Financial Crisis
»	Athens Closes in on Wealthy Tax Evaders
»	Catalonia Seeks Eur 5bn Rescue From Spanish Gov’t
»	ECB Laments Lacking Eurozone Lending to Private Sector
»	Euro Crisis Weighs on Merkel’s China Trip
»	Greek Trader Explains Why the Country is Heading for Rebellion or Civic Mutiny
»	Obama’s Real Legacy — $10 Trillion in New Federal Debt Over Just Four Years
»	Portuguese Budget Slips as International Auditors Arrive
»	Unilever Sees ‘Return to Poverty’ In Europe: Newspaper
	USA
»	Big Sis Begins Releasing Biological Agents Into Boston Subway
»	Black Hawk Helicopters Over Minneapolis Worry Residents
»	MSU Student Knocked Unconscious, Mouth Stapled Shut in Alleged Hate Crime
»	Republicans Nominate Romney, Bash Obama at Convention
	Europe and the EU
»	Austria Completes Investigation Into Prince Friso’s Skiing Accident
»	Denmark: Vollsmose Arrests Continue to Pile Up
»	Denmark: Officers Draw Pistols in Nørrebro
»	Finland: World’s Oldest Champagne: To Drink or Not Drink?
»	France: Chinese Vineyard Buyer ‘Passionate’ About Wine
»	France Opens Arafat Assassination Enquiry
»	Germany: Berlin to Mark 100 Years Since Nefertiti Find
»	Germany’s Secret Contacts to Palestinian Terrorists
»	Germany: WWII Bomb Discovered in Munich City Center
»	Germany: WWII Bomb Forces Central Munich Evacuation
»	Norway: Stoltenberg Sets Out New Anti-Terror Plans
»	Switzerland Buys 22 Swedish Fighter Jets
»	UK: 850 Complain to PCC Over the Sun’s Prince Harry Naked Photos
»	UK: Benefits Cheat Who Funded Sweden Suicide Bomb Attack is Jailed for Seven Years
»	UK: Thugs Doused Family’s Border Collie in Lighter Fluid and Set it Alight
	Balkans
»	Austrian, German Soldiers on Their Way to Kosovo
	Israel and the Palestinians
»	Israeli Court: Bulldozed US Woman Not Killed Unlawfully
	Middle East
»	Syria: Unprecedented Egypt-Iran Convergence to End Crisis
»	Turkey: Private Security Officers Now Their Own “Army”
	Russia
»	Russia Must Counter Nationalist Threat, Putin Says
	South Asia
»	Indonesia: Religious Violence Kills 2 Shias
	Far East
»	China Cracks Down on Ai Wei Wei Protege Zhao Zhao
	Australia — Pacific
»	Australia to Link With EU Carbon Scheme From 2015
»	Australians Urged to Stand Up to Racism
	Sub-Saharan Africa
»	Kenyan Rioters and Police Clash for Second Day
	Immigration
»	Anti-Immigrant View Being ‘Legitimised’ In Greece
»	DHS Official Says There Should be 100 Ports of Entry Between the U.S. And Mexico
»	In Singapore, Vitriol Against Chinese Newcomers
»	Madrid’s ‘Slum of Shame’ Faces Uncertain Future
»	Sweden: Fake Work Permits a Growing Problem: Police
»	Visa-Free Travel Between Russia and the EU Would Cause Crime to Go Up
	Culture Wars
»	Deliberate Destruction of Education in Tennessee
»	Foreign Policy Editor Throwing a Fit Over Growing Resistance to Agenda 21
»	Swedish Lesbians See Red Over Sperm Fee
»	The American Planning Association and Its “Faulty” Handbook
	General
»	Cyborg Tissue is Half Living Cells, Half Electronics
»	Sperm Quality & Quantity Declining, Mounting Evidence Suggests

Athens Closes in on Wealthy Tax Evaders

For years, Greece has been pledging to redouble its efforts against tax evasion. Only now, however, is Athens finally set to sign a tax deal with Switzerland in the hopes of generating billions in revenue. Critics, though, say the agreement won’t make much of a difference.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Catalonia Seeks Eur 5bn Rescue From Spanish Gov’t

Spain’s debt-struck Catalonia region announced Tuesday it is requesting a 5.0-billion-euro ($6.3-billion) rescue from the central government. The northeastern region’s government, facing huge repayments due on its 40-billion-euro debt this year, said it would tap an 18-billion-euro liquidity fund set up by Madrid to finance troubled regions.

“The government has decided to request participation in the liquidity fund,” Catalan government spokesman Francesc Homs told a news conference.

But the powerful region, responsible for one-quarter of Spanish economic output and which jealously guards its autonomy, would do so “without accepting political conditions,” he said.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said Madrid would extend a helping hand to Catalonia.

“We will help Catalonia as we help the rest of the regions,” Rajoy told a news conference. “The regions are also Spain so the Spanish government will not wash its hands of the regions.”

The debt burden of Spain’s 17 regional governments is a focus of market fears that the nation could be forced to seek a sovereign bailout, on top of a 100-billion-euro rescue loan for its banking sector.

Valencia and Murcia have already caved in, saying they, too, will need central government help to finance their operations through the rest of this year.

Catalonia’s announcement coincided with a visit by European Union president Herman Van Rompuy for the first of a series of meetings held by Rajoy to grapple with the crisis.

The EU chief said his focus was on the entire Spanish economy, not specific regions. “From a European point of view we set targets for the entire country. How to achieve those targets it is up to Spain to organise itself.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

ECB Laments Lacking Eurozone Lending to Private Sector

Bank lending to the private sector in the eurozone is still insufficient despite moderate growth, the European Central Bank has warned in its recent money supply report. And a major improvement is not in sight.

The ECB report bore out that, by and large, the central bank’s cut in interest rates had not fed though to the real economy.

Analysts also expect the ECB to cut its lead interest rate once again, letting it sink to 0.5 percent from an already historically low 0.75 percent at the moment.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Euro Crisis Weighs on Merkel’s China Trip

(BERLIN) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel this week makes her second trip of the year to China, with the eurozone debt crisis taking centre stage as it begins to drag on the two global economic powers.

Merkel was due to take nine ministers with her and a high-powered business delegation for the visit Thursday and Friday to Beijing and Tianjin which includes talks with Premier Wen Jiabao and a joint cabinet meeting.

And with the near three-year-old eurozone debt crisis showing signs of spreading even as far as China, Beijing increasingly sees Germany and Merkel as key players in tackling the problem, say analysts.

“The euro crisis seems to have led to an increased Chinese focus on Germany in particular,” Hans Kundnani from the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think-tank, told AFP.

Chinese officials “see Germany playing an increasingly decisive role in EU decision-making and therefore feel they have little choice but to approach Europe through Germany,” he added.

“We have noticed that there is a tendency for her to speak for Europe. China is increasingly looking to her for answers,” said the expert.

Europeans have expressed hope that China could deploy some of its huge foreign currency reserves to invest in EU bailout funds, although there is little sign of this happening as yet.

Nevertheless, at an EU-China meeting in Beijing in July, Dai Bingguo, the Chinese co-chair of the talks, pledged that “China is sincere and firm in supporting European efforts to deal with the sovereign debt problem.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Greek Trader Explains Why the Country is Heading for Rebellion or Civic Mutiny

A trader in Greece gives Business Insider a grim assessment of the mood in the country right now.

Right now, I am afraid there is very little visibility regarding the political developments in the next few months. You might as well toss a coin.

At some point, however, I believe we shall reach some kind of ‘social tipping point’ regarding the ability of the Greek households and society to absorb more austerity measures, the consequential continuing steep decline in economic activity and ever rising unemployment. The result may well be social rebellion, maybe even civic mutiny and associated political and parliamentary instability. This is the the game plan that the neo-communists of Syriza have been preparing for over the past year or so and the one that they have actually reinforced whenever and wherever that was possible.

Unfortunately, I cannot see a ‘good ending’ scenario, under the present circumstances. Now when this tipping point may be reached, is anybody’s guess. It could very well be, as close as only a few months away. I do not believe that you can find anybody, within or outside Greece, that still sincerely and truly believes that the troika process of ‘internal devaluation’ shall lead to a positive socioeconomic outcome since no effective counter-balancing economic development measures and incentives were ever implemented, or even seriously considered.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Obama’s Real Legacy — $10 Trillion in New Federal Debt Over Just Four Years

(NaturalNews) As Election Day nears, Americans certainly have some sobering choices to make. Whoever wins the White House has a monumental fiscal crisis to deal with — one that makes losses incurred during the Great Recession of 2008 look like pocket change.

Either way you cut it, the country has been, and will remain, on a path of unsustainable debt. Federal spending under George W. Bush added some $4 trillion dollars to the country’s already burgeoning national debt, but under President Obama that debt has skyrocketed to a staggering $16-plus trillion, and, if the current administration’s budget projections remain unchanged, Obama will have added an unprecedented, mind-numbing, calculator-busting $10 trillion in federal government debt that your children — and their children and their children — will likely have to pay off.

It’s stunning, really, to sit back and watch the country being spent into oblivion, but that’s what’s happening.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Portuguese Budget Slips as International Auditors Arrive

International creditor representatives were back in Portugal on Tuesday to check on its progress meeting budget targets that are proving elusive and might lead Lisbon to seek easier terms.

Like many heavily-indebted eurozone countries, Portugal is in an economic recession exacerbated by sharp budget cuts which took effect starting in May 2011 as Lisbon was granted a bailout worth 78 billion euros ($97 billion).

On Thursday, official figures indicated that the government would probably miss its target of cutting the public deficit to 4.5 percent of output this year unless it found ways to tighten the budget further.

Auditors from the so-called creditors troika of the European Central Bank, European Union and International Monetary Fund find themselves faced with the question of demanding more rigour or cutting Lisbon some slack. They could also compromise at the end of a two-week visit by doing a bit of both.

“Barring any new measures, the deficit could reach almost 6.0 percent of GDP,” or gross domestic product, this year, analysts at the French bank BNP Paribas said in a research note.

They forecast that Portugal’s current fiscal targets would probably be amended, but that “given the size of the slippage, new targets could be accompanied by additional savings” measures.

Eurozone countries are supposed to run public deficits of no more than 3.0 percent of GDP, and to work towards a balance or even a surplus in times of economic growth.

Portugal is one of three eurozone countries now receiving international financial aid, along with Greece and Ireland.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Unilever Sees ‘Return to Poverty’ In Europe: Newspaper

Dutch food and cosmetics giant Unilever expects poverty to rise in Europe as a result of the eurozone crisis and is therefore rethinking its marketing, according to a newspaper report Monday.

“Poverty is returning to Europe,” the head of Unilever’s European business, Jan Zijderveld, told the Financial Times Deutschland in an interview.

“If a consumer in Spain only spends 17 euros ($21) when they go shopping, then I’m not going to be able to sell them washing powder for half of their budget,” Zijderveld noted.

Unilever would therefore use marketing strategies that it used in developing countries in Asia, he suggested.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Big Sis Begins Releasing Biological Agents Into Boston Subway

The Department of Homeland Security will begin releasing a dead bacteria into the Boston subway tomorrow in an operation it says will test sensors designed to detect biological agents that could be released as part of a terrorist attack.

Little is known about what exactly the bacteria consists of, and the DHS has not been very forthcoming with information, saying only that it is a “non-infectious” material that has been “approved as a food supplement”.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Black Hawk Helicopters Over Minneapolis Worry Residents

Black Hawk military helicopters are flying low over Minneapolis this week as part of an exercise being overseen by the U.S. Special Operations Command, increasing concerns that Americans are being prepared for a state of martial law.

The video above shows the helicopters being filmed from the 28th floor of the Wells Fargo Building on 90 S. and 7th St.

Despite the fact that the urban exercises have been ongoing since August 19th, authorities only decided to properly inform residents after police and media outlets received calls from worried residents last night.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

MSU Student Knocked Unconscious, Mouth Stapled Shut in Alleged Hate Crime

Michigan State University, MSU EAST LANSING (WWJ) — A Michigan State University student is recovering after he was beaten up and had his mouth stapled shut during what investigators are categorizing as a brutal hate crime.

Zachary Tennen, a 19-year-old sophomore in MSU’s journalism program, said he was at a house party on the 500 block of Spartan Avenue early Sunday morning when two men approached him and asked if he was Jewish. When he responded “Yes,” the two men raised their arms into a Nazi salute and said “Heil Hitler” before knocking him unconscious, according to Tennen’s mother, Tina.

About 20 people reportedly watched as the men proceeded to staple Zachary Tennen’s mouth shut at the lips and gums. His jaw was broken in two places during the attack.

“They knocked me down really hard … and I assumed someone would help me,” Zachary Tennen said in a statement. “But after some guys at the house basically kicked me out, I had to get a cab.”

Tina Tennen told the Detroit Free Press her son took a cab to Sparrow Hospital in East Lansing for initial treatment, but underwent surgery in metro Detroit Monday night to have his jaw wired shut. He is now recovering at his home in Franklin.

“It almost seemed like they tried to kill me, and to think about that in my brain, physically — it isn’t very pleasant,” Zachary Tennen told campus newspaper The State News.

Tina Tennen said they have filed a report with East Lansing Police in hopes of finding her son’s attackers and have contacted the Anti-Defamation League, as well as the FBI…

— Hat tip: Vlad Tepes

[Return to headlines]

Republicans Nominate Romney, Bash Obama at Convention

(Reuters) — Republicans nominated Mitt Romney on Tuesday to challenge President Barack Obama for the White House, kicking off their storm-delayed convention with a barrage of sharp attacks on the president’s economic leadership.

The formal nomination of Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan, sets up an unpredictable two-month dash to the November 6 election. Opinion polls show Romney running even with or slightly behind Obama.

The convention’s opening was pushed back a day by a storm threat, but Republicans wasted no time in condemning Obama’s economic record and accusing him of failing to create enough new jobs or rein in the budget deficit.

“We can do better. We can do a lot better. It starts with throwing out the politician who doesn’t get it, and electing a new president who does,” House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said.

Republicans repeatedly accused Obama of being hostile to small business owners and smothering them with high taxes and excessive regulations. His signature healthcare overhaul, they said, was an example of big government run amok.

“Unlike President Obama, I know that small businesses are the true engine of our economy — not the government — and what businesses need to grow and create jobs is less taxes and regulation, not more,” said U.S. Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington.

But as Republicans tried to show a united front against Obama, it was clear the bitter party divisions evident in the bruising presidential primary battle have not been resolved.

Supporters of libertarian congressman Ron Paul of Texas and other conservative activists briefly disrupted the opening session, booing a decision to unseat Paul delegates from Maine and institute rules changes they believe will weaken their power in the next election cycle.

The rules changes, approved by the convention on a voice vote, will bind delegates to the results of a statewide vote and reduce the role of smaller state-level conventions where Paul had success.

Opponents of the move said Romney’s operatives and the party’s establishment were trying to freeze them out. Some noted that during the state-by-state roll call of delegates to count votes for the nomination, only Romney’s vote totals were announced from the podium…

[Return to headlines]

Austria Completes Investigation Into Prince Friso’s Skiing Accident

The Austrian authorities have completed their investigation into the skiing accident which left Dutch prince Friso in a coma for the past six months, according to media reports.

The report has been sent by local officials to the public prosecution department but nothing further is known about its contents or if anyone will face legal action, news agency ANP said.

Prince Friso was hit by an avalanche while out skiing off-piste with friend and guide Floriaan Moosbrugger on February 17. He was unconscious for some 50 minutes and has been in a coma ever since suffering from severe brain damage. He is being cared for at a hospital in London.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Denmark: Vollsmose Arrests Continue to Pile Up

Police doubtful that everyone involved in the Vollsmose saga will be brought to justice

Another arrest has been made in connection with the attack on the emergency department at Odense University Hospital. This time it was a 19-year-old man who faced the court in connection with the violence.

The trouble started during Eid celebrations in Vollsmose, an Odense suburb, when a 26-year-old man was shot in one leg and stabbed in the other, and another man, a 24-year-old, was hit by a car which fled the scene.

Police said the violence was likely the result of long-simmering conflicts between two rival gangs in the area.

After the shooting victim was brought into the emergency department at the Odense University hospital, a group of between 60-80 people stormed the hospital in an attempt to reach the shooting and hit-and-run victims. The group threatened hospital staff and police and vandalised vehicles. An ambulance and four police cars were destroyed.

A 26-year-old and a 20-year-old man are already in custody, charged with attempted murder for the shooting.

A 35-year-old man is being held for kicking the wounded man while he tried to hide behind a officer’s leg, and an additional 19-year-old man has been arrested for vandalism and making threats at the hospital.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Denmark: Officers Draw Pistols in Nørrebro

Attempt to drive down an officer, guns drawn to keep youths at bay.

A police patrol ran into severe difficulties in Copenhagen today when it tried to stop a Swedish registered vehicle in Lundtoftegade in the Nørrebro Quarter.

The driver of the vehicle refused to stop and according to initial reports attempted to drive into one of the officers.

At the same time, a group of youths armed with stones attempted to push back officers, who used pepper spray and drew their pistols during the incident. No-one was hurt in the incident in which two youths were arrested.

The vehicle that made off was found close by, and one person near the vehicle was arrested. A large number of officers have been sent to the neighbourhood.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Finland: World’s Oldest Champagne: To Drink or Not Drink?

In Finnish Aland, bottles of the world’s oldest drinkable champagne was found. It fetched a record price at auction. But according to a UNESCO convention, the bottles should never have been sold.

The bosses of the fine French sparkling wine house Veuve Clicquot thought Christian Ekström was a prankster when he first called them in 2010.

The professional diver and brewery owner discovered dozens of bottles of exclusive champagne at the bottom of the Baltic Sea in a schooner wreck, most likely sunk in 1840 close to Aland.

Now eight bottles of the select antique cargo are being auctioned in Mariehamn, the capital of the 6,700 autonomous Aland Islands which belong to Finland.

But more significant than the auction is the dispute over the exclusive drinks: Should the bottles of champagne be auctioned at all? Are they not historical artifacts, just like the shipwreck and the plates, jars and nautical instruments found with them?

“Clearly yes! There is no doubt about that,” said Kerstin Odendahl, a professor of international law at the University of Kiel and a specialist on the issue of the international protection of cultural objects.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

France: Chinese Vineyard Buyer ‘Passionate’ About Wine

A Chinese businessman who sparked a bout of anxious introspection in France with his purchase of an historic Burgundy vineyard is a low-profile casino executive with a passion for wine, friends and analysts said.

Louis Ng has shunned the French media spotlight since buying the 12th-century Château de Gevrey Chambertin for €8 million euros ($10 million) earlier this year, an investment that sent shockwaves through the French wine industry.

A top executive for Macau gambling tycoon Stanley Ho, the 60-year-old has pledged via a representative in France to invest significant sums to restore the château and upgrade its wine production.

But the investment, which includes two hectares (five acres) of vineyards in one of Burgundy’s top appellations, triggered an angry backlash from local winemakers and the far-right Front National, which said the property should stay in French hands.

Hong Kong-based wine expert and author Jeannie Cho Lee, who is friends with Ng, said the businessman had a genuine passion for wine and could be trusted to manage the estate.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

France Opens Arafat Assassination Enquiry

French prosecutors have opened a murder enquiry into Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s 2004 death near Paris, sources close to the matter told AFP Tuesday. The probe comes after Arafat’s family launched legal action in France last month over claims the veteran Palestinian leader died of radioactive polonium poisoning.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Germany: Berlin to Mark 100 Years Since Nefertiti Find

Berlin’s Egyptian Museum said on Monday it will celebrate the centenary of the discovery of the 3,400-year-old fabled bust of Egypt’s Queen Nefertiti amid an ongoing feud with Cairo over its ownership.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Germany’s Secret Contacts to Palestinian Terrorists

Eleven Israelis and one German police officer died in the Munich massacre of 1972, when Palestinian terrorists took Israeli athletes hostage at the Olympics. Now, government documents suggest that Germany maintained secret contacts with the organizers of the attack for years afterward and appeased the Palestinians to prevent further bloodshed on German soil.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Germany: WWII Bomb Discovered in Munich City Center

Bomb disposal experts in Munich are struggling to defuse a World War II-era explosive discovered in the city’s trendy Schwabing district. Some 2,500 people have had to leave their homes for safety reasons. The problem of unexploded ordnance remains a serious one in Germany, even 67 years after the war.

Hardly a week goes by in Germany without an unexploded bomb from World War II being found at a construction site or in another location. Very often it happens in the center of densely populated cities — like Munich, where 2,500 people had to be evacuated following the discovery of a 250-kilogram (550 pound) bomb on Monday night.

Monday’s find resulted in a mass evacuation of apartments and office buildings in Munich’s popular Schwabing district, only a short walk from the city’s world-famous tourist attractions.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Germany: WWII Bomb Forces Central Munich Evacuation

Thousands of people were evacuated from their homes in Munich on Monday night after the disposal of a 250-kilo World War II bomb proved more complicated than expected. “It could go off at any time,” said a fire department spokesman.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Norway: Stoltenberg Sets Out New Anti-Terror Plans

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg announced new anti-terror measures Tuesday to improve shortcomings highlighted by Anders Behring Breivik’s twin attacks, and said he would not resign despite criticism.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Switzerland Buys 22 Swedish Fighter Jets

The sale of 22 Gripen fighter jets from Sweden to Switzerland was confirmed on Tuesday for a price of more than 3 billion francs ($3.1 billion). The first delivery will take place in mid-2018, with all 22 planes to be delivered by 2021 at a cost of 3.126 billion francs.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

UK: 850 Complain to PCC Over the Sun’s Prince Harry Naked Photos

More than 850 complaints have been made to the press watchdog about naked photographs of Prince Harry that were published in today’s Sun.

The tabloid became the first British newspaper to carry the pictures, arguing the move was in the public interest and a “crucial” test of the country’s free press.

The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) said all the complaints it has received came from members of the public and none had come from St James’s Palace or any other representatives of the royal.

Nearly all of the complaints are about invasion of privacy and are to be investigated in due course.

The Palace said it had no further comment on the matter after previously saying that it was down to the editors of Britain’s newspapers to decide whether they printed the controversial pictures.

A Palace spokesman added: “We have made our views on Prince Harry’s privacy known. Newspapers regulate themselves, so the publication of the photographs is ultimately a decision for editors to make.”

The Palace said Harry, 27, an Army officer and Apache helicopter pilot, remains on a period of leave and will return to his military duties shortly. He does not have any public engagements within the coming days.

The pictures of him frolicking in the nude with an unnamed woman while on holiday in Las Vegas made headlines around the world but until now no papers in the UK had used them following a request from St James’s Palace, made via the PCC, to respect Harry’s privacy.

But The Sun said it printed them in today’s edition so the millions of people who get their news in print or have no internet access could “take a full part in that national conversation”.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

UK: Benefits Cheat Who Funded Sweden Suicide Bomb Attack is Jailed for Seven Years

An Algerian asylum seeker who financed a suicide bomber using illegally claimed benefits was yesterday jailed for seven years.

Nasserdine Menni was living in Glasgow and sending cash to Taimour Abdulwahab, whose botched attempt to kill Christmas shoppers in Sweden in 2010 led only to his own death.

Police investigating the bomber’s background discovered the connection with Menni, who was arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act at his 19th floor flat in Whiteinch last year.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

UK: Thugs Doused Family’s Border Collie in Lighter Fluid and Set it Alight

[** WARNING ** : Disturbing content.]

These shocking images show a beloved pet that was tortured by being doused in lighter fuel and set on fire.

Cody the Border Collie, only three-years-old, was burnt so badly that its ribs and joints were visible through its charred flesh.

[…]

Police found two bottles of barbecue lighting fluid from a quarry near to the family home in the village of Maghaberry, outside Lisburn City.

Witnesses, including one of Mrs Agnew’s two young sons, described seeing two boys, one wearing a black hoodie, in the area of the family farm prior to the attack.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland are searching for the attackers.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Austrian, German Soldiers on Their Way to Kosovo

NATO security forces in Kosovo view the situation there as unstable even more than a decade after the end of open war there. That’s why 550 German and 150 Austrian troops are on their way to tense northern Kosovo.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Israeli Court: Bulldozed US Woman Not Killed Unlawfully

A court in Haifa has rejected allegations of negligence in a civil lawsuit over a 23-year-old woman killed as she sought to block the path of an armored bulldozer in 2003. Rachel Corrie’s parents filed the suit.

The court in the northern Israeli city of Haifa ruled against all claims of negligence filed by Craig and Cindy Corrie, whose daughter Rachel was run over by an armored bulldozer aged 23.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Syria: Unprecedented Egypt-Iran Convergence to End Crisis

After proposed plan with Riyadh and Ankara, Morsi in Tehran

(ANSAmed) — ROME, AUGUST 27 — Solving the crisis in Syria and boosting their role in the Arab world appears to be the top foreign policy objective for Egypt and Iran. Two countries which have not been on speaking terms for over three decades now appear ready to let old disputes rest, in particular following Cairo’s accord with Israel in 1979 slammed by the Ayatollahs.

Egypt’s Islamist President Mohammed Morsi is expected in Tehran to take part in a summit of the Non Aligned Movement at the end of August in the first visit by an Egyptian head of state to the Islamic Republic in 30 years. Diplomatic relations between the two countries were interrupted in 1980. A spokesman for Morsi, Yasser Ali, however has said that the complete restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries is not on the horizon, according to The New York Times.

In the past few days during the Islamic Conference at the Mecca, the Egyptian president launched his plan to end violence in Syria — a joint initiative with Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia — in which Cairo means to play the lead role.

“Coming at a moment of acute hand-wringing in the Western capitals over how an Islamist leadership of the largest Arab state might alter the American-backed regional order, Mr.

Morsi’s focus bisects Washington’s customary division of the region, between Western-friendly states like Egypt and Saudi Arabia on the one hand and Iran on the other”, the New York Times quoted political scientist Emad Shahin as saying. The Nyt news analysis was published yesterday and quoted today by Egypt’s Mena news agency.

The initiative also highlights the recent climate of détente, also observed during the conference in Mecca, between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which had so far divided, among other things, on the Syrian crisis. Tehran is the only staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar al Assad.

But the gravity of the crisis in Syria is leading former enemies to work closely for a solution, the New York Times observes in its report. “The unorthodox combination of players in the proposed working group is a measure of the changing dynamics within the region. Mr. Morsi comes from the Muslim Brotherhood, a pan-Arab Islamist movement that has long been opposed to Saudi Arabia’s Western-friendly monarchy, which has outlawed the group as subversive”, writes David Kirkpatrick on the US newspaper. “Both Egypt and Saudi Arabia have been fierce rivals of Iran. And while Iran has provided military and logistics support to the Assad government, both Turkey and Saudi Arabia have helped arm the rebels trying to bring it down”. Egypt is not the only country with a plan to halt violence in Syria. Tehran has announced it has an exit strategy which could be presented at the summit of non-aligned countries in the Iranian capital. The details of the initiative have not been announced yet though the Iranian Foreign Ministry has said the proposal is “sweeping” and will be “hard to refuse” for Assad.

Iranian media have reported that Russia supports the unspecified plan while the Mehr news agency has quoted the president of the foreign commission of Iran’s Parliament, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, as saying that Assad is be ready to meet representatives of the opposition. Boroujerdi met with the Syrian president yesterday.

The next few days will be key for Syria as the upcoming fall of the Assad regime is fast becoming the occasion for new geo-political power shifts in the Arab world.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Turkey: Private Security Officers Now Their Own “Army”

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, AUGUST 28 — The number of Turkish private security officers has reached 217,000, greater than the combined military forces of Austria, Belgium, Portugal, Holland, Norway and the Czech Republic, Anatolia news agency reports quoting data from a sector organization. “Even though there aren’t specific figures as to the size of the sector’s economy, we believe that in general it ranges between 3-6 billion USD,” Private Security Associations Federation President Bulent Perut told Anatolia news agency.

In Turkey, 886,000 people hold private security certificates, confirming that one has received appropriate education and training in the field. Some 604,000 of these people also hold a security ID, the state authorization to work as a guard. Perut said that many security guards preferred other jobs when they are available, because of the low wages and poor level of social rights in the security sector.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Russia Must Counter Nationalist Threat, Putin Says

President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia must counter a serious threat from nationalists he said were taking advantage of democratic freedoms to gain influence in a country with a fragile mix of ethnic groups.

He rebuked local authorities, saying recent outbreaks of ethnic violence were “primarily the result of the inaction of law enforcement organs and irresponsibility of bureaucrats”.

“Today more and more often, under the guise of development of democracy and freedom, various ethnic nationalist groups are raising their heads. They take part in rallies, work on the Internet and among teenagers and students,” Putin said,

“In essence they all are pushing, provoking separatist tendencies inside Russia,” the president said, addressing the first meeting of his Council on Inter-Ethnic Relations. “It is important to confront their dangerous influence.”

Russia has seen several outbreaks of ethnic violence in recent years, including December 2010 riots near the Kremlin in which thousands of nationalist soccer fans attacked non-Slavic passers-by and clashed with police.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Indonesia: Religious Violence Kills 2 Shias

Jakarta, 27 Aug. (AKI/Jakarta Post) — Two Indonesian Shias were killed in the latest religious violence involving Shia community members and an anti-Shia group in Sampang regencyEast Java, on Sunday.

The victims have been identified as Mochamad Kosim, 50, and his brother Tohir, 46. They died of machete wounds. At least four other Shiites were injured during the attack.

At the height of the violence, the mob also set alight dozens of houses belonging to Shiite members in Nangkernang hamlet, Karang Gayam village, in Sampang.

The majority of Indonesians are Sunni Muslims.

Kulsum, the wife of incarcerated Shiite leader Tajul Muluk, confirmed that one Shiite follower was hacked to death and, according to reports from human right activists on the scene, another man, identified as Tohir, was also killed.

“One man died after being attacked with a machete, while all I knew at the time was that Tohir was dying. I haven’t heard if he eventually died because I am now separated from the others,” Kulsum said.

Kulsum and some 40 Shiite followers are currently sheltered inside an elementary school east of Nangkernang village, where the Shiite community lives.

“I don’t know the whereabouts of the other members. There were around 500 of us. We were being chased, so we ran for our lives,” Kulsum said.

Nia Syarifudin of the Bhinneka Tunggal Ika National Alliance Forum (ANBTI) claimed that the violence was triggered by the anti-Shia group, which tried to stop a number of Shiite students from returning to their boarding school in Bangil, East Java, on Sunday after spending their Idul Fitri holidays at home, on Sunday morning.

“The children later reported the threatening behavior to police, and the anti-Shia group responded by coming to the Shiite village and setting it ablaze,” Nia said.

Insp. Gen. Bambang Suparno, an official with the Office of the Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister, confirmed that nearly 1,000 people took part in the destruction of property belonging to the Shiite community.

“A local police chief also sustained a head injury as the mob started throwing stones,” he said.

Hendardi, the chairman of human rights watchdog the Setara Institute, said what happened in Sampang was not a conflict but a systematic attack that was planned beforehand.

“It has become yet another appalling example of the lack of freedom of religion in this country,” he said.

According to Hendardi, the East Java Police chief should be removed for his inability to maintain security. Having failed to protect people in the area, he added, the National Police chief should immediately step in to deal with the extremists who had repeatedly committed attacks against the Shiites.

Meanwhile, the executive director of the Ma’arif Institute, Fajar Riza Ulhaq, said the attacks against the Shiite community in Sampang were criminal acts against a minority group.

“We have to act against the increasing acts of terror being meted out to minority groups. It reflects the escalating terror tactics being used against people of different faiths,” he said in a statement.

Hostility against minority groups would flare up unless the government took stern action against the perpetrators, Fajar added.

Kulsum’s husband, Tajul Muluk, was sentenced by Sampang District Court on July 12, after presiding judge Purnomo Amin Tjahjo declared him guilty of blaspheming Islam.

Tajul, whose house and pesantren (Islamic boarding school) were burned down by an angry mob in December, was accused of preaching to his followers that the Koran was not the original scripture, and that the true version of the Holy Book would only be revealed to Imam Mahdi

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

[Return to headlines]

China Cracks Down on Ai Wei Wei Protege Zhao Zhao

Life for modern artists in China is not easy. Imprisonment, hefty fines and travel bans are just some of the intimidation tactics the state police use to silence those critical of the regime. But Beijing artist Zhao Zhao, once an assistant to artist Ai Weiwei, refuses to bend to the pressure.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Australia to Link With EU Carbon Scheme From 2015

(SYDNEY) — Australia announced Tuesday it will link its hard-fought carbon pricing scheme, aimed at combating climate change, with the European Union’s from mid-2015.

Australia introduced the first stage of its plans to put a price on carbon dioxide pollution in July with a so-called “carbon tax”, which charges big polluters Aus$23 (US$23.81) per tonne for their emissions of the gas.

The government has always said it would move to an emissions trading scheme after three years with a floating price set by the market. Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said this would be linked to the EU’s scheme from 2015.

“This means that from July 1, 2015, Australia’s carbon price will effectively be the same as that that operates in our second largest trading bloc,” he told reporters.

A full two-way link in which there would be mutual recognition of carbon units between the two cap and trade systems would begin no later than July 1, 2018, he added.

The minister said a previous commitment to set a floor price of Aus$15 per tonne for the first three years to avoid price shocks would be scrapped.

“We now look forward to the first full inter-continental linking of emission trading systems,” European Commissioner for Climate Action, Connie Hedegaard, said in a joint statement with Combet.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Australians Urged to Stand Up to Racism

Australians are being urged to stand up to racism in their daily lives.

Launching a new national strategy to combat racism on Friday, federal Attorney-General Nicola Roxon called on individuals to call out bad behaviour wherever they encounter it.

“It does require people to stand up when they see something that’s wrong and like in all other areas of bullying, the silence of the majority allows bullies to get away with bad behaviour,” Ms Roxon told reporters in Melbourne.

The strategy comes on the heels of a random survey of 2000 people last year, in which one in seven Australians reported experiencing discrimination based on their colour or background, a figure that has risen steadily in recent years.

Federal race discrimination commissioner Helen Szoke said racism was more prevalent in Australia than people believed.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Kenyan Rioters and Police Clash for Second Day

Riots have rocked Kenya’s second-largest city for a second day. The violence was triggered by the killing of a Muslim cleric accused by the United States of aiding Islamist militants in Somalia.

Police battled stone-throwing youths on Tuesday, firing tear gas and warning shots as the rioters barricaded streets with burning tires in Majengo.

The district is a predominantly Muslim neighborhood in Mombasa, Kenya’s second-largest city. Looting was also reported.

In support of the rioters, Islamist militant group al-Shabaab called on Kenyan Muslims to “take all necessary measures” to defend their religion.

“Muslims must take the matter into their own hands, stand united against the kuffar (unbelievers) and take all necessary measures to protect their religion, their honor, their property and their lives from the enemies of Islam,” the group said in a statement posted on Twitter. Al-Shabaab is considered a terrorist organization by the European Union and the US.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Anti-Immigrant View Being ‘Legitimised’ In Greece

Anti-immigrant and nationalistic discourse has existed in Greece since the 1990s, say experts, but has become more radical with the economic crisis. For Golden Dawn, the neo-facist movement that scooped 6.9 percent of the vote in the June election, the simmering discontent has proved fertile ground.

“People can now stand up in the middle of a cafeteria and start declaring without a thread of shame that they voted for the Golden Dawn,” says Aristotle Kallis, a professor of Modern and Contemporary History at Lancaster University.

“The Golden Dawn does not create a new phenomenon in Greece. The Golden Dawn, through its radical action, through its very populist action, are legitimising a particular anti-immigrant rhetoric and anti-immigrant point of view in Greece,” said Kallis.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

DHS Official Says There Should be 100 Ports of Entry Between the U.S. And Mexico

Saying “we are all border-landers,” Alan Bersin told members of the U.S.-Mexico Border Mayors Association on Friday that the number of ports of entry between the two countries needs to more than double to 100.

Bersin—the former superintendent of San Diego Unified School District now serving as the assistant secretary of international affairs for the Department of Homeland Security—kicked off the third binational summit of the U.S.-Mexico Border Mayors Association alongside San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders and Tijuana Mayor Carlos Bustamante.

Bersin spoke to a group of 22 mayors—13 from the U.S. and nine from Mexico— and said the relationships formed between the two countries will shape the “future” of the North American economy.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

In Singapore, Vitriol Against Chinese Newcomers

The accident, captured by the dashboard camera of another taxi, has uncorked long-stewing fury against the surge of new arrivals from China, part of a government-engineered immigration push that has almost doubled Singapore’s population to 5.2 million since 1990. About a million of those newcomers arrived in the past decade, drawn by financial incentives and a liberal visa policy aimed at counteracting Singapore’s famously low birthrate.

Tensions over immigration bedevil many nations, but what makes the clash here particularly striking is that most of Singapore’s population was already ethnic Chinese, many of them the progeny of earlier generations of Chinese immigrants. The paradox is not lost on Alvin Tan, the artistic director of a community theater company that takes on thorny social issues.

“Mainlanders may look like us, but they aren’t like us,” said Mr. Tan, who is of mixed Malay-Chinese descent and does not speak Mandarin. “Singaporeans look down on mainlanders as country bumpkins, and they look down on us because we can’t speak proper Chinese.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Madrid’s ‘Slum of Shame’ Faces Uncertain Future

Europe’s largest illegal settlement lies just outside the Spanish capital, Madrid. A sprawling tangle of tents and cement houses, Cañada Real is now home to over 40,000 people. But maybe not for long…

In Cañada Real, roads and alleyways are unpaved. Houses are made of corrugated metal or cement. Some lots are just piles of garbage.

Forty years ago, Cañada Real was built by peasants who moved to Madrid for jobs. With the economic crisis, the settlement has swelled to some 40,000 residents — a mix of North Africans, Roma people and other immigrants and Spaniards down on their luck.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Sweden: Fake Work Permits a Growing Problem: Police

The sale of false work permits to immigrants is causing more problems for Swedish police, who claim that the documents are being sold for up to 250,000 kronor ($38,100) by criminals who are proving very difficult to catch.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Visa-Free Travel Between Russia and the EU Would Cause Crime to Go Up

Visa-free travel between Russia and the EU would increase criminality and make it more brutal, writes the Swedish-language daily Hufvudstadsbladet.

According to National Bureau of Investigation chief Rauno Ranta, in the wake of the easing of the visa requirement a crime wave can be expected on these shores. The NBI is Finland’s central criminal police arm. After the borders were opened to the Baltic States, there was a clear increase in violent crime in Finland.

Ranta believes that the same would happen in Russia’s case as well, should the mandatory visas be lifted. Finland’s National Police Commissioner Mikko Paatero believes that visa-free travel between the EU and Russia will become reality within the next ten years. According to Paatero, at the planning level the police are already making provisions for the lifting of the visa requirement.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Deliberate Destruction of Education in Tennessee

The Governor of TN is Bill Haslam. Haslam is co-owner of Pilot Oil/Flying J. He is a pro-UN Agenda 21 governor and like the rest of the phony right, he is in favor of vouchers, choice, and charter schools.

Prior to Haslam’s election as Governor in 2010, there was a moratorium on charter schools in the state of TN. He has now lifted that moratorium. Haslam’s bagman, Senator Mark Norris, carried the bill to passage allowing UNLIMITED Charter schools in the state of TN. Want ads in our local paper are now advertising for Knox County Schools to issue requests for charter school proposals. And, Governor Haslam is eyeing adding funding to pre-K and creating a larger voucher system in Tennessee.

[…]

In 1934, the Carnegie Corporation said we are going to use the schools to change the US from a free market system to a planned economy. In a planned economy, as in Communist countries, the administration chooses at an early age what your child will do all throughout their lives. They want your child to decide by 5th grade! I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up!

This plan was carried out with the signing of the education agreements by President Reagan with the Soviet Union in 1985 and 1988. The Soviet polytech system is being implemented right now with students being tracked into specific training at an early age to suit the needs of the corporate fascist global economy.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Foreign Policy Editor Throwing a Fit Over Growing Resistance to Agenda 21

An article published yesterday in the blog section of Foreign Policy magazine titled “Sinister globalist plot opposed in GOP platform draft” is yet another attempt by the establishment to put a halt to the anti-Agenda 21 movement increasingly saying no to the UN “action plan” and all the guises by which it attempts to slither its way into our personal liberties.

The article, written by Foreign Policy associate editor Joshua Keating, builds a classic straw-man by using the words “plot” and “sinister” in relation to Agenda 21- and by doing so, hoping to discredit the growing awareness of Agenda 21 by an increasing amount of people in the United States. Describing any opposition to binding or non-binding UN treaties “black helicopter territory”, Keating quotes the “Sovereign Americal Leadership” section of the draft GOP platform which reads as follows:

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Swedish Lesbians See Red Over Sperm Fee

A lesbian couple in County Östergötland has reported the county council to the Swedish Equality Ombudsman (Diskrimineringsombudsmannen, DO), for making them pay 3,000 kronor ($457) for two inseminations.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

The American Planning Association and Its “Faulty” Handbook

With great fanfare, the American Planning Association (APA) reported results of a recent survey the group conducted, (“Planning America: Perceptions and Priorities”) showing that the anti- Agenda 21 “crowd is slim.” Said the report, only 6% of those surveyed expressed opposition to Agenda 21, while 9% expressed support for Agenda 21 and 85%, “the vast majority of respondents, don’t know about Agenda 21.”

Typically, APA is using the survey to formulate the image that opponents to Agenda 21/ Sustainable Development are just a lunatic fringe with no standing and of no consequence in the “real” world. They continue to portray Agenda 21 as simply a 20 year old idea, and just a suggestion that planners and local governments might consider.

However, a closer look at the full survey, plus some additional APA reports reveal some interesting, and in some cases, astounding facts.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Cyborg Tissue is Half Living Cells, Half Electronics

They beat like real heart cells, but the rat cardiomyocytes in a dish at Harvard University are different in one crucial way. Snaking through them are wires and transistors that spy on each cell’s electrical impulses. In future, the wires might control their behaviour too.

Versions of this souped-up, “cyborg” tissue have been created for neurons, muscle and blood vessels. They could be used to test drugsMovie Camera or as the basis for biological versions of existing implants such as pacemakers. If signals can also be sent to the cells, cyborg tissue could be used in prosthetics or to create tiny robots.

“It allows one to effectively blur the boundary between electronic, inorganic systems and organic, biological ones,” says Charles Lieber, who leads the team behind the cyborg tissue.

Artificial tissue can already be grown on three-dimensional scaffolds made of biological materials that are not electrically active. And electrical components have been added to cultured tissue before, but not integrated into its structure, so they were only able to glean information from the surface.

Lieber’s team combined these strands of work to create electrically active scaffolds. They created 3D networks of conductive nanowires studded with silicon sensors. Crucially, the wires had to be flexible and extremely small, to avoid impeding the growth of tissue. The scaffold also contained traditional biological materials such as collagen.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Sperm Quality & Quantity Declining, Mounting Evidence Suggests

Global baby making seems at no want for a polish, with the world population at 7 billion and rising. But in reality, some evidence suggests part of this picture is breaking down: Sperm may be changing for the worse — at least in some places. The decline has been blamed on everything from cellphones in pockets to hormones in water to fatty food in the Western diet.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

	Financial Crisis
»	Fury as Bank Says Printing Money Helps Pensioners and Savers
»	Marc Faber: Global Recession is a 100 Percent Certainty
»	Top Economists: Iceland Did it Right … and Everyone Else is Doing it Wrong
»	UK: Middle Classes Forced Out of Private Education as Costs Rise at Twice Rate of Inflation Over 10 Years
»	Unilever Cuts Package Sizes in Euro Crisis
»	Weidmann: State Financing Leads to Drug-Like Dependency
	USA
»	A Small Step for One Man
»	Destroying Our Military From Within
»	In Colorado, Tracing the Trail of a Loner Coming Apart
»	Military Insider: Obama Manufactured Crises to Secure Presidency “By Any Means Necessary”
»	Neil Armstrong: First Man on Moon, Dies at 82
»	Neil Armstrong, First Man to Walk on Moon, Dies at 82
»	Obama Has Millions of Fake Twitter Followers
»	Social Security Administration Buys 174,000 Rounds of Hollow-Point Ammo
»	State Department Considers Eliminating US Nuclear Arsenal
	Europe and the EU
»	French Police Shot in Urban Violence
»	Germany: Athletics Official Dies After Javelin Accident
»	Hospital Terror in Denmark
»	Pierre Manent: City, Empire, Church, Nation
»	Switzerland: Man Stopped at Customs for Carrying Hundreds of Dead Black Caterpillars Eats His Way Through Them in Front of Officials
»	UK: A Masked Man on a Motorbike and My Chilling Brush With Surveillance Britain
»	UK: British Nurse Who Returned From Australia to Work in NHS is Told: Take an English Test!
»	UK: Heart Virus Kills Young Mother, 28, After Doctors Kept Saying it Was Indigestion
»	UK: Junk-Food Makers Handed Millions of Your Cash to Develop Healthier Products
»	UK: Son, 49, Beaten Into Coma After Telling Yobs to be Quiet Because They Were Keeping Awake His Elderly Cancer-Stricken Mother
»	UK: Why Won’t the BBC Come Clean Over Its Bias Against Israel — A Moral Country That Deserves Our Support?
	Israel and the Palestinians
»	Israeli Army Welcomes North American Volunteers
»	Rockets From Gaza Hit Southern Israel, 2 Factories Damaged
	Middle East
»	A Last Ditch Effort to Rescue the River Jordan
»	British Paper Claims Western Troops Are in Syria
»	Researchers Identify Present Day Turkey as Origin of Indo-European Languages
	South Asia
»	Dying Over the Truth: Murder Inside the Wire
»	India: Man Accused of Hacking Up His Sister and Her Daughter, 3, And Dumping Their Remains in the Ganges in ‘Honour’ Killing
»	Indian Political Correctness: Assam vs. Gujarat
»	Indonesia: Campaign Against Chinese Christian Candidate in Jakarta Gubernatorial Race
»	Iran or the US? India Caught in a Diplomatic Dilemma
»	Key Pakistani Taliban Figure Killed in Afghanistan
»	Making the U.S. Military Submit to Shariah
	Far East
»	China: Motorway Collapses Just Ten Months After Being Built
»	China’s New Shadow Government, Cash for Organs, And the Threat to America
»	Guy Sorman: Where Nationalism Still Matters
»	North Korea’s New Image Shaped by Platform Shoes, Earrings and Cell Phones
	Australia — Pacific
»	Australia Deports Irish Conmen Over Shoddy House-Repair Spree
»	Australia Foreign Minister Rules Out US Bases
»	Rape Victim Alicia Gali Still Traumatised Three Years After She Was Raped and Jailed for Adultery in United Arab Emirates
	Sub-Saharan Africa
»	Mine Shootings Threaten South Africa Prez, Party
»	Uganda: Thief Who Broke Into Isolation Ward to Steal Mobile From Dying Ebola Patient is Diagnosed With Deadly Virus
	Immigration
»	Special Branch Interpreter ‘With Links to Islamic Extremists’ Sues Home Office After He Was Suspended for Five Years on Full Pay Then Sacked
»	UK: Minister Raps Politicians’ Silence on Immigration
	General
»	DNA Could Have Existed Long Before Life Itself

Fury as Bank Says Printing Money Helps Pensioners and Savers

Claims by the Bank of England that pensioners and savers are better off as a result of its controversial money-printing policy were greeted with scorn last night.

Spencer Dale, the Bank’s top economist, said that while pensioners and savers had ‘much to be angry about’, they would have been even worse off if it had not pumped £375billion into the economy.

He even claimed the policy — called Quantitative Easing — had saved the economy from plunging into a deeper recession, with more firms going under and thousands of jobs being lost.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Marc Faber: Global Recession is a 100 Percent Certainty

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) — Marc Faber, managing director of Marc Faber Ltd. and publisher of the Gloom, Boom and Doom Report clings tenaciously to his prediction. He points out the fact that the world’s major economies, such Europe, the U.S., China and the emerging markets that are dependent on China for growth, asre all stagnant and struggling.

“Europe is already in recession,” he said. “Germany is still growing very, very slightly, but is likely to go into recession soon.”

Job creation and economic growth in the U.S. is also slowing down. “The U.S. economy has decelerated and I don’t see much growth in the next six to 12 months,” Faber said.

The Federal Reserve and other policy makers are hamstrung when it comes to turning the U.S. economy around.

“I think that if you look at the injection of liquidity and the intervention by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury with fiscal measures, it has already impoverished the U.S. economy,” he said.

Faber says that it would require “massive easing, a huge balance sheet expansion,” to boost economic activity in the U.S.

Adding to the gloomy prediction is the conviction that Faber has that no matter who wins the top position in November, the U.S. will still be at a standstill.

“The deficit is $1.3 trillion and, in my view, will go up,” he says.

Even corporate profits, the lone bright spot, look to be at risk. “The corporate sector has recovered remarkably since the trough in earnings in 2009 and we are at record high earnings,” Faber said, but added, “Corporate profits will disappoint over the next 12 to 18 months.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Top Economists: Iceland Did it Right … and Everyone Else is Doing it Wrong

Nobel prize winning economist Joe Stiglitz notes:

What Iceland did was right. It would have been wrong to burden future generations with the mistakes of the financial system.

Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman writes:

What [Iceland’s recovery] demonstrated was the … case for letting creditors of private banks gone wild eat the losses.

Krugman also says:

A funny thing happened on the way to economic Armageddon: Iceland’s very desperation made conventional behavior impossible, freeing the nation to break the rules. Where everyone else bailed out the bankers and made the public pay the price, Iceland let the banks go bust and actually expanded its social safety net. Where everyone else was fixated on trying to placate international investors, Iceland imposed temporary controls on the movement of capital to give itself room to maneuver.

Krugman is right. Letting the banks go bust — instead of perpetually bailing them out — is the right way to go.

We’ve previously noted:

Iceland told the banks to pound sand. And Iceland’s economy is doing much better than virtually all of the countries which have let the banks push them around.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

UK: Middle Classes Forced Out of Private Education as Costs Rise at Twice Rate of Inflation Over 10 Years

Thousands of middle-income families have been priced out of private schools by inflation-busting fee rises.

Average fees have risen at nearly twice the rate of inflation over the past ten years.

The increases mean that private schooling is now beyond average earners in well-paid occupations, including pharmacists, architects, IT experts, engineers and scientists.

A decade ago, these professionals would have been able to afford to pay fees out of earned income.

Now, however, they would struggle without funding from other sources, according to the study.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Unilever Cuts Package Sizes in Euro Crisis

Consumer goods giant Unilever is now offering smaller packages to keep pace with the thinner wallets of its European customers. The company says the strategy comes from the developing economies in Asia and is vital now that “poverty is returning to Europe,” as one manager says.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Weidmann: State Financing Leads to Drug-Like Dependency

(AGI) Berlin — The ECB should be careful in acquiring bonds from countries in crisis as this constitutes state financing.

The practice can cause dependency like drugs Jens Weidmann affirmed in an interview to “Spiegel”, underlining that “one must not underestimate the danger that financing on the part of the central bank may render (countries) dependent, like a drug,” besides the fact that, “the manna of money from the central banks could awake lasting needs and lead to a pooling of risks. No-one is contesting that the central bank has the power to influence markets over the short term, but even a central bank is not omnipotent.” .

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

[Return to headlines]

A Small Step for One Man

The death of Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, takes place in the shadow of the death of the space program. Last year Armstrong had called the dismantling of the space program under Obama, leaving behind a shadow space agency: “embarrassing and unacceptable”.

Armstrong had proposed not only future investments, but along with other astronauts had sensibly proposed retaining the space shuttle program until they were ready, instead of scrapping the shuttle program and distributing viable shuttles to museums. Armstrong was critical of the Bolden regime at NASA that had stripped the space agency of its best people and its ability to conduct manned space exploration or even reach the International Space Station without begging passage on Soviet Soyuz tubs.

[…]

NASA, like the rest of American exceptionalism, has become that empty shell in the throes of Obama’s Post-American national order. It exists to make Muslim boys feel good about imaginary Muslim inventions and to provide jobs to Russian engineers. In the last week NASA premiered a new song from one of Obama’s favorite musicians, will.i.am and demonstrated a new “green” alternative to existing rocket fuels.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Destroying Our Military From Within

The greatest force for the defense of the nation and for freedom in the world is being reduced by a Congress and a White House who refuse to recognize the threats that exist in a dangerous world.

“Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.”— Ronald Reagan

If you want to know how President Obama feels about the U.S. military, consider that in all the years since D-Day 1945 there have been three occasions when a President failed to go to the D-Day Monument that honors the soldiers killed during the Invasion.

The occasions were: 1. Barack Obama 2010 2. Barack Obama 2011 3. Barack Obama 2012

For the past 68 years, all Presidents, except Obama, have paid tribute to the fallen soldiers killed on D-Day. This year, instead of honoring the soldiers, he made a campaign trip on Air Force 1 to California to raise funds for his reelection.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

In Colorado, Tracing the Trail of a Loner Coming Apart

AURORA, Colo. — The text message, sent to another graduate student in early July, was cryptic and worrisome. Had she heard of “dysphoric mania,” James Eagan Holmes wanted to know?

The psychiatric condition, a form of bipolar disorder, combines the frenetic energy of mania with the agitation, dark thoughts and in some cases paranoid delusions of major depression.

She messaged back, asking him if dysphoric mania could be managed with treatment. Mr. Holmes replied: “It was,” but added that she should stay away from him “because I am bad news.”

It was the last she heard from him.

About two weeks later, minutes into a special midnight screening of “The Dark Knight Rises” on July 20, Mr. Holmes, encased in armor, his hair tinted orange, a gas mask obscuring his face, stepped through the emergency exit of a sold-out movie theater here and opened fire. By the time it was over, there were 12 dead and 58 wounded.

Mr. Holmes, who was arrested outside the theater and has been charged in the shootings, has remained an enigma, his life and his motives cloaked by two court orders that have imposed a virtual blackout on information in the case.

Yet as time has passed, a clearer picture has begun to surface. Interviews with more than a dozen people who knew or had contact with Mr. Holmes in the months before the attack paint a disturbing portrait of a young man struggling with a severe mental illness who more than once hinted to others that he was losing his footing.

[Return to headlines]

Military Insider: Obama Manufactured Crises to Secure Presidency “By Any Means Necessary”

For the first time in over two years of ongoing interviews, a powerful and highly influential Wall Street insider allows for direct interview participation of a figure we will simply call “Military Insider”. What follows is the first of a two part interview with both of these individuals who are warning of an impending manufactured crisis within the United States by powers desperate to secure a second term for “the man calling himself Obama”. For those who have followed these insider interviews from the beginning — you know just how accurate they have proven to be. Please remind yourself of that as you read this latest discussion…

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Neil Armstrong: First Man on Moon, Dies at 82

Neil Armstrong, a quiet, self-described nerdy engineer who became a global hero when as a steely-nerved pilot he made “one giant leap for mankind” with a small step on the moon, has died. He was 82.

Mr. Armstrong died following complications resulting from cardiovascular procedures, a statement Saturday from his family said. It didn’t say where he died.

Mr. Armstrong commanded the Apollo 11 spacecraft that landed on the moon July 20, 1969, capping the most daring of the 20th century’s scientific expeditions. His first words after setting foot on the surface are etched in history books and the memories of those who heard them in a live broadcast.

“That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind,” Mr. Armstrong said.

[Return to headlines]

Neil Armstrong, First Man to Walk on Moon, Dies at 82

Astronaut and American icon Neil Armstrong, the first person ever to set foot on the moon, has died at the age of 82.

Armstrong, who stepped onto the lunar surface on July 20, 1969 as commander of NASA’s Apollo 11 mission, died Saturday (Aug. 25). The news was first reported by NBC News and confirmed in a statement by the Armstrong family. He had undergone a cardiac bypass operation on Aug. 7, two days after his 82nd birthday.

“It saddens us to report that the first astronaut to walk on the moon has passed away,” NASA wrote in a statement.

The astronaut uttered one of the most famous phrases in human history upon making his extraterrestrial foray: “That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Armstrong and Apollo 11 lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin spent 21 hours and 36 minutes on the moon and performed the first-ever moonwalk during their historic mission. Five more Apollo moon landings would follow before the program ended in 1972.

After returning to Earth, Armstrong taught aerospace engineering at the University of Cincinnati and later served as chairman of the Virginia-based Computing Technologies for Aviation, Inc., according to NASA. He and his wife, Carol, made their home in the Cincinnati area.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Obama Has Millions of Fake Twitter Followers

President Obama’s Twitter account has 18.8 million followers — but more than half of them really don’t exist, according to reports.

A new Web tool has determined that 70% of Obama’s crowd includes “fake followers,” The New York Times reports in a story about how Twitter followers can be purchased.

“The practice has become so widespread that StatusPeople, a social media management company in London, released a Web tool last month called the Fake Follower Check that it says can ascertain how many fake followers you and your friends have,” the Times reports.

“Fake accounts tend to follow a lot of people but have few followers,” said Rob Waller, a founder of StatusPeople. “We then combine that with a few other metrics to confirm the account is fake.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Social Security Administration Buys 174,000 Rounds of Hollow-Point Ammo

“The American dream is not that every man must be level with every other man. The American dream is that every man must be free to become whatever God intends he should become.” — Ronald Reagan

The Social Security Administration has purchased 174 thousand rounds of hollow point bullets to be delivered to 41 locations in major cities across the U.S. Is the Obama Administration planning to stop issuing Social Security checks? Do they expect violence?

Stories regarding the purchase of the ammo range from 20,000 Spetznazs (Russian commandos) having crossed over the Canadian border into the U.S. and being taken to the underground areas of Denver International Airport to… you name it. Are they true? Who knows?

We all need to understand that the reason the Obama camp needs to pit the poor against the affluent is because there are always more poor than there are rich — thus, more votes. He must make them feel like Romney is against them — when quite the opposite is true. That’s why Joe Biden told a group of low-income folks that the Romney-Ryan ticket was going to put them “back in chains.”

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

State Department Considers Eliminating US Nuclear Arsenal

Although President Obama’s current defense cuts are so drastic that even Rep. Nancy Pelosi is scared they might cost Democrats more seats in the House, State Dept. advisers are reportedly encouraging further cuts and even the all-out elimination of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. A State Dept. report addressing this issue justifies the suggestion on the grounds that possessing nuclear weapons drives other nations to “acquisition and/or use of nuclear weapons.”

In other words, as long as nations like the U.S., Israel, and Russia have nukes but rogue nations like Iran and North Korea don’t, Iran and North Korea will continually pursue them with a willingness to use them. Yet if we get rid of ours, they will stop the pursuit of theirs… and everybody can hug and get along, naturally.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

French Police Shot in Urban Violence

FRANCE has suffered a fresh outbreak of urban unrest, with three police officers wounded in an attack by a crowd firing shotguns and lobbing petrol bombs.

Two of the officers were wounded by shotgun pellets and the third by a firework used as a rocket in the incident that began late on Friday in the Grigny suburb of Paris, police said.

The unrest began after a police unit broke up a fight between around 20 people. The officers were set upon as they returned to their vehicles by a crowd, some of whom fired shotguns and threw petrol bombs.

Riot police were rushed to the area and used tear gas to disperse the crowd.

The incident in Grigny came two weeks after rioting in the northern city of Amiens left 17 police officers wounded. The unrest there has helped place crime and security at the top of the political agenda in France.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Germany: Athletics Official Dies After Javelin Accident

An elderly athletics official measuring a javelin competition died on Sunday afternoon after being speared in the face and neck at a Düsseldorf contest.

The 75-year-old man seems to have set off up the field before the javelin had landed, witnesses suggested. Although he was taken to the nearest hospital, it was confirmed on Monday morning that he did not survive the night.

“He was hit in the head, in the cheek, and also sustained a wound to his carotid artery,” Michael Sandforth, spokesman for the Düsseldorf fire department told The Local on Sunday.

“He was bleeding very badly and lost a lot of blood. “Our emergency doctor administered first aid and then he was taken to hospital.” “There was a helicopter at the scene but the doctor made the decision that there was an urgent need to bring him back round so he was taken nearby to the university clinic in the emergency doctor’s vehicle,” said Sandforth.

Shocked onlookers needed counselling after witnessing the incident.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Hospital Terror in Denmark

It is a very dark, but little known, underside to the multicultural nightmare that western European societies are fast becoming. Hospitals, among the most respected institutions in Western societies due to their compassion and care of the sick and vulnerable, are turning more and more into places of immigrant violence.

The latest incident of such inexcusable savagery within the walls of a European public medical facility occurred last week in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. Danish newspapers report that about 70 men, some armed with “cudgels,” invaded the Odense University Hospital emergency ward, looking to further harm, even possibly kill, a man who had just been admitted in critical condition with a gunshot wound. Luckily, no hospital staff member was injured, and it was most likely the heroics of the police officers present that prevented the intruders from reaching the injured patient.

“There were pictures torn down from the walls. There were vases knocked into pieces. It was quite intimidating to both staff and police there, and several officers had to fire their guns to get them to disappear,” said one Danish police official in describing the chaos.

Another police official stated: “They poured in with clubs into the emergency room…The staff at the hospital had to jump for their lives, and several police officers had to pull their service weapons to force the group out…”

Frustrated at being unable to reach their target, the vandals then took their anger out on ambulances and police vehicles. In all, the Copenhagen Post reported that “one ambulance and four police cars were destroyed in the night’s events.”

The trouble apparently began earlier that evening between rival immigrant groups when two members of one group drove up to the other’s Eid al-Fitr celebration that was being held in a shopping center parking lot. After being identified as an enemy, one report states the 26-year-old victim wound up being shot at least twice in one leg and stabbed several times in the other, but several shots were fired at the car the two were in. It is also at the crime scene that two of the four police cars may have been destroyed, while an ambulance summoned for the injured man was also reportedly attacked.

The hospital invasion was so barbarous and disturbing to the Danish public that a “shocked”Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt was compelled to comment on it, calling it “serious criminal behavior” at a news conference. But noticeably, although the Eid al-Fitr is a Muslim celebration that marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, it does not appear she nor any police official, politician or newspaper identified the culprits as such. They limited their identification vocabulary simply to the word “immigrant.”

But there was no need for Thorning-Schmidt to be so “shocked,” if she had been observing the happenings in hospitals in other Western European countries the past decade or more. In Iserlohn, a city in Germany, the death of a Turkish man of heart failure in a hospital there, according to a report in the German newspaper Die Welt, caused the 40 members of his family, “out of rage and grief,” to lay waste to the facility’s Intensive Care ward. The reception area was ransacked, pictures torn from walls, chairs and treatment tables overturned, and medical equipment destroyed by wooden clubs.

The first police to arrive were greeted with “kicks and punches” and had to withdraw, using pepper spray and under “threats and insults,” to await reinforcements. Only a heavier police presence was able to calm the situation, after which charges were made.

Doctors and other hospital personnel are often victims of individual attacks as well. In his book The Spread of Islamikaze Terrorism In Europe: The Third Islamic Invasion, author Raphael Israeli writes: “In 2004, there were 145 attacks in hospitals in France, rising to more than 200 in 2006 in which medical staff had been attacked by Muslims.” A story in Le Figaro this year maintains that French hospital personnel are becoming “more and more victims of violence,” citing a report from the health ministry agency responsible for keeping track of violence in healthcare facilities.

Also in 2006, France’s medical establishment became very concerned about Muslims rejecting the secular nature of French hospitals after a colleague was punched by a Muslim husband who did not want him to examine his wife. As a result, the French National College of Gynaecologists and Obstetricians issued a declaration that rejected “any moves to undermine the principle that public hospitals are part of the secular state, in which patients must accept being examined by a doctor of the opposite sex.”

“Thirty years ago, Muslim women came into our hospitals without any alarm at being taken into care of doctors, most of whom were men, and there were none of these difficulties. Why are things going backwards? It is for Islam to adapt to the liberties that all must possess in a modern state,” the college stated.

Such a declaration was probably long overdue. In 1998, for example, Le Figaro reports a Muslim fundamentalist physically prevented a male doctor for 30 minutes from helping his wife during a difficult delivery. He didn’t want a man touching her. The fundamentalist finally acceded, but his baby was born handicapped. The doctor apparently did not have the time “to carry out the examination that would have prevented serious neurological complications.”

And things do not seem to have gotten better in French hospitals since the declaration. In her book Menaces religieuses sur l’hopital (Religious Threats to the Hospital), published last year, writer Isabelle Levy gives examples of how catering to religious sensitivities, and not just to Islam but to other religions as well, are affecting proper medical care and wasting valuable time and resources. It sometimes takes 45 minutes, for example, to convince a woman with an earache to lift her veil for an examination, while some mothers won’t let a male pediatrician examine their daughters.

“Some have forbidden access to their room to male hospital personnel, not hesitating to post a sign ‘Forbidden To Men’ on the door,” Levy writes.

Ironically, Levy is reported to have once worked acquainting healthcare workers with different religious rites and practices so that they could “better respond to the needs of the sick.” But after seeing the abuse of such tolerance, both by patients and hospital staff, Levy has now “gone over to the other side” and become a big defender of the secular hospital. But as with many other ills created by multiculturalism in Western Europe, her awakening may have come too late.

The maddening thing about the barbarism now being enacted in western European hospitals is that it was predictable. One only has to examine the behavior in the hospital systems in the countries of the immigrants’ origin to realize what they are acting out is nothing new. Hospitals are invaded by angry individuals, family and clan members in countries like the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan and Yemen, among others, who damage the facilities, beat up staff and maybe even kill a doctor. Even in supposedly secular Turkey, attacks against medical personnel are reported to be on the rise. This year, a parliamentarian from Turkey’s Peace and Democracy Party reportedly beat up a doctor after throwing a tantrum in an emergency room.

Looking back, it seems incredible that such cultures were not examined for their compatibility with Western values and standards before their members were allowed to immigrate in such large numbers to the West. This is turning out to be the multiculturalists’ greatest sin.

In response to the Copenhagen hospital attack, the Danish parliamentary Foreigner and Integration Policy Committee chairwoman “suggested” that those who wished to engage in such violence should “go home to their native country.” A pipedream! These barbarians will not voluntarily leave the welfare heaven of Western Europe, and leftist groups and human rights laws will prevent any effort to deport. Thus, such violence is in Western Europe to stay and will only increase with time. So the only option now is that one had probably better get building more hospitals.

Europe will be needing them.

— Hat tip: McR

[Return to headlines]

Pierre Manent: City, Empire, Church, Nation

How the West created modernity

Europe produced modernity-and for a long time, Europe was the master and possessor of modernity, putting it to the almost exclusive service of its own power. But this transformative project was inherently destined for humanity as a whole. Today, Bacon and Descartes rule in Shanghai and Bangalore at least as much as in London and Paris.

Europe finds itself militarily, politically, and spiritually disarmed in a world that it has armed with the means of modern civilization. Soon it will be wholly incapable of defending itself. It has already been incapable of speaking up for itself for a long time, since it confuses itself with a humanity on the path to pacification and unification.

By renouncing the political form that was its own and by which it had attempted, with some success, to resolve the European problem, Europe has deprived itself of the means of association in which its life had found the richest meaning, diffracted in a multiplicity of national languages that rivaled one another in strength and in grace. What will come next?

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Switzerland: Man Stopped at Customs for Carrying Hundreds of Dead Black Caterpillars Eats His Way Through Them in Front of Officials

But one man was so determined that his rare but banned ‘delicacy’ would not be taken off him, he stuffed his mouth full and chomped through hundreds of the crunchy larvae in front of stunned airport border guards, who had discovered the haul in his luggage at Switzerland’s EuroAirport outside Basel.

African Adrian Onobanjo, 47, had more than 15 kilos of dead black caterpillars in plastic bags hidden in his luggage when he was stopped and searched after arriving on a plane from Togo.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

UK: A Masked Man on a Motorbike and My Chilling Brush With Surveillance Britain

The man on the motorbike seemed to come from nowhere. One minute I was loading my car at the start of a bank holiday weekend, the next I was being photographed by a sinister figure in black who looked like a vigilante.

At first I thought he was wearing a balaclava beneath his motorcycle helmet, but it turned out that he had a scarf wrapped around his face, leaving just a slit for his eyes.

He didn’t engage in conversation. He simply took out a digital camera and snapped a photo of my car, which I had pulled out of its space further down the road, and — as there was a neighbour’s car outside my house — had parked half-overlapping her car and half-overlapping an empty motorcycle bay, so that I could load my suitcases.

Apparently this was an offence. The fine I received in the post a few days later was for ‘obstructing the street’, even though the street was deserted.

When I rang my local council to complain, a jobsworth told me that if someone had been taken ill and an ambulance had arrived at that moment it might not have been able to pass by at speed and they could have died.

I told them to get a grip. You could have got two buses through the space.

They didn’t care. I had been caught double-parked outside my own house, in an empty street, on a bank holiday for a minute-and-a-half — and they were going to throw the book at me.

Welcome to Surveillance Britain.

Yesterday, a report revealed just how much our freedoms are being trampled on by local councils and their new-found love of covert methods.

Town halls have launched an astonishing 9,600 spying missions on the public in the past three years, using laws meant for investigating terror suspects.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

UK: British Nurse Who Returned From Australia to Work in NHS is Told: Take an English Test!

Brought up in Cambridge and boasting a degree in Latin and history, Katherine Broadbent could be forgiven for thinking her ability to speak English would be beyond question.

That was, however, until she tried to get a job with the NHS.

After returning from working as a nurse in Australia, the mother-of-one has been told she must sit a costly series of exams to prove her fluency before she is allowed on UK wards.

Despite being British, because she did her medical training outside of Europe, Mrs Broadbent will have to take an International English Language Test to register with the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

By contrast, thanks to a European ruling in 2006, nurses who qualify in EU countries are exempt from the same tests to work here — even if they can barely speak English.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

UK: Heart Virus Kills Young Mother, 28, After Doctors Kept Saying it Was Indigestion

A young mother died after doctors misdiagnosed her inflamed heart as acid reflux, an inquest has heard.

Gemma Jones, 28, had been suffering from crushing pains in her chest, arms and abdomen months before she collapsed and died at her home in March.

An inquest heard Gemma had visited her GP three days before she died but he wrongly diagnosed her with acid reflux.

She was actually suffering from Diffused Viral Myocarditis — an inflammation of the heart caused by a virus.

The mother-of-one was found lifeless on the bed at her home in Daventry, Northamptonshire, by her fiancee Philip Medhurst on March 18.

Just three days earlier, Gemma had gone to Abbey House Medical Practice in the town, where she was again told she was suffering from acid reflux.

An inquest at Northampton General Hospital on Friday heard an autopsy showed ‘chronic inflammation’ of Gemma’s heart which would have been detected by a simple ECG test.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

UK: Junk-Food Makers Handed Millions of Your Cash to Develop Healthier Products

Some of the world’s biggest junk food makers are being paid millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to develop healthier snacks.

They are being handed grants by Vince Cable’s Business Department to meet pledges to cut the salt and fat content of their food.

Firms that have received the cash include the makers of Walkers Crisps, Wrigley’s chewing gum, Walls ice-cream and Pot Noodles.

The money is being used for research into new technologies and ingredients.

But critics have condemned the use of the public purse to help billion pound companies which already benefit from tax breaks available for carrying out research and development.

At least £2.9million has been handed over. While the work is done in tandem with academic researchers at universities, the projects are manufacturer-led and commercial gain is the prime consideration.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

UK: Son, 49, Beaten Into Coma After Telling Yobs to be Quiet Because They Were Keeping Awake His Elderly Cancer-Stricken Mother

A man was beaten unconscious after he asked a group of loud yobs who were plaguing his cancer-stricken mother to be quiet in the early hours of the morning.

Andrew Toseland, 49, is now in an induced coma in hospital as the result of the serious head injuries he suffered in the attack.

The 6ft 2in-tall warehouse worker had walked out of the flat he shares with his mother at 1am after hearing the revellers in a communal area.

He asked them to calm down and leave the building in Gosport, Hampshire, as they didn’t live there and was subjected to a brutal attack.

[Comments: Another example of yob culture. Fawlty (John Cleese) Finds Fault with England (www.newswithviews.com/Duigon/lee162.htm).]

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

UK: Why Won’t the BBC Come Clean Over Its Bias Against Israel — A Moral Country That Deserves Our Support?

It’s time for the BBC to give up. We already know that it’s biased towards the Left. But the corporation looks ridiculous in its endless attempts to stop the publication of an inquiry into its coverage of Israel.

I mean, just how bad can it be?

Well, evidently it’s embarrassing enough to squander hundreds of thousands of pounds to keep it locked in a safe. In fact, a Freedom of Information request by The Commentator has revealed that the BBC has squandered £332,780.47 suppressing it.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Israeli Army Welcomes North American Volunteers

As Israeli rhetoric about attacking Iran heats up, record numbers of North Americans have come to Israel to join the army. Some Israelis think the immigrants’ energy would be better spent outside the army.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Rockets From Gaza Hit Southern Israel, 2 Factories Damaged

(AGI) Jerusalem — Three rockets fired from Gaza hit southern Israel, damaging two factories in Sderot without causing injuries. The Israeli Defence Forces report that two rockets fell in the industrial area of the Israeli city, which is a kilometre from the border of the Palestinian enclave, while the third ended up in a field. Two Israelis have been treated for shock. The situation along the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip has been under control in the two months since June when Palestinian militants launched 150 rockets and Israel responded with a series of raids that killed 15 people.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

[Return to headlines]

A Last Ditch Effort to Rescue the River Jordan

Once a mighty river, the Jordan is now heavily polluted, reduced to a mere trickle. An NGO working with Israel, Jordan, Syria and the West Bank hopes to create a plan to restore the river back to health.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

British Paper Claims Western Troops Are in Syria

The British Daily Star has reported in their article, “SAS HUNT BIO ARMS,” that, “nearly 200 elite SAS and SBS troops are in or around Syria hunting for Assad’s weapons of mass destruction.” The Star also claims that the SAS are accompanied by British MI6, US CIA, and both French and American soldiers. This after US’ Barack Obama made comments claiming the US would military intervene if Syria so much as “moves them [unconfirmed WMDs] in a threatening fashion.”

Like Iraq, the West has provided no evidence that such weapons even exist, let alone prove that the weapons have or even would be used against terrorists operating across Syria. And like in Iraq, another false pretext is being developed through leaks, and limited hangouts in an attempt to prime the public for a desperate intervention designed to bolster the West’s collapsing terrorist front.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Researchers Identify Present Day Turkey as Origin of Indo-European Languages

By using novel methods developed for tracing the origins of virus outbreaks, researchers say they have identified present-day Turkey as the homeland of the Indo-European language family.

The international team, led by Quentin Atkinson, a senior lecturer at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, used computational methods analyzing words from more than 100 ancient and contemporary languages, as well as geographical and historical data. By doing so, the scientists say they have pinned down the origin, about 8,000 years ago, of the largest global language to the region of Anatolia.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Dying Over the Truth: Murder Inside the Wire

by Diana West

Andrew Bostom gleans the buried truth deep in an unclassified May 2011 internal Pentagon “Red Team” report on murder “inside the wire”: It turns out that these Pentagon analysts actually lifted the official blinders a crack to note clash of civilizations as a driver behind the constant violent assaults by Afghan security forces on US and other Western forces, and even suggested US troops be instructed in an “objective and comprehensive assessment of the totalitarian nature of the extreme theology practiced among the Afghans.” Of course, that was only suggestion #40 out of 58, so, so much for the Red Team’s powers of priority-analysis.

Clearly, the team’s suggestion wasn’t taken as a February 2012 pocket reference guide (pictured above), “Inside the Wire Threats — Afghanistan Green on Blue,” demonstrates. The complete handbook on which this so-called smartcard is based inexplicably remains classified, but the gist is clear. 1) US troops are to walk on eggs and refrain from saying or doing anything that might set off their armed, “hair-trigger moderate,” Afghan counterparts: “Avoid public rebukes,” troops are told. “Counsel in private jointly with ANSF chain of command” (directions, surely, any self-respecting drill sergeant would roar at). 2) Worse, US troops are ordered to assume the age-old role of the dhimmis, those wretched, self-censoring non-Muslims repressed and stunted by Islamic law: “Respect Islam, Koran or a mosque; Afghan women, elders and children. Avoid arrogance; i.e., belief that ISAF culture is superior to Afghan culture.”

This, pure and simple, is code for submission to Islam’s culture and tenets, which, if the truth were taught in accordance with the Red Team’s sensible recommendation #40, directly conflict with and contradict “ISAF culture” — i.e., Judeo-Christian-humanist principles. The unspeakable fact is, “respecting Islam” and “avoiding arrogance” are impossible to do without surrendering these same Western principles. As much as Islam’s command to Muslims to slay the infidel, this fact, as the Red Team report perhaps inadvertently reveals, is probably at the heart of at least some of the “green-on-blue” attacks that are reported to have followed an “argument.”

To wit, this Red Team summation of interviews with US personnel:…

— Hat tip: Diana West

[Return to headlines]

India: Man Accused of Hacking Up His Sister and Her Daughter, 3, And Dumping Their Remains in the Ganges in ‘Honour’ Killing

A mother and her three-year-old daughter have been murdered and hacked to bits in an horrific ‘honour’ killing in India.

News sources in the country say the woman’s brother is accused of having carried out the heinous crime and dumping their remains in the Ganges.

NDTV and Times of India both report that the woman had not seen her family since she married against their wishes four years ago.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Indian Political Correctness: Assam vs. Gujarat

Our enemies are exploiting civil society and academia’s leftist bias, Muslim appeasement.

[I spend a lot of time in India and have a great affection for that country. Closer and more enhanced relations between the United States and India are critical to defeat the existential threats that both nations face. Few Americans, however, realize that while India has maintained its status as,the world’s largest democracy despite constant terror attacks, hostile neighbors, and governments that have not always acted in the nation’s best interests; leftist pressures at work since the 1950s threaten India’s very existence in today’s dangerous world. RB]

In this world of political correctness, Indians often face public condemnation, government harassment, and almost certain career suicide for the “sin” of being politically incorrect. Elites in the media, academia, and elsewhere have built up a system of rewards and punishments to intimidate Indians who might even think about challenging their biased interpretation. People who engage in any sort of critical examination are quickly labeled as “dangerous” and “extremist.”

How severe is it in India?

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Indonesia: Campaign Against Chinese Christian Candidate in Jakarta Gubernatorial Race

Voters in the capital will cast their ballot on 20 September for their new governor. Muslim groups have launched personal racist anti-Christian attacks. Imams and other religious leaders have called on residents to vote only for Muslims. Fears are growing about the campaign’s impact on Indonesia’s fragile social fabric.

Jakarta (AsiaNews) — Tensions are rising in Jakarta, Java, as the date (20 September) of the runoff in the capital’s gubernatorial election approaches. The race is very close and everything is good, even personal attacks, against other candidates. However, there is a risk that it might become an ethnic and social confrontation. Billboards, messages and video footage are being used to denigrate candidates running against the incumbent governor, especially against a non-Muslim Chinese-Indonesian who is running for the post of deputy governor. Imams and other religious leaders have also stepped into the ring, telling their co-religionists not to trust people who are not close to Islam.

Joko Widodo (aka Jokowi) and his running mate Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (aka Ahok) are going against outgoing Jakarta Governor Fauzi “Foke” Bowo. In the first round of voting, the challengers harnessed 42.6 per cent of the vote, whilst Bowo got only 34.05 per cent. The runoff is now an open match and the incumbent is not certain of re-election.

The campaign took on an incendiary note when attacks began aimed at Basuki, an ethnic Chinese from Solo (central Java) who also happens to be Christian.

The ongoing attempts to discredit him could however heighten tensions between religious groups and ignite sectarian violence in a campaign that is increasingly taking on a national dimension.

Jakarta has a history of majority Muslims attacking minority Chinese, both Christian and Buddhist. In May 1998, when Dictator Suharto still ruled the country, thousands of people were victims of vicious and unprecedented violent attacks that have regularly flared up ever since, evidence of the fragile social fabric of the world’s most populous Muslim country.

More and more voices can be heard, appealing to the population to vote for candidates that are ethnic Betawi, i.e. native Jakartans, and Muslim, like Governor Bowo, a moderate in the city’s politics.

Personal attacks against Basuki have come various quarters, including a musician. Similarly, during his sermon in a mosque, a religious leader urged Muslims not to vote for the Jokowi-Ahok ticket.

In a not so subtle message, a number of videos have been posted on the Internet, showing the sectarian violence that rocked Jakarta in 1998, reminding voters that this might happen again if an ethnic Chinese is elected.

For his part, Jokowi has been attacked as an anti-Islamic, pro-Zionist activist.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

[Return to headlines]

Iran or the US? India Caught in a Diplomatic Dilemma

International Relations experts say that India has a difficult task at hand to maintain friendly ties with Iran without offending the United States, which has put various sanctions on the Iranian regime.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as referring to Indo-Iranian relations as a “relationship among brothers” after a telephone call with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the beginning of the year.

Traditionally, India and Iran have had very close ties. Nonetheless, the last state visit made by an Indian prime minster was over a decade ago — in 2001 Atal Behari Vajpayee visited Iran.

“India is caught in a diplomatic dilemma,” Iran expert Qamar Agha told DW. The closer India and the US got — especially after the signing of the Indo-American nuclear deal in 2008 — the stronger the pressure became on India to distance itself from Iran.

“But India has always said that its national interests go before all else. And for the country’s rapidly growing economy, India needs energy and oil.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Key Pakistani Taliban Figure Killed in Afghanistan

(Associated Press) A NATO airstrike in eastern Afghanistan killed a senior commander of the Pakistani Taliban who had close ties with al-Qaeda, dealing a blow to the militants who operate on both sides of the countries’ porous border.

Mullah Dadullah was killed Friday in Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province, which lies just across the border from the Pakistani tribal area of Bajur, the military alliance said. He was the Pakistani Taliban leader in Bajur, and NATO said Saturday that Dadullah also was responsible for the movement of fighters and weapons across the frontier as well as attacks against Afghan and coalition forces in Afghanistan.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Making the U.S. Military Submit to Shariah

by Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.

Suddenly, a murderous threat has intensified in Afghanistan: American servicemen are being killed there at an accelerating rate by Afghans who ostensibly are their allies.

These attacks have been dubbed “green-on-blue” incidents, an antisceptic and deliberately inoffensive way of describing the treachery of Muslim natives (designated by the Islamic color green) against our folks (the blue forces). So serious a threat are such murders “inside the wire” deemed to be that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army General Martin Dempsey, went to Afghanistan last week to assess what is being done to prevent them in the future….

— Hat tip: CSP

[Return to headlines]

China: Motorway Collapses Just Ten Months After Being Built

At least three people were killed and five injured when this motorway bridge in Heilongjiang province in north east China collapsed today sending four huge trucks crashing 100ft to the ground below.

The bridge collapse is one of a number of horrifying accidents on China’s expanding road and rail networks in recent years — leading to fears that safety is being sacrificed for the speed of construction.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

China’s New Shadow Government, Cash for Organs, And the Threat to America

[Comment: WARNING: Disturbing content.]

Systematic murders of members of the Falun Gong, harvesting of their organs for transplant, and the billions of dollars made is shocking beyond description.

The scandal surrounding China’s former Chongqing Committee Secretary Bo Xilai isn’t the sort of thing the average American news consumer would have initially found terribly interesting, since scandals in governments around the world occur on a regular basis. Add in the fact that press coverage in the West was essentially the party line communicated by the Chinese government, and one has a fairly dull, cut and dried account indeed. The story also didn’t appear to possess the lurid qualities that Americans have been conditioned by the press to expect in “newsworthy” material.

This being the case, the average American news consumer wouldn’t have been aware that February 6, 2012 was the day the U.S. could have gone to war with the People’s Republic of China. It was also the day that the American President Barack Obama turned his back on a Christian trying to do the right thing and threw him to the wolves, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt to the authors of this article that he is not a Christian nor ever was. Christians don’t betray Christians.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Guy Sorman: Where Nationalism Still Matters

Asia’s simmering political tensions defy conventional wisdom.

Too often, we see East Asia only from an economic perspective, marveling at the undeniable success of China, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, and South Korea. Yet these nations have another story to tell, one that owes less to current economic performance than to much older instincts: nationalism and ethnic resentment, the forces that kindled World War I in Sarajevo.

Today, those forces underlie disputes in places that we ignore or know nothing about, such as the Senkaku Islands, the Dokdo Islands, and the Spratly archipelago. And those disputes may spark military conflicts between rival Asian countries.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

North Korea’s New Image Shaped by Platform Shoes, Earrings and Cell Phones

Attempting to forge a new image for himself and his country, North Korea’s youthful supreme leader Kim Jong Un is allowing women to wear pants, platform shoes and earrings, making more mobile phones available, endorsing previously banned foods like pizza, French fries and hamburgers — and he’s giving kids free trips to zoos and amusement parks.

The 20-something leader’s focus has been on the younger generation. Following in the footsteps of his late grandfather, the country’s founder Kim Il Sung, he has announcing plans to create a “children’s heaven nation.”

“It’s all part of his image making to imitate a warm, fatherly impression like his grandfather,” said Dong Yong-Sueng, North Korea specialist at Samsung Economic Research Institute.

Kim Jong Un, who officially assumed the title of supreme leader on Dec. 28 last year following the state funeral of his father Kim Jong Il, wants to establish an image that harkens back to what some North Koreans nostalgically remember as better times in the 1970s under his grandfather, a time when the country was economically backed by the Soviet Union with sufficient food to feed the nation.

Kim Jong Un’s father, who had ruled since1994, was seen as a strong but cold leader.

The image of the supreme leader has significance in a tightly controlled society where people often refer to their leaders as the father of the nation with “everlasting love,” as well as other fanciful names like the sun, universe, eternal general, or dear leader.

Kim Jong Un has publicly sought to embrace the youthful energy of the country.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Australia Deports Irish Conmen Over Shoddy House-Repair Spree

THE NEW South Wales department of fair trading has released details of how dozens of travelling conmen, most of whom were Irish, were forced to leave Australia following a crime spree of shoddy house repairs.

Since last October, 39 men were either deported after being convicted of various offences, or fled the country once they knew the authorities were looking for them.

The people involved were part of organised Irish and British crime gangs who travelled to Australia intent on tricking homeowners into unnecessary repair jobs on their houses. The “repairs”, such as painting and guttering, were then carried out using shoddy material and workmanship, or not done at all.

In a typical case, a 70-year-old woman in Sydney’s exclusive Double Bay area gave an Irish man cheques worth a total of Aus$35,000 (€29,110). The man, who claimed to be a roofer, cashed $23,000 before fleeing the country. The roof was not repaired.

In another example, an Irishman convinced three elderly couples on Sydney’s well-to-do north shore that he was an engineer. After booking his services to do repair work on their homes they each paid him at least $4,000. All the work done was faulty, but complaints by the people he duped helped lead to his capture. The Irish national was fined $90,091 and deported.

New South Wales’s fair trading minister, Anthony Roberts, has overseen a crackdown on conmen over the past 10 months. As a result, 35 people have been prosecuted for more than 120 breaches of the law, and fines totalling more than $300,000 have been issued.

Mr Roberts says he will be working with Irish authorities and media to warn anyone thinking of coming to Australia to carry out similar scams that they will be caught and deported.

“The vast majority of Irish people in Australia, probably 99 per cent, are great people, but for those few bad apples that come here to rip us off, they are the scourge of the modern western world,” Mr Roberts told the Sydney Morning Herald.

“They don’t have any qualms about ripping off the elderly or the vulnerable and see nothing wrong or immoral about how they operate or the fact that they are very dangerous and violent.”

The gangs are said to travel to Australia in the southern hemisphere’s spring and summer months. With just days left in Australia’s winter, the authorities are braced for a new influx of conmen.

“It might be a $10,000 job but they say they can do it for $2,000 and then they use cheap water-based paint that will be running down the roof the first time it rains,” Mr Roberts said.

“They then tell the poor elderly homeowner that it will actually be $5,000 and they go from two nice smiling Irishmen to turning up with five threatening individuals who take you down to the ATM to get the money.”

— Hat tip: McR

[Return to headlines]

Australia Foreign Minister Rules Out US Bases

The United States will not seek permanent military bases in Australia and nor would hosting one be in Canberra’s interests, Foreign Minister Bob Carr said on Saturday.

SYDNEY (AFP) — The United States will not seek permanent military bases in Australia and nor would hosting one be in Canberra’s interests, Foreign Minister Bob Carr said on Saturday.

Australia has welcomed long-term ally Washington’s plans for an enhanced naval presence in the Pacific and last year agreed to allow up to 2,500 US Marines to be deployed to a barracks near the northern city of Darwin.

But Carr rejected the idea of a permanent US military base in Australia.

“In fact, the Americans will not seek it because of the cost involved at a time when they are going to have to produce more cuts in their defence spending,” he told Sky News.

“And second, because it doesn’t fit with the way they project power.

“But above all… it’s not in Australia’s interest.”

Carr said what Canberra liked about US troops training in the country was that it was “in and out”.

“They’re here, and they’re out,” he said, adding: “I don’t think Australians will be comfortable defining themselves with permanent American bases.”

Washington’s plan to bolster its military presence in the strategically vital Asia-Pacific comes amid concerns about China’s increasing assertiveness.

The deployment of US Marines to Darwin, the first of whom touched down in April on a six-month rotational basis, has irked Beijing, which has described the Marines’ presence as proof of a “Cold-War mentality”.

Carr said Canberra understood China’s military modernisation and accepted that its rise in economic power would be matched by a defence upgrade.

“But just as we accept that, you, the Chinese, must accept that we are a small population holding a large continent and will, as we have done historically, look to an alliance with the United States,” he said.

“But we reject utterly any notion of containing China. We look to engage with China.”

— Hat tip: Nilk

[Return to headlines]

Rape Victim Alicia Gali Still Traumatised Three Years After She Was Raped and Jailed for Adultery in United Arab Emirates

THREE years after returning home from the United Arab Emirates, where she was jailed for adultery after telling police she had been raped, Alicia Gali is still severely traumatised.

The Brisbane woman, 30, who spent eight months in jail, has been hospitalised three times in the past year, she still has flashbacks and nightmares and she will need more treatment.

She says that noises and smells that remind her of the “horrendous” conditions inside the squalid prison continue to trigger anxiety, panic attacks and flashbacks to her ordeal.

“It can be as simple as smells of bad body odour, certain foods, people talking in different languages, if I see something about an assault or about a prison,” she told The Sunday Mail last week.

“If I feel I’m in a space where I can’t get out, I’m trapped or confined in some way, I have panic attacks, very bad claustrophobia.”

Ms Gali, who worked as a beauty salon manager at a UAE resort in 2008, was jailed for adultery, after complaining to police that she had been drugged and raped by co-workers in resort staff quarters.

The last thing she remembered, before waking the next morning with painful injuries, was a staff member putting ice in her drink.

Ms Gali last year spoke exclusively to The Sunday Mail, after launching a legal claim against her ex-employer Le Meridien Al Aqah Beach Resort, Fujairah, part of the international Starwood Hotels and Resorts group.

Now she has spoken again to express her sadness and disappointment that the resort has failed to respond to requests by her law firm Maurice Blackburn to contribute $27,000 towards her medical expenses.

Ms Gali, who has been diagnosed with severe complex post traumatic stress disorder, is unable to work and has had to borrow from family and friends to pay for some of her hospital treatment and counselling.

“Alicia has been through an incredibly traumatic ordeal and she deserves much better than this from her former employers, who failed to provide her with a safe working environment,” Maurice Blackburn lawyer Michelle James said.

She said that the resort could help pay for Ms Gali’s treatment without making any admissions of liability.

“Before I was happy, I wanted to travel the world and experience new things and that’s what I was doing when I was over there. l loved my job,” Ms Gali said.

“My life will never be the same.”

— Hat tip: Nilk

[Return to headlines]

Mine Shootings Threaten South Africa Prez, Party

(USA Today) South Africa’s powerful trade unions are in turmoil following violence that killed 44 people at a platinum mine strike that has wide-ranging political implications.

Labor leaders charge that rivalry between new and old unions is an orchestrated plot to destroy South Africa’s labor movement. Others hint darkly at political manipulation. Some talk of collusion by mining companies.

What’s clear is that the fall-out from new union rivalry and the government’s violent reaction could affect the future of President Jacob Zuma and his African National Congress.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Uganda: Thief Who Broke Into Isolation Ward to Steal Mobile From Dying Ebola Patient is Diagnosed With Deadly Virus

He was the opportunistic criminal who swiped a phone from a dying ebola patient as he lay fighting for life in a hospital ward.

But his petty theft turned out to be a huge mistake.

The 40-year-old is now critically ill after he, too, contracted the highly contagious virus.

The man travelled just over a mile on from his home in Kibaale District, Uganda, before entering the isolation unit at Kagadi Hospital.

Once there he snatched the phone — worth around £15 (60,000 Ugandan shillings) — before leaving without being challenged by hospital guards.

The patient, who has since died, reported the theft to security staff as soon as he found it had gone.

Police were able to track him down after he started to use the phone.

But by that stage he was already desperately sick. He went to the hospital where he had stolen the phone and was diagnosed with ebola.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Special Branch Interpreter ‘With Links to Islamic Extremists’ Sues Home Office After He Was Suspended for Five Years on Full Pay Then Sacked

An immigration officer accused of having links to Iraqi terrorists was suspended on full pay for five years after the Home Office sacked him for being a risk to national security.

The Arabic interpreter, who helped Special Branch interview terror suspects, had his security clearance removed a month after returning from a year-long sabbatical in his native Yemen

The 44-year-old claims he was only suspected of associating with terrorists due to his race and Muslim religion and is suing the Home Office for discrimination and unfair dismissal.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

UK: Minister Raps Politicians’ Silence on Immigration

A minister has criticised the ‘failure of mainstream politics’ to discuss immigration as the Government launched a three-pronged crackdown on illegal migrants.

Immigration Minister Damian Green said for years it had been ‘almost impolite’ for politicians to raise concerns about unprecedented numbers flowing into the UK, a silence which he said had allowed extremist parties, such as the BNP, to harvest votes.

He spoke out as it emerged a university had become the first in the UK to be stripped of its right to educate foreign students.

A UK Border Agency audit found numerous failings at London Metropolitan University, including allowing students to take lessons without valid visas and failing to report that some who had been granted visas, then failed to enrol on or attend courses.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

DNA Could Have Existed Long Before Life Itself

THE latest twist in the origin-of-life tale is double helical. Chemists are close to demonstrating that the building blocks of DNA can form spontaneously from chemicals thought to be present on the primordial Earth. If they succeed, their work would suggest that DNA could have predated the birth of life.

DNA is essential to almost all life on Earth, yet most biologists think that life began with RNA. Just like DNA, it stores genetic information. What’s more, RNA can fold into complex shapes that can clamp onto other molecules and speed up chemical reactions, just like a protein, and it is structurally simpler than DNA, so might be easier to make.

After decades of trying, in 2009 researchers finally managed to generate RNA using chemicals that probably existed on the early Earth. Matthew Powner, now at University College London, and his colleagues synthesised two of the four nucleotides that make up RNA. Their achievement suggested that RNA may have formed spontaneously — powerful support for the idea that life began in an “RNA world”.

Powner’s latest work suggests that a rethink might be in order. He is trying to make DNA nucleotides through similar methods to those he used to make RNA nucleotides in 2009. And he’s getting closer.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

	Financial Crisis
»	Greece’s New Plan to Lay Off Civil Servants
»	S&P Downgrades Italian Campania Region to BBB
	USA
»	Alert: DHS Rounding Up Veterans, Throwing Them in Mental Institutions
»	Empire State Building Shooting Wrongly Hyped as ‘Mass Shooting’ By Media
»	Farmingdale Jewish Center Converted to Mosque
»	New Mosque to be Built in Wilmington
»	Opponents of Tennessee Mosque Argue to Intervene in Federal Religious Discrimination Case
»	Tracking Microchips in San Antonio Schools
»	United Nations Sponsors Another Gun-Grabber Conference in New York
	Europe and the EU
»	100-Year-Old Norwegian Mystery is Unravelled
»	France: Anzac’s Memory Keeper
»	UK: Council ‘Enforcers’ Praised for Roles Police Couldn’t Do During Olympics
»	UK: Harry’s Place and Its Allies Inspire Far-Right Violence Again
»	UK: Now Crack Down on Health Tourists Abusing Our NHS
»	UK: Press Ethics: Harry’s Place
	Balkans
»	South Stream Pipeline Might Pass Through Croatia
	North Africa
»	Egypt: Tahrir Square Protest Against President Morsi
	Israel and the Palestinians
»	Israeli Soldiers Break Silence on Abuse
	Middle East
»	French Minister Calls for Limited No-Fly Zone in Syria
»	Radical Islam Revives an Ancient Hatred
	Russia
»	Has Russia Sold Out Iran for a Stake in Israeli Gas?
	South Asia
»	Afghanistan: Four Australian Soldiers Hurt in Bomb Blast
»	Afghanistan: Marine: Strict Rules of Engagement Are Killing More Americans Than Enemy in This Lost War
»	Afghanistan is Not Worth Losing 10 Kiwi Lives
»	Afghanistan: Taliban Leader Killed in Airstrike
»	Bloodshed Between Myanmar Muslim and Buddhist Communities Leaves Deep Scars
»	Fiat Unveils Training Program to Help Poor Indians Into Jobs
»	Free Rimsha Masih, The 11-Year-Old Disabled Girl Arrested for Blasphemy, Indian Leader Says
»	Indonesia: Five People Die in Intra-Islamic Fighting in West Java
»	Italy Expects Marines Back From India, Defends Its Position
»	Pakistan: Mosque Shooting: Treasury MPA Leads Protest Against Chiniot Police
	Australia — Pacific
»	NZ: Men Will be Banned From a Muslim Exhibit at the Dowse
	Latin America
»	Rising Jew-Hatred and Jihad in Chile as the Muslim Population Increases

Greece’s New Plan to Lay Off Civil Servants

A mix of early retirement incentives and stricter approach

(ANSAMed) — ATHENS, AUGUST 23 — Slashing Greece’s bloated public employee roster is among Premier Antonis Samaras’ biggest challenges as he tries to comply with troika (EU-ECB-IMF) mandated spending cuts.

The public employee workforce, which numbers 750,000 or 6.8% of the population, has grown disproportionately in the past four decades, thanks to favoritism practiced by all the preceding governments. Last year’s attempt to lay off 30,000 civil servants ultimately reduced them by 10,000.

The government, which must lay off 150,000 people by 2015 or fail to make the troika target, is about to enact a measure containing a new, undisclosed variant, Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras said. Journalistic rumor has it that the new twist consists of a mix of early retirement incentives and a stricter approach to civil servants who have broken the disciplinary code, or who scored low on the management evaluations that are now periodically being carried out in the public sector.

These employees will be suspended for a year at 75% of their salary, sources said. The bulk of those who leave are expected to accept the government’s early retirement incentives for people who are just three years away from their pension, saving the state 160 million euros.

But Samaras’ coalition partners might throw a spanner in the works, as unrest over the measure is growing within Democratic Left, led by Fotis Kouvelis, and Evangelos Venizelos’ Socialist PASOK. Some Democratic Left MPs expressed their concern to Kouvelis during a meeting of their parliamentary group on Wednesday. One deputy, Yiannis Micheloyiannakis, refused to attend the meeting, saying the government had already strayed too far from its post-election agreement.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

S&P Downgrades Italian Campania Region to BBB

‘Negative outlook reflects possible liquidity deterioration’

(ANSA) — Naples, August 21 — Ratings agency Standard and Poor’s downgraded its outlook for the southern Campania region from ‘BBB+’ to ‘BBB’ on Tuesday.

“The negative outlook reflects our view of the risk that Campania’s liquidity could deteriorate,” said the New York-based agency in a statement. S&P did however credit the region around Naples for its “moderate debt burden”.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Alert: DHS Rounding Up Veterans, Throwing Them in Mental Institutions

The lawyer who helped secure the release of Brendon Raub, a former Marine forcibly incarcerated in a psychiatric ward by authorities in Virginia for political posts on Facebook, told the Alex Jones Show today that there are currently a further 20 cases in his county alone that are similar in nature to Raub’s detention.

John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute also said that he had been contacted by numerous veterans in the aftermath of Raub’s release who had encountered similar problems with authorities attempting to have them declared mentally ill.

Whitehead attributed the high number of cases involving veterans as a consequence of the Department of Homeland Security’s aggressive campaign to demonize former servicemembers as domestic extremists.

Despite controversy at the time, DHS chief Janet Napolitano said she stood by an April 2009 DHS intelligence assessment that listed returning vets as likely domestic terrorists.

Just a month later, the New York Times reported on how Boy Scout Explorers were being trained by the DHS to kill “disgruntled Iraq war veterans” in terrorist drills.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Empire State Building Shooting Wrongly Hyped as ‘Mass Shooting’ By Media

In yet another ‘summer shooting’ involving a killer who is now being referred to by the media as the ‘Empire State Building shooter’, recently-fired gunman Jeffrey Johnson fired on a co-worker before being gunned down by police outside of the Empire State Building in downtown New York City. A total of 9 bystanders were wounded and sent to a local hospital with expectations of survival, but what was the cause of their injury?

The Empire State Building shooter may have actually had only a single target (according to virtually all the mainstream media sources linked throughout) — a co-worker who was gunned down before the incident leading to the 9 injuries.

This makes the Empire State Building shooter case quite different than the Batman shootings and the Sikh shootings, but it doesn’t appear that way in major media.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Farmingdale Jewish Center Converted to Mosque

Village’s first mosque greeted with mixed feelings.

The former home of the Farmingdale Jewish Center on Fulton Avenue had been vacant for nearly four years, much to the dismay of a newly-elected mayor and local officials. But, that all changed last month when the former Jewish community center reopened as a place of worship, now a mosque. Farmingdale’s first mosque, called Masjid Bilal or Bilal Mosque, sits on 1.65 acres with 21,000 square feet of building space and parking for 44 vehicles.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

New Mosque to be Built in Wilmington

by Nadine Maeser

WILMINGTON, NC (WECT) — The City of Wilmington has given the green light on permits to build a new mosque in the area. The mosque will be built off of Sunn Aire Court and Princess Place Drive and will be the start of something new for the local Muslim community. The holy building will be the first of its kind in the area, featuring an arched dome to give it a more Islamic feel.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Opponents of Tennessee Mosque Argue to Intervene in Federal Religious Discrimination Case

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A federal judge will rule next week on whether opponents of a Murfreesboro mosque can have a say in a religious discrimination case involving the building. Attorney Joe Brandon Jr. represents the group of mosque neighbors and other Rutherford County residents asking the court to let them intervene. He argued at a Friday hearing in Nashville that his clients have an interest in the federal case because it overturned their state court victory.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Tracking Microchips in San Antonio Schools

On Monday, two schools in San Antonio, Texas, will force more than 4,000 students to wear mandatory RFID tracking devices around their necks! The so-called “Student Locator Pilot” plans to use active, unencrypted, always-on RFID tags with a 70-foot read range, and a network of nearly-invisible readers to pinpoint and monitor students’ every move while they are on campus. See: http://www.nisd.net/studentlocator/

[Comments: conditioning the next generation to the idea that being tracked everywhere is fine.]

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

United Nations Sponsors Another Gun-Grabber Conference in New York

Following the failure of the United Nations to reach a consensus on the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), the internationalist gun-grabbers are looking forward to Review Conference 2012 (RevCon 2012), to be held in New York beginning next week, on August 27.

Like ATT, proponents of the PoA agenda claim their proposals are not intended to deny Americans ownership and use of firearms. However, as AmmoLand.com points out, many members of the organization are also members of anti-gun groups that propose various schemes designed to whittle away the Second Amendment.

The National Association for Gun Rights provides a list of goals the PoA will strive for:

• Enact tougher licensing requirements, making law-abiding Americans cut through even more bureaucratic red tape just to own a firearm legally.
• Confiscate and destroy all “unauthorized” civilian firearms (all firearms owned by the government are excluded, of course).
• Ban the trade, sale and private ownership of all semi-automatic weapons.
• Create an international gun registry, setting the stage for full-scale gun confiscation.

Second Amendment groups warn that if Obama wins in November, he will more aggressively and openly pursue an anti-gun agenda. The backdrop for the effort will be a number of shootings this summer, most recently in New York City (the fact all of the victims with the exception of the shooter’s target were shot by cops will of course be ignored).

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

100-Year-Old Norwegian Mystery is Unravelled

When the mayor of a Norwegian town wrapped up a brown paper package in 1912, he began a 100-year mystery.

Johann Nygaard handed over the parcel to the local authorities in Sel in the 1920s with no word of explanation. It bore the message: “Can be opened in 2012.” Now, the guessing game has finally ended. After fevered speculation that the package contained bombshell documents, a sheaf of oil shares to make the townsfolk rich or even the “Blue Star” diamond rumoured to have gone down with the Titanic, the truth was revealed. And it could have been more exciting.

In a ceremony attended by Princess Astrid of Norway and streamed live to the world, the parcel was opened by a white-gloved museum curator. It was found to contain some notebooks, yellowing newspapers, community council documents and swatches of fabric in the colour of Norway’s flag. As The Local, Norway’s English-language newspaper, put it: “If you were expecting an anti-climax, you may well be on the mark. Suggestions that some onlookers have fallen asleep are greatly exaggerated.”

[…]

[JP note: Monty Python got there first.]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

France: Anzac’s Memory Keeper

Garrie Hutchinson’s guide to the two great wars was written on behalf of families whose lost ones are buried far away. He tells Andrew Stone he also wants to reinstate New Zealand’s place in the Australian concept of ‘Anzac’

The gravestones stand in neat rows, divided by lush strips of clipped grass and attended by flowers. All that hints at the horror that left 1205 New Zealand men dead are words on a concrete memorial. They read: “Here are recorded the names of officers and men of New Zealand who fell in the Battles of the Somme, September and October 1916 and whose graves are known only to God.” The memorial is in Caterpillar Valley Cemetery, in north-east France. A fern-leaf badge on a nearby obelisk, inscribed with the words “From the Uttermost Ends of the Earth” is a further reminder of the legions of young men sent to war on the Western Front almost a century ago who never returned home — but are not forgotten. “That’s what I wanted,” explains author Garrie Hutchinson, whose book Pilgrimage, subheaded “A Traveller’s Guide To New Zealanders In Two World Wars”, is out today.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

UK: Council ‘Enforcers’ Praised for Roles Police Couldn’t Do During Olympics

Council enforcement officers got a big thank-you this week for their work in one of the ‘host’ boroughs for supporting police during the Olympics.

They were looking after key areas of Tower Hamlets with high numbers of crowds at locations including Victoria Park Live Site and the Tower of London, while police were concentrating on Olympic Park security. Community Protection officers drafted in to east London from Nottingham to help with security during the Games fortnight praised them for their conduct “in dealing with difficult situations”. The enforcers responded to reports of yobs in Bethnal Green Gardens with targeted patrols. They were also active in Whitechapel Market and around Brick Lane tackling noise nuisance and fly-posting as well as identifying unlicensed illegal trading. Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman said: “The scope of their presence during the Olympics fortnight gave residents reassurance.” The enforcement officers take on roles the Met Police are unable to make a priority such as littering, graffiti and anti-social behaviour.

[JP note: UK’s fledgling religious police force.]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

UK: Harry’s Place and Its Allies Inspire Far-Right Violence Again

The York newspaper The Press reported yesterday that the “Islamia Village” event that was due to be held near the city at Thorpe Underwood Estate over the bank holiday weekend had been called off at the last minute after the estate’s Trustees cancelled the booking.

This decision followed an extended campaign against Islamia Village, based on the claim that it would be hosting extremist preachers. The Islamophobic blog Harry’s Place, which had initiated the campaign, immediately posted a piece yesterday afternoon claiming victory for itself and its supporters.

The obvious question that arises is — why was Islamia Village called off so late in the day? After all, Harry’s Place took up the issue well over a month ago, back on 13 July, when it crossposted a piece from the Islamic Far-Right in Britain blog condemning the event. What changed over the past few days?

Yesterday the Islamia Village organisers issued a statement pointing out that groups including the English Defence League had been demanding for some time that the booking should be cancelled. However: “The campaign had intensified at the beginning of the week, whereby such groups had threatened to cause violence at this weekend’s event. Threats of burning down the venue with the people in it have also been made publicly by some supporters of this campaign.”

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

UK: Now Crack Down on Health Tourists Abusing Our NHS

by Stephen Pollard

HOW does it feel to be taken for a mug? On Wednesday an emergency caesarean was carried out at Wythenshawe Hospital in Manchester. The mother had her baby and when she had recovered, left.

The cost, which will be borne as always by you and me, is thought to have been around £10,000. Nothing unusual there — that’s the whole point of the NHS. But there’s an element to the story which changes everything: the woman does not live in Britain. In fact she has no connection with Britain. She is Nigerian.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

UK: Press Ethics: Harry’s Place

The only reasonable publication test is not entertainment or sales — but an agreed concept of the public interest

The pictures of Prince Harry cavorting naked in a Las Vegas hotel room were irresistible to any self-respecting tabloid editor. By printing them the Sun will have entertained its readers and added to its sales. Both are legitimate reasons for publication, but they are not the whole story.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

South Stream Pipeline Might Pass Through Croatia

Instead of Hungary.Gazprom to make final decision, media reports

(ANSAMed) — ZAGHREB, AUGUST 21 — Russian gas giant Gazprom might route its South Stream gas pipeline through Croatia instead of Hungary, Croatian daily Jutarnji list reported on Tuesday.

“We are very interested, but Gazprom will make the final decision, probably in the next two months,” the paper quoted an executive from Croatian gas transportation company Plinacro as saying. Construction on the pipeline begins in December, the executive said.

The Croatian paper cited lower costs, a shorter route, and “problems encountered in Hungary” as reasons for the rerouting.

The pipeline, a joint project between Gazprom and Italian energy company ENI, is designed to bring Russian gas into Europe while bypassing Ukraine. The current project begins at the Black Sea and runs through Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary and Slovenia to reach Austria and Italy. The possible new route through Croatia would be 270 kilometers long and cost 600 million euros. Construction would begin in 2015, according to Jutarnji list.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Egypt: Tahrir Square Protest Against President Morsi

President accused of “derailing the revolution”

(ANSAMed) — ROME, AUGUST 24 — Opponents and supporters of Egypt’s president on Friday gathered for a protest in Tahrir Square that Al Masri Al Youm independent newspaper billed as “the first test” of Mohamed Morsi’s democratic attitude.

After traditional Friday prayers, several hundred protesters gathered in the square, which was the hotbed of the revolt that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak, and in adjacent streets.

Active on social media such as Facebook, organizers had called for a “peaceful” demonstration against Morsi’s attempt “to monopolize power and derail the revolution.” The demonstration reportedly mustered only modest numbers, perhaps due to the heat, with local media reporting stones thrown and shots fired between the factions. The numbers are expected to increase towards evening.

Opponents of Morsi in Tahrir square today include members of the Coptic Christian minority and supporters of the military, incensed by Morsi’s removal of Egypt’s interim ruler Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, who leads the armed forces supreme council, as well as liberals worried about what they said is the current government’s “Islamic, illiberal drift.” A case in point is the arrest and release of a newspaper editor critical of the government, whose trial begins in September.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Israeli Soldiers Break Silence on Abuse

TESTIMONIES by 30 former Israeli soldiers and commanders portrayed a culture of violence and abuse in the Israeli Defence Forces towards Palestinian children, according to a report released yesterday to international media and detailed in a major article in this weekend’s Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s biggest-selling newspaper.

Debate about the treatment of Palestinian children has grown since 60 of Israel’s leading child experts, academics and psychologists wrote to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu protesting against “offensive arrests and investigations that ignore the law.”

The new report is by Breaking the Silence, an organisation of former Israeli soldiers who came together in 2004 and have now collected more than 850 testimonies from former and current Israeli soldiers and commanders about abuses they committed or witnessed.

In response to the report, the IDF told The Weekend Australian: “Breaking the Silence has been asked numerous times to reveal the testimonies and claims they collect regarding IDF activity prior to publication in order to check and verify their claims.

“As a matter of policy, the organisation chooses not to provide the IDF and other relevant bodies with the critical material necessary for investigation. By compiling testimonies over long periods of time and refusing to provide additional detail, (Breaking the Silence) proves its true intentions — rather than facilitating proper investigation, the organisation seeks to generate negative publicity regarding the IDF and its soldiers.”

In response, Yehuda Shaul from Breaking the Silence said: “Over 70 of our testifiers have come out publicly with their names and identities revealed, and I’m one of them. If the IDF was interested in investigating our claims, we probably would have already been summoned to interrogations.”

The report coincided with an escalation of violence against Palestinians. Israeli police described as “a lynching” an incident in Jerusalem this week in which dozens of people watched a mob of Jewish teenagers bash a 17-year-old Palestinian unconscious…

— Hat tip: Nilk

[Return to headlines]

French Minister Calls for Limited No-Fly Zone in Syria

International momentum for limited military intervention in Syria gathered pace yesterday amid opposition reports that 4,000 people have been killed this month, the deadliest since the uprising began.

France signalled it would be willing to participate in the enforcement of a limited no-fly zone and suggested for the first time that such an operation could be mounted without reference to the UN Security Council, where Russia and China wield a veto. The United States and Turkey have already discussed the possibility of a no-fly zone, although Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has said that “greater in-depth analysis” would be needed before such an operation could be mounted.

However Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French defence minister, yesterday called for the establishment of an “international coalition” to implement a no-fly zone — a choice of wording that suggests action outside the United Nations is being considered for the first time.

Mr Le Drian explicitly ruled out a no-fly zone over the whole of the country, saying such a step would be tantamount to “going to war” with Syria. Instead, a coalition involving Western states, Turkey and some Arab powers could close Syrian airspace between Aleppo and the Turkish border.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Radical Islam Revives an Ancient Hatred

by Damian Thompson

Is a new and shocking wave of anti-Semitism engulfing the Middle East and the developing world? Consider the following:

More than half the Jews in Iraq have been driven out of the country; those that remain are forced to pay a fine or leave their homes. Some are forced to marry Muslims. In Syria, towns and villages where Jews have lived for centuries are now almost entirely Muslim; these communities have fled to safer parts of the country, where they hope to escape an anti-Semitic massacre. In Egypt, the new regime is surreptitiously encouraging attacks on synagogues; the Jews, despised for their supposed wealth, fear that the “Arab spring” is about to release centuries of pent-up anti-Semitic hatred. In Nigeria, Jews have been attacked and killed while studying scripture. In Bangladesh, Jewish children are being forced into madrassas. In Pakistan, the body of an 11-year-old Jewish boy was discovered this week; he’d been tortured to death and his lips sliced off.

You won’t have heard about this atrocious persecution. That’s because — forgive me — I’ve played one of the oldest tricks in the journalist’s book. For Jews, read Christians. For anti-Semitic, read anti-Christian. For synagogues read churches. I hope Jewish readers won’t take offence: I’m not denying that actual anti-Semitism is spreading like a virus throughout Arab societies. It’s just that, if these attacks against Christians were being directed against Jews, the precedent of the Holocaust would shock the world into action.

This new persecution is the result of the simultaneous revival of militant Islam in many countries. We can say that with confidence. What we can’t say, however, is that there is a co-ordinated Islamic plot to exterminate Christianity as a stepping stone to a universal caliphate.

[…]

[Reader comment by validuscorporeanimoque on 25 August 2012 at 9:30 am.]

“What we can’t say, however, is that there is a co-ordinated Islamic plot to exterminate Christianity as a stepping stone to a universal caliphate.”

You can’t but millions of us out here who know the truth, can, do and will. “Radical” Islam.

There is only ONE Islam and it is evil and set on world conquest. So, do wake up and nudge our politicians will you, please. Ah but it was only a year or so ago that our PM the rt hon Crazy Cameron was telling us in a stern voice that we should become more like those of the Muslim faith. oh, yes and didn’t we get a good result in Iraq, eh! Not.

[Reader comment by danoconnor on 25 August 2012 at 9:00 am.]

Damian Thompson

Remember your rant about the counter-jihad web-site Gates of Vienna? Does this mean they are not Islamophobic bigots after all?

Who da’ thunk it?

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Has Russia Sold Out Iran for a Stake in Israeli Gas?

As the tension between Israel and Iran ratchets up, an interesting sub-text has developed over the role of Iran’s traditional backer, Russia. While many Western observers continue to raise the spectre of a ‘wider Middle East conflagration’ (an argument we have consistently refuted), and one that could drag in Russia, a whole new, higher value, game chip is now in play: Moscow’s interest in Israeli energy.

Israel and neighbouring and potential partner, member of EU, Cyprus, of course must be quite aware that Gazprom, Russia’s battering ram, can easily prove to be a Trojan Horse in any major future natural gas development. They will try to affect a project that could certainly lessen their energy stranglehold over Europe. A 20 million metric tons per year liquid natural gas (LNG) export from Eastern Mediterranean into Europe would amount to about one third of current Russian exports.

Whatever we may think of Vladimir Putin’s politics, one thing is clear, he is a shrewd, often ruthless, operator on the global stage. But Putin’s Kremlin is clearly rattled by the threat of decline for that which underpins Russia’s entire economy: its energy hegemony.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Afghanistan: Four Australian Soldiers Hurt in Bomb Blast

ONLY the quick reactions of his fellow soldiers has saved the life of one of four Australian Diggers wounded in a bomb blast in Afghanistan.

The soldier was seriously injured when an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated during operations alongside the Afghan National Security Force in Uruzgan Province. He was given immediate medical assistance on the ground before being evacuated by air and taken to a Kandahar medical facility for specialist treatment. He was then transferred to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Afghanistan: Marine: Strict Rules of Engagement Are Killing More Americans Than Enemy in This Lost War

by Paul Szoldra, College Veteran

When I deployed to Afghanistan as an infantry squad leader in 2004, I had the utmost confidence in my superiors, our mission to restore order to Afghanistan, and to help the Afghan people. At the time of my deployment, we had clear rules of engagement (ROE): if you ever feel that your life is threatened, you can respond with force to include deadly force.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Afghanistan is Not Worth Losing 10 Kiwi Lives

by Paul Thomas

Long conflict has accomplished little and the Taleban will be back

Otto von Bismarck famously declared that “the whole of the Balkans is not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier”. How many Kiwi lives is Afghanistan worth? Whichever way you look at it, it’s hard to see why that godforsaken country is worth the life of a single young New Zealander, let alone 10.

The conflict is now in its 11th year, having comfortably surpassed Vietnam as America’s longest war. The Karzai regime is as ineffectual and corrupt as ever, its security forces seemingly more inclined to turn their weapons on the foreigners who are there to help them than engage the Taleban. Perhaps that’s not so surprising given that, in all probability, the Taleban will be back in control before very much longer.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Afghanistan: Taliban Leader Killed in Airstrike

A Nato airstrike in eastern Afghanistan has killed a dozen militants including a senior leader of the Taliban in Pakistan, the international military coalition revealed. The strike in eastern Kunar province on Friday killed Mullah Dadullah, the self-proclaimed Taliban leader in Pakistan’s Bajur tribal area that lies across the border, coalition spokesman Major Martyn Crighton said. Dadullah reportedly took over after Bajur’s former Pakistani Taliban leader, Maulvi Faqir Mohammed, fled to Afghanistan to avoid Pakistani army operations.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Bloodshed Between Myanmar Muslim and Buddhist Communities Leaves Deep Scars

Charred stumps and scattered rubbish are all that remain of a once-bustling community in strife-torn western Myanmar, just one of many razed to the ground in recent communal violence. The clashes which broke out in June between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims have left dozens of people dead and torn apart communities, forcing tens of thousands on both sides to seek refuge in dusty camps and shelters.

Nawseema Har Tu Fa said she fled her village after it was torched during the wave of violence that turned longtime neighbors into bitter enemies. “We had no problem with the Buddhist people before. We never quarreled with them before. We lived together, we used to speak. We went to the market every day together,” she told AFP in a village near the Rakhine state capital Sittwe where many Rohingya have sought sanctuary.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Fiat Unveils Training Program to Help Poor Indians Into Jobs

‘Preparation for a complete life’ organised with Don Bosco

(ANSA) — New Delhi, August 23 — Italian car manufacturer Fiat on Thursday unveiled a new vocational program aimed at “orphans, disadvantaged and poor Indian students” which seeks to teach trainees marketable skills with which to find jobs.

The program, called “Diksha”, meaning “preparation for a complete life”, was organized by Fiat India Automobiles in collaboration with the Pune division of the Don Bosco association. In a press release, Fiat said the initiative “will use the immense knowledge, concentration and training available with Fiat to offer best vocational training to the students interested in making a career in the manufacturing world. “With such a refined style of vocational training the students would be skilled to work in the automobile industry”.

Fiat India Automobiles Chief Executive Rajeev Kapoor said: “Being one of the pioneers in the automobile industry we understand the changing dynamics of the manufacturing world and realise the need of upgrading the training facilities at the vocational centres so that we can churn out better skilled talent who could work in the high competitive sector. “This initiative is our effort to enhance this process”.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Free Rimsha Masih, The 11-Year-Old Disabled Girl Arrested for Blasphemy, Indian Leader Says

Sajan George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), appeals to the international community and Pakistan’s high commissioner to India. The girl could get life in prison. The GCIC wants her family to be protected and all blasphemy laws used to discriminate against Pakistan’s religious minorities abolished.

Mumbai (AsiaNews) — Sajan George, president of Global Council of Indian Christians (GCI) has appealed for the immediate release of Rimsha Masih and for the protection of her family. He has also called for the repeal of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, once and for all. For the past week, the 11-year-old Christian girl, who suffers from a mental disability, has been locked up in a jail on blasphemy charges and could get life in prison. She is accused of burning the pages of an exercise book used to learn Arabic and the Qur’an.

The event occurred on 17 August in Umara Jaffar (Islamabad), where Rimsha lives with her family. After her action, local imams stirred local Muslims who attacked their Christian neighbours. Some 300 families fled.

“Rimsha Mashi’s arrest should serve to draw the world’s attention to the abuses committed in Pakistan in the name of the blasphemy laws,” George said. “They are used routinely to suppress dissent, harass rivals, and settle petty disputes among neighbours. They are also used for economic and political reasons.”

“False accusations of blasphemy have led to violence against Christians and other religious minorities in Pakistan. Numerous human rights abuses stem from the blasphemy laws. Pakistan must repeal them and this is the right time for the international community to put pressure on Pakistan.”

“Besides human rights, and child rights, Rimsha is even being denied legal rights,” the GCIC chairman said. “Her lawyer is being denied access to her by prison authorities. Additionally, even though Rimsha is a minor, she was put in an adult jail in the same prison as Mumtaz Qadri, the hero of the Islamists who killed Taseer. The GCIC fears for her life inside the prison.”

Punjab Governor Taseer was killed on 4 January 2011 by Qadri, his body guard, for defending Asia Bibi and for his opposition to the blasphemy laws.

In appealing to Pakistan’s high commission in India, Sajan George said, “The so-called champions of Islam are wrecking havoc on religious minorities and are further defaming Pakistan and Islam in the world.”

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

[Return to headlines]

Indonesia: Five People Die in Intra-Islamic Fighting in West Java

The province leads Indonesia in sectarian violence. The murder of the leader of an extremist movement provokes his followers who carry out a revenge attack against the members of a sect deemed heretical. However, the latter was in no way connected with murder. The incident highlights the fact that violence remains a problem within Islam.

Jakarta (AsiaNews) — Tensions are still running high in West Java where violent clashes pitted different Muslim groups against one another, leaving five people dead. Hundreds of police agents and members of the security forces are now patrolling the streets and squares to prevent further action by infiltrators and agents provocateurs who might want to stir up further sectarian animosity. Targeted by pro-human rights activists and organisations, the province continues to live up to its reputation of confessional “intolerance,” not only between the Muslim majority and the Christian minority, with places of worship and churches forced to shut down, but also among Muslim sects.

The latest episode occurred during celebrations for the Idul Fitr on Monday in the village of Cisalopa, Jampang Subdistrict, Sukabumi District, West Java Province. Edin, a local religious leader who headed a radical Muslim group called Garis (Islamic Forum for Reform), was one of the dead. The four other people killed belonged to Tarekat At Tijaniyah, a Muslim group accused of heresy. Mutual suspicions and accusations led to fighting, sign of deep divisions among Muslims.

On hearing of Edin’s death, an enraged crowd attacked the neighbourhood where most Tarekat At Tijaniyah members live. The body of the Garis leader was in fact found in the garden owned by Sumarna, who was thought to be the head of the allegedly heretical Muslim sect.

Witnesses said that Edin met Sumarna last week in order to end the heresy and have the group dissolved. When he disappeared, rumours spread that he had “died in action”. Enraged, his followers by the thousands descended upon the enemy area, leaving four people dead. Only the intervention of police re-established some semblance of calm.

In reality, the escalation appears to be rooted in a misunderstanding. Sumarna in fact is probably not the head of Tarekat At Tijaniyah, but of a smaller group of followers that deviates from mainstream Islam. Among its “heretical” practices, we find a ban on Friday prayers and the first call to pray at dawn.

By contrast, Tarekat At Tijaniyah has been approved by Indonesia’s main Muslim organisations. The largest, Nahdlatul Ulama (Nu), has recognised its legitimacy. The same goes for the powerful Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), which considers the group as fully compatible with orthodox Islam.

It is therefore clear that Garis extremists attacked the wrong target. Yet, the real problem is not which group is heretical but rather the radical visions of a religion that does not accept differences or, as is the case for the Ahmadis, does not tolerate deviations from the official doctrine.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

[Return to headlines]

Italy Expects Marines Back From India, Defends Its Position

Situation delicate but objective is ‘clear,’ says Terzi

(ANSA) — New Delhi, August 24 — Italy expects the two Italian anti-pirate marines accused of killing two Indian fishermen in February to return back from the Asian nation where they are currently serving bail, Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi said.

“It is a very delicate situation, but the objective is clear — to have the men return back home,” Terzi told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in the coastal town of Rimini. “We are completely in the right”.

Italian marines Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone have been at the centre of a diplomatic row between Italy and India since being detained in February after an incident that took place while they were guarding the Enrica Lexie tanker.

Indian police filed charges against the two that include the homicide of fishermen Jelestine Valentine and Ajesh Binki. They have since been granted bail.

Earlier this month all parties involved agreed in court that the incident had taken place in “contiguous” and not international waters, where State jurisdiction is more limited. The fact had previously been contested. National jurisdictions in that area of the sea is limited.

“Our guys need to come back home quickly,” Terzi said. He added the government was working to ensure the return of the two military officials.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Pakistan: Mosque Shooting: Treasury MPA Leads Protest Against Chiniot Police

FAISALABAD: Dozens of members of Sunni Action Committee continued on Friday their protest against Chiniot police. They were alleging victimisation of their colleagues arrested in terrorism and attempted murder cases.

Provincial Assembly member Maulana Ilyas Chinioti, who led the demonstrations on Thursday as well as Friday, accused the district police officer of favouring members of a Shia group of Rajoa Syedan area in a crackdown in which more than 100 people were arrested from the city on August 16. According to the FIRs registered with City police the crackdown had followed armed clashes between activists of the Sunni Action Committee and a Shia group in the vicinity of Masjid Siddique Akbar on August 15.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

NZ: Men Will be Banned From a Muslim Exhibit at the Dowse

Men will be banned from watching a video display coming to a Lower Hutt art gallery that shows Muslim women without veils.

The Dowse Art Museum is preparing to host the world premiere of the art installation — despite advice from the Human Rights Commission that not letting men inside could be seen as sexual discrimination.

The work, by Qatari writer and film-maker Sophia Al-Maria, is called Cinderazahd: For Your Eyes Only. It features female family members and friends getting ready for a cousin’s wedding, without wearing hijabs, or veils.

Dowse director Cam McCracken confirmed Al-Maria’s work would be off-limits to men, in keeping with the artist’s wishes. “I haven’t seen the work, and I won’t.

“I’ve bought into the fact that we take this work on the proviso that no men see it. We respect the artist and the privacy of the women who are portrayed.”

Its premiere will be part of a wider exhibition at the Dowse from September 8, called In Spite of Ourselves: Approaching Documentary. Seventeen artists were featured in the exhibition.

In a statement, Al-Maria said images from the film were from exclusively female zones inside a home. “They, like this work, should be treated as privileged and private, for women’s eyes only.”

Mr McCracken said the work was likely to be screened in a small curtained-off area behind the gallery’s reception, not usually open to the public. Only one person would be able to see it at a time, for “an individual singular experience”.

“We’ve discussed removing any confrontation. It’s not like we’ll have security guards stopping people from going inside the gallery.”…

[Return to headlines]

Rising Jew-Hatred and Jihad in Chile as the Muslim Population Increases

As reported by Gil Shefler for the’Jerusalem Post’.

www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=282401

‘In Chile, Jews face new dangers and old fears’

‘President of Chile’s Jewish community tells ‘Post’ neo-Nazi violence (i.e. non-Muslim Jew-hatred — CM), Palestinian (sic: translation — ‘Palestinian’ Arab Islamochristian and Muslim — CM) anti-Israelism (sic: translation — Jew-hatred — CM), Islamism (sic: in other words — Jihad — CM) on the rise.

‘Neo-Nazi violence, a large and influential Palestinian community (sic: translation — ‘Palestinian’ Arab community — CM) lobbying against Israel and a growing hotbed of Islamic extremism (in other words, an expanding Mohammedan colony which is feeling strong enough to start inciting, plotting and waging Jihad in earnest — CM) in the north of the country — the Jews of Chile have quite a lot to worry about these days, Shai Agosin, the president of the country’s Jewish community, told the Jerusalem Post last Wednesday.

And any sane and decent non-Muslim Chilean Gentile should be worrying, too; and getting ready to lobby for a complete ban on all further immigration of Muslims into Chile. — CM

‘Agosin, who is currently leading a delegation of notable Chilean personalities to Israel, said life for the 18,000 or so Jews in his country is a little more difficult than it was when he took over from the community’s former president Gabriel Zaliasnik in 2011.

Question: in the past year, how many Mohammedans have immigrated into Chile? By how much has the Mohammedan population expanded? Strikes me that the increase in ‘difficulty’ for Jews in Chile might be directly proportional to a large increase in Mohammedan numbers. Is anyone checking? — CM

‘Chief among Agosin’s concerns are the worsening ties with the 400,000 or so Chileans of Palestinian descent

(sic: in other words, of ‘Palestinian’ or Levantine Arab ancestry — CM), the largest such community in all of South America.

It is worth reading the Comments to this article, where the information is offered that the forebears of most of these so-called ‘Palestinians’ are Arabised Orthodox Christians who left the Levant even before the establishment of the Mandate, and largely due to Turkish Muslim misrule and persecution of their community. They were, in other words, dhimmis. Yet it seems they are are still carrying water for the very same Mohammedans who oppressed them unmercifully for over a thousand years. — CM

“If you compare the relations between Jews and Palestinians (sic: that is, Levantine Arabs — how tired I grow of having to continually correct this foolish use, by Jews, of a term ‘Palestinian’ in its modern form, as here, was invented purely as an instrument of Muslim anti-Jewish propaganda — CM) today, with that from 20 or 30 years ago, it is very different,” said Agosin. “Then you even had some marriages, but not any more. We are very worried over what we see in Twitter and Facebook over comments equating Nazism to Zionism. Anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism”.

Hardly ‘new’; if I recall correctly, this meme was going strong in the 1980s when Jacques Ellul wrote ‘Un Chretien Pour Israel’ — a book that badly needs to be translated not only into English but into Spanish, and that masterfully exposes and deconstructs the massive Arab/ Muslim and (in the 1970s-1980s) Russian Soviet propaganda campaign against Israel and the Jews. — CM

‘Agosin said Palestinian-Chilean leaders like activist Daniel Jadue were responsible for radicalizing their community against Israel.

That is: local Arab Islamochristian leaders are doing a great job conning their own into supporting the Muslim Jihad against the Jews. They forget, of course, the Muslim slogan — “First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people”. If they suppose that by feeding the Jews — in Chile and in Israel — to the Jihad crocodile they themselves will win favour with their Arab Muslim masters and not end up on the menu, they are gravely in error. It might be worthwhile getting Mossad to have a look at whether and in what way people like Daniel Jadue are in contact with and being influenced by Muslims. — CM

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

	Financial Crisis
»	The Great Youth Depression: 16%+ Unemployment, Majority Underemployed, Salaries Down 10%
	USA
»	20,000 Muslims Warm-Up Act for Democratic National Convention
»	21 Million Health Care Workers to be Unionized Under Obamacare
»	Apple Patent Victory Could Have Broad Implications for Mobile Industry
»	Are People Being Thrown Into Psychiatric Wards for Their Political Views?
»	Bob Dole Urges Mitt Romney to Confront Republican Party Right Wing
»	Brooklyn Democratic Leader Censured for Sexual Harassment
»	Diana West: The GOP Akin Problem is Worse That They Think
»	EPA Regulations Will Close Coal Plants, Raise Electricity Prices, GAO Says
»	‘Fast and Furious’ ATF Official Granted Paid Leave to Take 6-Figure Job at JP Morgan
»	Feds Strike “None” From Nevada Ballots
»	GOP Embraces Anti-Sharia
»	Guns ‘n’ Rose Colored Deals
»	Islamic Beard Overshadows U.S. Military Code in Fort Hood Case
»	Lance Armstrong Subject to Lifetime Ban and Fan Fallout
»	Martin Scorsese Sued by Italy’s Cecchi Gori
»	Misunderstanding McCarthyism
»	Mosque Plan Divides a Diverse Town
»	Murder at a New York Icon
»	New Audio Surfaces of Obama Defending Infanticide in Illinois
»	Obama’s 2nd-Term Assault on U.S. Military
»	Poll: GOP Really Dislikes Muslims
»	The Psychotics in Power Are Calling Us Mentally Ill
»	Thomas Sowell: A Powerful Movie
»	Thought Police Victim Brandon Raub Ordered Released From Psychiatric Prison; Govt. Agents Kidnapped and Detained Him for Facebook Posts
»	Veteran Declared ‘Mentally Defective, ‘ Has Guns Seized
	Europe and the EU
»	Caroline Glick: Israel Faces the Cynical World
»	France: Toulouse Gunman Could Possibly be Not Alone
»	German Circumcision Debate Flares Up After Probe on Rabbi
»	Norway: Anders Breivik Verdict: Live
»	Norway: Anders Behring Breivik Spent Years Training and Plotting for Oslo Massacre
»	Norway Hails Breivik Verdict
»	Norway Court Deems Breivik Sane, Sentences Killer to Prison
»	Norway: Breivik Sane: Oslo Court
»	Sweden: EDL’s Swedish Cousins Show Their True Colours
»	UK: ‘Iftar With the Stars’ Event
»	UK: A New Partnership Between Islamic Relief and Govt
»	UK: Campaigners Who Are Against a March by the Far-Right English Defence League (EDL) In Walthamstow …
»	UK: Knowledge Exchange Conference: Far Right Extremism
»	UK: Revised Plans for York Mosque Approved
»	UK: The Strange Death of BNP England
»	UK: Urgent Announcement [Cancellation of Islamia Village at Thorpe Underwood Estate]
»	UK: Waltham Forest Council of Mosques Backs Walthamstow Demo
»	Why Norway’s Maximum Sentence is Just 21 Years
	North Africa
»	Egypt’s “Crucifixion” Hoax Becomes an Instant Internet Myth
»	Tourists Should Beware of Islamist Mobs in Tunisia, Warns French Politician
	Middle East
»	BBC Censors Video Showing Syrian Rebels Forcing Prisoner to Become Suicide Bomber
»	Dubai: World’s Most Expensive Cupcake, Covered in Gold
	South Asia
»	Afghanistan: Police: Insurgents Kidnap, Kill 3 Afghan Soldiers
»	Afghans Kill Three NATO, Three US Soldiers in One Day
»	Afghan Policeman Kills Two U.S. Troops Minutes After They Hand Him a Gun
»	Christian Boy Tortured and Killed in Pakistan
»	Pakistani Muslims: Disabled 11 Yr-Old Christian Should be Punished
»	US Drone Raid Kills 16 Militants in Pakistani Waziristan
	Far East
»	China Could Penetrate US With New Huge Missile
	Sub-Saharan Africa
»	Moz Allows Headscarves in Schools
»	Nigeria: Group Wants Muslims’ Lives Reformed
»	South Africa: Anger at Bar Next to Bo-Kaap Mosque
»	The Day the Music Died: Mali Muslims Ban Radio Songs
	Latin America
»	Global Banks Are the Financial Services Wing of the Drug Cartels
	Immigration
»	Italy: ‘Thousands of Underage Refugees Risk Exploitation in Italy’
»	The Immigration Factor: Inviting Additional 100 Million Into USA
	Culture Wars
»	Liberal Talk Show Host Blames FRC Shooting on ‘Gutter Christians’ Who Went ‘Too Far’
	General
»	On Not Understanding Muslims
»	The Cemented Image of Islam

The Great Youth Depression: 16%+ Unemployment, Majority Underemployed, Salaries Down 10%

The Great Youth Depression is only getting bleaker and the ugly statistics keep piling up for the Obama administration.

Last year, we learned 85 percent of the 2011 college class moved in with their parents. This year, 53 percent of young Americans are either unemployed or underemployed.

And, the Obama administration has the worst summer youth jobs numbers ever recorded — youth unemployment has remained over 16 percent all four years.

And today, we learned from a PayScale.com survey that, of the 63 percent of young Americans who hold bachelor’s degrees, less than half of them have jobs requiring a college education. During this recession, youth salaries have dropped 10 percent as young people have been forced to take lower-paying jobs.

[…]

The Obama administration has added more than $46 billion to the cost of regulations on businesses through bills like ObamaCare.

That’s the equivalent of more than 1 million jobs (with salaries at the national average). The government is spending more than $33,000 per taxpayer and sucking the lifeblood out of our economy.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

20,000 Muslims Warm-Up Act for Democratic National Convention

Will what Barack Obama calls “one of the prettiest sounds on earth at sunset”, the Muslim call to prayer end the first day of the kickoff to the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Charlotte, NC?

According to the Charlotte DNC homepage, ‘The Jumah at the 2012 DNC’ will welcome some 20,000 Muslims to Charlotte, DEM-dubbed an “official event”.

‘Jumah at the 2012 DNC’ starts Friday afternoon, Aug. 31 jumah prayer followed by a myriad of other as yet unidentified programs and events, but leading up to the Islam Regal Banquet. (halal, of course).

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

21 Million Health Care Workers to be Unionized Under Obamacare

“It is clear that Big Labor is banking on the probability that all healthcare workers eventually become federal, state, and municipal healthcare employees,” Loos told Factor. That, he said, would make them eligible for involuntary unionization through public-sector unions like AFSCME and the SEIU.

“Obamacare is an SEIU and AFSCME membership ‘net,’“ Loos claimed, “designed to eventually capture 21 million forced-dues paying government workers.” New health care jobs created by Obamacare, he said, will eventually be filled by “federal, state, and municipal healthcare employees.”

[…]

“For every million additional health care workers unionized in the 27 non-right-to-work states,” he told TheDC, “the unions stand to earn $1 billion in dues.”

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Apple Patent Victory Could Have Broad Implications for Mobile Industry

In a big legal victory for Apple that could have broad implications for the mobile business, a jury awarded the company more than $1 billion in damages Friday after finding that Samsung infringed on a series of Apple patents on smartphones and tablet computers.

The verdict could have a major impact on Android, the Google operating system used by Samsung and many other companies in their devices. Apple’s suit against Samsung, the world’s largest maker of smartphones, has partly been viewed as a proxy war against Google, which Apple executives have derided as a copycat.

A nine-person jury sided with Apple on most of its allegations, including patent claims involving the “bounce back” effect when a user scrolls to the end of a list, the pinch-to-zoom gesture that users make when they want to magnify an image, and the physical design of the iPhone.

The jury added some sting by finding in favor of Apple across the board in a countersuit by Samsung.

[Return to headlines]

Are People Being Thrown Into Psychiatric Wards for Their Political Views?

And authoritarian American psychologists are eager to label anyone “taking a cynical stance toward politics, mistrusting authority, endorsing democratic practices, … and displaying an inquisitive, imaginative outlook” as worthy of a trip to the insane asylum. (Those traits may also get one labeled as a potential terrorist.)

As prominent forensic psychiatrist James Knoll — psychiatry professor at SUNY-Syracuse and director of a forensic fellowship program — writes in the Psychiatric Times:

“When psychiatric science becomes co-opted by a political agenda, an unhealthy alliance may be created. It is science that will always be the host organism, to be taken over by political viruses… [P]sychiatry may come to resemble a new organism entirely — one that serves the ends of the criminal justice system.“

Even psychologists with good intentions can erroneously label people delusional simply because they themselves make bad assumptions.

There is even a label for this — the “Martha Mitchell Effect” — defined as:

The process by which a psychiatrist, psychologist, or other mental health clinician mistakes the patient’s perception of real events as delusional and misdiagnoses accordingly.

[…]

Update: The stories of psychiatric commitment of political activists in China are horrendous .[url (warning: disturbing descriptions)]

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Bob Dole Urges Mitt Romney to Confront Republican Party Right Wing

EXCLUSIVE: Bob Dole, the last Republican to challenge a Democratic president, has urged Mitt Romney to confront their party’s Right wing and likened the Romney-Ryan ticket to his own ultimately unsuccessful partnership with Jack Kemp in 1996.

Mr Dole, a former Kansas Senator defeated by Bill Clinton 16 years ago, said the party should follow his example of “mainstream” Republicanism and become more appealing to ethnic minorities and young people to secure its future. “We have got to be open,” he said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph. “We cannot be a single-issue party or single-philosophy party”. He added: “There’s a big split in our party. There’s this undercurrent of rigid conservatism where you don’t dare not toe the line”.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Brooklyn Democratic Leader Censured for Sexual Harassment

Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez, the Brooklyn Democratic leader and longtime political power broker there, has been stripped of his committee chairmanship, barred from employing young people, and censured after an Assembly committee determined that he had sexually harassed two female employees this summer.

[Return to headlines]

Diana West: The GOP Akin Problem is Worse That They Think

Prediction: If the GOP establishment doesn’t follow Republican Rep. Todd Akin’s example with a big, fat apology — to Akin — the whole party goes down in flames come November.

I don’t mean every Republican will lose, but there is great political peril in not sealing the hole in Republican armor that has opened in Missouri and instead permitting it to remain a Democratic pressure point. Further, “for the good of the country” (the mantra accompanying the party-wide chorus of pleas to Akin to drop out of his U.S. Senate race), Republicans must resume funding Akin’s viable campaign ASAP, after cutting it off in a mad fit of political pique. Finally, every one of them — the party standard-bearer, party bosses, congressional delegations, allied pundits — should come together for a group smack on the head, as in, “What were we thinking?”

I can’t recall anything in public life more widely craven and uncalled for than the open panic and bullying set off across the Republican Party by the first replay of Akin’s perplexingly ignorant interview comments on rape and pregnancy. The veteran conservative lawmaker, former engineer, former businessman and grandfather of eight recanted these remarks. He apologized for them.

But as the left began to bay for blood over a Republican and, by preposterous extension, Republican Party it hopes to smear as “anti-woman,” Republicans across the board, incredibly, joined in…

— Hat tip: Diana West

[Return to headlines]

EPA Regulations Will Close Coal Plants, Raise Electricity Prices, GAO Says

New regulations issued by the Environmental Protection Agency will lead to the closure of older, coal-fired power plants and boost electricity prices in some parts of the country, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office.

The GAO, at the behest of Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), reviewed a host of information from government sources such as the EPA and Energy Information Agency (EIA) as well as private energy-sector forecasters to determine the likely impact of four new EPA regulations aimed at coal-fired power plants.

None of the regulations has taken effect yet and two have yet to be finalized by EPA. In fact, one of the regulations — the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule — was struck down by a federal court on Tuesday, after the GAO issued its findings.

[…]

GAO found that as many as 12 percent of coal-fired power plants may be closed because the EPA regulations make it too expensive for power companies to operate them, despite coal being one of world’s cheapest fuels.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

‘Fast and Furious’ ATF Official Granted Paid Leave to Take 6-Figure Job at JP Morgan

(CNSNews.com) — The long-awaited inspector general’s report on the Justice Department’s botched gun-running scheme is finished, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said on Wednesday.

But along with that news comes more questions: Issa and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) are demanding to know why a top ATF official involved in Operation Fast and Furious remains on paid leave from ATF — while simultaneously drawing a six-figure salary from J.P. Morgan, a major investment bank.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Feds Strike “None” From Nevada Ballots

In Nevada, if you decide to vote, you will have to vote for the establishment or one of the non-establishment parties allowed on the ballot by the establishment (after it is determined they can’t actually win).

Voting for “none” will no longer be allowed.

“U.S. District Judge Robert Jones ruled Wednesday in favor of a challenge to a state law adopted after the Watergate scandal, The New York Times reported. The plaintiffs included several Republicans backed by the Republican National Committee, two of Mitt Romney’s Electoral College electors, a registered Democrat and an independent,” the UPI reports.

Republicans and Democrats worked together to eliminate what was basically a protest vote. Republicans were miffed because the “none” voters helped defeat John Ensign and catapulted Harry Reid to victory. Reid is now the Democrat majority leader in the Senate.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

GOP Embraces Anti-Sharia

by Alex Seitz-Wald

The Republican Party platform will likely include a plank this year opposing the imagined threat of Islamic law

While leaders like Speaker Boehner and Sen. John McCain were rightly praised for taking a strong stand against Rep. Michele Bachmann’s witch hunt against Muslims in the U.S. government, don’t give the party of Lincoln a pass on Islamophobia just yet. In Tampa this week, GOP leaders adopted a plank to their platform supporting a ban on foreign law and aimed at Shariah, the Islamic religious law that many conservatives insist is secretly insinuating itself in the U.S. The platform still has to be approved by the entire convention in a vote next week, but generally, most things approved by the platform committee make it into the final platform.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Guns ‘n’ Rose Colored Deals

The more research and investigation one does into the Obama-Napolitano-Holder ATF sanctioned Fast and Furious operation, greater is the stench that emanates from the ties between Obama, his minions and the global bankers. From claims of “executive privilege” by Obama to the outright persecution of whistleblowers trying to do the right thing, we are now seeing the actual unveiling of the incestuous ties between globalist bankers and the present power elite in Washington.

According to a letter sent Tuesday from Senator Chuck Grassley, Ranking member of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and Representative Daryl Issa, Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, to ATF Acting Director B. Todd Jones, a key suspect (my word) in the Fast and Furious criminal operation has not only been on paid administrative leave for the last several months, but is concurrently working in the private sector and receiving income from that job as well.

[…]

First, JP Morgan is the largest processor of food stamp benefits in the United States. They process food stamp debit cards in over half of the states and the District of Columbia in the U.S., and are paid for each transaction they process. Ultimately, the more people who become recipients of food stamps (actually, food debit cards), the more revenue that is generated by JP Morgan.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Islamic Beard Overshadows U.S. Military Code in Fort Hood Case

IBD Editorial

Jihadism: In 2009, Islamic fanaticism and political correctness resulted in the deaths of 13 soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas. Three years later, the evil twins have teamed up to deny justice for victims. The trial of jihadi mass murderer Maj. Nidal Hasan, scheduled for last Monday, is on hold again — because of an Islamic beard. Six times Hasan has refused to shave it, claiming his religion takes precedence over U.S. military code, and six times his court martial has been delayed. And now the case is stalled at the appellate level.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Lance Armstrong Subject to Lifetime Ban and Fan Fallout

(CBS News) In a statement released late Thursday night, celebrated cyclist Lance Armstrong announced he would no longer fight charges that he used performance enhancing drugs throughout his esteemed career.

“There comes a point in every man’s life when he has to say, enough is enough,” Armstrong’s statement read. “For me, that time is now.”

Also on Thursday night, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency said it will strip Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles and Travis Tygart, USADA’s chief executive, said Armstrong would be subject to a lifetime ban from the sport.

Friday on “CBS This Morning,” CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian said the original charges brought against Armstrong in June were based on “non-analytical evidence” that he used performance enhancing drugs. This evidence reportedly included testimony from several former teammates, including Tyler Hamilton who told “60 Minutes” that he frequently saw Armstrong inject “EPO,” a banned naturally occurring hormone known as a blood booster.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Martin Scorsese Sued by Italy’s Cecchi Gori

Producer claims US director reneged on film deal

(ANSA) — New York, August 23 — Martin Scorsese is being sued by Italian film producer Vittorio Cecchi Gori for allegedly reneging on a contract to direct a film the two discussed 20 years ago. Cecchi Gori claims the US moviemaking great is not carrying out his obligation to develop the movie Silence, which tells the tale of Portuguese missionaries in Japan many hundreds of years ago investigating claims of Christian persecution on behalf of the Imperial family.

According to the legal claim, Scorsese had assured Cecchi Gori he would direct the film. So far Cecchi Gori says his production house has spent 750,000 on developing the film. photo: Scorsese with Golden Globe for Hugo

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Misunderstanding McCarthyism

Why do self-styled conservative media personalities feel it necessary to protect the President?

With more than four years of research into Davis, and more revelations coming, the burden of proof is on Barack Obama to prove that his communist connections, which continued from his growing-up years in Hawaii to college to Chicago, were the result of innocence or naïveté. That will be hard for him to do, since he concealed the identity of Davis in his memoir, Dreams from My Father, calling him just “Frank” and depicting him as a poet and writer. He knew that Frank Marshall Davis was an associate and mentor and that he had to protect his communist identity from public scrutiny.

[…]

Obama isn’t the only one benefitting from this double-standard. It is because of the false charge of McCarthyism that conservatives find it so difficult to get concerned about State Department official Huma Abedin to be taken seriously by top Republican officials and candidates. Senator John McCain and House Speaker John Boehner both said questions about Abedin’s connections to the Muslim Brotherhood are not appropriate and even dangerous. Romney said his campaign didn’t want to talk about it.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Mosque Plan Divides a Diverse Town

Opponents of Michigan Islamic Center Raise Concerns Over Increased Traffic, Aesthetics-and Risk of Terrorist Links

WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich.-This affluent Detroit suburb prides itself on its religious diversity, with 49 houses of worship within its 32 square miles, including at least 11 Jewish synagogues and 15 Protestant or Catholic churches. But a plan to convert a former public school into West Bloomfield’s first mosque has raised tensions and prompted a round of soul-searching here. Residents and activists say the plan has rankled some in West Bloomfield’s large Jewish community, while the sale of the school to a Muslim association has drawn opposition from some other residents and a prominent Christian-rights group.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Murder at a New York Icon

Man Shoots Ex-Colleague Outside Empire State Building; 9 Bystanders Wounded.

A laid-off apparel designer allegedly gunned down a former co-worker outside the Empire State Building on Friday morning, prompting a confrontation with New York police that killed the shooter but left nine others wounded on a crowded rush-hour Manhattan sidewalk, authorities said.

The bystanders were most likely wounded by police in the 9 a.m. incident in the shadow of one of the nation’s most recognizable landmarks, authorities said. All but one—a 35-year-old female tourist from North Carolina—are New York City residents. They are expected to live; six were discharged from the hospital Friday.

Tourists and harried commuters ran in fear when shots erupted in the packed Midtown district. “I heard the shooting and people started running toward here,” said Mohamad Ragab, a breakfast vendor. “I jumped outside my cart to take a look. I saw one body.”

New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly identified the gunman as Jeffrey Johnson, 58, a Manhattan man who was fired about a year ago as a designer at a women’s apparel firm, Hazan Import Corp., on West 33rd Street across from the Empire State Building. The victim was identified as Steven Ercolino, 41, a Hazan account executive, by his sister-in-law.

Authorities said Mr. Johnson blamed Mr. Ercolino for the loss of his job, accusing him of not doing enough to sell the T-shirts and women’s accessories that Mr. Johnson designed. A building official said the men once had a physical altercation in the building, and Mr. Kelly said the two men had filed formal harassment complaints against each other in April 2011…

[Return to headlines]

New Audio Surfaces of Obama Defending Infanticide in Illinois

That President Barack Obama was the only member of the Illinois legislature to not support a bill to provide medical care for newborns who survived failed late-term abortions is one of the key reasons pro-life voters will never support him.

Now, Weekly Standard reporter John McCormack has uncovered new audio of Obama, as a state legislator in Illinois in 2003, defending his position. Obama essentially argues that there is no need for the law because he trusts abortion practitioners to provide medical care for the baby they unsuccessfully tried to kill in an abortion.

The transcript of the video McCormack unearthed follows:…

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Obama’s 2nd-Term Assault on U.S. Military

A handful of key progressive organizations behind much of Obama’s first-term agenda have now submitted even more radical proposals to the White House to “transform” the U.S. military.

If these progressive groups have their way, U.S. armed forces will be reduced to a social work-style organization designed to combat “global warming,” fight global poverty, remedy “injustice,” bolster the United Nations and increase “peacekeeping” forces worldwide. The massive, second-term slashes to the military budget are to be used, shockingly, to invest in a defense posture based on “sustainable energy” and fighting worldwide climate change. There is also a plan to wrest control of the military budget from Congress.

This progressive wish list matters because Obama’s first-term agenda did not materialize out of thin air. The president’s signature policies — including his first-term defense cutbacks, the $800 billion “stimulus” and even Obamacare — were crafted over years by the same major progressive organizations and activists now hard at work planning Obama’s second-term strategy on jobs, wages, health care, immigration, electoral “reform” — and national defense.

[Return to headlines]

Poll: GOP Really Dislikes Muslims

by Alex Seitz-Wald

A new survey shows just how uncomfortable the Republican base is with Muslim and Arab people

Anyone wondering why Rep. Michele Bachmann would launch a witch hunt against Muslims or why the Republican Party would add a plank to its platform opposing Shariah law need look no further than a new poll conducted by the Arab American Institute. The poll, released today, asked Americans for their views on various religious groups, as well as on Arabs and Arab-Americans. It also asked respondents how confident they would be that a Muslim or Arab-American holding a position of influence in government could do their job without letting “ethnic loyalty … influence their decision-making.”

The results are split sharply along partisan lines. Overall, Republican voters hold strongly negative views of Muslims, with 57 percent saying they view them unfavorably and just 26 saying they view them favorably — more than double. The numbers are similar for Arabs, whom Republican respondents view negatively by a slightly smaller margin of 26 percent, 53 to 27 percent. When asked about “Muslim Americans” and “Arab Americans,” the numbers improved slightly, with a 12 and 15 percent net unfavorable rating, respectively.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

The Psychotics in Power Are Calling Us Mentally Ill

Obama and his goons are making everything back to front and upside down. Good is bad and bad is good. If you are Christian and a gun owning patriot you are mentally ill, dangerous and should be taken away. This week we heard and followed what felt like the unbelievable in our country but the stories were true. Sane people practicing their 1st amendment rights are being identified as ‘risks’ ‘mentally ill’ ‘dangerous and needing treatment.’

Just some of these evolving cases of mental illness and danger

Doug Hagmann, Director of Northeast Intelligence Network and veteran private investigator exposed how one of his listeners and callers had been literally picked up by cops after a ‘mystery’ friend called in a mental health concern. This lead to Jason Egroff, being forcibly whisked away by cops, probed, questioned, humiliated and searched for 18 hours, then released. Hagmann found that the alleged friend who turned him in was far different than represented and Jason was not mentally ill or a danger at all. The only apparent danger and crime Jason committed was exercising his first amendment rights and daring to share concerns about the Government and 9/11. So what? Many people have concerns about 9/11 who are not insane.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Thomas Sowell: A Powerful Movie

Years, and sometimes decades, pass between my visits to movie theaters. But I drove 30 miles to see the movie “2016,” based on Dinesh D’Souza’s best-selling book, “The Roots of Obama’s Rage.” Where I live is so politically correct that such a movie would not even be mentioned, much less shown.

Every seat in the theater was filled, even though there had been an earlier showing that day, and more showings were scheduled for the rest of the afternoon and evening. I had to sit on a staircase in the balcony, but it was worth it.

The audience was riveted. You could barely hear a sound from them, or detect a movement, and certainly not smell popcorn. Yet the movie had no bombast, no violence, no sex and no spectacular visual effects.

The documentary itself was fascinating, as Dinesh D’Souza presented the story of Barack Obama’s life and view of the world, in a very conversational sort of way, illustrating it with visits to people and places around the world that played a role in the way Obama’s ideas and beliefs evolved.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Thought Police Victim Brandon Raub Ordered Released From Psychiatric Prison; Govt. Agents Kidnapped and Detained Him for Facebook Posts

(NaturalNews) The thought police are hard at work in America, crushing anyone who expresses ideas of liberty and freedom. The latest case involves U.S. veteran Brandon Raub, who posted text on Facebook saying, among other things, that 9/11 was an inside job, that the country is being run by an evil cabal of insiders, and that the global elite are pedophiles who rape children.

Pointing to these opinion statements, the FBI, U.S. Secret Service and local law enforcement authorities in Virginia raided his home, kidnapped the 26-year-old, and stuffed him into a psychiatric hospital where he was to be detained for any number of weeks, months or even years. Raub was not charged with a crime, was never read any Miranda rights, and was never given a hearing in front of a judge. No judge, no jury, no rights, no nothing. He was simply targeted, kidnapped, stuffed and cuffed because of his free speech posted on Facebook.

Today, a circuit court judge has ordered the Marine veteran released from the psychiatric hospital, saying that law enforcement had no grounds to hold him. This has been reported by CBS 6 News and published in BusinessInsider.com.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Veteran Declared ‘Mentally Defective, ‘ Has Guns Seized

Just a day after Brandon Raub was released following his incarceration in a psychiatric ward over political Facebook posts, news has emerged of a similar case involving a veteran who had his guns seized after being labeled a “mental defective’ and faces being committed by a judge.

Radio host Steve Quayle was sent news of an Army combat veteran and Purple Heart recipient in west central Ohio who was the victim of a police raid on the evening of August 22nd during which Miami County Ohio Sheriff’s deputies executed a search warrant to seize the man’s firearms for the “safety of the defendant and the general public,” according to the warrant.

[…]

Whitehead warned that there were 20,000 recent cases in Virginia alone of people being snatched from their homes having been declared mentally defective by the state with virtually no due process whatsoever and with the victim having committed no crime.

Given the fact that the Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly demonized veterans as likely domestic terrorists, it’s clear that former servicemen are being targeted as part of an effort to chill free speech and discourage other veterans from being politically active.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Caroline Glick: Israel Faces the Cynical World

This week a German doctor in Bavaria filed a criminal complaint against Rabbi David Goldberg.

Rabbi Goldberg’s “crime”? He performs ritual circumcisions on Jewish male infants in accordance with Jewish law.

The doctor’s complaint came shortly after a ruling by a court in Cologne outlawing the practice of male circumcision.

The Austrians and the Swiss also took the ruling to heart and have banned infant male circumcision in several hospitals in Switzerland as well as in the Austrian state of Vorarlberg. Denmark and Scandinavian governments are also considering limiting the practice of circumcision which has constituted one of the foundational rituals of Judaism for four thousand years.

Meanwhile, in Norway Dr. Anne Lindboe has come up with the perfect way out of the artificial crisis. Lindboe serves a Norway’s ombudsman for children’s rights. And she proposes that we Jews just change our religion to satisfy anti-Jewish sensitivities. She suggests we replace circumcision with “a symbolic, nonsurgical ritual.”

It’s worth mentioning that circumcision isn’t the only Jewish ritual these enlightened Europeans find objectionable. Sweden, Norway and Switzerland have already banned kosher slaughter.

Attacking circumcision isn’t just a European fetish. The urge to curb Jewish religious freedom has reached the US as well. Last year San Francisco’s Jewish Community Relations Council had to sue the city to strike a measure from last November’s ballot that would have banned circumcision if passed. The measure’s sponsor gathered the requisite 12,000 signatures to enter the proposition on the ballot. Circumcising males under the age of 18 would have been classified as a misdemeanor punishable by a $1,000 fine and up to a year in prison. Sponsors of the measure distributed anti-Semitic materials depicting rabbis performing circumcisions as villains…

— Hat tip: Caroline Glick

[Return to headlines]

France: Toulouse Gunman Could Possibly be Not Alone

The French newspaper has received access to materials of the police investigation on the case of “Toulouse gunman” Mohammed Merah. According to new data he could have tens or even hundreds of associates around the world — in Egypt, Morocco, Kenya, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Bhutan and even in the UK. According to the newspaper, the 24-year-old Merah, who had been shot dead in an attempted arrest, had extensive connections in 20 countries, including Egypt, Morocco, Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia. The newspaper reports that the criminal made more than 1800 calls to these countries. Merah also made several trips to the Middle East and Afghanistan, BBC reports. This March, Merah, 24, killed three Jewish children and their father rabbi near a Jewish school in Toulouse, and also three servicemen. After that he was shot dead by police during the storming of his apartment.

Friday, 24 August 2012

Voice of Russia

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

German Circumcision Debate Flares Up After Probe on Rabbi

The debate over the German ban on circumcision has come under the spotlight again, as a doctor files suit against a rabbi. Another rabbi says that doctors should test the competence of people who perform the operation. The circumcision debate in Germany has flared up again, as a rabbi has faced a criminal charge by a doctor after performing a circumcision on a baby. Another rabbi claims that doctors should test the medical competence of people who perform circumcisions.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Norway: Anders Breivik Verdict: Live

Anders Behring Breivik has been declared sane, and faces 21 years in prison for killing 77 people in twin attacks in Oslo and Utoya, a Norwegian court has judged. Live coverage.

Latest

9.35am The judge talks about Breivik’s self-declared crusader description. She refers to the fact that his “Knights Templar” group does not seem to exist and that has been used by the prosecution as a sign of his insanity. Breivik was in Liberia but not to meet a Serbian nationalists, but rather to buy diamonds. He was also in London to meet Knights Templar members.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Norway: Anders Behring Breivik Spent Years Training and Plotting for Oslo Massacre

Before declaring him sane, Norwegian court heard about killer’s ruthless attention to detail when planning mass murder

When Anders Behring Breivik announced in the spring of 2011 that he was moving out of Oslo to become a farmer, his friends were pleased. After five years dossing about unemployed at his mum’s flat, including a whole 12 months playing video games day and night, Breivik finally appeared to have found some direction. In April 2011, just before he left the capital, the then 32-year-old hosted a barbecue for six friends. He was upping sticks to a farm near Rena, a town two hours north-east of Oslo, to grow sugar beet, he said. It was a bit of a curveball, but not totally out of character.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Norway Hails Breivik Verdict

Relieved survivors of Anders Behring Breivik’s massacres took to Twitter on Friday to express their delight moments after he was sentenced to 21 years in prison for killing 77 people last year.

Defence lawyers said that Breivik would not appeal the verdict, although the prosecution still has the right to do so.

“If there’s no appeal, it means we will have peace, there’ll be no need to mobilize for a new trial,” Marcussen said. “We can then mourn more deeply … it’ll be good to put it all behind us.”

Other reactions from abroad on Twitter were more mixed, but mainly saying they could not understand that Breivik was given “only” 21 years in jail.

Under Norwegian law his sentence, though it is the maximum for the charges against him, can be extended indefinitely for as long as he is deemed to be a danger to society.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Norway Court Deems Breivik Sane, Sentences Killer to Prison

A Norwegian court sentenced Anders Behring Breivik to prison on Friday, denying prosecutors the insanity ruling they hoped would show that his massacre of 77 people was the work of a madman, not part of an anti-Muslim crusade.

Breivik smiled with apparent satisfaction when Judge Wenche Elisabeth Arntzen read the ruling, declaring him sane enough to be held criminally responsible and sentencing him to “preventive detention,” which means it is unlikely he will ever be released.

The sentence brings a form of closure to Norway, which was shaken to its core by the bomb and gun attacks on July 22, 2011, because Breivik’s lawyers said before the ruling that he would not appeal any ruling that did not declare him insane.

But it also means Breivik got what he wanted: a ruling that paints him as a political terrorist instead of a psychotic mass murderer. Since his arrest, Breivik has said the attacks were meant to draw attention to his extreme right-wing ideology and to inspire a multi-decade uprising by “militant nationalists” across Europe.

Prosecutors had argued Breivik was insane as he plotted his attacks to draw attention to a rambling “manifesto” that blamed Muslim immigration for the disintegration of European society.

Breivik argued that authorities were trying to cast him as sick to cast doubt on his political views, and said during the trial that being sent to an insane asylum would be the worst thing that could happen to him.

“He has always seen himself as sane so he isn’t surprised by the ruling,” Breivik’s defense lawyer Geir Lippestad said.

The five-judge panel in the Oslo district court unanimously convicted Breivik, 33, of terrorism and premeditated murder and ordered him imprisoned for a period between 10 and 21 years, the maximum allowed under Norwegian law. Such sentences can be extended as long as an inmate is considered too dangerous to be released, and legal experts say Breivik will almost certainly spend the rest of his life in prison.

It was not clear whether prosecutors would appeal the ruling. If not, and if Breivik sticks to his word not to appeal a prison term, the legal process for one of the darkest chapters in Norwegian history will have come to a close.

Survivors of the attacks and relatives of victims welcomed the ruling.

“I am very relieved and happy about the outcome,” said Tore Sinding Bekkedal, who survived the Utoya shooting.

“I believe he is mad, but it is political madness and not psychiatric madness,” Bekkedal said. “He is a pathetic and sad little person.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Norway: Breivik Sane: Oslo Court

Norway’s mass killer Anders Behring Breivik was found sane and sentenced to 21 years in prison on Friday for a bloodbath that left 77 people dead and traumatised the normally tranquil nation.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Sweden: EDL’s Swedish Cousins Show Their True Colours

At the beginning of this month Stockholm hosted an international “Counter Jihad” meeting that saw racists and bigots from around the globe gather in the Swedish capital city. The EDL sent their usual comedy double act of Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll along with British Freedom’s chairman Paul Weston. The Swedish Defence League as hosts were instrumental in organising the events in Stockholm yet a noticeable absentee from the list of speakers was the SDL leader Isak Nygren.There is growing speculation that the EDL leadership are a little embarrassed and annoyed when it comes to Nygren and his Swedish Defence League friends.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

UK: ‘Iftar With the Stars’ Event

On the evening of 11 August, the Muslim Council hosted various international Muslim Olympians at a special ‘Iftar’ event to mark the end of the fasting day during Ramadan.

Amongst the Olympians who attended were the Pakistani Paralympic Team, whose leader praised LOCOG for treating Paralympians as fully-fledged athletes. Guests also heard from Professor Salim al-Hassani, founder of the Islamic Foundation for Science and Technology, on the historical contribution of Muslims to modern sports. His words were echoed by the Revd. Canon Duncan Green, head of Multi-Faith Chaplaincy Services at the Olympics. He noted how the Athletes Village had 204 nations living side-by-side, with mosques, synagogues, churches and temples all represented by their respective clergy. Attendees worshiped, ate and played together. “If we can do it for three to four weeks, why can’t we do it for many more years to come?”

The MCB’s former secretary general, Dr. Muhammad Abdul Bari, shared his reasons for joining LOCOG as a board member. He highlighted the legacy of the Games for developing some of London’s most deprived areas, and bringing communities together for a common national purpose. “It has been a stupendous fortnight,” Farooq Murad concluded. “Let all of us — people and politicians alike — make sure that spirit of London 2012, the spirit and energy of ‘togetherness’ and success, continues for decades to come.”

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

UK: A New Partnership Between Islamic Relief and Govt

Islamic Relief and the Foreign Office hosted an Iftari (breaking of the fast) gathering on July 26. The event was held to celebrate the launch a new partnership between Department of International Development (Dfid) and Islamic Relief. Keynote speaker, Dfid Secretary, Andrew Mitchell, announced at the event that the Government is to match all donations to Islamic Relief’s 2012 Ramadan appeal pound for pound, up to a maximum of £5 million. “This will help hundreds of thousands of the world’s poorest, most vulnerable people — parents in the Sahel struggling to feed their children, and farmers in areas of Bangladesh and Pakistan whose crops are threatened by flooding or drought caused by climate change. It will help both to meet people’s immediate needs and to give them the resources they need to lift themselves out of poverty,” he said.

CEO of Islamic Relief, Dr Mohamed Ashmawey, said: “We are delighted to receive this support from the Government for Islamic Relief’s Ramadan appeal. This means that our supporters can double their donations and we can double the impact of our work to support poor communities and lift people out of poverty.” Foreign Office Minister, Alistair Burt, supporting the partnership, said the UK’s development assistance “will stand as a sign of our commitment to charity and compassion at a time when Muslim families and friends celebrate these values.” Islamic Relief plans to use the funds raised through this years Ramadan appeal to support projects around the world, particularly the communities which are facing severe droughts, floods and food crises as a result of climate change.

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

UK: Campaigners Who Are Against a March by the Far-Right English Defence League (EDL) In Walthamstow …

CAMPAIGNERS who are against a march by the far-right English Defence League (EDL) next month have criticised police for not trying to ban it. The extremist group, which describes itself as a movement against Islamic extremism but which critics say is racist, is set to protest in Walthamstow on Saturday September 1. Last September Waltham Forest was one of five London boroughs where all marches were temporarily banned by the government following concerns about a proposed EDL demo in Tower Hamlets.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

UK: Knowledge Exchange Conference: Far Right Extremism

by Nick Lowles

Really pleased to have been invited to speak at the Knowledge Exchange Conference on Far Right Extremism, which will be held in London on 14 September. The conference, which is supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), will present the latest research on far right extremism, as well as underlying tensions relating to immigration and integration. It will bring together 80-100 national and local policy-makers, academics and researchers, and practitioners and the topics include: public attitudes toward core far right issues such as immigration; recent developments and trends within the far right, and likely future directions; the profiles and attitudes of supporters; assessing the impact of far right extremism; current and possible policy responses; and local models of experience. This conference marks the beginning of a six-month knowledge exchange partnership, which is geared toward strengthening links between academics, policy-makers and practitioners and as such appears a really important event.

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

UK: Revised Plans for York Mosque Approved

Revised plans for a new £1m mosque in York have been approved, after being withdrawn amid flooding concerns.

Last year religious leaders behind the mosque pulled plans for a site on Bull Lane, after the Environment Agency said it would be vulnerable to flooding. Mosque secretary, Shazad Hussain, said it was a “great relief” that the plans had now been approved. He said the new design was much more practical, and that flooding and parking were no longer an issue.

Mr Hussain said only a small amount of the two-storey building would be on the flood zone in the new plans. “It will mostly be built on the site of the current building,” he said. “We have been here for 27 years and have never flooded.”

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

UK: The Strange Death of BNP England

by Ed West

The BNP looks like it is coming to the end of its existence, the political party’s decline and fall having a suitable touch of comedy. Having collapsed in the polls since their 2009 heyday, party leader Nick Griffin is now displaying the most obvious symptom of a movement in disarray — turning his energy on rivals. As Matthew Goodwin of Nottingham University explains, Griffin has produced a report on the English Defence League, “claiming that behind the EDL lie a number of shadowy neoconservatives and ‘Zionist terrorists’ who are seeking to manipulate public concern over Islam to launch new wars and split the far right nationalist scene”.

[…]

In the worldview of the NF’s leaders, Jews were the enemy, as was America, a mongrel capitalist nation dominated by Jews; naturally, then, many were drawn into contact with radical Muslims, including Colonel Gaddafi (to be fair, Griffin was not the only person to be taken in by Gaddafi’s “third way” economics). But after the Bradford riots and 9/11, Griffin accepted that race was perhaps less important than religion, and the main area of concern to potential followers was the growth of Muslim populations, especially from Pakistan and Bangladesh, and their failure to integrate, not to mention some of the extreme views that were flourishing in those communities.

It was in that atmosphere that the English Defence League came about, a group more sectarian than racist. The EDL does not have any objection to Jewish intellectuals nor race-mixing, the two bugbears of the far Right, and focuses on the fear people have about large-scale settlement of alien people into their neighbourhoods, the fear they feel in those areas, and especially the hostility of some young Muslim men to this country and its armed forces. (Stephen Lennon was radicalised by the sight of Taliban supporters openly recruiting outside Luton’s main shopping centre from 2001, while British troops were fighting in Afghanistan). Unlike the NF or BNP, it is almost exclusively working-class, one of the reasons that leads Griffin to suspect there are shadowy forces behind it.

Whatever the EDL’s problems, it at least understands that, since Israel is mostly loathed both by multicultural Leftists and Islamists, they should support Israel. For the BNP the old hatred for “Zionists” still overcomes any desire for electoral advantage, to such an extent that they wish to be enemies with their enemy’s enemy. With their world collapsing around them, the BNP continue to expound precious energy on attacking the Jews. Sounds, er, familiar.

[…]

[Reader comment by danoconnor on 23 August 2012 at 6:42 pm.]

Contemporary Western (exluding the former Soviet block nations of Russia and Eastern Europe) CAFE post-Communism, Cultural Marxism LEFTISM, Liberalism, Progressivism, soft-Leftism, Left Neo-Conservatism ect ect, or whatever one wishes to label it , is really just another word for Anti-White-ism because the economic, cultural, political and demographic policies behind it are all immensley destructive to white societies, their social capital, identity and their continued existence. The Left (anti-White-ism), who spent the last 6 decades 24/7 drawing up a collective blanket indictment against the white man and all his future off spring for “crimes against humanity”, spends the other half of his time describing any white people who point out this unhealthy obession of the Left, as “ far-right wing ridiculous hysterical paranoia.” While continuing with their blantantly anti-white rhetoric.

“Ha ha ha, I am White, How can I possibly be anti-white” — they say. Good question Mr Cafe Lefty. How do you manage it?

Cafe Leftism (Hippyology) is not based on the real world and the harsh realities of human existence, human nature and human imperfectiblity, but on how the Hippyologists want the world to be. The thing that the Hippyologists hate most and consider to be a far-right wing fascist ideology, is the idea that there is such a thing as human nature. Moralism has replaced Factualism “Hate-Facts”.

If all humáns (code for= White people) are not infinately pliable, then how can the revolutionary radical Left take humans (code for White people) and punish them until all those

“obscene — primitive — social -constructs “ are forced out of them and they become de-ethnicized, de-racialized, de-nationalized, de-culturalized — so that the Holocaust and Hitler (never Stalin,Mao,or Mohammed who made greater atrocities) can never happen again.

As it is written.

The last 60 years of Left Hippyologist hysteria about the rise of the next Hitler, will in the end do far more harm to the West than Hitler could ever have dreamed of. 70 years ago, the people of the West were told they might have to die to prevent the Nazis from taking over their countries. Today, 70 years later, they are told that they may have to die out to prevent the Nazis from taking over their countries. Since the end of WW2, and especiallly since the 60’s, the West, and in particular those mini-North Koreas we know as Western universities has begun to lose its collective mind. It has worked itself into a Zeitgeist of obsessive white guilt mea-culp, hand-wringing self-flaggelation and apologetic atonement for all the worlds injustices and evils. It is impossible to use reason,wisdom, common sense and logic to argue the Left out of this mind-lock, because they never used reason, common sense, wisdom and logic to get into it in the first place. Leftism, is a permanent middel class 16 year old 1st year student hippy brat tantrum virtue ego-glow on how the world should be, and should work if it was perfect.

In former times this self-appointed priesthood guardians of our collective moral conscience were recruited from the clergy. Today they are recruited from Western academia. The tragic/comedy irony of ironies, is that the Lefteratti, who consider themselves so much more morally and intellectually superior to their right wing enemies, and so fearful of the horrors of the 20th century repeating themselves, that like an army of termite ants they have been busy for the last 5 decades in concocting the ideal demographic conditions to bring those horrors about. The West is now one big Liberal Progressive Stoned-Out Hippy mental asylum run by the inmates.

(edited by the author)

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

UK: Urgent Announcement [Cancellation of Islamia Village at Thorpe Underwood Estate]

As Salamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhu,

We at Islamic Network would first like to extend Eid greetings to you and your families and may Allah accept our fasting, qiyaam and good deeds during the month of Ramadaan.

Ameen

We wanted to bring to your attention recent vulgar activities (by racist and Islamophobic groups such as EDL, Harry’s Place, Quilliam Foundation and others) that have transpired over the last few weeks in the United Kingdom blogosphere to pressurise our venue host to succumb to the cancellation of Islamia Village. The campaign had intensified at the beginning of the week, whereby such groups had threatened to cause violence at this weekend’s event. Threats of burning down the venue with the people in it have also been made publicly by some supporters of this campaign. The team at Islamic Network have been working tirelessly for the past 15 months right up until the last few moments, whereby our first batch of volunteers and guest speakers have arrived on-site in preparation.

We at Islamic Network are very disappointed to announce that due to the aforementioned pressure the venue has cancelled the event. Islamic Network have held a diverse range of dawah activities over a period of fourteen years (since 1998) and our most recent events, Steps to Allah 2011 and Steps to Allah 2012, attracted a total of over 2,000 attendees. Alhamdulilah these have been successful, all with a similar line up of speakers to those at Islamia Village. Similar threats of protest, etc, were also made regarding these previous events, but both events passed with no problems, Alhamdulilah.

We are naturally disappointed at the owner of the venue who succumbed to the threats made by racist thugs who — in other comments in various forums and blogs — have themselves shown their hatred towards Muslims. Furthermore, Islamic Network as a registered charity will incur a substantial financial loss due to the cancellation of Islamia Village, in addition to the countless time and effort spent by our volunteers, may Allah reward them.

[…]

Wa Jazakum Allahu Khayrun

Wa As Salamu Alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhu

Islamia Village Team

Islamic Network

[JP note: Vulgar indeed.]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

UK: Waltham Forest Council of Mosques Backs Walthamstow Demo

The Waltham Forest Council of Mosques has thrown its weight behind the Unite Against Fascism (UAF) and ‘We Are Waltham Forest’ demonstration against the English Defence League (EDL).

The EDL is planning to march in Walthamstow, north east London on Saturday 1 September. It is a violent group of racist thugs who want to whip up hatred against Muslims, and spread intolerance in our multicultural community. The ‘We Are Waltham Forest’ campaign, which is supported by all the major local trade unions and community groups, has now received backing from the Waltham Forest Council of Mosques. The EDL had planned to march on 18 August, the same day as the Muslim Eid festival. After overwhelming public opposition the EDL postponed its original march.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Why Norway’s Maximum Sentence is Just 21 Years

Norway’s maximum prison sentence is 21 years, after it abolished life in prison in 1971 as part of its goal of rehabilitating and reintegrating criminals into society, a Norwegian law professor told AFP.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Egypt’s “Crucifixion” Hoax Becomes an Instant Internet Myth

by Jonathan Kay

Have you heard the one about how Christians are being nailed up on crucifixes and left to die in front of the Egyptian presidential place? It’s a story worth dissecting — not because it’s true (it isn’t), but because it is a textbook example of how the Internet, once thought to be the perfect medium of truth-seeking, has been co-opted by culture warriors as a weapon to fire up the naïve masses with lies and urban legends. The Egyptian crucifixion story gained critical mass five days ago, when WorldNetDaily, a popular right-wing web site that promotes anti-gay and anti-Muslim conspiracy theories from an Evangelical perspective, published a story entitled “Arab Spring run amok: [Mulsim] Brotherhood starts crucifixions.”

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Tourists Should Beware of Islamist Mobs in Tunisia, Warns French Politician

Tunisia is falling prey to violent Islamist mobs, a Franco-Tunisian politician from the Loire valley has warned, after he narrowly escaped a “lynching” when he returned to his native town for a family holiday.

Jamel Gharbi, 62, a Socialist regional councillor, said was set upon in Bizerte, northern Tunisia, on August 16 by a gang of 50 sword-wielding Salafists furious that his wife and 12-year old daughter were wearing shorts and T-shirts. “I saw that they were looking at my wife and daughter in a hateful way due to their summer clothes, which were in no way provocative,” he told Le Figaro. They told us that we were in an Islamist country and I quickly understood that it was going to degenerate. I shouted to my wife and daughter to flee and the assailants laid into me to punch me and hit me with sticks. It was a lynching, it was horrible. My daughter shouted: ‘They’re going to kill daddy’ as I was covered in blood, but the worst thing was that nobody budged, nobody came to my aid, I was left to fend for myself.” He added: “If I had fallen on the floor, I think they would have finished me off.” But he managed to break free and reach his residence, where he barricaded himself and his family in.

Suffering from cuts and severe bruising, he cut short the holiday to return to France, vowing not to return to Tunisia anytime soon. “As soon as you leave the gilded prison of hotels and beaches you are at the mercy of gang of Salafists who rein with terror,” he said. “People who see eye-catching adverts for white beaches for 299 euros should see what goes on behind the scenes. They mustn’t fall into these people’s claws.”

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

BBC Censors Video Showing Syrian Rebels Forcing Prisoner to Become Suicide Bomber

The BBC has sensationally censored a news story and a video showing Syrian rebels forcing a prisoner to become a suicide bomber, a war crime under the Geneva Conventions, presumably because it reflected badly on establishment media efforts to portray the FSA as glorious freedom fighters.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Dubai: World’s Most Expensive Cupcake, Covered in Gold

Golden Phoenix costs 800 euros, 50% donated to WFP

(ANSAMed) — DUBAI, AUGUST 23 — The world’s most expensive cupcake can be had for 800 euros at Bloomsbury’s in the Dubai Mall. Covered in 24-karat gold scales, the Golden Phoenix, as this delicacy is called, is made out of Italian chocolate, Ugandan vanilla, and organic butter, flour, and strawberries. The gold is edible, and this is what makes the Golden Phoenix stand out from the competition, which includes a diamond-studded version. Coming on a plate with gold details and a gold spoon with chocolate mousse and gold-glazed strawberries, the opulent cupcake has been available in what is the Middle East’s biggest mall for about a month. Orders, however, have been slow. This may be due to the long turn-around time — 48 hours — its hefty price tag, or even a consciousness of world hunger in a time of economic crisis.

You could feed 1850 children for the price of one Golden Phoenix, according to the World Food Programme (WFP). But the news is not all bad, as Bloomsbury’s is donating 50% of Golden Phoenix earnings to the WFP.

The United Arab Emirates, and Dubai in particular, are no strangers to extravagance on every scale. From the luxurious seven-star Burj al-Arab hotel, also known as The Sail, to gold skin tattoos, to the Madeleine au Truffe, a chocolate-covered truffle lying on a bed of sugar pearls within a gold, silk-lined box, which retails at 250 dollars.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Afghanistan: Police: Insurgents Kidnap, Kill 3 Afghan Soldiers

KABUL, Afghanistan — Insurgents kidnapped three Afghan soldiers and another man from a bus in eastern Afghanistan and killed all four, authorities said Friday, in another challenge to the government and its security forces.Militants stopped the bus as it was traveling in Paktia province’s Ahmad Khil district and forced the four men off the vehicle Thursday, provincial deputy police chief Mohammad Zaman said. Their bullet-ridden bodies were found lying on a road later in the day.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Afghans Kill Three NATO, Three US Soldiers in One Day

An Afghan working on an installation shared by Afghan and foreign forces shot and killed three NATO soldiers on Friday — raising to six the number of international troops killed by their Afghan partners in 24 hours, officials said.

The attack announced Saturday comes as the number of these so-called “green-on-blue” incidents — carried out by Afghan police or soldiers or those disguised in their uniforms — is on the rise. But the U.S.-led coalition has said that they are not impeding ongoing work to hand over security to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Afghan Policeman Kills Two U.S. Troops Minutes After They Hand Him a Gun

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A newly recruited Afghan village policeman opened fire on his American allies on Friday, minutes after they gave him a new weapon as a present, killing two U.S. service members. It was the latest in a disturbing string of attacks by Afghan security forces on the international troops training them.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Christian Boy Tortured and Killed in Pakistan

The tortured body of an 11 year old Christian boy has been found in a town in Punjab, Pakistan, days after a young Christian girl was arrested on blasphemy charges.

Detectives in Faisalabad, around 60 miles from Lahore, said they were investigating whether accusations of blasphemy had also been made against the boy. Human rights campaigners condemned the killing of Samuel Yaqoob whose burned and tortured body body was discovered on Eid, the celebration which marks the end of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan. His lips and nose had been sliced off, his stomach removed and there was evidence that his legs had been mutilated too. The boy had been missing since Monday when he left his home in the town’s Christian Colony to visit a local market. His relatives identified his body from a distinctive mark on his forehead. Yaquub was reported to be an orphan but in local newspaper reports his mother Asia Bibi was quoted denying he had been accused of blasphemy. “We neither received any phone call for ransom nor were we told that Samuel had committed blasphemy,” she said.

[….]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Pakistani Muslims: Disabled 11 Yr-Old Christian Should be Punished

Muslim leader: no one can desecrate the Koran. And the faithful in the mosque call for the application of the “black law”. Appeal of Bishop of Islamabad for unity among Christians “around the child.” APMA lawyer speaks of “delicate matter” but is optimistic to have “good news soon.” Families forced to flee denounce their abandonment by government.

Islamabad (AsiaNews) — If guilty of blasphemy, the child should be punished according to the laws of the country. This is a widespread view among Muslims in Pakistan, whether laymen or religious leaders, regarding the tragedy of an 11 year old Christian girl who is disabled and was recently charged under the “black law”. To date the child is being detained under lock and key in a reform school — pending a full hearing for release on bail — for desecrating a few pages of a book that conatined verses from the Koran (see AsiaNews 19/08/2012 An 11-year-old disabled Christian girl arrested for blasphemy, 300 families flee). Interviewed by AsiaNews on the issue scholar Mehmood Ahmed Khan, a member of the Islamic Ideology Council (IIc), said that “Rimsha is a minor, but if she is mentally stable and committed the crime, child or not she should be punished.” He adds, “no one can be allowed to desecrate the Koran.”

Several human rights organizations, including the Masihi Foundation and Life for All, along with the Catholic Church of Pakistan have announced a demonstration tomorrow in Lahore on August 25, demanding the release of Rimsha Masih — this is the name of the girl, arrested on blasphemy charges — and who faces up to life in prison. The incident occurred on August 17 in Umara Jaffar, G-12 Islamabad, where the family of the minor live. In response, a mob of local Muslims — egged on by the imams — attacked the Christian community, forcing hundreds of families to flee.

Bishop Rufin Anthony of Islamabad-Rawalpindi has launched a call: “it is time for the entire Christian community to unite and string around the child. Sunday — adds the prelate — our voices will be heard in support thereof.” Meanwhile, the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA) has appointed parliamentarian Tahir Naveed Chaudhry lawyer to Rimsha. He assures us that “we will defend the rights of the oppressed” and has prepared “a panel of experts to plead the case.” It is a “delicate matter,” says the lawyer, but he is optimistic and promises “good news soon.”

However, sources say that the APMA lawyer was not allowed meet the child in prison. Now the goal is to get her out of jail and put it in a safe place, since the vast majority of blasphemy deaths are the result of extra-judicial killings, even in prison under the gaze of guards (see AsiaNews 17/09 / 2009 Punjab: young Christian man accused of blasphemy killed in prison). The Christian NGO World Vision in Progress has filed an appeal for bail, which will be discussed on 28 August.

Meanwhile, hundreds of Christian families forced to flee in fear of extremist attacks, accuse the government of neglect and disinterest, despite government proclamations in recent days that ensured comfort and help. Islamabad has announced the distribution of food aid, but so far “has not done anything,” says a witness. There is a climate of “insecurity” among the people and they do not “trust to return to their homes.” Meanwhile, the police have opened an investigation against 150 people suspected of the assault on the Christian Quarter of the capital when word got out of the blasphemy case.

Among the Muslims of Islamabad feelings toward the religious minority are mixed: some are willing to “accept” the return of the Christians in their homes, others do not. But on one point I agree the faithful who flock to mosques around the capital: if the girl is guilty, “to be punished according to law.” No discounts or extenuating circumstances.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

[Return to headlines]

US Drone Raid Kills 16 Militants in Pakistani Waziristan

(AGI) Wana — At least 16 militants were killed in a new US drone raid in South Waziristan. Pakistani intelligence sources said that a remote-controlled spy plane, perhaps supported by one other more drones, fired six air-to-ground missiles at the village of Tundar in a tribal area of Pakistan’s north-west, near Afghanistan

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

[Return to headlines]

China Could Penetrate US With New Huge Missile

News first emerged of the planned ‘super missile’ from defence industry bible Jane’s Defence Weekly last week, according to South China Morning Post.

It apparently claimed that a Dongfeng-41 (DF-41) intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), had been fired in testing last month by the PLA’s Second Artillery Corps.

This third-generation missile, US military sources told Jane’s, contain multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs) — effectively multiple warheads — meaning they would be almost impossible for current US defences to take down.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Moz Allows Headscarves in Schools

Mozambique’s government on Thursday said Muslim schoolgirls are free to wear headscarves after angering the Islamic community over a requirement that pupils seek permission to cover their hair. Senior government ministers met with Muslim leaders to try to calm tensions after the education ministry issued a notice during the holy fasting month of Ramadan that girls must first seek authorisation.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Nigeria: Group Wants Muslims’ Lives Reformed

The coordinator of a Muslim non-governmental organisation, “Talking Islam”, Hajia Qudrah Sulaiman, has said that there is the need to reform the lives of Muslims through Islamic ethics. In a statement, Sulaiman stressed the urgent need to carry out a holistic reform in the society geared towards solving the myriads of problems in the country. “Our programmes are basically seminars, workshops and interactive sessions, where everyone is given the opportunity to express their mind,” she said.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

South Africa: Anger at Bar Next to Bo-Kaap Mosque

A liquor licence granted to an establishment a metre from one of the country’s oldest mosques has raised the ire of Bo-Kaap residents, who vowed to have the licence withdrawn.

Legislation forbids the granting of a liquor licence to a bottle store or bar within the vicinity of schools or places of worship. About 100 residents demonstrated on Wednesday outside Abantu Restaurant and Bar on the corner of Buitengragt and Wale Street to express their anger at a licence granted in January to the establishment previously named Time and Place Restaurant and Bar. It is situated right next to the Nurul Islam mosque, built in 1834.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

The Day the Music Died: Mali Muslims Ban Radio Songs

From AFP and the Jerusalem Post

BAMAKO — Islamist extremists occupying northern Mali on Wednesday banned all music except the singing of Koranic verses on private radio stations, in line with sharia, the strict Islamic law they are enforcing. Whether Madonna, Rihanna or Youssou Ndour, all non-Muslim lyrics have been declared Satanic. “We have already spoken to people who own the radio stations,” said Oussama Ould Abdel Kader, a spokesman for the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO). “We no longer want Satan’s music. Instead there must be verses of the Koran. Western music is Satanic music. We, the mujahideen of Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal from now on refuse the broadcasting of all Western music on radios on Islamic land,” said Oussama Ould Abdel Kader, a spokesman for the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO). Radio station managers contacted by AFP said they could do nothing about the order.

The best known musicians in Mali are the blues band Tinariwen, known for their mix of electric blues guitars with traditional instruments, men and women (no veils, pretty hair, bright eyes and laughing faces) dancing singing and playing together on stage and in the audience. Can’t be having that now!

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Global Banks Are the Financial Services Wing of the Drug Cartels

Last week, managers from Britain’s biggest bank, HSBC, lined up before the Senate’s permanent sub-committee on investigations — just across the Potomac river from the scene of Dorsey’s crime — to be asked questions such as: “It took three or four years to close a suspicious account. Is there any way that should be allowed to happen?”

The “suspicious account” was that of a “casa de cambio”, a currency exchange house operated in Mexico on behalf of the largest criminal syndicate in the world and one of the most savage, the Sinaloa drug-trafficking cartel. The dealings had been flagged up to HSBC bosses by an anti-money laundering officer, but to no avail — the dirty business continued. “No, senator,” came the reply from a bespectacled Brit called Paul Thurston, chief executive, retail banking and wealth management, HSBC Holdings plc.

The same casa de cambio, called Puebla, was known to be under investigation in another case involving the Wachovia bank during the time HSBC was entertaining its money. US authorities had seized $11m from Wachovia’s Miami office, on the way to securing the biggest settlement in banking history with Wachovia in March 2010, detailed in this newspaper last year.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Italy: ‘Thousands of Underage Refugees Risk Exploitation in Italy’

Save the Children says trend is growing

(ANSA) — Rome, August 21 — There are thousands of unaccompanied underage refugees in Italy who have become victims of human trafficking and exploitation, according to a report released Tuesday by Save the Children Italy, in what the group says is becoming a growing trend in the G8 nation.

The phenomenon is on the rise also due to a constant and unstoppable flow of underage refugees arriving on Italian shores, the report says. This group is particularly at risk of exploitation, according to a report called Small Invisible Slaves of 2012.

There are millions of similar victims around the globe, the association added in its report. Save the Children Italy issued the study two days after UNESCO held a day of remembrance of the slave trade and its abolition, the anniversary of which is August 23.

The number of underage victims of human trafficking total 1.2 million in the world, though the total increases to 5.5 million when factoring in sexual or work-related exploitation. The group says it estimates that there are as many as 2,000 underage prostitutes in Italy today, mainly the result of the practise of human trafficking and exploitation it identified.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

The Immigration Factor: Inviting Additional 100 Million Into USA

Part1: inviting 100 million people into USA

Exactly 38 years from now, if Congress and the American people continue to do nothing, our country will house an additional 100 million third world immigrants. It may not affect those Americans over 40 because you will be dead, but it will definitely affect anyone under 40. It will affect all races, creeds and colors. It will especially affect the poor, illiterate and disenfranchised. It will destroy our middle class. It will affect the rich as to our degraded civilization and it will affect our environment in ways we cannot imagine, but we are getting a peek each summer with drought, gas prices, food prices, water shortages, tornadoes, wildfires and aberrant weather patterns.

This four part series is going to curl your eyebrows and it will sober a lifelong drunk. It will make mothers cry and create anguish in fathers who see their children’s lives diminished beyond comprehension. It’s going to cost our civilization its prosperity, its freedoms and its cohesiveness. Adding another 100 million immigrants to America will change the very foundation of our culture, language and way of life.

Adding 100 million more immigrants will create water, energy, food and resource nightmares beyond understanding. It will create limits on our freedoms such as visiting national parks, driving a car, ability to choose a college, buying a home, attempting to work at a job we enjoy and dozens of other consequences. We can ignore reality for a little while longer, but reality will not ignore us.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Liberal Talk Show Host Blames FRC Shooting on ‘Gutter Christians’ Who Went ‘Too Far’

The “filthy, degenerate, gutter Christians” at the Family Research Council inspired last week’s shooting by “going too far” with their pro-family activism, according to a nationally syndicated liberal talk show host.

“You filthy, filthy right-wing b——-ds, you’re going too far!” Mike Malloy told his audience last week. “One of these days somebody’s going to go berserk and walk into one of your filthy holes of religious insanity with a gun.”

Switching to a mocking tone, Malloy said, “Oh. I think that happened today.”

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

On Not Understanding Muslims

by Alan Caruba

What if Christmas was a traditional time for Christians to set about bombing one another? We might find that strange, but the recent “holy” month of Ramadan in Iraq was celebrated with bombings and shootings that killed 409 people and wounded 975 according to an August 20 Agence France Press report from Baghdad. Apparently if you are an observant Muslim, abstaining from food, drink, smoking and sex during the day of the “holy” month, the best way to work out your stress is to kill fellow Muslims. This was the case of Ramadan which ended on August 18 this year or a day later depending on whether you were a Shiite or a Sunni.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

The Cemented Image of Islam

by Nazneen Akbari

Prejudice against Muslims, in the West, continues to mushroom under the umbrella of ignorance and stereotypes. But how much of a role does the media play in this? Minutes after the 2011 Norway massacre, several news outlets reported the crime as an attack by ‘Islamist extremists’. The New York Times highlighted ‘expert’ comments from Terrorism Analyst, Will McCants, who blamed the attack on a terror group, ‘Helpers of the Global Jihad’. Fox News, tagged it ‘some sort of al-Qaeda-related incident.’ Most ludicrous was the coverage by The Sun, “We do not know if it was the work of Al Qaeda, which has threatened Norway, or Libyan Madman Gaddafi”.

Such assumptions, despite unverifiable information and careful judgments by several media outlets reflects a disturbing reality — the cemented image of Islam as a pejorative.

And this image of Muslims continues to dampen despite the community harbouring increasingly well-educated affluent individuals, successful entrepreneurs, celebrities, authors and accomplished professionals. What’s troubling is that the West is cultivating ill feelings towards a community they do not know much about. A CNN report, US Split on Muslim Allies, claimed that 53 per cent of Americans don’t personally know a Muslim and 55 per cent lack the basic understanding of Islam.

[…]

[JP note: Not understanding Islam is probably the optimum option.]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

	Financial Crisis
»	Rehn Criticises Finland’s Euro Debate
	USA
»	9/11 Trial ‘May Not Begin for Another Four Years’
»	Anti-Islamic Ads Target Metro-North Commuters
»	Arming the Government Against Americans
»	CAIR Distributes Muslim Voter Registration Toolkit, State Voting Guides
»	I’m Not a Muslim, But Ramadan Changed Me
»	Martha’s Plight and Liberty Farm Under UN Agenda 21
»	Psychiatry as a Weapon to Silence Religious and Political Opposition
»	Storm Clouds Gather for DNC Convention
»	The People Speak: “Free Speech Not Hate Speech on SF Transit”
	Europe and the EU
»	Europeans — Too Different to Get on Together
»	Fawlty Finds Fault With England
»	France: Man Kidnaps Woman to Force Marriage
»	France: Toulouse Gunman Merah “Not Such a Lone Wolf”
»	George Orwell, The Prophet of Political Correctness, Does Not Belong to the Left
»	German Photovoltaic Company Sovello to Close
»	Germany: Dresden Test Drives Longest Ever Bus
»	German Airline to Build Igloo Village in Sweden
»	How Young German Men Are Lured Into Jihad
»	Italians Arrested for Almost Beating Moroccan to Death in Act of Private Justice
»	Italy: Politician Promises No Sex if Elected
»	Italy: Berlusconi Associate to ‘Film a Porn Movie’
»	Mass Killer Breivik Writes Autobiography in Jail
»	Switzerland: Migrant Group Slams Citizenship Changes
»	The Brave, Brilliant and Infuriating Peter Hitchens
»	UK: £17.5m Mosque Gets Planning Approval
»	UK: Archbishop of Canterbury Sends Annual Greeting to Muslims
»	UK: Muslim Communities Facilitator
»	UK: Plan to Build New £1m Islam Centre in Blackburn
	North Africa
»	Egypt: Islamic Law Rises as Sinai Lacks Order in the Courts
»	Egypt: Independent News Editor Arrested in Court
»	Egypt: Muslim Throws Nail Bombs at German Embassy Because Some Germans Displayed Muhammad Cartoons
	Israel and the Palestinians
»	Israel Protests With South Africa About Made in Palestine
»	Lab Awaits Go-Ahead in Arafat Poison Probe
	Middle East
»	Cameron and Obama Inch Closer to Intervention in Syria
»	Kuwait: 200 Imams, Muezzins Recruited From Egypt
»	Leaked Document Deepens Debate About Israeli Strike on Iran
»	Lebanon: 12 Killed: 100 Wounded in Tripoli Unrest
»	The Syrian Ghost Town That Shows the Future of Aleppo
	Russia
»	Attacks Raise Specter of Radical Islam in Russia
»	Russia Launches First Federal TV Channel for Muslims
	South Asia
»	Afghanistan to Re-Screen Police, Soldiers to Curb Rogue Attacks
»	Bangladesh Arrests Islamist Party Leader for War Crimes
»	India: Hindus ‘Willingly’ Embracing Islam to Avoid Discrimination
»	Kazakhstan: New Mosque Opens in Ust-Kamenogorsk
»	Nepali Man Bites Snake to Death in Revenge Attack
»	Pakistan: Christian Group to Hold Conference on Pakistan Blasphemy Law
»	Pakistan: Christians in Mehrabad Afraid After Blasphemy Arrest
»	Pakistan: Faisalabad: Brutal Murder of 14 Year Old Christian Boy, His Body Dismembered and Face Disfigured
»	Persecuted Christians: Intolerance Grows in Pakistan
»	Rights Group Urges Bangladesh to Protect Rohingya Refugees
	Far East
»	Chinese Govt Joins Muslims in Eid Celebrations
	Australia — Pacific
»	A Diocese Pays Out 13.5 Million Euros in Compensation for Sexual Abuse
»	NZ: Man Who Assaulted Wife With Ostrich Egg Jailed for Six Months
	Sub-Saharan Africa
»	48 Killed in Ethnic Clashes in Kenya
»	Nigeria: Who Leads Boko Haram Dialogue From North?
»	Nigeria: Of True Muslims and Terrorists
	Immigration
»	59 Immigrants on a Dinghy Landed in Lampedusa Last Night
»	Australia to Boost Refugee Numbers
»	Immigration Agents File Suit Against Napolitano Over ‘Amnesty’ Program

Rehn Criticises Finland’s Euro Debate

EU economic affairs commissioner Olli Rehn has criticised his native Finland for giving the impression it is no longer interested in EU integration and is considering a euro exit, reports Yle. “The economic and political success of Europe is also in Finland’s national interest,” he told Finnish ambassadors.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

9/11 Trial ‘May Not Begin for Another Four Years’

The trial of the five men charged over the September 11 attacks on America will not be televised and may not begin for another four years, it has been disclosed.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four co-conspirators are due to be tried at Guantanamo Bay military base for the murders of 2,976 people in what has been dubbed the ‘trial of the century’. But yesterday both the prosecution and defence conceded that the trial will not be televised, unlike many high profile trials in America. And the defence claimed that, while the hearings have begun, they do not expect that actual trial to start until 2016 — 15 years after the attacks which prompted the USA’s war on terror and remain the worst terror atrocity in history. Unlike in the UK, many US trials are broadcast on television and can be watched at home. High profile cases such as the trial of OJ Simpson and that of Conrad Murray, the doctor accused of killing Michael Jackson, have been televised in America, as have many other US trials.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Anti-Islamic Ads Target Metro-North Commuters

STAMFORD — Metro-North Railroad is reviewing its advertising policies after the latest controversial billboard linking Islam to terrorist attacks that currently appear at a handful of New Haven Line stations. The series of billboards paid for by the American Freedom Defense Initiative are the latest chapter in an ongoing battle of trackside messages financed by advocacy groups on opposite sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Arming the Government Against Americans

The push to disarm Americans has been around a long time. An estimated ninety million Americans own guns legally and in states that permit concealed carry the crime rate drops precipitously by comparison with others that do everything they can to make the purchase and carry of firearms difficult.

[…]

Why then is the Obama administration in the process of purchasing millions of bullets for agencies, some of whom have nothing to do with national defense?

In May I wrote about an Ashville, North Carolina citizen who wrote a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency inquiring about the address of an employee who gained overnight fame when it was reported he wanted to “crucify” oil companies. Two EPA agents, fully armed, showed up without notice at his front door.

Why does the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration need to purchase ammunition? NOAA is devoted to studying the weather and providing notice of events such as hurricanes. Why would meteorologists need to be armed?

Why does the Social Security Administration need to purchase ammunition? A spokesman for the SSA compared its investigators to state or local police officers who are armed while on “official duty.”

Why would the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) specifically purchase 750 million rounds of hollow-point ammunition in March and follow up with an additional 750 million?

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

CAIR Distributes Muslim Voter Registration Toolkit, State Voting Guides

Muslim civil rights group announces partnership with American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee to empower voters

WASHINGTON, Aug. 22, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today released a Muslim voter registration toolkit and state-specific voting guides as part of its ongoing campaign to empower Muslims and increase their political capacity and presence in the 2012 elections. CAIR also announced the formation of a national partnership with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) to coordinate voter empowerment and election activities. The two national organizations will work together on hosting voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives, phone banks, town hall meetings, and candidate forums.

“CAIR is proud to partner with ADC in helping to strengthen the political voice of the diverse American Muslim and Arab-American communities in the November elections,” said CAIR Government Affairs Coordinator Robert McCaw. “The political empowerment of minority communities can only be accomplished through positive civic engagement and by building coalitions with other Americans who seek social justice.”

ADC Legal Director Abed Ayoub said: “ADC welcomes the partnership with CAIR and is committed to strengthening the voice of our respective communities and constituents. The past few weeks have shed light on the discrimination and hate which still exists in this country. It is only through such partnerships and coalitions that a united voice can rise against the hate and bigotry.” McCaw said CAIR’s voter registration toolkit offers step-by-step instructions for carrying out voter registration drives in mosques, Islamic centers and community gatherings.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

I’m Not a Muslim, But Ramadan Changed Me

by Charlotte Dando

My apartment is located in between three of the area’s most frequented bars. At 3 a.m. on a Sunday, I can hear the remainder of Saturday night’s revelers as they pass my window; singing, chatting and shouting under the street lights. I’ve never been much of a party girl, yet I can relate more easily to the 3 a.m. scene outside my window than the one I find myself facing inside. It is 3 a.m. and I’m alone at my kitchen table, eating porridge in the dark. My mini-Ramadan began with a lonely breakfast accompanied by the drunken songs of strangers on the street below. As Ramadan drew to a close this weekend, many Muslims around the world reflected on the month that passed. I am not a Muslim and won’t be actively celebrating Eid this week. Yet I have been reflecting on my own experiences this month. I too have learned a great deal.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Martha’s Plight and Liberty Farm Under UN Agenda 21

Some Americans are waking up to the insidious UN Agenda 21 across the country. Their legal battles come in many forms at the local and state levels, all involving zoning issues, driven by one ultimate goal, global governance.

UN Agenda 21 “soft law” document has been in place and ratified in Rio, Brazil by 178 countries since 1992. The recommendations that are not legally binding but morally obligatory provide specific rules about local organizations and their practices, limiting everyone’s behavior and freedom.

The idea of global governance, a.k.a. UN Agenda 21, was seeded a hundred years ago. Americans and their private property are under such a concerted and well-orchestrated attack, that it has become a full assault on private property and redistribution of wealth in the last stages of full implementation.

Would ordinary Americans succeed in deflecting and destroying the evil UN Agenda 21, the multi-headed Hydra? It is a hard question to answer since a good majority of Americans are blissfully unaware of what is going on under their noses nor do they seem to care.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Psychiatry as a Weapon to Silence Religious and Political Opposition

Using psychiatry as a means of repression has been a particular favorite of Socialist-oriented regimes.

Since reporting on the account of Jason Egroff, a 28-year-old Scranton, Pennsylvania web designer and Blog Talk Radio host of the weekly Revelation News Christian broadcast, I have received documentation of numerous cases where outspoken critics specific to the anti-Christian agenda of Barack Hussein Obama experienced similar encounters with “mental health professionals.”

In the event you are unfamiliar with the full account of Mr. Egroff, it is documented here. In short, Mr. Egroff was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility for evaluation due to his pro-Christian yet non-threatening religious views opposing those of the Obama regime. Of course, that’s not the official psychiatric diagnosis given to him, but after an extensive investigation into the events leading up to and following his evaluation, it might as well be. What was uncovered in subsequent investigations involving other “patients,” I am convinced that the common element in all similar cases is one’s Christian beliefs when combined with a vocal opposition to the Obama agenda.

Further research into this tactic left me both surprised and shaken to the core. My findings have determined that the situation involving Mr. Egroff is not an isolated case, but one of a growing and effective tactic currently being used to silence the Christian “watchmen” in the U.S.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Storm Clouds Gather for DNC Convention

White House Insider asks a valid question — “That Biden visit to Tampa got my wheels spinning. What the hell are they up to? How far is Biden willing to go to remain relevant?” — and the answer was nothing short of shocking!

“I’m giving you and your readers a heads up here. False flag. The real deal. They will try and control it but make it look uncontrolled. Dangerous. Make it reflect poorly on the Republicans and their supporters. A dangerous and desperate operation here. Even a dimwit like Biden has to know how dangerous.”

Desperate people do desperate things… White House Insider may be on to something here. The DNC is getting very desperate and here’s why.

The Occupy Wall Street movement, hatched by the Obama White House in response to the Tea Party, is turning its anger on Obama and Biden, planning to stage their next major march at the DNC Convention. According to Occupy organizer John Penley, — “Occupy the Military Industrial Complex will very much target President Barack Obama.”

“We’re targeting Obama’s out of control military spending,” he told Whispers. “It’s the key to so many problems in the U.S. That, and the drone strikes on American citizens — And the NDAA. People feel so upset with Obama.”

This might explain why DNC wicked witch of the West Nancy Pelosi is calling for democrats to “stay home” and not attend the DNC Convention. When is the last time you heard a party leader tell their party faithful to stay home from their party convention?

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

The People Speak: “Free Speech Not Hate Speech on SF Transit”

In July, a federal judge ruled in favor of a well-known anti-Muslim group known as “The American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI)” led by Pamela Geller, giving the group the right to run demeaning and racist advertisements with New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The same day the judge ruled that New York’s MTA violated the First Amendment rights of Geller’s group, San Francisco’s MUNI approved the same ads for its buses, despite a policy against political advertisements. By August 10th, the Islamophobic ads were running on ten San Francisco buses. The ads read: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel (between two stars of David). Defeat Jihad.”

After MUNI announced that it would not remove the ads, despite community pressure, local artists took matters into their own hands and modified at least one of them within a week by placing an illustration of a “hate speech” stamp over the ad. By August 19th, several of the advertisements had been modified, more recently by changing the text to read: “In any war between the colonizer and the colonized, support the oppressed. Support the Palestinian right of return. Defeat racism.”

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Europeans — Too Different to Get on Together

Dagens Nyheter Stockholm

Beppe Giacobbe

Above and beyond the diverging economic performance of EU countries, cultural differences between the people of Europe constitute the main obstacle to the creation of a homogeneous European society. Given the extent of these divisions, it is not surprising that the European project has run into difficulty.

Richard Swartz

Many leaders have tried to unite Europe — Attila, Charlemagne, Napoleon, and Hitler among others — and all of them have come a cropper in the process. Of course, force of arms has not figured large in the European Union’s ongoing drive to achieve this goal, which is now characterised by goodwill, common laws and institutions, and other means that are more appropriate for a continent where pacifism has been the order of the day since the demise of Hitler. And the euro is without a doubt the most daring of the EU initiatives in favour of a united Europe.

The origins of the modern project are political, even if from its inception the emphasis has been on the economy. The European Coal and Steel Community was devised to prevent future conflicts by ensuring that industries that were necessary to war would no longer be developed within the framework of the nation state. National economies were to participate in a large single market that transcended borders, which was to be the starting point for their progressive convergence.

The project was not only based on the notion of the pre-eminence of the economy but also on the idea that economic rationality would facilitate the emergence of common views in other domains, which would lead to the creation of an entity resembling a United States of Europe…

.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

[Return to headlines]

Fawlty Finds Fault With England

I once knew a man who, in a drunken rage, wrecked his beautiful apartment. The next day he showed me the mass of splintered furniture, broken glass, and gouges in the walls, waved a hand at it, and said, sadly, “Look what happened.”

Happened? It didn’t “happen,” champ. You threw stuff down the stairs and across the living room while you were screaming mad drunk.

The great comedian John Cleese, creator and star of “Fawlty Towers,” Monty Python alumnus, was in the news last summer, complaining about what “happened” to Great Britain. Here are a few of his remarks, culled from various UK newspapers.

• “London is no longer an English city. That’s how we got the Olympics.”
• He doesn’t like an England in which “the parent culture kind of dissipates.”
• He decries Britain’s shift away from a “middle-class culture” and into a “yob culture.” “There were disadvantages to the old culture, it was a bit stuffy and it was more sexist and more racist. But it was an educated and middle-class culture. Now it’s a yob culture. The values are so strange.”
• Cleese now lives in California. When he visits England, he prefers to stay in Bath rather than London. “I love being down in Bath because it feels like the England that I grew up in.”

And now comes the kicker…

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

France: Man Kidnaps Woman to Force Marriage

A 28-year-old man has been arrested after kidnapping a mentally handicapped 63-year-old woman in Bordeaux in south-western France in order to force her to marry him and obtain a residence permit.

The sexegenarian’s ordeal began in August 2011 a few months after the man arrived illegally from Tunisia, according to a report in the local Sud Ouest daily.

The man moved into the woman’s apartment in the Grand-Parc area of the city and remained in her apartment for the proceeding two months. According to the report, the 28-year-old made the woman’s life hell, doling out regular beatings while he attempted to forcibly marry her in order to regularize his situation his France.

The woman was finally able to flee by taking refuge with a neighbour, who alerted the police.

A medical examination of the woman revealed a catalogue of bruises and physical abuse.

The man meanwhile suspected that he had been exposed and immediately fled ending up in Italy. He however returned to Bordeaux at some point and was identified by the police.

A police unit tracked the man to an apartment in Cenon, the home of a young girl who was also mentally handicapped and currently in hospital.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

France: Toulouse Gunman Merah “Not Such a Lone Wolf”

The Islamist gunman, who killed seven people in south-western France in March before being shot dead by police, was not the “lone wolf” he was made out to be by French intelligence services, Le Monde daily reported Thursday.

Le Monde said intelligence documents made available to investigators showed Merah made 186 calls to contacts in 20 countries outside France between September 1, 2010, and February 20, 2011.

Besides Egypt, where his brother was living at the time, and Algeria where his father lives, Merah also called Morocco, Britain, Spain, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Croatia, Romania, Bolivia, Thailand, Russia, Kazakhstan, Laos, Taiwan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Israel and the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, Le Monde reported.

The documents gave no details on the identities of his contacts.

The calls cast doubt over the characterization by former intelligence services boss Bernard Squarcini of Merah as a solitary figure, who “radicalized himself” in prison in Toulouse and was not part of a terrorist network.

“Mohamed Merah, not such a lone wolf,” read the Le Monde headline.

The 24-year-old former mechanic was killed by police on March 22 after a 32-hour siege of his Toulouse apartment.

He killed three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi and three soldiers in three attacks in Toulouse and the nearby town of Montauban.

During the siege Merah told police negotiators he was mandated by al-Qaeda to carry out attacks in France.

French authorities poured scorn on that claim, despite Merah having travelled to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

George Orwell, The Prophet of Political Correctness, Does Not Belong to the Left

by Ed West

As Nick Cohen once cheerily pointed out, most journalists’ work dies with them. One of the few modern exceptions is George Orwell, whose star has continued to rise since his death from TB in 1950, and whose essays and articles continue to be sold and read. Today the author of Homage to Catalonia and The Road to Wigan Pier remains not just the foremost chronicler of the great ideological battles of the early 20th century, but a sort of conscience for British journalism. So one would have thought that there would be little objection to a sculpture of Orwell at Broadcasting House, where he had worked during the Second World War, especially as the money has been raised privately. And yet the BBC has blocked a statue of Orwell on the grounds that he was too “Left-wing”.

It’s understandable that the corporation should be sensitive about the subject, especially considering the criticism it attracts in this paper. Yet is Orwell confined to the Left?

Certainly Orwell was on the Left throughout his life, and the hard Left before his experience of Communists in Spain moved him towards more moderate socialism. Yet although Orwell’s essays are among the best things he did, he has become chiefly best remembered for his last two works, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, and the latter in particular has become one of the most conservative books in history.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

German Photovoltaic Company Sovello to Close

(AGI) Berlin — The leading German photovoltaic company Sovello based in Saxony in eastern Germany is to close as announced today by bankruptcy commissioner Lucas Floether. The first 500 employees were dismissed at the beginning of August and a further 500 will be dismissed now since there is only enough money to pay salaries until the end of the month. Floether added that he will continue to look for an investor interested in taking over the company in spite of the fact that turnover had fallen significantly in recent weeks.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

[Return to headlines]

Germany: Dresden Test Drives Longest Ever Bus

Dresden has unveiled the Autotram Extra Grand, an unfeasibly long bus meant to revolutionize public transport systems — combining the capacity of a train with the manoeuvrability of a bus.

It’s 30 metres long, has two waists, and can carry 256 passengers along busy urban streets anywhere. Not only that, the Autotram can be driven by any bus driver — no special license needed.

Designed and built by the Fraunhofer Institute for Transportation and Infrastructure Systems IVI in Dresden and the Technical University Dresden, the bus is currently undergoing tests in special facilities outside the city, but is set to make its debut in Dresden traffic — on normal routes with real passengers — in October.

“There is a lot of know-how invested in it — the computer is driven by a pretty clever steering algorithm,” Matthias Klingner, the institute’s director told The Local. The Autotram comes with a special steering system on its four regulated axles, which ensures that the back sections of the bendy-bus precisely follow the front section.

“Thanks to this patented multiple axis steering, the vehicle can manoeuvre just as easily as a 12-metre bus, forwards as well as backwards,” an institute statement said.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

German Airline to Build Igloo Village in Sweden

A German airline has revealed plans to build an igloo village in northern Sweden, which a spokesman has labelled as an “alternative to Kiruna’s Ice Hotel”.

The airline, Fly Car, plans to build the village in the Arvidsjaur municipality, roughly 300 kilometres south of Jukkasjärvi where Sweden’s iconic Ice Hotel is built every winter.

Michael Fender, head of the company, explains that as the airline has been flying between Arvidsjaur and Germany since 1999, it was time to add something for the visitors.

“We have had 10,000 visitors each year, and many of them have been making the trip from here to Kiruna to see the Ice Hotel,” he told The Local.

“The trip takes them two days, and we thought we could save time and keep them in Arvidsjaur by building our own igloo village… similar to the ones that already exist in the Swiss Alps.”

Fender explains that the igloos are not intended to be competition for the Ice Hotel, rather something new and separate.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

How Young German Men Are Lured Into Jihad

Young Muslim men in Germany are systematically trying to recruit their peers for jihad using sophisticated rhetoric and psychology and by targeting vulnerable youths who are searching for direction in life. Two men who have quit the scene tell their story to SPIEGEL, providing a rare look into a dangerous underground.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Italians Arrested for Almost Beating Moroccan to Death in Act of Private Justice

Genoa, 21 Aug. (AKI) — Three Italians in the northern coastal city of Genoa were arrested on Tuesday for allegedly almost beating a Moroccan man to death as revenge for crimes such as theft.

The victim has been arrested a month ago for crimes committed in a town near Genoa.

The accused aggressors, aged 26, 52 and 58 who have no criminal record, hit the victim with a stick and a screwdriver, leaving him in grave condition, according to the hospital in the town of Chiavari, where he was taken for treatment.

Using information provided by the victim, police identified an alleged aggressor by a wound on his hand and drove him to the police station, where he confessed that he and the others wanted to punish the Moroccan and “teach him a lesson.”

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

[Return to headlines]

Italy: Politician Promises No Sex if Elected

Rome, 20 Aug. (AKI) — A man running for the Sicily regional presidency has promised to swear off sex and dedicate himself to work if elected.

“If I were to become Sicily’s president, I would say farewell to sex to consider myself married to my region and its inhabitants,” said Rosario Crocetta, the candidate for the left leaning Democratic Party, in an interview with the La Repubblica newspaper published on Monday. “Leading public affairs is like entering a convent and I have also become too old for such joyrides,”said Crocetta.

Crocetta said his anti-model is Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister whose sexual antics contributed to scandals that weakened his rule.

“I’m definitely not going to end up like Silvio Berlusconi, who consumed himself in both his political incapacity and love for women, despite also being older than me.”

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

[Return to headlines]

Italy: Berlusconi Associate to ‘Film a Porn Movie’

Rome, 20 Aug. (AKI) — A former showgirl-turned-dental hygenist-turned local politician who is on trial for allegedly for procuring prostitutes for Italian politician Silvio Berlusconi’s erotic parties is apparently about to start a new career: porn acting.

Nicole Minetti will start filming an adult movie in September staring a lawyer whose most famous client was the late king of pop Michael Jackson, according to a statement by Riccardo Schicchi, an Italian pornographer.

“It’s a film destined to make history in porn and will be my last movie,” said Schiacchi, adding that the movie will shoot next month “inside a luxurious apartment.”

Minetti changed careers from dental hygienist to local politician in the Milan area after meeting Berlusconi.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

[Return to headlines]

Mass Killer Breivik Writes Autobiography in Jail

Norwegian gunman Anders Behring Breivik wants to address an Oslo court after it hands down its verdict against him, and is writing an autobiography detailing how he prepared for his horrific attacks, his lawyers said on Wednesday.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Switzerland: Migrant Group Slams Citizenship Changes

Proposed changes to the law on Swiss nationality could lead to a ten percent drop in the number of residents who become “naturalized” citizens, a new study shows.

Among the modifications to be debated next month in parliament is a requirement that only holders of C residency permits would be eligible to seek citizenship.

Holders of such permits are foreigners from the European Union or European Free Trade Agreement countries who have been granted a “settlement permit” after living in Switzerland for five or ten years.

C permits are also available to foreigners from other countries who have been granted settlement permits after ten years of uninterrupted residence in Switzerland.

The proposed revision will allow for eligible foreign residents to apply for citizenship after living eight years in the country, reduced from the current 12 years.

But this will be more than offset by the C permit requirement, according to a study from the University of Geneva.

The study was presented in Bern this week by the federal commission for migration issues (FCM).

It concluded that the number of new naturalized citizens would drop by 3,500 a year if the new proposals are accepted.

Switzerland’s citizenship requirements are among the toughest in the world.

Almost a quarter of the country’s residents are foreigners.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

The Brave, Brilliant and Infuriating Peter Hitchens

One of the many low-lights of the London 2012 closing ceremony was Russell Brand’s performance of I Am The Walrus by the Beatles. What the organisers should have done instead was to recreate the spectacularly bad-tempered Newsnight debate that had recently taken place between the anarchic comedian and Peter Hitchens (watch it here). Chaired by Stephanie Flanders, the topic up for discussion was the treatment of drug addicts. On his Mail Online blog, Hitchens provides an account of the proceedings. A partial transcript (partial in the sense of only covering some of the debate), reveals a less than grown-up attitude on the part of Brand, which should come as no surprise. More surprising — and less excusable — was Flanders’ failure to stop the constant interruptions and personal abuse hurled at Hitchens throughout the exchange. Despite the provocation, the Mail on Sunday columnist maintained his composure and was, just about, able to make the point that denying the moral agency of drug addicts does no good to anyone.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

UK: £17.5m Mosque Gets Planning Approval

Planning permission was today granted for Cambridge’s £17.5 million new mosque after the designs were praised as “breathtaking”. Cllr John Hipkin, a member of the city council’s planning committee, said the three-storey domed building would be a “major addition to the treasure house of architecture that is Cambridge”. It will be built on the site of the former Robert Sayle warehouse in Mill Road and will include a prayer hall with capacity for 1,000 people, a café and teaching rooms, plus a library, a mortuary, and a large public garden fronting the street.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

UK: Archbishop of Canterbury Sends Annual Greeting to Muslims

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has sent his annual greetings to Muslim communities for the festival of Eid Al-Fitr on Sunday 19 August, marking the end of Ramadan. “It is a joy once again at Eid al-Fitr to send this message of warm good wishes to Muslim colleagues and communities, and especially to those friends and colleagues with whom Christians have enjoyed working together over the past year.”

In his final Eid al-Fitr message before leaving the position of Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Williams reflects on how “our relationship as Christians and Muslims has grown and deepened” over the over the past 10 years: “I am very grateful for the opportunities I have had in these last nine or 10 years of growing into a fuller knowledge of our relationship as Christians and Muslims. I have been privileged to be welcomed to a number of great Muslim contexts and institutions around the world and have found myself stretched and challenged.”

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

UK: Muslim Communities Facilitator

Nottingham City Council had from around 2009 to 2011, a person in the role of “Muslim Communities Facilitator”. BFTF was hugely chuffed to see someone in this role, as it offered a way for ordinary Muslims to engage with the Muslim “leadership” in Nottingham at the periodic “steering group” meetings that they would hold. This was because there were to be a number of community leaders and other stakeholders at the meetings.

According to the council webpage for the Facilitator (which has since been taken down), the Facilitator will be “working with Nottingham’s Muslim communities to help strengthen and support them in becoming part of a better, more inclusive Nottingham.” and that the Facilitator encourages people to “suggest an item for discussion” at steering group meetings. Additionally, the Muslim Communities Facilitator “can provide more information on ways of getting involved with the work going on in Nottingham, and would also be keen to hear if there are additional issues or priorities that should be considered.

BFTF has raised a number of issues with the facilitator (sometimes via email, sometimes via phone, sometimes both — with responses as shown below

[…]

[JP note: I guess in the USA this role is held by Obamedin.]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

UK: Plan to Build New £1m Islam Centre in Blackburn

THE UK’s main base for followers of the Sufism branch of Islam, could soon open in Blackburn. Community leaders at the Naqshnadiyya Aslamiyya Spiritual Centre in Pringle Street, have submitted plans for a new £1million, purpose-built facility on the same site. Spokesman Hafiz Yaqub, who is based at the Luton branch, said: “We’re all very excited about these plans, the centre will serve the whole UK.”

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Egypt: Islamic Law Rises as Sinai Lacks Order in the Courts

EL ARISH, Egypt — A sign above the military patrol securing the Bank of Egypt in this small town in the northern Sinai Peninsula announces the official opening of “The House of Shariah Law” near the marketplace downtown. Local residents crowd the bank lobby waiting for the Salafist cleric turned judge to hear their cases. The uprising last year that toppled President Hosni Mubarak left the Sinai with almost no government authority, so Salafist clerics with their strict and puritanical interpretation of Islam have moved into the vacuum. They have established dozens of Shariah courts in an attempt to replace tribal tribunals that have long served as alternatives to government courts. “We are fulfilling a community need which the government, at the moment, isn’t capable of fulfilling,” said Sheik Asaad el Beik, the Salafist judge who officially opened his Shariah court in November. “There has been no police or judiciary presence since the revolution. If anything, we are filling this gap.”

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Egypt: Independent News Editor Arrested in Court

Journalist on trial for ‘incitement to destabilize’ the gov’t

(ANSAMed) — CAIRO, AUGUST 23 — Independent newspaper editor Islam Afifi was arrested at the opening session of his trial in Giza criminal court on Thursday, according to media reports.

Afifi, who edits the al-Doustour independent newspaper, is charged with publishing “false information,” for “incitement to destabilize” the government, and for damaging President Mohamed Morsi, who is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, with “words and expressions punishable by law.” The presiding judge ordered the arrest in what is Egypt’s first trial of a journalist since former President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in February 2011. He will be held until his next hearing on September 16, according to Egypt Independent, the English-language edition of Al-Masry Al-Youm daily.

Journalists and media experts criticized the court’s decision. It points to the Muslim Brotherhood’s true intentions on freedom of the press, and current regulations must be changed, editor of state Radio and Television magazine, Yasser al-Zayat, told Egypt Independent.

Humanitarian watchdog group Reporters Without Borders (RWB) on Thursday called for Afifi’s liberation. He was indicted on August 13, two days after his paper ran a front-page article saying the Muslim Brotherhood could transform Egypt into “an emirate,” RWB pointed out in a communique, citing “alarming attacks on press freedom in Egypt.” Among these is Morsi’s decision to have parliament’s upper house, the Shura, appoint Muslim Brotherhood and Freedom and Justice Party sympathizers to top state-run media posts. Those public media has ceased to criticize the government as a result, according to RWB.

“Egyptian authorities are continuing Mubarak-era methods”, whereas a free press is a guarantee of liberty in any country wishing to institute a democratic system, the RWB communique said.

Also currently on trial in Egypt is El-Faraeen TV owner Tawfiq Okacha, who hosted a show that was highly critical of the Muslim Brotherhood. His TV has been suspended for a month, and he is charged with incitement to assassinate the president and to overthrow the government. His trial opens on September 1, according to RWB.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Egypt: Muslim Throws Nail Bombs at German Embassy Because Some Germans Displayed Muhammad Cartoons

Police in Egypt on Wednesday arrested a man who tossed four homemade nail bombs into the German embassy grounds and attacked the entrance with a hammer but injured nobody and caused no serious damage, the embassy and security sources said.

The man acted out of anger after reading an Egyptian newspaper report on Friday which described a protest by German right-wing activists who had paraded caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad in front of a German mosque, they said.

Many Muslims consider any depiction of the Prophet to be offensive — a series of cartoons in a Danish newspaper in 2005 on the same subject sparked protests across the Islamic world.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Israel Protests With South Africa About Made in Palestine

(AGI) Jerusalem — Israel has formally protested with South Africa about labels stating Made in Occupied Palestinian Territories that have replaced the labels on products made in the West Bank and previously labelled Made in Israel. The Foreign Minister summoned the South African Ambassador to Tel Aviv and presented a formal protest also discussing the issue in-depth

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

[Return to headlines]

Lab Awaits Go-Ahead in Arafat Poison Probe

A Swiss radiation lab is awaiting a decision from Yasser Arafat’s widow on whether it should conduct tests on the remains of the former Palestinian leader to see if he was poisoned, its spokesman said on Wednesday.

The possible probe, which has already been requested by the Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, comes after a media investigation found elevated levels of the radioactive substance polonium on some of Arafat’s belongings, suggesting he could have been poisoned.

“We have shown our interest as long as the independence, credibility and transparency in our involvement is guaranteed,” said Darcy Christen, a spokesman for Lausanne University Hospital’s radiology lab said.

Arafat’s widow, Suha Arafat, and their daughter, on July 31st filed a lawsuit in France over the radioactive poisoning claims.

They lodged the complaint for murder against persons unknown in France because Arafat died at a military hospital near Paris in 2004.

Because a criminal complaint had been filed, Christen said the lab was waiting for Suha Arafat’s approval before it decided on its involvement.

“We are expecting her to let us know her position on our possible involvement,” he said.

The lab is one of several specialists consulted by the Al-Jazeera news channel, which commissioned an analysis of Arafat’s personal effects, including clothing he wore in the days before he died age 75.

Suha Arafat has already said she would seek an exhumation to allow specialists to take additional samples for testing, and the Palestinian leadership has said it would be willing to allow exhumation if Arafat’s family agreed.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Cameron and Obama Inch Closer to Intervention in Syria

David Cameron has endorsed a warning by President Obama that the threat of chemical weapons being used in Syria would cause them to “revisit their approach so far”, the Guardian reports today.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Kuwait: 200 Imams, Muezzins Recruited From Egypt

‘Labor’ records several violations in Ramadan donations collections

KUWAIT CITY, Aug 22: Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor recorded several violations in the donations collected by many charities and foundations during the holy month of Ramadan and Eid Al-Fitr, reports Al-Seyassah daily. The daily quoting reliable sources cited some of the violations as issuing unsealed ministry invoices and collecting cash donation from women’s section of specific mosques during Eid prayer, without official license from the ministry. Sources indicated the Department of Charities and Foundations and field inspectors registered those violations in order to take necessary legal action against the perpetrators.

Meanwhile, the Mosques Department at the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs has recruited 200 Imams and muezzins from Egypt to cover the shortage in mosques, especially in the new residential areas, reports Al-Watan Arabic daily quoting Assistant Undersecretary for Mosques Affairs Waleed Al-Shuaib. In a recent press statement, Al-Shuaib revealed the newly-recruited Imams and muezzins are expected to arrive in Kuwait in November. He said the department has completed the installation of loud speakers, carpets and other facilities in 71 mosques throughout the country. Meanwhile, Al-Seyassah daily has quoted reliable sources as saying the Undersecretaries Council recently discussed the complaints of some residents in different areas about the alleged excessive volume of speakers in mosques. Sources said the council looked into the possibility of turning off the loud speakers in all mosques during prayers.

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Leaked Document Deepens Debate About Israeli Strike on Iran

by Delaney Chambers

A document purported to be a leaked Israeli government memo suggests Israel is prepared to attack Iran to cripple the Persian nation’s nuclear capabilities. The document, recently published by American journalist Richard Silverstein, who writes a blog focused on Israeli-Palestinian peace, has sparked widespread debate about the ramifications of Israel going to war with Iran. Silverstein says the memo was intended for Israel’s eight-member security cabinet and outlines a coordinated cyber attack and ballistic missile strike that would cripple Iran’s telecommunications network, underground missile bases and above ground nuclear facilities. He says it depicts a “sanitized version of 21st century war” that could turn into a “protracted, bloody conflict closer to the nine-year Iran-Iraq War.”

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Lebanon: 12 Killed: 100 Wounded in Tripoli Unrest

Today Premier Miqati expected to visit

(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT — The death toll from sectarian clashes between two rival Muslim groups since Monday in the northern Lebanese port city of Tripoli has risen to 12 while those wounded are around 100, according to Lebanon’s official news agency Nna. Nna reported that two people died last night raising the previous number of casualties from 10 to 12.

Clashes between the Shiite Alawites and Sunnis continue though sporadically and the army claims it has regained control of most of the territory.

Today, Prime Minister Najib Miqati, a native of Tripoli, is expected in the port city.

Sunni fighters from the Bab al Tabbane district have been clashing for years with their Alawite rivals of the Democratic Arab party, a mouthpiece of the regime in neighbouring Syria.

Ever since the beginning of the uprise of majority-Sunni rebels against Syria’s Alawite president Bashar al Assad, the conflict has spilled into Lebanon with political and religious tensions.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

The Syrian Ghost Town That Shows the Future of Aleppo

by Richard Spencer

For a foretaste of the future of Aleppo, you need venture only as far as the nondescript, silent town of Anadan just eight miles to the north-west.

The sound of war is absent, but so is the sound of everything else. When the light breeze drops, not even the shutters covering the shopfronts rattle. There is no call to prayer from the central mosque, still open for the vanished faithful but deserted, its floor lined with broken glass. The market is empty, stalls cleared of everything up to the stone walls.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Attacks Raise Specter of Radical Islam in Russia

Authorities in Russia fear that Muslim radicals are grasping for power in the central Russian republic of Tatarstan. Analysts say the radicals have infiltrated Tatarstan’s Muslim establishment, seeking to undermine the moderate Islam that has co-existed with Christianity for centuries. Some worry that Tatarstan could go the way of other predominantly Muslim republics, such as Chechnya and Dagestan, where clashes between Islamist insurgents and Russian security forces have taken thousands of lives.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Russia Launches First Federal TV Channel for Muslims

The channel Al-RTV is subsidized by the state and by private donations, and aims to help spread the values of moderate Islam, against extremist influences mainly from the South

Moscow (AsiaNews) — Russia has its first public Muslim television channel. It’s called Al-RTV and was launched on 19 August, as reported by information portal Bashinform. Desired by some of the major organizations that promote the religious and spiritual values ??of Islam in the Federation, AL-RTV for now covers eight Russian regions: Bashkortostan, Tatarstan and the six republics of the North Caucasus. Programs were launched on the day of Eid-ul-Fitr, the holiday that celebrates the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

The Director is Rustam Arifdzhanov, vice president of the Eurasian Academy of Television and Radio Broadcasting. The TV is controlled by a public council, consisting of representatives of the major Islamic organizations in the country, and is supported financially by private donations and government grants. The idea is to extend the service to other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

The problem of disseminating the values ??of moderate Islam to fight the spread of Wahhabism, especially coming from the Caucasus, is top of the agenda not only of the religious leaders, but also of the Kremlin. Recently, the Russian autonomous republic of Tatarstan, a Muslim majority — but noted for the peaceful coexistence between Islam and Christianity — has been targeted by a series of attacks, which, according to investigators, are linked to an attempt to root extremism in the social tissue, hitherto alien to these areas.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

[Return to headlines]

Afghanistan to Re-Screen Police, Soldiers to Curb Rogue Attacks

KABUL (Reuters) — Afghanistan’s government said on Wednesday it would re-examine the files of 350,000 soldiers and police to help curb rogue shootings of NATO personnel, but accused “foreign spies” of instigating the attacks that have angered major allies. A day after U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Martin Dempsey arrived in Kabul to discuss shootings that have killed 40 foreigners this year, President Hamid Karzai held a special meeting with top security advisers at his garden palace.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Bangladesh Arrests Islamist Party Leader for War Crimes

Dhaka, Aug. 22 (Xinhua-ANI): Bangladesh Police Wednesday arrested a top leader of an Islamist party for his alleged crimes against humanity committed during the country’s war of independence in 1971. Police arrested ATM Azharul Islam, acting secretary general of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami party, from his residence in capital Dhaka about an hour after the country’s first war crimes court ordered the arrest of the Islamist party leader in 24 hours.The court named “The International Crimes Tribunal” issued the warrant following the prosecution’s plea to arrest ATM Islam, acting secretary general of Jamaat, and ordered the police to produce him before the tribunal within 24 hours of arrest. Charges of links with the crimes against humanity during the War of Independence in 1971 have been brought against the top leader of Jamaat, key ally of main opposition party Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

India: Hindus ‘Willingly’ Embracing Islam to Avoid Discrimination

AMRITSAR: Many Pakistani Hindu’s from Sindh and Punjab have started ‘willingly’ embracing Islam and many others have renamed themselves taking Muslim names to avoid revelation of their true identity from public in wake of the recent spate of their persecution , informed Rajesh Kalyan, a Hindu priest and preacher with Pakistan Hindu Seva (PHA), a Karachi based Hindu organization while talking to TOI over phone from Karachi on Wednesday.

[…]

[JP note: Dhimmitude is always ‘willingly’ in scare quotes and that’s the way Muslims like it.]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Kazakhstan: New Mosque Opens in Ust-Kamenogorsk

A new mosque has been opened in Ust-Kamenogorsk. The mosque can house up to three thousand Muslims and has already been added to the list of the country’s largest religious facilities. The mosque has a 50-seat madrasah, women’s prayer room, marriage room and a library. The Kazakh Secretary of State also took part in the mosque opening ceremony.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Nepali Man Bites Snake to Death in Revenge Attack

A Nepali man who was bitten by a cobra snake bit it back and killed the reptile in a tit-for-tat attack, a newspaper said on Thursday.

Nepali daily Annapurna Post said Mohamed Salmo Miya chased the snake, which bit him in his rice paddy on Tuesday, caught it and bit it until it died.

“I could have killed it with a stick but bit it with my teeth instead because I was angry,” the 55-year-old Miya, who lives in a village some 200 km (125 miles) southeast of the Nepali capital of Kathmandu, was quoted by the daily as saying.

The snake, called “goman” in Nepal, is also known as the Common Cobra.

Police official Niraj Shahi said the man, who was being treated at a village health post and was not in danger of dying, would not be charged with killing the snake because the reptile was not among snake species listed as endangered in Nepal.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Pakistan: Christian Group to Hold Conference on Pakistan Blasphemy Law

(Reuters) — An influential Christian Church organisation will hold an international conference in Geneva next month on Pakistan’s blasphemy law, after an 11-year-old Pakistani Christian was detained on accusations of defaming Islam.

Religious and secular groups worldwide have protested over the arrest last week of Rifta Masih, accused by Muslim neighbours of burning verses from the Koran, Islam’s holy book.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) said the conference was intended to give a global platform to religious minorities in Pakistan “who are victimised in the name of its controversial blasphemy law” in cases which had brought death penalties and “mob-instigated violence”.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Pakistan: Christians in Mehrabad Afraid After Blasphemy Arrest

ISLAMABAD: A week after a young Christian girl was arrested on blasphemy charges in a poor suburb of Islamabad, her fellow believers fear they may have celebrated their last service in the area.

Mehrabad, on the outskirts of the capital, has been home to a Christian community for 20 years, and less than a year ago Muslims helped them build a simple church. But last Thursday local Muslims erupted in fury after Rimsha, a young Christian girl who reportedly has Down’s Syndrome, was accused of burning pages from a children’s religious instruction book containing verses from the Holy Quran.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Pakistan: Faisalabad: Brutal Murder of 14 Year Old Christian Boy, His Body Dismembered and Face Disfigured

Suneel Masih, an orphan, disappeared on August 19. His body was found two days later in a remote area. Some internal organs removed, probably for the black market. His face disfigured with acid. Police Officer confesses to never having seen “such a murder.” The Christian community calls for justice, but so far not even an investigation has been opened.

Faisalabad (AsiaNews) — A brutal murder, of a shadowy nature, has shaken the Christian community in Pakistan already marked by the experience of a disabled girl imprisoned for blasphemy in Islamabad, 11-year-old Rimsha Masih (see AsiaNews 19/08/2012 An 11-year-old disabled Christian girl arrested for blasphemy, 300 families flee). On 21 August the police in Faisalabad found the horribly mutilated body of Suneel Masih in an isolated area of ??the city. They boy a Christian orphan from the city had disappeared two days earlier. Still shocked by the ferocity of the killers a police officer confided on the condition of anonymity to AsiaNews: “It’s the first time — said the inspector — that I have ever seen such a murder “. The body was found with the ears, nose, tongue and limbs torn from the body, the belly ripped open and internal organs (including the liver and kidneys) taken, perhaps to be sold on the black market. The killers then poured acid on his face, perhaps to make him unrecognizable.

But investigators have yet to open an investigation into the terrible murder of the 14 year old orphan Christian, whose funeral took place yesterday in the presence of minority leader and local politicians. A protest march was held on the streets of Faisalabad, during which people repeatedly demanded “justice” for the 14 year old Suneel Masih (pictured). Tomorrow an autopsy will be held on the remains of the boy, to clarify whether there was also sexual violence before death.

According to the story of some witnesses informed of the facts, on August 19 last Suneel — a 5th class student — went to a shop in Liberty Market to buy a shirt. That night, the boy did not return home and the family raised the alarm. A desperate search began, which proved to be useless and his disappearance was reported to police. Two days later, on 21, police found the horribly mutilated corpse of the boy in an isolated industrial area.

The Christian community is in shock and demanding justice, perhaps in vain because so far the police have not even opened a formal investigation. Speaking to AsiaNews, Fr. Nisar Barkat, diocesan director of the National Commission for Justice and Peace of the Catholic Church of Pakistan (NCJP), appealed to the government and law enforcement to bring the perpetrators to justice “as soon as possible.” The Christian community, the priest adds, feels insecure and cannot stop thinking about this horrible case. Hindus and Christians “live in fear”. The Christian MP of Punjab Joel Aamir Sohotra echoes this fear, saying that “this brutal murder poses a serious reflection on the freedoms enjoyed by minorities, because” we are not just in front of the murder of a Christian boy, but the freedom of all minorities. “

The Christian lawyer Kamal Chughtai confirms that he has never seen “such a thing, with this level of cruelty in my entire life.” He strongly condemns this “atrocity” and calls for the immediate arrest of the culprits. And if they are not brought to justice in two days, as promised by the police, all the Christians in the city should take to the streets to demand justice.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

[Return to headlines]

Persecuted Christians: Intolerance Grows in Pakistan

by Elizabeth Kendal

Pakistan celebrated its 65th birthday on 14 August. Founded by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, a member of the Shia religious minority, Pakistan was initially established on a foundation of secularism and equal rights for all. Today, however, after decades of Saudi-sponsored Islamisation, Pakistan is the exact opposite of what it was founded to be.

Abductions of Christian and Hindu girls are on the rise. According to the parents, these young girls are being forcibly converted to Islam and married off to Muslim men. According to the Islamists, none of the conversions have been forced. The rise in incidence has triggered debate in the media and a Hindu exodus from Sindh Province, prompting President Zardari to call for a law banning forced conversions. Sunni jihadist violence against the Shia minority has also increased. On 16 August a bus en route to Gilit was stopped by men in military uniforms just 100km north of Islamabad. The ‘officers’ then dragged at least 20 Shi’ites from the bus and executed them. It was the third such attack on that road in six months. As a minority throughout the South Asian sub-continent, Christians are the most vulnerable of all.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Rights Group Urges Bangladesh to Protect Rohingya Refugees

Human Rights Watch says Bangladesh’s restriction on international aid groups is contributing to a worsening humanitarian emergency for ethnic Rohingya Muslims fleeing sectarian violence in Burma. Bangladesh last month ordered three charity groups to stop providing assistance to Rohingya because it said they were encouraging more refugees to cross the border. Doctors Without Borders, Action Against Hunger, and Muslim Aid were providing water, healthcare, sanitation, and other basic assistance to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazaar district.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Chinese Govt Joins Muslims in Eid Celebrations

BEIJING — As Eid was celebrated around the world last week, the Chinese Government joined celebrations throughout China. On the day of Eid, a special get-together was hosted at the Great Hall of the People. The event was attended by Vice Premier Hui Liangyu, Vice Chairman of the National Peoples Congress (NPC) Standing Committee Siamayi, Vice Chairman of the National Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) Abdurrexiti, President of the China Islamic Association and Member of the CPPCC Sheikh Hilaluddin, and Minister for Religious Affairs Wang Zuoan.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

A Diocese Pays Out 13.5 Million Euros in Compensation for Sexual Abuse

A Catholic diocese in Australia is negotiating compensations that add up to 13.5 million euros and are to be paid out to more than 100 victims of acts of paedophilia that took place between 1960 and 1990. According to today’s issue of The Australian the diocese of Maitland-Newcastle, north of Sydney, negotiated out of court settlements with at least 78 of the alleged victims. Another 25 cases have been nearly settled. However it seems that the total number of victims might be even higher.

The compensations are linked to acts of sexual abuse at the hands of at least 10 priests and teachers employed by the Church and include the highest compensation ever negotiated in Australia, up to approximately 1.7 million euros. In the terms of the settlement, that have been negotiated through law firm, the Church does not admit responsibility for the acts of abuse, even though many of the victims see the compensation as a form of recognition for what they suffered. “ The Church usually requests a waiver form that prevents the victim from making further claims for the same acts of abuse and a clause that forbids arguing over the terms of the agreement”, said one of the negotiating lawyers.

This practice by the Australian Catholic Church, named ‘Towards Healing’, began in 1996 to respond to the abuse claims and it has been criticized by the victims’ representatives for the lack of independent evaluation of the claims.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

[Return to headlines]

NZ: Man Who Assaulted Wife With Ostrich Egg Jailed for Six Months

A New Zealand man who assaulted his wife with an ostrich egg after her pet pig ran amok has been jailed for six months, local media reported on Thursday.

Phillip Russell lost his temper when he discovered the pig had damaged his power saw, verbally abusing his wife, spitting at her then grabbing an ostrich egg from the kitchen table and hurling it at her, Fairfax Media reported.

It said Russell, 46, had repeatedly asked his wife to keep the pet pig under control as it had damaged their home, a neighbour’s house and council property, but she insisted it should be given free range.

The ostrich egg, the largest type of egg produced by any living bird species, caused bruising to the chest of Russell’s wife, the report said.

It said Russell pleaded guilty to charges including assault using an ostrich egg as a weapon over the July 5 incident and was sentenced to six months jail in Hastings District Court on Wednesday.

At an earlier court hearing, Russell’s defence lawyer said his client, who has a record of domestic violence, had expected his wife to catch the egg.

The report did not explain why Russell had an ostrich egg, a species that is not native to New Zealand.

— Hat tip: McR

[Return to headlines]

48 Killed in Ethnic Clashes in Kenya

Kenyan police are investigating a violent clash between two ethnic groups, in the eastern Tana River region, that left at least 48 people dead. Police and residents say at least 100 members of the Pokomo clan raided a village inhabited by members of the Orma group, late Tuesday. Investigators say some villagers were killed after attackers set homes on fire with the residents inside. At least 11 of those killed were children. Authorities say the attack was linked to an ongoing dispute over land and water between the two groups.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Nigeria: Who Leads Boko Haram Dialogue From North?

Now that dialogue between the Federal Government has indicated interest in opening dialogue with the Islamic sect, Boko Haram appeears feasible, Oluwole Ige writes on the possible powerbrokers from the North that could champion the peace talk with the sect.

Nigeria has never had it so bad with the explosion of violence in recent times. The mayhem comes in form of unknown men, masquerading in the garb of Islamic religious extremists, popularly known as Boko Haram. Their modus operandi have been swift, likened to a rapt thunder’s strike of Sango, a Yoruba deity. Since the advent of their ferocious onslaught on Nigerians in 2008, security agencies have always been caught napping, thus adopting retroactive approach to tackle the impacts of bomb blasts, vicious attacks, mindless killings and destruction of worship centres and other public places. These, no doubt, are their trademark.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Nigeria: Of True Muslims and Terrorists

by Rotimi Fasan

JIHAD as an Islamic concept must be one of the most misunderstood- all thanks to those practitioners of a muscular form of Islam who believe the one and only way to propagate their religion is through the sword. The impression this category of Muslims create is that force is the only means through which people with a view of life different from theirs could be persuaded. The use of brute force thus becomes a legitimate means for the conversion of so-called infidels. In Nigeria, people with such views are not too difficult to come by and the fact that they have more or less succeeded in their ways, their idea of what Islam represents is, unfortunately for other peaceful followers of the faith, what non-Muslims believe the religion stands for. But with the coming of insurgent groups like those that have turned Northern Nigeria into something of a no-go area, the impression is further strengthened that violence is the language of a religion that the apparent majority of Muslims believe proclaims peace as its central tenet. There is no compulsion in religion is what we hear adherents of Islam say but the hawkers of violence that are fast taking over different parts of the North don’t share this belief in the voluntary conversion of others.

[…]

[JP note: Misunderstanders of Islam, you have nothing to lose but your Korans.]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

59 Immigrants on a Dinghy Landed in Lampedusa Last Night

(AGI) Agrigento — A rubber dinghy carrying 59 immigrants landed at the commercial dock of Lampedusa (Agrigento) last night, without being detected beforehand. 13 women and 11 children were among them. After the landing, the refugees were rescued by the Carabinieri and housed at the Imbriacola reception camp.

The refugees declared they come from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia .

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

[Return to headlines]

Australia to Boost Refugee Numbers

Australia said it would increase its annual refugee intake by 40 per cent to 20,000 a year, as part of a plan to deter people smugglers.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the rise, which was recommended by a recent expert inquiry into refugee policy, would include the immediate resettlement of 400 asylum-seekers from Indonesia as a gesture of goodwill. “We will be increasing our annual refugee intake from 13,750 to 20,000 places in this financial year,” Mrs Gillard said in a statement. The financial year began on July 1.

[….]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Immigration Agents File Suit Against Napolitano Over ‘Amnesty’ Program

Ten federal immigration agents have filed suit against Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano claiming recent directives are forcing them to break the law and ignore their duties when it comes to deporting illegal immigrants.

The suit was filed Thursday in Texas federal court by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. It challenges recent directives allowing some illegal immigrants — particularly non-felons and those who came to the U.S. as children — to stay and, in some cases, get work permits.

The suit, obtained by Fox News, says the agents are being forced to “violate federal law.” It says the new directive “unconstitutionally usurps and encroaches upon the legislative powers of Congress.” ICE Director John Morton is also named as a defendant.

Kris Kobach, lead attorney on the case, equated the move to give thousands of illegal immigrants a reprieve to the failed Fast and Furious gun-walking operation.

“In both instances, the Obama administration ordered federal law enforcement agents to break the law, to ignore the laws that they’re supposed to enforce, and, in the case of the ICE agents, to actually break federal laws that say you’re supposed to deport certain people,” he said. “And in each case, the Obama administration seems to be doing so for political reasons.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

	Financial Crisis
»	Economically Motivated Suicides in Italy Up, Says Report
»	Eurozone Crisis Adds to Japan’s Trade Deficit
»	Expats’ Exodus as Brits Give up on North Cyprus
»	Gigolo Gives Discounts During Economic Hard Times
»	Greece: Over Half of Island Businesses Dodge Taxes
»	Irish Banks Reject Most Loans After Greek Banks
»	Italian Local Taxes ‘More Than Double in 15 Years’
»	Samaras Says Greece Needs More Time
»	Spain: Autonmous Communities Greatest Liability, Study Says
»	Study: Spanish Regions Are Potential Budget Busters
»	Turkish Families Deep in Debt, 2 Mln May Face Levies, MP
	USA
»	Attorney Discovers Hundreds of Thousands of Invalid Voter Registrations
»	Bacon in Park Was Not Actually “Islamophobic” Hate Crime, But Food Left for Animals
»	DARPA Looks to Make Cyberwar Routine With Secret ‘Plan X’
»	Has Niall Ferguson Jumped the Shark?
»	Huma Abedin, Islamist Connections and Willful Blindness
»	Location of the Mind Remains a Mystery
»	More Reasons to Investigate Huma Abedin
»	Planning Board OKs Mosque Expansion
»	Prince Harry — Naked Photos During Vegas Rager
»	Romney Banks on Ryan to Shore Up Conservative Base
»	The End of the Alternative Media
	Canada
»	Victoria Muslim Community Shaken by Mosque Threats
	Europe and the EU
»	Finnish PM Wants Deeper EU Integration
»	First UK Hydrogen Train Takes Passengers for a Ride
»	France: Three Religions Meet in Suburban Paris Prayer Space
»	France: Eiffel Tower Worth €434 Billion: Study
»	France: Lyon Rabbi Sent Holocaust Photo Threat
»	Germany: Europeans Converting to Islam and to Jihad
»	Germany: Underground Workers Face Mammoth Tusk
»	Higgs Boson Faces the Perils of Predictability
»	Italy: Catholic Weekly Slams Religious Event for ‘Power Adulation’
»	Italy: 90-Year-Old Beats Two Moroccan Muggers
»	Jordanian Paralympic Athletes to Face Child Sex Charges in Northern Ireland
»	King Intervenes in NI Assault Case
»	Northern Ireland: Bail Granted to Paralympian Sex Charge Trio
»	Norway: Billion-Dollar Price Tag for New Government HQ
»	Norway: Forced Genital Exam on Girl ‘Was Discrimination’
»	Romanian Power Struggle is Far From Over
»	Sweden: Somali Community Under Threat by Local Gang
»	Switzerland: Bern Upset by ‘Romney Girl’ Video
»	UK: A Town Hall Spy on Every Corner …
»	UK: British Pakistani Christian Association to Demonstrate Outside Pakistan High Commission …
	Balkans
»	China Calls for Dialogue in Solving Kosovo Issue
	North Africa
»	Egypt: MB Leader Asks Democracy Advocates to be Tolerant of Sharia
»	Egypt: Presidential Spokesman — Constitutional Court to Issue a Ruling on Shura Council on September 4
»	Egyptian Ministry Warns Anti-Presidential Protesters
»	Egypt’s New Democratic President is Indifferent to Genuine Democratic Reform
»	Russia May Soon Resume Military Cooperation With Libya
»	Stakelbeck on Terror Show: “Inside Jihad” With Tawfik Hamid
	Israel and the Palestinians
»	Abbas Denies the Jewish Connection to Jerusalem
»	Ashton Warns Israel to Halt New Settlements
»	EU’s Strategic Mistake
»	New Vatican Ambassador to Tel Aviv Gets Bad Israeli Press
»	West Bank: Crisis Does Not Spare Arafat’s Mausoleum
	Middle East
»	Bahrain: Mosque Open House Draws Thousands
»	Chinese Muslims to Shine in Turkey Expo
»	Deadly Fighting Over Syria Grips North Lebanon
»	Death Toll From Lebanon Fighting Climbs to 10
»	Dubai Helps Spread Humanitarian Message to 1 Billion
»	Iran’s Supreme Leader Orders Fresh Terror Attacks on West
»	Police Remove Drunkards From Kuwait Mosque
»	Russia Warns on Unilateral Intervention in Syria
»	Salafis in Lebanon Look Confidently Ahead
»	Sunni Muslim Sheik From Sydney, Australia, Goes to Syria to Wage Jihad, Gets Rocketed
»	Sydney Sheik Killed in Syria Rocket Attack
»	Ten Killed in Sunni-Alawite Clashes in Lebanon
	Russia
»	Russia Becomes Last Major World Power to Join WTO
	South Asia
»	Afghanistan: Taliban Score Propaganda Coup With Rocket Attack on Top American Officer’s Plane
»	Afghanistan’s Peace Hopes Rest on Taleban Deal
»	In Pakistan, an Illiterate Child Has Been Jailed for Unknowingly Burning the Quran. …
»	Malyasia: Pertim Allays Fears Over Chinese Mosque
»	NZ’s Dilemma in Afghanistan
»	US Troop Deaths Top 2,000 in Afghanistant
	Far East
»	China Increases Rare Earth Exports
»	Chinese Medicine: Therapeutic or Dangerous?
»	EU Group Slams Protectionism in China Wine Row
	Sub-Saharan Africa
»	Ethiopia: Death of Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi Plunges Country Into Uncertainty
»	Ethiopia Commentary: Meles Zenawi Death a Headache for the West
»	Nigeria: Gunmen Kill Two in Biu Mosques Attacks
»	Thousands Turn Out to Mourn Meles Zenawi as Body Arrives Back in Ethiopia
»	Two Jordanian Peacekeepers ‘Missing’ In Sudan’s Darfur
	Immigration
»	Immigrants Protest ‘Illegal’ Label
»	In Crisis, Greece Rounds Up Immigrants
»	New Computer Database Launched to Track Down 150,000 Illegal Immigrants in Britain
»	Swiss Implement 48-Hour Asylum Procedure
	Culture Wars
»	BBC Play School Presenters ‘Went On-Air Stoned’
»	George Orwell is ‘Too Left-Wing’ For a Statue, BBC Tells Joan Bakewell
»	Mister Gay Italy Finalists Prepare for Showdown Friday
»	Modern Culture: Ugliness is Compulsory
»	The Tyranny of Artistic Modernism
	General
»	Father’s Age is Linked to Risk of Autism and Schizophrenia
»	Mars Rover Aces First Test Drive on Red Planet

Economically Motivated Suicides in Italy Up, Says Report

Research examines years before and after crisis

(ANSA) — Rome, August 21 — A recent report by researchers at the University of Michigan said that they were able to calculate the number of economically motivated suicides in Italy between 2008-2010 and confirm that there was an increase.

In the study published by the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, Associate Professor Roberto De Vogli looked at data comparing time trends for the so-called crisis years (2008-10) against those of the pre-crisis years (2000-07) and concluded that there were 290 excess suicides and attempted suicides attributable to economic reasons.

“These preliminary results have important policy implications,” De Vogli said. “They suggest that, as seen in other European countries — for example, in Greece — the recession and austerity packages designed to balance the budget deficit caused by the crisis are causing significant human suffering in the general population”.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Eurozone Crisis Adds to Japan’s Trade Deficit

Japan has logged a huge trade deficit. Official figures for July indicate that slowing growth in Asia and the eurozone’s protracted debt crisis are taking a high toll on the country’s export abilities.

Japan’s foreign trade in July showed a shortfall of 517.4 billion yen ($6.5 billion, 5.21 billion euros), official data indicated on Wednesday. It was the largest ever deficit for the month and almost twice the 275 billion yen that had been forecast by analysts.

The figures also marked a drastic change from the previous month when Japan was still able to record a small surplus of 60.3 billion yen.

The marked change in July was attributed to Europe’s debt-stricken economies and lower growth rates in Asian nations, including China.

“The recent trend in which weakness in China and Europe has been putting major downward pressure on Japan’s trade is getting even more serious,” said Global Market Research Strategist Takahiro Sekido.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Expats’ Exodus as Brits Give up on North Cyprus

(ANSAmed) — NICOSIA, AUGUST 21 — British expatriates are leaving the north of Cyprus in record numbers according to reports in the Turkish Cypriot media. Economic difficulties, bureaucratic obstacles, poor utilities, animal welfare and increasing electricity prices are cited as the main reasons for the exodus of British retirees.

Daily Kibris reports a surge in homes put on sales by expatriates, most bemoaning that they are fed up with being ignored by the administration with “endless pointless bureaucracy.” Chubby Cevdet, the owner of a restaurant popular with British residents said: “Life for Brits living here can be challenging, no one listens to them,” he said. “The British Pound was hard hit… They want to escape. There are always problems with electricity and water, but they can never get these problems solved,” he added.

The recession has left some Brits trapped because their foreign property has lost value at the same time as their British savings have become worth less abroad. In some cases, Britons that could not sell their homes have simply locked them up and left.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Gigolo Gives Discounts During Economic Hard Times

Clients eligible for ‘frequent-user’ discounts

(ANSA) — Marina di Massa, August 22 — Some male practitioners of the oldest profession on earth have made it known that they will be giving discounts to help those watching their spending during the ongoing economic crisis.

Worker by day, gigolo by night, Simone distributed fliers advertising that he has slashed prices almost in half for all services and will also be providing “frequent user discounts”.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Greece: Over Half of Island Businesses Dodge Taxes

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, AUGUST 22 — Over half of businesses in Greece’s popular tourist spots dodge paying their taxes, daily Kathimerini reports quoting figures from the financial crimes squad (SDOE), following a series of inspection raids across the country. SDOE reported that from July 6 to August 19, its officers inspected 4,067 businesses and found 55.7% to be in breach of taxation laws, writing up 2,266 establishments for a variety of violations, led by failure to issue receipts. In the same period last year, SDOE conducted 2,864 checks and found a slightly lower 53% of businesses to be dodging their taxes. The highest number of tax dodgers were discovered on the popular islands of Naxos (73.9%), Santorini (68.4%), Mykonos (64.5%), and Paros and Antiparos (63.7).

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Irish Banks Reject Most Loans After Greek Banks

Banks in Ireland are second only to Greece in the EU in refusing the most business loan applications, reports the Irish Times. Small businesses are twice as likely to have their loans rejected than the EU average, according to a study published on Tuesday by the Central Bank of Ireland.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Italian Local Taxes ‘More Than Double in 15 Years’

Up 114.4% since 1996, says trade association

(ANSA) — Venice, August 21 — Italians have seen their local taxes more than double in the past 15 years, according to a study by trade association CGIA di Mestre.

The overall amount has risen 114.4% to a record high of 102 billion euros, according to calculations carried out by the association that represents artisans and small companies in the northern Italian Mestre area.

The report was drawn up by examining Italian taxpayers’ filings to regions, provinces and local city councils in the 1996-2011 period. Local taxes totaled 47.6 billion euros in the first year the study examined.

CGIA said each taxpayer today is accountable for an average of 1,684 euros in local taxes, adding that the situation is expected to worsen in 2012.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Samaras Says Greece Needs More Time

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has made the strongest indication yet that he plans to ask euro-zone leaders this week for more time in implementing further austerity measures. With patience wearing thin, however, the answer is likely to be “no”.

As he was campaigning ahead of June elections, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras promised voters that he would request extra time to make an additional €11.5 billion ($14.3 billion) in cuts necessary to qualify for the next tranche of international aid. This week, he is taking steps to fulfil that promise.

Ahead of a Wednesday meeting with Euro Group President Jean-Claude Juncker and further talks later this week with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande, Samaras told the German daily Bild that his country needed “breathing room” to get the economy back on track.

While he did not identify how much more time he would like, he has indicated previously that he would like an additional two years to implement the spending cuts. Greece’s international creditors have made next month’s crucial aid payment worth €31.5 billion dependent on concrete steps toward further austerity.

“We are not asking for additional money,” Samaras said. “We stand by our commitments and to the fulfilment of the guidelines. But we have to stimulate the economy because that will shrink the deficit. All we want is a little breathing space to get the economy going and increase state revenues.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Spain: Autonmous Communities Greatest Liability, Study Says

Just 3 will make deficit 2012 reduction targets, economists say

(ANSAMed) — MADRID, AUGUST 21 — Spain’s autonomous communities are “the major risk factor” undermining the country’s efforts to reduce the deficit to 6.3% of GDP this year, according to a Foundation for Applied Economics Studies (FADEA) study of regional 2012-2014 budgets released on Tuesday.

If the autonomous provinces adhere strictly to the central government’s austerity measures and withhold year-end public employee bonuses, they will at best reduce their deficit to 1.92% of GDP, four tenths above the central government’s 1.5% target, according to the study.

Only Galicia, Navarre and La Rioja will make the government-mandated 2012 target, while Castille-La Mancha and Catalonia will probably overshoot it by the most points, according to FADEA.

“Serious doubts exist as to the autonomous communities’ ability to implement their own budgets, and that these will contribute to a consolidation,” the report said.

The autonomous communities have cut just 136 million euros on public employee spending in the first quarter of 2012, a far cry from the 3.636 billion euros in cuts needed for the year. The autonomous communities were responsible for 70% of the nation’s excess deficit in 2011, according to the report.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Study: Spanish Regions Are Potential Budget Busters

A study conducted by the Spanish non-profit, the Federation of Applied Economic Studies (Fedea), claims Spain’s 17 regions are the principle risk factor for the central government’s budget deficit target. Spain aims to reduce its budget deficit from 8.9 percent to 6.3 percent this year.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Turkish Families Deep in Debt, 2 Mln May Face Levies, MP

(ANSAmed) — ISTANBUL, AUGUST 21 — Turkish families are deep in debt as their financial responsibilities have jumped 18 times in the past nine years while their income has only doubled in the given time, according to an opposition lawmaker, who warns about the risks of levy for millions. The rate of family debt has exceeded 50% of spendable income and the ratio of debt to financial assets has hit 45%, according to a study revealed by Sinan Aygun, a member of Parliament from the Republican People’s Party (CHP), who was also the head of the Ankara Chamber of Commerce for many years. “Developments in the last 10 years show that the debts of families are growing like a snowball. A smaller debt rate compared with some European countries should not fool anyone. Turkey is approaching European countries in this field. Citizens are financing their expenditures with debt, and trying to pay debts with new ones as their real income keeps falling,” he said. “More than 2 million people are facing risks of levy because of their debt to banks.” Figures provided by Aygün mainly compare the current situation with the period before Justice and Development Party (AKP) rule, which began in 2002, as daily Hurriyet reported.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Attorney Discovers Hundreds of Thousands of Invalid Voter Registrations

Besides the more than 720,000 registrations without a birth date, Taitz and her NATO expert said there were over half a million registrations without a country of origin. Additionally, employees of offices of several registrars admitted that in some cases, where the databases did not contain a birth date, they simply created one, assigned a birth date such as 01.01.1850 (Jan. 1, 1850) or 01.01.1900 (Jan. 1, 1900).

The attorney also told Geraldo Rivera’s audience that thousands more “potentially invalid registrations are contained in the databases, where data shows individuals, who are 150 years old and 200 years old still voting.”

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Bacon in Park Was Not Actually “Islamophobic” Hate Crime, But Food Left for Animals

What is amazing about this story is the amount of official attention it got. Yesterday we saw the New York City Police Commissioner commenting on it and announcing that it was a “bias event.” Today it seems otherwise, although I am sure more taxpayer money will be expended in order to find this caller and interrogate him in order to make sure he’s not just trying to cover his “Islamophobic” tracks.

It is also illustrative of the Islamic supremacist avidity to find hate crimes against themselves, so as to portray themselves as victims and deflect attention away from jihad activity, that they see bacon on the ground in a park and think “Hate crime!” instead of “Some guy is feeding the animals.”

Meanwhile, genuine acts of hate, such as the ongoing vandalism of our AFDI Islamorealism ads in New York, goes ignored by police officials and is celebrated by the New York Times.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

DARPA Looks to Make Cyberwar Routine With Secret ‘Plan X’

The Pentagon’s top research arm is unveiling a new, classified cyberwarfare project. But it’s not about building the next Stuxnet, Darpa swears. Instead, the just-introduced “Plan X” is designed to make online strikes a more routine part of U.S. military operations. That will make the son of Stuxnet easier to pull off — to, as Darpa puts it, “dominate the cyber battlespace.”

Darpa spent years backing research that could shore up the nation’s cyberdefenses. “Plan X” is part of a growing and fairly recent push into offensive online operations by the Pentagon agency largely responsible for the internet’s creation. In recent months, everyone from the director of Darpa on down has pushed the need to improve — and normalize — America’s ability to unleash cyberattacks against its foes.

That means building tools to help warplanners assemble and launch online strikes in a hurry. It means, under Plan X, figuring out ways to assess the damage caused by a new piece of friendly military malware before it’s unleashed. And it means putting together a sort of digital battlefield map that allows the generals to watch the fighting unfold, as former Darpa acting director Ken Gabriel told the Washington Post: “a rapid, high-order look of what the Internet looks like — of what the cyberspace looks like at any one point in time.”

It’s not quite the same as building the weapons themselves, as Darpa notes in its introduction to the five-year, $100 million effort, issued on Monday: “The Plan X program is explicitly not funding research and development efforts in vulnerability analysis or cyberweapon generation.” (Emphasis in the original.)

But it is certainly a complementary campaign. A classified kick-off meeting for interested researchers in scheduled for Sept. 20.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Has Niall Ferguson Jumped the Shark?

by Tim Stanley

Newsweek’s anti-Obama Hit The Road Barack cover has caused quite a stir. For a long time now the magazine has been regarded as solid, liberal airport reading: something you can flick through during a flight to Aspen prior to a week’s skiing with the Kennedys. But the choice of author for this surprising smackdown is even more shocking. Niall Ferguson is one of our greatest living historians and while it’s perfectly acceptable for a Marxist professor to spend his tenure writing sympathetic pamphlets about the Khmer Rouge, no one expects to see a Harvard academic attack a Democratic president in this overt and conservative manner. Yet that’s what Niall has done — and the consequences for him and Newsweek could be significant.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Huma Abedin, Islamist Connections and Willful Blindness

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor and New York Times bestselling author who put the Blind Sheik behind bars in the first World Trade Center bombing. He is the author of Willful Blindness and, most recently, of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America.

FP: Hi Andy, welcome back to Frontpage Interview.

You are carefully following the controversy over Huma Abedin, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, and her ties to Islamic supremacism. Give us an update on your findings. Walid Shoebat has discovered something quit startling lately, yes?

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Location of the Mind Remains a Mystery

Where does the mind reside? It’s a question that’s occupied the best brains for thousands of years. Now, a patient who is self-aware — despite lacking three regions of the brain thought to be essential for self-awareness — demonstrates that the mind remains as elusive as ever.

The finding suggests that mental functions might not be tied to fixed brain regions. Instead, the mind might be more like a virtual machine running on distributed computers, with brain resources allocated in a flexible manner, says David Rudrauf at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, who led the study of the patient.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

More Reasons to Investigate Huma Abedin

by Diana West

At his Iftar dinner, President Obama prasied Huma Abedin as “nothing less than extraordinary in representing our country and the democratic values that we hold dear.” Walid Shoebat disagrees, writing: “The Abedins for decades were actually serving a foreign entity, the government of Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Islamic Affairs, and not American Democracy as President Obama stated.”

—-

Andrew C. McCarthy is interviewed at Frontpagemag today under the headline, “Huma Abedin, Islamist Connections and Willful Blindness.” Because of the absenteeism of the MSM and all politicians (save Rep. Michele Bachmann and her four conservative House colleagues), the scope of the blazing national security scandal the interview takes in can seem overwhelming. Synthesizing reportage and analysis by Walid Shoebat, Andrew Bostom, Patrick Poole, Paul Sperry and others, Andy clearly and concisely presents the material.

What We, the People first need to understand for ourselves (since our leaders are AWOL) is that just as once upon a time the Soviet Union labored mightily for world revolution — “right up to the eve of its collapse,” as Robert Conquest has written — the drive for world Islamization is no pipe dream, either. Some years ago, federal investigators discovered a Muslim Brotherhood manifesto for “grand jihad” against the United States by destroying it “from within.” Earlier this month, Walid Shoebat discovered what amounts to a companion document online — an extraordinary book in Arabic, which he calls a “Saudi manifesto” for global Islamization commissioned by King Fahd (d. 2005). Among the sources it draws upon is a work by Sayed Zaynul Abedin, Huma Abedin’s father, called “Muslim Minorities in the West.” The book lays out a sweeping Saudi program to mobilize colonies of “Muslim Minorities” throughout the West to introduce, to entrench, to elevate sharia (Islamic law) above all other law.

One strategic point the Saudi plan puts forward is the need to prevent “Muslim Minorities” from assimilating into the cultures of host nations. As Shoebat notes, the document mentions “already established centers, educational programs, mosques and organizations in the United States” as being “geared towards hindering any Western plan for Muslim assimilation in a non-Muslim host nation. He continues: “It mentioned The Muslim Society of North America (ISNA) and the Muslim Students Association (MSA), established in the United States in 1962? (p. 65), as key agents to protect Muslims from assimilation.

Andy’s interview, with links to relevant works, is here.

The Abedin family business, the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, and its related Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, present the perfect vehicle for the drive to Islamize the West from the inside out…

— Hat tip: Diana West

[Return to headlines]

Planning Board OKs Mosque Expansion

Neighbors express mixed reactions to board’s unanimous decision

MIDDLETOWN — Following three planning board hearings and multiple revisions, the Islamic Society of Monmouth County has received unanimous approval for an expansion of its mosque on Red Hill Road. In the wake of the decision, handed down by the Middletown Township Planning Board on Aug. 15, the applicant’s engineer Sharif Aly was both relieved and satisfied. “It worked out pretty well,” he said. “We definitely want to be neighborfriendly, so we tried to do our best to please the neighbors. But we do have a limited budget like any other religious organization. I think [the board] did a great job agreeing to what the neighbors wanted to have.”

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Prince Harry — Naked Photos During Vegas Rager

Prince Harry put the crown jewels on display in Vegas this weekend … getting BARE ASS NAKED during a game of strip billiards with a room full of friends in his VIP suite.

It all went down Friday night during a raging party in a high rollers hotel suite. We’re told Harry, along with a large entourage, went down to the hotel bar and met a bunch of hot chicks … and invited them up to his VIP suite.

[…]

A rep for the Royal Family tells us, “We have no comment to make on the photos at this time.”

[JP note: Readers of a sensitive disposition be warned that disturbing images are shown.]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Romney Banks on Ryan to Shore Up Conservative Base

In an era of deep partisanship in the US, Mitt Romney has chosen rising conservative star Paul Ryan as his running mate. Romney is hoping that the party base can deliver him with the White House.

With the Republican Party convention in Tampa, Florida less than a week away, presumed presidential candidate Mitt Romney has sought to unite a party badly bruised during a brutal primary process by selecting conservative icon Paul Ryan as his running mate.

“The old Romney was a moderate centrist Republican who would not have liked a Paul Ryan type figure,” Darrell West, an expert on US domestic politics at the Brookings Institute in Washington D.C., told DW.

“But the political landscape has changed dramatically and Romney has concluded that he has to move to the right to win this election,” West said. “The new Romney is much more conservative than the old Romney was.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

The End of the Alternative Media

The death of the Village Voice has drawn out a coterie of mourners bowing their heads over the venerable radical rag, but their orations at its funeral are completely wasted. The death of the Voice is not due to mismanagement, the right wing or its complicity in human trafficking. After all, its former competitor, the New York Press, which forced it to go free instead of charging a buck fifty, died fairly recently. The end of the Village Voice has to be seen in the context of the death of alternative media.

The passing of the Village Voice, its thick greasy pages smudged with desperate cries for attention in between glossy cigarette ads and phone sex ads, also coincides with the passing of the bohemian nature of the East Village, now little more than tall glowering condos and coffee shops. To those residents who showed up there in the ‘70s and ‘80s bearing art school portfolios and a burning desire to be part of the “Scene”, it’s one more triumph of the capitalist running dogs over the “People”.

But the real reason that the Village Voice is dead is because the alternative media is dead and the alternative media is dead because there is nothing for it to be an alternative to. New Yorkers can just as easily read shrill rants about the NYPD in the Daily News, pretentious movie reviews for artsy films at The Onion and leftist denunciations of the War on Terror in the New York Times.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Victoria Muslim Community Shaken by Mosque Threats

A commissionaire for the Victoria Coast Guard has been suspended with pay after allegedly posting threatening comments on Facebook directed at a new mosque.On the Facebook page “I Love Downtown Victoria,” someone who identified as Dan Speed commented on a post that mentioned a new mosque set to open in Victoria in November. “That’s not good… Blast it with an 84 mm Carl Gustaf,” he wrote in one post, referring to an anti-tank artillery capable of firing explosives. The posts, which have since been removed, also mentioned an issue with “noise pollution for that neighbourhood,” apparently referring to the Muslim prayer schedule. His final comment was “A call to Alah (sic).” According to the poster’s Facebook profile, he is a former military member. John Dewar, CEO of Commissionaires BC, confirmed that the individual who made the post is currently working as a Commissionaire for the Canadian Coast Guard base in Victoria, and has been suspended with pay as police investigate the postings. The individual has expressed remorse for his comments, Dewar added.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Finnish PM Wants Deeper EU Integration

Finland’s prime minister Jyrki Katainen on Tuesday said Europe should strive for deeper integration and common rules in order to strengthen the euro, reports the Wall Street Journal. “We need deeper integration and not the opposite,” he said. He also voiced his support to impose sanctions on profligate member states.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

First UK Hydrogen Train Takes Passengers for a Ride

It may not be the most luxurious of trains, but the first hydrogen-powered locomotive in the UK has now shown that it can haul up to 4 tonnes for 2.7 kilometres.

Built by a team led by Stuart Hillmansen from the University of Birmingham, UK, for a competition, the hybrid design uses a hydrogen fuel cell to power electric motors and charge batteries similar to those used in cars. The batteries help keep the train going while it is accelerating, which requires more power than when it’s coasting along.

The locomotive stores hydrogen in a tank that can hold over 5000 litres at low pressure, but it could carry two more tanks to increase its range. A hydrogen-powered canal boat at the university has 10 such tanks.

The team hopes that railway operators will be inspired to consider hydrogen power on non-electrified routes. Despite being a clean source of energy, the high price of fuel cells is still one of the main hurdles to overcome. The power system used in this locomotive would cost around £5500 to buy.

If you enjoyed this post, check out a robot jellyfish powered by hydrogen or watch a hydrogen-powered city car in action.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

France: Three Religions Meet in Suburban Paris Prayer Space

(Reuters) — Chief Abbess Manchen Shih gazed through a first-floor window of her vast wood and concrete temple as shaven-headed nuns in mustard robes prepared for midday prayers, cooking rice as an offering to the Buddha.

“Look! You can see the mosque and the Laotian temple,” she said, gesturing at two half-finished buildings rising from a weed-ridden site in Bussy-Saint-Georges, 30 km (20 miles) east of Paris. Like many of the new towns that have sprung up since the 1960s to ease urban overcrowding, more than half of Bussy’s 25,000 residents are immigrants. Local mayor Hugues Rondeau says around 40 percent of the town’s population is Asian. With France — a secular nation with a long Roman Catholic history — battling to come to terms with its increasingly multicultural identity, Rondeau believes Bussy can set an example.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

France: Eiffel Tower Worth €434 Billion: Study

The Eiffel Tower in Paris is the most valuable monument in Europe, worth some €434 billion, according to a new study.

Paris’ iconic skyline feature is estimated to be worth six times the Colloseum in Rome, according to study published by the Chamber of Commerce of Monza and Brianza in northern Italy.

The study has compared and assessed the financial value of various historical European monuments, according to a report in the Lavieimmo.com website. The study is based not on any material value, but on image, branding and aesthetic qualities.

What’s more the value of the tower, nicknamed the Iron Lady and erected in 1889 as the entrance arch to the World Fair, is the equivalent of 25 percent of France’s GDP or almost the entire capacity of the European Financial Stability Fund.

The Eiffel Tower comes out top in the rankings, followed by the Colloseum in Rome, estimated to worth some €91 billion, and Gaudi’s unfinished cathedral masterpiece La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona at €90 billion.

Other celebrated monuments in the list include the Dome of Milan, worth some €82 billion, the Tower of London at €70.5 billion, The Prado museum in central Madrid at €59 billion, and Stonehenge in western England worth €10.5 billion.

According to the study Europe’s leading monuments are worth a total of €700 billion.

The Italian study also put a price on the White House in Washington DC — some €81 billion.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

France: Lyon Rabbi Sent Holocaust Photo Threat

French anti-terrorist authorities have been alerted after the Chief Rabbi of Lyon was sent a threatening letter accompanied by images of Jewish children being marched to World War II concentration camps.

The Rabbi, Richard Wertenschlag, told AFP on Wednesday he had brought the missive to the attention of the authorities because of its particularly offensive and menacing content.

“One could brush it off as the work of one rogue individual but we have to envisage the worst scenario — prevention is better than a cure,” he said.

In the letter, which was sent to Lyon’s main synagogue on August 10, the author complained: “More and more frequently we are having ideas imposed on us that have as their goal to apologise for the Jew, the so-called Shoah (holocaust), the evil Palestinians.

“From now on we will punish a Jew … each time that you go on television to complain.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Germany: Europeans Converting to Islam and to Jihad

From the Gatestone Institute:

Germany: “Islamists Want to Bring Jihad to Europe”

by Soeren Kern

German Intelligence Chief Gerhard Schindler has issued a warning saying that Europe is at great risk of terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists. In a wide-ranging interview with the German newspaper Die Welt, Schindler said the German foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), is particularly concerned about the threat posed by homegrown terrorists, individuals who are either born or raised in Europe and who travel to war zones like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia or Yemen to obtain training in terrorist methods.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Germany: Underground Workers Face Mammoth Tusk

Workers on the underground network in the western city of Düsseldorf stopped work after digging up a 34-kilo woolly mammoth tusk more than 10,000 years old, city officials said on Tuesday.

Excavation work at the new Pempelforter Strasse underground station was stopped immediately while the 1.20-metre-long tusk was gently removed and taken away for scientific study.

A search was conducted to see if the rest of the skeleton was somewhere nearby, but only the tusk could be found.

The theory is that the tusk was probably carried to its final resting spot by melt waters from a glacier thousands of years ago when the Rhineland area was still tundra.

DNA analysis should help determine how old the mammoth it came from was. The Ice Age creatures died out about 10,000 years ago.

Rolf Lommerzheim from Düsseldorf authorities said that workers had initially thought the tusk was an old piece of pipe. “But it quickly became clear that it was something special,” he told Die Welt newspaper.

The tusk will eventually be put on display in an underground station, when everything is finished, the paper said.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Higgs Boson Faces the Perils of Predictability

Fulfilling expectations is normally a good thing. But the fact that the newly discovered Higgs boson is behaving exactly as expected is cutting its chances of lighting a path to new physics.

The world rejoiced in July when physicists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN announced a new particle with some, but not all, of the properties predicted for the Higgs. It was the final member of the standard model of particle physics left to be discovered.

Questions quickly followed the confetti. The particle was not observed directly but through the particles it should decay into, not all of which were seen. This raised hopes that the Higgs might have different properties to those prescribed by the standard model. Because the model is known to be lacking — it offers no explanations for gravity or dark matter — such deviations might provide clues to these mysterious entities.

Now results from Fermilab’s Tevatron collider in Batavia, Illinois, which shut down last year, show the Higgs decaying into one of the missing particle sets, a pair of bottom quarks.

This boosts the standard model status of the Higgs. “In my view, it’s important evidence that the particle which has been seen is the standard model Higgs boson,” says Dmitri Denisov of the Tevatron’s D0 experiment. “It’s not something else.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Italy: Catholic Weekly Slams Religious Event for ‘Power Adulation’

Comunione e Liberazione courts elite, Famiglia Cristiana claims

(ANSA) — Rome August 21 — Italian Catholic weekly Famiglia Cristiana slammed audiences at an annual conference organized by an influential lay religious body for allegedly applauding certain speakers simply because the powerful figures were paying homage to the movement with their presence, and not for the messages they were conveying.

The top-selling weekly made the strong statements on audience reaction at the annual meeting of the Catholic movement Comunione e Liberazione held in the north-eastern coastal town of Rimini each August in an editorial after Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti was applauded.

“All past Meeting attendees, at each annual event, have always been welcomed in this way,” Famiglia Cristiana said in its editorial. “Little does it matter if the nation is on the brink of a precipice: it would appear the point is to keep on dancing, but only because the powerful figure is there, paying homage to the people of Comunione and Liberazione.” The magazine went on to cite concrete examples, including the ways in which former prime ministers and central and local government officials such as Francesco Cossiga, Giulio Andreotti, Silvio Berlusconi and Bettino Craxi were welcomed.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Italy: 90-Year-Old Beats Two Moroccan Muggers

Turin, 22 Aug. (AKI) — A 90-year-old man in Turin beat two men with a stick for stealing his gold necklace in the northern city of Turin on Wednesday. The two alleged thieves, both Moroccans, were arrested.

The elderly man was walking to the news agent when the pair, 28 and 30 years old, used an excuse to pull him over to steal his gold necklace. The victim violently beat them, causing one of them to drop the necklace and run. The other criminal managed to pick the necklace up and escape.

A passer-by who had witnessed the scene from his car calmed the 90-year-old man and followed the two delinquents while talking with the police on the phone until they stopped in a bar. The police arrested the two Moroccans and returned the necklace.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

[Return to headlines]

Jordanian Paralympic Athletes to Face Child Sex Charges in Northern Ireland

THREE members of the Jordanian Paralympic team will appear in court in Northern Ireland today charged with sexual offences.

The Jordanian squad is one of several Paralympic national teams based in the region and has been using the Antrim Forum as a training base in advance of the Games beginning next week.

A 23-year-old-man was charged with two counts of sexual activity with a child, one count of sexual assault against a woman and voyeurism.

A 35-year-old man was charged with two counts of causing sexual activity with a child.

The third man charged, a 36-year-old, faces one count of sexual assault against a woman.

They were arrested in Antrim, which is around 22 miles from Belfast, on Monday night following claims of indecent assault.

Interpreters had to be called in to help police with their questioning of the three men.

They are due to appear in Coleraine Magistrates’ Court in Co Derry.

[Return to headlines]

King Intervenes in NI Assault Case

The king of Jordan has personally intervened in the case of three members of the Jordanian Paralympic team accused of sex offences at a pre-Games training camp in Northern Ireland, a Jordanian government representative has told a court.

The Arab administration promised to bring the defendants back before the court in Coleraine, Co Derry, during a bid for bail.

Two wheelchair-using power-lifters — one a bronze medal winner at the Beijing Games — and a trainer appeared at Coleraine Magistrates’ Court today facing charges including sexual assault and voyeurism.

The squad was training at Antrim Forum in Antrim.

The trio were arrested in Coleraine on Monday night following claims of indecent assault made by two girls and two women.

It is understood the alleged incidents took place at the Antrim Forum leisure centre.

[Return to headlines]

Northern Ireland: Bail Granted to Paralympian Sex Charge Trio

The King of Jordan has taken a personal interest in the case of three members of the Jordanian Paralympian squad facing sex charges, a court has heard.

A Jordanian embassy official offered bail sureties at the hearing in a court in Coleraine, County Londonderry.

Faisal Hammash, Omar Sami Qaradhi and Motaz Al-Junadi are charged with sex offences in Antrim.

Bail of £500 was granted with a surety of £5,000 from the Jordanian government for each defendant.

The case had been adjourned while the judge considered the bail applications.

The squad is one of several international teams using the Antrim Forum sports complex as a training base in advance of the Games which begin in London next week.

The three men, two of whom compete in wheelchairs, are all members of the Jordanian Paralympics power-lifting team.

Faisal Hammash, 35, faces two counts of causing a child to engage in sexual activity.

Omar Sami Qaradhi, 31, is charged with three counts of sexual assault and one of voyeurism. At least two of the assaults were against children.

Motaz Al-Junadi, 45, faces one charge of sexual assault. All the offences took place between 16 and 20 August.

King Abdullah’s interest in the case was reported by one of his government officials who promised to return the accused men to Coleraine Court following the games if bail was granted.

The Jordanian Embassy in London has released a statement saying it regretted the incidents that had led to the charges of the three members of the paralympic team.

— Hat tip: Barry Banter

[Return to headlines]

Norway: Billion-Dollar Price Tag for New Government HQ

Construction on Norway’s new government offices to replace those bombed by Anders Behring Breivik last year will take up to ten years and cost more than $1 billion, officials said on Wednesday.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Norway: Forced Genital Exam on Girl ‘Was Discrimination’

Norway’s child protection services broke the law when they ordered the genital examination of a Norwegian-Somali girl, the Norwegian Equality Tribunal has found.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Romanian Power Struggle is Far From Over

Suspended Romanian President Traian Basescu can return to office. The country’s highest court has decided that a recent referendum on the question had failed. But the power struggle continues.

The debate about Romania’s president has gone on for two months. In early July, Traian Basescu was suspended by parliament. Now, he has been allowed by the Constitutional Court to return to the presidential palace. On Tuesday (21.08.2012) the court ruled that the July 29 referendum on Basescu’s suspension was invalid due to insufficient turnout. But the power struggle between the government and the head of state has not been laid to rest by this decision — it merely enters the next round.

Romanian Interim President Crin Antonescu and the country’s Prime Minister Victor Ponta both said they would accept the court’s ruling, but added that the decision was “not fair” and “not correct,” and that it “ignored the people’s will.” Ponta said he had not made a final decision on his future political cooperation with Basescu. Antonescu called on the citizens to publicly protest against the court decision.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Sweden: Somali Community Under Threat by Local Gang

A Somali community in Foresrum, in southern Sweden, is being terrorized by a local gang to such an extent that the local Somali association has urged all its members to move away.

“We escaped from a country at war to be exposed to this in peaceful Sweden,” said Abdula Abdi Dhinbil to national broadcaster Sveriges Television (SVT).

According to SVT, one year ago there used to be 160 Somali families living in Forserum, near Jönköping in southern Sweden. Today, that number has dwindled to 95 families.

The reason that so many of the Somalis in Forserum are choosing to move is that they feel under threat from a local gang.

The group’s windows have been smashed for the third weekend in a row, Somalis resident in the area have been beaten up and many have been subjected to racist remarks.

According to daily Svenska Dagbladet, the perpetrators are a small group of younger males between 17 and 22, making the community feel unsafe.

According to the local Somali association, the police are not doing enough to come to terms with the harassment.

Somali children in the area are being kept home from school since yesterday, as parents are too worried to let them out on their own.

According to one school principal, Annika Bertling, the local community had been unaware of how serious the harassment of the Somalis had become until last Thursday when a church in the area held a meeting to address the problem.

“They were worried about how they are being treated in society in general,”said Bertling to SvD, stressing that there are no reports of harassment reported in school.

According to the paper, police and local politicians will be holding a crisis meeting on Wednesday and a press conference is expected at 3pm.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Switzerland: Bern Upset by ‘Romney Girl’ Video

An online music video that uses a “Swiss Miss” to mock US Republican Party presidential candidate Mitt Romney for his “taxless” wealth has drawn the ire of Switzerland’s diplomats.

The satirical YouTube video features a plaited blonde dressed like a scantily-clad Heidi who sings about how great Romney’s life is, replete with tax shelters and all the trappings of being super-rich — fur coats, hot tubs and luxury sports cars.

“I’m a Romney girl, in a Romney world,” the woman sings to the tune of “Barbie Girl,” while cavorting with an actor playing the Republican candidate.

“Life is taxless. It’s fantastic.”

The song’s allusions to Switzerland as a place where rich people escape paying taxes has riled Presence Switzerland, a part of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, which aims to foster a positive image of the country.

The three-minute ‘Romney Girl’ video, launched earlier this month, is the latest American political ad to sully the Swiss as aiders and abettors of tax evasion.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

UK: A Town Hall Spy on Every Corner …

Town halls have launched an astonishing 9,600 spying missions on the public in the past three years. The surveillance operations exploit anti-terror laws but many are targeting minor offences such as flouting the smoking ban, dog fouling and dropping litter. Council officers have also gone undercover to carry out ‘test purchases’ at local escort agencies, it was revealed last night.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

UK: British Pakistani Christian Association to Demonstrate Outside Pakistan High Commission …

Rimsha Masih is the 11 year old Christian girl with Downes syndrome who, along with her mother and aunt, is currently in prison (ostensibly for her own protection from the mob) after it was alleged that she (albeit unwittingly) damaged some pages of a koran. This is the information released by BPCA tonight.

Date: Wednesday 22nd August 2012

Time: 7pm — 9pm

Location: Pakistan High Commission, 34- 36 Lowndes Square, London SW1X 9JN Getting there: Nearest Station Knightsbridge (Piccadilly line) Follow this link for a map and bus directions http://phclondon.org/HC/ContactUs.asp At our protest Catholic Band Oooberfuse said to be “the Pope’s favourite Electro-pop Band” will be performing songs to remember Asia Bibi, Shahbaz Bhatti and now young Rimsha. The High Commission for Pakistan in United Kingdom www.phclondon.org After coming out of the station follow the directions (marked with green line) on following map to reach the High Commission

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

China Calls for Dialogue in Solving Kosovo Issue

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) — China Tuesday called on relevant parties to solve the Kosovo issue through dialogue and avoid any move to deteriorate the current situation in the region. Speaking to an open Security Council meeting on Kosovo, Wang Min, Chinese deputy permanent representative to the UN, said the situation in northern Kosovo continues to be tense in recent times and the number of voluntary returnees of displaced persons has declined remarkably. “China expresses its concern in this regard,” he said.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Egypt: MB Leader Asks Democracy Advocates to be Tolerant of Sharia

Deputy of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, Essam al-Erian, criticized opposition to, what he described as, the right of the “majority” to apply Sharia (Islamic law), asking pro-democracy advocates to be tolerant. On Twitter, the prominent MB leader insisted that it is illogical to separate religion from the lives of Egyptians. Commenting on the anti-Muslim Brotherhood demonstrations scheduled for August 24, he argued that if protesters were peaceful in their demonstration, others will be forced to respect them.

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Egypt: Presidential Spokesman — Constitutional Court to Issue a Ruling on Shura Council on September 4

Presidential Spokesman Dr. Yasser Ali said that there is no intention to transfer the legislative power to the Shura Council in the coming period. In statements to “Al Gomhuria” newspaper on Monday 20/08/2012, Ali noted that the Shura Council may be dissolved like the People’s Assembly, adding that the Constitutional Court will issue its ruling on the Shura Council on 4 September. Ali stressed that the power of legislation will remain in the hands of President Mohamed Morsi until finalizing the Constitution and holding parliamentary elections.

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Egyptian Ministry Warns Anti-Presidential Protesters

(AGI) Cairo- Egypt’s Interior Ministry issued a sharp warning to organizers planning a campaign of protests. Said protests are scheduled to take place the day after tomorrow, against President Mohamed Morsi. Should any violent episodes emerge from the events, protesters will be held personally responsible. Indeed, law enforcement officers have been give orders to “decisively and legitimately confront any attempt to storm or attack any public or private installation, detain workers in them or cause chaos”, according to a ministry statement.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

[Return to headlines]

Egypt’s New Democratic President is Indifferent to Genuine Democratic Reform

President Morsi is moving rapidly to create an Egyptian state of his own vision and that of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). Less than 60 days ago in the presence of the Supreme Constitutional Court, Mr. Morsi swore an oath to uphold the Egyptian constitution.

He has already broken that promise by illegally amending the constitution to extend the powers of the executive office. He is now unilaterally exercising his expanded authority to tighten his grip on Egypt’s media and military.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Russia May Soon Resume Military Cooperation With Libya

MOSCOW, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) — Russia may soon resume military-technical cooperation with Libya, a federal agency supervising the country’s international military cooperation said.

In an interview published on Wednesday, Vyacheslav Dzirkaln, deputy director of the Federal Service for military-technical cooperation told Interfax news agency that a Libyan delegation was to visit Moscow “in the nearest future” to discuss possible cooperation.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Stakelbeck on Terror Show: “Inside Jihad” With Tawfik Hamid

Dr. Tawfik Hamid knows the enemy of radical Islam firsthand. As a young man, he was a follower of Islamist ideology and rubbed shoulders with the likes of Ayman al-Zawahiri.

A native of Egypt, Dr. Hamid has since left the world of Islamism behind and is author of the book, Inside Jihad.

He is a leading authority on the Muslim Brotherhood, al Qaeda, and the global Islamist movement.

I sat down with him recently on the Stakelbeck on Terror show for an in-depth interview about the latest events in Egypt and the broader Middle East.

Click the link above to watch.

— Hat tip: Erick Stakelbeck

[Return to headlines]

Abbas Denies the Jewish Connection to Jerusalem

As Israel’s leaders continue Id al-Fitr phone diplomacy, PA president refers to “alleged” Temple in speech.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas denied the Jewish connection to Jerusalem on Tuesday, the same day he spoke by phone with both Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s envoy Yitzhak Molcho. Abbas issued a statement Tuesday, marking the 43rd anniversary of an attempt by deranged Australian Christian Denis Michael Rohan to set fire to al-Aksa mosque, saying that Jerusalem’s Arab and Islamic identity was a Palestinian red line.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Ashton Warns Israel to Halt New Settlements

Concern over 130 new houses in East Jerusalem

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, AUGUST 22 — Israel must immediately stop all new settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, which are illegal and damage prospects for peace, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has said in a note.

Ashton expressed “serious concern” over the implications of a recent announcement by Israeli authorities about a tender to build 130 new homes in the Har Homa settlement

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

EU’s Strategic Mistake

Op-ed: Jewish communities in West Bank will continue to grow with or without the business, blessing of the EU

David Ha’ivri

Thanks to the European Union, the Jewish population of Judea and Samaria has grown by 10% this week. Modi’in, Maccabim and Re’ut are three Jewish communities on the road between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. In 2003, the three neighbor communities merged to form a joint municipality, and were organized by Israel’s Ministry of Interior into a city, known as Modi’in. The new city’s population numbers over 80,000 residents.

Last week, the European Union issued a statement declaring this city a “West Bank settlement,” and as such, products manufactured there will be hit with a special tax, if imported and sold in the EU. This action falls under the European effort to discourage its citizens from supporting what they consider “illegitimate Jewish settlement activity” in the areas captured by Israel from Jordan in the Six Day War of 1967.

The EU ignores the fact that a boycott of products from Judea and Samaria hurts local Arab workers who are getting Israeli salaries and work benefits for their ability to work in industries in the Jewish communities. They don’t bother asking themselves where the billions of Euro they have been supplying to the Palestinian Authority have disappeared to, or why the PA has not used that international aid to develop workplaces for the people those funds were meant to assist. But now, the EU is adding additional workplaces to the list of those to be boycotted.

Hasty population growth

The bright side of this policy statement by the EU is a very quick growth of the Jewish population in Judea and Samaria. If, the day before, we knew that there were 750,000 Jews living beyond the pre-1967 lines in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, that number has now risen to 830,000. Population growth of a little more than 10% in one day is amazing, by any standard…

— Hat tip: TV

[Return to headlines]

New Vatican Ambassador to Tel Aviv Gets Bad Israeli Press

Lazzarotto appointment ‘a slap in the face’

(ANSA) — Rome, August 22 — The appointment of a new Vatican ambassador to Israel could spark a row between the two states, local press said Wednesday. An article in Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot, written by the paper’s Rome correspondent, called the appointment of Monsignor Giuseppe Lazzarotto as new papal nuncio, as the Ambassador is known, to Israel and apostolic delegate in Jersaulem and Palestine “a slap in the face to Israel”.

The paper said the appointment, made official by Pope Benedict XVI on August 18, was “an embarrassment and humiliation” to Israel because Lazzarotto’s name has been tied to the case of pedophile priests that exploded in Ireland in 2005 and whose culprits “he did everything possible to defend”. In 2008, the year before an official Irish commission published its findings, Lazzarotto was sent “by surprise” to Australia, “as far away as possible,” Yediot Ahronot writes.

The decision to appoint the 70-year-old Lazzarotto is a “painful slap,” the paper’s Rome correspondent Menachem Gentz wrote, adding that it “demonstrates the secondary character the Vatican places” on its relations with Israel.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

West Bank: Crisis Does Not Spare Arafat’s Mausoleum

Repairs needed, anti-corruption activists call for investigation

(ANSAMed) — ROME, AUGUST 22 — Palestinian West Bank citizens are tired of corruption and government waste, which have not spared the late Arafat’s pharaonic mausoleum.

Built in 2008 to the tune of 1.125 million euros, the tomb is already showing signs of damage it will take 500,000 euros to fix. This is an unjustifiably huge sum for Palestinians, whose heavily indebted government, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), is on the brink of bankruptcy, according to some analysts.

A week ago, an anti-corruption watchdog group called Aman, led by former legislative councilmember Azmi Shuaibi, organized a public hearing into what it alleges was “shoddy” construction leading to “a waste of public money.” The tomb was built out of sub-standard stones, some of whom were cracked and others hollow, and which were not the ones listed on the construction brief, according to Aman.

The mixed public and private company that built the tomb said in its own defense that the mausoleum was damaged by the weather, and that a small maintenance job would suffice to repair it.

Aman’s activists hope the public hearing, which local and international media reported as “the first of its kind,” will spark a government investigation into what it says is mismanagement of public funds.

The Palestinian National Authority has been struggling with chronic cash flow problems since 2011, when international aid dried up in the wake of the global economic crisis. The outlook, analysts say, is grim. “If the current trend continues, the PNA won’t survive another year,” said economist and former minister Samir Abdullah.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Bahrain: Mosque Open House Draws Thousands

THOUSANDS of visitors attended the first day of the Eid open house yesterday at the Ahmed Al Fateh Islamic Centre (Grand Mosque), Juffair. The two-day event ends today and is being organised by the Justice, Islamic Affairs and Endowments Ministry. The event is open to all and is held from 9am to 4pm. “We are expecting a record turnout of over 2,000 visitors during the two-day open house,” said religious tour guide and co-ordinator Nejma Mohammed Naeem. She said close to 1,500 people yesterday attended the Eid Open House at Bahrain’s biggest mosque, which has been running regular tours for non-Muslims since 1998.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Chinese Muslims to Shine in Turkey Expo

Beijing, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) — Chinese Muslims will bring their unique culture to Turkey in an Islamic cultural pageant to be held in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, on Aug. 31, according to the Islamic Association of China (IAC). The China-Turkey Islamic Cultural Expo and Performances 2012, jointly organized by China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs and Turkey’s Presidency of Religious Affairs to mark the China-Turkey Cultural Year, will include an exhibition of Chinese Islamic culture, Quran chanting, a symposium on China-Turkey Islamic exchanges, and Islamic singing and dancing shows, according to Zhang Guanglin, deputy secretary-general of IAC.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Deadly Fighting Over Syria Grips North Lebanon

There have been more clashes between Sunni Muslims and Alawites in Lebanon’s northern town of Tripoli. At least seven people have been killed and more than 70 people have been wounded. The clashes are the result of hostility between the two communities due to tensions over the war in Syria. The BBC’s Barbara Plett, who is in Beirut, said since the conflict in Syria began existing tensions between the two groups had intensified.

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Death Toll From Lebanon Fighting Climbs to 10

Aug 22 (Reuters) — The death toll from fighting between Sunni Muslims and Alawites in Tripoli climbed to at least 10 overnight, medical sources said on Wednesday, in clashes that the city’s residents described as some of the heaviest since Lebanon’s civil war.

More than 100 people have been wounded in the fighting which erupted this week along a sectarian fault line between the Sunni district of Bab al-Tabbaneh and the Alawite area of Jebel Mohsen. The sectarian tone of the fighting reflects the Syrian conflict that increasingly sets a mainly Sunni Muslim opposition against President Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite minority.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Dubai Helps Spread Humanitarian Message to 1 Billion

(MENAFN — Khaleej Times) On the first day of Eid Al Fitr, the emirate of Dubai, known for its humanitarian initiatives, became part of one of the largest humanitarian campaigns in the world. It has reached out to over one billion people through social media. Celebrated on August 19, the United Nation’s (UN) initiative World Humanitarian Day (WHD) honours humanitarian workers who risk their lives to help people who suffer due to calamities, conflicts and hunger. Initiated in 2008, the WHD public outreach campaign also urges everyone to help others in their daily lives in whatever way they can, big or small. Thousands of people, who were celebrating the festival of giving at the foot of the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa, in Downtown Dubai, witnessed the screening of a WHD special video at the Burj Steps on Sunday evening. The music video by Beyoncé, titled “I Was Here”, was part of the WHD celebrations that aimed at reaching out to one billion people, on one day, with one message. The video was recorded during the live performance of Beyoncé held at the UN General Assembly in New York on August 10 to inspire people to leave their mark on the world and say “I Was Here”.

[…]

[JP note: Kilroy: I was here too.]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Iran’s Supreme Leader Orders Fresh Terror Attacks on West

Iran’s Supreme Leader has ordered the country’s Revolutionary Guards to intensify its campaign of terror attacks against the West and its allies in retaliation for supporting the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

According to Western intelligence officials, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave the order to the elite Quds Force unit following a recent emergency meeting of Iran’s National Security Council in Tehran held to discuss a specially-commissioned report into the implications for Iran of the Assad regime’s overthrow.

Damascus is Iran’s most important regional ally, and the survival of the Assad regime is regarded as vital to sustaining the Iranian-backed Hizbollah militia which controls southern Lebanon.

The report, which was personally commissioned by Mr Khamenei, concluded that Iran’s national interests were being threatened by a combination of the U.N. sanctions imposed over Iran’s nuclear programme and the West’s continuing support for Syrian opposition groups attempting to overthrow the Syrian government.

Intelligence officials say the report concludes that Iran “cannot be passive” to the new threats posed to its national security, and warns that Western support for Syrian opposition groups was placing Iran’s “resistance alliance” in jeopardy, and could seriously disrupt Iran’s access to Hizbollah in Lebanon.

It advised that the Iranian regime should demonstrate to the West that there were “red lines” over what it would accept in Syria, and that a warning should be sent to “America, the Zionists, Britain, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others that they cannot act with impunity in Syria and elsewhere in the region.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Police Remove Drunkards From Kuwait Mosque

Duo entered mosque to freshen up and take a short nap

Manama: Police in Kuwait have arrested a man and are looking for another after the duo was found sleeping in their underwear inside the women’s section of a mosque. The imam of the mosque in the Sa’ad Al Abdullah area alerted the police after he discovered the two men sleeping soundly, local Arabic daily Al Anba reported on Wednesday. However, when the police tried to wake them and hear their story, one of them ran away and climbed over the mosque wall. The second man, a Gulf national, was arrested, a security source told the daily. “He explained that he and his Kuwaiti friend got drunk and went to the mosque to drink water and wash up,” the source said. “Once inside the mosque, they noticed that the door to the women’s praying area was open and they thought about taking a short nap. However, they slept soundly until they were woken up by the police.”

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Russia Warns on Unilateral Intervention in Syria

Russia has warned Western powers against acting unilaterally on Syria amid growing fears over Syria’s weapons capability. The comments, by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, follow remarks by US President Barack Obama in which he indicated that the US would not hold back from responding if Syria used chemical weapons against rebel forces.

Mr Lavrov, speaking during a meeting with a Chinese envoy, said that diplomatic co — operation should be based on “the need strictly to adhere to the norms of international law and the principles contained in the UN Charter”.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Salafis in Lebanon Look Confidently Ahead

The situation in Lebanon is getting increasingly out of control as radical Sunnis openly challenge the dominant Shiite militant group Hezbollah. Many Lebanese sympathize with the Sunni hardliners.

Sheikh Ahmad Al-Assir, a Sunni cleric, has a clear goal. He does not just want to see the end of the Hezbollah militant group’s supremacy in Lebanon. Al-Assir wants the Shiite group to completely lose power.

The sheikh isn’t afraid of using drastic means to achieve his goal. For several weeks, he and his followers have blocked the main route to southern Lebanon, which goes directly to the city of Sidon.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Sunni Muslim Sheik From Sydney, Australia, Goes to Syria to Wage Jihad, Gets Rocketed

As reported by the ABC this morning.

www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-21/sydney-sheik-killed-in-syria-rocket-attack/4213460

‘Sydney sheik killed in Syria rocket attack’. Syrian-born Sheik Mustapha al-Majzoub was reportedly in the country to assist with the delivery of humanitarian aid amid ongoing violence between rebels and forces loyal to president Bashir al-Assad.’

‘Humanitarian aid’. Maybe. To his fellow Sunni Muslims; I severely doubt he would offer humanitarian aid to an Alawite, a Shiite or a Syrian Christian. Basically, he was there to egg on and assist the attempt by Sunni Muslims, in Syria, to overthrow the heretical Alawites and install a Sunni Muslim state within which Alawites, Shiites and Christians would be made to know their place: under the Sunni boot and scimitar. — CM

‘He was a teacher at the Islamic College of Australia at Lakemba and was married with three children. He was also the brother of sheik Fedaa Majzoub, the only Australian (member of the opposition Syrian National Council.

‘Australian’. Australian-born? — Australian-raised? But I doubt he could be called ‘Australian’ in any meaningful sense of the word, his Australian passport being obviously just a temporary and tactical convenience. If he is a member of the Syrian National Council, then his loyalty is to Syria, or more correctly, to the Sunni Muslim Ummah in Syria and for that matter anywhere else — not to the Infidel nation state of Australia — and dar al Islam is where he and his family, if any, belong. — CM

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Sydney Sheik Killed in Syria Rocket Attack

A Sydney Islamic teacher has been killed in a rocket attack in Syria. Syrian-born Sheik Mustapha al-Majzoub was in the country to assist in the delivery of humanitarian aid amid ongoing violence between rebels and forces loyal to president Bashar al-Assad. He was a teacher at the Islamic College of Australia at Lakemba and was married with three children.

He was also the brother of Sheik Fedaa Majzoub, the only Australian member of the opposition Syrian National Council. Keysar Trad, the founder of the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia, says Sheik al-Majzoub was killed in an attack by pro-regime forces on Monday. “People in the community have confirmed the sad news that… Assad regime soldiers brutally… shelled the pound where this man was ministering to the people’s spiritual needs and they killed him,” he said. Mr Trad says Sheik al-Majzoub will be missed. “He was a very nice man, very down to earth, very helpful,” he said.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Ten Killed in Sunni-Alawite Clashes in Lebanon

Armed conflict resumes

(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, AUGUST 22 — The death toll from sectarian clashes between Sunni and Alawite Muslims which have been ongoing since Monday in Tripoli, Lebanon’s second largest city in the North, has risen to ten. According to the official Lebanese Nna news agency, two people died last night from serious injuries reported during clashes between the two groups.

Meanwhile the conflict between two rival districts in the city, the Sunni-majority Bab al Tabbane, and Alawite-majority Jabal Mohsen Alawite have just resumed and the Lebanese army is finding it difficult to maintain order.

Longstanding rivalries between Sunnis and Alawites have been fuelled by the war in Syria where the Alawite President Bashar al Assad is fighting against Sunni-majority rebels.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Russia Becomes Last Major World Power to Join WTO

Russia, the world’s ninth largest economy, has joined the World Trade Organization more than two decades after the collapse of Soviet communism. Some Russians are concerned that protected industries are now at risk.

Russia officially became a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on Wednesday, making it the last major economy to join the global free trade body after 18 years of negotiations.

Many Russians are concerned that joining the WTO will undercut domestic industries that benefit from import tariffs and subsidies. The function of the 157-member WTO is to reduce trade barriers and facilitate global commerce through negotiations and the arbitration of trade disputes.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Afghanistan: Taliban Score Propaganda Coup With Rocket Attack on Top American Officer’s Plane

The Taliban scored another propaganda coup yesterday after damaging the aircraft of America’s top military officer as he visited Afghanistan.

Two insurgent rockets hit Bagram Airfield as the C-17 transporter was parked overnight and one caused shrapnel damage to its door. Gen Martin Dempsey, the visiting chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, and his team were asleep in quarters away from the aircraft at the time, and were at no risk, officers said.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Afghanistan’s Peace Hopes Rest on Taleban Deal

(MENAFN — Arab News) IN the cloistered circles of the Taleban high command, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar had no equal.

As military chief of the hard-line Islamist movement that once ruled Afghanistan and was ousted by a US-led alliance, he oversaw the campaign of ambushes and roadside bombings that proved his fighters could threaten the most advanced armies. When the powerful leader was caught in the Pakistani city of Karachi in 2010, some Afghan officials hoped the magnetism he forged in war would persuade his former comrades to start talking peace. Indeed, news that Islamabad had allowed Afghan officials to visit Baradar two months ago sparked speculation in both countries of the prospects for a settlement. Instead, Pakistan’s refusal to hand him over to Afghanistan symbolizes one of the biggest obstacles to negotiations: A legacy of bone-deep suspicion dividing the neighbors.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

In Pakistan, an Illiterate Child Has Been Jailed for Unknowingly Burning the Quran. …

by Michael Burleigh

The jailing for blasphemy of the girls of Pussy Riot led to protests from almost every superannuated rocker one could think of. There has been no such concern about Rimsha Masih, a young Christian girl who lives in a slum area called Meharbadi on the outskirts of Islamabad. Or rather lived, since she is currently in an insalubrious adult jail in Rawlpindi, apparently for her own protection. Her family have also fled their home, along with about a thousand of their (Christian) neighbours.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Malyasia: Pertim Allays Fears Over Chinese Mosque

MALACCA: The Malacca Chinese Muslim Association (Pertim) has allayed any fear Muslims may have over ethnic-based mosque in the state, saying it does not undermine Islamic solidarity in the country. Pertim president Mohd Mansor Yap Abdullah said the Chinese mosque, to be built at a cost of RM7.5 million on a 2.5ha site near the 1Malaysia Square here, was representative of all the communities.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

NZ’s Dilemma in Afghanistan

The news yesterday that another three New Zealand soldiers had been killed in Afghanistan was shocking and sickening. Still reeling from the deaths in a gunfight a fortnight ago of Lance-corporals Pralli Durrer and Rory Malone, the army and the nation have taken another heavy blow. The latest deaths — of Lance-corporal Jacinda Baker (26), a medic, Private Richard Harris (21) and Corporal Luke Tamatea (31) — happened when their Humvee was hit by a roadside improvised explosive device. Lcpl Baker was the first New Zealand woman to die in war since the Vietnam conflict. Their deaths took the number of New Zealand soldiers killed in Afghanistan to 10.

A widespread reaction two weeks ago, including this newspaper’s editorial response, was New Zealand should see out its commitment and stay the distance — expected to be until the end of next year — as planned. Whatever the imperfections of the mission and the fears for its aftermath, New Zealand should be good for its word and its international undertakings and should honour what the soldiers had died for.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

US Troop Deaths Top 2,000 in Afghanistant

The number of U.S. military members killed in the war in Afghanistan has surpassed 2,000, with more than half the deaths coming in the past 27 months. The increased casualty rate came after U.S. President Barack Obama sent thousands of extra troops into the country to intensify the U.S.-led NATO coalition’s battle against insurgents. Those troops are withdrawing, along with their international counterparts, as Afghan forces take increasing security control ahead of a 2014 deadline for foreign combat troops to leave Afghanistan.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

China Increases Rare Earth Exports

China has raised its export quotas for small rare earth minerals as the country remains at odds with foreign trading partners over the limits. Analysts say the small increase does not necessarily herald a policy change.

The Chinese Ministry of Commerce said on Wednesday it had granted a slight increase in its export quota for rare earth minerals — a group of 17 elements which are crucial for the manufacture of electronic, automotive, energy and medical equipment.

Beijing announced an additional volume of 9,770 tons for the export of rare minerals, with the full-year total now standing at 30,996 tons, up from last year’s 30,184 tons. The 2.7 percent increase appears marginal, but is the first since 2009.

The announcement comes on the back of massive complaints by China’s main trading partners, who have accused the Asian giant of unfairly choking off exports of the commodities to benefit domestic industries. The World Trade Organization (WTO) upheld an international complaint on the matter prior to Wednesday’s decision, saying China’s export restrictions violated its binding trade rules.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Chinese Medicine: Therapeutic or Dangerous?

Chinese herbal medicine is becoming increasingly popular in the Netherlands. Practitioners claim this 5000-year-old tradition can restore the natural balance in people’s bodies. Boasting descriptions such as natural, biological and therapeutic, Chinese herbs claim properties unknown to the drugs produced by the Western pharmaceutical industry.

However, unlike Western medicines, these herbal mixtures — in natural form, capsules or powders — are not subject to any kind of quality control or Dutch regulation. Anyone can buy them in any quantities in Chinese shops or on the internet.

So are these Chinese herbs really safe and do they really promote good health?

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

EU Group Slams Protectionism in China Wine Row

A European business group on Wednesday criticised Chinese calls to probe EU wine imports as “protectionist”, as a dispute between the major trading partners threatened to escalate.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Ethiopia: Death of Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi Plunges Country Into Uncertainty

The sudden death of Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia’s prime minister, plunged one of the West’s key African allies into a succession crisis and raised fears of increased insecurity in a volatile region.

Ethiopian state television announced early on Tuesday that Meles Zenawi had died from a “sudden infection” following treatment for a mystery illness in a Brussels hospital. He was 57. He had not been seen in public since June and speculation over his health had increased, despite consistent statements from his government that he was “resting” and would return to work “soon”. “He has been struggling to be healthy in the last year,” Bereket Simon, the communications minister, said as he confirmed Mr Meles’ death. “One of the best things about him was that he never considered that he was ill and he was up to the job every time, every day, every evening.” Mr Meles led the continent’s second-most populous country — with a population of 84 million people comprised of 87 different ethnic groups — for more than 20 years, after marching into its capital at the head of a guerrilla army to oust dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Ethiopia Commentary: Meles Zenawi Death a Headache for the West

by Mike Pflanz

The death of Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia’s prime minister has thrown his country into turmoil, but also raises questions over the future of the West’s security policy for the Horn of Africa.

Ethiopia is a key friend of Britain, Europe and the US in a region beset by growing security threats. Ethiopia’s neighbours include Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia. Across the Red Sea lies Yemen. Few of the leaders of those countries harbour any love for the West. In Yemen and Somalia, al-Qaeda’s new affiliates are gaining ground. Ethiopia has consistently been willing to send its soldiers to fight and die against foes it considers a domestic threat, who are at the same time enemies of the West. Chief among them has been al-Shabaab.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Nigeria: Gunmen Kill Two in Biu Mosques Attacks

Maiduguri — Two persons were killed, yesterday, at two different Mosques in Biu, Borno State. Biu is 187 kilometres South of Maiduguri metropolis and is a stronghold of the Boko Haram Islamist sect. A resident told Vanguard: “Two gunmen joined our Mosque for the early morning prayers and shot a worshiper at close range. He died on the spot. Two hours after the incident, a local Islamic cleric was trailed to another mosque by separate gunmen, who opened fire on the worshippers. The worshippers had to run for safety. But the cleric was shot dead before men of Joint Task Force, code-named Operation Flush II arrived at the scene and condoned off the area to prevent further attacks and killings.”

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Thousands Turn Out to Mourn Meles Zenawi as Body Arrives Back in Ethiopia

Thousands of mourning Ethiopians turned out Wednesday as the body of Meles Zenawi, the country’s leader for 21 years, arrived at Addis Ababa airport following his death in a Brussels hospital at the age of 57.

A military band played as the coffin, draped in the national flag, was taken from the Ethiopian Airlines flight in the early hours of the morning in a ceremony attended by political, military and religious leaders as well as diplomats. Deputy Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, 47, who has also been foreign minister since 2010, will take over interim power, according to government officials.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Two Jordanian Peacekeepers ‘Missing’ In Sudan’s Darfur

(MENAFN — Jordan Times) Two Jordanian officers from the UN peacekeeping contingent in Darfur went missing on Tuesday in Kabkabiya town, according to a Public Security Department (PSD) statement sent to The Jordan Times. The Jordanian peacekeepers are from the African Union-UN mission (UNAMID) in the Darfur region of western Sudan, Agence France-Presse reported. The two Jordanians were with a team of peacekeepers who went to buy some supplies for their camp from a market in Kabkabiya of the North Darfur state capital El Fasher and were reported missing after they failed to join their colleagues after two hours, the PSD said.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Immigrants Protest ‘Illegal’ Label

A small group of immigrants gathered in Woodbury Monday to protest the use of the word “illegal” to describe those who have entered the United States without documentation.

“By saying illegal, they’re assuming that we broke a criminal law,” said Jackeline Saavedra, 27, of Bay Shore, a Touro Law Center student who identified herself as undocumented. “Not everybody enters illegally.”

Coordinators said they prefer the phrase “undocumented immigrant.”

Osman Canales, 23, an immigrant rights advocate in Huntington who organized the protest, said using the word “illegal” criminalizes a whole community. “It’s a racist word against our community, so we’re just here to raise awareness,” he said.

The protest mirrored a larger effort nationwide to push media outlets and people in general to stop using the word “illegal” when referring to immigrants.

The “Drop The I-Word” campaign was organized by The Applied Research Center, a New York City-based racial justice think tank. Its goal, according to its news website, Colorlines.com, is to “eradicate the slur ‘illegals’ from everyday use and public discourse.”

Campaign coordinator Monica Novoa said that in two years, 14,000 people have signed the group’s pledge.

“Using a phrase like ‘illegal aliens’ or ‘illegals’ . . . reinforces the notion that you could treat another individual as less than a human being,” said Alina Das, assistant professor of clinical law at New York University. “One action — whether it’s a crime — shouldn’t be used to define a whole group of people or one individual.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

In Crisis, Greece Rounds Up Immigrants

Border police jeeps hurtle along hot, dusty tracks past potato fields on their way to the river that marks the Greek-Turkish border. Sirens blaring, the convoys have been repelling wave after wave of migrants.

Greece’s remote Evros region has turned into Europe’s main battleground against illegal immigration; more than two-thirds of people making the clandestine journey into the European Union pass through here from neighboring Turkey.

Greece launched an aggressive campaign this month to try to seal its 130-mile northeastern border, as it faces a debilitating financial crisis that has caused a swell in joblessness and a surge in racist attacks against immigrants with dark skin.

The police operation has brought nearly 2,000 additional border guards to the Turkish frontier previously manned by about 500 officers. They fanned out with dogs, night vision equipment and flat-bottomed boats for 24-hour patrols of the Evros River that forms a natural border. At least 21 people have drowned or died of exposure crossing the river this year, while several have been listed as missing.

In Athens, the operation is being bolstered by mass roundups of suspected illegal immigrants. They are seen lined up on the streets of the capital every day, many in handcuffs, waiting to be put in detention until they can be deported. In the first week of the crackdown in early August, police said they apprehended nearly 7,000 people for identification checks; nearly 1,700 were slated for deportation.

Anwar, a 22-year-old man from Bangladesh, walked across the border near Orestiada, a small town wedged between Turkey and Bulgaria. Unaware of the immigration clampdown, he said he is looking for police so he can turn himself in. It’s a well-worn ploy: Migrants have actively tried to get themselves taken to detention centers near Athens, assuming they will be released due to overcrowding and allowed to blend into the chaotic capital.

“I’ve come here to work,” Anwar, who declined to give his full name because of his illegal status, said moments after crossing the border. “I know what will happen to me: They might keep me in detention for around three months, but then they’ll let me out and I’ll go to Athens.”

Now, however, authorities are determined to swiftly deport illegal migrants they round up.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

New Computer Database Launched to Track Down 150,000 Illegal Immigrants in Britain

An immigration computer database is being set up to track down the 150,000 people who are staying in Britain illegally, it was revealed yesterday.

Border chiefs are due to launch the project next month to deal with the huge backlog of foreign nationals who have overstayed their student or temporary work visas. Letters will be sent to those in the ‘migration refusal pool’ warning that they will be deported and barred from entering the UK if they do not leave within 28 days.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Swiss Implement 48-Hour Asylum Procedure

The vast majority of asylum requests to Switzerland from certain European countries are bogus and from now on will be processed within 48 hours, Swiss authorities said on Wednesday.

“Until now there was no specific deadline,” Federal Office of Migrations (ODM) spokeswoman Gaby Szollosy told AFP.

The introduction of the fast-track procedure follows a “surge” in requests this summer from so-called visa-exempt countries, particularly Macedonia, Serbia and Bosnia-Hercegovina, according to the migration office.

“After speaking with reception centres we know that the majority of arrivals are Roma people,” said Szollosy, who added that the measure was not aimed against one ethnic group.

Requests from Macedonia for July were up 83 percent on June, followed by Serbia (68 percent), according to the ODM.

Of 4,593 applications for asylum between January 2011 and July 2012 from Bosnia, Macedonia and Serbia only 20 were successful, the ODM said.

Nationals from these countries had “very little chance of gaining asylum in Switzerland”, the ODM said, adding that these “safe countries” guaranteed minorities adequate protection against persecution.

“Nearly all these requests were unfounded and overwhelmed Swiss reception centres,” said the ODM.

“No (Swiss) help can be offered to asylum-seekers who make a clearly unsubstantiated application. They must leave (Switzerland) quickly,” it added.

The 48-hour procedure only applies if the application does not require any further investigation, although an appeal to the Federal Court of Administration was still possible, the statement added.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

BBC Play School Presenters ‘Went On-Air Stoned’

BBC staff openly smoked marijuana at the corporation’s headquarters during the 1960s and 70s and Play School presenters even went on-air stoned, former stars have disclosed.

The corridors of Television Centre often reeked of the class B drug as BBC employees and visiting pop groups regularly smoked joints. On one occasion, Rick Jones and Lionel Morton, presenters of Play School, got stoned before filming the children’s programme, it is claimed. As well as drugs, the BBC was apparently also a hot bed of sex with staff “b****** all over the place”. Recalling his time on Play School for a BBC documentary, former presenter Johnny Ball revealed that drug use spilt on screen in a nativity scene.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

George Orwell is ‘Too Left-Wing’ For a Statue, BBC Tells Joan Bakewell

When the George Orwell Memorial Trust proposed a statue of the writer for outside the BBC’s new headquarters it expected an enthusiastic response.

However, not everyone appeared enamoured of the plan. According to Baroness Bakewell, who is backing the campaign, Mark Thompson, the Corporation’s outgoing director general, said the statue could not be erected on BBC premises because Orwell was “too Left-wing”. Orwell worked as a BBC journalist, producing radio programmes at Broadcasting House during the Second World War before leaving to publish Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Mr Thompson’s remark will surprise critics of the BBC, who have long accused the corporation of liberal bias.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Mister Gay Italy Finalists Prepare for Showdown Friday

Annual beauty pageant in its 16th year

(ANSA) — Torre del Lago, August 22 — Finalists in the 16th edition of Mister Gay Italy are spiffing up and getting ready for the showdown Friday when this year’s winner will be crowned.

The event, organized by Gay.it and under the patronage of the leading Italian gay association Arcigay, will feature contestants from 14 regions and from all walks of life, including a divorced father of a three-year-old boy.

Participants will model casual clothes, classic wear and swimsuits for a jury composed of personalities from the worlds of culture, journalism, politics and entertainment.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Modern Culture: Ugliness is Compulsory

London 2012 was a triumph. The best Olympics ever. Apart from the closing ceremony, of course. Oh, and one other embarrassment — that twisty-turny tower of bright-red girders that was supposed to be the centrepiece of the Olympic Park. Most of the time, the cameras managed to ignore it, but like the some drunken uncle in your wedding snaps it occasionally stumbled into view.

Officially known as the ArcelorMittal Orbit, the tower is not generally regarded as a great success. To be fair, there were some problems with the execution of the concept. Intended as a piece of monumental sculpture, it also had to function as a public building — requiring various design concessions to the health-and-safety police and all the rest of it.

And yet, the creation of a sense of imbalance was always the intended effect of the work. As such, it is not especially original — indeed it is thoroughly typical of the modernist tradition.

The latter is the subject of a superb essay in the New English Review, in which the authors — Mark Anthony Signorelli and Nikos Salingaros — contrast contemporary high culture with what preceded it:

“Whereas earlier traditions of artistic creation embraced symmetry within complexity, modernism has embraced extreme simplicity, dislocation, and imbalance. Whereas earlier traditions sought to bring pleasure to an audience — “to teach and delight,” as Horace’s famous dictum would have it — modern art attempts to “nauseate” or “brutalize” an audience (the terms are from Jacques Barzun’s The Use and Abuse of Art). Whereas pre-modern architecture employed scale and ornament, modern architecture aggressively promotes gigantisms and barrenness. Whereas classical literature was grounded in regular grammar and public imagery, modern literature routinely resorts to distortions of syntax and esotericism.”

Though cultural modernism is often associated with expressions of anti-authoritarianism and disdain for establishments, Signorelli and Salingaros believe this to be hypocrisy

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

The Tyranny of Artistic Modernism

by Mark Anthony Signorelli and Nikos A. Salingaros

We who live in the Western world at the present time continue to suffer under the reign of a great tyranny — the tyranny of artistic modernism. The modernist aesthetic, which dominates our age, takes a variety of forms in the respective arts — in architecture, a lack of scale and ornamentation combined with the overwhelming deployment of materials like glass, steel, and brutalist concrete; in the plastic arts, a rejection of natural forms mixed with an unmistakable tendency towards the repulsive or meretricious; in literature, non-linear narrative, esoteric imagery, and an almost perfect lack of poetic form and diction. Yet common now to the practice of all these arts are certain primal impulses which may be said to form the core of the modernist aesthetic — a hostility and defiance towards all traditional standards of excellence, discovered over millennia of craftsmanship and reflection; a notion of the artist’s freedom as absolute, and entirely divorced from the ends of his art; and, as Roger Scruton has so clearly demonstrated, a refusal to apply the category of beauty to either the creation or the estimation of artwork. Standing behind this aesthetic is an ideology supported by nearly the entire institutional structure of the Western world — the universities, the publishing houses, the galleries, the journals, the prize committees, the zoning boards. Books that evince a fidelity to modernist principles are the ones that get published. Buildings that conform to the brutal codes of modernism and its derivatives are the ones that get built. Whatever creative efforts spring from other sources of inspiration other than modernist aggression are invariably ignored and dismissed as something antiquated or reactionary. This is the great totalitarian system of our times — the dictatorship of modernism.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Father’s Age is Linked to Risk of Autism and Schizophrenia

Older men are more likely than young ones to father a child who develops autism or schizophrenia, because of random mutations that become more numerous with advancing paternal age, scientists reported on Wednesday, in the first study to quantify the effect as it builds each year. The age of mothers had no bearing on the risk for these disorders, the study found.

Experts said that the finding was hardly reason to forgo fatherhood later in life, though it may have some influence on reproductive decisions. The overall risk to a man in his 40s or older is in the range of 2 percent, at most, and there are other contributing biological factors that are entirely unknown.

[Return to headlines]

Mars Rover Aces First Test Drive on Red Planet

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity took its first halting steps on the Red Planet today (Aug. 22), snapping photos of its tracks to commemorate the test drive milestone.

The 1-ton Curiosity rover moved about 15 feet (4.5 meters) forward, turned in place 120 degrees and then backed up 8 feet (2.5 m), mission team members announced today. The maneuver began at 7:17 a.m. PDT (10:17 a.m. EDT; 1417 GMT) and lasted 16 minutes, though the six-wheeled robot spent most of that time taking pictures.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]