorized the release of the paperwork necessary to answer the fundamental question pertaining to his legitimacy as a “natural-born” American — that military orders are of questionable legitimacy as well. Specifically, Lt. Col. Lakin questioned his redeployment orders, believing that as a senior officer under orders to return to war zone — and, not incidentally, under orders to bring along his own birth certificate — he had every right to ask his commander-in-chief to prove his bona fides. When he received no such assurance, even as he was ordered to provide his own in order to be approved to go back to war, he stopped following orders, hoping to force the issue in military court.
The military justice system, however, is limited in its scope, its powers, and its application. The military legal question here turns more narrowly on the relatively simple matter of whether LTC Lakin followed orders.
The rest of the military oath is as follows:
… and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.
As I understand it, the Uniform Code of Military Justice isn’t empowered to consider the question of whether the President of the United States, having been elected and certified by the Electoral College, Inaugurated and sworn in by the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, is anything other than what the civilian leadership says he is. What this means is that Terry Lakin’s beau geste may originate within the military order but it falls into the category of civil disobedience — breaking the law to uphold higher principle. It is a higher principle no one else is upholding. Indeed, Lakin’s disobedience highlights the existence of a vacuum of “true faith and allegiance” in the land. A gross abdication of civilian responsibility to ensure the lawful transfer of presidential powers took place long before LTC Lakin received his 2010 orders to return to Afghanistan.
By sacrificing the service career he loves, Terry Lakin serves the Constitution he loves more…
| — Hat tip: Diana West | [Return to headlines] |
Muslim Shuttle Driver Charged in Series of Hit-and-Run Attacks Near Dulles Airport
There have been several other hit-and-run incidents involving Muslim drivers over the last few years. Mohammed Reza Taheri-Azar explicitly grounded his action in the teachings of the Koran. If he had not done this, however, I’m sure the mainstream media would have constructed a non-Islamic explanation for what he did. Munir Muthana came close, telling the police who arrested him that “the Muslims will fix this country.” Still, no mainstream media source made any connection between his hit-and-run and jihad. Omeed Aziz Popal, we were told, was suffering from stress from an arranged marriage. And Ismail Yassin Mohamed, we were informed, was mentally ill, suffered from depression, and hadn’t being taking his medication.
And now we have Muhammad Teshale, and while Corinne Geller here says that “there is no indication of motive,” the story below also says that “law enforcement officials” in Rochester are saying that Teshale said he “did it to be famous.”
Maybe that is all there is to it, and maybe all the other explanations for Muslim hit-and-run drivers offered above are accurate, but it is a mounting series of curious coincidences that these Muslims seem to have become unhinged in exactly the same way and expressed their madness, or desire for fame, in exactly the same way.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Poised to Steal the Internet
With a straight face that would suggest they had the authority to do so, the Federal Communications Commission is poised to steal the Internet after new rules are introduced on Dec. 20, by simply declaring it has the right to regulate it. Their logic? The left will assure you their reasoning has nothing to do with the fact that more people today get their news from unvetted alternate news sources on the Net than they do from the liberal mainstream media. The problem? Internet journalists tend to reports the news without coloring it with the communist red brush of political correctness.
With Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s cyberspace strangulation bill, the Cybersecurity Act of 2009, still hung up in Committee, and not likely to find its way out before Jan. 3, 2011, the far left sees little hope of it passing any time soon. Particularly since the Democrats no longer have a filibuster-proof Senate. Even badly outnumbered in the Senate, the GOP can once again exercise the right of the filibuster to block any piece of legislation they don’t want to reach the floor. Implementing legislation that has neither cleared the obstacles in Committee nor a floor vote may be rare, but in their zeal to “protect the people,” the social progressive zealots in the bureaucracy are not adverse to writing the rules and regulations of bills that were never enacted if they believe they are needed—even when they fall into a legislative black hole in committee.
[…]
The Obama Administration blames the Tea Party Revolution on the American conservatives’ unfettered access to the Internet. That appears to be the real reason the Administration authorized The Federal Communications Commission [FCC] to regulate the Internet. The excuse given by the FCC—one of the reasons in FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s draft document of his proposed regulations for regulating the Internet, complete with over 550 footnotes—and an official FCC stamp that says “Nonpublic. For internal use only” to assure that no one outside the FCC sees it until the rules are approved on Dec. 21. This will be Barack Obama’s “Christmas Surprise” for the American people.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Using Regulatory Power to Force Card Check
Big Labor’s long sought after card check bill.
Congress has failed to pass Big Labor’s long sought after card check bill, the Orwellian named Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). The reason congress has not passed this destructive law is because the voters have repeatedly spoken by urging their representatives and senators to stand against it. The voice of the American people, though, does not interest President Barack Obama because he is gearing up to use his power to control America’s regulatory regime to force card check on the people anyway.
One of the chief provisions of the card check bill eliminates the secret ballot and would force workers voting on union representation to make their vote publicly by signing a card that everyone can easily see. This procedure certainly leaves workers open to intimidation as union bosses learn just who voted for them and who voted against them.
There are also other bad parts to the EFCA. One of them is that the government will force automatic arbitration on union and employer alike if no contract has been arrived at in the very short time that the government is forcing on them by law.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Rare Earths Elemental Needs of the Clean Energy Economy
So-called rare earths are not rare, but with no current domestic source the essential trace elements can be harder to come by than U.S. makers of wind turbines, hybrid cars, weapon systems and other technology would prefer.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Richard Holbrooke: An American Diplomat
by Srdja Trifkovic
A few hours before Richard Holbrooke’s death last Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a group of America’s top diplomats gathered at the State Department for a Christmas party that he was “practically synonymous with American foreign policy.” Her assessment is correct: Richard Holbrooke’s career embodies some of the least attractive traits of contemporary American diplomacy.
As assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs under Jimmy Carter, Holbrooke was instrumental in securing continued U.S. support for Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor. In 1997 he authorized arms deliveries to Indonesia in violation of the supposed U.S. arms embargo against Suharto’s regime. It was during this period the suppression of the Christian Timorese by the Muslim Indonesians reached genocidal levels, killing 200,000 people or about a third of the island’s population. Holbrooke’s 1997 response to a reporter’s question about the tragedy to which he had directly contributed was illustrative of his character and style: “I want to stress I am not remotely interested in getting involved in an argument over the actual number of people killed. People were killed and that always is a tragedy but what is at issue is the actual situation in Timor today… [As for the numbers of victims] … we are never going to know anyway. “
True to form, Holbrooke lied to Congress in 1979 that the famine in East Timor — caused by the Indonesian army’s scorched-earth campaign — was a belated consequence of Portuguese colonial misrule. Over two decades later, in a lavish tribute to the diplomatic skill of his friend Paul Wolfowitz — who was the US ambassador to Indonesia at that time — Holbrooke boasted how “Paul and I have been in frequent touch to make sure that we keep East Timor out of the [1980] presidential campaign, where it would do no good to American or Indonesian interests.”
Far from “bringing peace to Bosnia” at Dayton in 1995, Holbrooke presided over the imposition of a package broadly similar to the 1992 Lisbon Plan brokered by the European Union — the deal which could have avoided the war altogether but which was deliberately torpedoed from Washington. The chief outcome of the Bosnian war was a NATO transformed into a tool of U.S. hegemony, and the renewal of American dominance in European affairs to an extent not seen since Kennedy…
| — Hat tip: Srdja Trifkovic | [Return to headlines] |
The IRS’s “Israel Special Policy”: Do They Sew Yellow Stars on it?
by Diana West
The blog Yid with Lid reports this week on the most outrageous intrusion of the Obama administration into free speech in America to date: The IRS’s “Israel Special Policy,” which kicks in to deny tax-exempt status to non-profits whose policies “espouse or support positions inconsistent with the Obama administration’s Israel policies.”
Since when does the “Obama administration” determine tax status according to “correct” political beliefs? Since at least this summer when the pro-Israel non-profit Z-Street was informed by an IRS agent that its non-profit tax status had been delayed if not ultimately denied due to its political beliefs.
What we are witnessing is a massive power grab, chilling effect and abuse of power all rolled up into one.
From the pro-Israel non-profit group Z-Street’s suit against the IRS:…
| — Hat tip: Diana West | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Tries to Build Case for Conspiracy by WikiLeaks Founder
Federal prosecutors, seeking to build a case against the WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange for his role in a huge dissemination of classified government documents, are looking for evidence of any collusion in his early contacts with an Army intelligence analyst suspected of leaking the information.
Justice Department officials are trying to find out whether Mr. Assange encouraged or even helped the analyst, Pfc. Bradley Manning, to extract classified military and State Department files from a government computer system. If he did so, they believe they could charge him as a conspirator in the leak, not just as a passive recipient of the documents who then published them.
| [Return to headlines] |
US Embassy Cables: Barack Obama’s Briefing on Dutch Politics
Summary
Barack Obama is prepared for a meeting with the Dutch prime minister, Jan Pieter Balkenende, in which he is also told that far-right MP Geert Wilders is a “thorn in the coalition’s side”. Key passage highlighted in yellow.
06 July 2009, 12:08
S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 THE HAGUE 000395
SIPDIS
STATE PLEASE PASS TO WHITE HOUSE FOR THE PRESIDENT
EO 12958 DECL: 07/06/2019
TAGS PREL, OVIP, ECON, EFIN, PINR, MOPS, NL
SUBJECT: NETHERLANDS: OVERVIEW FOR THE PRESIDENT’S JULY 14
MEETING WITH DUTCH PRIME MINISTER BALKENENDE
Classified By: Charge d’Affaires Michael F. Gallagher for reasons 1.4 ( b) and (d).
Mr. President:
1. (C) Your July 14 meeting with Dutch Prime Minister Jan Pieter Balkenende provides an opportunity for us to urge the Dutch to continue as part of NATO in Afghanistan and to enlist PM Balkenende in solving Guantanamo issues. For his part, Balkenende will seek to continue the Dutch role in the G20 and to find a common ground to work with us on climate change and the Middle East.
2. (C) Balkenende, in office through four coalitions since 2002, is a cunning politician who does not impose his vision on coalition partners, but maneuvers effectively to achieve the intended goal. At first, he was dismissed as a lightweight “Harry Potter” look-alike, but he has consistently and skillfully delivered Cabinet support for U.S. policy objectives while balancing fragile parliamentary majorities. Balkenende,s current center-left coalition government (“Balkenende IV”) is held together more by fear of early elections than any unity of vision. The financial crisis has plunged the Netherlands into a recession likely to last through 2010, and the Cabinet must continually defend its three relatively modest stimulus packages against calls to do more to spur recovery. Balkenende is also under pressure from a skeptical public to withdraw the Netherlands, 1,800 troops from Afghanistan in 2010. His main coalition partner, the Labor Party, is in decline, having fared poorly in the 2006 national election and the 2009 European Parliament election, and believes rejecting a continuing role in Afghanistan will please its base and may win back supporters.
3. (S) The Wilders Factor: Golden-pompadoured, maverick parliamentarian Geert Wilders, anti-Islam, nationalist Freedom Party remains a thorn in the coalition’s side, capitalizing on the social stresses resulting from the failure to fully integrate almost a million Dutch Muslims, mostly of Moroccan or Turkish descent. In existence only since 2006, the Freedom Party, tightly controlled by Wilders, has grown to be the Netherlands second largest, and fastest growing, party. Recent polls suggest it could even replace Balkenende,s Christian Democrats as the top party in 2011 parliamentary elections. Wilders is no friend of the U.S.: he opposes Dutch military involvement in Afghanistan; he believes development assistance is money wasted; he opposes NATO missions outside “allied” territory; he is against most EU initiatives; and, most troubling, he forments fear and hatred of immigrants.
4. (C) As a result of these currents, Balkenende,s coalition finds itself in a precarious position and could fall within a year (most likely after municipal elections in March 2010). The Prime Minister is aware we want him to deliver continued Dutch boots on the ground in Afghanistan after 2010 and help with Guantanamo detainees. He knows there are high risks/expectations involved in his meeting with you, but we understand he is coming to offer as much as he thinks he can deliver at this time.
5. (S) Balkenende, a long-time champion of U.S.-Dutch relations, seeks to establish a strong relationship with you and capitalize on your popularity. The Dutch public overwhelmingly supported your election in November, and you remain hugely popular here as a beacon of change. Balkenende Qremain hugely popular here as a beacon of change. Balkenende will encourage you to view the long arc of the U.S.-Dutch relationship, not just current bumps in the road (e.g. the likely drawdown of Dutch forces in Afghanistan after 2010). He wants you to see the Netherlands as America,s friend and partner, with significant Dutch contributions to our shared foreign policy priorities: Dutch military presence in Afghanistan and support for NATO; support for U.S. intervention in Iraq; active participation in the EU, NATO, and other multilateral institutions; substantial and sustained foreign development assistance; and a long-standing commitment to promoting human rights, tolerance, and the rule of law. And, he will ask you for a seat at the G-20 table in Pittsburgh as well as for a meeting at the White House in September for the Crown Prince.
6. (C) Balkenende will use your private, one-on-one session to highlight your shared personal values and experiences. He believes social organizations are more effective in promoting change than government. His philosophy is that we must treat
THE HAGUE 00000395 002 OF 002
one another with dignity and respect as we live and work together. Your Father,s Day call for fathers to accept more responsibility in the rearing of their children resonated with him. Balkenende will also likely use the one-on-one session to pinpoint the political difficulties of the deliverables we are seeking. Rather than cover a laundry list of topics, the Dutch want the larger meeting to focus on 1) Afghanistan/Pakistan, 2) the future of the global economic system (including the role of the G20 and how to help developing countries), 3) the Middle East Peace Process/Iran, and 4) climate change. The Prime Minister is anticipating other key foreign policy issues (e.g. human rights, Russia, NATO, non-proliferation, energy security, 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson,s voyage to Manhattan — NY400) can be covered by staff or only briefly mentioned to stay focused on the major issues. Two cables will follow which will expand on these topics.
GALLAGHER
| [Return to headlines] |
Police Arrested Twelve Year Old Boy for Refusing Vaccine at School
A child of twelve was charged with ‘threatening behaviour’ at his school in Bowmanville, East of Toronto last week. The arrest happened when the boy (who cannot be named for legal reasons) threw a tantrum refusing the Hepatitis B vaccine. The National Post reported that police were brought into Ross Tilley Public School because the boy had threatened to damage the school. Unfortunately, the report failed to give the reason why the child was refusing the vaccine or what made him so angry.
The National Post said:
“Officers consulted with the Crown attorney’s office and charged the boy with threatening, a criminal charge police said was justified: “due to the age of the child and concerns over public safety.”
This may or may not be true; however, at no time did there appear to be any concern for this child’s welfare. There may have been many reasons why the twelve year old did not want to be vaccinated. These range from being afraid of the needle to being worried about the possible side effects. It could be that Hepatitis B is in fact a disease that is mainly transmitted through sexual intercourse or sharing dirty drug needles!
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
340 Dead of Cold on French Streets Since Beginning of 2010
The names of 340 people found frozen to death on streets around France since January 2010 were read out yesterday in a ceremony at the Forum des Halles in downtown Paris 14 December. The memorial was organized by the organization “Les Morts de la Rue” (People Dead in the Street). Members of the association read out the names of street people who have died in French towns due to the extremely cold weather this year. Cecile Rocca, the association’s coordinator, told Reuters, “living on the street is always dangerous”.
The news comes as France’s electricity distributor, RTE, said that electricity consumption peaked at 94.2 megawatts at 19:00 on 14 December.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EU to Switzerland: ‘Where Are We Going With This Relationship?’
European Union foreign ministers have issued a tough-worded warning to Switzerland that its relationship with the bloc is dysfunctional and must be radically changed. There is no overarching framework for the relationship between the EU and the mountainous republic situated in the middle of the bloc but unbendingly outside its strictures. Instead, the two have a series of some 120 sector-by-sector agreements, a situation the EU foreign ministers on Tuesday described as “unwieldy”, “inconsistent” and “incoherent.” The long-soured relationship between the two sides has “clearly reached its limits,” they said in a report, and hinted that Bern’s intransigence threatened access to the EU market. Fed up with the sectoral approach, the bloc is demanding a robust, overarching agreement between the two sides. In essence, they suggested that it is time for Switzerland to decide whether it wants closer integration with the bloc or to be cast out into the market-access wilderness.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EU’s Turkey Debate Deepens Further
It must be a source of serious annoyance for those who are trying to keep Turkey out of the EU to have four key European foreign ministers giving strong support to Ankara’s membership bid. This flies in the face of Europe’s apparently ascendant ultra-right wing, whose existence in fact tells us more about Europe than about Turkey.
It cannot be too pleasing either for someone like French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who continues to oppose Ankara’s bid for full EU membership. No one expects, of course, the op-ed by Sweden’s Carl Bildt, Italy’s Franco Frattini, Great Britain’s William Hague and Finland’s Alexander Stubb (published in the International Herald Tribune on Dec. 10) to change the current morass in Turkish-EU ties overnight.
If anything, one should expect it to make Europe’s chagrined ultra-right wing even more determined in maintaining their negative positions. This does not however do away with the basic facts laid bare by the four ministers in their op-ed piece.
These ministers have spoken out on behalf of Turkey in the past, of course, and have not tried to mute their support for the sake of populist political considerations at home. This takes courage at a time when supporting Ankara is not a vote winner in Europe.
There is also the fact that there is a significant list of former European presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers who have always spoken out on behalf of Turkey, and continue to do so.
So why do we have this strong support at this point in time? The answer lies hidden in what Bildt, Frattini, Hague and Stubb are saying. Here is an itemized summary of the key points in their op-ed that carried the headline “Europe, Look Outward Again”:
1: The EU’s historic mission to bring further stability, democracy and prosperity to the whole continent is not yet finished.
2: Emerging from the economic crisis, Europe cannot afford to overlook the opportunity of expanding the free flow of capital, goods, services and labor.
3: In Turkey, EU-inspired liberal reforms have turned the country into one of Europe’s principal growth engines.
4: The crucial question is not whether Turkey is turning its back on Europe, but rather if Europe is turning its back on the fundamental values and principles that have guided European integration over the last 50 years.
5: Turkey, like no other country, has the ability to advance European interests in security, trade and energy networks from the Far East to the Mediterranean.
6: Turkey is in a class of its own. It is an influential actor on the world stage with considerable soft power.
7: Turkey’s economy is expected to expand by more than 5 percent this year, compared with a eurozone average of 1 percent. The OECD predicts that Turkey will be the second-largest economy in Europe by 2050.
8: Turkish entrepreneurs in Europe already run 40 billion euros worth of businesses and employ 500,000 people.
So, to return to the “why now?” question, it is clear from these points that there is a growing notion in Europe that a rising Turkey is going to be increasingly important for the EU as time goes on. It is equally clear that the four foreign ministers in question are worried about Turkey’s highly apparent drift away from Europe, and indeed the West as a whole.
Turkey’s drifting away from Europe may be welcome news for the continent’s ultra-right wingers. Whether it is good news for the likes of President Sarkozy, on the other hand, is an open question.
It is clear from their “special partnership” offer to Ankara, instead of full EU membership, that they too see Turkey’s importance — especially in terms of their national interests. Their problem is that they want to keep Turkey at a healthy distance from themselves. That, however, is not a formula that Turkey will swallow anymore.
The increasingly self-assured and assertive ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, has clearly made it a strong — almost retaliatory — policy point to prove to Europe that it has potential alternatives in other lucrative parts of the world. Prime Minister Erdogan’s speeches and statements often reflect this. He also has facts and figures to back his contentions to a significant degree.
It is clear that the four foreign ministers are looking to the future, rather than getting bogged down in shortsighted populism by riding the crest of public European fears. They are trying to chart a course for the “Old [and apparently tired] Continent,” whose future does not appear as secure and made as some would like to think.
Contrary to what many in Europe may want to believe, the EU is not a “done deal” yet that stands in front of us as a monolithic structure providing ideal targets and benchmarks for “others” to aspire to, the members having already achieved these.
From today’s perspective the EU’s future in fact looks as open-ended as Turkey’s membership bid is persistently said to be. This is also a key factor complicating Ankara’s EU bid.
The rise of essentially anti-EU ultra-right wing sentiments, on the other hand, is merely symptomatic of atavistic fears that fuel regressive tendencies. One would have thought that Europeans had come to terms with these tendencies after the experiences of 60-70 years ago, but apparently that is not the case yet.
The bottom line — as the op-ed by the four foreign ministers appears to show — is that there is a growing concern among European policy makers that without an anchor in the EU, Turkey will drift away from Europe, and perhaps the West as a whole.
This they clearly see as being detrimental to Europeans interests. The four ministers appear therefore to be telling Turkey’s European opponents that historically speaking they are making a serious mistake (not that those making this mistake are too bothered given the basic nature of their political outlook).
The ministers also appear to be telling an increasingly skeptical Turkish public, which has clearly lost faith in Europe, that anti-Turkish sentiments are not a fully crystallized European fact, since there are still countries and important leaders, as well as individuals, who continue to support Turkey as a potential EU member.
It is clear given what is transpiring in this country that the ministers are right to worry about the direction Turkey is taking and the potential negative long-term fallout for Europe as a result.
Those who senselessly burn bridges today that will be needed tomorrow may not see this.
There are, however, many influential people who clearly do, and they want their positions to be noted publicly for the future, even if doing so will not fetch them much popularity in parts of Europe today.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Flemish Leader Blasts ‘Failed’ Belgium
Flemish nationalist leader Bart De Wever called Belgium a failed state with a French-speaking region addicted to subsidies, sparking a war of words Monday in stalled government talks.
The kingdom’s linguistic and financial fault line, splitting wealthier Dutch-speaking Flanders and francophone Wallonia, appeared far from closing as Belgium marked Monday six months without a government since June 13 elections, a stalemate that has unnerved the markets.
New Flemish Alliance leader De Wever, who wants greater autonomy for Flanders and power over the public purse, accused socialist-led French-speakers of blocking “sensible” reforms in an interview with a German magazine.
“This is why I say that Belgium no longer works. It is a nation that has failed,” the nationalist leader told Der Spiegel in an interview published on Monday.
“Ultimately the Belgian state has no future,” he said.
De Wever, whose independence-minded party triumphed in the June elections, also called Belgium the “sick man of Europe” and compared the fiscal dependency of the less wealthy French-speaking south to a drug addict.
“We are for solidarity, including financially. But if we disburse money to Wallonia, it must be done under normal conditions,” he told the magazine. “This money cannot be an injection like a drug for a junkie.”
De Wever also took aim at King Albert II, who has named various mediators to lead efforts to keep troubled seven-party talks alive.
“The problem is that the king still plays a political role,” De Wever said. “For us Flemings, this poses a problem because the king does not think like us. For Walloons, it is an advantage because they are allied with him.”
The francophone Socialist Party led by Elio Di Rupo retorted that it would “not yield to provocation” and would keep on working for a compromise.
“The N-VA is looking for excuses to hide its determination to destroy the federal state in order to obtain a republic of Flanders, and its inability to reach an agreement,” the party said in a statement…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
France: Sharia Isn’t Creeping Anymore. It’s Galloping!
How did Muslim prayer in French streets go from a well-kept secret to a cause célèbre in less than a week? Maxime Lepante has posted some 40 videos of outdoor Muslim prayers in France. Streets are blocked, often with the help of law enforcement, prayer rugs are stretched out, and the prostration begins. Lepante traces the swift expansion of these open air mosques that encroach on the rights of citizens to walk or drive down a public street, enter and leave their buildings, hear themselves think in their own homes or, we might add, feel like they are living in Paris, France!
On the latest video, posted on the 11th of December, we learn that loudspeakers have been added … the better to broadcast the call. After tallying 28,000 hits in 55 hours, the YouTube video was branded “hate speech” and removed.
With one rare exception, mainstream French media never even mentioned these weekly illegal prayer meetings in the streets of French towns and cities.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France: Paris Thieves Prefer iPhones, Blackberries
iPhones, Blackberries and other smartphones are the hottest item for thieves on the Paris metro, and robbers are increasingly turning to violence to get their hands on them, police said Tuesday.
“Almost one in every two thefts on public transport now concerns a mobile telephone, while ‘classic’ wallet or purse thefts represent only 33 percent of incidents,” Paris police chief Michel Gaudin told a city council meeting.
Seventy percent of the phones stolen in Paris are smartphones, police statistics show.
Gaudin said the 8.9 percent rise in violent crimes in Paris since the start of the year was partly due to telephone thefts, which he said accounted for 75 percent of the 991 violent incidents in October alone.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Islamic Extremism ‘A Threat’ To Sweden: Säpo
Violent Islamic extremism is a threat to Sweden that shouldn’t be underestimated, a report published on Wednesday by Swedish security service Säpo has found.
“For the moment, however, it encompasses relatively limited phenomena which can primarily be dealt with through preventative measures,” Säpo’s chief counterterrorism analyst Malena Remba told reporters during a Wednesday press conference presenting the report.
The report, which was commissioned in February, comes days after what Sweden’s democracy minister Birgitta Ohlsson decribed as the first-ever suicide bombing in Scandinavia.
Ohlsson emphasised that the terrorist attack which rattled central Stockholm on Saturday was an “unacceptable attack against our open democratic society,” but that Wednesday’s press conference had been planned since October and independently of the blasts.
According to the report, Säpo knows of around 200 Islamic extremists living in Sweden, 20 of whom became radicalised in the country in 2009.
Up to 80 percent of them are part of so-called “violence-prone networks,” while the remainder are “loners” and people with extremist contacts abroad.
“However, this is likely a low estimate, as we only included confirmed connections,” Rembe explained, adding that “it’s not one cohesive network,” but consists of individuals who have varying levels of contact.
The report also said that 20 people had travelled from Sweden to Somalia to train with Islamist movement Al-Shabaab, which has declared allegiance to Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network.
Several people, mostly from immigrant suburbs in the cities of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö, travelled from Sweden to Iraq and Afghanistan to receive terrorist training, the report said.
The group of 200 individuals referenced in the report as being violent Islamic extremists is made up predominately of men, although a few women are also included.
The average age is 36 and the individuals come from 25 different countries, with Sweden being the third most common country of birth.
However, Säpo found no distinct patterns when it came to level of education, profession, or earnings.
Of the roughly 20 people who are thought by Säpo to have been radicalised in Sweden, most were born or raised in Sweden and can be found throughout the country, although are somewhat concentrated in and around large cities.
Rembe, who was joined by Säpo head Anders Danielsson, said that the Stockholm suicide bomber, strongly believed to have been Taimour Abdulwahab, was not among the 200 known violent Islamic extremists in Sweden.
Abdulwahab, who was known for his outspoken views in favour of violent jihad, was the only person killed when some of the explosives he was carrying detonated, but two others were injured when his car exploded nearby minutes earlier.
He was carrying a cocktail of explosives and is thought to have accidentally set off a small explosion near a crowded pedestrian street.
He killed himself before he could carry out what, according to the lead prosecutor on the case, appears to have been a mission to murder “as many people as possible.”
Media described him as an Iraqi-born Swede, although Säpo did not confirm his country of origin, only saying he was from the Middle East and became a Swedish citizen in 1992.
Separately, a Säpo spokeswoman told AFP late Tuesday that reports saying the investigation had so far not found any links between Abdelwahab and known extremist groups were true, but stressed the investigation was ongoing.
The Expressen daily said Wednesday a walkie-talkie radio had been found near the bomber’s body, suggesting Abdulwahab was working with accomplices.
Seven bomb experts from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrived in Sweden to help with the probe conducted in cooperation with British police.
Despite Saturday’s suicide attack, Rembe reiterated that Säpo still had no plans to change its threat assessment.
“The events of December 11th show that there is a serious threat against people in Sweden. But there is still no threat against society’s underlying structures, Sweden’s form of government, or central leadership,” she explained.
In addition, the threat from violent Islamic extremism remains “limited,” with no signs indicating that more people will be radicalised in Sweden in the future.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Confidence Vote: Berlusconi, ‘Told You So’
‘I knew FLI would split,’ premier says after three-vote win
(ANSA) — Rome, December 14 — Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi was jubilant after winning a confidence vote in the House by just three votes as rebels in House Speaker Gianfranco Fini’s Future and Freedom for Italy (FLI) broke the party line.
“I told you, I knew FLI would split,” Berlusconi was reported to have said.
He added: “I am serene, now just as I have always been”.
The House whip for Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) party, Fabrizio Cicchitto, said: “the attempt to reverse the (2008) general election result has failed”. The decisive FLI members were initially reported to have met with the premier immediately after the vote, but one later denies this.
Fini acknowledged the FLI had not achieved its goal of bringing down Berlusconi but vowed to make life difficult for the premier in the coming weeks.
“Berlusconi’s numerical victory is as clear as our defeat, made even more painful by the Road to Damascus conversion of three of FLI’s members,” Fini told reporters.
“But it will be clear in a few weeks that Berlusconi won’t be able to say he won in political terms too”.
Political analysts say the FLI will continue to vote with the opposition on key legislation, aiming to tire the government in a war of attrition that may lead to early elections next spring, two years before the government’s term is due in 2013.
The Speaker and his centrist Catholic opposition ally Pier Ferdinando Casini of the UDC had been sure of taking Berlusconi down by voting solidly with the centre-left opposition.
Fini and Casini have stressed they would not join the Left in any future government, however, but instead work towards building what they called a “more moderate” conservative alliance, a ‘third force’ in Italian politics.
But some think Berlusconi will now step up efforts to lure the UDC away from Fini and back into the fold, having served as a sometimes unruly ally in the media mogul’s 2001-2006 executive.
The League said soon after the vote that it had dropped its longstanding opposition to the UDC joining the government.
“There’s no veto against the UDC,” League leader Bossi told reporters, while stressing that the government would have to press on with the radical federalist reforms that have been its flagship project for years.
Implying that the UDC might want to water down those reforms, Bossi added: “there’s a problem over federalism”.
League heavyweight and Interior Minister Roberto Maroni chipped in, saying Berlusconi should seek to achieve his pledge of widening the government to stave off close calls like Tuesday’s.
Otherwise, Maroni said, “it would be better” to shut up shop and face a snap election which the PdL and League are currently tipped to win.
Pier Luigi Bersani of the Democratic Party, the largest opposition group, said the size of the win meant that “this doesn’t change a thing, the government isn’t going to make it (to the end of its term)”.
Bersani also repeated allegations that Berlusconi bought votes ahead of the vote.
“There has been scandalous vote-buying,” he said.
Former anti-corruption prosecutor Antonio Di Pietro, now head of the second-biggest opposition party, Italy of Values, also reiterated his claim that Berlusconi had bought votes.
On Friday Rome prosecutors opened a probe into vote-buying on the basis of accusations made by Di Pietro.
On Monday the ex-graftbuster said he had provided police with more information, “including names”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Around 50 Police Injured in Rome Riots
(ANSAmed) — ROME, DECEMBER 14 — Around 50 police officers were injured when hooded youths rioted in central Rome Tuesday, Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa said.
Earlier the capital’s emergency services had said 40 people had been hurt in the violence, although none required hospital treatment.
The incidents came on the same day Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s government won a crunch confidence vote in the Lower House and thousands of students demonstrated against education reforms and cuts in the capital. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Tension: Clashes Inside and Outside Parliament
MPs scuffle during confidence vote, students on rampage
(ANSA) — Rome, December 14 — Tension and clashes accompanied Tuesday’s crunch confidence vote, which Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s government won, both inside and outside parliament.
Two MPs had to be stopped from coming to blows when a member of the Future and Freedom for Italy (FLI) party of House Speaker Gianfranco Fini, Berlusconi’s former ally turned rival, broke ranks with her group and gave her vote to the government.
In doing so Katia Polidori helped the government win the confidence motion by three votes and survive for the time being.
A big police presence could not prevent trouble breaking out in the area around parliament in central Rome.
Protesters including students angry with the government over its bill to reform the country’s higher education sector clashed with police near the Lower House, throwing eggs and paint and letting off smoke bombs.
Officers had to charge protesters and use tear gas to clear the area outside the Senate too, after more paint and flares were unleashed by students, who attacked some of the police’s armour-plated vehicles as well. One young man was seen bleeding from the head after the clashes, although he may have been hit by a bottle thrown by his companions. An officer patrolling a street near Berlusconi’s residence in Rome was attacked with clubs by a small group of protestors, although he managed to fend off most of the blows with his shield.
When the news filtered through that the government had won the vote, some of the thousands of protesters on the capital’s streets smashed bank windows, damaged cars, tore down road signs and committed other acts of vandalism. Violence and vandalism have marred a long series of student demonstrations against the government’s education reforms that have caused widespread disruption nationwide in recent weeks. Trade unionists, left-wing parties, groups of people without steady jobs and Abruzzo inhabitants demanding more investment in the region’s reconstruction after last year’s deadly L’Aquila earthquake also protested in Rome on Tuesday.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy in the Grip of Cold
(ANSAmed) — ROME, DECEMBER 15 — The wave of cold weather is continuing in Italy, with forecasts saying that it should last for a few more days. Temperatures dropped below zero last night in a number of cities, even those in central and southern regions: -5 in Bologna, -3 in Florence, Milan and Ancona. It was also below zero in Rome.
Snow is causing disruption everywhere, especially on motorways. The exceptional snowfall that hit the Marche region yesterday has led to the closure of “Rafaello Sanzio” airport. There was also snowfall in Bari and Catanzaro this morning, while all of the main cities in Veneto registered minimum temperatures beneath zero (Belluno -13, Verona -8, Vicenza -6, Padua -5, Treviso -5, Rovigo -4 and Venice -3).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
‘Nazism, Islam Shared Common Enemies — the Jews’
A newly released report by the US National Archives details the close collaborative relationship between Nazi leaders and the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, indicating that Nazi authorities planned to use Husseini as their leader after their conquest of Palestine.
Husseini was paid handsomely by the Nazis for his efforts, recruited Muslims for the SS and was promised that he would be made Palestine’s leader after its Jewish population of 350,000 had been murdered.
The report, Hitler’s Shadow: Nazi War Criminals, US Intelligence and the Cold War, was prepared on the basis of thousands of documents declassified under the 1998 Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act.
“Hitler’s Shadow” is an addendum to a 2004 US government report, US Intelligence and the Nazis.
The new report’s authors, Norman J.W. Goda of the University of Florida and Richard Breitman of American University, said the addendum was particularly important.
“We thought the information was significant and detailed,” Breitman told The Jerusalem Post regarding the newly uncovered facts on the Jerusalem mufti in particular.
“We thought the April 1945 contract between the [German] Foreign Office and Husseini was striking evidence of an ideological collaboration both sides hoped would continue after the war.”
Husseini, who died in Beirut in 1974, was apparently paid 50,000 marks per month, and 80,000 additional marks a month for living expenses, according to a contract with the Germans. This was a time when a German field officer typically earned 25,000 marks a year.
According to the report, on November 28, 1941, Adolf Hitler told Husseini that the Afrika Korps would “liberate” Arabs in the Middle East and that “Germany’s only objective there would be the destruction of the Jews.”
“SS leaders and Husseini both claimed that Nazism and Islam had common values as well as common enemies — above all, the Jews,” the report states.
In fall 1943, it says, Husseini went to the Croatia, a German ally, to recruit Muslims for the Waffen-SS.
“During that trip he told the troops of the newly formed Bosnian-Muslim 13th Mountain Waffen-SS division that the entire Muslim world ought to follow their example,” the report states.
Husseini also organized a 1944 mission in which Palestine Arabs and Germans would carry out sabotage and propaganda after German planes dropped them into Palestine by parachute.
“Husseini insisted that the Arabs take command after they landed and direct their fight against the Jews of Palestine, not the British authorities,” according to the report…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Wilders Wins TV Show’s Politician of the Year Award
Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-Islam PVV, has been named best politician of 2010 by the viewers of television show Eenvandaag.
Wilders took 17.5% of the vote. Second was Mark Rutte, leader of the VVD Liberals and the new prime minister with 16%. Socialist party leader Emile Roemer was third with 11% support.
Rutte won the parliamentary press politician of the year award at the weekend.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Protests in Europe Ahead of Euro Summit
Greece was hit by violent protests and a general strike on Wednesday and workers also demonstrated in other EU nations ahead of a summit on the euro. Merkel, under fire for her handling of the crisis, repeated her tough stance as Luxembourg’s foreign minister accused Berlin and Paris of “arrogance.” Greece was paralyzed by a general strike and violent protests on Wednesday and trade unions staged demonstrations in France, Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark and the Czech Republic against government austerity measures one day ahead of what promises to be a fractious European Union summit to agree on a permanent mechanism to handle future debt crises.
In Greece, which has been undergoing radical belt-tightening to meet the conditions of its €110 billion bailout by the EU and International Monetary Fund in May, a demonstration by 20,000 people turned violent when masked protestors clashed with riot police, hurling petrol bombs and stones. Police responded by firing tear gas canisters and flash grenades. Flights were grounded, public transport and government ministries shut down and hospitals worked on minimum staff.
In Greece, which has been undergoing radical belt-tightening to meet the conditions of its €110 billion bailout by the EU and International Monetary Fund in May, a demonstration by 20,000 people turned violent when masked protestors clashed with riot police, hurling petrol bombs and stones. Police responded by firing tear gas canisters and flash grenades. Flights were grounded, public transport and government ministries shut down and hospitals worked on minimum staff.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Simon Wiesenthal Center to Issue Travel Advisory for Sweden
Officials Confer With Swedish Justice Minister Beatrice Ask
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish Human Rights NGO, has announced it is issuing a travel advisory concerning Sweden due to harassment of Jewish citizens in the southern city of Malmo, the third largest city in Sweden. The decision was conveyed to Swedish Justice Minister Beatrice Ask, by Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate Dean of the Center and Dr. Shimon Samuels, Director of International Relations, during a wide-ranging meeting in Stockholm, earlier today.
“We reluctantly are issuing this advisory because religious Jews and other members of the Jewish community there have been subject to anti-Semitic taunts and harassment. There have been dozens of incidents reported to the authorities but have not resulted in arrests or convictions for hate crimes”, he added. “A contributing factor to this decision has been the outrageous remarks of Malmo mayor Ilmar Reepalu, who blames the Jewish community for failing to denounce Israel. The travel advisory urges extreme caution when visiting southern Sweden. It is not connected to last week’s Islamist terrorist bombing in the heart of Stockholm. (The Wiesenthal Center reevaluates its travel advisories every three months.)
“During our meeting with the Minister, we expressed our sympathies to the two people injured in Friday’s suicide bombing. We discussed how the Internet has changed the rules of engagement in dealing with the threats of terrorism”, said Rabbi Cooper, who directs the Wiesenthal Center’s Digital Terrorism and Hate Project. The Center also offered its expertise in inviting Swedish officials to participate in its Museum of Tolerance’s renowned Tools For Tolerance Law Enforcement training program. Over 10,000 US federal, state and local police and delegations from around the world including Canada, Germany, France have participated in the programs.
Dr. Samuels urged Sweden to strengthen the security of all Jewish institutions, adding “ It is unacceptable in a democracy committed to protecting its citizens, that the Swedish Jewish community is forced to pay for necessary upgraded security measures to safeguard their lives and property,” he said.
For more information contact Dr. Samuels at +33609 770158 or Rabbi Cooper at +1 310-210-9750, join the Center on Facebook,www.facebook.com/simonwiesenthalcenter, or follow @simonwiesenthal for news updates sent direct to your Twitter page or mobile device.
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Spanish Police Smash Gang Pillaging Archeological Sites
Spanish police have broken up a gang that pillaged archeological sites, arresting 57 people and seizing thousands of valuable items from pre-historic, Roman or medieval eras, they said Friday.
“Among the items were arrow heads, Roman and medieval coins, Roman brooches, earrings and clasps from the Visigoth era, polished stone axes and pillars with Arab inscriptions,” police said in a statement.
Officers also seized “thousands of coins of different types and dates, but mostly from the Roman era.”
They also found 18 metal detectors used to pillage archeological sites.
The gang operated mostly in the southern region of Andalucia, but also “travelled to other regions to pillage sites.”
The items, once restored, were sold at private auctions, on the Internet or directly to private collectors who were “regular customers.”
Most of the items were originals. But some were copies that had been made to look to like antiques.
In another investigation as part the same operation, police detained a further 28 people for suspected trafficking in precious metals and money-laundering.
They seized 55 kilogrammes of gold (182 pounds), 70 kilogrammes of silver, several jewels and 900,000 euros (1.2 million dollars) in cash and seven firearms.
The gold was melted down then sent to Germany, Turkey, Italy or Switzerland where it was refined.
The police said the suspected head of the gang that pillaged the archeological sites was also believed to be involved in the trafficking of the precious metals.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Stockholm Boosts Police Presence
Police and transit system security guards beefed up their presence in Stockholm on Tuesday as investigators looked for possible accomplices of a suicide bomber who narrowly missed causing mass casualties in the Swedish capital on Saturday.
“The threat level has not been raised, but after what happened, we think Stockholm residents need to see more police around town, to talk to us about this very serious event that has taken place,” Stockholm police spokesman Kjell Lindgren told AFP.
“We have an additional force of around 40 police officers, in addition to volunteers, who are out on the street, in the subways, train stations, shopping centres and everywhere it is crowded to make our presence felt,” he added.
A spokesperson for Stockholm’s Arlanda airport on Tuesday refused to divulge what addition security measures, if any, had been put in place.
“Naturally, this event has been dealt with from a security perspective by Arlanda, but what measures we’re taking is obviously something we never comment on,” Arlanda’s Jan Lindqvist told the TT news agency.
“Our recommendation is to ‘come in plenty of time and pack correctly’, mostly due to the fact that significantly more people usually travel this time of year and there are heavy traffic days ahead of Christmas. But that we had that recommendation long before Saturday and it’s not related to those events in any way.”
Stockholm public transit operator SL, however, has deployed extra security guards following Saturday’s suicide bombing.
“We’ve got more security guards and guards, which will hopefully help people feel secure on the metro and in other places,” SL spokesperson Thomas Silvander told TT.
The transit agency has also told station attendants and guards to have increased vigilance and to report anything that appears out of the ordinary.
A man strongly believed to have been Taymour Abdelwahab was the only person to die Saturday when he first blew up his car and shortly after himself near a crowded pedestrian street in central Stockholm.
Two other people were injured by the car blast.
He was carrying a cocktail of explosives, and is believed to have mistakenly set off a small explosion that killed him before he could carry out what appears to have been a mission to kill “as many people as possible,” Sweden’s chief prosecutor for security cases, Tomas Lindstrand, said Monday.
Sweden’s intelligence agency Säpo meanwhile said it had launched “a broad international cooperation” with authorities “in the other Nordic countries, the rest of Europe and of course in the United States” in their search for possible accomplices of the bomber.
“We are looking into different kinds of leads,” Säpo spokeswoman Sofia Oliv told AFP Tuesday, without giving details.
Oliv refused to comment on work mapping Islamic extremists within Sweden, but according to the Aftonbladet daily, a yet unpublished report from the intelligence agency shows it knows of around 200 such people living in the Scandinavian country.
According to the paper, up to 80 percent of these people were part of so-called “violence-prone networks,” while the remainder were “loners” and people with extremist contacts abroad.
Abdelwahab would have been 29 the day after the blasts.
He was reportedly born in Iraq, but investigators said he became a Swedish citizen 18 years ago. He had never come to the attention of the security services, they added.
An Islamist website, Shumukh al-Islam, posted a purported will by Abdelwahab which said he was fulfilling a threat by Al-Qaeda in Iraq to attack Sweden.
On Saturday, Saepo and the TT news agency received an email with audio files in which a man believed to be the bomber is heard calling on “all hidden mujahedeen in Europe, and especially in Sweden, it is now the time to fight back.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Social Democrats U-Turns on Säpo Surveillance
A leading Social Democrat has proposed restoring the ability of Swedish security service Säpo to request signals intelligence in order to make it easier to follow terrorist groups.
Morgan Johansson, Social Democratic chair of the Riksdag’s standing committee on the administration of justice, says his party should now support the government on the issue of allowing Säpo access to information from the National Defence Radio Establishment (Försvarets radioanstalt, FRA), newspaper Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) reported on Tuesday.
Previously, the Social Democrats have been against allowing Säpo to request intelligence from FRA, which—despite its name—is a civilian agency supporting the defence ministry that specialises in signals intelligence and offers support to government authorities and state-owned companies regarding IT security
In addition, Johansson wants his party to abandon an election promise to scrap a controversial wiretapping law that gave FRA sweeping surveillance powers.
The measure, known as the FRA law, was first approved by the Riksdag in 2008, only to be sent back for revision following complaints by privacy activists.
A revised person of the bill was approved in October 2009 which gives FRA — a civilian agency despite its name — the right to tap all cross-border internet and telephone communication.
“I urge the government to present a proposal that also facilitates allowing Säpo to get information from FRA,” Johansson told the newspaper.
Citing the terror attack in central Stockholm on Saturday, Johansson is seeking an agreement in the issue that crosses party lines.
The ruling centre-right government coalition parties have long agreed that Säpo should be able to order signals intelligence from FRA, but whether such decisions should be up to FRA or an independent body to manage it is a matter currently under investigation.
The proposal will be presented to Justice Minister Beatrice Ask in March.
Before the election, the Social Democrats and Green and Left Parties pledged to rescind the criticised FRA law. However, Johansson now said that he sees no sense in “starting over at square one.”
“The mistake was that Säpo was not allowed to take part and that can be corrected,” he said.
Since December of last year, Säpo has no longer been able to order surveillance from FRA. However, Säpo has still been able to receive information from FRA, and had the latter received information about a planned terrorist attack in Stockholm, Säpo would have also had access to the information.
The question many are asking, however, is whether or not the limitations for Säpo included in the FRA-law may have contributed to Saturday’s suicide bomber being completely unknown to Säpo prior to the attack.
“We need signals intelligence. But we don’t know it would have helped in this case, it would only be speculation,” Säpo spokeswoman Sofia Oliv told TT.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Man Jailed for Illegally Circumcising Young Boys
A Swedish court has sentenced a man to prison for performing illegal circumcisions, the first-ever conviction under the country’s laws on the circumcision of boys.
A 50-year-old Egyptian citizen was sentenced by Södertorn District Court on Monday to two months in prison for illegally removing the foreskin from small boys.
The man was on trial for having circumcised nine boys without a licence to do so issued by the National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen).
The case marked the first time that Sweden’s law on circumcising boys had been tested in court since coming into force nine years ago.
He was also convicted for assault for having circumcised a boy from Tierp in eastern Sweden without sufficient anaesthesia and two counts of causing bodily harm involving two brothers from the Stockholm suburb of Botkyrka who suffered tissue damage, pain and loss of circulation from a bandage that was used as a tourniquet.
During the trial, a film was shown to support allegations that the boy from Tierp wasn’t sufficiently anesthetized during the procedure.
In addition to serving time in prison, the man must also pay 14,600 kronor ($2,140) in compensation to a boy from Tierp, as well as 4,600 kronor to the two other boys, the local Arbetarbladet newspaper reported on Tuesday.
According to the Swedish law, which came into force in 2001, only people with a special licence issued by the health board can perform circumcisions for non-medical reasons and only on children younger than two months old.
Doctors can also carry out the procedure, including on older children.
The 50-year-old previously had a licence to perform circumcisions, but the health board revoked it because of doubts about his abilities.
The health board doesn’t think Sweden’s law works, estimating that only one-third of the roughly 3,000 boys circumcised for religious reasons in Sweden each year have the procedure performed by people with authorisation.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Al-Qaeda Claims Target Was Cartoon Newspaper, Hizb ut-Tahrir Link
Cartoon newspaper targeted
AP reports (DA) that according to the Shumokh al-Islam site, Taimour Abdul Wahab Al-Abdaly intended to blow up a Swedish newspaper for publishing the Lars Vilks Muhammad cartoon.
The cartoon was originally printed by Nerikes Allehanda in 2007, and after Vilks got death threats, was reprinted by Expressen, Dagens Nyheter and Sydsvenska Dagbladet. The site did not name the paper that al-Abdaly intended to target.
The site also says that one of the gas-cylinders in the car, which was filled with explosives, went off prematurely. The bomber then tried to free, and accidentally detonated one of the bombs her was carrying.
Security services are trying to track down (SE) the person who published al-Abdaly’s name and picture on the Shumukh al-Islam site before his identity was officially announced.
Signs of accomplice
Swedish newspaper Expressen reports that there are several indications (SE) that al-Abdaly had an accomplice. According to the Daily Telegraph, somebody coughs in the background of al-Abdaly’s threat audio. Al-Abdaly is thought to have recorded the threats on his mobile.
In addition, according to the pictures, one of the objects found next al-Abdaly’s body is a walkie-talkie. This might have been used to detonate the bombs, or to stay in touch with an accomplice. It’s easier to set up a detonation system using a walkie-talkie, but the range is limited to a few hundred meters…
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Switzerland: Petition Calls for Crucifixes in Public
Those in favour of keeping crucifixes on display in public buildings have filed a petition in Lucerne.
The petition, signed by 11,976 people and submitted on Tuesday, states that both crucifixes and crosses should be allowed to hang in schools as well as in other public buildings.
It was launched in late October as a reaction to recent disputes in cantons Lucerne and Valais. According to the organising committee, banning the religious symbol would be a sign of intolerance.
Some 60 per cent of the signatures were from canton Lucerne and the petition was filed with the government there.
A teacher in canton Valais was recently fired after he removed crucifixes from the classrooms that he taught in.
Meanwhile, a father in canton Lucerne asked that crosses be removed from a primary school; the school obliged.
In 1990, the Federal Court ruled that crucifixes were contrary to religious neutrality. However, many Swiss classrooms keep one on display and they are a common sight on roadsides in Catholic areas.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Two Islamic Groups Are Targeted in Germany
The German Interior Ministry ordered simultaneous raids in three states yesterday against what it called Salafist networks suspected of seeking the imposition of an Islamic state. The action signaled growing concern over the radical messages of some Islamic groups.
The raids, in Bremen, Lower Saxony, and North Rhine-Westphalia, were not linked to a recent terror alert reportedly inspired by phone calls from a man who said he wanted to quit working with terrorists and who warned of a pending Mumbai-style attack, the Interior Ministry said.
The ministry statement said the raids were directed at two groups — Invitation to Paradise, in the cities of Brunswick and Moenchengladbach, and the Islamic Culture Center of Bremen, on the North Sea coast. The two groups work closely together and share the same ideology. Authorities are seeking to outlaw both groups.
The raids appeared to represent a departure for the German authorities in their dealings with radical Muslim groups. They were conducted under the authority of postwar laws enacted with an eye to the Nazis to ensure against the overthrow of the state or Constitution by extremist groups.
Previously, those statutes had been invoked primarily against right-wing nationalist and neo-Nazi groups, and German intelligence had focused primarily on individual Muslim extremists rather than groups.
The ministry’s statement emphasized this shift in approach. “For a well-fortified democracy, it is necessary and demanded, without waiting for the jihad to occur in the form of armed struggle, to take action against anti-constitutional organizations,” it said.
The statement added that the groups were suspected of opposing constitutional order by seeking to “overthrow it in favor of an Islamic theocracy.” There was no indication that any arrests were made. “The group is very influential and is especially active in converting people,” a senior German security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
The best-known figure in the group is a German citizen, Pierre Vogel, a former boxer and convert to Islam. “They do have the aim to change Germany and make it Islamic, but there is no evidence that they were or are involved in any terrorism,” the official said.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: ‘It’s a F****** Travesty!’ Woman Judge’s Foul-Mouthed Outburst After She is Fined for Attack by Her Alsatian
A judge unleashed a foul-mouthed attack on the British justice system yesterday as she was found guilty of owning a dangerous dog and fined £2,500.
Beatrice Bolton, 57, stormed out of the court as the verdict was delivered screaming: ‘I’m going. It’s a ****ing travesty.’
After she left, the £140,000-a-year judge could be heard shouting and wailing.
Later, as the court adjourned for lunch Judge Bolton emerged from a court side room but was clearly still fuming. She yelled: ‘Do you want a statement? I’ll give you a statement. I have no faith in the justice system whatsoever.
‘I will never sit in a court of law again. How can he (the magistrate) say that? How can he bloody say that?’
The judge, who sits at Newcastle Crown Court, was then ushered back into the side room by her solicitor and family in a desperate attempt to calm her.
She later returned to court and was ordered to apologise for swearing. She muttered: ‘I apologise.’
Judge Bolton was brought before Carlisle magistrates’ court after her German Shepherd, Georgie, whose pedigree name is Bundenbury Francer, attacked a neighbour’s sunbathing son on May 31.
The three-year-old dog charged at Frederick Becker, 20, as he lay on the lawn in the garden shared by his family and Judge Bolton. It bit him on the leg, piercing his trousers and leaving a slight wound.
Mr Becker, a politics student, told the court he leapt to his feet when he saw the dog. If he had not, it could have bitten him on the face, he said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: ‘Suicide Bomber’ Drink Outrage
A BAR came under fire today after launching a new cocktail called a ‘Suicide Bomber’. The £3.95 drink — a combination of superstrong absinthe and pineapple juice — is being promoted at The Lounge in Swansea, South Wales, with a poster showing a suicide vest.
But the idea has been labelled “grossly offensive” and “insensitive” and calls have been made for it to be scrapped.
Local race equality campaigner Taha Idris said: “I cannot understand the mentality of the people who think that suicide bombers are something that should be made fun of or glorified by this insensitive promotion.
“It is not just offensive to many of the city’s Muslim community, who frequently have to deal with false accusations that they are the bombers of tomorrow, but also to anyone who has lost a loved one in violent circumstances.
“It shows no consideration for other people’s feelings and I call on The Lounge to remove the poster.”
The poster advertising the cocktail also features a slogan saying ‘You’d rather take a jab n’ the ovaries or balls’.
The campaign comes after Luton-based Iraqi national Taimour Abdulwahab Al-Abdaly blew himself up with a suicide bomb in a failed mass murder bid in Stockholm.
Baden Evans, who lives near Swansea and who cheated death in the 2005 Bali suicide bombings, said: “The bar owners are trying to create a name for themselves.
“I am shocked at the level they have gone to. A suicide bombing is not something which is funny and to joke about it in the way they have done is shameful.”
The Lounge management have not been able to comment.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Anger Over Swansea Club’s ‘Suicide Bomber’ Drink
A poster depicting a cocktail drink called a ‘Suicide Bomber’ at a Swansea bar has been condemned as “ludicrous” and “insensitive”.
The advert in the window of The Lounge in Wind Street advertises the drink with a mock image of a person wearing an explosive-packed vest.
The director of the Swansea Bay Race Equality Council said it went beyond a poor joke and wants it taken down.
Attempts have been made by BBC Wales to contact the club.
The image on the poster on the Wind Street club is part of a promotion for bomb-themed cocktails, alongside ‘Skittle Bomb’, ‘Cherry Bomb’ and ‘Melon Bomb’.
“I just can’t believe that anyone could be so insensitive with all that is going on in the world,” said Taha Idris, director of Swansea Bay Race Equality Council.
“In this nation we are proud of a sense of humour, that this is beyond a joke. It is ludicrous.
“It exploits the plight of those who have suffered at the hands of bombers.”
Mr Idris said he was concerned that by using the term suicide bomber to promote a drink it could be seen as “glorifying” terrorism.
“It looks to glorify an act which should not be given any glorification at all,” he added.
“I really am hopeful that this poster will be taken down.”
| — Hat tip: GB | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Bupa Care Home Staff Tormented Dementia Victims and Recorded Their ‘Despicable’ Acts on Their Mobile Phones
They were elderly, suffering from advanced Alzheimer’s Disease and needed the best possible care at their Bupa nursing home.
Instead the frail residents were bullied, assaulted and terrorised by care workers who recorded their ‘despicable’ behaviour on their mobile phones for fun.
Yesterday the ‘appalling’ video footage of a vulnerable 99-year-old woman and a man of 86 being mistreated by their three carers led to the carers being jailed.
The five minutes of blurred video, which was played at Bradford Crown Court, shows the carers laughing at the helpless pensioners, grabbing and poking them, taunting them and shoving phones into their face and mouth.
The elderly man, Kenneth Costigan, has an expression of ‘stark terror’ on his face, and is shown ‘cowering’ and burying his head in his hands in ‘utter despair’.
Edith Askham, who died later aged 100, is shown being bullied and treated roughly as she sits helplessly on the floor pleading ‘help me…I am frightened’.
Recorder Richard Mansell, QC, was clearly outraged by the defendants’ actions, which he described as ‘inhuman and degrading’.
The judge said supervisor Paul Poole, 26, and assistant care workers Jolene Hullah, 21, and Tanzeela Safdar, 23, had committed a ‘gross breach of trust’.
Earlier, when it was suggested that Hullah, who was 19 at the time, had not received adequate training, the judge was barely able to conceal his fury commenting: ‘You don’t need training in ordinary human decency.
‘This is a feature that unfortunately seems to be part of general life. The first instinct of people when they do something wrong is to start casting blame elsewhere. This is about taking responsibility for your actions.’
Referring to the victims, the judge said: ‘Although they were elderly and very ill they still had their dignity.
‘Your job was to provide them with a dignified level of care in the last years of their lives. With these despicable acts of abuse you stripped Mr Costigan and Mrs Askham of their dignity for your own amusement and gratification.
‘Of those who sat in court today and watched the video footage from your mobile phones, nobody could have failed to be appalled by your sick conduct.’
The defendants, all from Bradford, each admitted two offences of ill treatment of persons lacking mental capacity. The new offence, carrying a maximum five-year jail term, was created by the 2005 Mental Capacity Act.
Recorder Mansell ignored pleas to spare the defendants from jail. Hullah was sent to prison for 18 months, while Safdar, who was described as the ‘most culpable’, was jailed for 21 months.
Poole, who fainted in the dock, was given 12 months. All will be released after serving half their sentence. Prosecutor Jonathan Sharp told the court the offences took place at the Dales Nursing Home in Bradford between December 2008 and February 2009. The Bupa home specialises in caring for people with dementia.
The victims were ‘particularly vulnerable to abuse’ as they were ‘unlikely to complain’ and had poor short-term memories.
The convictions were only made possible because police recovered the damning video footage from the two women’s mobile phones.
Officers were informed after a cousin of Hullah saw the phone clip and went to the nursing home management.
Hullah is believed to have been trying to dispose of the phone when a police officer arrested her.
Several excerpts show Mr Costigan sitting in his room being ‘taunted’ and physically abused by his laughing carers.
Hullah is seen pushing the phone into his face, imitating and teasing him and on another occasion assaulting him.
Mr Sharp said Mr Costigan’s dementia ‘causes him to swear’ and the carers found it funny to provoke his foul-mouthed outbursts.
They put a phone in his mouth and later as he becomes ‘upset and agitated’ Hullah screams at him and ‘pulls at his right thumb in a way that will have induced considerable pain’.
Safdar then ‘tries to grab his nose’ and ‘pushes both her hands into his mouth.’ As a result, Mr Costigan ‘holds his head in his hands and is plainly distressed’, said Mr Sharp.
Poole, the key worker designated with responsibility for his care, watched and failed to intervene.
Another video shows Safdar and another woman mistreating Edith Askham, who suffered from advanced dementia and was incontinent and ‘incoherent’. She is shown sitting on the floor away from her wheelchair and ‘holding out her arms for help’.
Mr Sharp said the carers did nothing to help her, ‘thrust the phone into her face’ and recorded her indignity. The other woman, Hannah Parveen, is believed to have fled to Pakistan.
Hullah later claimed she had just been ‘messing about’ and Safdar said she was just ‘playing around’. Poole claimed he said nothing because he was afraid of retribution from Hullah.
The judge made a point of stressing that the care home owners and management were in no way to blame for what happened.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Druid Leader Calls for Judicial Review on Excavation of Remains
DRUID leader King Arthur Pendragon went to The Royal Courts of Justice in London last week in a bid to see the return of cremated human remains taken from Stonehenge in 2008.
The Senior Druid and Pagan Priest presented a 36-page document asking for a Judicial Review on the decision by the Minister of Justice to grant Sheffield University an extension to retain the remains for five years.
King Arthur said: ‘This is not just a Druid or Pagan issue, and we have the support of thousands of people from all walks of life from nations around the world and all the major faiths, who have signed our petition demanding that the remains be re-interred at what should have been their final resting place.
‘The remains will never go on display and they should just be reburied.’ The remains were removed from the site for tests to be carried out as part of The Stonehenge Riverside Archaeological Project.
The project, supported by National Geographic under the leadership of Professor Mike Parker Pearson of the University of Sheffield, has led to new insights into the possible uses of the site.
Radiocarbon dating of human cremation burials at the ancient monument suggested it was used as a cemetery from its inception just after 3000BC until well after the large stones went up around 2500BC.
Many archaeologists previously believed people had been buried at Stonehenge only between 2700 and 2600BC, before the large Sarsen stones were raised and the new dates provide strong clues about the original purpose of the monument.
English Heritage, which manages the site, has said permission for excavation is only given when the applicant can show the benefits in increased knowledge are likely to outweigh the damage done by the work and that the excavation of Human remains is regulated under the Burial Act.
But the Druids say they will not rest until the remains have been once again laid to rest.
Frank Somers of Aes Dana Grove and The British Druid Association, said: “We shall pursue every avenue open to us within the law to ensure the timely return of our ancestors.
“We will never tire and we will never cease.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: How I Killed the Madman Knifing Mum: Teenager Tells Inquest He Heard Screams and Saw Neighbour on Top of Her Shouting ‘Die! Die! Die!’
[WARNING: Graphic content.]
A teenager told yesterday how he was forced to stab a mentally disturbed neighbour to death after he found the intruder savagely attacking his mother with a knife.
James Killen, 18, was at home getting ready for school when he heard his mother, Sandra Crawford, scream for help.
He came downstairs to find Jonathan London, 46, attacking her with an eight-inch knife and shouting: ‘Die! Die! Die!’
In a brave but vain attempt to save his mother, the teenager wrestled with the knifeman before stabbing him to death.
Mrs Crawford, 53, was taken to hospital where she had emergency heart surgery but died eight days later.
It later emerged that London was a suspected schizophrenic who had been examined but released by a hospital the previous day despite talking to walls and believing he had been ‘possessed by robots’.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Is Luton a Breeding Ground for Terrorists?
Luton has been in the media spotlight after it emerged a man who blew himself up in Stockholm at the weekend was a Muslim extremist from the Bedfordshire town. The 7/7 bombers also had links to Luton but is it fair to brand the place a hotbed of terrorism?
I love Luton. There, I’ve said it and I’m not ashamed. I’m a Luton girl through and through. I grew up there and it’s home to four generations of my family.
The sad thing is that I don’t recognise the town that has once again hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Luton is a typical old industrial town that you see up and down the country. Most of these places have seen the same waves of immigration and face similar problems.
So why does Luton occur again and again when the roots of terrorism are discussed?
Historically, Luton’s industry has always attracted a migrant population.
The town was already a good size when the Domesday Book was put together and is listed as a large market town.
‘Boom town’ The 16th and 17th centuries saw the birth of the brick-making and straw hat-making industries which attracted more and more people with the promise of work.
The 7/7 bombers — caught on CCTV at Luton station before the London attack — had links to the town Parish records from the time include numerous references to people of different ethnic origins living locally to work in the town, including Gypsy queens, Welsh drovers and French Huguenots.
One of the earliest documents of a black person living in the UK comes from local baptismal records in July 1661.
The 20th Century saw Luton becoming a boom town. Electrolux, SKF and Vauxhall meant there was plenty of work and the town’s population went from 39,000 in 1900 to 130,000 by the 1960s and close on 200,000 by the end of the century.
Waves of migrants from the Republic of Ireland, the Caribbean, Africa, India, Pakistan and, more recently, Eastern Europe have all made Luton their home.
In the 1960s, many of the migrants were Kashmiri Muslims fleeing sectarian violence.
‘Sanctuary’ In Luton they found somewhere they could rebuild their own communities and were free to practise their conservative branch of religion.
They typically moved into the town’s Bury Park area, building businesses and their own places of worship.
There are persistent stories that radical groups openly recruit in Freshers’ Week and go out of their way to harass other minorities”
They sent a lot of money back home and some returned to fight those they perceived as their persecutors.
Many brought their families and the community has grown steadily from there, free from significant scrutiny until recently.
If you talk to these migrants, most are bemused by the radicalism espoused by the younger generation.
They see the UK as a sanctuary from persecution and somewhere to live the way they see fit.
They cannot understand why their children want to return to the way of life they ran away from.
The decline of the manufacturing industry in Luton, the subsequent reduction in jobs on top of conflicts between western values and the laws of Islam have all created an environment which saw radical speakers like Abu Hamza al-Mazri and Omar Bakri Mohammed invited to come to speak at the mosque on Leagrave Road.
Foiled plot We are probably still seeing their influence today.
A man who is believed to have been a major facilitator for al-Qaeda, who has been under surveillance for years, lived with his family in Luton.
He has been linked to many plots including the foiled fertiliser bomb plot.
Representatives at Luton Islamic Centre challenged Abdaly over his views He is thought to have sent one of the 7 July bombers for training and may have met the bombers before they carried out their suicide attacks.
If he is the lynchpin many believe him to be, then it is unsurprising that Luton is linked to so many attacks….
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: I’ve Got a Great Idea — Why Doesn’t the Government Just Leave the ‘Muslim Community’ Alone?
The strange thing about Islamic suicide bombers is that, for all their talk of how much they hate the West, they always seem to resemble the western underclass. This is not a coincidence, since both are often products of the welfare state and the idleness it encourages, perfect conditions for the building of resentment, extremism and reactive machismo. And Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly, the Iraqi-born, Swedish-raised and British-radicalised Stockholm bomber, who left three sweet and innocent children in order to murder innocent civilians (which he failed to do as it turned out), is nothing more than a deadbeat dad. The attack there has increased the sense of urgency over here: what house price inflation was to the Noughties, Islamic terrorism may be to whatever this decade is called — Britain’s major export to our neighbours. And now security minister Baroness Neville-Jones has said that the £60m Prevent programme aimed at Islamic extremism should be targeted at individuals in danger of radicalisation, instead of being used to fund community groups. Prevent, as you may or may not know, was set up to prevent radicalisation, which it did by writing an open cheque to lots of Muslim groups. The result, according to the Policy Exchange think-tank, was that taxpayers were “underwriting the very Islamist ideology which spawns an illiberal, intolerant and anti-western world view”. It added: “Political and theological extremists, acting with the authority conferred by official recognition, are indoctrinating young people with an ideology of hostility to western values.” As I wrote in one of my first ever blog posts, there was an industry created in order to throw money at Muslim areas which, coincidentally, happened to have deserted Labour for the Liberal Democrats after the Iraq war. In Luton the taxpayer funded seven Muslim centres under a Home Office project called “Preventing Violent Extremism”, while the council has handed out £200,000, and another £400,000 has been set aside to capture the “hearts and minds” of young Muslims. It didn’t seem to work with al-Abdaly. Prevent was an unmitigated disaster, but it was the culmination of 30 years of state-funded multiculturalism, a tragedy captured brilliantly in Kenan Malik’s From Fatwa to Jihad. As he wrote: “For what the pattern of mosque building in Bradford reveals is that it was not the piety of first-generation Muslims that led to the Islamisation of the town. It was, rather, the power, influence and money that accrued to religious leaders in the 1980s as a result of Bradford City Council’s multicultural policies. Multiculturalism helped paint Bradford Muslim green.” Rather than simply winding up Prevent, the Government then changed course, instead putting money into kosher (so to speak) Muslim organisations that did not oppose western democracy. But according to the Communities and Local Government select committee report earlier this year, this has only led to increasing paranoia among some Muslims, who felt they were being spied on…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Police Officer Fighting for His Life After Being Slashed Across the Throat With Knife as He Checks Bus Tickets
Two police officers were stabbed today — leaving one fighting for his life — as terrified Christmas shoppers looked on.
The officers — one a Police Community Support Officer — were set upon in Ealing Broadway, west London, this afternoon.
Onlookers said the Pc had been slashed across the throat after the pair were carrying out routine bus ticket checks.
Police sources said a constable suffered a slash wound to his throat and is in hospital in a serious but stable condition.
They said a PCSO suffered stab wounds to his head as he wrestled with the attacker and is in hospital in a stable condition.
The attacker, aged in his 30s, was arrested at the scene and has been taken to a west London police station.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Police Mull Banning All UK Protests
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson referred to the level of violence in recent student protests against the rise in tuition fees, saying that he does not rule out banning all future student protests across the country, the daily Independent reported.
Tens of thousands of student protesters from universities, colleges and schools have been marching across England in protests against the huge hikes in tuition fees, together with the scrapping of Educational Maintenance Allowance and proposed cuts in college funding.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: US Tried to Recruit Bollywood to Stop British Muslims Being Radicalised
Washington dispatched two senior diplomats to London in October 2007 amid growing concern about the rise of militantcy among Muslim youths in Britain and the number of attacks involving British Muslims. The diplomats met Foreign Office officials, then International Development minister and Britain’s first Muslim MP Shahid Malik, and a number of leading British Asian film-makers, including Channel Four’s Farouk Dhondi. Following a discussion with a number of film-makers linked to popular Indian film stars, the diplomats reported that “Bollywood actors and executives agreed to work with the USG to promote anti-extremist messages through third party actors and were excited about the idea of possibly partnering with Hollywood as well.” Farah Pandith, who was appointed by Hillary Clinton as the US State Department’s first Special Representative to Muslim Communities, and Jared Cohen, another Clinton advisor, reported that alienation within Britain’s Muslim community and the need to use the arts to ease tensions. “Government officials stressed that the UK’s problem with extremists is a domestic as well as a foreign policy issue, since all recent successful and thwarted terrorist attacks were perpetrated by individuals from Muslim communities in the UK. Muslim youth from deprived areas expressed less concern with UK and US foreign policy than with the chance to have their voices heard in British society, while those with more education focused on disagreements with UK foreign policy and the need to use the arts to address cultural tensions and reconciliation,” they said…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Under Berlusconi, Italy’s ‘Demise is Unstoppable’
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi miraculously survived a confidence vote on Tuesday. But German columnists say that is bad news for Italy. With a leadership focused primarily on retaining power, they say, the big loser is the entire country’s future.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
US Embassy Cables: Why Holland is So Important to US
S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 07 THE HAGUE 002309 SIPDIS EO 12958 DECL: 08/18/2025 TAGS PREL, PGOV, PTER, ECON, EAID, NL, EUN, USUN SUBJECT: AMBASSADOR’S PARTING THOUGHTS ON TAKING THE DUTCH TO THE NEXT LEVEL Classified By: AMBASSADOR CLIFFORD SOBEL FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D).
Summary A departing US ambassador offers his thoughts on how the US could develop its relations with the Dutch, saying the country is a “vital transatlantic anchor” but could also help counter Venezuelan “meddling” in the Caribbean. Key passages highlighted in yellow.
Read related article 1. (S) SUMMARY: With the EU divided and its direction uncertain, the Dutch serve as a vital transatlantic anchor in Europe. As one of the original six EU members, the Dutch ally with the British to counter Franco-German efforts to steer Europe off a transatlantic course. The Netherlands’ solid European and international credentials create a powerful “multiplier” effect. In Iraq, Dutch forces provided the physical and political cover for Japan to deploy and the Dutch are using their NATO Training Mission commitment to push others to do more. In Afghanistan, the Dutch drove much of the Phase III planning for ISAF and deployed Dutch troops in combat operations for the first time in more than 30 years. The Dutch have led Europe in launching pilot projects to strengthen international counterterrorism cooperation, and initiated the U.S.-EU dialogue on terrorist financing which laid the groundwork for a proposed major international Terrorism Financing Conference in 2006.
2. (S) (SUMMARY CONTINUED) The Dutch are expanding their leadership beyond Europe. Dutch strategic interests in the Caribbean make them logical partners to counter Venezuelan meddling in the region. They are expanding their military involvement in Africa, in part to provide a secure environment for their robust development assistance program, and in part to add “eyes and ears” on the ground. In the Middle East, the Dutch enjoy good relations with Israel and the Palestinians and would welcome a more active role; they quickly promised funds for an expanded Multinational Observer Force (MFO) and might, under the right circumstances, commit troops. Even in areas where we disagree, such as drugs and trafficking in persons, Dutch views may be shifting. As the headquarters for major international legal institutions, the Netherlands offers a unique opportunity for advancing foreign policy goals far beyond Dutch borders.
3. (S) (SUMMARY CONTINUED) The coalition government, headed by PM Balkenende, is naturally inclined to work closely with the U.S. The balance could shift toward Brussels, however, if a center-left government comes to power in 2007 (or earlier), as predicted by most polls. The nearly one million Muslim immigrants are largely non-integrated, which is forcing the Dutch to question long-standing assumptions about Dutch “tolerance” and “identity.” The murder of Theo van Gogh focused attention on Islamic extremism, and the Dutch feel they are ahead of much of Europe in addressing this growing problem. Strengthening U.S.-Dutch ties across the political spectrum is necessary to ensure that the Dutch continue to enlist others to pursue interests in line with the U.S., especially in the political-military sphere. Early and active consultations are the key to harnessing Dutch energies in enhanced pursuit of U.S. interests. END SUMMARY.
LEADERS IN EUROPE
— — — — — — — — –
4. (S) Along with the British, the Dutch form a strong, reliable transatlantic anchor in Europe. As a founding member of NATO, one of the original six members of the EU, and Britain’s strongest ally on continent, the Dutch are an influential voice in Europe despite having a population of just under 16 million. Prime Minister Balkenende states often that the Dutch “take their responsibilities seriously” and therefore expect to be heard. While the Dutch “no” to the EU’s constitutional treaty embarrassed Balkenende, the vote revealed that the search for EU integration and consensus has its limits, capping a trend that started in the 90’s with then Liberal Party leader (and later EU Commissioner) Fritz Bolkestein’s proposals to redefine the scope of European integration to protect Dutch national interests.
5. (S) With the French-German engine of European integration stalled, German elections pending, and the EU unable to agree on finances, leadership opportunities for the Dutch are growing. This trend is enhanced by the gravitation of EU decision making to smaller groups, as Dutch participation can make or break internal groupings. The Dutch and Italian refusal to attend a “group of six” meeting recently proposed by Schroeder, for example, effectively squelched his initiative. The British Ambassador here recently confided that Blair sees the Dutch as essential to pursuing his European objectives and ensuring that transatlantic relations remain high on the European agenda. The leaders of the Netherlands, UK, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden already meet quietly several times a year to coordinate positions prior to EU Council and other high-level EU meetings.
6. (S) Dutch leadership within the EU does not weaken their commitment to NATO, where they are “go-to guys” for resolving potential EU-NATO conflicts. Their active, if often behind the scenes, support for NATO SYG (and former Dutch Foreign Minister) Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, as well as their commitment to the NRF (and SRF, ISAF, and NTM-I), have helped push back efforts, such as Tervuren, which might otherwise create tensions between the NRF and EU battlegroups or other emerging ESDP capabilities. Foreign Minister Bot recently proposed restructuring NATO’s decision-making and funding mechanisms to make them more effective. The appointment of Herman Schaper, the former deputy director general of political affairs at the Dutch MFA and a good friend of the U.S., as the new Dutch permrep to NATO should create more opportunities for productive cooperation.
POLITICAL-MILITARY COOPERATION BEYOND THE EU
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
7. (S) The Dutch are increasingly aware that strategic interests outside Europe warrant their attention and leadership, especially in the political-military sphere. For example:…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
US Embassy Cables: Anti-Dutch Demonstrations Feared Following Release of Geert Wilders’s Film
S E C R E T STATE 008993 SIPDIS FOR COM AND RSO FROM ACTING DS ASSISTANT SECRETARY GREG STARR EO 12958 DECL: 01/23/28 TAGS ASEC, PTER, CASC SUBJECT: SECURITY ADVISORY — FORTHCOMING RELEASE OF GEERT
Summary The State Department issues a cable to all diplomatic and consular posts telling them what to in the event of negative reaction to an anti-Islam film from far-right Dutch MP Geert Wilders. Key passages highlighted in yellow.
Read related article WILDERS FILM
1. (U) Classified by Acting Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security Gregory B. Starr for E.O. 12958 reasons 1.4 (c) and (d).
2. (SBU) This cable contains an action request for all posts. Please see paragraph six.
3. (S) The following is an information/action cable advising posts of the possibility of anti-Dutch demonstrations and incidents following the potential release of a short film funded by Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders that is anticipated to be inflammatory towards Muslims. There is also the possibility that the film could generate anti-European/anti-Western protests if it is perceived as part of a worldwide campaign against Islam. There are no specific threats against U.S. interests related to this particular issue at this time, although the Dutch government has instructed its diplomatic facilities to engage host nations on this issue if deemed prudent.
4. (SBU) While Wilders has refused to discuss the content of the film, open source reporting has indicated that the film is likely to be inflammatory and may include scenes of the Koran being burned or torn. At this time, there is no release date for the film, but it is expected to be screened sometime at the end of January or beginning of February. Recent open source information indicates that Wilders has decided to postpone the release of the film for approximately two weeks. It is unknown if the film will be broadcast on television, the internet, or some other medium.
5. (SBU) Previous releases of media characterized as offensive to Islam have generated a spectrum of responses — from isolated attacks against individuals to widespread, violent protests that have targeted diplomatic facilities. The release of the Dutch film will likely serve to raise the profile of the Netherlands in particular, although reactions to the film have the potential to reverberate internationally and inflame broader anti-Western sentiment. Previous events of significance include:…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
WikiLeaks: Swedish Government ‘Hid’ Anti-Terror Operations With America From Parliament
The Swedish government asked American officials to keep intelligence-gathering “informal” to help avoid Parliamentary scrutiny, American diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks show.
The secret cables, seen by The Daily Telegraph, disclose how Swedish officials wanted discussions about anti-terrorism operations kept from public scrutiny.
They describe how officials from the Swedish Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Foreign Affairs had a “strong degree of satisfaction with current informal information sharing arrangements” with the American government.
Making the arrangement formal would result in the need for it to be disclosed to Parliament, they said.
They disclose officials’ fear that intense Swedish Parliamentary scrutiny could place “a wide range of law enforcement and anti-terrorism” operations in jeopardy.
Under the heading “teams visits to discuss terrorist screening information exchange with Sweden”, they show Dr Anna-Karin Svensson, Director of the Division for Police Issues, saying the Swedish government would strike controversy if its intelligence methods were disclosed.
The cable claimed that the “current Swedish political climate makes any formal terrorist screening information agreement highly difficult”. Swedish citizens are said to place high value on the country’s neutrality.
“The MOJ team expressed their appreciation for the flexibility of the U.S. side in regards to memorialising any agreement,” said the cable.
“They expressed a strong degree of satisfaction with current informal information sharing arrangements with the U.S., and wondered whether the putative advantages of an HSPD-6 agreement for Sweden would be offset by the risk that these existing informal channels, which cover a wide range of law enforcement and anti-terrorism co-operation, would be scrutinised more intensely by Parliament and perhaps jeopardised.
“Dr. Svensson reiterated MFA concerns about the current political atmosphere in Sweden.”
It continued: “She believed that, given Swedish constitutional requirements to present matters of national concern to Parliament and in light of the ongoing controversy over Sweden’s recently passed surveillance law, it would be politically impossible for the Minister of Justice to avoid presenting any formal data sharing agreement with the United States to Parliament for review.
“In her opinion, the effect of this public spotlight could also place other existing informal information sharing arrangements at jeopardy.”
The publication of the new cables, sent to Washington from the American embassy in Stockholm in 2008, came after Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder, was granted bail on Tuesday over sexual assault claims in Sweden.
Despite a judge ordering his release with strict conditions and £200,000 guarantee from high profile supporters, the Swedish authorities appealed, meaning the 39 year-old remains behind bars.
Wikileaks claimed the new cables, which discuss terrorist screening programs, added weight to suggestions that Sweden and America were engaged in “back room deals”.
Mark Stephens, Mr Assange’s lawyer, has claimed his client was facing a “show trial” and his case was politically motivated. The Swedish government denies the claims.
Kristinn Hrafnsson, a Wikileaks spokesman, said that the website was “concerned about political influence on the prosecution of Julian Assange”.
“The new revelations contained in the Swedish cables … shed some light on the ferocity of the Swedish prosecutorial process in this case,” he said.
“The prosecutor has said there is ‘no condition’ for bail that will satisfy them.”
| — Hat tip: RH | [Return to headlines] |
Kosovo Report Casts Dark Shadow Over Leader’s Wartime Past
A report by the Council of Europe special rapporteur has accused many former senior Kosovo rebels, who now lead the country, of being key players in drug and organ trafficking after the Kosovo War in the late 1990s.
The Council of Europe shone a bright light on the young republic of Kosovo this week, with a damning report accusing its leadership of having been at the helm of criminal acts after the country’s war of independence from Serbia in the late 1990s.
The report, compiled by special Council rapporteur Dick Marty, implicates incumbent Prime Minister Hashim Thaci and other former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in organ and drug trafficking during and after the Kosovo War.
It argues that Thaci was a mafia-style boss who helped set up and run some of these networks. It also links former KLA leaders with organized crime groups in Kosovo and in neighboring Albania, and says they were implicit in assassinations and beatings.
The Council of Europe is an independent organization with 47 member states that works alongside the European Union. It has a particular emphasis on European integration, human rights and democratic development.
Naturally, the Kosovo government has denied the allegations, threatening legal and political action in response.
Tainted leadership?
ocus in the matter has now shifted to how the Marty report might affect Thaci’s leadership of the small nation, and the status of its fragile independence.
Foreign affairs expert Dusan Reljic of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs says this is not the first time these kinds of accusations have been leveled against Kosovo leaders like Prime Minister Thaci.
“The current wisdom was that a lot of the leading politicians in Kosovo and in the region were part of the problem,” Reljic told Deutsche Welle.
“So in the case of Prime Minister Thaci, again and again there have been not only rumors, but accusations in the public, also in some confidential reports to certain governments … in which he was linked to organized crime and also with this terrible case of harvesting human organs.”
Many Kosovo observers say the report isn’t likely to affect the tiny country’s hopes of eventually joining the European Union, which is decades away if at all. But Reljic says that if Dick Marty’s report is endorsed by the Council of Europe it could greatly complicate Kosovo’s relations with the western nations that underpin its independence.
“After this uproar in the international media, it will certainly be more difficult to maintain … that Mr. Thaci contributes to stability in the region,” Reljic said. “But whether western powers will drop him will very much depend on their analysis of the situation and whether they see other political actors, political leaders in Kosovo who could take over in the government.”…
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Kosovo: Government Denies PM’s Involvement in Organs Trafficking
Pristina, 15 Dec. (AKI) — The Kosovo government has dismissed as “baseless and defamatory” claims that prime minister Hashim Thaci was involved in human organs trafficking. The allegations were made by the Council of Europe watchdog’s human rights investigator Dick Marty.
Marty in a report due to be presented on Thursday said Thaci and his Drenica group of the Kosovo Liberation Army were to be the ring leaders of the organ trafficking scheme, according to British media reports on Tuesday.
The report is based on a two-year investigation.
According to the report, KLA guerrillas during and after the 1999 Kosovo rebellion transported Serb prisoners to Albania, where they were killed, their organs removed and sold to the clients in the West.
“The government of Kosovo and prime minister Hashim Thaci will undertake all necessary steps and action to refute Dick Marty’s defamations, including legal and political means,” the government said in a statement.
It said the accusations came “from people without any moral credibility” in order to discredit Thaci — who won parliamentary elections on Sunday, — the KLA and “to defame our war and our victory”.
“Thaci and these other Drenica Group members are consistently named as ‘key players’ in intelligence reports on Kosovo’s mafia-like organised crime structures. I have examined these diverse, voluminous reports with consternation and a sense of moral outrage,” Marty said in the report.
The same Kosovan and foreign individuals involved in the macabre killings were linked to the Pristina Medicus clinic, involved in organs trafficking, the report said.
The European Union’s prosecutor in Kosovo, Jonathan Ratel, recently indicted seven people, including two foreigners, for carrying out illegal organs transplants.
The two foreigners reportedly ‘harvested’ organs from poor people from Moldova, Ukraine and other east European countries, promising to pay them 20,000 euros.
According to the indictment, the clinic allegedly charged about 100,000 euros to western clients for organs transplants, but never paid the “donors”.
The reports of illegal organs trafficking were first revealed by former chief prosecutor of the United Nations’ Yugoslav war crimes tribunal Carla del Ponte. But Kosovo and Albanian authorities refuted the claims as “Serbian propaganda” and refused to cooperate.
Majority Kosovo Albanians declared independence from Serbia in February 2008 with the support of the United States and leading members of the EU.
Belgrade opposes Kosovo’s secession and is waging a diplomatic battle to retain the control over its former province.
Marty criticised “faltering political will on the part of the international community to effectively prosecute the former leaders of the KLA”.
“The signs of collusion between the criminal class and the highest political and institutional office holders are too numerous and too serious to be ignored,” the report concluded.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Swiss Accuses Kosovo Leader of Heading Crime Ring
A draft report by the Council of Europe says Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci was the head of a “mafia-like” network that dealt weapons, drugs and human organs.
Swiss human rights investigator Dick Marty is scheduled to present the conclusions to European diplomats in Paris on Thursday.
The report for Europe’s premier human rights watchdog alleges that civilians detained by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) were shot dead in northern Albania so their kidneys could be extracted and sold on the black market after the war in Kosovo ended in 1999.
Kosovo’s government has denounced the draft report — more than two years in the making — and has threatened legal and political action, saying it is slanderous. In a statement, it also accused Marty of bias and “fabrications”.
On Wednesday the European Union police and justice mission (Eulex) in Kosovo said it would examine the allegations.
Ruth-Gaby Vermot, a Swiss parliamentarian and author of a Council of Europe report on trafficking in organs in Europe, defended her colleague.
“Knowing Dick Marty as I do, he’s only written what can be proved. The issue of stability can’t allow this horrifying report to be pooh-poohed.” she told swissinfo.ch.
Marty, a Swiss senator, led a Council of Europe team of investigators to Kosovo and Albania in 2009, following allegations of organ trafficking by the KLA published in a book by former United Nations War Crimes tribunal prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, also Swiss.
Serbia lost control of Kosovo in 1999 when Nato waged a bombing campaign to halt killings of ethnic Albanians in a two-year counter-insurgency war. It does not recognise Kosovo’s independence.
The Swiss government recognised Kosovo as an independent state on February 27, 2008 — one of the first countries to do so.
The Swiss foreign ministry on Wednesday said it had supported for a long time efforts to shed light on people who had gone missing during the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. To this end, it called on the authorities of the countries involved to cooperate with investigations.
Number of detention facilities
The 55-page report aims to cast new light on the KLA, which received United States backing in its fight to secure Kosovo’s independence from Serbia in 1999.
Marty says it is an attempt to unearth alleged crimes that went unpunished in the post-war period.
His investigation found that there were a number of detention facilities in Albania, where both Kosovan opponents of the KLA and Serbs were allegedly held once the hostilities in Kosovo were over, including a “state-of-the-art reception centre for the organised crime of organ trafficking”.
The report says the captives had their blood drawn and tested to help determine whether their organs would be suitable for transplant, and were examined “by men referred to as ‘doctors’“ in the towns of Rripe and Fushe-Kruje.
Marty said his findings were based on testimonies of “KLA insider sources” such as drivers, bodyguards, and other “fixers” involved in logistical and practical tasks, as well as “organisers”, and the ringleaders behind the lucrative organ trade.
But the report does not name any of the sources, or the number of people who were allegedly killed in the process.
“Methodology”
The accounts pointed to “a methodology by which all of the captives were killed, usually by a gunshot to the head, before being operated on to remove one or more of their organs”, the report said.
It also pointed to “a small but inestimably powerful group of KLA personalities” known as the Drenica Group whose “boss” was Kosovo’s current prime minister and former KLA leader, Hashim Thaci — who in 1995 joined the large Albanian diaspora in Switzerland, studying history and international relations in Zurich.
Marty said his team’s firsthand sources “credibly implicated” some KLA leaders and members of Thaci’s inner circle for “having ordered — and in some cases personally overseen — assassinations, detentions, beatings and interrogations in various parts of Kosovo”.
“Slanderous”
Kosovo’s government described Marty’s allegation as “slanderous”, and part of an attempt to “obstruct” Thaci, whose party this month won Kosovo’s first election since it declared independence from Serbia — in a vote tainted by claims of fraud.
The government said it would take all necessary legal and political means to counter Marty’s “fabrications” and urged Council of Europe members to oppose the report.
Nevertheless Vermot believed Thaci would be weakened.
“You can’t maintain the stability of a country if you simply ignore human rights violations committed during the war,” she said.
“Thaci and Kosovo must confront the accusations — but I fear they will shatter the country.”
Need for courts
Meanwhile, Serbia’s deputy war crimes prosecutor Bruno Vekaric praised the report as a “great victory for the truth and justice”.
On Wednesday Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic believed Thaci’s future was uncertain.
“I don’t know what sort of future this person has if you take into account the report … about his participation in the heroin trade, human trafficking and human organs and his role as the head of one of the most organised criminal-mafia clans in the Balkans,” Jeremic said.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe will debate the report in Strasbourg on January 25, the council said.
Vermot said what was needed now were courts to ensure the guilty be properly punished.
“Impunity is always the most terrible thing for a country that has been devastated by war,” she said.
Thomas Stephens, swissinfo.ch
(With input from Jean-Michel Berthoud)
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Algeria: Aviation Bombs Drug-Smuggling Convoy
(ANSAmed) — ALGIERS, DECEMBER 14 — Military aeroplanes from the Algerian army at the weekend bombed a convoy of drug traffickers near the border with Morocco. The convoy, which was made up of 8 Toyota vehicles, reports daily paper Liberte’, was bombed in the desert near Erg Erraoui, in the region of Beni Abbes.
Seven vehicles were destroyed whilst one — carrying fuel — was salvaged by the security forces. The smugglers fled over the border. The traffickers were transporting fuel to Morocco — as it is a great deal cheaper in Algeria — to then return with loads principally made up of hashish.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Army Apologises to Palestinian Firemen
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, DECEMBER 14 — Israel’s military authorities apologised for barring access today to three of the ten Palestinian firemen expected in Israel to be decorated by the civil defence for their participation in the operations to put out the massive fire that broke out in recent days on Mount Carmel. The news was reported to ANSA by a military spokesperson, who described the event as a “bureaucratic error”. The spokesperson also guaranteed the imminent issue of valid permits to the firemen who were turned back in order to allow for the recovery of today’s missed award ceremony. The episode caused a sensation on the media and bitter reactions among the Palestinians, and also the indignation of political representatives of Israel’s Arab minority. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
New Mossad Chief Hiring Agents
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, DECEMBER 14 — The new head of Mossad, Tamir Pardo, who will not officially take office until the end of the month, has already started a “vast” campaign to hire new secret agents. So reports Israeli commercial television Channel 2 which said that Pardo intends to particularly strengthen the “Caesarea section”, i.e. the real operational branch of the Israeli secret service. The broadcaster added that Pardo is looking for young people “who love challenges, who are prepared to have a life that is filled with the unexpected, including the need to make frequent trips abroad.” In addition they will have to demonstrate that they can think in an unconventional manner and speak foreign languages well. In particular, he is looking for people “who are able to invent a reality and to play a central role”, as well as influencing his or her neighbour. Pardo will replace Meir Dagan, who has led Mossad for the last eight years. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Air France: Saudi Airlines Sign Codeshare Pact
Saudi Airlines and Air France on Monday signed a code-sharing agreement which will boost cooperation between the two state carriers on routes between the two countries.
“This agreement, which will become effective on 10 January, will allow the two airlines to offer their customers daily code-shared flights on services between Paris, Jeddah and Riyadh,” the companies said in a statement.
The cooperation will cover lounges and frequent flyer programmes as well as the flights themselves.
The pact will cover seven return flights a week between Jeddah and Paris-CDG and six return flights per week between Riyadh and Paris-CDG, all on Airbus A320/330 aircraft, the carriers said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Iran Suicide Bomb: Jundallah Terror Group Claims Attack on Shi’ite Islam Festival
More than 30 people were killed when two suicide bombers attacked a Shi’ite religious procession in Iran.
The aftermath of the explosion outside a mosque in the city of Chahbahar The attack happened in the city of Chabahar during a procession to mark the eve of Ashura, one of the high points in the Shi’ite Islam calendar. Ashura is an emotionally charged holiday marking the death of the Shi’ite imam Hussein, the grandson of the prophet Mohammed. One of the bombers set off their device outside a mosque and the other struck from inside a crowd of worshippers. A third terrorist was later arrested trying to leave the country, according to state TV reports.
Iranian politicians claimed the bombers were backed by ‘US intelligence’ A forensic official was quoted as saying a newborn child was among the 39 people killed in the explosions. The Sunni rebel group Jundallah, which translates as “soldiers of god”, is suspected of being behind the attack. Last month, the US officially designated the group as a foreign terror organisation. At least two Iranian politicians claimed the bombers were backed by the “intelligence services of the United States” and others.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Iranian Woman Sentenced to Death by Stoning ‘Was Sold for Sex to Fund Her Husband’s Drug Addiction’
An Iranian widow sentenced to death by stoning for adultery suffered years of abuse at the hands of her drug addict husband, her lawyer said today.
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was allegedly beaten and sold for sex by Ebrahim Ghaderzade, who she is accused of killing.
Her lawyer Mohammed Mostafaei said that he feared her life was now in imminent danger.
The Iranian authorities suspended the stoning after an outcry from the international community.
But Mr Mostafaei said that the regime was now intent on portraying her as a immoral woman who had murdered her husband so she could abscond with her lover.
‘I believe my client is now in a very dangerous situation,’ he told The Times. ‘It’s my duty to speak on her behalf. I can’t stay silent’
Mr Mostafaei’s comments come days after the Iranian government broadcast a documentary of Miss Ashtiani, 43, returning to her home.
There she re-enacted the murder of her husband and confessed afresh to the killing. Her son Sajad, who has been imprisoned for supporting his mother, was made to take the role of his dead father.
Miss Ashtiani’s lawyer, who now lives in Norway after fleeing Iran in July, says that the broadcast by the state-run Press TV was an attempt to smear her reputation further.
‘Just before they want to execute someone they put them on state TV to talk about their crime and condemn themselves,’ he said.
Mr Mostafaei went on to describe Miss Ashtiani’s account of how she had ended up on death row in Tabriz prison.
Brought up in the town of Osku, she said her father had forced her to marry the much older Ghaderzade who was ‘very brutal’ from the start.
She had two children but he continued to abuse her physically and verbally, refusing to give her a divorce.
Eventually he became an opium addict and demanded that she support his habit by prostituting herself.
Mr Mostafaei claimed she was raped in her own home with her husband’s permission.
‘When she told me about that she was sobbing,’ he said.
Miss Ashtiani turned to a man called Isa Taheri, a relative of her husband, for comfort as Iran’s strict laws offered her little legal recourse.
He eventually encouraged her to kill Ghaderzade, she claimed, and on September 14, 2005, the pair carried out the plan.
The victim was first rendered unconscious with an injection and then electrocuted.
Miss Ashtiani initially reported the death as suicide but she was later arrested, along with Taheri.
Mr Mostafaei said that his client was heavily under the influence of her lover and he had in fact committed the murder.
He has now walked free while she is still under a death sentence — despite her own children calling for clemency.
Miss Ashtiani was jailed for ten years for murder and sentenced to deah for adultery. She was also convicted of having illicit relations for which she received 99 lashes.
A number of celebrities, including Robert Redford, Robert De Niro and Sting have called for her release in an open letter to the Iranian regime.
In the letter published in The Times on Monday, more than 80 actors, artists, musicians, academics and politicians stated that ‘Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani has suffered enough’.
Other signatories include actor Colin Firth, artist Damien Hirst, Nobel literature laureates Wole Soyinka and V.S. Naipaul, British opposition leader Ed Miliband and former French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner.
They called on Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to release her along with her son and another lawyer, who are also imprisoned.
Iran also says she has confessed to complicity in her husband’s murder, while the man who was convicted for the murder is now free.
Hopes earlier rose that she was about to be released. This came about after the release of photographs by Iranian state-run Press TV showing her in the garden of her home with her son during the documentary.
Thousands of joyful messages appeared on the Twitter website after the International Committee Against Stoning, based in Germany, said ‘sources in Iran’ had word of her freedom.
However Press TV later confirmed the images were from the documentary in which she was filmed ‘confessing’ to killing her husband.
Supporters of Ms Ashtiani insist her appearance was coerced, like previous televised ‘confessions’.
Adultery is the only crime which carries that penalty under Iran’s Islamic sharia law.
Her sentence was suspended earlier this year but she still faces possible execution by hanging for complicity in the murder of her husband.
The European Union has called the sentence ‘barbaric’, the Vatican pleaded for clemency and Brazil, which has tried to intervene in Iran’s stand-off with the West over its nuclear programme, offered Ms Ashtiani asylum.
The case has put pressure on Iran at a time when the country’s leadership is trying to shift the focus after crushing dissent over the disputed 2009 election which was won by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In an interview with U.S. TV in September President Ahmadinejad denied Ashtiani was ever sentenced to stoning, contradicting other Iranian officials.
Iranian media do not refer to her stoning sentence for adultery, focusing instead on the murder charge.
While Iranian officials say Ms Ashtiani’s case is purely a matter for the judiciary, it has become an international political cause and the head of Iran’s Council of Human Rights said last month there was ‘a good chance that her life could be saved’.
Stoning was widely imposed in the years following the 1979 Islamic revolution, and even though Iran’s judiciary still regularly hands down such sentences, they are often converted to other punishments.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Kuwait: Al Jazeera Closed Over Internal Affairs Meddling
(ANSAmed) — DUBAI, DECEMBER 14 — The authorities in Kuwait have closed the correspondence office of Qatari satellite broadcaster Al Jazeera due to its meddling in the country’s internal affairs. The news was reported by Qatari daily paper The Peninsula.
The communique’ from the Information Ministry sent to Al Jazeera, explains that the television broadcaster “had interfered in the internal affairs of Kuwait” and that “it had refused to adhere to the indications supplied by the Ministry.” The pan-Arab broadcaster was warned that it could be closed down if it broadcast an interview with opposition PM Musallam al Barrak, who on December 8 was involved in scuffles with the police who had attacked an unauthorised demonstration. Despite the warning, Al Jazeera broadcast the interview which led to the closure of the office (the third in the last 11 years) and the withdrawal of accreditation for its journalists.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Qatar Has High Hopes for 2022 World Cup
As of Dec. 2, it is now clear that in 12 years’ time, the soccer World Cup will take place in the desert nation of Qatar, a country that has never participated in a World Cup. The German tabloid Bild called it a “Qatarstrophe” while the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet described FIFA’s decision as “the biggest football joke of all time.” It was a scandal for everyone who sees football as a game for Europe and its former colonies.
Doha’s luxury hotels have been serving alcohol for a long time. The government is considering expanding the area where alcohol consumption is permitted for the duration of the World Cup. For four weeks, the holy Koran will be suspended in specially marked “fan zones,” where beer and bratwurst will be served. This is what FIFA expects from Qatar.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Right Turn — is Obama Serious About Human Rights?
Tim Rutten, writing in the Los Angeles Times, has a critically important column on a much under-reported subject:
When America intervened to overthrow Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s Christians — mostly Chaldeans and Assyrians — numbered about 1.4 million, or about 3% of the population. Over the last seven years, more than half have fled the country and, as the New York Times reported this week, a wave of targeted killings — including the Oct. 31 slaying of 51 worshipers and two priests during Mass at one of Baghdad’s largest churches — has sent many more Christians fleeing. Despite Prime Minister Nouri Maliki promises to increase security, many believe the Christians are being targeted not only by Al Qaeda in Iraq, which has instructed its fighters “to kill Christians wherever they can reach them,” but also by complicit elements within the government’s security services. . . .
Putting aside America’s particular culpability in Iraq, the West as a community of nations has long turned a blind eye to the intolerance of the Middle East’s Muslim states — an intolerance that has intensified with the spread of Salafism, Islam’s brand of militant fundamentalism. Our ally Saudi Arabia is the great financial and ideological backer of this hatred. In fact, when it comes to religion, the kingdom and North Korea are the most criminally intolerant countries in the world.
In case you think Rutten is focusing on the exception rather than the rule, think again. I discussed the plight of Christians in Muslim countries with Lela Gilbert, an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute based in Jerusalem.
Is this part of a general trend? Yes, Christians in the Middle East are quietly leaving their ancient homelands in numbers that are impossible to determine. They leave in secret and often do not speak of their plight even after they’ve reached a safe haven for fear of putting their relatives, friends and believing communities at risk. They often leave with the shirts on their back, abandoning their property and livelihoods. As Tim Rutten correctly says (in his excellent L.A. Times report), this flight is all too similar to that of the nearly 900,000 Jews who were driven out of those same Muslim lands in the mid-20th century. And ironically, those Jewish refugees — many of whom settled in Israel and are now labeled “Zionist occupiers” — are blamed for the persecution of Christians in the Middle East rather than the real perpetrators — radical Muslims.
Are we just talking about isolated pockets within the Middle East? Sadly, the Middle East isn’t the only place where this is happening…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Ship Evades Pirate Attack in Gulf of Oman
Roma, 14 Dec. (AKI) — Crew members aboard an Italian vessel travelling in the gulf of Oman narrowly escaped an attack by pirates that opened fire at the ship.
Giuseppe Mauro Rizzo, engineer and administrator for the Bottiglieri-Rizzo De Carlini navigation company which owns the boat, told Adnkronos International, “The crew is doing well, the boat continues to sale and is in great condition,” he said.
Sailors aboard the ship called ‘Michele Bottiglieri,’ acted quickly by signalling an alarm to port authorities. They were also able to outmanoeuvre the pirates with evasive zig-zag movements, which created distance between the vessel and its assailants.
“The attack failed because of two fundamental things,” explained Rizzo.
“The professionality of the crew, which put all security measures in place immediately, and the evasive manoevers,” he said.
The ship was carrying a 23-person crew including 3 Italians none of which were injured. It began its journey from Australia and should reach its Gedda, Saudi Arabia destination later this month.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Stakelback on Terror Exclusive: Inside Iran’s Revolutionary Guards
The new epsiode of my show, Stakelbeck on Terror, may be our most important one yet. Watch it at the above link.
We devote the entire show to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, the guardians of one of the world’s most secretive and radical regimes. Over the past 30 years, their structure has been nearly impossible for Western intelligence agencies to penetrate.
But the Stakelbeck on Terror show sat down recently with one man who did exactly that—working undercover for the CIA inside Iran’s powerful and influential Revolutionary Guards.
In our exclusive interview, Reza Khalili shares inside information from his years working for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, including:
In perhaps our most fascinating exchange, Reza describes how Iran uses mosques in the U.S.. and Europe to plot and finance terrorism. This particular segment runs from 24:57 mark of the show to the 27:41 mark .
Also:
- How Iran “will use nuclear weapons against Israel and the capitals of Europe,” and share them with Hezbollah and other terror groups.
- Iran’s activities in Lebanon and Syria and its relationship with Hezbollah.
- The Guards’ “father/son” relationship with Iran’s mullahs and the “culture of martyrdom” that permeates the Guards.
- The End Times, Messianic ideology of Ahmadenjihad and the mullahs and how the West completely misunderstands it.
| — Hat tip: Erick Stakelbeck | [Return to headlines] |
More Than 1,000 Arrested in Russia Amid Ethnic Tensions (2)
Police detained more than 1,000 youths in Moscow and other cities on Wednesday in a national security sweep aimed at staving off ethnic riots from erupting following the deadly shooting of a football fan by a Muslim suspect.
Dozens of youths as young as 13 were led away from Moscow’s Kievsky train station — the site at which the main clash was reportedly being scheduled through the internet.
The black-jacketed youths chanted “Russia for Russians!” and raised their right arms in Nazi salutes as the arrests continued throughout the expansive central Moscow square deep into the night.
Police said the citywide operation involved 3,000 officers and resulted in the official booking of more than 800 people and seizure of everything from stun guns to knives and other small arms.
The police also sealed off portions of Red Square and checked the documents of tens of thousands of people as they rushed through major commute points with holiday shopping bags and children in tow.
“Do I look like a thug to you,” one elderly man who left his papers at home shouted at the television cameras as he was led away handcuffed by the police.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin huddled with his most senior security officers in a bid to organise a response to the sudden security crisis as small fights flared across the city centre despite the overwhelming presence of the police.
“The police will continue to crack down against any attempts at provocation and violence,” the mayor told state television after the meeting.
Similar incidents were also reported in Russia’s second city of Saint Petersburg as organised members of the far right descended on a major square in the heart of the city amid modern shops and busy metro stations.
The police there made more than 60 arrests while Interfax reported another 100 detentions in the Volga region city of Samara.
Rumours of Wednesday’s clashes spread across the Russian internet following a weekend riot outside the Kremlin involving some 5,000 football fans and elements of the far right.
| — Hat tip: 4symbols | [Return to headlines] |
More Than 1,000 Arrested in Russia Amid Ethnic Tensions (1)
Police detained more than 1,000 youths in Moscow and other cities Wednesday in a national security sweep aimed at staving off ethnic riots from erupting following the deadly shooting of a football fan by a Muslim suspect. AFP reporters at central Moscow’s Kievsky train station — the site at which the main clash was reportedly being scheduled through the Internet — saw dozens of youths and girls as young as 13 being led away in handcuffs by helmeted riot police. The black-jacketed youths chanted “Russia for Russians!” and raised their right arms in Nazi salutes as the arrests continued throughout the expansive central Moscow square deep into the night. Police said the city-wide operation involved 3,000 officers and resulted in the official booking of more than 800 people and seizure of everything from stun guns to knives and other small arms. The police also sealed off portions of Red Square and checked the documents of tens of thousands of people as they rushed through major commute points with holiday shopping bags and children in tow. “Do I look like a thug to you,” one elderly man who left his papers at home shouted at the television cameras as he was led away handcuffed by the police…
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Muslim Religious Leader Killed in North Caucasus
An Islamic religious leader was shot dead by unknown gunmen on Wednesday in Russia’s North Caucasus republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, a police source said. “Anas Pshikhachev, the head of the Muslim Spiritual Department of Kabardino-Balkaria, was shot dead in Nalchik at 7.30 p.m. Moscow time [4.30 p.m. GMT],” the source said. He added that Pshikhachev, 43, was shot no less than four times and died at the scene of the attack.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: Java: Christians Victims of Islamic Extremism Appeal to President Susilo for Protection
Christians issue the appeal after 200 Islamic extremists forcibly close two Protestant house churches in Rancaekek Wetan (West Java). Police is criticised for helping extremists expel Christian worshippers.
Jakarta (AsiaNews) — Indonesian Christians have appealed to President Dr Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono for protection against the endless religious intolerance to which they are subjected. On Sunday, some 200 Islamic extremists forced about 100 Christians from the Batak Christian Protestant Church in Rancaekek Wetan village (West Java) to leave two houses used for worship. The extremists also attacked five private homes and wrote a letter to the authorities demanding they confiscate the house churches.
Undaunted, Rev Hutagalung, who runs the Batak Church, said, “We’ll continue to worship there whatever the consequences”. At the same time though, “We want President Yudhoyono to give us a guarantee that we’ll be able to practise our faith freely without any intimidation from such groups.”
To avoid clashes, local police let the expulsion of Christians from house churches go ahead. The local police chief, Hendro Pandowo, said that the situation was now under control.
“If we didn’t tell the Christians to leave, there would have been worse consequences,” he explained. “We are trying to avoid destruction and attacks.”
“The Christians did not have a permit to pray together in those houses,” he noted, “and we cannot arrest Muslims authorised to protest.” In his view, police can do nothing if churches are not registered.
The Wahid Institute, an Islamic interfaith watchdog body, slammed the attitude of the police. In a press release, it condemned the attacks against the Protestant community, accusing the police of fuelling anti-Christian intolerance by its inaction.
Anti-Christian intolerance is in fact growing in Indonesia. Although the constitution recognises six official religions, including Protestant Christianity, some of the country’s laws discriminate against non-Muslims by making it hard to build non-Muslim places of worship. Christians for instance are forced to meet in private houses.
The incident in Rancaekek Wetan is but the latest in a series of clashes that have pitted Protestants against Muslims in places like Bandung (West Java) and Bekasi, near Jakarta, where at least seven churches and many Protestant clergymen have been attacked since 2009.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia Jails American Man for Blasphemy
An Indonesian court on Wednesday sentenced a US retiree to five months in jail for blasphemy for pulling the plug on a mosque’s loudspeaker during a prayer reading. The August 22 incident during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan resulted in retired Californian engineer Gregory Luke, 64, needing a police escort from his home on Lombok island as a mob tore it to pieces around him. “He was found guilty of committing blasphemy, carrying out an act of violence and hampering people in Kute village from doing their religious activities,” chief judge Suhartoyo told a court in Praya, Lombok. Luke had previously denied pulling the plug, but in a brief comment Wednesday said he was “satisfied” with the judges’ ruling. The verdict was two months lighter than the jail term sought by prosecutors a day earlier. The Indonesian criminal code stipulates that an act of blasphemy carries a maximum five-year jail term. Setting out mitigating circumstances, the judge said: “The defendant has never committed a crime before, acted politely during the trial and expressed regret for his act. He also participated in promoting tourism here.” Luke, who runs a guesthouse for tourists on the islands, will get his freedom back in mid-February 2011. Wearing a sarong, polo shirt and black Muslim hat, he said outside the courtroom that he accepted the ruling. “I’m quite satisfied with the judges’ decision,” he said with a smile. Luke has previously denied pulling the plug on the loudspeakers used to broadcast the call to prayer — a feature on most mosques in Indonesia. In comments to local media, he has said he went to the mosque to ask for the volume to be turned down and was set upon by a group of local youths, who pushed him to the ground and pelted him with rocks. A mob then chased him to his home and ransacked it as police looked on, apparently unable to intervene, he said. No one has been charged with any offence related to the mob attack on his house.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Baluchistan: Islamists Slaughtering Teachers
In spite of its mineral riches, Baluchistan is Pakistan’s poorest province. Islamic extremists and local nationalists are opposed to Punjabis in their midst. They increasingly attack teachers who dare teach mixed schools. The rise in Islamic schools is directly correlated with the rise in murders, at least 22 in less than 30 months.
Islamabad (AsiaNews) — Islamic extremists are systematically targeting teachers in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province. Their crime is to teach children of both sexes in violation of Sharia.
According to a report by Human Rights Watch (MRW) on the issue, at least 22 teachers were killed in the province between January 2008 and October 2010.
Despite its vast mineral resources, Baluchistan remains Pakistan’s most impoverished province. It is also the stage of an insurgency by local nationalists seeking independence as well as the home of religious extremists. Both groups are involved in the attacks on teachers, Human Rights Watch said.
“If such killings and intimidation does not stop, the future is bleak, not just for Baluchistan’s children, but for prosperity and progress to ever reach the province,” said Ali Dayan Hasan, senior Human Rights Watch researcher in South Asia.
Titled Their Future is at Stake, the HRW report was published on Monday and is based on testimonies and eyewitness accounts of relatives and colleagues of the victims.
Most of those targeted are from the Punjab province. Local nationalists have singled them out as retaliation for alleged excesses by the Pakistan army, which is dominated by Punjabis.
However, Islamic radicals are by far the worst offenders when it comes to murdering teachers because, contrary to Islamic law, many schools in Baluchistan are mixed, with boys and girls in the same classroom. The rise across the country in the number of madrassah, fundamentalist Islamic religious schools, is in fact directly related to the violence against civilians.
Like in post-Soviet Afghanistan, Muslim clerics funded by Saudi Arabia teach religious hatred and push young people to take justice in their own hands against a government that is increasingly unable to maintain even a semblance of secular neutrality.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: British Terror Pair Killed by Drone
TWO white British al-Qaeda terrorists — one said to have been called Steve — have been killed in a drone attack in Pakistan. The Foreign Office is investigating reports that the two men died in a Hellfire missile strike by a remote-controlled US aircraft near the town of Datta Khel six days ago.
The militants, aged 48 and 25 and using the pseudonyms Abu Bakr and Mansoor Ahmed, were said to be in a vehicle in the mountainous region with two other al-Qaeda fighters at the time.
A Foreign Office spokeswoman last night said: “We are aware of media reports of the death of two British nationals in Pakistan.
“Our High Commission in Pakistan is seeking further information on these reports.”
If the reports are confirmed, they would be the first white British converts to have been killed in the area.
It’s believed they entered the country last year and travelled to North Waziristan in the lawless tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, to join al-Qaeda.
In September another British militant called Abdul Jabber, who was of Asian descent, died in a drone attack in the same area.
There have been at least 25 such strikes in Pakistan since September, killing around 50 people. The tactic has been stepped up as the United States attempts to tackle fighters who gather openly in Pakistani villages and compounds.
However, the strategy is not officially acknowledged by the CIA and last night Western intelligence sources were unable to confirm the reports.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Calestous Juma: Why I’m Optimistic About Africa
Africa can feed its people within a generation, says the international development expert
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
DHS Confirms Cheaper to Deport Every Illegal Alien Than Allowing Them to Stay
On December 3, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs, Nelson Peacock, responding to request from several U.S. Senators, including Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), wrote: “Our conservative estimate suggests that ICE would require a budget of more than $135 billion to apprehend, detain and remove the nation’s entire illegal immigrant population.”
In July 2010, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) released the results of a study which examined the costs of illegal immigration at the federal, state and local levels. The study found that U.S. state and local governments shell out $84.2 billion annually in various services (law enforcement, schools, social services, etc.), with California taxpayers alone, spending $21 billion on illegal aliens every year.
The same study found that $29 billion is spent every year in federal funds on illegal aliens.
So, while it would cost a one-time fee of about $135 billion to deport every single illegal alien in the country, it is actually a bargain considering the fact that it already costs us $113 billion annually to keep them here.
In other words, the mass deportation would pay for itself in a little over a year.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
France: Minister, We Will Increase Expulsions
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, DECEMBER 14 — The French Interior Minister, Brice Hortefeux, has launched an appeal to the country’s prefects to stand firm and “increase” the expulsions of illegal immigrants by the end of the year, showing themselves to be “more offensive” in the fight against delinquency. Pointing out that on the target of 28,000 expulsions in 2010, 25,511 illegal immigrants were accompanied to the border in the first 11 months of the year, yesterday evening Hortefeux urged representatives of the State on the ground to “make the most of the last few weeks to intensify efforts.” “I will personally ensure that results are produced,” added the Minister, “and I will invite anyone who has more difficulty to a meeting with me.”(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Non-Western Immigration Reduction Claims Don’t Add Up
The new government’s strategy to cut the influx of immigrants with a non-western background will result in a reduction of maximum 15%, not 50% as Geert Wilders claims, the Volkskrant reports on Wednesday.
The paper says civil service documents drawn up during the formation talks show the effect of the new immigration controls will be much less than the PVV leader claims.
Wilders, leader of the anti-Islam PVV, agreed to support the minority government in terms of economic policy in return for immigration cuts. He made the 50% claim at the presentation of the new government and said later that it would cause problems for the PVV and cabinet if the target is not met.
The Volkskrant says civil servants analysed nine different scenarios in the draft coalition agreement.
‘The expectation is that they could mean a reduction of newcomers of between 5% and 10%,’ the paper quotes the documents as saying.
MPs have called on prime minister Mark Rutte to explain the discrepancy. ‘Voters have been told muscle-flexing stories which don’t add up,’ said GroenLinks MP Tofik Bibi.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Video: Prof: Hispanics Should Replace ‘Old White Men’
Supporter of DREAM amnesty plays race card against opponents
A UCLA professor has given public speeches in support of the DREAM Act in which he has made inflammatory statements, including the suggestion that Hispanics should replace “old white men” in positions of power and that Republican leaders in the Senate who oppose the immigration bill are racists.
On the UCLA website, Kent Wong is listed as the director of the Center for Labor Research and Education at UCLA, where he teaches Labor Studies and Asian-American Studies.
On Dec. 13, Wong gave a speech at a pro-illegal immigration rally at McArthur Park in Los Angeles in which he endorsed the DREAM Act in racist terms, according to a video first surfaced by Eyeblast.tv.
[…]
The website of the Center for Labor Research and Education includes as major funders, with donations of $10,000 or more, George Soros’ Open Society Institute and the Tides Advocacy Fund, as well as the city of Los Angeles and the Ford Foundation.
[…]
A biography of Wong published on the UCLA website indicates that prior to joining UCLA, he served as a staff attorney for the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, in Los Angeles.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Football: Qatar 2022, Gay Rights Groups Attack
(ANSAmed) — ROMA, DECEMBER 14 — The controversy regarding the awarding of the 2022 World Cup Football to Qatar, the first Arab country asked to host such an important event, continues. After the criticism on the country’s strict codes of conduct — including its ban on alcohol consumption — and on its high summer temperatures (possibly causing serious problems to the players), now gay rights groups are protesting against the choice to hold the event in a country where homosexuality is a crime.
The remark made by Fifa chairman Sepp Blatter, who said when asked about the possible discrimination of homosexual football fans who visit the small Gulf emirate that they should “refrain from any sexual activity”, certainly hasn’t help to relax the atmosphere.
On a more serious note, Blatter said that he is “certain that there will be no problems”, adding that “there is a different culture in the Middle East because there is a different religion, but football has no borders. There should be no discrimination against any human being. If they want to go to the matches in Qatar, I am certain that they will be able to do so”.
His conciliatory words failed to have the desired effect on the gay rights activists, who have launched “a boycott of all activities related to the 2022 World Cup Football”. They claim that the event should not be “held in a country that abuses and refuses to acknowledge the fundamental human rights of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) people”.
British former basketball champion John Amaechi, the first NBA player to openly declare his homosexuality in February 2007, used harsh words on the issue: “If the sport does not change our society, not even temporarily during an event like the World Cup Football in which the whole world participates, then it is nothing more than adult men running after a ball and we should treat it like that”.
Regarding Blatter’s statement, Amaechi underlined that it would have been considered unacceptable one decade ago.
“However, as an afterthought, Fifa has backed the marginalisation of LGBT people worldwide”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Many Finnish Schools Gear Up for Multicultural Christmas
Schools across Finland are organizing Christmas celebrations for students. Most schools say they are doing their best to also provide for pupils who are not members of Finland’s dominant Lutheran church.
Christmas carols resounded in Helsinki’s Cathedral as pupils of the Katajanokka primary school practiced their church performance on Tuesday. However, a third of the students stayed back at the school. Many of them belong to other faiths. In the effort to include as many students as possible in the school-wide celebration scheduled for next week, the school chose to lessen the religious focus of the holiday.
Many other schools face similar decisions. Each school selects its own Christmas programme for itself. There are no official guidelines as to how many Christmas carols would be too many.
Education counsellor Pekka Iivonen from the National Board of Education says that most people are coming to understand that Christmas celebrations should allow for diversity among the student population.
Many kindergartens are solving the dilemma by excluding nativity plays and Christmas carols from their celebrations, while the visit to church is organized separately.
“We have preserved some of those traditions, and none of the parents had any complaints,” says Tuula Saasatamoinen, teacher at the Käpylinna kindergarten.
Some parents wish that more religious content would be included in school and kindergarten celebrations, but on the whole most children and parents enjoy the Christmas spirit, with or without the traditional trimmings.
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
School District Decides Christmas Tree Must Include Muslim & Jewish Symbols
More liberal insanity… The Ashland School district decided that Christmas trees must also allow Muslim and Jewish symbols. The Daily Tidings reported, via FOX Nation:
Ashland public schools can display a decorated pine tree if it is surrounded by symbols from other religious holidays, but they should not display a Christmas tree alone, in order to remain religiously neutral, Superintendent Juli Di Chiro told the School Board Monday.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Tax Free Foundations Conspiring to Soviet-ize Amerika?
Have you wondered what those “catch phrase” words “CHANGE” and “fundamentally transform” we heard so much about from Obama and the Liberal Democrats really mean and front for in their sinister worldview perspective? Consider this:
In 1953 and 1954, the United States House of Representatives conducted an investigation of Tax Exempt Foundations to see why these Foundations should enjoy an exemption from paying taxes that are exacted from American citizens.
The Chairman of this House committee was Congressman Carrol Reese of Tennessee, after whose name this Congressional investigating committee is known (Reese Committee Investigations). Congressman Reese’s chief investigator was a man named Norman Dodd (a former banker) who held the title “Director of Research”.
In 1978 the Illinois Legislature established a commission to study “regionalism” (the American version of “soviet”- ism) in that State. The following is taken, for the most part, from a transcript of a public hearing conducted by The Illinois Joint Committee on Regional Government on September 26, 1978 at Edwardsville, Illinois. There Mr. Norman Dodd was interviewed and questioned about his experiences and findings as an investigator with the Reese Committee.
In 1953 Mr. Dodd was extended an invitation to meet with the then President of the Ford Foundation, a Mr. Rowan Gaither, who proceeded to tell him that these Tax-Exempt Foundations operate under orders emanating from the White House, the essence of which is that these Foundations are to use their grant making powers to contribute to altering(“CHANGING”) life in the United States so that it could some day be comfortably merged with the Soviet Union. GOT THAT?
Ford Foundation, Regional Governments
Mr. Dodd was of course shocked and dismayed at hearing this. The Ford Foundation was the largest aggregate of privately directed wealth in the United States. Its grants were responsible for the development of what is known as “regional government” which is surreptitiously replacing lawful constitutional government in the United States.
[…]
The conclusion arrived at here was that they [Ford Foundation] must control the education system in the United States. This task was thought too big for them to handle alone so they approached the Rockefeller Foundation for assistance.
They decided that the best way to succeed in this operation was to alter the teaching of American History. They approached four of the most prominent history teachers in the country with the suggestion that they alter the manner in which they present their subject and got turned down flat. They discuss in the minutes, the necessity of having to “build our own stable of historians”.
They then approached the Guggenheim Foundation, which specializes in fellowships, with the proposal of finding influenceable young men in the process of studying for Doctorates in the field of American History who could be induced into prostituting their academic integrity by distorting the teaching of history and grant them fellowships on their (Carnegie Foundation’s) recommendation, to which they agreed.
Eventually they recruited some twenty individuals and took them to London where they were briefed on what was to be expected of them, as a condition of keeping the Doctorates they would be assisted in acquiring.
This group of twenty historians ultimately became the nucleus of the American Historical Association. It received a grant of $400,000 from the Carnegie Endowment in the late 1920’s which provided funding for revisionist research that produced a 7 volume study of our history, presented in a manner consistent with the way the Endowment wished it to be taught here in the future.
[…]
In a later subsequent interview, Mr. Dodd was asked why these Foundations (of capitalist interests) so generously support communist causes in the United States. His answer was: to them, communism represents a means of developing an organized monopoly of large scale industries into a manageable, administrable unit. Communism has been best described as the consolidation and control of the world’s resource wealth into the hands of a select elite few. This is what the “redistribution of wealth” scam is really all about—a forced transfer from the money “makers” to the money “getters”.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: No Charges in 20 Assisted-Suicide Cases as Public Prosecution is Accused of Re-Writing Law
The Director of Public Prosecutions has declined to bring charges against at least 20 people suspected of helping others to commit suicide, it was revealed yesterday.
Keir Starmer QC said the cases were ‘difficult’ and involved families where loved ones were accused of assisting in suicide.
The disclosure provoked fury from anti-euthanasia groups. They accused Mr Starmer, who is in charge of all criminal prosecution decisions, of single-handedly rewriting the law on suicide.
Earlier this year the DPP published controversial guidelines on when prosecutions for assisted suicide are likely to be brought.
The new rules suggest that prosecutors no longer regard it as a crime to help someone to die out of compassion.
Under the 1961 Suicide Act, assisting with a suicide remains a crime which can attract a jail sentence of 14 years.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Al Qaeda Plans Christmas Suicide Attacks Across Europe and the U.S. Warns Insurgents
Terrorists are plotting deadly Christmas attacks in what could make for holiday travel chaos.
Iraqi authorities have obtained confessions from captured insurgents who claim Al Qaeda is planning suicide attacks in the United States and Europe during the holiday season.
Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani said that the botched bombing in central Stockholm last weekend was among the alleged plots the insurgents revealed.
The new terror warnings are based on information gathered from recent detainees. Earlier this month security forces arrested 39 al Qaeda militants, including the group’s leadership in Anbar province, some of whom are seen here
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, in a telephone interview from New York, called the claims ‘a critical threat.’
Both al-Bolani and Zebari said Iraq has informed Interpol of the alleged plots, and alerted authorities in the U.S. and European countries of the possible danger.
Neither official specified which country or countries in Europe are alleged targets.
Western counter-terrorism officials are on high alert during the holiday season.
Last year saw the failed attack by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called underwear bomber, who tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day by lighting explosives in his pants.
Likewise, shoe bomber Richard Reid tried to blow up a Paris to Miami plane on December 22, 2001.
Al-Bolani said several insurgents claimed to be part of a cell that took its orders directly from Al Qaeda’s central leadership. He said at least one of the captured suspects was a foreign fighter from Tunisia.
The confessions were the result of recent operations by Iraqi security forces that have netted at least 73 suspected operatives in the last two weeks, al-Bolani said.
Links between Al Qaeda’s central leadership, which is believed to be hiding in Pakistan, and the terror organization’s front group in Iraq are tenuous as the local branch in recent years has been run by local insurgents.
But al-Bolani said the claims — if true — show Al Qaeda remains a presence in Iraq.
‘Several members of this terrorist group have direct links with the central leaders of the Al Qaeda organization,’ al-Bolani said.
‘Those captured represent the main structure of the Al Qaeda organization in Iraq.’
Zebari, who is in New York for a meeting of the U.S. Security Council, said he informed ‘the countries concerned.’ He mentioned the U.S, but would not specify which countries in Europe.
Al-Bolani said the suspects claimed that last Saturday’s suicide bombing in Stockholm — carried out by an Iraqi-born Swede on Saturday — was among the plots. He said the suspects made the claim after the bombing happened.
| — Hat tip: DF | [Return to headlines] |
Mating Mystery: Hybrid Animals Hint at Desperation in Arctic
An odd-looking white bear with patches of brown fur was shot by hunters in 2006 and found to be a cross between a polar bear and a grizzly bear. Apparently, grizzlies were moving north into polar bear territory. Since then, several hybrid animals have appeared in and around the Arctic, including narwhal-beluga whales and mixed porpoises. The culprit may be melting Arctic sea ice, which is causing barriers that once separated marine mammals to disappear, while the warming planet is making habitats once too cold for some animals just right. The resulting hybrid creatures are threatening the survival of rare polar animals, according to a comment published today (Dec. 15) in the journal Nature.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Neanderthals Made Human Bone Tools
The earliest known tool made from human bone has been discovered — and it was apparently crafted by Neanderthals, scientists find. The scientists note that as of yet, they have no way to prove or disprove whether the Neanderthals who made the tool did so intentionally — for instance, for rituals or after cannibalization. Now scientists have identified a human skull fragment dating back at least 50,000 years that bears signs it was used as a sharpener. It was found in a Neanderthal deposit — the first time our relatives were discovered making tools from human bone.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |