Financial Crisis
»	Amid Spain Concerns, France Pushes Trillion-Euro Debt Fund
»	Euro Crisis: Greece’s Situation Brings Down Its Tourism
»	Schulz: 1 Million EU Signatures Could Spur Finance Tax
»	Spain: General Strike, Isolated Incidents and 58 Arrests
»	Spain on Edge of Becoming Next Bailout Candidate
»	Spanish Workers Strike Against Painful Reforms
»	World’s Oldest Bank Posts Eur 4.69 Bn Loss for 2011
	USA
»	Flight Crew Calls Police Due to 2 Unruly Children on Skywest Plane From Long Beach
»	Justices Meet Friday to Vote on Health Care Case
»	Pasadena Police Arrest 911 Caller After Unarmed Suspect is Killed
»	Stranded 76-Year-Old Colo. Man Survives 10 Days in Nev. Desert on Melted Snow; Companion Dies
	Europe and the EU
»	Foreign Buyers Flock to Swedish Summer Homes
»	France Bans 4 Foreign Imams From Muslim Conference
»	France: Guerlain Guilty of Racism
»	France: Lather, Rinse, And Repeat
»	Germany: Freedom Fighter Fined for Telling Truth About Islam
»	Italy: Dell’utri Buys Red Brigade Leaflets for 17,000 Euros
»	Mafia Members Moving to Switzerland
»	Sicilian Governor to be Charged With Mafia Links
»	Sweden’s Defense Minister Quits Over Saudi Weapons Scandal
»	Swiss Racism on the Rise: Human Rights Chief
»	UK: ‘We Have Won the Most Sensational Victory’: George Galloway Secures Shock Victory in Bradford West by-Election
»	UK: 6,000 Young Girls ‘At Any One Time Are at Risk of Rape by Gangs’
»	UK: Report: George Galloway Returns to Westminster Wins Unprecedented Landslide in Bradford West
»	Wales: Bridge Horror as Eight Railway Workers Mown Down by Black Cab ‘After Furious Row With Taxi Driver’by Eddie Wrenn
	North Africa
»	Algeria Refuses to Take Gunman Merah’s Body
	Israel and the Palestinians
»	Berlin Confirms Support for Palestine
	Middle East
»	BRICS Nations Warn Against a Possible Iran Strike
»	Gulf: Water and Food Supplies at Risk
»	Iraq: Mgr Sako Urges Christians “Not to Fear” Celebrating Easter
»	Swiss Woman’s Captors: Free Bin Laden’s Wives
»	Turkey: TV Censorship Hits Oliver Stone’s Alexander
	South Asia
»	Burma’s Rebound: The Triumphal Rise of Aung San Suu Kyi
»	Forced Child Marriages on the Rise in Pakistan
»	Indonesia: Mini-Skirt is ‘Pornographic’
»	Pakistan: Seven Die in Quetta Shootings
»	‘You Know What Men Are Like’: Indonesia to Ban Mini-Skirts Over Links to Rape
	Far East
»	As Mongolia Booms, Germany Wants a Slice of the Cake
»	China’s Power Struggle: Is a Dangerous Divide Opening Between Beijing Leaders?
	Immigration
»	Amid Debt Crisis, Athens Falls Apart
»	Greek Police Start Sweeping Athens of Illegals
»	UK: How Islam Became a Scapegoat for the Problems of Immigration
	Culture Wars
»	Swedes Launch ‘Sexless’ Web Search Tool
	General
»	BRICS Leaders Gather for Summit

Amid Spain Concerns, France Pushes Trillion-Euro Debt Fund

Eurozone finance ministers aim to boost their debt rescue fund on Friday but France split with Germany by calling for a trillion-euro firewall amid renewed concerns about Spain’s fiscal health. After months of fraught negotiations and international pressure, the ministers gather in Copenhagen hoping to set up a firewall big enough to keep speculators at bay following bailouts of Greece, Ireland and Portugal. The Group of 20 leading economies and the IMF have warned that they would offer help to the eurozone only if the 17-nation bloc builds up its rescue fund. French Finance Minister Francois Baroin called for a trillion-euro ($1.3 trillion) fund, days after the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) pressed for a “mother of all firewalls” of similar size.

“The firewall, it’s a little like the nuclear option in military planning, it’s there for dissuasion, not to be used,” Baroin said on BFM Business radio, although Germany has spoken only of a possible increase to 700 billion euros. “We naturally want that it to be as high as possible,” he said, because “the higher the firewall, the less is the risk fragile countries will come under attack on the markets, by speculators at least.”

Germany, the biggest contributor to the bailouts, finally dropped its resistance to any increase to the size of the rescue funds this week. Berlin indicated it would agree to combine the future permanent fund, the 500-billion-euro European Stability Mechanism (ESM), with the sums from the temporary European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) already committed to the three bailed out nations. This would give the eurozone 700 billion euros on paper, but in reality it would have 500 billion euros on hand to help other nations since the rest is already slated for Greece, Ireland and Portugal.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Euro Crisis: Greece’s Situation Brings Down Its Tourism

Luxury yacht rentals slashed as are also normal cars

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS — Greece is casting a shadow over international tourism as its economic situation is having a tremendous impact on most of the sectors linked to tourism.

People working in the business claim a reduction in luxury yacht rentals of 35% compared to last year and a 50% fall in corporate tourism such as conferences and business events. Car rental agencies have instead registered 15% loss of their income.

Experts in this sector such as Andreas Stylianopoulos, member of the Greek association for tourism businesses (SETE) and vice president of the Passenger Shipping Association (SEEN) expect a hard blow also towards cruise ship bookings. Khatimerini newspaper writes that Stylianopoulos attended the Seatrade Cruise Shipping Convention which took place in Miami, Florida at the beginning of the month. What emerged from the congress was a clear message that this year Greece must expect a reduction in its arrival of cruise ship passengers. “Foreign tourists’ interests” said Stylianopoulos, “continues to hover around Athens although by now there’s great worry for the negative reputation the Greek capital has gained itself due to its violent fighting in the street demonstrations aired all over the globe”.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Schulz: 1 Million EU Signatures Could Spur Finance Tax

The citizens’ initiative — a participative democracy tool coming into effect at the end of this week — could be used to pressure EU politicians into accepting a financial transactions tax (FTT), the European Parliament President has said.

“I don’t know if the next citizens’ initiative would make the crisis disappear, I hope so. But a citizen’s initiative to introduce the financial transactions tax could even increase the pressure on those who are still reluctant,” Martin Schulz said at a press conference on Wednesday (28 March).

His words come just as Germany — until now among the most ardent supporters of such a tax — appeared to concede that it is a no-go in the EU. “We just can’t get it done,” German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble said Monday. Berlin had been trying to push for an FTT at the EU-level but London, in particular, has been strongly opposed.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Spain: General Strike, Isolated Incidents and 58 Arrests

Unions, 85% of workers took part in the strike

(ANSAmed) — MADRID — A tense state of calm marked by a few isolated incidents were seen in the first hours of today’s general strike, called by the UGT and CcOo unions against labour sector reform. The protest is being conducted in a “calm manner”, according to the general director of the Interior Ministry, Cristina Diaz, in statements to the media.

A few incidents have been seen, however, in Murcia and Seville and other cities, which have so far led to 58 arrests and 3 minor injuries: most were among the “picketing’ of central markets such as those in Barcelona and Murcia, which has been closed. Unions say that 85% of workers took part in the strike during the shifts which began at midnight and lasted until 8 AM this morning, especially in the metallurgic, construction and waste collection sectors: higher than the turnout for the previous general strike in September 2010 against the anti-deficit measures brought in by the Zapatero government then in power. UGT and CcOo spokesmen say that “citizens have given a lesson in civic responsibility”, faced with the “disproportionate presence” of security forces in the streets, according to the head of communication for the Unione General Trabajadores, José Javier Cubillo, who said that in Madrid the massive police presence “seems the Normandy landing”.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Spain on Edge of Becoming Next Bailout Candidate

Spain is shut down by a general strike as people’s patience about austerity cuts, towering unemployment and tougher labor laws wears thin. But the country needs to save even more money to stave off bankruptcy.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Spanish Workers Strike Against Painful Reforms

Spain is gripped by strikes as anger against the government’s planned labor reforms threatens to bubble over, but the government says it won’t budge. Spanish workers held a general strike on Thursday to protest against labor reforms being planned by its new government.

“The people will say whether they are resigned to accepting the reforms,” said Ignacio Fernandez Toxo, leader of one of Spain’s biggest unions, CCOO, in reference to the collecting crowds of protestors.

Protestors gathered in the early hours of Thursday to form picket lines outside wholesale markets. Television stations have gone off the air and production in several of the nation’s car factories has come to a standstill.

Fifty eight people have been detained and nine injured in skirmishes that have taken place since midnight, when the strike began. The protests are expected to culminate in major rallies on Thursday evening in Madrid and other Spanish cities.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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World’s Oldest Bank Posts Eur 4.69 Bn Loss for 2011

Italy’s Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, the world’s oldest bank, on Thursday unveiled a loss of 4.69 billion euros for 2011 due to “extraordinarily difficult” conditions after making a profit in 2010. The bank, which was founded in 1472 and had posted a profit of 985 million euros in 2010, said in a statement it was hit by “a progressive slowdown in economic growth and an exacerbation of the sovereign debt crisis.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Flight Crew Calls Police Due to 2 Unruly Children on Skywest Plane From Long Beach

LONG BEACH (CBS) — A Skywest crew radioed authorities Tuesday when two children refused to fasten their seat belts on a flight from Long Beach to Portland, Ore.

Officers with the Port of Portland Police Department were called to meet the Skywest-operated Alaska Airlines plane when it landed at Portland International Airport at 7:20 p.m., Alaska spokeswoman Marianne Lindsey told CBS2.

“During the flight, the children became disruptive and wouldn’t stay in their seats and wouldn’t fasten their seat belts, which is against federal regulations,” she said in a statement.

It was unknown if they were seated at the time of the landing.

“Following this, an Alaska Airlines supervisor meet with the family (of four), talked with them about the need to comply with Federal Air Regulations that the children must be in their seats and remain buckled when asked,” Lindsey added. “Our supervisor then personally escorted the family to the gate for their connecting flight Alaska Airlines Flight 2056 from Portland to Seattle which departed at 8:30 p.m.”

The family’s name has not been released.

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Justices Meet Friday to Vote on Health Care Case

WASHINGTON (AP) — While the rest of us have to wait until June, the justices of the Supreme Court will know the likely outcome of the historic health care case by the time they go home this weekend.

After months of anticipation, thousands of pages of briefs and more than six hours of arguments, the justices will vote on the fate of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul in under an hour Friday morning. They will meet in a wood-paneled conference room on the court’s main floor. No one else will be present.

In the weeks after this meeting, individual votes can change. Even who wins can change, as the justices read each other’s draft opinions and dissents.

But Friday’s vote, which each justice probably will record and many will keep for posterity, will be followed soon after by the assignment of a single justice to write a majority opinion, or in a case this complex, perhaps two or more justices to tackle different issues. That’s where the hard work begins, with the clock ticking toward the end of the court’s work in early summer.

The late William Rehnquist, who was chief justice for nearly 19 years, has written that the court’s conference “is not a bull session in which off-the-cuff reactions are traded.” Instead, he said, votes are cast, one by one in order of seniority.

The Friday conference also is not a debate, says Brian Fitzpatrick, a Vanderbilt University law professor who worked for Justice Antonin Scalia 10 years ago. There will be plenty of time for the back-and-forth in dueling opinions that could follow.

“There’s not a whole lot of give and take at the conference. They say, ‘This is how I’m going to vote’ and give a few sentences,” Fitzpatrick said.

It will be the first time the justices gather as a group to discuss the case. Even they do not always know in advance what the others are thinking when they enter the conference room adjacent to Chief Justice John Roberts’ office…

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Pasadena Police Arrest 911 Caller After Unarmed Suspect is Killed

LOS ANGELES — On a 911 call to the Pasadena police Saturday night, the caller said two young black men had put a gun in his face and had stolen his backpack.

When officers responded to the scene, they shot Kendrec McDade, a 19-year-old black man from the nearby city of Azusa, who died of his injuries at a local hospital.

But on Wednesday, the Pasadena police announced that they had arrested the man who made the 911 call, Oscar Carrillo, on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter, because he lied to the police about the suspect being armed.

Lt. Phlunte Riddle said the police now believe that neither Mr. McDade nor his 17-year-old companion was armed. But when officers saw Mr. McDade reach for his waistband, she said, they believed that he was armed and that “their lives were in jeopardy.”

“Mr. Carrillo is partly responsible for creating that situation,” Lieutenant Riddle said…

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Stranded 76-Year-Old Colo. Man Survives 10 Days in Nev. Desert on Melted Snow; Companion Dies

LAS VEGAS — A 76-year-old diabetic Colorado man survived 10 days in the remote Nevada desert by melting snow and using skills he learned as a Boy Scout, but a friend who was with him and ventured away to get help died.

James Klemovich and Laszlo Szabo, 75, went to scope out some mines in the state when their car became stuck on a lonely road with no cell phone service, Klemovich’s wife, Joanne, said Thursday.

The men tried unsuccessfully to dislodge the car, and lit flares and started fires in hopes somebody would see them in northwestern Nevada’s Pershing County, an area where less than 7,000 people are spread over 6,000 square miles.

They used a towel in the car to strain ditch water and snow into water bottles, but, after four or five days, Szabo left to get help. Joanne Klemovich began to worry when several days passed without a phone call from her husband.

“I figured maybe they’d had an accident and they were stranded,” she said. “I thought maybe they were in a mine shaft. All kinds of things were going through my head.”

Joanne Klemovich said she was expecting the worst when authorities called Tuesday night to say her husband had been found by military personnel who were holding training exercises in the area.

“I thought it was bad news, but it was very good news,” she said by telephone from the couple’s home in Littleton, Colo. “I didn’t know what to even do or say.”

James Klemovich has diabetes, wears a pacemaker and had a triple bypass heart surgery, his wife said.

He told her he wasn’t panicking while he sat for days waiting for Szabo’s return, she said. He kept a journal, noting how much water he drank and what he did each day. And he wrote a letter each day for her.

Drinking regularly was likely the biggest factor in his survival despite the diabetes that could have sent his blood sugar dangerously out of whack, according to Rita Kalyani, who teaches endocrinology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.

During a fast, she said, the body can draw glucose from the liver or from fat stores to keep levels from dropping too low. But having enough water is essential to flush out excess glucose and prevent levels from rising too high.

When the military personnel found Klemovich, they gave him a banana, two oranges and three boiled eggs, he told his wife.

Szabo, of Lovelock, Nev., was found dead about a mile and a half away. An autopsy is being performed.

Klemovich said her husband hasn’t been talking much about his friend and that she doesn’t know whether Szabo has any close relatives…

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Foreign Buyers Flock to Swedish Summer Homes

More and more foreigners are snapping up summer homes in Sweden, new statistics show, with Norwegians, Germans, and Danes among those most eager to own a slice of Swedish summer paradise.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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France Bans 4 Foreign Imams From Muslim Conference

(AGI) Paris — The French government has banned entry to four Muslim preachers for the congress of the UOIF. The Union of Islamic Organisations of France is holding its conference in Le Bourget 6 to 9 April. The decision was taken over their ‘calls to hatred and violence’ adjudged to be against ‘republican values’, as explained in a statement from foreign minister, Alain Juppe’, and interior minister, Claude Gueant. The four imams are Akrima Sabri, Ayed Bin Abdalah Al Qarni, Safwat Al Hijazi and Abdalah Basfar. The note also protests against the invitation to Tariq Ramadan, a ‘Swiss citizen whose statements are contrary to republican spirit’. A well known intellectual from Geneva and grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Ramadan has often roused controversy due to his ‘strong’ statements about Islam, and in 2004 the US revoked his visa, considering him persona non grata.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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France: Guerlain Guilty of Racism

A Paris court on Thursday found Jean-Paul Guerlain, the former “nose” behind the world-famous perfume brand, guilty of racial insults after televised remarks he made about “negroes” and fined him.

Asked in a 2010 interview about how he created the Samsara scent, Guerlain replied: “For once, I set to work like a negro. I don’t know if negroes have always worked like that, but anyway.”

The court judged that the second part of his reply was racist and fined him €6,000 ($8,000). The maximum it could have imposed was six months in prison and a €22,500 fine. Guerlain was also ordered to pay €2,000 euros in damages to each of three anti-racist groups that were civil plaintiffs in the case.

The 75-year-old heir to one of the world’s oldest perfume houses was not in court for the verdict of the trial that began last month. His lawyer said he did not know if he would appeal. Guerlain used the word “negre”, which is also commonly used in France in its other meaning signifying “ghost writer”. The 2010 incident sparked widespread condemnation, with anti-racism groups saying it highlighted deep prejudice in French society.

Earlier this month French police said they were probing additional accusations that Guerlain made an anti-immigrant rant against Eurostar workers. Three employees of the high-speed rail firm that links Paris and London made a complaint to police accusing Guerlain of making remarks of a racist nature as they helped the wheelchair-bound pensioner board a train.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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France: Lather, Rinse, And Repeat

by Mark Steyn

The killer of French schoolchildren and soldiers turns out to be a man called Mohammed Merah. The story can now proceed according to time-honored tradition:

Stage One: The strange compulsion to assure us that the killer is a “right wing conservative extremist,” in the words of NRO commenter ExpatAsia, echoed by Chrisman and Galt’s Bain. Up north, this view was shared by Canada’s most prominent establishment Jew and the Liberal Party attack poodle Warren Kinsella (whom NR readers may recall from my free-speech cover story, which mentioned the groveling apology he was forced to make to “the Chinese community” after an unfortunately sinophobic cat joke). The insistence that the killer was emblematic of an epidemic of right-wing hate sweeping the planet is, regrettably, no longer operative. Instead, the killer isn’t representative of anything at all.

So on to Stage Two: Okay, he may be called Mohammed but he’s a “lone wolf.” Sure, he says he was trained by al-Qaeda, but what does he know? Don’t worry, folks, he’s just a lone wolf like Major Hasan and Faisal Shahzad and all the other card-carrying members of the Amalgamated Union of Lone Wolves. All jihad is local.

On to Stage Three: Okay, even if there are enough lone wolves around to form their own Radio City Rockette line, it’s still nothing to do with Islam. I’m sad to see the usually perceptive Ed West of the London Telegraph planting his flag on this wobbling blancmange.

And then, of course, Stage Four: The backlash that never happens. Because apparently the really bad thing about actual dead Jews is that it might lead to dead non-Jews: “French Muslims Fear Backlash After Shooting.” Likewise, after Major Hasan’s mountain of dead infidels, “Shooting Raises Fears For Muslims In US Army.” Likewise, after the London Tube slaughter, “British Muslims Fear Repercussions After Tomorrow’s Train Bombing.” Oh, no, wait, that’s a parody, though it’s hard to tell.

Look, pace Ed West, isn’t it just a teensy-weensy little bit to do with Islam? Or at any rate the internal contradictions of one-way multiculturalism? No, it’s not a competition. Most times in today’s Europe, the guys beating, burning and killing Jews will be Muslims. Once in a while, it will be somebody else killing the schoolkids. But is it so hard to acknowledge that rapid, transformative, mass Muslim immigration might not be the most obvious aid to social tranquility? That it might possibly pose challenges that would otherwise not have existed — for uncovered women in Oslo, for gays in Amsterdam, for Jews everywhere? Is it so difficult to wonder if, for these and other groups living in a long-shot social experiment devised by their rulers, the price of putting an Islamic crescent in the diversity quilt might be too high? What’s left of Jewish life in Europe is being extinguished remorselessly, one vandalized cemetery, one subway attack at a time. How many Jewish children will be at that school in Toulouse a decade hence? A society that becomes more Muslim eventually becomes less everything else. What is happening on the Continent is tragic, in part because it was entirely unnecessary.

— Hat tip: JP

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Germany: Freedom Fighter Fined for Telling Truth About Islam

“Islam will return to Europe as a conqueror and victor…” — Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi

Once again, a human rights activist is punished for repeating what Muslims say without any fear of penalty of any kind. The court ruled: “The complaint against the named person is: He allegedly spread by means of data storage writings that incited to hatred against a religious group, to violence and arbitrary measures against them, hurting their human dignity; so that they might be abused, maliciously despised and libeled.” (Thanks to Uwe)

It is not “incitement to hatred” to tell the truth about any individual or group, or to report accurately about their activities. It is simply reality. It only becomes actual “incitement to hatred” if one calls for violence against that group, or even for hatred of that group, instead of simply defense of freedom and human rights. Michael Mannheimer, whom I had the honor of meeting when I spoke in Germany last summer, has never called for hatred or violence. He has simply told the truth, which so few have the courage to tell.

Free Speech Death Watch Alert: “Penalty Fine Against Michael Mannheimer,” from Politically Incorrect, March 27 (thanks to David):

On February 14, 2012, Michael Mannheimer received a penalty fine from the Heilbronn district court in the degree of 50 days at 50 euros per day (2,500 euros). The basis for the fine was Mannheimer’s criticism of Islam, especially his claim that Islam is working on taking over and islamizing Europe. In addition to this, his evidence that Islam is striving for world power and his conclusion that Qur’an and Sharia are irreconcilable with the Constitution. Mannheimer’s publicized call for public resistance from April 8th of last year where he invoked Article 20 Section 4 of the Constitution….

Donations can be made for Michael Mannheimer under the following account:…

— Hat tip: TV

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Italy: Dell’utri Buys Red Brigade Leaflets for 17,000 Euros

(AGI) Milan — Marcel Dell’Ultri bought at auction 17 Red Brigade leaflets printed between 1974 and 1978 for 17,000 euro.

The offer made by telephone by the PDL deputy to Bolaggi beat those of the other 50 participants. The leaflets include press release no. 6 that announced the death sentence against Aldo Moro. Today’s auction also sold documents signed by Hitler and Saddam Hussein, as well as old books and letters belonging to Manzoni and Machiavelli. A group of policemen, members of COISP, protested outside the headquarters of Bolaffi against the auction of these leaflets.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Mafia Members Moving to Switzerland

At least four suspected members of Italy’s major mafia organisations are thought to be resident in Switzerland. According to the results of a criminal investigation, four suspected members thought to belong to some of Italy’s most notorious mafia groups, the Cosa Nostra, Camorra and Sacra Corona Unita, are residing in Switzerland, newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung reported.

The findings have been revealed as the government confirmed on Wednesday that tackling mafia and other organised crime in Switzerland would be a top priority for the coming years.

Italian mafia outfits, under pressure from the Italian authorities, are thought to be moving parts of their business, particularly their money-laundering operations, to Switzerland, the newspaper reported.

The greatest threat is perceived as coming from the increasingly powerful Ndrangheta, from Calabria in southern Italy. According to a report by the European Institute of Political, Economic and Social Studies in Italy, in 2007, the business volume for the Ndrangheta, whose main revenue is earned through drug trafficking, was the equivalent of approximately 2.9 percent of the country’s GDP.

Also on the government’s radar are mafia groups coming from southern Europe, whose activities include drug trafficking, human trafficking, theft and robbery.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Sicilian Governor to be Charged With Mafia Links

(AGI) Catania- Catania judge Luigi Barone has decided Sicilian governor Raffaele Lombardo will have to be charged. He is being accused of association with the Mafia in the context of the “Iblis” investigation. Last night the hearing for the defense’s request to dismiss the charges being leveled at the President of the region and his brother Angelo, a politician, drew to a close. The decision was announced today. The judge has given the prosecutor’s office 10 days to table an adjournment of the trial. & 13; In past hearings, the prosecutor’s office confirmed the request to dismiss the charges, based on the so-called Mannino sentence’ issued by the Supreme Court, claim joint prosecutors Michelangelo Patane and Carmelo Zuccaro. Said sentence has to do with the intricacies of the offense in question, association with the Mafia.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Sweden’s Defense Minister Quits Over Saudi Weapons Scandal

Sweden’s defense minister has left his post after failing to survive the political storm that a weapons deal with Saudi Arabia has created. It is a serious blow to an already beleagured Swedish government.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Swiss Racism on the Rise: Human Rights Chief

Switzerland’s government needs to do much more to tackle rising racism and xenophobia, a Commissioner from the European Council on Human Rights said in a letter to the Swiss foreign ministry.

The ECHR Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg sent his strongly worded letter earlier this month to Swiss foreign minister Didier Burkhalter.

“Manifestations of racism and xenophobia appear to be on the rise in Switzerland. Disturbing political campaigns with aggressive, insulting slogans against foreigners are tendencies of great concern,” the letter read.

Hammarberg said that he recognized “the value and importance of an open political debate”, but went on to say that freedom of expression should not be absolute.

“It can and at times must be restricted by the authorities in order to safeguard the human rights and fundamental freedoms of others,” he said.

A cause for concern, the Commissioner also noted that “political discourse of xenophobic and racist nature is… not criminally sanctioned by the courts”, and he called for an overhaul of the Swiss criminal law “in order to put an end to impunity for xenophobic and racist public discourse.”

Hammarberg went on to say that discrimination laws also needed to be strengthened to protect not only the rights of non-nationals, but also of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

“Switzerland’s human rights protection system would greatly benefit from the establishment of Ombudspersons in all cantons, complemented by a Federal Ombudsperson with a coordinative function and a long awaited National Human Rights Institution”, the Commissioner recommended.

The letter also raised concerns about the recent move to restrict migrants’ abilities to include family members in their applications, making family reunification even harder than it previously has been.

Burkhalter replied on Wednesday, thanking the Commissioner for his comments, promising that the comments would be given close consideration by the relevant bodies of authority.

He reiterated the government’s commitment to tackling racism, and he confirmed that the compatibility of certain popular initiatives with human rights legislation was under review.

He also replied that the Federal Constitution already guards against discrimination on the grounds of a person’s chosen lifestyle, and that respect for family life is also taken into consideration when considering migrants’ applications.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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UK: ‘We Have Won the Most Sensational Victory’: George Galloway Secures Shock Victory in Bradford West by-Election

George Galloway has delivered a humiliating blow to Labour by snatching the Bradford West seat that the party had held for nearly four decades.

He scored a dramatic victory with a 10,000-plus majority in what he called a ‘massive rejection’ of mainstream parties.

Respect swept from fifth place at the 2010 general election to a commanding victory for the ex-Labour anti-war campaigner against his former party on a swing of 36.59 per cent.

It was ‘the most sensational result in British by-election history bar none’, he said on stage after being declared the victor with well over half the total votes.

He secured a total of 18,341 votes — easily knocking Labour into second place with just 8,201.

The Conservatives took third place after a disastrous week for the Government with 2,746 votes, followed by the Liberal Democrats with just 1.505, and other candidates jointly taking 2,021 ballots.

Last night Mr Galloway tweeted: ‘By the Grace of God we have won the most sensational victory in British political history.’

After securing his victory, he said: ‘It is a very comprehensive defeat for new Labour. It’s a miserable, pathetic performance by the Government and the parties.

‘The big three political parties have had a very salutary, unkind lesson this evening and I hope that they all take note.

‘The people of Bradford have spoken this evening for people in inner cities everywhere in the United Kingdom.’…

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UK: 6,000 Young Girls ‘At Any One Time Are at Risk of Rape by Gangs’

Gangs are sexually abusing and raping thousands of young girls every year, it emerged last night.

Up to 6,000 may be victims at any one time, according to the expert in charge of a major inquiry.

Sue Berelowitz, the deputy Children’s Commissioner for England, said victims are often ‘kidnapped, held at gunpoint and threatened with gang rape’.

She is leading a major, two-year investigation into the problem of street gangs and their attacks on young women.

She said that girls associated with male gang members ‘would all either be at extremely high risk or actually being sexually exploited in some shape or form’.

‘From the conversations we’ve had with individual girls, some of the stories are quite heart-rending, really, in terms of girls being kidnapped, held at gunpoint, threatened with being what the public would understand as gang raped,’ she told Channel 4 News.

Last year a University of Bedfordshire report into the sexual exploitation of children found three-quarters of child protection boards in England were not recording information on child sexual exploitation — making it hard to measure the true scale of the abuse.

The academics found children were often groomed or put under pressure by older girls who were also victims of peer pressure.

One former gang member, Isha Nembhard, said many girls do not even recognise themselves as victims of abuse.

She added: ‘They’d rather be called a slag than say that somebody’s assaulting them or sexually abusing them in that sort of way.’

Metropolitan Police Detective Chief Inspector Petrina Cribb said: ‘We’re talking about sexual exploitation, manipulation, coercion into sexual acts, which they may feel they’ve got no option but to go along with.’

It was also claimed that young girls are advertising themselves to gang members on social networking sites.

— Hat tip: Nick

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UK: Report: George Galloway Returns to Westminster Wins Unprecedented Landslide in Bradford West

[…]

QUESTION: How did George Galloway win Bradford West?

ANSWER: By successfully claiming to be a better Muslim than the Muslim Pakistani Labour candidate in what has always been a safe Labour seat!

Mr Galloway has for years been darkly hinting that he is a secret Muslim, as this video demonsrates, while acting with incredulity towards anyone who would dare to be impertinent enough to ask him to come clean.

It is very important to fully understand what this historic result represents. In response Michael Coren has tweeted, that the “Bradford vote proves UK Muslims care about Islam, not Britain. Culture war — denial increasingly futile.” In fact it means much more than this, and two key things are profoundly and undeniably proven by this result.

The first, and here I am thinking of the incredulity that greeted Kent Ekeroth from all sides over the subject in this interview posted by Eeyore earlier today, is that this result must finally dismiss any last vestige of skepticism over the reality that Europe is being Islamised.

It is important to be clear. A white Scotsman born a Roman Catholic, has just won a respounding victory in Europe against a Pakistani Mulsim Labour favourite, precisely because he convinced the local populace that he was a more active/pious/true Muslim than the person he was against. This is Islamisation crystallizing politically before are very eyes, in inglorious technicolour.

The left wingers did what has always worked in the past, and are now scatching their heads in incredulity and astonishment. They accused everyone else of racism, but then played the race card with consumate skill. To them, on paper at least, their candidate in the safe Labour seat, was perfect. A locally born 33-year old barrister and Pakistani “Muslim”, Imran Hussein, who had chaired the local Labour party for years, and was deputy leader of the council.

There was one crucial difference, Mr Hussein is a moderate Muslim, a secular Muslim, a reform Muslim, that is, not a real Muslim at all.

Just like the French “Muslim” paratroopers killed by Mohamed Merah in France only two weeks ago, that are supposed, in the ignorant minds of liberals, to refute the self-evident truth that Merah was driven by Islam.

Because what Mr Galloway did — in a constituency in which had never set foot before — against a Labour party with 100 times his financial resources, was simply, with the use of the electoral roll, to post the following letter through the letterboxes of the Muslim households of Bradford West, a week before the polls opened:…

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Wales: Bridge Horror as Eight Railway Workers Mown Down by Black Cab ‘After Furious Row With Taxi Driver’by Eddie Wrenn

Eight work colleagues were mown down by a black cab after a ‘furious row’ with a taxi driver.

The eight railmen, wearing fluorescent uniforms, were left flattened on a pavement after the taxi ploughed into them on a bridge, just yards from the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, last night.

The railway workers were told they were ‘lucky to be alive’ after being given emergency treatment at the roadside by 999 teams.

A taxi driver has now been arrested on suspicion of murder.

Passers-by were shocked at the scene of carnage as the railway team were struck on a pavement just 200 yards from the Welsh capital’s main train station.

One witness said: ‘It was incredible. I saw an argument between the workers in orange and a taxi driver.

‘Then that stopped but the taxi came round the corner — then the next thing I knew they were hit.

‘They looked like they were just going home from work and headed to the train station.’

All eight injured men were taken to hospital in Cardiff suffering a series of injuries, including spinal, but none life-threatening.

The road, which incorporates a bridge, was closed to traffic last night while investigations were under way. It has since reopened.

Police are taking witness statements at the bedside of the eight men about the minutes before the carnage.

A spokesman said: ‘Eight male pedestrians, all from Cardiff, were taken to hospital following an incident involving a taxi on Wood Street bridge.

‘One of the men — aged 35 from Grangetown — remains in hospital having suffered burns.

‘A 28-year-old man was arrested at the scene on suspicion of attempted murder and is currently in police custody.

‘Detectives are checking CCTV in the area and are asking any businesses or residents to review their CCTV for any footage which may assist.

‘They are also appealing for anyone who may have witnessed this incident or events leading up to the collision to contact them.’

Another witness said: ‘I turned up to see all of these people in their work clothes sprawled out on the floor I had no idea what happened.

‘It looked like a couple of them might be dead. They weren’t moving and it was really worrying.

‘But loads of ambulances and police cars turned up really quickly and people that were passing by rushed to help.’

— Hat tip: Nick

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Algeria Refuses to Take Gunman Merah’s Body

The Islamist gunman branded a “monster” by President Nicolas Sarkozy will be buried in France because Algeria refused to let him be buried there, a Muslim official said Thursday.

Abdallah Zekri of the Paris Grand Mosque said Mohamed Merah’s family had asked him to organise a funeral in France after Algeria cited security reasons for rejecting their request for him to be buried in their ancestral homeland. “The family has asked me to organise a funeral within 24 hours,” said Zekri, who was speaking in the southwestern city of Toulouse where Merah died last Thursday.

Zekri said he believed that the 23-year-old, who died in a hail of police bullets last Thursday after a 32-hour siege on his Toulouse apartment, would be buried in the Muslim section of the city’s Cornebarrieu cemetery. The body had been due to be flown to Algeria on Thursday, his family said Wednesday. Merah boasted before he died that he gunned down three soldiers, three Jewish schoolchildren and a teacher in three separate attacks.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Berlin Confirms Support for Palestine

The German-Palestinian coordination council has met for the second time to discuss relations and to confirm German support for Palestinian efforts at stabilization.

The German government will be giving Palestine 70 million euros this year, of which 40 million will be earmarked for development. That’s intended to help build up infrastructure and state institutions, as well as for the start of a joint technical research program on such projects as solar energy.

The German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, announced the financial support at the end of a meeting of the German-Palestinian Coordination Council on Wednesday in Berlin.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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BRICS Nations Warn Against a Possible Iran Strike

The world’s emerging powers have said that the only way to resolve crises in Syria and Iran would be through dialogue as the BRICS summit came to a close in New Delhi on Thursday.

At the end of the summit, the BRICS bloc — comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — issued a warning to the West and Israel against possible military action over Iran’s controversial nuclear program.

The bloc’s declaration warned of “disastrous consequences” if the Iran conflict were allowed to escalate. It also backed UN efforts to resolve the Syrian crisis through “peaceful means.”

“We agreed that a lasting solution in Syria and Iran can only be found through dialogue,” Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a closing statement of the one-day BRICS summit.

The BRICS nations also announced long-term plans to launch a BRICS development bank. According to the declaration, the BRICS finance ministers will evaluate the proposal and it will be discussed again at the bloc’s next summit in South Africa in 2013.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Gulf: Water and Food Supplies at Risk

Population increase and development. New rules needed

Food and water are becoming a dangerous necessity for the oil monarchies of the Persian Gulf, who import 80% of their required food and also would have a mere three days of water supplies left, should the desalination plants register a failure. A new specific policy regarding water supplies is now a necessity. This is the general situation as seen by the conference on food and water safety in the Persian Gulf, organized by the centre for strategic studies in Abu Dhabi. The request for water has leaped from 6 million cubic meters in 1980 to 26 million in 1995 as population is growing exponentially. The last decade has registered a demographic increase, whether natural or by immigration, of 43%. 70% of the demand for water is employed in agriculture which accounts though for only 2% to 7% of the GDP created by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrein, United Arab Emirated (UAE) and Oman.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Iraq: Mgr Sako Urges Christians “Not to Fear” Celebrating Easter

For the archbishop of Kirkuk, Iraqi Christians are part of a “Church that suffers intensely”. Lent is a time to reflect about the faith and, despite difficulties, open up to the world. The prelate cites a number of acts of solidarity that brought together Christians and Muslims. He urges the faithful to renew through the Gospel their enthusiasm in the faith.

Kirkuk (AsiaNews) — “Fear not” is what Mgr Louis Sako, archbishop of Kirkuk, told Christians in preparation for the upcoming Easter. Iraq’s Christians are victims of violence and persecution. In less than a decade, this has reduced the community by half. Still, they are not alone for the entire nation is being torn apart by an unending confessional, political and tribal war.

In a world of big and small sufferings, the archbishop calls for the rediscovery of the Good News to bear witness to the faith without concerns and fears. Bishops and priests are called to perform this task and young people can look up and learn from them.

Here are the reflections Mgr Louis Sako sent to AsiaNews.

Iraq is a country that has been suffering from violence for many years. We Christians are part of a Church that suffers intensely. Over time, Lent has become a time to reflect deeply about our faith, a time not to shut ourselves off from the world, and this despite the critical situation. It is a time to open up to a deep dimension that draws hope for those, especially the younger ones, who face difficulties, and those who lead a life of precariousness and fear. This hope is found in the Lord’s words, “Fear not!” This is what the Good News urges us to do, even if we are persecuted in so many ways and languish on the sidelines, something that those who lead a tranquil life or live in luxury cannot fully grasp.

The Good News is meant especially for the very poor, for those who lead an uncertain existence or are not fully free. We recited all of our prayers and performed the Via Crucis in this spirit. We shared what we had with the needy and many young people fasted.

There were many acts of solidarity, among them that of a young man who handed us US$ 2,000 “to help families celebrate Easter”. A young woman gave me US$ 1,000 for the disabled, “not only Christians but also Muslims . . . for the whole community.” A group of Lebanese priests and nuns are also planning to visit us to celebrate Holy Week. All these acts show solidarity in deeds, not just words.

In Kirkuk, our small presence takes on a deeper meaning for our Muslim brothers. Our witness, in deeds and words, is alive and present. Recently, I met a politician who told me: “Only with you Christians can Iraq go forward and achieve progress.”

An Arab tribal leader has asked me to act as a mediator in order to promote dialogue among Kirkuk’s various ethnic and political groups, with the Chaldean cathedral as the venue where to meet. “We only trust you,” political and tribal leaders say. What more do we need to do to show how important our presence is . .. . ?

At a conference on the Arab spring, a young Christian woman from Syria spoke. Her name is Marcelle. “What have you bishops done for the good of the people,” she asked me. “Your caution does not help; it does not change the situation. What have you done with the ‘Spring of Christ’ in which the Good News was announced? We young people are doing more,” Marcelle said.

She then began singing in front of us and with us and all the participants, Muslims too. It was beautiful sign to behold, all of us united, reciting a hymn inspired by a psalm. I think perhaps we have lost some of the enthusiasm and radical quality of the Gospel.

Therefore, on this Easter I shall try to help the faithful not to fear, help them to proclaim their ‘Yes’ to God. I call on everyone to be close to our brothers in thought and prayer, and celebrate the communion, charity, life and love for our fellow man so that violence and fanaticism may stop and everyone live in peace and joy.

“Fear not,” I shall tell the faithful during Mass on Easter night.

* Archbishop of Kirkuk

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Swiss Woman’s Captors: Free Bin Laden’s Wives

A bid to release a Swiss woman kidnapped in Yemen has suffered a blow after her abductors made excessive demands, including for Osama bin Laden’s widows to be freed, a tribal chief said on Thursday.

Al-Qaeda militants abducted the woman on March 14th from her home in the Red Sea port city of Hodeida, where she had been teaching at a foreign language institute. She was taken to far eastern Shabwa province.

Tribal chief Ali Abdullah Zibari said, however, that mediation efforts had so far failed because of excessive demands placed by her captors, including the release of bin Laden’s widows held in Pakistan. Zibari said the Islamic extremists also demanded the release of several women held in Iraq and Saudi Arabia in return for the Swiss captive.

“Their initial demands for the release of (former Al-Qaeda chief) Osama bin Laden’s wives held in Pakistan were rejected by Yemeni officials last week,” Zibari told AFP, adding the group then placed new conditions for the Swiss woman’s return.

“Now they’re demanding the release of 100 Al-Qaeda affiliated militants from Yemeni jails and €50 million ($66 million)… at which point the mediation efforts failed because of the prohibitive demands,” he said.

Zibari played a crucial role in the release last November of three French aid workers kidnapped by Al-Qaeda and held for five months.

Shabwa province is a stronghold of Al-Qaeda’s local affiliate, the Partisans of Sharia (Islamic law), which has expanded its influence in recent months, taking advantage of the political turmoil that has swept the country and forced the resignation of veteran leader Ali Abdullah Saleh.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Turkey: TV Censorship Hits Oliver Stone’s Alexander

Sex scenes to be targeted following erotic music videos

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, MARCH 26 — TV censorship in Turkey with its Muslim majority but secular constitution is on the march: having attacked music videos, now Oliver Stone’s film “Alexander” finds itself facing fines. As daily paper Aksam reports, Turkey’s radio and television watchdog RTUK has imposed a fine of almost 21,000 euros on a private broadcasting channel for having transmitted the film about Alexander the Great by the US director and having included all of those scenes in which the protagonist acted by Colin Farrell acts violently towards his wife Rossane (played by Rosario Dawson), with attempts at rape. RTUK also fined some of the war scenes in the film for their “negative impact on children and young adults”: there is “sexual violence against women”, “a knife fight is shown, beating and an attempt at rape following a refusal” from Rosanne. Also considered harmful were “sex scenes portrayed through dialogues”. Back in January, the same watchdog had issued fines and warnings to a television channel and six music videos for their ‘obscene’ content, which was a ‘danger’ to the morals of young people. The 160,000-euro fine was imposed on the channel Show TV for showing mambo dancing and Cha-cha-cha that was found to be “erotic”, performed by dancers in “obscene” outfits. The six videos had been filmed with clearly erotic references, as was the case of one featuring singer Teoman, whose popularity also derives from his go-go dancers with a 1920s brothel backdrop.

There is plenty of pelvic gyration, but no total nudity. The artists hit by the fines criticised the reprimand: “Do we have to play the Smurfs to do well here?” came a sarcastic question from Murat Dalkilic, who entwined by at least three of the dancers in the video, who nonetheless managed to keep their bras and skirts in place.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Burma’s Rebound: The Triumphal Rise of Aung San Suu Kyi

A newfound optimism has infected much of Burma. The government has relaxed controls and might even make room for pro-democracy advocate and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi in the cabinet after this Sunday’s by-elections. But government clashes with ethnic minorities in the north of the country have tarnished these hopes for some.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Forced Child Marriages on the Rise in Pakistan

The centuries-old custom of forced child marriages, or wani, goes unchecked in Pakistan despite protests by human rights organizations and some legislators.

“They forced me to marry this guy. I did not want to marry him. My uncle beat me up so badly that he fractured my shoulder,” a fifteen-year-old girl told DW on condition of anonymity.

I interviewed this girl in Sukkur, a city in the southern Pakistani province of Sindh, in a crisis center for women. She was with her mother and was visibly devastated.

“My husband also beat me. He used to beat me even before our marriage. It was tormenting for my mother to look at me in this condition, so she brought me to this place. I never thought I would come to a women’s crisis center,” she said.

Child marriage, or wani, is being practiced in many parts of Pakistan, particularly in the rural Sindh, the Punjab, and the country’s northwestern tribal areas. The feuding tribes or clans exchange blood money or women to settle disputes.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Indonesia: Mini-Skirt is ‘Pornographic’

Jakarta, 28 March (AKI) — The mini-skirts is pornographic, according to Indonesian Religious Affairs Minister, Suryadharma Ali.

Skirts hemmed above the knee will be included in a government task force’s definition of pornography, according to news reports.

“There must be a set of universal criteria to define something as pornographic, of which one will be when someone wears a skirt above the knee,” Suryadharma, said on the margins of a Lower House hearing, the Jakarta Post reported on Wednesday.

The task force is creating a working definition of pornography that the government will rely on in the future to enforce indecency laws.

After standard has been set, the task force would apply it nationwide across all ethnicities, he said, according to the report.

Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono set up the task force as part of an effort to implement a 2008 law that aims to curb the distribution of pornographic material.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Pakistan: Seven Die in Quetta Shootings

Quetta, 29 March (AKI/Dawn) — Seven people lost their lives in two separate Thursday shooting incidents in Quetta by unidentified gunmen, DawnNews reported.

The first attack took place in the Kali Mubarak area of Quetta, where five people including a women were killed and six people were injured, when some unknown armed men opened fire.

According to police sources, a Suzuki pick up was on its way to the city, from Hazara town when it was ambushed by armed gunmen on Spini Road near Kali Mubarak.The indiscriminate firing of the attackers killed five people and left six injured. The injured were rushed to the Combined Military Hospital, where the condition of three injured is believed to be critical.

The Hazara Democratic Party has condemned the attack and announced a ‘shutter down’ strike call for Friday, 30th March.

The second attack took place in Mastung district of Balochistan, where the vehicle of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization came under attack.

The gunmen opened fire on the UN staff as they were riding in a car through Baluchistan province’s Mastung district, killing two people, said police officer Rustam Khan.

The two killed included a member of the group’s project staff and a hired driver, said a UN official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. Another staff member was wounded, he said.

The injured was shifted to Civil hospital Mastung and is stated to be in critical condition.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

The atmosphere in the province turned tense and some enraged protestors resorted to tyre burning and destruction of public property in many areas. A motor-cycle was torched outside the PMC and business centres and market shut down after the attack.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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‘You Know What Men Are Like’: Indonesia to Ban Mini-Skirts Over Links to Rape

Indonesia’s powerful religious affairs minister believes that mini-skirts are pornographic and should be banned under the country’s tough new anti-porn laws. Minister Suryadharma Ali has been appointed to run Indonesia’s new anti-porn taskforce, announced by president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono earlier this month. He told reporters in Jakarta yesterday that before deciding what they must ban as pornography, the taskforce would consult widely to come up with “a set of universal criteria”.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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As Mongolia Booms, Germany Wants a Slice of the Cake

Mongolian President Tsakhia Elbegdorj is in Germany. He has met his counterpart Joachim Gauck and Chancellor Angela Merkel. The two countries are keen to expand their cooperation in the field of natural resources. With demand for natural resources set to double over the next 30 years, the global race is on to secure access to much coveted minerals.

Mongolia is one of the 10 countries in the world with the most natural resources, harboring an abundance of gold, copper, iron ore, coal, oil, rare earth elements and much more under the surface of its huge land mass.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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China’s Power Struggle: Is a Dangerous Divide Opening Between Beijing Leaders?

For weeks, China’s communist leaders have been embroiled in a bitter power struggle that could jeopardize a carefully planned transition in the national leadership and the course charted by more moderate reformers. Although the state has tried to keep the feuding under wraps, the Internet is awash with rumors — including those of a possible coup.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Amid Debt Crisis, Athens Falls Apart

As Greece struggles to master its devastating debt problem, decades of mismanagement have taken their toll on the country’s once-proud capital. Athens has degenerated into a hotbed of chaos and crime, where tensions between Greeks and immigrants have led to attacks on foreigners by the far-right.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Greek Police Start Sweeping Athens of Illegals

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, MARCH 29 — Greek police intensified their sweeps targeting undocumented migrants and illegal street vendors in central Athens on Wednesday as authorities continued efforts to designate sites for temporary detention centers where migrants without papers are to be kept before being deported or, in a tiny percentage of cases, granted asylum. A crackdown by police outside the premises of Athens University Law School and the Athens University of Economics and Business resulted in the arrest of 21 illegal street vendors, all immigrants. Officers also evicted 26 undocumented migrants from a half-derelict building on central Marni Street and detained a foreign national alleged to have been charging the migrants rent to live in the squat. Sources told Kathimerini that police are to continue with their crackdown, adding that they have been instructed by their superiors to eliminate the illegal street trade in the city center within a week. During a meeting of top police officials chaired by Citizens’ Protection Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis on Wednesday, it was decided that the ranks of the police would be boosted immediately with 200 special guards who have just completed their training. The aim is for an extra 1,100 officers to join the motorcycle-riding rapid-reaction squad DIAS soon.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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UK: How Islam Became a Scapegoat for the Problems of Immigration

by Ed West

Something I wrote last week about Islam caused a bit of a stir, with one conservative blogger wondering if I had been threatened with beheading. The great Mark Steyn even wrote: “I’m sad to see the usually perceptive Ed West of the London Telegraph planting his flag on this wobbling blancmange.” Considering I am Mark Steyn’s biggest fan in the whole wide world, complete with a wall covered with pictures of him and a tattoo of his face on my chest, that’s left me with some mixed feelings. And yet I still believe that Islam has become something of a scapegoat for the problems associated with mass immigration, and here’s why.

Conservatism is all about protecting the community from radical change; that is why conservatives tend to oppose large-scale immigration, which alters the social fabric in a huge way. Yet from the 1960s to the 1990s, both in Britain and the US, conservatives lost this argument, despite overwhelming public support. They lost because they lost the intellectual justification for group solidarity or “parochial altruism” against post-war radical universalism, to the extent that normal human feelings were redefined as forms of mental illness. Defeat. Until Islam came along, allowing conservatives to make arguments using language that liberals would permit. Mass immigration brings enormous social costs, most of which are borne by the working classes, who in England have been shafted by an experiment in which they had no say and which was instigated by people far richer and more privileged than them. People are, understandably, uneasy about it.

But although many of the more intelligent people behind some “anti-jihad” groups are genuinely horrified by certain Islamic attitudes to women, homosexuality or Jews, to suggest that most people go on English Defence League marches for these reasons strikes me as absurd. Most people oppose large-scale immigration from countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Somalia not because of Islam but because the newcomers are alien to them and their arrival disrupts their neighbourhood and life. These are understandable human feelings, but people are unable to articulate them without committing a thought crime. So instead the problems of mass immigration are blamed on Islam, including the problems associated with immigrants themselves. Take Mohammed Merah, the Toulouse killer; before becoming an Islamist he had a long, long record of juvenile crime, with 15 convictions behind him. He discovered religion while in prison, just like many British Islamists, such as shoebomber Richard Reid; many others became radicalised through gang involvement and crime, such as Germaine Lindsay. These were not ordinary young men corrupted by the Prophet Mohammed. Islamism is political; it attracts angry, extreme, violent young men from the immigrant underclass who find others willing to justify their thirst for violence, by using holy texts. Merah’s justification — “you killed my brothers, I kill you” — are not words of faith but naked tribalism.

Conservatism’s obsession with Islam is partly a reaction to multiculturalism, which holds that all religions are basically the same. This is untrue, as anyone with even a middling understanding of history can appreciate: the current moral order that emerged from the West, the world of the Enlightenment, the UN and human rights, stems from Christianity. No other religion could have produced it — not Islam, Hinduism or Buddhism, because none have Christianity’s concept of the individual. Christianity is essentially a union of Hellenic and Hebrew civilisations, the greatest marriage that ever took place. Islam, in contrast, lacks not just Western concepts of the individual but also Christianity’s historic separation of the state and religion. There is also no doubt that Islam has a very ambiguous attitude to violence in its name. The religion desperately needs reform, but it is not incapable of it, and huge numbers of Muslims happily set aside the more unpalatable passages of their holy texts, just as Jews and Christians do. For middle-class British Muslims the popular idea that they practise some sort of political-religious death cult must strike them as bizarre, so removed from the actual practice of their religion.

The problem is not Islam, but the movement of peoples across the world, and the conflict this produces. One estimate suggests that although Islamic terrorists around the world typically fit no profile, in terms of age and education, 80 per cent are immigrants or the sons of immigrants. The problem with mass immigration is not Islam, but mass immigration, which creates the ghettos from where sectarianism thrives. The huge movements of recent years have made Islam and Christianity an anchor of identity to people in Europe. The EDL are essentially a Christianist group, but the sentiments behind sectarianism and nationalism are the same. One cannot blame sectarianism on religion any more than one can blame nationalism on language — it just is. (It’s not as if the Shankill butchers were forever discussing Calvin and Luther on their nights out.)

Besides which, many of the “Islamic” customs which people object to have little or nothing to do with Islam. Forced marriages are a south Asian custom, one that radical Islamists oppose for being too Hindu. Honour killings have been a custom in many Christian cultures (the first in recent European history was carried out by a Palestinian Christian), but Christians no longer practise this barbarity for the same reason that British Hindus don’t — because they are urban, sophisticated, wealthy and educated. Many Pakistanis from rural Mirpur are not. But it’s rather impolite to criticise a national culture; easier just to say “Islam”.

Of course religions plays a part — Middle Eastern and south Asian Christians assimilate far easier, but you can’t blame Islam for all dysfunctional cultural characteristics. Many west Africans have brought over religious and cultural practices that are as awful as anything from Pakistan, but because they’re Christians this attracts less attention here.

Islamophobia is a very dubious term because it is used to describe both legitimate criticism of a religion, and anti-Muslim hostility. But that’s not to say that sectarianism does not exist; the irony is that it has become acceptable partly because conservatives have been unable to articulate decent and legitimate opposition to mass immigration in the first place.

As Christopher Caldwell once put it: “Islam is a magnificent religion that has also been, at times over the centuries, a glorious and generous culture. But, all cant to the contrary, it is in no sense Europe’s religion and in no sense Europe’s culture.” The problem has been in trying to make it Europe’s. But if anyone thinks mass immigration would have been fine had it not been for a man living in seventh-century Arabia, they’re as much of a utopian as any liberal.

[Reader comment by emilia on 29 March 2012 at 02:56 pm.]

Most of the problem lies with the nature of Islam, which bulldozes its way through anywhere its followers arrive. But the rest of the problem is caused by the multi-culti-lefties insisting that all recent newcomers should be allowed, even encouraged, to import their native culture (not just their religion) wholesale, and making the rest of us feel that we are wicked to object in any way to the changes this imposed on our lives. We have had to stand by and watch vast areas of the country changed beyond recognition, made to feel strangers in our own country, and threatened with criminal accusations of racism if we so much as mention any disquiet. The issue of face-coverings is just the most blatant slap in our faces, being a profoundly unacceptable thing to do in western countries but now’ tolerated’ under our new regime. No earlier ‘waves of immigration’ had this effect, which is why they were so much easier to absorb. But that’s another thing we aren’t allowed to say — which just about sums up the whole situation.

[Reader comment by gully on 29 March 2012 at 01:11 pm.]

Oh dear, Ed. Islam a scapegoat? Well done — you’re helping to reinforce the already heightened sense of grievance Muslims have — and this in spite of the Establishment bending over backwards to make them feel “included” all at the expense of the indigenous citizens of this country. You show how out of touch you are when you say that Muslims happily set aside those parts of their religion that are unpalatable. Do they, indeed? Muslims, if they are “true” Muslims, must follow their koran to the letter, and that includes making war on unbelievers. They don’t have to physically harm them, but physical harm can be done as a means to an end — and that end is to make the West Muslim. When will people like you — who are influential in that their articles are read by many, realise that it’s we non-Muslim Brits who are the scapegoats? We have to suffer our what’s left of our indigenous culture being eroded daily by the steady onslaught of Islamic practices, intimidating dress, and the sheer inconvenience of having people in our midst who go out of their way to undermine what we stand for, all aided and abetted by happy clappy, celebrate diversity at all costs idiots.

You should have thought carefully before you wrote this. If you open your eyes and look around you you’ll realise how Islam and its adherents have adversely affected the good that immigration can do. Islam and Muslims add to the dynamic of this country in a negative way, unlike other immigrants. What’s more they’re not shy about cynically taking on board the “democratic” practices that help them: money from the State, and the laxity of our immigration laws. Another example is the way they use their mosques as a symbol of triumphalism and domination of the area around where they’re built. Once a mosque goes up — and many of its neighbours are only aware of it after planning permission has been granted — all the things that go with Islamic practice comes with it — illegal parking, and the attendant abuse given when neighbours make them aware of it, the noise and the inconvenience of crowded residential streets when they arrive to pray five times a day. This often leads the non-Muslim neighbours to move away, and so the scene is set for Muslim only areas. It can be stopped by writing letters of objection to the council. All it takes is keeping an eye on the online weekly planning lists on the councils’ planning sites.

So, Ed, and others — wake up and smell the coffee, will you? As I said earlier — it’s people like us, non-Muslim, aware of how our own right to self-determination is being undermined, who are the scapegoats.

[Reader comment by waterwillows on 29 March 2012 at 0:627 am.]

Islalm is what it is. It does not come in different flavors or varying forms. There is no better over here, or worse over there. It just is. There is no denying that Islam is what it is. One can not duck or hide from the consquences of it being what it is. Nor can it be dabbed with white wash, smoothed over and justified. Islam is a whole package, there is no bits and pieces ‘acceptable’, while other bits and pieces are not. What you see, read, hear and experience is just the facts of what it produces in this world. There is no excusing it or dreaming it can be other than what it is. What you see, it really what you get. You can not run away from taking your stand. There is no going back. You will only run into illlusion and delusion.

It is time to stand tall, face the facts and know right from wrong. That is the only path that leads to clarity and discernment. It is your personal path of war that leads to your peace.

The ‘feel good’, comfort zone paths are all deception and lies. There is only much woe, for calling what is wrong … as right.

[JP note: Poor old Ed West — I think he is on a bit of a sticky wicket pursuing an incoherent argument concerning the merits or otherwise of Islam.]

— Hat tip: JP

[Return to headlines]

Swedes Launch ‘Sexless’ Web Search Tool

Swedish computer programmers have created a a new browser plug-in dubbed the “Henerator” which automatically changes the Swedish equivalents of “he” and “she” into the recently coined and gender-neutral pronoun “hen”. Creator Philip Westman claims that the plug-in was made to concretize an ongoing debate about the Swedish language’s lack of a gender-neutral pronoun.

While the debate has been raging in recent weeks, Westman said he doesn’t have a firm opinion on which word should be used. “I think people should be able to use whichever words they want,” he told The Local.

Sweden has been divided into three groups since the debate has flamed up recently: the staunch supporters of “hen”; the language purists who don’t want to see a change; and those who don’t have an opinion or don’t care at all.

Despite coming from the third of these groups, Westman and “Henerator” co-creator Marcus Sjögren decided they could nevertheless take things to a new level through a browser plug-in allowing users to surf the net in a gender neutral way.

The “Henerator” works by removing the standard Swedish pronouns for “he” and “she” (“hon” and “han”) and automatically replacing them with “hen”. While Westman admits that he thinks the idea is “half-smart, half-stupid”, he added that the plug-in has spawned a bevy of feedback in the online world.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

BRICS Leaders Gather for Summit

Leaders of the fast-growing BRICS nations have gathered to discuss how to combine their powers better. But questions over whether they can resolve their differences linger.

Leaders of the BRICS countries met in India on Thursday to discuss ways to combine their economic clout through closer cooperation, including the creation of a new development bank.

The group’s relationship “aspires to create a new global architecture,” according to India’s Commerce Minister Anand Sharma.

The leaders of the BRICS countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, are attending the bloc’s fourth meeting. The term BRIC was coined by the US bank Goldman Sachs in 2001 as a collective term for the world’s fastest growing economies, and they first met for talks in 2009. South Africa joined at the group’s third summit last year.

South African President Jacob Zuma expressed his happiness on Thursday that South Africa has been welcomed by the BRICs.

“In BRICS, we have a place where we feel that Africa is being treated with respect. Our views are treated equally among the partners. There is no feeling that some people are looking down on the continent of Africa,” he said.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

	Financial Crisis
»	Bankers Worried About Irish No Vote
»	Brussels Believes Spain Should Tap EU Rescue Fund to Recapitalize Its Banks
»	Dutch Deficit Talks in ‘Difficult Phase’: Official
»	Estonia Boasts 2011 Budget Surplus, EU’s Lowest Debt
»	European Debt Crisis: The Hidden Risks Lurk in ECB’s Accounts
»	Eurozone Firewall Meeting to be ‘Positive’
»	France ‘To Blame for Euro Woes’
»	Hungary Has Highest Interest Rate in EU
»	Italy: Monti Warns About Dangers of Spain
»	Italy Blames Germany, France for Eurozone Debt Culture
»	Italy: Six-Month Lending Rate Drops to Lowest Since Sept. 2010
»	Monti Chides Parties: Confident Labour Reform Will Pass
»	More Money for the Euro Rescue: Onward, To the Next Red Line!
»	OECD Says Eurozone Needs to Double Bailout Fund
»	Russia: Bank Privatizations Risk Downgrades
»	Spain Budget Due Amid EU Pressure, Strikes
»	Spain Likely to Need Bailout This Year: Citi
	USA
»	America: A Nation in Decline and Slowly Cracking Up
»	Barack Obama: I Have a “Moral Obligation” To Neuter America
»	Freedom and Understanding P.E.R.S.
»	Senator: Supreme Court Would Allow ‘An All Powerful Government’ By Upholding Obamacare
»	Stakelbeck on Terror Show Featuring Rep. Michele Bachmann
»	The EPA Wrecking Ball
	Europe and the EU
»	“Anders Breivik is Not Crazy” — The Surprise Defense of Norway’s Mass Killer
»	Belfast Commemorates Titanic: Disaster Ship Remembered in City That Built it
»	Berlusconi Friend, Employee Probed After Swiss Bank Rejected His Millions
»	Brussels Airlines Threatens to Leave Belgium: Report
»	Don’t be Fooled. Europe’s Far-Right Racists Are Not Discerning — Opportunistic Words of Love for Jews and Israel Cannot Disguise the European Far Right’s Toxic Rhetoric of Hatred
»	EU Announces Proposed Cybercrime Center
»	EU Diplomats’ Generous Holiday Schemes Raise Eyebrows
»	Finland: Dispute Brews Over Who Qualifies as Sámi
»	France: Hippies Head for Noah’s Ark: Queue Here for Rescue Aboard Alien Spaceship
»	France: Toulouse School Getting Hate Mail Since Attack
»	French Scientist in Terror Trial
»	French Reveal Loathing for ‘Violent’ Suburban Youth
»	Fringe Parties Set to Score Well in Greek Elections
»	‘Geert Wilders’ Anti-Pole Website Crashes After Polish TV Satire’
»	Germany: Anti-Nazi Groups Struggle to Find Funding
»	Germany: Victim Slams Court’s Racial Spot-Check Ruling
»	Half of Adult Romanians Have Not Used a Computer
»	Hungary Amends Justice Law After EU Threats
»	Hunt for Skilled Labor: Germany Woos Portugal’s Lost Generation
»	Italy: Monti Government Collected 13 Billion Euros Since November
»	Italy: Big Parties Reach Agreement on Electoral Reform, MP Cull
»	Italy: Refuse: Clini: Powers to Commissioner for New Sites in Rome
»	Italy: PM Monti on Labor ‘I Have the Consensus, Reform to be Done’
»	Muslim Girls Must Swim With Boys: Swiss Court
»	Netherlands: Student Cleared on Charges of Threatening Geert Wilders
»	Norway: Krekar Back in Court After ‘Dream’ Arrest
»	Sarkozy Forbids Islamist Preachers From Entering France
»	Sex Toy Survey: Germans Come First
»	The Sámi — the Only Indigenous People in the EU
»	Toulouse Gunman Was Informant of French Intelligence?
»	Toulouse Murders Show France’s True Colors
»	Tungsten-Filled 1 Kilo Gold Bar Found in the UK
»	UK Riots Caused by Demoralized Youth, Panel Says
»	UK: Bookmarks April [Tom Holland — in the Shadow of the Sword]
»	UK: Dudley Mosque Fight Drags on
»	UK: MP’s Fear Over Death Threats
	Mediterranean Union
»	Tunisia: Ambassador to the EU, Visa Easing Needed
	North Africa
»	Gaddafi’s Assets Seized in Italy
»	ISNA Works With Authorities in North Africa to Develop Protocols to Protect Religious Minorities
»	Libya’s Toubou Tribal Leader Raises Separatist Bid
»	Libya: Christians Bear Witness to Easter in a Country Burdened by Hatreds and Violence, Mgr Martinelli Says
»	Tunisia: Crossroads of Fanatical Preachers and Jihadists
	Israel and the Palestinians
»	Kadima: Mofaz Gets His Revenge, Defeats Livni
	Middle East
»	“The Prophet Came From Jordan”
»	Arab League Transforms Itself Into a Sought-After Partner
»	Erdogan Visiting Iran
»	Hair Product for ‘Real Men’: Turkish TV Ad Features Hitler to Sell Shampoo
»	Obama’s Over-Hasty Withdrawal: Iraq is Neither Sovereign, Stable Nor Self-Reliant
»	Qatar Postpones French Suburb Fund Until After Election
»	Spain: Al Qaeda ‘Librarian’ Arrested in Valencia
	Russia
»	For Russian Orthodox Church, Cross Ban in Workplace is a Form of Totalitarianism
»	Russia’s Medvedev Tells Romney to ‘Use Head’
	South Asia
»	Afghan Woman is Killed ‘For Giving Birth to a Girl’
»	Bangladesh Celebrates Independence in the Shadows of the Past
»	De Mistura Calls Detention of ‘Enrica Lexie’ Unacceptable
»	Italian Commitment in Afghanistan and Pakistan Remains
»	Pakistan: Christians Under Attack: Attacks by Islamic Extremists in a Suburb of Karachi
»	Pakistan: Hindu Girl Tells Supreme Court She Would Rather Die Than Convert to Islam
	Sub-Saharan Africa
»	Briton Arrested in Somalia Was Looking for ‘Somewhere Sunny’
»	Dutch Party Upset Over Pretoria Street Names
	Immigration
»	Belgium: Nationalists Want to Set Language Requirement for Foreigners
»	Denmark: Boom in Immigrants on Incapacity Pensions
»	Dutch Parliament Condemns Anti-Immigrant Website
»	Wars and Crises Spark Global Rise in Refugees
	Culture Wars
»	300 Swiss Died by Assisted Suicide in 2009
»	EU Slams Albanian Official’s Anti-Gay Comments
»	Italy: Minister Profumo: Divine Comedy to Remain in Syllabus
»	Sweden: ‘Gay-Bashing’ Reggae Star’s Gig Put Off Again
»	UK: Doctor Claims He Was Dismissed for Emailing Prayer to Colleagues
	General
»	Billions of Habitable Alien Planets Should Exist in Our Galaxy
»	Cat Parasite May Affect Humans, Researcher Claims
»	Executions on the Rise Globally, Says Amnesty
»	New ‘Life in Space’ Hope After Billions of ‘Habitable Planets’ Found in Milky Way
»	The Great Divide: History and Human Nature in the Old World and the New by Peter Watson — Review

Bankers Worried About Irish No Vote

The Institute of International Finance, a banking lobby, has said Ireland’s referendum on the fiscal discipline treaty, due 31 May, is a large cause for concern. “Putting it very simply, we worry about what happens if there’s a No vote,” the institute’s chief economist Phil Suttle told The Irish Times.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Brussels Believes Spain Should Tap EU Rescue Fund to Recapitalize Its Banks

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said a few months back that European citizens are not ready for another round of bank recapitalization, but there may be an exception: Spain. The European Commission believes the Madrid government should tap the European Union rescue fund to accelerate the government-orchestrated restructuring that is already under way in order to get credit flowing again.

Brussels believes the restructuring plan introduced by the team of Economy Minister Luis de Guindos, which calls for additional provisions of 52 billion euros by the banks to cover possible losses on real estate assets on their books could be insufficient if the crisis drags on. The restructuring is aimed at fomenting further consolidation in the sector, using when necessary injections from the Deposit Guarantee Fund, which is funded by the banks themselves.

The rescue fund seems the best option at present given the problems in raising capital privately and restrictions on the use of public money because of the austerity drive to rein in the country’s deficit.

The Commission feels that Spain should not consider having to tap the fund as a stigma. “There is one possibility, and that is to continue to drag one’s feet, stretching out the process, and that the banks continue not to lend, therefore, stymieing the recovery,” a source in Brussels said. “And there is an indirect way, which is to tap the rescue fund. There are no easy solutions to the crisis.”

The government has rejected the option of seeking a loan from the fund. “But the resources of the Deposit Guarantee Fund are running out, and if there is a sharp fall in house prices, there will be no other option but to inject public funds in the banks,” a market source said.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Dutch Deficit Talks in ‘Difficult Phase’: Official

(THE HAGUE) — Negotiations between the Dutch government and its right-wing parliamentary partner over the country’s deficit were suspended Wednesday with officials saying talks had entered a “difficult phase.”

Premier Mark Rutte’s ruling coalition and the far-right, eurosceptic Party for Freedom (PVV) are meeting in The Hague to hammer out a plan to cut spending in order to meet the EU deficit ceiling of 3.0 percent of gross domestic product.

“It is a difficult phase” in talks, a Dutch government official told AFP who asked not to be named. The official refused to give further information on negotiations that have been labelled make-or-break.

Figures by the country’s central planning bureau (CPB), on which government depends, showed earlier this month that the state must save 16 billion euros ($21 billion) in 2013 to meet EU rules.

The Dutch government was put in an embarrassing spot as the bureau’s data showed that the public deficit for 2013 would rise to 4.6 percent of domestic gross product under current conditions.

The figures were a blow to a hard-line Dutch government that has insisted deficit sinners such as Greece keep within the EU’s budget deficit rules.

Talks in The Hague are aimed at curbing spending, but are also seen as a litmus test for Rutte’s rightwing liberal government consisting of his own party and its coalition partner the Christian Democratic Action (CDA), which with far-right support enjoys a majority in the Dutch parliament.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Estonia Boasts 2011 Budget Surplus, EU’s Lowest Debt

(TALLINN) — Estonia posted a budget surplus of 1.0 percent of the economy last year, while its public debt totalled just 6.0 percent, the lowest debt in the 27 member European Union, data showed Monday. The Baltic state of 1.3 million which joined the EU in 2004 and eurozone in 2011 has long been known for its rigorous fiscal discipline. Estonia recorded 7.6 percent growth last year and its economy is forecast by the central bank to grow by 1.9 percent this year.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

European Debt Crisis: The Hidden Risks Lurk in ECB’s Accounts

Some economists warn that the German central bank faces hidden liabilities of 500 billion euros in the form of unsettled claims within the European payments settlement system, and could lose that sum if the euro zone breaks apart. According to SPIEGEL, the German government has said it sees no such risks. But a Greek euro exit could still cost the German central bank billions.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Eurozone Firewall Meeting to be ‘Positive’

Top European Union officials Wednesday expressed confidence for a breakthrough in talks this week as the bloc debates a bigger financial firewall to avert eurozone crises. A meeting of EU finance ministers in Copenhagen on Friday is expected to focus on whether to increase the size of the eurozone’s permanent bailout fund from a planned 500 billion euros ($667 billion).

“I’m confident that we will reach a positive outcome,” EU president Herman Van Rompuy told a news conference after talks with South Korea’s President Lee Myung-Bak in Seoul. The International Monetary Fund has been pushing for an increase to as much as one trillion euros before it agrees to strengthen its own resources against a fresh eurozone crisis.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel fuelled optimism prior to the meeting in Denmark by indicating that she was prepared to allow a boost in the firewall, in an apparent shift of position amid fierce international pressure.

Van Rompuy described a treaty signed earlier this month to control EU budgets as “a turning point in the crisis”. And European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso told the Seoul news conference that he was “absolutely sure” the EU would emerge from the debt crisis stronger than before.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

France ‘To Blame for Euro Woes’

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti on Wednesday said the root of Europe’s debt woes lay partly in the irresponsible parenting of Germany and France during the bloc’s infancy. Monti told reporters in Tokyo that because the eurozone’s two largest players had not abided by fiscal rules, they had set a bad example for the rest of the continent.

“The story goes back to 2003 (and) the still almost infant life of the euro,” Monti said. “It was in fact Germany and France that were loose concerning the public deficits and debts.”

The widely-respected technocrat, who replaced billionaire media magnate Silvio Berlusconi in November as head of the eurozone’s third largest economy, said the flouting of rules allowing for an annual budget deficit of no more than three percent of GDP was the issue.

He said despite recommendations, a meeting of ministers from European Union governments had decided not to punish France and Germany for going beyond the deficit limit.

“So the two largest countries in the eurozone had the (deficit) with complicity of Italy, which was then chairing under the rotation system the council of prime ministers of European Union. “Of course if the father and mother of the eurozone are violating the rules, you could not expect… (countries such as) Greece to be compliant.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Hungary Has Highest Interest Rate in EU

Hungary’s central bank, Magyar Nemzeti Bank, has the EU’s highest interest benchmark rate at 7 percent. The rate has been at 7 percent for the past three months. The bank may refrain from cutting the rate due to a delay in obtaining an International Monetary Fund loan.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Italy: Monti Warns About Dangers of Spain

Rome, 26, March (AKI/Bloomberg) — Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Monti warned that Spain could reignite the European debt crisis as euro-area ministers this week prepare a deal to strengthen the region’s financial firewall.

Monti pointed to Spain’s struggle to control its finances ahead of a finance ministers meeting in Copenhagen starting on March 30, where officials will seek agreement to raise a 500 billion-euro ceiling on bailout funding.

“It doesn’t take much to recreate risks of contagion,” Monti said during the weekend at a conference in Cernobbio, Italy. Days after his Cabinet approved a bill to overhaul Italy’s labor laws, Monti praised Spain’s efforts to loosen work regulations while advising it to focus on cutting the national budget. Spain “hasn’t paid enough attention to its public accounts,” he said.

The euro crisis has eased after the European Central Bank last month boosted liquidity through three-year loans to banks, while European Union leaders this month sealed a second Greek bailout package. Still, signs of a deepening economic recession in the region and struggles to meet austerity goals have kept decision makers on alert, underscored by rising Spanish and Italian yields.

EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said he was confident ministers will resolve their differences on providing more bailout funding for the euro. Speaking yesterday to reporters in Saariselkae, Finland, Rehn said that officials “will take a convincing decision on the reinforcement of the firewalls.”

Euro-area leaders have established two bailout funds, the temporary European Financial Stability Facility and the permanent 500 billion-euro European Stability Mechanism, which is scheduled to begin operations this year. Under current rules, unused EFSF funds would be passed on to the ESM, though disbursement could not exceed the half-trillion limit.

Policy makers are discussing how to add to the funds, for example by allowing the EFSF and ESM to work concurrently to make more money available. Deploying unused sums from the temporary fund while allowing the ESM to operate at capacity would bring a total crisis backstop to 692 billion euros.

General Strike

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, have abandoned their opposition to combining the two funds, Der Spiegel reported yesterday, citing unnamed government officials. The two leaders have agreed that the EFSF and ESM may be “in operation” for a transitional period, the magazine reported.

The focus by policy makers and investors has shifted over recent weeks from Greece to Spain, where Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is struggling to reduce the country’s budget deficit in the face of a looming recession.

Rajoy faces his first general strike on March 29 as unions protest against changes to employment laws making it cheaper to fire workers and cut wages. Three months after coming to power, he is due to present the 2012 budget on March 30, which is designed to cut the deficit.

ECB Loans

Meanwhile, Rajoy failed to win an outright majority in elections for Spain’s most populous region, Andalusia, last night. Even though his People’s Party took more seats in the legislature than any other, it fell short of the 55 needed. The region has been controlled by the Socialists since Spain’s return to democracy in 1978

The conundrum for European leaders was underscored on March 22, when a report showed that euro-area services and manufacturing output contracted more than economists forecast. The drop in March on declining domestic demand added to signs that the region’s economy is sliding into recession.

Leaders struggling to resolve the crisis have been given some space by the ECB’s three-year loans to banks, made between December and February. Speaking at the seminar he hosted in Saariselkae, north of the Arctic Circle, Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen warned that crisis management “can’t be outsourced” to the region’s central bank.

“While more than a trillion euros is not exactly small change,” the ECB’s loans “have certainly not solved the euro area’s problems once and for all,” Joachim Fels, chief economist at Morgan Stanley, wrote in a note yesterday.

As he lauded Rajoy’s efforts to loosen rules on employee dismissals, Monti pushed a bill to overhaul Italy’s labor laws through Cabinet on March 23, facing down opposition from unions and political allies needed to pass the measure in parliament.

Illustrating the difficulties in establishing consensus for change, Pier Luigi Bersani, the head of the Democratic Party on whom Monti relies for backing in parliament, has said he will seek to get the law amended during debate. The CGIL, Italy’s biggest union, has called a general strike.

The Italian premier, in office since replacing Silvio Berlusconi in November, opted not to force through a decree that would have implemented the measures immediately.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

[Return to headlines]

Italy Blames Germany, France for Eurozone Debt Culture

Mario Monti believes ‘irresponsible’ former political leaders in Germany and France laid the foundation for the eurozone debt crisis. By setting a bad example, they weakened fiscal discipline, the Italian leader said.

The eurozone’s two biggest economies had not “abided” by the currency area’s deficit rules, thus setting a “bad example” for the rest of the continent, the Italian Prime Minister said Wednesday.

“The story goes back to 2003 and the still almost infant life of the euro,” Monti told reporters in Tokyo, where he is currently holding political talks with Japanese leaders.

Describing the deficit and debt policies of the two countries as “loose” at the time, he accused them of flouting the eurozone’s three percent annual budget deficit rule, and making efforts to get away with it.

“Despite recommendations, a meeting of ministers from European Union governments decided not to punish France and Germany for going beyond the deficit limit.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Italy: Six-Month Lending Rate Drops to Lowest Since Sept. 2010

Bonds rate drops to 1.119%

(ANSA) — Rome, March 28 — The interest rate on six-month Italian Treasury bonds dropped to its lowest since September 2010 at an auction on Wednesday.

The rate fell to 1.119% when the Treasury sold eight billion euros worth of six-month bonds, compared to 1.202% at the last such sale on February 27.

In November, when Mario Monti became premier after Silvio Berlusconi resigned with the debt crisis threatening to spiral out of control, the six-month lending rate was over 6%.

The spread between 10-year Italian bonds and their German equivalent, a key indicator of market confidence in Italy’s ability to weather the eurozone debt crisis, dropped back below 320 points in early trading Wednesday, to 318.7, with a yield of 5.10%

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Monti Chides Parties: Confident Labour Reform Will Pass

Move to make firing easier a ‘bitter pill to swallow’

(ANSA) — Tokyo, March 28 — Premier Mario Monti said on Wednesday that he was confident his government’s hotly contested reform of the labour market would be approved while chiding Italy’s political parties.

Monti, who took over the helm of an emergency government of non-political technocrats after Silvio Berlusconi resigned as premier in November, threatened to step down earlier this week if the “country is not ready” for his reforms.

The centre-left Democratic Party, one of the three main political groups backing Monti’s administration, and Italy’s biggest trade union CGIL are demanding changes to part of the package that would make it easier for firms to dismiss workers.

Monti said the package, which also features new benefits for people out of work, will boost productivity, growth and make it easier for young people and women to find jobs.

“Companies are afraid of hiring because it’s very difficult for them to dismiss (staff) even if they have economic reasons (to do so),” he told reporters in Tokyo.

The former European commissioner added that he was hopeful the package would be approved before the summer despite the opposition.

He said this confidence was based on the fact that controversial pension reforms that raised Italy’s retirement age to 67 were pushed through as part of an austerity package in December.

“A part of the reform has been accepted by everyone and that’s not strange as it’s the part that entails government spending,” Monti said.

“But there are also other parts of the reform, which we believe complete it and make it a good reform, which are a more bitter pill to swallow”.

Monti also took a little swipe at the country’s political parties, which were frequently furiously at odds with each other before the top mainstream groups decided to support his emergency government.

“We (the government) are enjoying high approval ratings in the polls, even though there has been a drop in recent days because of our labour measures, and the parties are not,” he said. “In part this is because we are a brief exception (to normality)”. Monti added that he believed Italy’s political life will be different when the parties start to run the country again after elections next year because of the experience of his government.

“I think things will be different because they (the parties) will be more aware that there is a demand for governance from the public, while the supply of governance was lacking in the past,” he said.

He also praised the parties, as well as Berlusconi, for standing aside to allow his administration to come to power when the debt crisis threatened to spiral out of control last year.

“It’s not easy to find a political system in which a prime minister who has not clearly been defeated in parliament resigns,” he said.

“The parties, who were belligerent in the past, have decided to (come together for) a period of national unity”.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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More Money for the Euro Rescue: Onward, To the Next Red Line!

The euro bailout funds will be enlarged, and Germany’s guarantees will rise further as a result. Once again, Berlin has exceeded its own self-imposed limit in crisis talks. Coalition members are grumbling, but seem to have lost the will to fight. Finance Minister Schäuble has promised this will be the last concession, but experience indicates otherwise.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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OECD Says Eurozone Needs to Double Bailout Fund

The head of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Angelo Gurria, said that the eurozone needs to double its bailout fund to €1 trillion. “The mother of all firewalls should be in place, strong enough, broad enough, deep enough, tall enough, just big,” Gurria said.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Russia: Bank Privatizations Risk Downgrades

The fulfillment of a proposal by President Dmitry Medvedev to reduce the state’s presence in the financial sector could hit the credit profile of Russia’s biggest banks, rating agency Fitch said Monday.

Given the current appetite for privatization, there is a “significant probability” that the state will cut its holdings in the country’s two largest banks — Sberbank and VTB — to below 50 percent over the next six years, Fitch analysts wrote in a report.

Medvedev ordered the Central Bank and the government last week to develop a proposal for turning their majority stakes in domestic banks to minority ones by Sept. 1.

But such privatizations “could reduce the potential for state support” and negatively impact the ratings of the affected banks, Fitch said.

Market leader Sberbank is 57.6 percent owned by the Central Bank. The government controls 75.5 percent of VTB and 100 percent of Rosselkhozbank.

Sberbank and VTB were the financial pillars of the Soviet Union and still enjoy significant state backing. Both received enormous support during the 2009 crisis, while last year VTB required a record state bailout of $14 billion following its takeover of Bank of Moscow.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

[Return to headlines]

Spain Budget Due Amid EU Pressure, Strikes

Spain’s conservative government unveils its 2012 budget on Friday, under pressure from European leaders fearful of financial contagion and growing protests by its own citizens.

Friday’s announcement by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy comes a day after a general strike — the first such action since he took power in December, in anger at reforms he says will create jobs and stabilise the public finances.

“It will be a very austere budget,” Rajoy warned on Tuesday, speaking in Seoul. “Last year we spent 90 billion euros more than we received. We cannot go on like that.”

The same day, eurozone finance ministers will be meeting in Copenhagen with a focus on Spain’s plans to rein in its public deficit to 5.3 percent of gross domestic product under a target Rajoy agreed to in Brussels this month.

“Everything indicates that Brussels is is going to be watching our economy very closely to see that these forecasts are met,” said Jose Antonio Herce, an analyst at Spanish consultancy AFI.

European leaders are concerned over Spain’s deficit, fearing it may become the biggest victim of a eurozone debt crisis that has already driven Greece, Ireland and Portugal to accept international bailouts.

The 2011 deficit figure was 8.5 percent of GDP, high above the 6.0 percent target. Rajoy tried to get away with a target of 5.8 percent this year, above the 4.4 percent demanded by the EU, before reaching the 5.3 percent compromise.

“While the revised fiscal target for 2012 is more realistic than the previous one, the government will still need to implement a substantial fiscal adjustment,” credit rater Moody’s warned.

It calculated that Spain will have to make a huge 41.5 billion euros ($55.5 billion) in budget cuts this year to meet the target, while other economists offer even higher estimates.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Spain Likely to Need Bailout This Year: Citi

Spain will likely need emergency help from international lenders this year to shore up its banks and public finances, a leading economist at major financial group Citi said on Wednesday. “Spain looks likely to enter some form of a troika programme this year” as a condition for the European Central Bank to keep supporting it by lending to it on favourable terms, Citi’s chief economist Willem Buiter said in a note.

The “troika” refers to the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, which jointly provided funds to Greece, Ireland and Portugal to save them from financial collapse. Tension on the financial markets that lend to Spain eased in recent months after the ECB provided massive liquidity but jitters have returned in past weeks.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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America: A Nation in Decline and Slowly Cracking Up

[WARNING: Graphic content.]

In Greece, thwarted entitlements have sent mobs of people into the streets where they started burning things. Many are laid off bureaucrats, captive of the entitlement ethos. I see that happening in this country eventually. Barring apocalyptic scenarios, I can envision these attacks of irrational violence increasing in number and severity, especially in cities, until the rest of us barricade ourselves indoors: de facto prisoners in our own homes and apartments as the U.S. slowly returns to a Hobbesian state of nature.

— Hat tip: JD

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Barack Obama: I Have a “Moral Obligation” To Neuter America

Barack Obama actually plans to do it. He actually plans to neuter America by unilaterally dismantling most of the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal. In fact, Barack Obama says that the United States has a “moral obligation” to disarm as we lead the way to “a world without nuclear weapons”.

Sadly, a “world without nuclear weapons” is a fantasy that will not be possible any time soon. Nuclear weapons technology is getting into more hands with each passing year, and geopolitical tensions are rising all over the globe. If the United States did not have nuclear weapons, anyone with just a handful of nukes would constitute a massive threat to our national security. An overwhelming strategic nuclear arsenal helps keep us safe because every other nation on the planet knows that it would be national suicide to attack us. If you take that overwhelming strategic nuclear arsenal away, the entire calculation changes.

Many out there claim that even if the U.S. only has a few hundred nuclear warheads that it will be more than enough to be an effective deterrent.

Sadly, that simply is not true.

If an enemy knows that we only have a few hundred warheads, and if they know exactly where those warheads are located for verification purposes, then a first strike which would take out the vast majority of our operational warheads becomes very plausible.

That is why what Obama wants to do is so incredibly dangerous. If he reduces our strategic nuclear arsenal down to almost nothing, the odds of a nuclear first strike against the United States someday go up dramatically.

[…]

Meanwhile, Russia and China are taking an approach that is 180 degrees in the other direction.

Russia has already been spending big money modernizing and updating the Russian military.

— Hat tip: JD

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Freedom and Understanding P.E.R.S.

Thomas Jefferson: “the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”

John Kennedy: “the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.”

The problem with understanding PERS (Public Employees Retirement System) is that it requires an immense background of information in history, economics, finance, markets, law, religion, human nature, ethics, and from this, a historical perspective. This idea was thoroughly discussed in Cultural Literacy by E.D. Hirsch, Jr. in 1987, which is even more applicable in today’s culture than it was at that time. “American School Materials from 1790 — 1900 were in almost complete unanimity in values and emphasis in textbooks. They consistently contrasted virtuous and natural Americans with corrupt and decadent Europeans; they unanimously stressed love of country, love of God, obedience to parents, thrift, honesty, and hard work; they continually insisted on the perfection of the United States, the guardian of liberty and the destined redeemer of a sinful Europe.” But today, many in our society are illiterate. In fact, according to NAAL 43% of the people can’t read and only 13% of adults are considered proficient. It brings to mind F.A. Hayek: “It takes a large group of ignorant (illiterate), gullible, and docile people to move from Freedom to Socialism.”[1]

PERS in Economic History is a Financial Fraud and a Swindling Scheme. The new alchemist is the actuary: the wizard of numbers, which he manipulates to present a misleading future. Moreover, his current algorithms are not working as the cost of PERS payroll is going up another 6% in 2013. This can be easily proven especially under the definition by Jefferson. PERS does not need reform it needs to be shut down and liquidated. We are now in a condition that we either liquidate PERS or the citizens, their property, and their families will be liquidated. That is what history tells us. PERS is not new: it is a history repeat.

— Hat tip: JD

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Senator: Supreme Court Would Allow ‘An All Powerful Government’ By Upholding Obamacare

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona told The Daily Caller that the Supreme Court would be allowing an “all powerful government” over the people if it upholds the individual mandate in the health care law. Kyl said the court must “draw a line” in terms of whether or not the federal government can force individuals to purchase a good or service.

— Hat tip: JD

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Stakelbeck on Terror Show Featuring Rep. Michele Bachmann

On this week’s episode of the Stakelbeck on Terror show, we examine disturbing new details about the Iran/Hezbollah network on American soil.

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann also joins us to discuss Iran, Israel, the Muslim Brotherhood and much more.

Click the link above to watch.

— Hat tip: Erick Stakelbeck

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The EPA Wrecking Ball

We are witnessing the destruction of the nation by the environmental movement and the EPA has just provided you with the most dramatic example of that plan.

The Environmental Protection Agency is using its power to advance the objective of the environmental movement to deny Americans access to the energy that sustains the nation’s economy and is using the greatest hoax ever perpetrated, global warming—now called “climate change”—to achieve that goal.

“This standard isn’t the once-and-for-all solution to our environmental challenge,” said Lisa Jackson, the EPA administrator, “but it is an important commonsense step toward tackling the ongoing and very real threat of climate change and protecting the future for generations to come. It will enhance the lives of our children and our children’s children.”

This is a boldfaced lie. Its newest rule is based on the debasement of science that is characterized and embodied in the global warming hoax. It will deprive America of the energy it requires to function.

— Hat tip: JD

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“Anders Breivik is Not Crazy” — The Surprise Defense of Norway’s Mass Killer

Interview: Anders Breivik is unlike any client attorney Geir Lippestad has ever had — and not just because of the ghastly number of murders he’s accused of. As Lippestad tells Le Monde, Breivik admits to killing 77 mostly young Norwegians and expects to be held accountable.

LE MONDE/Worldcrunch | Mar 27, 2012

By Olivier Truc

OSLO — Geir Lippestad will definitely cause some controversy with the approach he plans to take in the upcoming trial of Anders Breivik, Norway’s infamous extreme-right terrorist. For starters, Lippestad, Breivik’s defense attorney, intends to place Mullah Krekar — an Islamist extremist from Kurdish Iraq who has been living in Norway since 1991— on the witness stand.

In an interview with Le Monde, Lippestad outlined his strategy for this exceptional trial, which is scheduled to begin April 16, less than eight months after the double attack on July 22, 2011, in which 77 people died. The majority of the victims were attending a summer camp hosted by the youth wing of the governing Social Democratic party.

This trial has seriously challenged Lippestad’s beliefs as both a support of the Social Democrats and a father of eight children. “I feel I have lost my soul in this case,” he said. “I hope to get it back once all this is over, and that it will be in the same state as before.”

Unlike all of Lippestad’s previous clients, Anders Breivik is not afraid of being found guilty. The possibility of receiving Norway’s maximum penalty (21 years in prison) doesn’t scare him — on the contrary, he wants it.

“This trial is unique, just like the dreadful acts that will be judged,” said Lippestad. “We have to think differently. In the majority of trials, you have a defendant who denies the facts or who says he didn’t intend to do what he did. Here you have someone who recognizes the facts, who takes responsibility for them, and who says he would do the same thing again if the opportunity arose.”

“He doesn’t intend to run away from his responsibilities,” the attorney added. “Quite the opposite, he wants to be found sane and accountable [for his actions].”

Not so paranoid after all

Lippestad initially based his defense on his client’s poor mental health. The first two psychiatrists who examined Breivik declared him insane. But in the end, the lawyer decided to follow his client’s wishes.

The idea that Breivik could be declared not criminally responsible and therefore escape a prison sentence had distressed a large part of the Norwegian population. A second team of psychiatrists has been appointed to evaluate him. They are expected to present their conclusions on April 10. Even if these psychiatrists confirm the first team’s findings, Breivik’s lawyer won’t change anything about his client’s defense.

“It is about showing that his beliefs and way of thinking are common,” said Lippestad. “He is not as unique, as paranoid or schizophrenic as the experts say.”

Lippestad is counting on exposing discrepancies in the expert opinions. “What we see is that there is a gap between what the human sciences say on extremism, and what doctors and psychiatrists know.” In Lippestad’s opinion, many of those who share Breivik’s ideas are classified as extremists, not psychotic. Why, therefore, should he be considered insane?

“We will place people from extremist backgrounds on the witness stand to explain their thought process in order to establish that there are others who, without going as far as to commit the crime, share the same ideology and way of thinking,” said Lippestad. “What we want to show is that we are dealing with an ideology and that he is not the only person to stand behind [those beliefs]; that he is not a psychotic living in a separate world.”

A controversial star witness

By summoning Mullah Krekar to testify —potentially alongside other Islamists— Lippestad wants to show that “Islamists also believe that Europe is the setting for a war of religion and that it is not just a delusion that Breivik has imagined.”

Krekar, real name Faraj Ahmad Najmuddin and often called the “most controversial refugee in Norway,” used to be the leader of Ansar Al-Islam, a small Islamist group from Iraqi Kurdistan that carried out several attacks there. In a book published in Norway in 2004, Krekar admitted to having met Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan in about 1990 in the hope of receiving some financial help for his guerrilla group. He left the meeting empty handed.

The lawyer intends to place the Norwegian blogger “Fjordman,” believed to be Breivik’s main inspiration, on the witness stand as well. Breivik cites Fjordman in his 1,500-page manifesto, which he distributed on the Internet just before the attacks.

It is Breivik himself who is orchestrating the strategy defended by Lippestad. While waiting for his trial, he is doing lots of exercise. He also has access to a work cell equipped with a computer. “He doesn’t have Internet access, but he can write, and he is preparing a speech that he intends to read during the trial,” said Lippestad.

The defendant receives letters, watches television and reads the newspapers. “He writes letters to five or six people whom he considers to be his ideological brothers and sisters, in Norway and abroad,” the attorney explained.

“His motivation for carrying out these monstrosities was to distribute his manifesto,” Lippestad added. “Breivik believes that the revolution will start in France or England because, according to him, multiculturalism is very conflicting there.”

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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Belfast Commemorates Titanic: Disaster Ship Remembered in City That Built it

A striking new museum opens this week in Belfast, the birthplace of the ill-fated Titanic luxury ship. Opening a century after the cruise ship slammed into an iceberg, killing 1,500, the exhibition recalls a tragedy which was long taboo in Northern Ireland’s former industrial hub.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Berlusconi Friend, Employee Probed After Swiss Bank Rejected His Millions

Rome, 27 March (AKI) — A close friend and employee of Italian media tycoon and politician Silvio Berlusconi is being investigated by tax police for his alleged unsuccessful effort to deposit 2.5 million euros in an offshore bank account just across the Italian boarder in Switzerland.

Emilio Fede, news anchor for Berlusconi’s Rete 4 television network, in late December was told by a bank employee in Lugano, Switzerland that he couldn’t deposit the cash, according to the Corriere della Sera newspaper. The bank contacted Italian tax authorities in January, the report said.

Fede told Adnkronos that he is the victim of a plot make him lose his job anchoring the news.

Fede is already defending himself in a trial for allegedly supplying escorts to erotic parties held at the Berlusconi’s residence. His legal troubles may be the reason the bank rejected his cash, Corriere speculated.

“It’s not possible that with the problems I already have I would have gone around Switzerland with a briefcase full of cash,” he said.

The Italian government has declared a war on tax evaders in its effort to reduce its 1.9 trillion-euro debt. Billionaire Berlusconi was considered soft on tax cheats, declaring multiple amnesties that required the payment of only 5 percent of the sum to the government.

Still. Berlusconi declared his own war on tax evasion for those who failed to take advantage of his leniency. As part of his effort, tax police would commonly intimidate Italians travelling to Lugano by searching cars at the border or writing down license plate numbers.

Fede doesn’t hide his affection for Berlusconi on air or in his personal life. The 81-year-old anchorman and author of about 10 books published by a Berlusconi company is a fixture in the divisive politician’s social circle.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Brussels Airlines Threatens to Leave Belgium: Report

(BRUSSELS) — Brussels Airlines, Belgium’s biggest carrier, threatened to relocate if the government did not offer tax breaks to help it compete against Ireland’s low cost giant Ryanair, De Morgen daily reported on Wednesday.

“Ideally, we’d like to stay in Belgium, but this can’t go on,” Brussels Airlines chief executive Bernard Gustin told officials according to the paper.

“If you are not ready to do something against the distortion in competition, we’ll go looking for another headquarters,” he told the officials.

The paper reported that the carrier, a spin-off of the now defunct Sabena Airlines, was exploring a move to Luxembourg or Ireland, destinations that offered fiscal advantages to employees, notably pilots.

The paper added that the request met with reluctance by the government of Prime Minister Elio di Rupo who is resisting tax breaks to individual companies while the country struggles to implement austerity reforms.

Brussels Airlines, in which Germany’s Lufthansa holds a 45-percent stake, employs 3,300 people and operates 300 flights a day to 70 destinations from its hub at Brussels airport.

Ryanair uses a regional base in Charleroi, 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the Belgian capital.

Last week the European Commission said it had extended the scope of an investigation opened in December 2002 into advantages granted Ryanair when it set up operations at Charleroi.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Don’t be Fooled. Europe’s Far-Right Racists Are Not Discerning — Opportunistic Words of Love for Jews and Israel Cannot Disguise the European Far Right’s Toxic Rhetoric of Hatred

Anne Karpf

On Saturday, in the Danish city of Aarhus, a Europe-wide rally organised by the English Defence League will try to set up a European anti-Muslim movement. For Europe’s far-right parties the rally, coming so soon after the murders in south-west France by a self-professed al-Qaida-following Muslim, marks a moment rich with potential political capital.

Yet it’s also a delicate one, especially for Marine Le Pen. Well before the killings, Le Pen was assiduously courting Jews, even while her father and founder of the National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was last month convicted of contesting crimes against humanity for saying that the Nazi occupation of France “wasn’t particularly inhumane”. Marine must disassociate herself from such sentiments without repudiating her father personally or alienating his supporters. To do so she’s laced her oft-expressed Islamophobia (parts of France, she’s said, are suffering a kind of Muslim “occupation”) with a newfound “philozionism” (love of Zionism), which has extended even to hobnobbing with Israel’s UN ambassador.

Almost all European far-right parties have come up with the same toxic cocktail. The Dutch MP Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-immigrant Freedom party, has compared the Qur’an to Mein Kampf. In Tel Aviv in 2010, he declared that “Islam threatens not only Israel, Islam threatens the whole world. If Jerusalem falls today, Athens and Rome, Amsterdam and Paris will fall tomorrow.”

Meanwhile Filip Dewinter, leader of Belgium’s Vlaams Belang party, which grew out of the Vlaams Blok Flemish nationalist party, many of whose members collaborated with the Nazis during the second world war, has proposed a quota on the number of young Belgian-born Muslims allowed in public swimming pools. Dewinter calls Judaism “a pillar of European society”, yet associates with antisemites, while claiming that “multi-culture … like Aids weakens the resistance of the European body”, and “Islamophobia is a duty”.

But the most rabidly Islamophobic European philozionist is Heinz-Christian Strache, head of the Austrian Freedom party, who compared foreigners to harmful insects and consorts with neo-Nazis. And yet where do we find Strache in December 2010? In Jerusalem alongside Dewinter, supporting Israel’s right to defend itself.

In Scandinavia the anti-immigrant Danish People’s party is a vocal supporter of Israel. And Siv Jensen, leader of the Norwegian Progress party and staunch supporter of Israel, has warned of the stealthy Islamicisation of Norway.

In Britain EDL leader Tommy Robinson, in his first public speech, sported a star of David. At anti-immigrant rallies, EDL banners read: “There is no place for Fascist Islamic Jew Haters in England”.

So has the Jew, that fabled rootless cosmopolitan, now suddenly become the embodiment of European culture, the “us” against which the Muslim can be cast as “them”? It’s not so simple. For a start, “traditional” antisemitism hasn’t exactly evaporated. Look at Hungary, whose ultra-nationalist Jobbik party is unapologetically Holocaust-denying, or Lithuania, where revisionist MPs claim that the Jews were as responsible as the Nazis for the second world war.

What’s more, the “philosemite”, who professes to love Jews and attributes superior intelligence and culture to them, is often (though not always) another incarnation of the antisemite, who projects negative qualities on to them: both see “the Jew” as a unified racial category. Beneath the admiring surface, philozionism isn’t really an appreciation of Jewish culture but rather the opportunistic endorsement of Israeli nationalism and power.

Indeed you can blithely sign up to both antisemitism and philozionism. Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik described himself as “pro-Zionist” while claiming that Europe has a “considerable Jewish problem”; he saw himself as simultaneously anti-Nazi and pro-monoculturalism. The British National party’s Nick Griffin once called the Holocaust the “Holohoax”, subsequently supported Israel in its war “against the terrorists”, but the day after the Oslo murders tweeted disparagingly that Breivik was a “Zionist”.

Most Jews, apart from the Israeli right wing, aren’t fooled. They see the whole iconography of Nazism — vermin and foreign bodies, infectious diseases and alien values — pressed into service once again, but this time directed at Muslims. They understand that “my enemy’s enemy” can easily mutate into “with friends like these ….”.

The philozionism of European nationalist parties has been scrutinised most closely by Adar Primor, the foreign editor of Haaretz newspaper, who insists that “they have not genuinely cast off their spiritual DNA, and … aren’t looking for anything except for Jewish absolution that will bring them closer to political power.”

Similarly Dave Rich, spokesman of the Community Security Trust (CST), which monitors antisemitic incidents in Britain, told me that far-right philosemites “must think we’re pretty stupid if they think we’ll get taken in by that. The moment their perceived political gain disappears they revert to type. We completely reject their idea that they hate Muslims so they like Jews. What targets one community at one time can very easily move on to target another community if the climate changes.” Rich’s words, spoken before the murder of Jews in Toulouse, now sound chillingly prescient. The president of the French Jewish community, Richard Pasquier, judges Marine Le Pen more dangerous than her father.

French Muslim leaders rallied round Jewish communities last week. Next week sees the start of Passover, a festival celebrating the liberation of Jews from slavery in Egypt, when Jews often think about modern examples of oppression. Let’s hope that French Jewish leaders use the occasion to rally round Muslim communities, and to remember that ultimately, racism is indiscriminate.

— Hat tip: TV

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EU Announces Proposed Cybercrime Center

The European Union has announced a proposal that would see the creation of a Cybercrime Center aimed at fighting online criminals and protecting consumers online.

In effort to combat online crime and protect consumers from becoming victims of cyber crime, the European Union proposed a new center that would fight against cyber-threats.

A statement from the European Commission on Wednesday said that the center would focus on illegal online activities carried out by organized crime groups, such as online credit card fraud. The cyber crime center would also help protect users of social network profiles by fighting online identity theft.

“Millions of Europeans use the Internet for home banking, online shopping and planning holidays, or to stay in touch with family and friends via online social networks. But as the online part of our everyday lives grows, organised crime is following suit — and these crimes affect each and every one of us,” said Cecilia Malmstrom, European Commissioner for Home Affairs.

The center would be established within the European Police Office (Europol) in The Hague. The proposal would need to be adopted by Europol’s budgetary authority before the cyber crime center can be established.

According to the European Commission, more than one million people become victims of cyber crime daily, with the costs of those crimes expected to rise to $388 billion (291 billion euros).

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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EU Diplomats’ Generous Holiday Schemes Raise Eyebrows

Diplomats working in the EU foreign service are entitled to almost 17 weeks holiday a year, the Daily Telegraph reports. German conservative MEP Ingeborg Graessle suggests changing the staff regulation, meaning annual leave and flexitime for EU diplomats may not exceed 49 days, a reduction of seven weeks

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Finland: Dispute Brews Over Who Qualifies as Sámi

People excluded from voting in Sámi Parliament election call for broader definition of ethnicity

A big dispute is brewing in Finnish Lapland over who can properly be considered a Sámi — a member of the indigenous Lapp population. Many of those who have been excluded from official Sámi status by being left off the electoral rolls of the Sámi Parliament feel that the present definition is too restrictive and discriminatory. The electoral rolls are approved by a five-member electoral board of the Sámi Parliament. Applications for the roll are accepted once every four years in connection with the elections to the Sámi Parliament.

“The actions of the electoral board amount to discrimination”, says researcher Erika Sarivaara, who is writing a doctoral thesis on the Sámi at the Kautokeino Sámi University College in the north of Norway. Sarivaara was part of a delegation that visited Helsinki last week to discuss the matter with Finnish Members of Parliament and representatives of government ministries. Members of the group have tried to be included in the electoral roll of the Sámi Parliament, but their applications were not accepted.

The law on the Sámi Parliament defines a Sámi as someone who speaks the Sámi language, or whose ancestors were Sámi under certain criteria. “The definition and its interpretation can be considered obsolete, because it is based on information that is antiquated from a legal and social science standpoint”, Sarivaara says. “Being a Sámi is very much a question of identity. Many consider themselves Sámi with good reason, but the use of the language in the family came to a halt at some point for reasons such as the efforts of the state to impose Finnish identity on the Sámi.”

“As there seem to be some economic advantages to the Sámi identity, the electoral board apparently wants to keep the number of Sámi as low as possible. Our concern, meanwhile, is how to keep the Sámi identity alive”, Sarivaara says.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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France: Hippies Head for Noah’s Ark: Queue Here for Rescue Aboard Alien Spaceship

Thousands of New Agers descend on mountain they see as haven from December’s apocalypse

A mountain looming over a French commune with a population of just 200 is being touted as a modern Noah’s Ark when doomsday arrives — supposedly less than nine months from now.

A rapidly increasing stream of New Age believers — or esoterics, as locals call them — have descended in their camper van-loads on the usually picturesque and tranquil Pyrenean village of Bugarach. They believe that when apocalypse strikes on 21 December this year, the aliens waiting in their spacecraft inside Pic de Bugarach will save all the humans near by and beam them off to the next age.

As the cataclysmic date — which, according to eschatological beliefs and predicted astrological alignments, concludes a 5,125-year cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar — nears, the goings-on around the peak have become more bizarre and ritualistic.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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France: Toulouse School Getting Hate Mail Since Attack

The Jewish school in France where a gunman killed three children and a teacher has received a rash of anti-Semitic hate mail and phone calls since the attack.

The Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse complained to the local prosecutor about the harassing mail and phone calls, the French news agency AFP reported.

Toulouse terrorist’s father plans to sue France

Prosecutor Michel Valet said Wednesday that he had ordered a police investigation into the incidents.

The school’s e-mail system reportedly filled up with messages calling for the murder of Jews and linking the attack to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to AFP.

The gunman, Mohammed Merah, who was killed by police after a 30-hour siege, told French police that he killed the Jewish students at the school in revenge for Palestinian children killed in Gaza, and had killed three French soldiers the previous week for serving in Afghanistan.

Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, 30, and his two young sons, as well as the 8-year-old daughter of the school’s principal, were killed in the March 21 attack.

It was also reported Wednesday that Merah would be buried in Algeria at the request of his father.

— Hat tip: Steen

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French Scientist in Terror Trial

A Franco-Algerian nuclear scientist goes on trial on Thursday for allegedly plotting terror attacks in France, where an Islamist’s killing spree has already overshadowed the presidential campaign.

A week after police shot dead Franco-Algerian Mohamed Merah for killing seven people in and around Toulouse, Adlene Hicheur goes on trial charged with criminal association as part of a terrorist enterprise.

French police arrested Hicheur, a researcher studying the universe’s birth — the Big Bang — at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), in October 2009 after intercepting emails he wrote.

Following his arrest at his parents’ home near CERN, which lies on the Franco-Swiss border northwest of Geneva, police discovered a trove of al-Qaeda and Islamic militant literature.

France’s DCRI domestic intelligence agency’s suspicions were raised following a statement from al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) that was sent to President Nicolas Sarkozy’s Elysee Palace in early 2008.

Police carried out surveillance on several email accounts including Hicheur’s and his exchanges with Mustapha Debchi, an alleged AQIM representative living in Algeria.

On March 1, 2009, Hicheur wrote an email to Debchi saying he would ‘propose … possible objectives in Europe and particularly in France’.

On March 10, he continued: ‘Concerning the matter of objectives, they differ depending on the different results sought after the hits. For example: if it’s about punishing the state because of its military activities in Muslim countries — Afghanistan — then it should be a purely military objective. For example: the air base at Karan Jefrier near Annecy in France. This base trains troops and sends them to Afghanistan.’

Hicheur was referring to a French military base at Cran-Gevrier, close to CERN.

In June 2009, Debchi asked Hicheur: ‘Don’t beat around the bush: are you prepared to work in a unit becoming active in France?’

Hicheur replied on June 6: ‘Concerning your proposal, the answer is of course YES but there are a few observations: … if your proposal relates to a precise strategy — such as working in the heart of the main enemy’s house and emptying its blood of strength — then I should revise the plan that I’ve prepared.’

Magistrates investigating the case said the exchanges ‘crossed the line of simple debate of political or religious ideas to enter the sphere of terrorist violence’.

They say the accused ‘knowingly agreed with Mustapha Debchi to set up an operational cell ready to carry out terrorist acts in Europe and in France’.

Ever since he was jailed pending trial two-and-a-half years ago, Hicheur has said he never agreed to ‘anything concrete’.

‘There is not the least proof of a beginning of a (terrorist) intention,’ said Hicheur’s lawyer, Patrick Baudouin.

The lawyer slammed what he called ‘the steamroller of anti-terrorist justice’.

‘He has since the beginning been painted as the ideal guilty party,’ Baudouin said. ‘When the justice system gets going it finds it difficult to admit its mistakes.’

If found guilty, Hicheur could be sentenced to 10 years in prison.

— Hat tip: Nick

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French Reveal Loathing for ‘Violent’ Suburban Youth

Nearly 60 percent of the French say they distrust youth from the ‘banlieues’, France’s impoverished, immigrant-dominated suburbs, according to a new survey that has laid bare the country’s divisions. “The results are extremely worrying,” Thibault Renaudin, national secretary of Afev, the youth organisation which published the poll, told The Local.

“Youths from the banlieues already suffer from discrimination, unemployment, and this suspicion just adds their difficulties.” A poll conducted by Afev shows that while 75 percent of the French have a positive opinion of young people, 57 percent have a negative opinion of youths from improverished suburbs.

Banlieue youths are thought to break the rules, slip into petty crime and are viewed as violent and agressive. Renaudin says French authorities and the media are partly responsible for this negative image. “These youths only get attention when problems of security are addressed,” says Renaudin, “but they also do good work that needs to be promoted.”

The poll also reveals older generations have failed to give youths decent opportunities. “The very independent generation from the 70s struggles to make room for these youths that have been hard hit by 20 years of crisis.” 76 percent of the French are aware that youths don’t have the same opportunities as their elders.

Renaudin says the poll also reveals French racial divisions, given that many banlieue youths are from immigrant backgrounds. “They are always reduced to their origins, multiple, different and dangerous.” “If your name is Mohamed and you come from the banlieues, it’s very difficult to find a flat in Paris,” he says. “And that’s unacceptable in a powerful country like France.”

The organisation Afev says youths are misunderstood, have been ignored and suffer from a lack of attention. “They feel neglected, like orphans, and feel they don’t have a role to play in society.”

Afev also says France should be inspired by initiatives in Scandinavian countries and give pupils and students from the banlieues a second chance. “That’s the problem with France’s elitist system, if you don’t fall into the mould, you’re out for good,” says Renaudin, adding that children who drop out at age 12 aren’t given second chances in school.

In the run-up to elections next month, presidential hopeful Socialist Francois Hollande has focused on youth initiatives, a “positive move”, says Renaudin. “But we don’t need any more promises, we’ve had that, now we need action.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Fringe Parties Set to Score Well in Greek Elections

In upcoming Greek elections, expected in April or May, radical opposition groups may scoop half of the votes, according to recent opinion polls, WSJ reports. The two largest parties, New Democracy and Pasok, may form a bipartisan coalition, but can only expect combined support of 35-40 percent in the elections.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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‘Geert Wilders’ Anti-Pole Website Crashes After Polish TV Satire’

The website set up by the anti-immigration PVV to collect complaints about central and eastern European workers, crashed for a time on Tuesday evening after a Polish satirical television show called on viewers to leave a reaction, according to the AD.

The show featured presenter Szymon Majewski interviewing himself made up as Wilders in a blonde wig and posing against a backdrop of sheep and a windmill.

‘I do not hate Poles who work in the Netherlands. I hate all Poles,’ the fake Wilders says.

According to Radio Netherlands, another clip from the show features a Chinese man telling his audience that all foreigners, even Dutch, are welcome in Poland. ‘Poles are friendly and helpful. All the ugly, nasty, greedy Poles are over in the Netherlands,’ he says.

Access blocked

According to the AD, the PVV’s website is no longer accessible to Polish internet users. PVV parliamentarian Ino van den Besselaar refused to say if steps had been taken to keep people with a Polish internet address from making a comment.

On Tuesday evening, MPs voted by a large margin to distance themselves from the website, which has been condemned by ambassadors, European commissioners and employers’ leaders.

The motion to condemn the website was not supported by the PVV, the ruling right-wing Liberals (VVD) and the fundamentalist Christian SGP. Hero Brinkman, who left the PVV last week, voted in favour.

Prime minister Mark Rutte has repeatedly refused to distance himself from the motion, arguing it is a matter for the PVV alone. D66 leader Alexander Pechtold has asked the prime minister to explain how he intends to put the motion into practice.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Germany: Anti-Nazi Groups Struggle to Find Funding

While Germany tentatively prepares a bid to ban the far-right NPD party, anti-racism groups complain that they are chronically underfunded and sometimes even face obstruction from the authorities. They say their fight to stop young people from becoming extremists is more important than getting rid of the NPD.

German authorities are gradually preparing a legal bid to ban the far-right National Democratic Party and have announced the arrest of dozens of fugitive neo-Nazis this year following bitter criticism of their failure to stop the so-called Zwickau cell of terrorists from murdering and bombing immigrants. But human rights campaigners, politicians and researchers say the government is neglecting crucial work being done to combat xenophobia in regions where right-wing extremism is rife. Anti-racism groups complain that they face a constant struggle to obtain funding. For example, anti-Nazi activists in the Sächsische Schweiz (“Saxon Switzerland”) region south of Dresden have been organizing lectures and training courses and setting up exhibitions and youth exchanges with young people from Poland. Such projects usually get only temporary financing. Once the funding expires, the work stops, forcing the staff to claim unemployment benefits. The same is true of similar projects across the country. “It takes years before local authorities even start taking you seriously,” says political scientist Dierk Borstel, who works on pro-democracy projects in the northeastern region of Mecklenberg-Western Pomerania, where support for the NPD is particularly strong partly because established parties have given up trying to woo voters there. The region has been neglected since unification in 1990, argues Borstel.

Government Hampering Efforts

A further problem is that civil society groups are often themselves accused of being left-wing extremists. For example, last year German Family Affairs Minister Kristina Schröder introduced a so-called extremism clause stating that all projects seeking federal government funding must pledge that they and all the organizations and people they work with will support the German democratic constitution. Opposition parties and project leaders have criticized this clause because it forces groups to vet the people they work with to make sure they have a sound ideology. Bianca Klose, who runs an information center for combating racism in Berlin, says the clause obstructs her efforts. Her office works with local authorities, schools and youth clubs, and runs projects in inner city areas aimed at curbing the influence of neo-Nazis on young people. The group didn’t sign the clause, which means it has no access to federal funding. “If the city of Berlin hadn’t gotten involved and provided much of the missing funds, the project would have been over after 10 years of successful work ,” says Klose. The funding for 2012 is unclear and the group is waiting for confirmation that it will get money from the city again — even though more than 1,000 crimes were committed by right-wing extremists in Berlin alone last year.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

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Germany: Victim Slams Court’s Racial Spot-Check Ruling

The young black German whose refusal to show police his ID led to a court ruling that cops could use skin colour as a criteria for spot-checks, says he will fight the case all the way.

Speaking to The Local, the 25-year-old student said he was disappointed by the verdict which has provoked a storm of outrage. One human rights lawyer called for the judge to be dismissed, while his own lawyer says he will take the case to the Constitutional Court if necessary.

“I don’t want to believe it — that my country now supports this, it is terrible,” the student said. “The police have been told they can do this — no-one is thinking of the person getting hurt. I just wish every kind of racism would stop; it is horrid how people are treated by those who think they are lesser.”

The student, who asked not to be identified, said he often took the train from Kassel, where he studies, to visit family in Frankfurt. “Over the last three years I have been asked for my identification about 15 times on that train,” he said. “It was making me sick.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Half of Adult Romanians Have Not Used a Computer

Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office, released a study that shows only 50 percent of Romanians aged between 16 to 74 used a computer in 2011. In Bulgaria, it is 55 percent and in Greece it is 59 percent. Over 90 percent used computers in Sweden, Denmark, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Hungary Amends Justice Law After EU Threats

(BUDAPEST) — Hungary’s government submitted Tuesday an amendment to its controversial new law on the judiciary after the European Commission threatened legal action.

On March 7, the European executive had given Hungary one month to bring two controversial laws — on its judicial system and its data protection authority — in line with EU principles or face court action.

It said Budapest’s bid to secure 15-20 billion euros from the International Monetary Fund and the European Union would depend on Hungary proving its commitment to democratic principles enshrined in EU treaties.

“We must expand oversight over the work of the president of the National Judicial Office,” Robert Repassy, a deputy of the ruling centre-right Fidesz party, said Tuesday during the parliamentary debate following the proposal.

“The main goal of the amendment is to broaden oversight of the NJO, in line with the proposals from the Venice Commission and the national judges’ association,” he said.

Last week, the Venice Commission, an advisory body of the Council of Europe, slammed Hungary for handing sweeping powers to the president of the newly-established NJO, a close family friend of Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

The newly created post has a mandate of nine years.

Rights groups and the opposition had spoken out against Tunde Hando’s nomination in December as the head of the NJO.

The Council of Europe’s secretary-general Thorbjorn Jagland also criticised that in the judiciary and in the media in Hungary, “too much power is given to a body or a person which is not accountable to anybody.”

Following the EU’s threats of legal action, Budapest submitted an amendment to its law on the data protection agency on March 9.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Hunt for Skilled Labor: Germany Woos Portugal’s Lost Generation

The crisis-hit nations of southern Europe have one booming industry left — their skilled workers are in high demand in Germany, which has a chronic shortage of qualified labor. German employers in search of nurses and engineers have launched a recruitment drive in Portugal, where over a third of young people are unemployed.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Italy: Monti Government Collected 13 Billion Euros Since November

(AGI) Rome- During the four months of Mario Monti’s government the Italian State has collected 13 billion euros more in taxes.

The announcement was made by Cabinet undersecretary Antonio Catricala’ on the evening television program Ballaro’.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Italy: Big Parties Reach Agreement on Electoral Reform, MP Cull

Lawmakers likely to be cut by almost 200

(ANSA) — Rome, March 27 — Italy’s biggest political parties agreed on Tuesday to an outline to reform the country’s much criticised electoral system and cut the number of parliamentarians on Tuesday.

The number of lawmakers looks set to fall by almost 200 following Tuesday’s meeting of the leaders of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right People of Freedom (PdL) party, the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and a coalition of centrist parties called the Third Pole.

If the draft agreed on Tuesday is approved, the number of Senators will go down to 250 from 315 and the number of MPs in the Lower House will drop from 630 to 500.

The leaders of the three main parties supporting Mario Monti’s emergency administration also consolidated the common ground they had already found on a new electoral law, which they hope to have in place before next year’s general elections. The new law would give voters more scope to choose which candidates they want from the party lists.

The current law has been widely criticised for distancing politicians from voters, who effectively cannot pick their representatives, as party leaders have the power to name candidates on so-called ‘blocked lists’, which are then voted on.

As a result, candidates do not need to champion the concerns of constituents so much but they do need to lobby within their parties to get high enough on the lists to be elected. The new law will also remove the obligation for parties to decide which other groups they want to ally with before elections and feature a threshold under which only parties polling more than 4% or 5% have representatives in parliament. “This is an act of great importance,” said Pier Ferdinando Casini, the leader of the centrist UDC that is part of the Third Pole.

“The world of politics was asked to act (to cuts costs and reform in the light of the economic crisis) and we did it.

“We’ve managed to go from words to deeds”. PD chief Pier Luigi Bersani said he would meet with Casini and PdL head Angelino Alfano again next week for more talks on the reforms.

But Casini said at a press conference held together with PD and PdL representatives that the reforms should start going under scrutiny in parliament within two weeks. “We’ll be quick,” said Ignazio La Russa, a former defence minister and senior member of the PdL.

“There is already a text on the reforms. We could start tomorrow”.

Italian President Giorgio Napolitano praised the three main parties on the agreement.

But some politicians belonging to parties that do not support Monti’s government were unhappy.

“It’s an electoral fraud, more or less,” said Massimo Donadi of the anti-graft Italy of Values party.

Italy’s next general election is scheduled for spring 2013.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Refuse: Clini: Powers to Commissioner for New Sites in Rome

(AGI) Rome — Clini said more powers would go to the commissioner for the emergency in Rome who will find new landfill sites. These sites will come in addition to the seven refuse landfills listed by the Region and on which issues have emerged. Environment minister Corrado Clini explained the situation after a technical meeting on the issue of waste in the capital. Speaking to journalists, Clini explained, “The Malagrotta landfill must be closed by the end of the year. We have asked the province of Rome to work with us to identify sites for temporary landfills, in addition to the seven sites already chosen, on which problems have emerged. Prefect Pecoraro will have a broader mandate to explore other sites to take less than the total amount of treated waste.” The minister of the environment also launched the Plan for Rome, which requires the signing by 30 April 2012 of an operational agreement between the City of Rome, the Province of Rome, Lazio Region and the companies running TMB plants, facilities for the preparation of compost and energy recovery plants across the country. .

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Italy: PM Monti on Labor ‘I Have the Consensus, Reform to be Done’

(AGI) Rome — PM Monti had said yesterday, “I don’t want to just scrape by.” Today he added that his government had the consensus, and some others (read: the political parties) no.

That is to say, he is not the one just scraping by, the others are. Mario Monti’s visit the the Far East continues, as does that which is taking on the appearance of a long distance duel, not only with the parties (which, in reality, support him) but with politics in general. The opinion polls show a drop? “This government has a high consensus in the surveys,” he answers, “the parties no.” And patience about the data published in the principal national newspapers, which show the government a little above, or a little below the 50 percent of consensus level. . .

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Muslim Girls Must Swim With Boys: Swiss Court

A Muslim family in Basel has been fined 1,400 francs ($1,550) for refusing to let its daughters participate in mixed swimming classes. The family had sought to avoid paying the fine on the grounds that the requirement for the girls to join the swimming lesson infringed on their religious freedom, online news website Le Matin reported.

The parents argued that, in accordance with the teachings of the Koran, they wanted to instil a sense of shame in their children before they reached puberty. Mixed swimming lessons in primary school, the family claimed, would be incompatible with such an aim.

Following the family’s appeal of the original Administrative Court verdict, the Federal Court decided to uphold the fine. The court stated that the obligation to participate in mixed swimming classes did not represent a significant assault on the family’s religious freedom. The upper court said it agreed with the Administrative Court’s view that there was a “substantial public interest that all children take swimming lessons”.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Netherlands: Student Cleared on Charges of Threatening Geert Wilders

A 22-year-old art school student was on Wednesday found not guilty of threatening the safety of PVV leader Geert Wilders by The Hague appeal court. A lower court also found the student not guilty.

Yaïr C was arrested after hanging a shop dummy from a tree next to The Hague’s central station in 2009. The dummy had a plastic bag over its head and a photo of Wilders was pinned to it with a knife.

C. said it was an art project. According to Elsevier, he was given a pass mark for the project. The public prosecution department decided to prosecute the student, saying objects which are said to be art can also be seen as a threat.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Norway: Krekar Back in Court After ‘Dream’ Arrest

The arrest of Mullah Krekar could represent a dream scenario for the Kurdish Islamist convicted this week for issuing death threats, said terrorism researcher Magnus Ranstorp. His stature would grow in extremist circles after he was apprehended on Tuesday in a raid on his home, Ranstorp said. But the Swedish terrorism expert added that the arrest did automatically equate to a heightened risk of terrorism in Norway.

“There have been similar situations in other countries, including Britain, without them leading to further violence. I’m sure the security police (PTS) are following this situation closely,” he told broadcaster NRK.

Krekar will face a remand hearing on Wednesday morning at Oslo District Court. PST has asked for him to be held for eight weeks, while the mullah’s lawyers are calling for his immediate release.

Krekar was sentenced on Monday to five years in prison for issuing death threats against a former government minister and three Kurds living in Norway. He was released pending the outcome of an appeal.

Tuesday’s arrest came after it emerged that Krekar had issued further threats on an internet forum last weekend. If jailed, his followers would hold an unnamed Norwegian hostage in a cellar, Krekar said. He also spoke of former government minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, claiming he knew where the Christian Democratic politician lived.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Sarkozy Forbids Islamist Preachers From Entering France

(AGI) Paris — Nicholas Sarkozy forbids extremist islamic preachers from entering France, as in the case of Sunnite Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who was coming to France from Qatar to take part to a religious conference. In the light of what happened in Toulouse, the French president decided for a quick expulsion of radical preachers and underlined that “all those who insulted France and our values will not be allowed to enter the Country”. Qaradawi, who has connections with Egypt’s Muslim Brothers, had already been banned from Uk and Usa.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Sex Toy Survey: Germans Come First

Germans top the unofficial kinky league table, a new survey on between-the-sheets behaviour revealed Tuesday. It demonstrated that nearly half of Germans like “tools and gadgets” — more than any other country.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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The Sámi — the Only Indigenous People in the EU

The Sámi are the only indigenous people in the territory of the European Union. Indigenous is a name applied to a population group whose ancestors inhabited an area as it was conquered or taken over by settlers, or if they were there before the appearance of today’s national borders. The Sámi language is related to the Finnish language. Finland has three Sami languages in use: Northern Sámi, Inari Sámi, and Skolt Sámi.

Schoolchildren in the Sámi regions who speak Sámi have the right to be taught in the language. There are about 3,000 people in Finland who have learned Sámi as their native language. The status of the Sámi language is protected by law. Few services in Sámi are available, but the Sámi are provided translation and interpretation services when dealing with officials.

The Sámi live in the arctic regions of the Nordic Countries. There are Sámi living in Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Russia. The Sámi homeland in Finland includes the areas of Enontekiö, Inari and Utsjoki, as well as the northern parts of Sodankylä. The state owns 90 per cent of the land in the Sámi home areas. Traditional Sámi professions are raising reindeer, fishing, and hunting, but most Sámi today earn their living in non-traditional professions.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Toulouse Gunman Was Informant of French Intelligence?

Mohamed Merah, the notorious killer shot in a stand-off with police a week ago in Toulouse, is still stirring controversy in France. An ex-chief of the French spy agency says Merah might have acted as an informant to the local equivalent of the FBI.

­The speculation comes as Yves Bonnet, a former intelligence chief, says Merah might have passed information onto the DCRI, a French domestic intelligence agency.

“He was known to the DCRI, not especially because he was an Islamist, but because he had a correspondent in domestic intelligence,” Bonnet told La Dépêce newspaper on Monday.

“When you have a correspondent, it’s not completely innocent,” he remarked.

On Tuesday the assumption, worthy of a huge scandal, was rebuffed by DCRI head Bernard Squarcini.

Merah was indeed interviewed by a local intelligence agent in November 2011, Squarcini said, but this was because the agency “wanted to receive explanations about his trip to Afghanistan.”

As Merah stated he went to Afghanistan in 2010 and 2011 as a tourist, he was let go but placed on a watch list. Merah “did not serve as an informant to the DCRI or any other French intelligence service,” stressed the DCRI head.

Previously, French officials said “no evidence” indicated that Merah was linked to terror groups or that the shooting spree, which took the lives of seven people in Toulouse earlier this month, was ordered by al-Qaeda.

Nevertheless, the 23-year-old Frenchman of Algerian descent had been tracked for several years before the tragic events in France’s south. Authorities put him down as a radical Islamist. Besides his trips to Afghanistan, the man was also understood to have visited Pakistan and received training in militant camps. This made the US add Merah’s name to its no-fly list as a suspected terrorist.

At the same time, French domestic intelligence seems to have viewed Merah as one of many. The DCRI “follows a lot of people who are involved in Islamist radicalism,” said French Interior Minister Claude Geant on Friday, defending the work of the spy agency. “Expressing ideas, showing Salafist opinions is not enough to bring someone before justice.”

Merah carried out three deadly attacks in and around Toulouse, killing three French soldiers, three Jewish children and a rabbi. Local police and security forces spent thirty-two hours sieging the house Merah resided in before a sniper shot him in the head.

— Hat tip: TV

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Toulouse Murders Show France’s True Colors

[WARNING: Graphic content.]

The way in which the French handle these types of terror incidents is a window into their tres bizarre world view.

A French paratrooper wearing civilian clothing was shot and killed on Sunday March 11 in a suburb of Toulouse, France. Then, two more paratroopers were shot and killed and a third critically injured while wearing uniforms outside a bank in Toulouse, a southern French city. But how well does sleepy France mobilize into action? Remember France is a country where people, much less soldiers are not routinely murdered. Is there a nationwide call up of personnel? Hardly, 50 soldiers are commandeered and incredibly, France’s military, get this, orders French soldiers not to leave their bases wearing uniforms!!!

— Hat tip: JD

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Tungsten-Filled 1 Kilo Gold Bar Found in the UK

The last time a story of Tungsten-filled gold appeared on the scene was just two years ago, and involved a 500 gram bar of gold full of tungsten, at the W.C. Heraeus foundry, the world’s largest metal refiner and fabricator. It also became known that said “gold” bar originated from an unnamed bank.

It is now time to rekindle the Tungsten Spirits with a report from ABC Bullion of Australia, which provides photographic evidence of a new gold bar that has been drilled out and filled with tungsten rods, this time not in Germany but in an unnamed city in the UK, where it was intercepted by a scrap metals dealer, and was supplied with its original certificate. The reason the bar attracted attention is that it was 2 grams underweight. Upon cropping it was uncovered that about 30-40% of the bar weight was tungsten.

So two documented incidents in two years: isolated? Or indication of the same phenomonenon of precious metal debasement that marked the declining phase of the Roman empire. Only then it was relatively public for anyone who cared to find out on their own. Now, with the bulk of popular physical gold held in top secret, private warehouses around the world, where it allegedly backs the balance sheets of the world’s central banks, yet nobody can confirm its existence, nor audit the actual gold content, it is understandable why increasingly more are wondering: just how much gold is there? And alongside that — while gold, (or is it GLD?), can be rehypothecated, can one do the same with tungsten?

— Hat tip: JD

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UK Riots Caused by Demoralized Youth, Panel Says

Poor schooling and inadequate support for demoralized young people were root causes of the riots that shook Britain last year, a panel set up to draw lessons from the unrest has found.

The Riots, Communities and Victims Panel said inadequate schooling, poor parenting and lack of confidence in the police all contributed to the outbreak of violence in British cities in August last year.

“When people don’t feel they have a reason to stay out of trouble, the consequences for communities can be devastating,” said panel chairman Darra Singh.

“We must give everyone a stake in society,” he said.

“There are people bumping along the bottom, unable to change their lives,” he said, referring to around 500,000 “forgotten families.”

The panel on Wednesday issued a series of recommendations to government and local authorities, which they said should be enacted in concert for the best outcome.

“Should disturbances happen again, victims and communities will ask our leaders why we failed to respond effectively in 2012,” they wrote.

The recommendations included fining schools that failed to teach kids to read and write and a government guarantee to find work for young people who have been jobless for more than two years.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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UK: Bookmarks April [Tom Holland — in the Shadow of the Sword]

[…]

With Rubicon and Persian Fire, Tom Holland established himself as one of our finest historians of the great empires of antiquity. His latest, In the Shadow of the Sword, tells the story of how the ancient world came to an end and how a new power, Islam, arose. Religion and societies were transformed forever, creating a world still shaped today by this great convulsive age. In the book, Holland sheds light not on the dark ages of the past, but illuminates instead how the strifes and divisions of contemporary religious and geographical disputes are not new, but a legacy of this great conflict.

Holland will be talking about In the Shadow of the Sword at St. Peter’s Church in Ely on Monday, April 30th, at 7.30pm.

Tickets for both the above events are £7/6, including £7/6 off the price of the book, available from Topping & Company Booksellers, 9 High Street, Ely. Call 01353 645005 or visit www.toppingbooks.co.uk

:: Tom Holland will also be at Heffers in Cambridge on Wednesday, April 11th at 6.30pm. Tickets are £2 — call 01223 463200 or email events.tst@heffers.co.uk

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Dudley Mosque Fight Drags on

A HIGH Court official has delayed a decision on Dudley Council’s buyback challenge against Dudley Muslim Association to take back land earmarked for its multi-million pound mosque.

After four hours of legal arguments at London’s High Court earlier today, Master Marsh reserved his decision and is now expected to give his ruling at a later unspecified date. Last year the council lodged the court bid to pursue the buyback clause, which maintained the council was entitled to buy back the Hall Street land, if the mosque was not substantially under way by December 31, 2008. DMA’s defence was dismissed in November last year but the group was given a further opportunity to submit an alternative defence to the decision.

If DMA is successful on this occasion, the case will go before a High Court judge later in the year.

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: MP’s Fear Over Death Threats

HENLEY MP John Howell says he fears for his family’s safety after being sent death threats.

He has reported to the police messages sent to him after a recent email exchange about the Israeli- Palestinian conflict with one of his constituents was posted on the internet.

The MP, who lives with his wife Alison and grown-up son, said: “The last thing I want to appear as is a drama queen but you have to take seriously a threat when it says, ‘I would like to see you dead’.

“This is not normal behaviour. MPs should not be put in the way of these sorts of threats.”

The emails are thought to have been sent after Harry Fear, from Watlington, used his website to publish a question he had asked Mr Howell about attacks in Gaza and the MP’s reply.

He asked: “What actions are you taking to see that Israel halts the military actions that are taking place in defiance of international law and basic human decency?”

The email was accompanied by a photograph of an explosion with a caption saying: “Only a few hours ago, Israel felt it necessary to inflict this destruction and death on the Strip.”

Mr Howell replied: “And what is your position, Harry, on the 100 rockets which have landed in Israel over the weekend?”

On his website, Mr Fear complained that his question was ignored and he found the reply “deeply disturbing”, “latently abusive” and “sarcastic” in tone.

He continued: “Considering we are talking about the lost lives of innocent children and the possibility of further death and destruction, I was utterly flabbergasted to receive this inhumane reply from my constituency MP.” Mr Fear then asked readers to write to Mr Howell “civilly, expressing your discontent” and published a link to the MP’s email address.

Almost 50 people have replied to his blog post with many saying they had also sent emails to Mr Howell complaining about his conduct.

Mr Howell said he had received about 30 emails, some of which he described as “worrying” while others used language not suitable in a family newspaper.

One read: “John, you ugly son of a gun, how much do you get to protect Israel’s interests, u corrupt, smug-looking English twerp?

“Your (sic) nothing in the eyes of God. Carry on supporting Israel, u fiend of England. This place is a hot mess and the people here are the slime of the devil.”A woman claimed to have cursed Mr Howell and said: “You will suffer the consequences of this corruption and callousness.”

Mr Howell said: “There has been a series of emails from fictitious addresses with names such as Jihad Alshamie, which gets you worried straight away, and lines such as ‘it is people like you who deserve to die’.

“There are a huge number of emails from pro-Palestinine and Arab fanatics, some from the UK and some clearly not, some equally threatening.”

He referred to Labour MP Stephen Timms, who was stabbed twice at a constituency surgery in 2010 by a woman angry at his vote for the Iraq war.

Roshonara Choudhry, a British Islamist, was found guilty of attempted murder and jailed for life. She was said to have been inspired by a radical American website.

Mr Howell said: “It is not just a question of me, it is my family and my staff. All it takes is one person out there who is weird enough, with a distorted view of life, to make an attempt to carry this out.”

When he raised the issue with the Serjeant at Arms, who is responsible for security in Parliament, he was told that a total of 80 MPs were facing extreme threats on a range of issues.

After taking advice, Mr Howell has removed the dates, times and locations of his surgeries from his website and asks constituents who are interested in meeting him to call a surgery hotline.

He said: “I have been helped by the house authorities in parliament, who are assessing the level of risk, and also by Thames Valley Police, who have provided extremely good security advice. If I feel at all unsafe there can be a policeman with me at a surgery.”

Mr Howell said he did not hold Mr Fear personally responsible for the threats but he refuted the claims that he was pro-Israel.

“How he read that into my email reply, I don’t know,” said the MP. “I was asking for balance and it has come to this. The web page asked people to write and tell me what they think of me. The trouble then is it becomes out of your control and you have no idea who is going to pick it up or respond.

“My stated position on the Middle East is that in order to have peace we need a secure and universally recognised Israel alongside a sovereign and viable Palestinian state.”…

— Hat tip: Nick

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Tunisia: Ambassador to the EU, Visa Easing Needed

Iacolino (PDL), cooperation now aims at partner countries

(ANSA) — BRUSSELS, March 28 — As part of a dialogue “between two partners” that began a few weeks ago, Tunisia has asked the EU for “the easings of visas for businessmen and students” . This was explained by the Tunisian Ambassador to Brussels, Ridha Mohammed Farhat, on the sidelines of a conference on immigration at the European Parliament, organised by PDL MEP, Salvatore Iacolino.

“Immigration — said Farhat — is only one aspect among others of the dialogue. For us, this is about easing the flow between the two parties: commercial products, services and free movement of persons. I know it is difficult, but for us it is a goal, without ignoring the problem of illegal immigration.” On this front, “there has been structured dialogue for a few weeks and we will see the results, in the logic of future relations with the EU.” “ For a few months — added Iacolino — there has been an increased southern dimension of the European Union, for cooperation based not only on the regulation of migration flows, but also on concrete initiatives that bring development and competitiveness.” An example of this is the recent agreement between the EU and Morocco on the liberalisation of trade in fruit and vegetables. According Iacolino, it is important to give the “opportunity for young North African businessmen to come to Europe and increase their professionalism,” but that does not mean that “we believe that economic migrants are not entitled to remain in the EU if they don’t have a contract, something refugees have.’.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Gaddafi’s Assets Seized in Italy

Over 1 billion in Eni and Unicredit shares

(ANSA) — Rome, March 28 — Italian financial police seized over one billion euros in assets belonging to ex-Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, his son Saif Al Islam and former intelligence chief Abdullah Al Senussi on Wednesday. The brunt of the assets came from a 1.26% share in Italy’s largest commercial bank Unicredit, worth 611 million euros, and a 0.6% share in energy giant Eni, worth 410 million euros. A 2% share in Italian arms manufacturer Finmeccanica and a 1.5% share in soccer team Juventus were also confiscated. The seizure was issued by the Rome Court of Appeals with backing from the International Court of Justice in the Hague.

The same court made a request for discovery of assets attributable to the late dictator and his associates when it issued arrest warrants in June for their crimes against humanity. The assets had been frozen according to two UN resolutions passed in February and March of 2011, early in Gaddafi’s bloody campaign to quell a popular uprising that led to his overthrow that summer and death last October at the hand of insurgents.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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ISNA Works With Authorities in North Africa to Develop Protocols to Protect Religious Minorities

TUNIS, 3 Jumada Al-Awwal/25 March (IINA)-Last week, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) President, Imam Mohamed Magid, and Director of Community Outreach, Dr. Mohamed Elsanousi, met with high-ranking religious authorities and scholars in Morocco and Tunisia to discuss the rights of religious minorities in Muslim-majority countries across the globe. Working in consultation with these authorities, they presented the idea of developing Islamic standards and protocols to guarantee equal participation of various religious groups in Muslim-majority countries. ISNA is deeply concerned about the rights of religious minorities and among those with whom they met were Dr. Ahmed Toufiq, Moroccan Minister of Islamic Affairs and Endowment; Dr. Noureddine Khadmi, Tunisian Minister of Religious Affairs; and Dr. Abdul Aziz Othman Altwaijri, General Manager of the Islamic Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (ISESCO). All of them remain solidly committed to addressing this issue.

The Kingdom of Morocco has a history of harmonious coexistence between people of diverse religious backgrounds. Under the guidance of original Islamic scholarship stemming from some of the most reputable Islamic institutions in the Muslim world, both the Moroccan government and its majority-Muslim population peacefully coexist with the Moroccan Jewish and Christian communities. Similarly, developments in Tunisia following the Arab spring have re-energized a commitment to a pluralist democracy and to a guarantee of the rights of all people to wholly participate in government and society.

ISNA is committed to religious freedom and seeks to promote it not only in the United States, but also abroad. We deeply appreciate the partnership of religious leaders of all faiths, particularly the way religious leaders and community members from Jewish and Christian faiths have wholeheartedly demonstrated their support for Muslims through the institutionalization of the campaign, Shoulder-to-Shoulder: Standing with American Muslims; Upholding American Values. Similarly, ISNA is dedicated to standing in solidarity with people of other faiths everywhere, whether they constitute the majority or the minority. Following this trip to Morocco and Tunisia, stay tuned for news about a series of activities, as ISNA works to promote a mechanism for developing standards and protocols on religious freedom and the role of religious minorities in the Muslim world.

AH/IINA

— Hat tip: JP

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Libya’s Toubou Tribal Leader Raises Separatist Bid

(AGI) Tripoli — The leader of the Toubou tribe in Libya, Issa Abdel Majid Mansour, has raised the threat of a separatist bid.

Over the past three days, the Toubou tribe, which is settled in southern Libya, has engaged in violent clashes with the Arab population in the southern oasis town of Sabha, the ancient capital of the desert region of Fezzan. At least 25 people have so far been killed and 80 others wounded. Mansour denounced what he said is a plan to “ethnically cleanse” his people. “We announce the reactivation of the Toubou Front for the Salvation of Libya (TFSL) to protect the Toubou people from ethnic cleansing “, Mansour said. The TFSL is an opposition group that was ruthlessly persecuted under Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Libya: Christians Bear Witness to Easter in a Country Burdened by Hatreds and Violence, Mgr Martinelli Says

The bishop of Tripoli talks about Easter preparations in Libya’s tiny catholic community. Eight people from Sub-Saharan Africa will be baptised during Easter Mass. Celebrations will take place during the day. Getting back to normal after 42 years of dictatorship and one year of civil war is a hard task.

Tripoli (AsiaNews) — “The presence of Christians is helping the Libyan people regain a sense of life through a supernatural look that favours reconciliation. Through their work in hospitals and assistance to the sick, Catholics show people burdened by hatreds and vendettas the beauty of forgiveness and impress upon them a desire to look forward,” Mgr Innocenzo Martinelli, apostolic vicar to Tripoli, told AsiaNews.

“After about a year of civil war, the Christian community, mostly Filipinos and Sub-Saharan Africans, is reconstituting itself,” the prelate said. “Sunday Masses, especially during Lent, are crowded. There is a great desire to get back to normal.”

All celebrations during Holy Week will take place in daytime to avoid problems with local authorities, which are suspicious about activities held after dusk.

As Easter approaches, the Diocese of Tripoli is preparing the baptism of eight catechumen, all migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa.

“It is hard to ignore what has happened,” the bishop said. “Although the situation in Tripoli is calm, 42 years of dictatorship and one year of war have left their mark on the population. Christians are in the service of these people; their task is to help the Libyan people get back to normal, by promoting dialogue among the various factions that came out of Gaddafi’s fall.”

“I urge all Christians in Libya to find unity again and bear witness to their faith amid the population, helping them look to the future with confidence, through the mystery of the risen Christ, the only path to overcome hatreds and violence.”

The end of the old regime has brought to the surface old tribal rivalries. For many experts, Libya is still a ‘non state’ over which the leaders of the National Transitional Council (NTC), most of whom are former members of the old regime, still do not exert any power.

Fifty people were killed yesterday in Sabha, in southern territory of Fezzan, in clashes between the Tibu and Sabha tribes over control of the region.

Although the NTC sent 300 troops to quell the violence, they were unable to stop the fighting that broke out last Sunday.

In a report issued last month, Amnesty International detailed the crimes committed by militias that are still armed despite the end of the civil war and government orders to hand in weapons.

For the human rights organisation, thousands of such armed fighters are still roaming in the country without any control, killing, torturing and jailing people, tribes and communities linked to the Gaddafi clan, refusing to recognise the authority of the NTC.

More than 200 people, primarily migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa, are still being held in prison without trial. (S.C.)

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Tunisia: Crossroads of Fanatical Preachers and Jihadists

Fall of Ben Ali opened the doors to Islamic extremism

(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, March 28 — For more than twenty years the gates of secular Tunisia defended by Zine El Abidine Ben Ali were shut to those who wanted to make a banner of Islam. But the fall of the dictator and, above all the emergence of the religious Ennahdha party as the largest force in the country, has upset everything and as a consequence it has become more obvious that Tunisia has become a place of welcome for all: fanatical preachers, inciters of violence in the name of Allah, jihadists, and supporters of female genital mutilation.

The situation could become even more incandescent with the continuing confrontations between Islamic fundamentalists and secularists, which only by chance have not yet led to a drama.

Everything now seems allowed, especially for the people who Ben Ali had kept well away from Tunisian borders. So Tarek Maaroufi just released from prison Belgium, where he served ten years for terrorism, flew to Tunis, where he was greeted by a score of Salafites with tears in their eyes. Having passed through international arrivals, Maaroufi kneeled to pray and kiss the ground. And just to stop anyone from thinking that the prison had induced him to change his mind, he said he was happy to have seen that jihad is also in the minds of Tunisians. He may or may not be right, but his profile (he was accused of ties with al Qaeda and complicity’ in the death of Commander Massoud, who was killed two days before the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in America) should lead to a great attention to he may do in the near future.

Another element to reflect on is the exponential increase in the workload of the Tunisian border police at the capital’s airport, where the arrival of controversial preachers, previously denied entry, is an everyday issue. Two arrived on Sunday. The first, Heni Sbai, Founder of the Maqrizi Centre for Historical Studies, was sentenced to 15 years in prison in Egypt and is wanted by various countries for “active collaboration” with the Taliban and al Qaeda. A few hours later landed another Abd El Mustafa Mun’em Halima Abu Bassir alias Abu Bassir El Tartus, a preacher of Yemeni origin, who likes to say that “more’ half of the Koran and hundreds of words of the Prophet call to jihad and the fight against tyrants.” In both cases, they were greeted by celebrating Salafites, happy to have obtained ‘passes’ for their favourites from the police.

In a country that is debating its profile (Islamic or Arabic), the preachers find all too fertile soil in the absence of a response from the state, also urged by the leader of Ennahdha, Rached Gannouchi. Too many threats receive no response from the institutions: on Sunday a sheikh called Tunisians prepare to kill the Jews and on the same occasion a preacher wished the death (he later explained that he was speaking in political terms) of former premier Beji Caid Essebsi. And the air is still filled with the insane propositions of an Egyptian Wahhabi preacher, Wajdi Ghenim, who came to Tunisia to say, before frenzied crowds, that female genital mutilation is not only imposed by the Koran, but are longed for because they are cosmetic surgery operations.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Kadima: Mofaz Gets His Revenge, Defeats Livni

Former Defence Minister tasked with regaining support lost

(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV — Four years after the last clash, Israel’s former Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz has got his revenge. He won last night’s elections for the leadership of the centrist Kadima party (created by Ariel Sharon) over Tzipi Livni, who in 2008 had defeated him. A 63-year-old former general, previously Chief of Staff and many times minister, Mofaz had never before managed to come to the fore as a front line politician. Now he has his chance, as well as influence, to try and relaunch the main opposition party, support for which has slid against the right-wing governing party under Benyamin Netanyahu.

According to the first results, still partial but clearly showing who the winner will be, he racked up 62% of votes (more than observers had been expecting) compared with the 38% for the outgoing leader and 53-year-old former Foreign Minister. Turnout stood at 45% among the 95,000 registered members of the party, which polls say may see its 21 seats — which currently give it a relative majority in the Knesset (Parliament) — halved in the 2013 elections.

Mofaz will await the final results before giving his winner’s speech, but some sources say he has already begun to send conciliatory messages to party members siding with Livni. The stand-off between the two had in any case been conducted in a mild manner, being as they are both figures with an opaque sort of charisma. While Livni had projected herself as more of an alternative to the right in focusing on a resumption of talks with the Palestinians, Mofaz — an astute man of the system with Iranian origins — insisted instead on domestic social problems and especially national security.

The latter are issues which worry Israelis, especially due to the nuclear threat attributed to the country in which the former general of the Kadima party was born, but which will make it even more difficult to distinguish between the platform of the Likud centrists under Netanyahu (which enjoys a robust lead and is climbing, with forecasts giving the number of seats at up to 35-40). It is a contiguity that Hanan Cristal, an authoritative political analyst from Israeli public radio, claims could now serve as a prelude to a true undividedness on the right, with the entrance into Netanyah’s government in exchange for a few ministerial positions.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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“The Prophet Came From Jordan”

Islam is a mishmash of earlier religions. Muhammad was an Arab version of the Greek poet Homer. Islam didn’t arise in Mecca but in the Jordanian city of Petra. The Arab conquests came first, and only then the Muslims. In his new book The Fourth Beast, British historian Tom Holland makes some shocking claims. The Dutch version is out now, even before the English version [In the Shadow of the Sword] has been published.

“Islam wasn’t a fresh start but an accumulation of elements from Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism,” says Tom Holland, who is in Amsterdam for the launch of his book this week.

Conquest came first

Another remarkable statement: Holland doesn’t believe that Arabs first converted to Islam before setting off to conquer other countries. “Horsemen with a Qur’an in one hand and a sword in the other — that’s not even possible,” he jokes. “Do you know how much weight you’d have to carry?” No, only when the Arabs had gained power across a wide area did Islam gradually develop over a time span of around two centuries, Holland believes. His book describes not only the rise of Islam, but also the decay of the Roman and Persian empires in the Middle East.

Cat lover

Holland doesn’t dispute the fact that Muhammad did exist as a prophet, but he doesn’t see Islamic writings as the most reliable source to find out the truth about Muhammad.

“We supposedly know a lot about Muhammad, a lot more than about Jesus,” Holland says. “What he ate, whom he fell in love with, even that Muhammad liked cats — I find that the nicest characteristic, that Muhammad cut up his clothes so the cat could sit down. But the odd thing is that the further away from Muhammad’s birth date you get, the more extensive the biographies become.” There is hardly any material from the time of Muhammad. “Everything dates from at least two centuries later,” Holland says. He likes to compare Muhammad with the Greek epic poet Homer.

Anxious reactions

Speakers like Tom Holland attract a lot of attention in the Western media. After all, they make controversial claims: that Islam didn’t come about in a flash of divine inspiration, for example, and that more than one version of the Qur’an exists. Holland’s friends and family were anxious when he told them the topic of his new book, after having written previous books about the Romans and Christianity. The first word they could think of was fatwa, he says. But Holland is less concerned. “It would be a sort of Islamophobia if I was scared to enter into the discussion, as if that would immediately provoke violence.” The reality is quite the contrary, he says. “The Muslims I meet understand perfectly well that as a non-Muslim I should want to investigate certain assumptions in the Islamic tradition.” For Islam researchers, Holland’s claims will come as no surprise. “It says in the Qur’an itself that it’s a continuation of Judaism and Christianity,” says Petra Sijpesteijn, professor of Arabic language and culture at Leiden University. “Western researchers generally assume that the Qur’an wasn’t written all at once, and Muslim scholars also recognise that Islam developed over the course of the centuries.” It’s obvious that during the Arab conquests local customs and rituals were adopted, says Sijpesteijn. “The new world view had to connect with the world of the people living in a region, or it wouldn’t have been accepted.”

Early sources

Sijpesteijn also points out that there are sources from the time of Muhammad or shortly afterwards, both Islamic and non-Islamic. She studies Arabic writings on ancient papyrus scrolls. “In the writings of 12 years after the death of Muhammad, Muslims are referred to as a separate religious group, first using the term muhajiroun, migrants who had left hearth and home with a purpose, or Saracens, descendents of Sarah and Abraham,” she says. “And from around 730AD, terms like Islam, Muslims and specific religious customs such as zakat (charity) were already being practiced and described.” Sijpesteijn also disagrees with Holland about the place in which Islam arose. “Mecca is already described as a holy place in pre-Islamic manuscripts. So why wouldn’t it exist?” She does think that Arab Christians from more northerly regions played a major role in the further development and distribution of Islam. In short, there is nothing particularly new in Holland’s book, though it’s “nice that he makes it accessible to ordinary people,” says Sijpesteijn. “But as soon as you talk about the origins of Islam, the discussion among both Muslims and non-Muslims becomes extremely sensitive.”

(mb)

— Hat tip: JP

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Arab League Transforms Itself Into a Sought-After Partner

Since a wave of revolutions swept across the Arab world, the Arab League is playing an important role politically. But it’s questionable whether its members are meanwhile capable of pushing more strongly for democracy.

The Arab League was for a long time a Club of Dictators, boasting members such as Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak or Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. The body, a union of 22 Arab-speaking countries in Africa and the Middle East, reflected the political paralysis of its members.

League summits always ended with the same official statements. Hardly anyone took the League seriously — neither the people who lived in the region nor politicians from East and West. This has changed with the uprisings in the Arab world. The Arab League is somebody again.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Erdogan Visiting Iran

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has begun a two-day visit to Tehran for talks on Iran’s controversial nuclear program and the conflict in neighboring Syria. The Turkish-Iranian talks in Tehran bring together two leaders with strongly diverging policies. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad while Erdogan’s government, once a close ally of Syria, has increasingly switched to hosting Syrian dissidents and refugees.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Hair Product for ‘Real Men’: Turkish TV Ad Features Hitler to Sell Shampoo

A Turkish TV commercial has sparked international criticism for featuring Adolf Hitler to praise the virtues of a “hundred percent men’s shampoo.” Critics have called it “repulsive,” but it follows a controversial trend among firms to sell their wares with supposedly humorous references to Hitler and the Nazi era.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Obama’s Over-Hasty Withdrawal: Iraq is Neither Sovereign, Stable Nor Self-Reliant

This week, Baghdad will host its first Arab League summit since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. The historical event marks Iraq’s return to the international stage but diplomats will also focus on Iran’s growing influence in the country. A few months after the US withdrawal, it is clear that — despite Obama’s claims — Iraq is neither sovereign, stable nor self-reliant.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Qatar Postpones French Suburb Fund Until After Election

Qatar has postponed launching a fund for entrepreneurs from France’s deprived suburbs until after the presidential election to prevent it becoming a political football, officials said Wednesday.

“We want this to happen peacefully and not amid controversy,” said Kamal Hamza, an official in the Paris suburb of Courneuve who is president of ANELD, a group representing local officials from ethnic and religious minorities.

ANELD is due to participate in the disbursing of the fund.

Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has attacked Qatar for investing in what she said were “Muslim” areas of French cities and said that unnamed foreign countries wanted to develop Islamic fundamentalism in France.

The Qatari embassy in Paris was not immediately able to confirm when contacted by AFP that the emirate was postponing the launch of the 50-million-euro ($67-million) fund until after the two-round vote in April and May.

Gas-rich Qatar is a traditional French ally and provided vital Arab support to French and British-led efforts to get a UN mandate for military action to protect civilians during the eight-month uprising in Libya.

Qatar also gave military support to NATO-led operations in Libya, including deploying troops on the ground.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Spain: Al Qaeda ‘Librarian’ Arrested in Valencia

The Jihadist arrested yesterday in Valencia was known to those in the heart of the Al Qaeda organisation as the ‘librarian’ and was a key player in the propaganda machine and in the campaign to recruit terrorists via the Internet, said Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz today.

The minister explained that the man arrested, a Saudi Arabian citizen born in Jordan, was working for Al Qaeda and for two of its subsidiary organisations — Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI).

The detainee worked full time at disseminating the jihad via the Internet, working from home for between 8 and 16 hours a day luring and indoctrination radical Islamists and even providing transport for terrorists to go to Afghanistan and other areas where Al Qaeda are currently active.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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For Russian Orthodox Church, Cross Ban in Workplace is a Form of Totalitarianism

Metropolitan Hilarion criticises the decision of the British government to defend ban on religious symbols in the workplace before Strasbourg court. Russian priest says one of her parishioners was fired for wearing a cross that was not visible.

Moscow (AsiaNews) — The Moscow Patriarchate deplores the ban in Great Britain on wearing religious symbols in the workplace, describing it as a manifestation of totalitarianism.

“Those Western liberals who are actually forcing totalitarian regime standards on free people are making a big mistake,” said Metropolitan Hilarion, head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations, on Rossiya 24 television.

These people have not gone through reprisals against the Church “and therefore they do not know what it feels like when your cross is being ripped off your neck,” he added.

The Metropolitan said he had had an experience of living in Britain and he could see “liberal and Anarchist patterns spreading fast in the public space.”

Recently, British courts have given employers the right to fire workers who wear crosses on their clothes.

The British government wants to defend the ban on wearing crosses at work in the European Court of Human Rights, which is set to examine four cases brought by British citizens.

They include that of Nadia Eweida (pictured), a British Airways employee who was suspended for wearing a cross on a plane, in violation of company policy.

Ms Eweida has taken her case to Strasbourg. For David Cameron’s government, which backs the airliner, wearing a cross is not a compulsory element of the Christian faith.

“The introduction and even a discussion of such standards looks like a symptom of some madness or extreme moral decay,” Hilarion said, adding that believers will never put up with this and will fight.

Archpriest Mikhail Dudko, the sacristan of the Russian Assumption Cathedral in London, said recently that one of his parishioners, a woman, lost her job for wearing a cross at work, even though it was not visible.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Russia’s Medvedev Tells Romney to ‘Use Head’

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told Mitt Romney on Tuesday to use his head and stop reverting to Hollywood stereotypes after the US presidential hopeful branded Moscow as Washington’s top foe.

“I recommend that all US presidential candidates, including the candidate you mention (Romney), do at least two things,” Russian news agencies quoted Medvedev as telling a reporter on the sidelines of a nuclear security conference in Seoul.

“That they use their head and consult their reason when they formulate their positions, and that they check the time — it is now 2012, not the mid-1970s,” said the outgoing Russian president.

Medvedev said Romney’s quip “smelled of Hollywood” because it typecast Moscow as Washington’s main enemy from the Cold War era just like in the popular spy movie thrillers of the time.

“As for ideological cliches, I always get nervous when one side or the other starts using phrases such as ‘enemy number one’ and so on,” Medvedev said.

Romney had roundly criticised Obama on Monday for getting caught by an open mike making a controversial promise to Medvedev about missile defence.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Afghan Woman is Killed ‘For Giving Birth to a Girl’

A woman in north-eastern Afghanistan has been arrested for allegedly strangling her daughter-in-law for giving birth to a third daughter.

The murdered woman’s husband, a member of a local militia, is also suspected of involvement but he has since fled.

The murder took place two days ago in Kunduz province. The baby girl, who is now two months old, was not hurt.

The birth of a boy is usually a cause for celebration in Afghanistan but girls are generally seen as a burden.

Some women in Afghanistan are abused if they fail to give birth to boys. And this is just the latest in a series of high-profile crimes against women in the country.

Late last year a horrifying video emerged of the injuries suffered by a 15-year-old child bride who was locked up and tortured by her husband…

— Hat tip: Vlad Tepes

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Bangladesh Celebrates Independence in the Shadows of the Past

Bangladesh celebrated its 41st Independence Day on Monday. But the young country, on its way to becoming a new emerging market, continues to fight with its past.

Every now and then, Bangladesh makes headline news because of a large flood, ferry accident, tornadoes or some other disaster. The extremely flat country, which is as large as the German states Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg combined, has a population of around 160 million people or twice as big as Germany’s.

Over the past years, the overpopulated poorhouse has transformed itself into the sewing room of the West and is poised to become an emerging market. Prior to its independence on March 26, 1971, the country was part of Pakistan. But “we were never a nation,” said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

“Bangladesh is Bangladesh;” Hasina added. “Our people are very broadminded and secular-minded. They are tolerant and, culturally and religiously, they are completely different from Pakistan.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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De Mistura Calls Detention of ‘Enrica Lexie’ Unacceptable

(AGI)Rome -Deputy Foreign Minister De Mistura defines “unacceptable” that the Italian ship Enrica Lexie is still blocked in India. The Italian oil tanker is still detained with another 4 Italian marines, besides the two marines in jail, in Trivandrum. “Frankly I find it unacceptable, it is a situation which has lasted more than a month,” declared Staffan De Mistura, speaking at the Farnesina Palace during a briefing with the press, The Deputy Secretary will return to India in the next few days where, he said, he will carry out “punctual, frequent and pressing visits” to confirm the involvement of Italian authorities to the two marines and “to find the formula” for a resolution to the case. .

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Italian Commitment in Afghanistan and Pakistan Remains

Foreign Minister Terzi meets US State Department envoy in Rome

(ANSA) — Rome, March 28 — Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi met with US State Department special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Marc Grossman, in Rome on Wednesday to discuss Italian operations in the two countries.

Plans for the return of Italian troops remain “as projected,” said Terzi, as does the country’s commitment to NATO and its allies.

Italy’s death toll since it joined the NATO-led ISAF mission in Afghanistan in 2004 rose to 50 when Michele Silvestri, a 33-year-old soldier, was killed at the weekend.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Pakistan: Christians Under Attack: Attacks by Islamic Extremists in a Suburb of Karachi

Karachi (Agenzia Fides) — The Christian population is terrified: violent raids are increasing, day and night, carried out by groups of Islamic extremists in Essa Nagri, Christian suburb of the city of Karachi. In the area, densely populated, about 50,000 Christians live in extreme poverty and lack of basic services. According to local sources of Fides, in the suburb of Essa Nagri there are about 15 churches of various denominations: Catholic, Presbyterian, Pentecostal, Seventh Day Adventist, Salvation Army and others. In the area various NGO work with projects concerning education, social and economic support to the community. Among these, the NGO “Mission and Action for Social Services” (Mass), informed Fides that it has filed an official complaint to the police, because in past months attacks on behalf of Islamic militants against the families of the neighborhood have increased tremendously.

As reported to Fides, the militants enter Essa Nagri wielding pistols and machine guns, ransacking homes and committing all kinds of violence against defenseless families. They steal, extort money, saying that they must cash the “Jizya” (the tax imposed, according to the sharia on non-Muslim minorities), they beat innocent victims, abuse women for fun. The NGO “Mass” claims to have asked the authorities to “take action against these terrorists.” The phenomenon had already been reported to Fides by the Catholic politician of Sindh, Michael Javed (see Fides 14/1/2012) who had spoken of “rapes and torture of Christian women and children” in the suburbs of Karachi. In past days, a Christian woman from Essa Nagri, who was shocked reported: “Armed men and drunk broke into my house and raped my two daughters under my eyes. Who protects us? “. There are also numerous cases where the militants have kidnapped Christian girls, forcing them to marriage and conversion to Islam. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 27/3/2012)

— Hat tip: LAW Wells

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Pakistan: Hindu Girl Tells Supreme Court She Would Rather Die Than Convert to Islam

Seized by an influential Muslim, with the “political cover” of an elected official, 19 year old Rinkel Kumari launches a desperate appeal to the courts. “Justice is denied Hindus in Pakistan” and therefore asks to” kill me here “in the courtroom. The family, after reporting to police, forced to leave the village in Sindh. Each year there are 300 forced marriages and conversions

Islamabad (AsiaNews) — “In Pakistan there is justice only for Muslims, justice is denied Hindus. Kill me here, now, in court. But do not send me back to the Darul-Aman [Koranic school] … kill me”. This is the desperate, heartbreaking outburst of Rinkel Kumari, a Hindu girl aged 19, who has entrusted her heartfelt appeal to the judges of the Supreme Court in Islamabad. Her story is similar to that of many other young women and girls belonging to religious minorities — Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Ahmadis — kidnapped by extremist groups or individuals, most of the time lords or local mafia, which convert them by force and then marry them . And that is what the girl said on 26 March, before the judges of the capital’s court.

The drama of Rinkel Kumari, a student of Mirpur Mathelo, a small village in the province of Sindh, began the evening of February 24: A handful of men seized her and delivered her a few hours later into the hands of a wealthy Muslim scholar, the man then called her parents, warning them that their daughter “wants to convert to Islam.”

Nand Lal, the girl’s father, a teacher of an elementary school, accused Naveed Shah, an influential Muslim, of kidnapping his daughter. The man has the “political cover” provided by Mian Mittho, an elected National Assembly Member, suspected of aiding and abetting. After identifying the perpetrators of the kidnapping of his daughter, he was forced to leave the area of origin to escape the threats of people affiliated with the local mafia. The father found refuge and welcome in Gurdwara in Lahore, in Punjab province, with the rest of his family.

As often happens in these cases, even the judiciary is complicit: a local judge ordered that the girl should be given to the Muslims, because her conversion is “the result of a spontaneous decision” and also stated the marriage was above board. A claim that was repeated on February 27, at the hearing before the court, after which the girl was “renamed” Faryal Shah.

However, the story of Rinkel is not an isolated case: every month between 25 and 30 young people suffer similar abuses, for a yearly total of about 300 conversions and forced marriages. Hindu girls — but also Christian — who are torn from their family and delivered into the hands of their husbands / torturers.

On March 26, she appeared before the judges of the Supreme Court in Islamabad, while the Hindu community waited with bated breath for the girl’s statements in court. To avoid pressure, the presiding judge ordered the courtroom cleared and — later — the dramatic testimony was relayed: in Pakistan, “there is no” justice, “kill me here but do not send me back” to the kidnappers.

Speaking to AsiaNews Fr. Anwar Patras, the Diocese of Rawalpindi, condemned “with force” the kidnapping and forced conversion. “The Hindus in Sindh — adds the priest — live a hard life. The reality is getting harder for them, they are forced to migrate because the state is unable to protect them and their property.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Briton Arrested in Somalia Was Looking for ‘Somewhere Sunny’

A British man arrested after touching down at the airport in Somalia’s anarchic and war-torn capital said he had only been looking for “somewhere peaceful, sunny.”

Cleve Everton Dennis, arrested Tuesday, said in a confused and rambling speech he gave to reporters that he had wanted to travel to the southern Somali city of Kismayo, the key stronghold of Al-Qaeda allied Shebab insurgents.

Dennis said he originally wanted to go to the Kenyan coastal tourist city of Mombasa, before travelling by land to Somalia, apparently unaware Kenyan troops invaded the region to battle insurgents there.

“When I went I just wanted somewhere peaceful, sunny, you know, somewhere like Nairobi, sunny, nice, (where) people aren’t crazy.”

“Mombasa is a holiday mecca… Ideally I would have gone to Mombasa, and then probably overland to Kismayo… but I couldn’t get a ticket so had to do it the long, hard way,” he said.

Security forces are on the look out for foreign fighters with the hardline Islamists who are battling regional armies, African Union troops and government forces.

Britons form one of the largest foreign contingents in Shebab ranks.

“The British citizen was arrested by the security forces at the airport,” said General Abdulahi Gafow, head of Mogadishu’s immigration department.

“They have screened his belongings and things they found in his bags included knives and marijuana, we are still investigating him.”

Somalia has lacked effective central government for over two decades, allowing warlords, extremist militia and pirates to rule vast regions while civilians have been plagued by lawlessness, hunger and death.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Dutch Party Upset Over Pretoria Street Names

A Dutch political party has demanded action from the Dutch Cabinet in support of the retention of Afrikaans street names in Pretoria.

“The Netherlands Embassy situated in Queen Wilhelmina avenue should refuse to accept a new name,” the “De Partij voor de Vrijheid” (the Party for Freedom), PVV, said in a statement issued in The Hague on Wednesday.

The suggestion was contained in a parliamentay question to Dutch deputy minister Halbe Zijlstra on Wednesday.

Zijlstra was asked if he was aware of the planned name changes and whether he thought the plans were a “slap in the face of the Dutch royal family”.

The PVV said the ANC planned to change 27 Pretoria streetnames, including Beatrix street and Queen Wilhelmina avenue.

Many of the names were a reminder of the anti-colonial struggle of the independent Boer republics against the British empire, the statement said.

“The name Queen Wilhelmina avenue is an ode to the young queen who in 1900 dispatched a Dutch warship to fetch a beleaguered President Kruger,” PVV parliamentarian Martin Bosma said.

Other street names commemorating historical characters were “Voortrekkers” with Netherlands backgrounds who helped establish Pretoria, the PVV politician said.

— Hat tip: TV

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Belgium: Nationalists Want to Set Language Requirement for Foreigners

Like EU citizens citizens from outside the European Union can take part in the local elections in October if they register in time. People from outside the European Union can only register if they have been staying in the country legally for at least five years, but further conditions may now also be set.

Belgium’s largest party, the opposition Flemish nationalist N-VA, wants to ensure that only non-EU foreigners who speak the local language can exercise their vote.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Denmark: Boom in Immigrants on Incapacity Pensions

The number of non-westerners on incapacity pensions has increased almost ten-fold

While the number of ethnic Danes on incapacity pensions has dropped considerably over the past 20 years, the number of non-westerners has increased dramatically. Since 1990, the number of immigrants from non-Western countries on incapacity pensions has risen from 2,979 to 27,375, according to a Rockwool Foundation Research Unit report in Berlingske today.

Rockwool Foundation Senior Researcher Marie Louise Schultz-Nielsen says part of the explanation is that immigrants tend to work in the cleaning sector and as social workers, jobs in which chances for early work-related problems are greatest. At the same time, refugees with war traumas also affect the figures.

“It is clear if you look at the refugee nationalities that these are a large part of incapacity pensions. We know from those who process them that, of course, it is some of the war traumas that result in them having incapacity pensions,” Schultz-Nielsen says.

The figures show that 41 per cent of non-Western immigrants between the ages of 55 and 59 are on incapacity pensions, while the figure for ethnic Danes is 13 per cent.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Dutch Parliament Condemns Anti-Immigrant Website

A majority in the Dutch parliament Tuesday condemned a website set up by Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party — a junior partner in the governing coalition- asking people to report problems experienced with foreigners. The European Parliament already called the website “deplorable” while PM Mark Rutte has declined to condemn it.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Wars and Crises Spark Global Rise in Refugees

The wars and crises of 2011 have lead to a steep increase in refugees across the globe. With many western countries closing their borders, refugees are beginning to look elsewhere for shelter.

It’s like the calm before the storm. The sea is washing against the shore, small fishing boats are returning to port after a day’s work. The town is preparing for the coming tourist season. Over the course of the winter, Lampedusa almost vanished off the radar of public interest.

The small Italian island nestled just off the Tunisian coast had been the focus of much attention last year. For months, Lampedusa had been flooded with African refugees searching for a better life. The poor conditions in the refugee camps led to protests and uprisings. In September the camp was set on fire.

According to the latest statistics of the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, Malta and Italy both saw an increase in asylum applications in 2011. Turkey also had more people requesting asylum — especially refugees from Iraq and Syria.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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300 Swiss Died by Assisted Suicide in 2009

Three hundred Swiss residents died in 2009 by assisted suicide, according to the first such official data published by the Swiss Federal Statistics Office on Tuesday. Nine in ten of them were aged 55 or older, with just one percent younger than 35 years, according to the data, which does not take into account foreigners who come to Switzerland for assisted suicide. From 1998 to 2011, Swiss association Dignitas helped 1,169 foreigners die, including 664 from Germany, followed by 182 from Britain and 117 from France.

Belgium and the Netherlands are the only other two countries issuing data on assisted suicide. In Belgium, the number of cases was at 7.9 per 1,000 deaths in 2009, while in the Netherlands, it stood at 2.3 per 1,000 deaths. In Switzerland, the data corresponded to 4.8 deaths per 1,000.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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EU Slams Albanian Official’s Anti-Gay Comments

(TIRANA) — The European Union on Tuesday denounced an Albanian official who said participants in a planned gay pride parade “should be beaten with truncheons.”

“The European Union strongly condemns any discriminatory rhetoric as well as any incitement to hatred or violence,” the EU delegation in Tirana said in a statement.

The EU statement came after Albania’s deputy defence minister and leader of the royalist party, Ekrem Spahiu, slammed a plan by gay organisations to hold their first-ever pride parade on May 17.

“My only commentary on this gay parade is that they should be beaten with truncheons,” he said last week.

Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha said he backed the planned parade in Tirana as “Albania is a country where all freedoms are guaranteed.”

On Sunday Albanian Muslim and Catholic organisations voiced strong opposition to the parade, insisting that gay rights events threatened society.

Human rights organisations say gays face both discrimination and violence in Albania, a society where many are regarded as deeply homophobic.

Albania passed a law banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in 2010.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Italy: Minister Profumo: Divine Comedy to Remain in Syllabus

(AGI) Rome — “No risk that Dante’s masterworks are to be eliminated from school syllabi”. This is what Education Minister Profumo said, answering to the question time for Pdl on the stance taken by an NGO -Gerush921- who supported the elimination of the “Divine Comedy” as it conveys antisemite, homophobic and racist messages. “The didactic contexts are the best place to divulge the message of the Great Poet. In particular the Ministerial Decree 211 of 7 October 2011 have detected students’ skills at the end of the high school programme, envisaging the intensive study of the Divine Comedy.

It is a decisive element of the Italian cultural identity.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Sweden: ‘Gay-Bashing’ Reggae Star’s Gig Put Off Again

Jamaican reggae singer Sizzla, who had been given the green light to perform on Wednesday night in Stockholm despite an initial cancellation, has been put off again after show promoters gave in to the backlash from the gay community. A statement was released on Wednesday by Ulrika Westerlund, spokesperson for the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights (Riksförbundet för homosexuellas, bisexuellas och transpersoners rättigheter — RFSL). In it, she urged concert goers to reconsider their decision, adding that “it should go without saying that gigs should not be booked for this man”.

Slakthuset, the company behind the event, apologized on Wednesday afternoon in a statement, and acknowledged that the concert would be canned for the second time. “We want to apologize to all who felt offended or have been upset because of all the commotion surrounding this situation,” organizers said. “We would also like to apologize to the large crowd of reggae fans who looked forward to this concert and hope that the audience understands and respects our decision.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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UK: Doctor Claims He Was Dismissed for Emailing Prayer to Colleagues

A Christian doctor who claims he was sacked for emailing a prayer to colleagues in a bid to raise their spirits is suing a hospital for unfair dismissal.

Dr David Drew, 64, told an employment tribunal that he was made to feel like a “religious maniac” after sending out the prayer by St Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, to motivate his department.

He said he was subsequently disciplined and ordered to refrain from using religious references in professional communication. When he sought clarification from executives, he was told to accept the recommendation without questioning or to resign, he claimed.

The report into his behaviour even chastised him for sending a text message to a colleague, Rob Hodgkiss, reading “Have a peaceful Christmas”.

“While DD may regard such messages as benign RH perceived them as aggressive and unwelcome intrusions into his private time,” it said.

Dr Drew claimed Mr Hodgkiss had simply replied, saying “likewise”.

He said: “I believe this trivial example demonstrates that anything can become a matter of offence.”

The doctor said problems began when he voiced concerns about practices at Walsall Manor Hospital, Birmingham, in 2008.

He said there were two occasions in which children had been sexually assaulted on the ward and one in which a child had died after a consultant let him go home.

But he claimed that when he complained, he was promptly stripped of his role as clinical director.

A subsequent investigation was carried out into Dr Drew’s conduct after he complained about the behaviour of a “very rude nurse”, he said.

And he was finally dismissed after he queried the order not to use religious language in professional communications “verbal or written”.

“The allegation that I have forced my religion onto other people, that I am some kind of religious maniac was made worse by the fact that they told me there was no need to understand what this is all about,” he told the Birmingham tribunal.

“If the trust wanted me to behave in a different way they should give me some explanation.

“Little did I know that this email would cause me so much difficulty and ultimately result in my dismissal.”

Dr Drew, a father of four who lives with his wife Janet, 61, in Sutton Coldfield, West Mids, said he was pushed to accept that he had behaved inappropriately and was even offered a “financial inducement” to go quietly.

He was first excluded in April 2009, after sending the prayer, and was eventually dismissed three days before Christmas in 2010. He lost an appeal last April.

— Hat tip: Nick

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Billions of Habitable Alien Planets Should Exist in Our Galaxy

There should be billions of habitable, rocky planets around the faint red stars of our Milky Way galaxy, a new study suggests.

Though these alien planets are difficult to detect, and only a few have been discovered so far, they should be ubiquitous, scientists say. And some of them could be good candidates to host extraterrestrial life.

The findings are based on a survey of 102 stars in a class called red dwarfs, which are fainter, cooler, less massive and longer-lived than the sun, and are thought to make up about 80 percent of the stars in our galaxy.

Using the HARPS spectrograph on the 3.6-metre telescope at the European Southern Observatory’s La Silla Observatory in Chile, astronomers found nine planets slightly larger than Earth over a six-year period. These planets, called super-Earths, weigh between one and 10 times the mass of our own world, and two of the nine were discovered in the habitable zone of their parent star, where temperatures are right for liquid water to exist.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Cat Parasite May Affect Humans, Researcher Claims

A Czech biologist is trying to show how Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite that normally affects only cats and rodents, also affects adult human behavior. He’s now trying to prove a damaging effect on intelligence.

Since its discovery over a century ago, scientists and doctors have known for many years that the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, which is transmitted through cat excrement, causes cognitive problems in mice.

Research has shown that in cases where the immune system is weakened — such as in fetuses or those with immune deficiencies — the parasite can lead to birth defects, swollen lymph nodes or brain damage. However, approximately half of the world’s population has already been infected from exposure to cats, usually to little effect.

In some European countries, such as France and Belgium, Toxoplasma screening for pregnant women is routine — but in the United Kingdom and the United States, the medical establishment does not recommend the practice.

However, for years, Jaroslav Flegr, a professor of biology at Charles University in Prague, has argued that this cat parasite can cause an array of cognitive and behavioral problems, including schizophrenia, in normal adults. He has catalogued the effects of the parasite Toxoplasma gondii through tests on thousands of students since 1992.

The proposition that a strange parasite reaps destructive changes in human behavior is a tough pill to swallow. So Flegr is now working to strengthen his case.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Executions on the Rise Globally, Says Amnesty

Amnesty International says state executions are on the rise. Twenty countries executed a total of 676 people in 2011, up from 527 in 23 countries in 2010. Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia were responsible for most of the increase. It is thought China executes thousands each year, says the group.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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New ‘Life in Space’ Hope After Billions of ‘Habitable Planets’ Found in Milky Way

Billions of potentially habitable planets may exist within our galaxy, the Milky Way, raising new prospects that life could exist near Earth, a study has found.

Researchers discovered that at least 100 of the “super-Earths” may be on our galactic doorstep, at distances of less than 30 light years, or about 180 trillion miles, from the sun.

Astronomers say the findings were made after conducting a survey of red dwarf stars, which account for about four in five stars in the Milky Way.

They calculate that around 40 per cent of red dwarfs have a rocky planet not much bigger than Earth orbiting the “habitable zone”, in which liquid surface water can exist.

Scientists say that where there is water, there also could be life although they add that being in the habitable zone is no guarantee that life has evolved on a planet.

Dr Xavier Bonfils, from Grenoble University in France, who led the international team, said: “Because red dwarfs are so common — there are about 160 billion of them in the Milky Way — this leads us to the astonishing result that there are tens of billions of these planets in our galaxy alone.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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The Great Divide: History and Human Nature in the Old World and the New by Peter Watson — Review

by Tom Holland

Back in 1991, when personal computers were still in their infancy, a hugely influential video game appeared which challenged players to “build an empire to stand the test of time”. Civilization — which, in an upgraded incarnation, remains a bestseller to this day — requires those who play it to lead a tribe of hunter-gathers, and guide them through all the various stages of history until with luck, by AD2100, they have reached Alpha Centauri in a spaceship. Although players can choose which leader to play — Alexander the Great, Montezuma, Genghis Khan — the differences between them are really only cosmetic. The evolution of human society is represented as inexorable progress from one civilisational breakthrough to another. Agriculture leads to pottery and so on, all the way to the invention of rocket boosters. Civilisation itself is cast as one immense, wind-up clock.

The reality, of course, is altogether messier. Notoriously, the brilliant and sophisticated empires of the New World never got around to inventing the wheel. It is the implications of that failure, and of the much broader differences between the civilisations of the Old and New Worlds, that are the focus of Peter Watson’s The Great Divide. Anthropologists and archaeologists, as Watson points out, have generally preferred to emphasise the similarities between the various human cultures that have developed since the last Ice Age; but Watson himself is altogether more intrigued by the contrasts. Between 15,000BC, when the first humans crossed into Alaska, and 1492, when Columbus arrived in the Caribbean, there were two distinct populations of homo sapiens developing in parallel, each utterly unaware of the other. This constituted, in Watson’s words, “the greatest natural experiment the world has seen” — and it is his attempt to trace it, and to draw apposite conclusions from it about “how nature and human nature interact”, that constitutes the meat of this fascinating, ambitious and yet ultimately frustrating book.

The broad thrust of his argument, that civilisation in both the New and Old Worlds has been shaped above all by environmental factors, will be familiar to anyone who has read Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel (1997). The “Great Divide”, in Watson’s pithy summation, was between shepherds and shamans. The plentiful availability in Eurasia of animals just waiting to be domesticated ultimately led to the invention of the plough, the chariot, the wool industry and the pork pie. Meanwhile, what the peoples of the New World might have lacked in terms of horses or cattle was compensated for by a quite prodigious supply of naturally occurring hallucinogens. While the great intellects of Eurasia were busy inventing monotheism and the water-mill, their counterparts in the Americas were off their faces on drugs. This, combined with the fact that the New World is much more prone to extremes of weather and seismic activity than the Old, resulted in gods that were scarily in people’s faces. “In the New World,” so Watson argues, “the existence of a supernatural world was altogether more convincing.”

All of this, traced over millennia, makes for an exhilarating ride — and one from which few, I suspect, will not profit and learn. I certainly had no idea that changes in the post-Palaeolithic era had resulted in the narrowing of women’s pelvic canals, with all that implied for the ease of childbirth — nor that the Maya enjoyed giving themselves nicotine-infused enemas, and used pupettes fashioned out of deer bones and bladders to do so. Nevertheless, the sheer scale of Watson’s canvas represented a challenge that has, to a degree, overwhelmed him. Part of the danger with applying broad brushstrokes is that the detail will often get blurred. His quixotic attempt to combine archaeology, anthropology, meteorology and natural history with thousands of years’ worth of global history requires a range and depth of learning that not even the most polymathic scholars possess.

When, for instance, Watson describes the battle of Salamis as “an axial moment”, it is evident that one of the reasons he does so is because he has just been reading Karen Armstrong’s book on the so-called “Great Transformation”: the axial period that supposedly linked Socrates, Confucius and the Buddha. But in what sense was Salamis “axial”? A bare 14 years previously, the precociously brilliant Ionians had been roundly thumped in a naval battle, thereby demonstrating that an aptitude for philosophy did not necessarily translate into success at sea. Nor, indeed, can the very existence of an axial age be presumed; and quoting Armstrong to imply that it can be ignores the vast number of scholars who would profoundly disagree. Perhaps the value of the concept of an axial age to Watson is that it enables him to shepherd together what would otherwise be an inchoate and undifferentiated mass of research topics, and assemble them all in the same sheep-pen.

This is a strategy that works well in computer-games. In Civilization, the reward for making a set number of technology leaps is to be promoted into “the Classical Period”, or “the Renaissance”, or whatever. In a book devoted to demonstrating the range and variety of human culture, it is altogether less effective. The shame of this book is that Watson, although most original and stimulating as a “splitter”, has ended up all too often and reductively a “lumper”.

• Tom Holland’s In the Shadow of the Sword will be published by Little, Brown in April.

— Hat tip: JP

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	Financial Crisis
»	Obama Praises Italy, Monti for Economic Progress in EU
»	Spread Drops, Draghi Lauds Italy’s Progress
	USA
»	Brooklyn Bridge Gunman Admitted He Wanted to Kill Jews
»	Frank Gaffney: Leading With No One Behind
»	Hard Questions From Supreme Court Justices Over Insurance Mandate
»	Muslim Group Launches Shariah Campaign
»	Nation of Islam Leader Louis Farrakhan to Speak at Alabama A&M University
»	Woman Who Fled Iraq Suffers Brutal End in US
	Europe and the EU
»	Environmentalists Label Rome Most Wasteful Italian City
»	Europe’s Islamic Future Has Arrived
»	France: Don’t Blame Islam for the Toulouse Killings
»	France: Merah’s Father Threatens Complaint, Sarkozy Indignant
»	France: Marine Le Pen: Of Home-Grown Terror and Islam
»	France: At Toulouse Killer’s Mosque, Doubt Reigns
»	In Secular France, Can Faith Carry the Election?
»	Italy: Venice is Still Sinking, Study Finds
»	Italy: Margherita Party Treasurer: Leaders Knew of “Embezzlement”
»	Italy: Green Areas: Lucia Mokbel and Husband Investigated in Rome
»	Norway: Mullah Krekar Jailed for Five Years in Norway
»	Norway: Foreign Minister Under Attack
»	Qaradawi: Now Banned From France
»	Sicily Lures Tourists With Wine
»	Spain: Presumed Member of Al Qaeda Arrested in Valencia
»	UK: “It’s Just Ken Livingstone Being Ken Livingstone”: The Labour Party’s Own Nuremberg Defence
»	UK: Another Bleak Day for British Liberties
»	UK: David Cameron is Paying the Price for His Decision Not to Appoint a Proper Tory Party Chairman
»	UK: English Defence League Tries to Rally European Far Right
»	UK: Ken Livingstone Stands by His “Wealthy Jews” Gaffe
»	UK: Ken Livingstone: “Writer is Wrong to Snub Me — and I’m Not Anti-Semitic”
»	UK: Leeds JSoc Row Symbolises Wider Split
»	UK: Police Hold Surgery at Watford Mosque
»	UK: Scottish Jewry: Hiding Our Identity ‘To Avoid Abuse’
»	Wales: Student Jailed Over Muamba Comments
	North Africa
»	Egypt: Activists and Liberals Leave Constituent Body
»	Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood Issues New Covenant That Gives Hope — Op Ed
»	Jew Beaten to Death With Hammer in Morocco
»	Libya: Ex-NTC Premier, The West Abandoned US
»	Moroccan Islamists Flex Muscles in Rabat March
	Israel and the Palestinians
»	The Crisis of Jewish Leftist Islamism
	Middle East
»	Turkey: Hitler Shampoo Commercial Pulled Off the Air
	South Asia
»	Afghanistan: British Servicemen Shot Dead by Rogue Afghan Army Officer
»	Another Tragic Episode in Britain’s Afghan Adventure
»	India Boat Shooting Jurisdiction Ruling Put Off to Friday
»	Pakistan: Indiscriminate Murder: Preacher Shot Dead Inside Mosque
	Far East
»	Asia is the World’s Top Importer of Weapons
»	China: Manufacturing and Employment Continue to Decline
	Australia — Pacific
»	Classics Return at New School
	Sub-Saharan Africa
»	Nigeria Forecasts Famine in Boko Haram Areas in 2012
»	Somalia: Mortar Attack Kills Father, Son, Journalist Attack Condemned

Obama Praises Italy, Monti for Economic Progress in EU

‘Country has had a very important role’ says US president

(ANSA) — Seoul, March 27 — American President Barack Obama said Tuesday he was happy with Italy and the eurozone for making economic progress in a short amount of time.

“Italy has had a very important role,” said Obama ahead of a plenary meeting at the Seoul Nuclear Security Summit. The American president added that Italian Premier Mario Monti was at the forefront of the positive measures taken in Italy and the eurozone, sources in Seoul said.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Spread Drops, Draghi Lauds Italy’s Progress

‘Country has shown determination’ says ECB chief

(ANSA) — Milan, March 26 — The spread between the Italian 10-year bond and its German equivalent reversed an upward trend Monday and fell to 307 points. The spread, which was over 500 points earlier this year, had been falling steadily before rising to 318 points Friday.

Premier Mario Monti’s emergency government is largely credited for fixing Italy’s bond market by passing austerity measures and presenting structural economic reforms since taking over a government of technocrats in November. “The new governments of Italy and Spain have shown determination in the fight against fiscal and macroeconomic imbalances,” European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said Monday. The yield on Italian 10-year bonds, a second key indicator of market confidence in Italy’s ability to weather the eurozone debt crisis, dropped to 5.03%. The Milan stock market closed up 0.81% at 16,619 points.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Brooklyn Bridge Gunman Admitted He Wanted to Kill Jews

A Lebanese-born man who shot at the young Chasidic passengers of a bus on the Brooklyn Bridge in March 1995, killing a 16-year-old boy, later admitted that he deliberately targeted Jews. Ari Halberstam, a yeshivah student, was killed when Rashid Baz opened fire on the 15 passengers on the bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn. Two others were seriously wounded. The bus had been taking the group home after a visit to the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, then in a Manhattan hospital for minor surgery. Baz, a Lebanese immigrant, was convicted of murder. He maintained that the motive was a traffic disagreement. But it has now emerged that he also told police at the time that the murder was planned and that his victims were targeted because of their race. He reportedly told detectives that he had followed the bus in his car, adding: “I only shot them because they were Jewish.” Baz was sentenced to a minimum of 141 years behind bars, so the new information will not be used to pursue a hate crime charge. When he was sentenced, the judge who presided over the case said he would recommend “against the release of this defendant on parole”.

— Hat tip: JP

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Frank Gaffney: Leading With No One Behind

In Seoul, South Korea on Monday, President Obama enthused once again about his vision of a world without nuclear weapons. It’s a dream he has had since he was a radical leftist studying at Columbia University in the early 1980s. And, in the hope of advancing it now as Commander-in-Chief of the United States of America, he declared that — since he was convinced we had more of these weapons than we need — he is going to reduce our arsenal. According to some accounts, he has in mind cutting it to one roughly the size of Pakistan’s.

In his address at Hankuk University, Mr. Obama suggested that he would get the Russians to do the same. That surely will come as a surprise to their once-and-future president, Vladimir Putin, since he has been quite aggressively beefing up the Kremlin’s nuclear forces. In fact, Putin recently unveiled a $770 billion defense modernization plan which would, among otherthings, buy 400 new long-range ballistic missiles. It is a safe bet that they will be outfitted with modern nuclear weapons, probably multiple, independently targetable ones at that…

— Hat tip: CSP

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Hard Questions From Supreme Court Justices Over Insurance Mandate

With the fate of President Obama’s health care law hanging in the balance at the Supreme Court on Tuesday, a lawyer for the administration faced a barrage of skeptical questions from the four of the court’s more conservative justices.

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Muslim Group Launches Shariah Campaign

by Herbert London

The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) announced a national Shariah education campaign to promote “religious freedom and combat Islamophobia.” This campaign will include an education tour to introduce Islamic faith to the American public, as well as billboards, college campus seminars, radio ads, and a national hotline to address questions about Shariah.

Shariah education and interfaith events and town hall forums are scheduled for 25 cities. According to Dr. Zahid H. Bukhari, president of the ICNA, “The First Amendment guarantees religious freedom for every citizen. Muslim Americans are asking for the same fundamental rights to observe Shariah, a component of the Islamic faith, in our personal, familial and religious affairs within the boundaries of the United States Constitution and all local, state and federal laws.”

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

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Nation of Islam Leader Louis Farrakhan to Speak at Alabama A&M University

Huntsville, Alabama — — Louis Farrakhan, the controversial leader of the Nation of Islam, has accepted an invitation from a coalition of student groups to speak at Alabama A&M University on April 10, The Times’ news partner, WHNT News 19, reports. The Alabama A&M Poetry Club and the Alabama A&M Democrats were two of the student groups who invited Farrakhan to speak, according to WHNT. Poetry club president Kris Taylor told WHNT the Farrakhan appearance, which comes on the heels of anti-Jewish comments by the Nation of Islam leader, is intended to “uplift” and bring “positive energy.” “There’s going to be positive energy coming from this,” Taylor told WHNT. “I don’t believe he’s going to come here and bash the Jews…There should be no division when you’re trying to uplift and bring positive energy to something.”

Alabama A&M University spokeswoman Wendy Kobler said this morning the university is not sponsoring the event, which she said was coordinated between the Nation of Islam and student groups as part of a Farakkhan tour of historically black colleges and universities. The university’s involvement only extends to renting the Elmore Gym to the groups for the event, she said. “We are not sponsoring him. We are not bringing him,” Kobler said. “They are just utilizing the facilities on campus, just like any outside organization would.”

Farrakhan stirred controversy last month when he said Jews had control of the U.S. government and media in what he called “an agreement with hell and covenant and death,” WHNT reported. He has also previously referred to Jewish groups as a “synagogue of Satan,” WHNT reported, and called white people “potential humans who have not fully evolved.” The Jewish Federation of Huntsville-North Alabama said they plan to meet with Alabama A&M officials and ask them to reconsider allowing the event, WHNT reported. “All I can say is shame on A&M for allowing him (Farrakhan) to come,” said Etz Chayim synagogue member Max Rosenthal told WHNT. “We [Jews] are related to Satan according to Mr. Farrakhan…Mr. Farrakhan is a rabid hate-monger, a rabid anti-Semite, and I think all he’s going to do is try to poison the minds of the A&M students. It’s a real disaster to the community, and I believe it’s going to be very divisive.”

— Hat tip: JP

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Woman Who Fled Iraq Suffers Brutal End in US

El Cajon: Shaima Alawadi and her family fled Iraq nearly two decades ago as Saddam Hussein crushed a Shiite uprising, settling in the US so they would no longer face persecution, a family friend said. Alawadi, 32, grew up in the country’s largest Iraqi enclaves, wore the Muslim headscarf and volunteered at the mosque. Now, after her body was found severely beaten in her suburban San Diego home, police, the FBI and members of the Iraqi community are wondering whether her death was a hate crime or something else.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

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Environmentalists Label Rome Most Wasteful Italian City

(AGI) Rome — Legambiente has labeled Rome the most wasteful Italian city with 234.3 litres of water used per person every day, but also because of the 68 cubic metres per one kilometre pipeline of water that are leaked each day (sources Blue Book and Mediobanca), amounting to 27% of all water in the system.

Data for Lazio was revealed by Legambiente as the March 22nd World Water Day approaches, with the presentation of the 2012 Rapporto Ambiente Italia published by Edizioni Ambiente for Legambiente and the Istituto Ambiente Italia. “The municipal assembly should reject Alemanno’s choice and say no to the privatization of ACEA,” emphasized Lorenzo Parlati, president of Legambiente Lazio, “Rome and Lazio need new policies for this resource needed for survival, a resource that must be protected, preserved and defended, and not be considered a money-making asset to be managed by private companies.” He also added, “Citizens made this very clear with the referendum demanding a stronger and more determined attitude from the state in the choices made and the management of companies.

These are decisions that must be made now so as to overcome the environmental crisis but also the financial crisis by aiming for a better future for citizens.” The rest of the region is not doing any better than the capital. Viterbo is among the last in the list of smaller cities consuming 209.6 litres a day per person as is Latina with 62% of its water lost due to leaks in the system .

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Europe’s Islamic Future Has Arrived

by Soeren Kern

“Jews should not emigrate; anti-Semitic Moroccans should.”

In country after European country, the post-modern charade of the bliss of multiculturalism — the idea that all cultures are equal and can coexist peacefully side-by-side in any given country, and that Muslim immigrants should be allowed to keep their cultural traditions rather than integrate into wider European society — is unravelling. Consider just a few of the following Islam-related controversies that jolted Europe during March 2012, a month that not only exposed the deadly consequences of decades of politically correct multiculturalism, but also brought into stark relief the moral confusion that now reigns supreme among much of Europe’s political class.

In France, a 23-year-old Islamic jihadist named Mohamed Merah confirmed the threat of homegrown Muslim terrorism. Merah, a French citizen of Algerian origin, killed three French paratroopers, three Jewish schoolchildren and a rabbi with close-range shots to the head. He filmed himself carrying out the attacks that began on March 11 to “verify” the deaths. Merah later died in a hail of gunfire on March 22 after a 32-hour standoff with police at his apartment in the southern French city of Toulouse. In an extraordinary display of moral callousness, an indifferent Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s ‘Foreign Minister’ and member of the British Labour Party, declared that “what happened in Toulouse,” — the deliberate murder of the Jewish children — was morally equivalent to the accidental war deaths of Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip. Then, in a clumsy effort to blunt the outrage engendered by Ashton’s spectacle, her spin doctors released a statement to “clarify” her remarks by amending the official transcript of her speech.

Ashton made her contentious comments at none other than a pro-Palestinian activists’ conference in Brussels, the self-styled “Capital of Europe” and also the most Islamic city in Europe. She hosted the event, entitled “Palestine Refugees in the Changing Middle East,” in an attempt to convince the world that the European Union is an “honest broker” in the Middle East. Not surprisingly, the Hamas terrorist group applauded Ashton, saying “she deserves thanks, appreciation, and support in the face of Zionist attempts to terrorize and pressure her.” Meanwhile, in Geneva, Switzerland, the United Nations Human Rights Council on March 19 extended an invitation to Hamas’s very own Ismail al-Ashqar to speak to the 19th regular session of the body. The UN reluctantly rescinded al-Ashqar’s invitation at the last minute on fears that his appearance might further undermine its own credibility.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

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France: Don’t Blame Islam for the Toulouse Killings

by Ed West

It’s always a mistake to comment on terrorist atrocities before all the facts are clear. Last summer when news emerged of a bomb attack in Norway, a country embroiled in the 2005 cartoon saga and with troops serving in Afghanistan, many assumed that the perpetrators must be Islamic.

[…]

I agree. Many people kill in the name of jihad but they do not represent Islam or Muslims, the vast majority of whom will be horrified by the Toulouse killings. It is not religion that turns some young Muslim men in the West violent, but the sense of alienation and frustration that inevitably comes from being a second-generation immigrant. Confused and angry young men easily attach themselves to something greater than themselves, especially a strong, confident inter-national identity historically opposed to the West from which they feel so rejected.

[…]

[Reader comment by Chris Ar on 25 March 2012 at 05:33 pm.]

This article is rife with misinformation, including some glaring inaccuracies about what the Koran commands the faithful to do to infidels and apostates. Yes, you should blame Islam for this. Islam created this killer. Islam drove him to kill. Others will use Islam to justify it. Wake up Europe. Ignoring the cancer will not make it go away.

— Hat tip: JP

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France: Merah’s Father Threatens Complaint, Sarkozy Indignant

To lodge formal complaint against France for son’s murder

(ANSAmed) — PARIS, MARCH 27 — French president Nicolas Sarkozy has today expressed his “indignation” over the threat made by the father of Toulouse killer Mohamed Merah to make a formal complaint against the French state for his son’s killing.

“It is with indignation,” Sarkozy said before police officers and magistrates, “that I have learnt that the father of a man who killed seven people wants to lodge a formal complaint against France for his son’s death.” “I will hire the most important lawyers and work the rest of my life to pay the expenses. I will make a formal complaint against France for having killed my son,” Agence France Presse was told by Mohamed Benalel Merah, adding that “France is a large country which had the means to arrest my son while he was alive.

They could have stunned him with gas and then arrested him, but they prefered to kill him.” Mohamed Merah’s father reiterated that he wanted to bury his son in Algeria. “I have decided to bury my son in Algeria, inshallah,” said Mohamed Benalel Merah, interviewed by Agence France Presse in Algeria. “His brother Abdelghani called to reassure me that they are doing whatever is needed to bring him back to Algeria. Mohamed has an Algerian passport and has been registered with the Toulouse consulate since his birth,” he added, saying that during his last stay in Algeria Mohamed “had an Algerian passport like my five children who have double nationality,” Algerian and French. Merah’s father, who lives in Algeria, has been separated from his wife since 1994.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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France: Marine Le Pen: Of Home-Grown Terror and Islam

IN THE aftermath of the Toulouse killings, President Nicolas Sarkozy has been careful to keep the focus on counter-terrorism and security, not immigration. Not so Marine Le Pen, who went in for crude electioneering at a weekend rally, thundering: “How many Mohamed Merahs in the boats, the aeroplanes, that arrive each day in France?” I wonder if she hasn’t misread the national mood. Until now, Ms Le Pen has run quite a clever campaign. The mistake of some observers has been to see the far-right National Front leader as merely a female, telegenic version of her father: crudely anti-immigrant and anti-Islam. In fact, Ms Le Pen’s success (and note that, even though her numbers have dropped back, she is still polling better at this point before voting day than her father did in 2002) is that she has been more subtle than this.

Her objection has been not to Islam or immigration per se, but to what she calls “Islamificatio n”. So she has challenged not the construction of mosques in France, but the holding of Friday prayers in the streets, which she once described as an “occupation”. Her concern, she has often claimed, is not about Muslims but “Islamism”: hard-line Salafists operating in France. Last week, she took care to speak out against confusing Muslims and militants. One of her most powerful comments after the Toulouse shootings was to say that Islamic fundamentalism in France has been “underestimated”. This point rang true to many people beyond Ms Le Pen’s support base, including those who consider the rest of her views toxic.

Next to such subtleties, however, her cheap weekend sloganeering-deliberately confusing immigration and terrorism-could turn out to be a tactical mistake. Mohamed Merah was not an immigrant but a French citizen, as the French know perfectly well. Three of the soldiers Merah murdered were of north African origin, and two of them Muslim. All were French citizens who served in an elite unit of the French army, a choice that was brought home to French viewers watching televised images of their military funerals.

For an excellent analysis of what Merah’s shooting spree actually says about Muslims in today’s France, take a look at Olivier Roy’s weekend article in the New York Times. A French Islamic scholar with a close understanding of his subject, Mr Roy points out that:

For every Qaeda sympathizer there are thousands of Muslims who don the French Army uniform and fight under the French flag-including, of course, in Afghanistan….It suffices to look at the list of the dead or to watch videos of military funerals to confirm this. Yet the fact is seldom acknowledged because it does not fit with the usual perception of Muslims as dissidents.

By way of conclusion, he adds:

In fact the growing presence of Muslim recruits in the army (including elite paratrooper units) is a sign of the growing integration of Muslims in France.

The funerals revealed to France its own changing face, and have made Ms Le Pen’s comments look not just wrongheaded but out of touch.

— Hat tip: JP

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France: At Toulouse Killer’s Mosque, Doubt Reigns

TOULOUSE, FRANCE-At the end of the “A” subway line, far on the northern edge of this city, and tucked to the side of a vast, garbage-strewn parking lot, is the mosque that Mohamed Merah attended. The El-Hoseine Mosque is not easily identifiable as a mosque. There’s neither a minaret, nor any architecture to speak of. Actually it’s fashioned out of a pre-fabricated work trailer, with an outdoor awning twice the area of the inside. It’s there that most of the adherents must gather during crowded Friday prayers, even in winter.

Merah, the 23-year-old self-professed Al-Qaeda ally who confessed to seven murders and was himself killed in a shootout last Thursday, was an off-and-on member here. Several people either didn’t remember him, or remembered seeing him but never spoke to him. Others had limited contact. Whatever their recollection of the young man with the affinity for motorbikes and stunting on two wheels, what they seem to have in common is a strong suspicion of the official version of events. And a strong denunciation of the current state of affairs in their communities and their place as Muslims in French society.

“I’m not sure what happened, but at this moment I have my doubts about it,” said Mamar Messaoui, 34, a resident of the neighbourhood, called Basso-Cambo, one of France’s countless suburbs, or “banlieues,” distinguished by their endless expanses of concrete, bunker-like apartment blocks, and their poverty. “What I do know is that it seems to benefit the president.” “I’m not a conspiracy theorist,” added another member, clad in a pristine black tunic and skullcap. “But nobody saw what went on inside the apartment. No one has heard his voice or seen any pictures. Everything was locked down tight.”

Merah’s makeshift mosque is one of hundreds in France whose inadequate facilities attempt to service the growing Muslim population, now at over 6 million, more than 50,000 in Toulouse alone. In the wake of the Merah terror spree, they are also a source of worry for many local and banlieue mayors of all political stripes, who fear radicalization in their midst. It’s a fear whose cause is championed by the right and the extreme right in the presidential campaign, set for its first-round vote April 22. Front National candidate Marine LePen said she wants intelligence to “infiltrate” these areas and their mosques. She vowed to bring radical Islam “to its knees.”

No one at the El-Hoseine here said they condoned what Merah did. The general feeling, rather, seemed to be uncertainty over exactly what that was. Merah’s life came to a bloody end last Thursday in a shootout with police who stormed his apartment. He’d been under siege there for 32 hours. Police said he confessed to killing three paratroopers, a rabbi and three Jewish schoolchildren, all at point-blank range, and filming it. He told siege negotiators his actions were to avenge dead Palestinian children and to protest France’s presence in Afghanistan. He travelled there and to Pakistan twice in the last two years, where he said he was trained. He’d amassed a sizeable weapons cache, including machine guns and automatic pistols.

The 32-year-old mosque member in the black tunic, a convert to Islam in his teens, said he spoke to Merah once in a while. He wouldn’t give his name fearing any consequences of a link to Merah. One anecdote sticks out in his mind: A few years ago, Merah’s father had a car accident and was badly injured, the man said. Merah and his older brother Abdelkader visited him there. But later, when the man asked how his father and brother were, Merah replied that he didn’t know, he’d not seen them in a while. “It was a completely broken family,” the man said. To his mind, this once again puts doubt in the notion that Abdelkader, already known to French intelligence authorities as holding fundamentalist beliefs, groomed Merah and helped him behind the scenes, as authorities now believe.

An anti-terrorist judge laid preliminary charges against Abdelkader Sunday night. The El-Hoseine Mosque is one where, its members say, “orthodox” Islam is practiced. But it’s not radical in the sense that in none of the imam’s teachings does he counsel hatred, they say. The cleric, Mamadou Daffé, in fact, is a respected researcher in biochemistry at the Centre National de la recherché scientifique. Daffé was out of the country during the Star’s visit to the mosque last Sunday, but members said last Friday he used his sermon to warn that the Qur’an cannot be used to commit injustice. In fact, as with some other mosques in France, whose clerics have spoken out and even hired bodyguards, there are more radical elements in the Muslim community demanding a harder line at this mosque.

In this presidential campaign, even before the Merah affair, Islam has been top of mind, and the many different and diverse Muslim communities in France have felt targetted.

President Nicholas Sarkozy said there were “too many immigrants on our territory” and promised to cut the numbers in half. One of his ministers said that “not all civilizations are equal” and cited the full facial veil worn by some women. Politicians railed against the proliferation of halal meat. Since the Merah incidents, many now feel these controversies and debates will become even more widespread among the populace, something Messaoui said is driving more second- and third-generation Muslims to strongly embrace their faith in response. “Identity is at the heart of things,” Messaoui said. “The current debate says this, ‘Be proud to be French, if you’re not Muslim.’ That’s at the heart of things. All they talk about is Islam,” he adds. “Look at our schools, they’re terrible. Look at the services around us, they’re terrible.” Ironically, Messaoui said he’s trained to help the unemployed find jobs, as an “insertion counsellor,” but is currently una ble to find a job in his field.

With these sentiments, then, a mistrust of the central government is perhaps not so hard to understand, its version of what happened with Merah included. Messaoui asks the conspiratorial question, that with the centre-right Sarkozy’s campaign flagging, could a terrorist threat rally support? Such feelings are not limited to the mosque. At a public assembly earlier this week to remember the victims, a group of several young Muslim women also expressed doubt in the state’s version of what happened with Merah. It’s by no means universal, however. Linda Saidia, 19, at first thought the killer was a right-wing extremist. When it became clear Merah was inspired by radical Islam, she was simply saddened. “He was lost. A Muslim would never kill children,” she said. In the wake of any tragedy there is always soul searching. Within France’s mosques and political backrooms, this could not be more obvious.

[JP note: A Muslim would never kill children? That’ll be the day.]

— Hat tip: JP

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In Secular France, Can Faith Carry the Election?

Do France’s Catholics, Muslim and Jews choose their president depending on their faith? A sociologist tells FRANCE 24 why Catholics flock to conservative Nicolas Sarkozy while Muslims and Jews favour Socialist François Hollande.

By Ségolène ALLEMANDOU (text)

In staunchly secular France, the common assumption is that religion is best kept out of politics. Analysts tend to look to age, profession or gender when trying to gauge voter behaviour. But according to sociologists, religion plays a key part when it comes to casting a ballot. Claude Dargent, a researcher at Sciences Po’s Cevipof institute, argues that religion is more influential in voters’ decisions than social class.

At 57.2%, Catholics make up the majority of voters in France. Muslims (5%) form the second biggest religious group, followed by Protestants (2%) and Jews (0.6%). Some 30% of French voters describe themselves as having “no religion”.

Claude Dargent specialises in research on French voting patterns and has published reports on both Muslim and Catholic voter behaviour ahead of next month’s presidential election.

FRANCE 24: The Muslim electorate has expanded massively in the past decade. How do French Muslims tend to vote?

Claude Dargent: In 1997, Muslim voters in France made up only 0.7% of voters, whereas in 2007 [at the last presidential election] they had reached around 5%. This is because of the increasing numbers of Muslims on the electoral roll, most of them having been born into Muslim families of foreign origin.

French Muslims are largely left-leaning — 95% of them voted for [Socialist candidate] Ségolène Royal in the first round of the 2007 presidential election, while only 5% voted for [conservative, UMP party] Nicolas Sarkozy.

Around 75% of French Muslims are working class, but the French working class as a whole does not vote in the same way. In fact, they span left, right and far-right circles. Because of this comparison, we can deduce that French Muslims tend to vote left-wing because of their membership of a religious group rather than their social class.

F24: What about the Catholic vote?

C.D.: Practicing Catholics are five to six times more likely to vote right-wing than those who describe themselves as “without religion”. In the first round of the 2007 election, some 49% of Catholics voted for Nicolas Sarkozy, against only 12% for Ségolène Royal. According to a January survey carried out by TNS-Sofre’s for [Catholic weekly] Le Pèlerin, 50% of Catholics plan to vote for Sarkozy this time round while just 13% will support [Socialist candidate] François Hollande.

Interestingly, Catholics have not been won over by the far right. In 2007, [former National Front leader] Jean-Marie Le Pen experienced his lowest score among French Catholics.

[Centrist candidate] François Bayrou also rates poorly among Catholics, at just 14%, despite belonging to the Christian Democrat family.

F24: And Jewish voters?

C.D.: It’s very difficult to assess the behaviour of Jewish voters because they make up less than 1% of the electorate, meaning that the margin for error is a potential game-changer. We do know however that French Jews are more likely to vote left than right. Although in 2007 some of them seem to have voted for Nicolas Sarkozy. But it’s difficult to know why because their vote is clouded by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

F24: Do Protestants follow the same pattern as fellow Christians?

C.D.: Historically, Protestants have tended to side with the left. But this tendency has weakened in recent years, with some rallying behind Sarkozy in the last election. According to surveys, those Protestants who did vote for him soon regretted it, particularly after the infamous ‘Fouquet’s’ episode [when Sarkozy celebrated his 2007 victory at an extravagant restaurant, earning the nickname ‘bling-bling president’].

F24: Will religion play a part in the 2012 election?

C.D.: The religious vote is grounded in values, which explains why it varies remarkably little. It is not new to France, the only difference now being that Islam has made it a focal issue.

The “religious question” was already being discussed in 1905 when church and state were separated. By the mid-20th century, pioneer electoral sociologist André Siegfried claimed that “religion is the central question for French voters”.

I think little will change in this election. We will still see the Catholic/right, Muslim/left divide, and the Protestants will probably find a suitable candidate in François Hollande.

F24: Could Sarkozy suffer?

C.D.: The religious question has remained an ongoing theme during Sarkozy’s five-year term.

The nationwide debates he promoted on secularism and national identity played out badly for Muslims and will likely affect their choice in the polling booth. On the other hand, Sarkozy appeased religious conservatives when he said in 2007 that “the teacher will never replace the priest or the pastor” during a speech against gay marriage.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Italy: Venice is Still Sinking, Study Finds

Foundation also tilting

(ANSA) — Venice, March 21 — Venice is still sinking and the foundation is tilting slightly eastward, a new study has found. Despite previous studies that showed that subsistence had leveled off, a forthcoming article in the journal Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems shows Venice to be sinking on average of one to two millimeters per year.

Venice’s 117 islands are also slipping deeper into the lagoon, with those in the north dropping at a rate of two to three millimeters per year and those in the south at three to four. The study also found that Venice is listing slightly eastward, meaning the western side is higher than the rest, a previously unnoticed phenomenon the researchers detected using a combination of GPS measurements and data from space-borne radar (InSAR) from 2000 to 2010. High tides routinely wash over the city’s banks flooding its streets and squares. The reasons Venice is sinking are both natural and man-made.

Decades of pumping groundwater caused significant damage to the delicate foundation before the practice was called off. Weather experts say the high-water threat has been increasing in recent years as heavier rains have hit northern Italy.

Other possible explanations for the phenomenon include the sea floor rising as a result of incoming silt and gas extraction in the sea off Venice undermining the islands.

According to the new study, plate tectonics is also to blame as the Adriatic plate is sliding beneath the Apennine Mountains, causing the area to drop in elevation. Scientists have conceived various ways of warding off the waters since a catastrophic flood in 1966 and a system of moveable flood barriers called MOSE is near completion after years of polemics.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Margherita Party Treasurer: Leaders Knew of “Embezzlement”

(AGI) Rome- The Margherita party’s former treasurer Luigi Lusi said the party leaders “knew everything” about the misplaced funds. Lusi apparently told magistrates in Rome’s public prosecutor’s office that the Margherita’s top men were aware of the goings-on with the party coffers which resulted in accusations of embezzlement.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Italy: Green Areas: Lucia Mokbel and Husband Investigated in Rome

(AGI) Rome — Lucia Mokbel and her husband are also under investigation in the fraud case of gardens managed by private persons. Among those in the sights of the Public Prosecutor’s Office for the matter of the “Punti Verde Qualita’“ is Lucia Mokbel as well, the sister of Gennaro, the Neopolitan businessman already being tried for international money laundering which has also involved the former directors of Fastweb and Telekom Italia Sparkle. Also among those investigated is the husband of Lucia Mokbel, the owner of the “Luoghi del Tempo” company, which was assigned the management of Parco Feronia. The company was subjected to a search by the Financial Police on the order of the Prosecutor’s Office. In the search warrant the crimes of fraud and corruption are listed. . .

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Norway: Mullah Krekar Jailed for Five Years in Norway

Mullah Krekar, the Kurdish founder of radical Islamic group Ansar al-Islam, has been sentenced to five years in jail in Norway for making death threats against officials and others.

Mullah Krekar, 55, came to Norway as a refugee in 1991. Krekar, who says he is no longer involved with Ansar al-Islam, said in court he would appeal the ruling. Ansar al-Islam, which is based in northern Iraq, is regarded by the UN and US as a terrorist organisation. Mullah Krekar was found guilty of threatening the life of Erna Solberg, an ex-minister who signed his expulsion order in 2003 because he was considered a threat to national security. He was also found guilty of threatening three other Kurds living in Norway who had burnt pages of the Koran or insulted it in another way. Mullah Krekar — born Najm Faraj Ahmad — has lived in suburban eastern Oslo with his family since 1991 when he was granted refugee status in Norway. From this base, he founded Ansar al-Islam, which Washington blames for attacks on coalition forces in Iraq. In 2006, the UN added the cleric to a list of people believed to have links with al-Qaeda. The Kurdish cleric says he stepped down as leader of Ansar al-Islam in 2002 and denies any links with al-Qaeda. He remains in Norway despite the deportation order against him because of the security situation in Iraq.

— Hat tip: JP

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Norway: Foreign Minister Under Attack

He’s long been regarded as Norway’s most capable and respected cabinet minister, but Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre is suddenly facing harsh criticism on several fronts. On Monday he was being assailed as “arrogant and superior.”

“The Foreign Ministry has been like a pressure cooker in terms of Støre’s arrogant and superior leadership style,” Petter Gottschalk, a professor at BI Norwegian Business School, told newspaper Dagsavisen. He thinks the “pressure cooker” is about to explode.

“What’s happening now is that people who are sitting on unfortunate information about Støre are coming forward via the media,” Gottschalk said. “This isn’t surprising.”

Since taking over as foreign minister for the Labour Party in 2005, after Labour won enough votes to form Norway’s left-center coalition government, Støre has ranked second only to Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg in terms of power and popularity, and many have viewed Støre as Stoltenberg’s possible successor as a Labour prime minister. In the past week, though, there’s been a series of stories about Støre in local media that have put him in an unflattering light.

Støre, for example, has been accused of favouring an old friend when the ministry allocated funding for a foundation in northern Norway. Newspaper Dagbladet carried stories about the funding, raising questions that Støre was guilty of a conflict of interest, also when he allegedly pressured environmental authorities into granting the old friend, shipowner Felix Tschudi, some needed permits.

On Sunday, newspaper VG reported that the foreign ministry has granted NOK 1 million to author and journalist Simen Ekern to write a book about global trends in the future, with the ministry deciding who will be interviewed and what themes will be covered. Støre will figure prominently in the book, and take part in all the interviews.

That set off quick criticism from opposition politician Ine Eriksen Søreide, leader of the parliament’s foreign affairs committee for the Conservative Party (Høyre). She told VG that “taxpayer’s money shouldn’t be used for the branding of Støre,” while Gottschalk blasted the book project as well.

“You can’t be more conceited,” Gottschalk told Dagsavisen. “Støre is acting like a ‘sun king’ and has no scruples about being part of a book project where he’ll be portrayed as a sun king, and even get his job to pay for it.”

Gottschalk believes many “resourceful persons” in the foreign ministry (utenriksdepartementet, UD) have long been “provoked” by what he calls Støre’s “one-man’s might.” He thinks more potentially embarrassing news about Støre will be leaked to the media in the weeks to come.

“If he had a normal leadership style, his staff would have cleaned up after him if mistakes were made,” Gottschalk claimed. “But the sort of things Støre is being hit with now are a result of his staff getting tired of not being heard. They stop cleaning up.”

Støre defends himself

Støre has denied he knowingly tried to help his childhood friend Felix Tschudi and rejects reports he helped Tschudi get permits. He reportedly didn’t respond to requests for comment on Gottschalk’s claims but told VG on Monday that he sees no need to have his impartiality in the Tschudi case examined by the Justice Ministry, as several other professors have recommended.

Støre stresses that the funding in question did not go to Tschudi or his shipping company but to a foundation backed by Tschudi. Støre declined comment on the book project but Ekern, an award-winning author, said it would focus on Norwegian foreign policy with him interviewing “central international players” about how they think the world will look in 2030. Støre will take part in the interviews, Ekern told VG.

The ministry’s communications chief, Ragnhild Imerslund, said the project was initiated by the ministry and that Støre agreed the book, which will be called Norge i verden 2030 (Norway in the World 2030) should be financed through its “Reflex” project. That will involve an amount exceeding limits for external projects that Reflex generally aids. Imerslund said Ekern would lead the interviews, form the questions and have literary control over the book, due to be published by Cappelen Damm either later this year or early next year.

— Hat tip: The Observer

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Qaradawi: Now Banned From France

Yusuf al-Qaradawi is a hate preacher who admires Hitler and who hopes one day to be able to complete his work:

Sheikh Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi: Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them — even though they exaggerated this issue — he managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hand of the believers. […] To conclude my speech, I’d like to say that the only thing I hope for is that as my life approaches its end, Allah will give me an opportunity to go to the land of Jihad and resistance, even if in a wheelchair. I will shoot Allah’s enemies, the Jews, and they will throw a bomb at me, and thus, I will seal my life with martyrdom. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds. Allah’s mercy and blessings upon you.

He was banned from entering the United Kingdom in 2008. And now he has been banned from France.

France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy said Monday that influential and popular Egyptian preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi was “not welcome” in France.Sarkozy was speaking four days after an Islamist gunman who admitted to killing 7 people in southwest France was shot dead in a gunfight with police. Mohamed Merah, a Frenchman of Algerian origin, claimed to have received terrorism training in Pakistan. Al-Qaradawi, a well-known Sunni Muslim cleric with links to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, had been invited to a meeting of the Union of French Islamic Organizations (UOIF) next month. Sarkozy said he had told the emir of Qatar “this man is not welcome on the territory of the French Republic.”Al-Qaradawi has a diplomatic passport from Qatar, according to Sarkozy.

Not everybody is happy:

The statement has shocked much of the Middle East, especially here in Cairo, where many Islamic leaders are not sure what to make of the move. “I don’t get it because Qaradawi, even though he is conservative, has never been supportive of violence,” said an al-Azhar professor. He added to Bikyamasr.com that he was concerned that France was responding to the attack “of one man” as a means “to attack and entire religion.” He said it was “unacceptable.”

It is not true that Qaradawi has “never been supportive of violence”. As you can see, he hopes to participate in violence against “God’s enemies, the Jews” himself. As the favoured religious authority of the genocidal terrorist group, Hamas, Qaradawi has published a religious ruling which permits the suicide murder of Jewish civilians in Israel, who he regards as all fair game.

— Hat tip: JP

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Sicily Lures Tourists With Wine

Flagship Nero d’Avola is a hit with visitors

(ANSA) — Palermo, March 27 — Sicily is emerging as one of Italy’s top tourist destinations as a growing number of tourists discover its spectacular scenery, rich history and unique cuisine. Now the wines of Sicily are beginning to get the attention they deserve. Sicily’s flagship wine is the hearty Nero d’Avola. Like the Sicilian white wine Insolia, Nero d’Avola is among the most popular Italian wines, with sales just behind the famous Chianti and Lambrusco from the mainland in 2010. “Nero d’Avola is the most popular wine in Sicily,” Francesca Planeta, marketing director of her family’s company, told ANSA. “This wine is produced in every part of the island. There are many producers with different varieties but this is the most popular wine. It is really a symbol of Sicily”. Planeta is one of the leading wine estates on the southern Italian island and has vineyards stretching from Menfi and Sambuca in the west, to Vittoria and the Baroque town of Noto in the southeast. It also has a new estate called Sciara Nuova in the vulcanic soils surrounding Mount Etna, north of Catania. “At the beginning of 2000 Sicily started to get more popular, it started to become fashionable and so did its indigenous varieties,” Planeta said. But that wasn’t the case when Planeta was founded in 1995 by cousins Alessio and Santi Planeta and their uncle Diego.

Francesca is Diego’s daughter and plays an important role in marketing the wines in Italy and abroad. “When we started in 1995 it was very hard to sell Sicilian wines, they didn’t have a good image and a lot of wine was sold in bulk,” Planeta said. “Sicily wasn’t a place where you would look for quality wine. We looked to promote the brand name and introduced international varieties such as chardonnay, merlot and cabernet sauvignon and two blends”. Planeta established a name for itself as an innovator because it matched local soil types to both native Sicilian wine varietals and international grapes. She said Sicilian wines have now come into their own and winelovers no longer talk about a ‘Sicilian Nero d’Avola’ for example, but identify a specific Nero d’Avola from a particular region. “Our origins are in the Sambuca area in southwest Sicily,” she said. “In 1998 when it was hard to sell Nero d’Avola we went to Noto in the southeast, and we started planting. “Today this work is starting to develop in the identification of territories, we now talk about a Nero d’Avola from Noto or from Vittoria or Menfi, not just from Sicily”. Now Planeta’s wines are sold around the world and sales are strong in Germany, the US, Switzerland, Canada, Japan and the UK. Planeta encourages winelovers to visit its six boutique wineries starting with the family’s beloved Ulmo estate near Sambuca that dates back centuries. Today tourists can visit the estate and tour its vast vineyards, ancient olive groves and the ruins of an Arab castle.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Spain: Presumed Member of Al Qaeda Arrested in Valencia

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, MARCH 27 — A Saudi Islamist has been arrested by the Civil Guard in Valencia today, on suspicion of being a member of Al Qaeda and of spreading audiovisual material over the Internet encouraging terrorist attacks, sources from the Spanish Interior Ministry report. The man, who has been identified by his initials, M.H.A., was arrested between the areas of Benicalap and Campanar, in the north-east of the city. The investigation leading to his arrest began in February 2011 and was coordinated by the preliminary investigation section 5 of the Audiencia Nacional. The arrest comes a few days after the death in France of Mohamed Merah, an alleged member of Al Qaeda who confessed to killing 7 people between March 11 and 19. Before his death, Merah, who was killed by special police units in the flat in which he was holed up, circulated videos of his attacks on the Internet.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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UK: “It’s Just Ken Livingstone Being Ken Livingstone”: The Labour Party’s Own Nuremberg Defence

by Dan Hodges

So he’s admitted it. Ken Livingstone has finally confirmed he believes Jews will not vote for him because they’re rich. Caught off-guard yesterday by a journalist from the Camden New Journal, Labour’s mayoral candidate finally dropped his false denial, and said “every psephological study I’ve seen in the 40 years I’ve been following politics shows the main factor that determines how people how vote is their income level. It varies, a lot of people vote against their own economic interest very often, but that is the main factor and it’s not anti-Semitic to say that.”

In Britain, in 2012, that is the pitch coming from a mainstream political candidate to his supporters: “The Jews are opposed to me — and us — because of their wealth.” Just to be crystal clear on this point, here is what Livingstone said when first presented with the allegations, following a letter of protest from prominent members of the London Jewish community to Labour leader Ed Miliband: “[the letter is] a bit of electioneering from people who aren’t terribly keen to see a Labour mayor.” What people, Ken?

There is an old saying in politics that if you’re going to tell a lie, tell a huge one, because the sheer audacity of the statement will lend it credibility. Livingstone has just used a similar technique, though in this instance not to dissemble, but to denigrate.

The stereotype of the rich, socially divisive Jew is so offensive, so burdened by historical prejudice, that it is on a par with the ignorant but sexually virile black or the scheming, untrustworthy Oriental. And yet it has not been evoked by Nick Griffin or one of the English Defence League’s plastic stormtroopers, but Labour’s official candidate. And what has the reaction been from the party that claims to be in the vanguard of the fight against prejudice? Silence. Actually, more shameful than silence. Tacit approval.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Another Bleak Day for British Liberties

by Alex Massie

Should you receive a jail sentence for being an idiot on Twitter? Apparently so! Liam Stacey, the 21 year old who tweeted “LOL, F*** Muamba. He’s dead” after the Bolton Wanderers’ collapse at White Hart Lane is off to spend 56 days in prison for this and other (unpleasant) “racially offensive” tweets. Cue much outrage everywhere. The boy appears to be a moron, but should that be an imprisonable offence? I cannot see what crime has been committed here, save the trumped-up charge of causing needless and witless offence. Tedious as this may be it ought not to be a matter for the authorities. So I agree with everything Nick Cohen writes here:

I’ve no doubt that he’s a vile man, who by the sound of it was drunk at the time he posted, but what remains disturbing about the case is that the Crown offered no evidence that Stacey had incited racial violence or any other crime. That his speech was racist was enough to send him down. […]

[T]he authorities neither trust nor respect the rest of the population. They do not understand that society has its own sanctions, and does not need detectives and prosecutors to police free speech. As it turned out, Stacey’s followers were more than capable of denouncing him of their own accord. Their condemnations were so robust he tried first to delete his posts, and then deny that he had written them. Far from being latent racists, willing to don the white hood at the first opportunity, his followers proved themselves thoughtful citizens.

The British state has moved far beyond the good, old advice that ‘the best answer to bad arguments is better arguments’. The danger of its power grab is not only that our illiberal ‘liberal establishment’ will use their excessive power to censor speech in the public interest — although it does just that in the libel courts all the time. As worrying a possibility is that its assaults on free speech — even repugnant and boorish speech — will strengthen the monster it wishes to tame.

Quite so. Those people endorsing this prosecution — and this conviction — should be ashamed of themselves just as Mr Stacey should be ashamed of his own actions and prejudices.

PS: Apparently Mr Stacey pled guilty. I do wish someone would test these people’s nerve by pleading not-guilty in these kinds of case.

[Reader comment by Noa. on 27 March 2012 at 4:10pm.]

We are now experiencing the full, bitter fruits of the speech and thought control legislation that Labour put in place to facilitate its policy of mass third world immigration into the UK.

Leo McKinstry’s forebodings in 2003 remain as cogent now as then. www.spectator.co.uk/spectator/thisweek/11750/the-multicultural-thought-police.thtml

[Reader comment by Barry on 27 March 2012 at 4:44pm.]

Fear not, Alex. Someone has already tested it. Ambaro Maxamed and her merry band of Somalian nutters kicked an innocent passer by up and down a street whilst screaming “white slag!” They were duly found guilty (thanks to CCTV footage), but the Law decreed that the attack ‘was not racially motivated, because the muslim ladies in question were not used to the effects of alcohol.’ They were given a 6 months suspended sentence. Words fail me

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: David Cameron is Paying the Price for His Decision Not to Appoint a Proper Tory Party Chairman

by Iain Martin

Baroness Warsi, co-chairman of the Conservative Party, has been notable by her absence since news of the “Cash for Cameron” affair first broke. Instead it has fallen to a tag team of Francis Maude and Michael Fallon to go from studio to studio explaining why this is a “bit of nonsense” (in Maude’s words) which simultaneously the Conservative party leadership takes seriously. Warsi’s co-chairman, Lord Feldman — Andrew Feldman, ennobled by his close friend David Cameron — has not been seen either. This is less surprising, as Feldman is the Cameroon’s fund-raising lynchpin and keeps a low profile. He was interviewed for the Financial Times recently as part of a profile on Cameron’s first two years as PM. Feldman explained that his friend was good at his job and works tremendously hard, but does look a “little tired” (in contrast to many millions of Britons who commute, work to keep their heads above water, do not have access to two grace and favour homes and look completely knac kered).

“Cash for Cameron” has underlined the absence of a proper old-style Tory party chairman. Matthew Barrett (“Where’s the Party Chairman?”) spotted this yesterday, when Fallon and Maude were doing the 10,000 metres media relay. He suggested that Cameron needs to get himself a chairman to lead from the front pronto. Equally, that person would have seen it as part of his or her job to protect the party leader from donors and insulate him from potential scandal in the first place. “We are in a mess on Cruddas,” a senior Tory told me yesterday, “because we haven’t got a strong party chairman who is experienced in the ways of politics as well as being experienced in the ways of the world.”

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: English Defence League Tries to Rally European Far Right

Anti-fascists plan counter demonstrations against EDL meeting in Denmark at which hundreds are expected to attend

Far right and anti-Islamic groups are due to hold a rally in Denmark on 31 March organised by the English Defence League (EDL) which it claims will be the start of a pan-European movement. The rally will take place a few weeks before the start of the trial of Anders Behring Breivik, the far right extremist who has confessed to the murder of 77 people in Norway last July, and is expected to attract supporters of at least 10 anti-Islamic and far right groups from across the continent. It is the second time the EDL has tried to hold a meeting in Europe. In October 2010 about 60 supporters turned up to a planned rally in Amsterdam and were attacked by Ajax football fans and anti-fascists. The EDL claims the 31 March event will be bigger. It is expected to attract several hundred people drawn from defence leagues and other far right groups that have emerged around Europe over the past two years.

Observers are divided over whether the event is a significant step towards a coherent European far right movement but the possibility has raised concern. Nick Lowles from Hope not Hate, which campaigns against racism and fascism, said he was not expecting a big turnout but added some key figures from emerging far right groups would be there. “The march in Denmark will bring together many of the leaders of the so-called ‘counter-jihad movement’ and it is another sign of the growing international anti-Muslim networks,” he said.

The EDL says the Denmark rally will discuss the formation of a European Defence League with representatives from far right and anti-Islamic groups in Italy, Poland, Germany, Finland, Sweden and Norway expected to attend. Lowles said: “Their focus on the threat of Islam, presenting it as a cultural war, has a far wider resonance amongst voters, especially in northern Europe, than old-style racists. They conflate Islamist extremists with immigration and in the current economic and political conditions it is extremely dangerous.”

Claude Moraes, the Labour MEP for London who chairs the all-party group on racism in the European parliament, described the demonstration as a critical moment and said there was widespread complacency about the threat posed by groups such as the EDL among mainstream European politicians. “They have missed what is a fundamental change in the way the far right is working. Despite all the evidence of the growing influence and importance of these proxy groups there is still a real complacency about how they are operating, how deeply embedded they are becoming and how they are shaping the debate,” Moraes said.

Last year, a report from the thinktank Demos found a new generation of young, web-based supporters who embrace hardline nationalist and anti-immigrant groups. It concluded that far right and anti-Islamic groups were on the rise across Europe. The exception appeared to be the UK where the British National party failed to make any breakthrough last year in parliamentary and local elections. In a separate report, Matthew Goodwin from Nottingham University and Jocelyn Evans of Salford University found that a hardcore of far right supporters in the UK appears to believe violent conflict between different ethnic, racial and religious groups is inevitable, and that it is legitimate to prepare even for armed conflict.

Breivik claimed he had contact with the EDL ahead of the attacks, adding that he had “spoken with tens of EDL members and leaders”. In response to the killings, the league issued a statement condemning the Norway killings and adding that it had no contact with Breivik.

The EDL, which emerged from Luton in 2009 to become the most significant far right street movement in the UK since the National Front, claims to be a peaceful, non-racist and set up to protest against “militant Islam”. Many of its demonstrations have descended into violence and Islamophobic and racist chanting, attracting known football hooligans and far right extremists. In the last year it has staged demonstrations in communities with large Muslim populations including Bradford, Leicester and Tower Hamlets in London. However, it has been hit by divisions and internal rows and some of its supporters have been involved in smaller, but often more violent activities, such as targeting trade union meetings and anti-racist groups. A big turnout of anti-facists from Denmark and other European countries is expected in protest at the rally in Denmark. Projekt Antifa, a Danish coalition of anti-fascist groups, has booked coaches to take protesters from Copenhagen to Aarhus where the demonstration is being held, describing it as “the capital’s biggest anti-fascist mobilisation for more than 10 years.” British anti-racists are also planning to travel to the rally. Weyman Bennett from Unite Against Fascism said he would be travelling to the event with 30 supporters.

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Ken Livingstone Stands by His “Wealthy Jews” Gaffe

It is quite clear, from the trajectory of the discussion over the last few days, that there are some people who simply see nothing wrong with Ken Livingstone’s “Rich Jews” statement.

The leaked letter records the following:

Ken toward the end of the meeting stated that he did not expect the Jewish community to vote Labour as votes for the left are inversely proportional to wealth levels

Make no mistake about this. What Ken is saying is not simply that richer people tend to vote for “right wing” parties. He is specifically claiming that “the Jewish community” as a whole will not vote for him, because Jews are rich. “The Jewish community” is not rich. There are sufficiently high numbers of Jews with average, modest and poor incomes to make this universal judgement politically meaningless. Communities in any case don’t ordinarily vote as “blocs” — not unless they’ve been pushed into sectarianism. And that, of course, is precisely Ken Livingstone’s electoral strategy. However, it is antisemites who trade on the stereotype of the rich Jew.

[…]

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Ken Livingstone: “Writer is Wrong to Snub Me — and I’m Not Anti-Semitic”

MAYORAL election candidate Ken Livingstone claimed this afternoon (Monday) there was nothing anti-semitic in his comments about the likelihood of rich Londoners snubbing Labour at the polls. Speaking to the New Journal during a campaign event in Russell Square, he said he was surprised by the nature of a hard-hitting article by Guardian columnist Jonathan Freeland published over the weekend in which the writer said he could no longer bring himself to vote for Mr Livingstone because he came across as uncaring towards the Jewish community. In his column, Mr Freedland said he had been at the private meeting on March 1 during which, it has been claimed, Mr Livingstone suggested rich Jewish residents would not vote for him. “As it happens I was at that meeting and I can confirm that the former mayor did make precisely that argument, linking Jewish voting habits to economic status, even if he did not baldly utter the words ‘Jews are rich’, a phrase that would have been additionally offensive,” Mr Freedland wrote. The Jewish Chronicle reported last week how a letter of complaint had been sent to Labour leader Ed Miliband following the meeting.

Mr Livingstone denies making the assertion and his team said sensational headlines had not captured his true sentiments, but Mr Livingstone said today he stuck by his view that voting habits were often linked to wealth. “To be brutally honest, I was surprised at the line he (Jonathan Freedland) took because every psephological study I’ve seen in the 40 years I’ve been following politics shows the main factor that determines how people how vote is their income level,” he said. “And it’s not anti-semitic to say that.” Privately, Labour officials often, when asked about any negative comment pieces or news coverage in the Guardian towards the party, make reference to the paper’s decision to encourage readers to vote for the Liberal Democrats ahead of the 2010 general election. But the issue of Labour making sure its traditional, core support come out to vote on May 3 in a close contest with Boris Johnson has been thrown into sharp focus by niggly stories in recent days a bout how members are supposedly unenthused by Mr Livingstone’s campaign. His running mate for deputy, Mayor Val Shawcross, said today that she “did not recognise” the picture conjured up by polls claiming 31 per cent of Labour supporters would not be voting for Mr Livingstone this time. Mr Freedland wrote in his article that he did not want to see Mr Johnson re-elected but added: “People will wrestle with their own dilemmas. Some will conclude that only Livingstone’s policy positions on transport or housing matter, I’m afraid I’ve reached a different conclusion.”

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Leeds JSoc Row Symbolises Wider Split

The squabbling over Leeds JSoc’s withdrawn invitation to American lawyer Brooke Goldstein is a further symptom of an as yet unreported broiges bubbling away under the surface of intra-community relations. For some time now the traditional Jewish communal bodies of the Union of Jewish Students and Board of Deputies — the “establishment” if you will — have experienced some feather-ruffling from what they see as impudent, trouble-making upstarts, particularly on and around campuses. Ms Goldstein’s tour was organised by a trio of these independent groups: Stand With Us, the British-Israel Coalition and UK Lawyers for Israel. The efforts of such organisations, and their leading activists — such as Sam Westrop, Gili Brenner and Hasan Afzal — have raised questions over who is best placed to lead British Jewish students’ efforts to combat antisemitism and anti-Israel activity. The dispute reflects in some ways the arguments between Board of Deputies’ delegates and the Jewish Leadership Council over whether democratically-elected representatives or independent activists should lead the way.

In another instance, the acquittal in January of a man accused of biting a pro-Israel campaigner’s cheek at SOAS was met with silence by UJS and the Board, despite outrage from Stand With Us officials, who had supported the campaigner. Why did they keep shtum? After the biting incident took place in March last year, senior Board members and student leaders told me of the efforts they made in advance to warn Stand With Us against attending the event. The traditional groups felt the newcomers were too provocative, too reckless. The subsequent scuffle and injury was, some claimed, inevitable. Had the pro-Israel campaigner followed a UJS approach, the incident might have been avoided, they argued. Some credit is due to Mr Afzal, Mr Westrop, their supporters and other groups. Their work is, at times, creating positive results and holding others to account.

When Federation of Student Islamic Societies president Nabil Ahmed wrote in the Guardian last month of the need for Jewish and Muslim students to work together to combat antisemitism and Islamophobia, it was not UJS which pointed out the hypocrisy of his comments. It was Mr Afzal. Freed of the shackles of a democratic electoral process, he spoke his mind, and has immediately been proved right — Fosis hosted Azzam Tamimi and Daud Abdullah at a conference last weekend. UJS, on the other hand, treads carefully, forced to weigh up case-by-case the possibility of working with Fosis in the future, against the need to speak out. The underlying friction that this creates is obvious. The underlying tension between the old and the new, the traditionalists and the unconstrained, will not go away anytime soon. The fear is that its continuation will divide students and create a fractured response to the threats faced on campus — a situation that suits no one.

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Police Hold Surgery at Watford Mosque

Police have hailed the success of a neighbourhood surgery, which was held at a Watford mosque. Officers attended the North Watford Mosque on Friday to meet worshippers, give out crime prevention advice and field questions. There was over 250 worshippers at the mosque and more than 30 people signed up to neighbourhood watch schemes. PC James Irlen from the North Watford Safer Neighbourhood Team, said: “Beat surgeries are held in all areas to give our residents an opportunity to meet us and find out what we’re doing to keep the area in which they live safe, as well as letting us know what concerns they have so we can take that information away and try to resolve them. “This is the second of its type we’ve had at the mosque and it’s proving extremely beneficial. It was the most successful beat surgery I’ve ever conducted. We’re doing lots of work in the area to build engagement between the public and the police, and the feedback from these events is really positive. We’ve receiv ed an invite from the Mosque to return and carry out another event, which we will arrange in the near future.”

[Reader comment by Roy Stockdill on 27 March 2012 at 12:01pm.]

There is nothing whatsoever racist in stating an opinion that many Muslims do not wish to integrate into British society. The evidence for this is overwhelming and it has been shown time and time again that they wish to remain separate from the rest of us. Indeed, the more militant and medieval among them have made it plain that they expect us all to embrace their religion and that it is their long-term aim one day to see the flag of Islam flying over Downing Street. To bandy around terms like “racist” is such a cheap and dishonest form of argument since its sole intent is to prevent the other person from expressing his or her freedom of speech. Politically correct so-called “liberals” who chuck allegations of racism around cheaply are, in fact, the most intolerant and illiberal people I know! They will not prevent me from expressing my views.

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Scottish Jewry: Hiding Our Identity ‘To Avoid Abuse’

Scottish Jews hide their religious identity to avoid abuse and attack, a wide-ranging survey has found. Israelis living in the country reported that they often pretended to be French or Turkish to “avoid uncomfortable situations”. Being Jewish in Scotland was compiled by the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities. The organisation spoke to 240 Scottish Jews across the country to gauge their views on topics including culture, religion, food and education. Report author, Fiona Frank, said: “We believe that the inquiry has already contributed to making the scattered Jewish community of Scotland feel safer and stronger, both by the simple fact of reaching out to them, and by signalling that there is somebody here to listen and help.” She said making people recall experiences such as being forced to eat non-kosher food during a hospital stay or singing a Christian hymn in a school choir was vital in understanding how Jews lived and worked in Scotland.

SCoJeC’s interim report, published this week, found that among non-Jews there was a lack of understanding about Jewish issues, with many respondents claiming that they were often told they were “the first Jewish person” a non-Jew had met in Scotland. The survey reinforced the commonly-held belief that Jewish communities were being depleted by the departure of young graduates who left home and did not return, and further hampered by their parents soon following them, usually to London and also to Israel. Abusive behaviour at schools was highlighted as a particular concern, with the study revealing that “you Jew” was often used as a general derogatory term in playgrounds. Parents reported that when they had requested that their child was exempted from a school’s Christian services or Christmas activities, teachers had responded with “incomprehension — or worse”. Further problems were experienced on university campuses. Anti-Israel sentiment made Scottish Jews “feel insecure and vulnerable”. Community members said they wanted to see better kosher food provision, wider Jewish education and more social activities outside Glasgow, the country’s largest Jewish community.

Ms Frank said the findings might also be used to help other minorities.

— Hat tip: JP

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Wales: Student Jailed Over Muamba Comments

Welsh university student Liam Stacey (21) was jailed for 56 days today for inciting racial hatred after posting offensive comments on Twitter following the collapse of the Bolton footballer Fabrice Muamba.

The 23-year-old midfielder was left fighting for his life after suffering a heart attack during an FA Cup tie on March 17th.

Fans watched live on TV as he fell to the ground during the quarter-final clash at Tottenham Hotspur.

Police were inundated with complaints as members of the public reported the student’s comments on Twitter.

Stacey, a Swansea University biology undergraduate, was quickly tracked down and arrested.

Last week he admitted inciting racial hatred when he appeared briefly at Swansea Magistrates’ Court and today he was jailed for 56 days at the same court. Stacey was close to tears during his appearance before magistrates last week.

The first of his messages began with “LOL (laugh out loud). **** Muamba. He’s dead!!!”

A number of people then took him to task for his views and he responded with a further string of offensive comments aimed at other Twitter users.

Last week’s court hearing was told Stacey admitted to police he had sent the tweets after getting drunk watching Wales v France in the Six Nations rugby match.

He told officers he “didn’t know” why he had made the comments, stressing he was not a racist as some of his friends came “from different cultural backgrounds”.

The court also heard the defendant later texted a friend saying he said “something about Muamba I shouldn’t have”.

— Hat tip: McR

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Egypt: Activists and Liberals Leave Constituent Body

Coptic woman teacher also goes, too many Islamists

(ANSAmed) — CAIRO — The exodus is continuing from Egypt’s Constituent Assembly by liberals and activists, appointed only two days ago.In addition to the eight who resigned yesterday, today another well-known people left.They include Amr Hamzawi, liberal MP, teacher, researcher and human rights activist and Ahmed Harara, an activist who lost his sight in clashes with security forces last year.

He left the body, dominated by people chosen by the Islamist movements, along with Mona Makram Ebeid, one of six women in the one hundred-member Constituent Assembly.A Copt and an MP for years, currently professor of political science at the American University in Cairo, Makram is active human rights and women’s organisations.” I am leaving due to the Islamic connotation and the minimal presence of women,” she wrote on Twitter.

The Egyptian Constituent Assembly will meet for the first time on Wednesday and events have been announced by the movement to protest against the massive presence of Islamists on the body that will rewrite the Constitution.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood Issues New Covenant That Gives Hope — Op Ed

by Joshua Landis

The Muslim Brotherhood has issued new Covenant. It is being praised widely on the Gulf TV stations by Christians such as Michel Kilo and others. They say that the Muslim Brotherhood has now embraced the notion that political authority emanates from the people and not from God. Human law should be the arbiter of human affairs and not divine law. Sharia is finished for the Muslim Brothers, who state that they embrace equality of all citizens without distinction between religions or gender. Although they neglect to state it outright, they leave open the possibility that a Christian, Alawi, or Druze could have the constitutional right to be president of Syria.

A dirty “Google translation” of the most important paragraphs of the new charter give this:

This Covenant and Charter has a national vision, and common denominators, adopted by the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, and provides the basis for a new social contract, establishes the relationship between national contemporary and safe, among the components of the Syrian society, with all its religious, sectarian, ethnic, and intellectual trends and political rights. Adhere to the Muslim Brotherhood to work to be Syria’s future:

1 — A modern civil state, based on a civil constitution, emanating from the will of the people of the Syrian people, based on national consensus, established by a constituent assembly which must be freely and fairly elected, and protect the fundamental rights of individuals and groups from any abuse or excesses, and to ensure equitable representation of all components of society.

2 — State of deliberative democracy, pluralism, according to the highest conclusion reached by the modern human thought, with a republican parliamentary system of government, which the people choose their representatives and governed, through the ballot box, in the elections free, fair and transparent.

3 — State of citizenship and equality, where all citizens are equal, with different ethnic backgrounds and religions, sects and attitudes, based on the principle which shall be the basis of citizenship rights and duties, any citizen access to the highest positions, based on the bases of the election or efficiency. As even where men and women, human dignity and to be eligible, and enjoy the full women’s rights. …

7. A state that respects the institutions, based on the separation of powers, legislative, judicial and executive branches, the officials in the service of the people. ….

9. State of justice and the rule of law, no place for hatred, where there is no room for revenge or retaliation . Even those who contaminated their hands with the blood of the people, of any class they are, it is entitled to fair trials before impartial judiciary free and independent. …

There are only a few phrases that raise some concern. One is the statement, that the new state will be “committed to human rights — as endorsed by heavenly religions and international conventions — of dignity, equality, and freedom of thought and expression…. equal opportunities, social justice, and to provide basic needs to live decently. …”

Here the covenant defines human rights to be “as endorsed by ‘heavenly religions” […] The definition of human rights provided by the “heavenly religions” is a bit problematic. The “heavenly” religions are the Abrahamic faiths — Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Their divine books were revealed from the heavens by God. The other religions of the world are defined by Islam to be “non-heavenly.”

[…]

[JP note: ‘Oppit.]

— Hat tip: JP

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Jew Beaten to Death With Hammer in Morocco

An elderly Jewish man was murdered by an unknown attacker with a hammer Monday in the city of Fez.

The 74-year-old victim, whose name has not yet been released, worked in property management for rentals owned by other Jews.

According to reports in Moroccan media, the elderly victim was seen being hit repeatedly by a man wielding a hammer.

The murderer fled the scene. Police are investigating to determine whether the attack was nationalist or criminal in nature.

Critically injured, he died as he was being rushed to King Hassan II University Hospital.

Earlier Monday, thousands of demonstrators stormed the parliament building in the capital city of Rabat. The protesters torched Israeli flags and expressed anger at the presence of Israeli envoy David Saranga, who was in the city to attend a meeting of the Euro-Mediterreanean Partnership (EUROMED), in advance of the Global March to Jerusalem set for this Friday, an event scheduled for the Arabs’ annual “Land Day” protest.

Saranga, who was expected to remain in the country until nightfall before flying to Brussels, instead was quietly escorted through a side door from the building. He was taken to the airport and immediately boarded a flight for Paris instead.

— Hat tip: Andy Bostom

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Libya: Ex-NTC Premier, The West Abandoned US

(AGI) Bruxelles — Mahmoud Jibril, first ad interim NTC premier lead the fight against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime. Today, he fears that after toppling the Colonel, the West forgot his country. “It is a fatal mistake to abandon Libya”, he warned.

“When the regime fell, the state fell as well. And when it happened everyone disappeared”, Jibril concluded

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Moroccan Islamists Flex Muscles in Rabat March

RABAT — Tens of thousands of Moroccans staged a pro-Palestinian march in Rabat on Sunday in a show of force organized by an Islamist group seen as the main opposition to Morocco’s monarchy.

A Reuters reporter in the Moroccan capital said at least 40,000 people joined the march called by Al-Adl Wal Ihsan (Justice and Spirituality). A senior police officer put the number at 11,000 while organizers said 100,000 had turned out.

Related:

It was Al-Adl’s first march since December when it pulled out of pro-democracy protests, inspired by Arab uprisings elsewhere and aimed at forcing the Arab world’s longest-serving dynasty to become a constitutional monarchy.

Morocco has not had a revolution of the kind seen in Egypt, Libya or Tunisia. King Mohammed is still firmly in charge after he offered to trim his powers and allowed moderate Islamists to lead the government after their Justice and Development Party (PJD) won an election in November.

Ali Anouzla, a political analyst and editor of Lakome.com news portal, said Al-Adl sought to send a message to Moroccan authorities that they remained a force to be reckoned with, even after withdrawing from the pro-democracy protest movement.

“Al-Adl’s withdrawal from the February 20 Movement has tremendously reduced pressure on the PJD. With this march, Al-Adl is trying to make a comeback and sends a message to skeptics who raised doubt about its support base,” Anouzla said.

While the protests of the February 20 Movement lost much of their momentum after Al-Adl’s withdrawal, unrest over poverty, corruption and unemployment still erupts, sometimes violently.

Al-Adl is seen as Morocco’s biggest and best-organized Islamist group. It is active mostly in universities and in helping the poor, but is banned from politics due to what is seen as its hostile rhetoric towards the monarchy.

Hassan Bennajeh, an Al-Adl wal Ihsan spokesman, said Sunday’s march was to mark Land Day, when Palestinians recall 1976 protests over Israeli expropriation of Arab-owned land.

“We have always been active on issues that touch the heart of Moroccans. While we protest here in support of Palestine, members of our group continue to be persecuted and jailed by authorities for their activism on local issues,” he said.

“Everybody knows that the Moroccan regime supports normalization with Israel and has helped thousands of Moroccan Jews to migrate to and populate Israel,” Bennajeh added.

Morocco has been a discreet broker between Israel and Arab countries and established low-key diplomatic ties with the Jewish state in 1994. In 2000, Rabat froze ties with Israel after violence intensified in the Israeli-occupied territories.

The marchers carried Palestinian flags, balloons in the flag’s black, red, white and green, and placards that read “Palestinians are resisting while Arab regimes are haggling.”

They chanted: “The people want the liberation of Palestine” and “We will never forget you Ahmed Yassin”, naming an Islamist Palestinian Hamas leader assassinated by the Israelis in 2004.

Most of the protesters appeared to be Islamists, with women wearing headscarves and marching separately from men.

— Hat tip: TV

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The Crisis of Jewish Leftist Islamism

There are two basic ways to resolve the “crisis” of liberal Zionism. One is to question liberalism, the other to question Zionism. The people most likely to screech “Israel Firster” at dinner parties and op-ed pieces have chosen their side. “Israel Firster” isn’t their denunciation of disloyalty to America, but disloyalty to progressive ideals. It’s an old charge delivered by Lenin and repeated by the left in its long crusade against Zionism.

Is there really a crisis of liberal Zionism? Beinart insists that there is a split between a conservative and liberal Zionism. It would be more accurate to say that there is a split within liberalism between the left and more traditional liberals. There is no crisis of liberal Zionism, there is a civil war among liberals, particularly Jewish liberal who are being edged out by the radical Anti-Jewish left.

There is no crisis of Liberal Zionism. There is a crisis of Jewish Leftist Islamism, that horrible chimeric beast which insists that cheerleading for the Muslim terrorists is somehow the essence of Jewish values, while supporting Israel is a betrayal of those values. That is the crisis which is being articulated by serious Jewish liberal thinkers. That is the crisis that Peter Beinart is covering up under a cloud of Israel bashing.

— Hat tip: JD

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Turkey: Hitler Shampoo Commercial Pulled Off the Air

Advertisement caused protests from Jewish community

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, MARCH 27 — A Turkish TV commercial using images from a speech by Adolf Hitler to advertise a brand of shampoo was pulled off the air in the wake of protests from the Jewish and international community. The website for Hurriyet Daily News, a Turkish newspaper, reports that the head of advertising firm Marka, which produced the men’s shampoo commercial, said that the campaign was pulled as a result of the backlash despite the fact that the advertisement portrayed the dictator in a ridiculous light and did not praise him in any way. On Sunday the head rabbi in Turkey issued a statement underlining how it is “completely unacceptable” to use Hitler, “the most horrifying example of cruelty and barbarism in history” to “attract attention” in an advertisement. “It is an enormous insult”, stated head Rabbi Ishak Haleva in a communiqué. In the United States the Anti-Defamation League, an organisation that fight against anti-Semitism, spoke about an “insult to the memory of those who died in the Holocaust” and wrote a letter of protest to the Turkish Embassy in the U.S., reports Hurriyet. The few-second-long commercial, whose impact was amplified by Youtube, used a clip of an animated speech by Hitler dubbed into Turkish in which the dictator says: “If you don’t wear women’s clothing, don’t use women’s shampoo. That’s it. If you are a man, you have to use this shampoo. Real men use it.” Nearly 20,000 Jews live in Turkey today, mainly concentrated in Istanbul, and are mostly descendents of the Sephardic Jews who fled from the Spanish Inquisition about 500 years ago to seek refuge in the tolerant Ottoman Empire. Turkey is already in the midst of a diplomatic crisis with Israel after Israel did not apologise after their soldiers boarded a Turkish boat carrying pro-Palestinian activists in 2010 and the incident ended in violence. Ankara, supporting the Palestinian cause under its Middle Eastern foreign policy strategy, has called for Israel to lift the anti-Hamas blockade on Gaza. Hulusi Derici, an executive for the advertising firm, said that if they had used Kemal Ataturk instead of Hitler they would have been accused of “making fun” of the still-venerated founder of the modern Turkish state in the 1920s and 1930s: “But if we use Hitler, they say that we are supporting him.”

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Afghanistan: British Servicemen Shot Dead by Rogue Afghan Army Officer

Two British servicemen have been shot dead by an Afghan army officer after an argument at the British headquarters in Helmand province.

The unnamed Britons died when an Afghan lieutenant opened fire as they guarded a gate onto the British-run provincial reconstruction team (PRT) base in Lashkar Gah, Afghan officials said. Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, confirmed the incident in the Commons. One was from the Royal Marines and the other from the Adjutant General’s Corps (Staff & Personnel Support). Spokesman for Task Force Helmand Major Ian Lawrence said: “Sadly, I must report that a Royal Marine and a soldier from the Adjutant General’s Corps were shot and killed by an Afghan National Army soldier at the main entrance to Lashkar Gah main operating base. The thoughts and condolences of everyone serving in the Task Force are with their families and friends.” Lt Gul Nazir had quarrelled with the servicemens on guard duty after they refused to allow him and several of his men onto the base to meet colleagues due to arrive on a flight.

The deaths are the latest in a spate of “green on blue” killings where Afghan forces have turned their weapons on their Nato allies. Commanders fear suspicion spread by the killings risks undermining efforts to train and advise the Afghan army and police in preparation for them to take charge of security duties by the end of 2014. The incidents have increased in recent months. Six American soldiers were shot dead by Afghan personnel last month alone, in apparent retaliation for the burning of Korans at Bagram airfield, north of Kabul.

A total of 15 Nato troops have been shot dead by their Afghan allies in the first three months of 2012 — or one in six of all coalition dead. Col Abdul Nabi Elham, provincial police chief, said Lt Nazir appeared to have become angered when the sentries had told him and his men to wait outside at around 11am. He said: “These Afghan soldiers came from another district and they had come to meet friends arriving on a flight at the PRT. The British said it was not allowed and they just had to wait outside.” Two Britons were killed and another was critically wounded, he said. Lt Nazir was also killed in the ensuing fire fight. Ghulam Farooq Parwani, deputy commander of Afghan forces in Helmand, confirmed Lt Nazir had spent four years in the army and was from Achin district of Nangahar province in eastern Afghanistan.

The killings have raised fears of infiltration by insurgents, but investigators have found many of the killings had no apparent links to the Taliban and appeared driven by personal grievance, or resentment of the foreign presence. Classified military research into the killings last year concluded there was often deep mistrust between the Nato-led and Afghan forces. Afghans saw their Western comrades as arrogant, rude and aggressive. In turn, the foreign forces often characterised their Afghan comrades as lazy, thieving and addicted to drugs. Mistrust has deepened as the killings have continued and Nato and foreign embassies warned their staff to brace for further attacks as anti-Western sentiment was stirred by the Koran burnings and the massacre of 17 civilians by a rogue American soldier in Kandahar. Hundreds of foreign aid advisers were temporarily removed from Afghan government ministries in Kabul last month after two American officers were shot dead in a joint command centre by an Afghan interior ministry driver who is still on the run. Coalition troops are increasingly moving to closely-matched advisory and training roles rather than combat as they prepare to hand security duties to Kabul. A statement from Nato headquarters in Kabul said: “An individual wearing an Afghan National Army uniform turned his weapon against International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) service members in southern Afghanistan today, killing two service members. The individual who opened fire was killed when coalition forces returned fire. A joint Afghan and ISAF team is investigating the incident.”

— Hat tip: JP

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Another Tragic Episode in Britain’s Afghan Adventure

by Con Coughlin

The deaths of another two British soldiers in Afghanistan brings home the sacrifices that are still required of our Armed Forces as we undertake the Herculean task of trying to bring some sense of stability to Afghanistan. Earlier I wrote about the sobering effect of visiting the British war cemetery in Kabul, which contains poignant memorials to the casualties of two centuries of British involvement in Afghanistan. And while our experience today in Helmand cannot be compared to the horrors of the First Afghan War — when an entire British brigade was wiped out — the latest fatalities bring home the enormous challenge we face in trying to defeat the Taliban.

According to the available reports, the shootings were the result of an Afghan officer taking exception to the refusal of two British sentries to grant him access to the base. But the fact that something so trivial could result in two soldiers losing their lives is an indication of how high feelings are running in Afghanistan in the wake of the recent Koran-burning episode.

Many Afghans are still incensed that American soldiers burnt copies of the Koran — an act of breath-taking stupidity. Not surprisingly many of the Afghans I have spoken to in recent days are looking forward to the day when Nato finally packs up its kit-bags and heads for home. Having said that, though, my Afghan friends are equally concerned that, unless they have adequate support from the West, the Taliban will come marching back into power the moment Nato is gone. And that is the dilemma all sides face as we enter the challenging period where Nato gradually hands control of the country to the Afghan security forces. Clearly we are entering a very challenging period during this difficult transition phase, and what we need are cool heads rather than tragic misunderstandings such as this.

— Hat tip: JP

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India Boat Shooting Jurisdiction Ruling Put Off to Friday

Italian petition had ‘formal error’, judge says

(ANSA) — Kochi, March 27 — An Indian judge on Tuesday put off until Friday a ruling on whether India or Italy should have jurisdiction in the case of two anti-pirate Italian marines accused of killing two Indian fishermen, judicial sources told ANSA.

The judge said there was a “formal error” in Italy’s petition, which he said should be re-submitted.

It is the third time this month that the ruling on jurisdiction over last month’s incident has been postponed.

Italy says it should have jurisdiction for the case, not India, as the soldiers were guarding an Italian merchant vessel in international waters.

The Italian government also believes that, regardless of who has jurisdiction, the marines should be exempt from prosecution in India as they were military personnel working on an anti-piracy mission.

Italy has said the marines fired warning shots from the merchant ship they were guarding, the Enrica Lexie, after coming under attack from pirates.

It said they followed the proper international procedures for dealing with pirate attacks, which are frequent in the Indian Ocean.

The Indian authorities, on the other hand, said the marines failed to show sufficient “restraint” by opening fire after mistaking the fishermen for pirates.

Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone, who have been at the centre of a diplomatic row between the countries since being detained last month, are in jail in the city of Thiruvananthapuram.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Pakistan: Indiscriminate Murder: Preacher Shot Dead Inside Mosque

KHAR: A member of the Tablighi Jumaat was gunned down by unidentified assailants when they stormed the mosque he was in Badan Kot village of Bajaur agency, political administration officials confirmed on Monday. A senior official of the political administration, Faramosh Khan told The Express Tribune that “Qismat khan belonged to Southern Districts of DI Khan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) was killed when three masked men entered a mosque at midnight where Qismat was staying with his friends and shot him.”He added that Khan was a member of the Tablighi Jamaat and was in the area for the sake of preaching. Faramosh said that six people had been arrested under the collective responsibility act of the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) on the basis of suspicion. However, the motive behind the killing has not yet been ascertained.

— Hat tip: JP

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Asia is the World’s Top Importer of Weapons

In its latest report, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute shows that Asia bought 44 per cent of all conventional weapons exports. China drops from first to fourth largest importer by improving domestic production and increasing exports.

Beijing (AsiaNews) — Asia is the world’s top importer of weapons, this according to a study released on Monday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Over the past five years, Asia and Oceania accounted for 44 per cent in volume of conventional arm imports, compared with 19 per cent for Europe, 17 per cent for the Middle East, 11 per cent for North and South America, and 9 per cent for Africa. China, which was the world’s top importer in 2006-2007, dropped to fourth place, not because of any pacifist change of heart but because it boosted domestic production and exports.

SIPRI monitored weapons transfers for the 2007-2011 period. Its report shows that India was the first world importer over the period, accounting for 10 per cent in weapons volume, followed by South Korea (6 per cent), China and Pakistan (5 per cent), and Singapore (4 per cent). These five countries accounted for 30 per cent of the volume of international arms imports, the report said.

“The decline in the volume of Chinese imports coincides with the improvements in China’s arms industry and rising arms exports,” especially to Pakistan, the report said. The latter bought 50 JF 17 from the mainland, plus a large number of tanks. For Beijing, arms sales to Pakistan are a way to counter India’s military capabilities and play up the Indo-Pakistani rivalry.

“In certain sectors such as combat aircraft, with the exception of certain parts like engines, China is able to put together these systems largely from their own indigenous base now,” Paul Holtom, director of SIPRI’s arms transfer program, said. By contrast, “India is still struggling there.”

At the same time, there is no let up in China’s military build-up with 11 per cent of GDP spent on defence. Economic interests, territorial disputes and foreign sales are increasingly the driving forces behind China’s military strategy. In the past five years, Beijing doubled its exports over the 2002-2007 period.

The Communist state is concerned with the United States Far East doctrine, which runs counter to its own strategic interests.

For Ni Lexiong, a military analyst at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, China is sending a warning to Washington and Delhi. Both appear bent on limiting Beijing’s scope in the South China Sea and beyond.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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China: Manufacturing and Employment Continue to Decline

HSBC data show slowdown continues in March. Lower world demand but especially weak domestic markets are the cause. Employment continues to decline.

Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Growth continues to decline in China because of lower world demand but especially because of the government’s failure to boost domestic markets. In March, the Purchasing Manager’s Index (PMI) fell to 48.1 from 49.6 in February, the fifth monthly fall, from HSBC Holdings Plc and Markit Economics report.

The PMI is a key indicator of manufacturing activity and a reading below 50 shows it is contracting. The data comes just days after China said it expected a growth of 7.5 per cent in 2012, the lowest target since 2004.

“External demand remained in contraction territory, but the decline was at a slower pace, implying that there are no improvements in the demand outlook. More worryingly, employment recorded a new low since March 2009, suggesting slowing manufacturing production was hindering enterprises’ hiring desire,” HSBC chief China economist Qu Hongbin said.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Classics Return at New School

Australia’s first “classical Christian” school is set to open in WA next year, offering subjects such as Latin, Greek, logic and rhetoric to students from kindergarten to Year 12, partly in response to the perceived “dumbing down” of modern education.

St Augustine’s Classical Christian College has received approval from Education Minister Liz Constable to be established as a school after offering private tutoring to home-schooled students in Middle Swan since 2008.

Its website says classical education is experiencing increasing success internationally “in response to the ‘dumbing down’ of Western education”.

Classical Christian education places more emphasis on character development and gaining wisdom than on teaching facts and skills to prepare students for the workforce.

Based on a British model, it was adapted for the US and is taught there in about 150 schools.

St Augustine’s principal Stephen Hurworth said a classical education was important because it helped young people connect to the great story of their civilisation.

“I think people feel very much that a lot of post-modern culture is quite tired and they’re looking at other models and asking deeper questions,” he said.

Latin was a core subject and children would start memorising Latin jingles and chants in kindergarten.

By Year 2, they would be conjugating and declining Latin verbs and by the time they reached high school they would be able to tackle Greek. Between Year 7 and 9 they would study formal logic and reasoning skills.

As well as the Bible, students would study ancient Greece and Rome, the Byzantine empire, medieval history and the renaissance.

“But we obviously try to adapt that and do that in a way that is relevant to Australia,” Mr Hurworth said.

He said children were capable of much more difficult work than they were usually given in other schools.

“The program’s not going to suit everyone,” he said. “I wouldn’t say it’s an elitist program but it does appeal to a particular type of student and a particular style of learning.”

Fees would range from $8000 to $12,000 a year.

Mr Hurworth said he expected to enrol between 80 and 120 students at the school, for which a site was being negotiated in the eastern suburbs.

— Hat tip: Anne-Kit

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Nigeria Forecasts Famine in Boko Haram Areas in 2012

(AGI) Abuja — Nigeria has warned of a possible famine in the country, and especially in the North-East. The alert was given by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the country’s equivalent of Italy’s Disaster Relief Agency, in its 2012 “Report on Boko Haram Insurgency and Disasters in the North East”. “Nigeria may face famine by the end of this year, because most of the small-scale farmers and big-time farmers in the north are threatened by the Boko Haram attacks”, the report reads referring to the Islamist militant group whose attacks have left at least 1,200 people dead since 2009. According to NEMA, over the past three years “more than 65% of such farmers have already migrated to the southern parts of Nigeria, fearing that the insecurity to both lives and property, including their farmlands and livestock”. Productions of rice, beans, corn and onions have been the worst hit, but fishing in the Lake Chad area, one of the few options local populations have to integrate and vary their diet, was also affected. On the occasion of the presentation of this report, NEMA senior officials said they had been urged by Nigerian security forces to prepare, a humanitarian plan, working in coordination with the United Nations, in order not to be caught off-guard if the forecast turns out to be accurate.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Somalia: Mortar Attack Kills Father, Son, Journalist Attack Condemned

Mogadishu, 26 March (AKI) — At least two people have been killed by mortars that landed near a refugee camp in Mogadishu. It was the third mortar attack in the Somali capital in the past week.

A father and son died in the attack late Sunday near the presidential palace, according to reports.

The Islamist Al-Shabab militants have been largely pushed out of Mogadishu but continue to launch periodic attacks.

The group has been fighting to overthrow a transitional government supported by an African military coalition led by Uganda. Somalia has not had a functioning government for 20 years.

Separately, the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) on Monday condemned Sunday’s shooting of a radio journalist marking a continuation of attacks on the troubled country’s media.

Two men armed with pistols shot and wounded Mohyadin Hasan Mohamed, “Mohyadin Husni” , who heads of the News for the Shabelle Media Network.

“We call for immediate and urgent investigation into the shooting incident and bring the assailants to a court of Justice,” NUSOJ said.

Earlier this month, radio journalist Ali Ahmed Abdi was shot dead in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland. Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based organisation dedicated to the freedom of the press, said Al-Shabab militants were suspected of carrying out the attack.

NUSOJ) said Abdi was the 30th journalist to be murdered in Somalia since 2007.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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	Financial Crisis
»	Greece: Small Companies Cut Salaries by 20%
	USA
»	Fort Collins Welcomes New Islamic Center …
	Europe and the EU
»	Antisemitic Statements at a Jewish School in Brussels
»	For French Muslims, This Horror Only Makes Matters Worse
»	France: Sarkozy Says Qatar’s Influential Muslim Cleric Not Welcome in France
»	France: In Rouen: A Teacher Calls for a Minute’s Silence — for Merah
»	Italy: 89-Year-Old May be Indicted for WWII Massacre
»	Spain: 10 Years Disqualification for Wasting Administrators
»	Spain: President of Cannabis Consumer Group Arrested
»	UK: Al-Qaeda Plotting Cyanide Attack at Games
	Middle East
»	Dubai Top Cop Sees Gulf Islamist Plot
»	Jordan Islamists Against Corruption, No to Gov’t Propaganda
»	S. Arabia: Male Assistant Selling Lingerie, 600 Shops Close
»	UAE: Dubai Police Chief: Muslim Brotherhood Wants to Overthrow Gulf Leaders
	South Asia
»	India: Intra-Community Clash at Mosque in Saidabad
	Australia — Pacific
»	Queensland Election: Update
	Immigration
»	Humanitarian Asylum Requests to Italy Highest in EU

Greece: Small Companies Cut Salaries by 20%

15,000 workers in 3,200 businesses have already been hit

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS — The labor market in Greece is undergoing a huge shift after the reduction of the minimum wage, with many companies proceeding to salary cuts by up to 20% since February 14 through individual contracts with their employees, as daily Kathimerini reports quoting data collected by the Labor Inspectors’ Squad. Figures show that at 45 businesses employing over 50 people there were new contracts with an average salary decline of 20.094%. Within just one month from the application of the law providing for a 22% reduction in the minimum wage, as agreed with the country’s creditors, there have been no fewer than 45 new corporate contracts in Athens and Thessaloniki, while in the preceding four-month period, from October to February, there had only been 65 new contracts throughout the country. Since February 14, 3,231 small enterprises, employing fewer than five people, have submitted details of their employees’ individual contracts with an average salary drop of 20.63%. These reductions concern some 15,000 workers. Meanwhile, the Labor Ministry is to present Parliament with a regulation that will reward businesses that are consistent in paying their social security contributions: from early October they will get a 5% reduction in their contributions to social security funds.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Fort Collins Welcomes New Islamic Center …

A new Fort Collins Islamic Center broke ground Saturday to the thunderous applause of about 200 local Muslims and the blessings of community members alike. “Our church has been looking forward to having them as a neighbor,” said Rev. Hal Chorpenning, the senior minister at Plymouth Congregational Church positioned less than one block away from the center’s location on Prospect Road between Shields and Whitcomb streets. “ … I welcome them warmly to the neighborhood.” The facilities will replace the city’s current Islamic Center situated near the CSU campus’ northeast corner on Peterson Street, which will likely become a daycare center or other source of revenue for the new center. Jared Woodrow, president of the university’s Muslim Student Association, said the area’s Islamic community had outgrown their decades-old mosque and decided to construct a new one with additional features. Upon final completion, it will include a prayer hall, library, school, gym and meeting rooms for local Muslims and interested community members. “You can be there all day,” Woodrow said.

According to those interviewed, the reactions non-Muslim Fort Collins residents have had to the center’s construction have been generally positive. “As a whole, I’ve been very pleased with the reaction and the reception that we’ve gotten here in Fort Collins,” said Shakir Muhammad, a local engineer and active participant at the center. Woodrow explained that all but one city official approved of the facility’s construction. Muhammad pointed out that State Representative John Kefalas (D-52), who is part of the city’s delegation to the state legislature, wrote a letter in support of the new Islamic Center. “Fort Collins is a community that prides itself on being inclusive, and this is a religion that many people subscribe to,” Kefalas said. “ … There are students that come (to CSU) from countries in the Middle East, and I think that this is just another way to be welcoming and to be inclusive.”

But Fort Collins Jihad, a self-described awareness organization that regards the community’s Islamic Center as dangerously radical, sees the new facilities’ construction as a victory for extremist Muslims and a detriment to the city. Muhammad is aware of FCJ. “It’s not a group. It’s just one person with a website,” he said. “His (the website creator) claims are not very factual … “ Requests for comments from FCJ were not returned.

Despite being in the good graces of the overwhelming majority of the city, fundraising for the project has been difficult, Woodrow said. He explained that most of the center’s attendees are visiting CSU scholars from foreign nations who have little incentive to donate money to a facility they’re only going to use for three years. “ … A lot of the people don’t have an investment into this city,” he said. To compensate, Fort Collins Muslims have gone city-to-city across Colorado to stop at various mosques and ask those in attendance for financial donations to pay for the new center’s construction. And while the fundraising process still has yet to be completed, those in charge of the project have insisted on not sacrificing principles to satisfy financial needs. The center rejected a donation from the son of Saudi Arabia’s treasurer, wanting to avoid questionable associations, Woodrow said.

The new facility’s construction will take place in two phases. The first involves the creation of a prayer hall, library and meeting rooms and is scheduled to be completed by December. The second will add on a school and a gym when enough funds are raised.

— Hat tip: JP

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Antisemitic Statements at a Jewish School in Brussels

Brussels — At around 15:40, four individuals of Arab-Muslim origin arrived at the door of the Athenaeum Maimonides in Anderlecht and tried to pull the door to enter multiple times. The security services of the school intervened and were joined by police officers on site. When checking on individuals, one of them said, “I do not care to touch the door of s*** dirty Jew.” A complaint was filed with the police. The four individuals are illegal in Belgium.

— Hat tip: TV

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For French Muslims, This Horror Only Makes Matters Worse

by Nabila Ramdani

Images of armed police milling around the flat of a “neutralised” Muslim of Algerian descent will be welcomed by France’s increasingly right-wing political class. As would-be presidents campaign tirelessly towards an election starting next month, they will stress the need to seek out and destroy young men like Mohamed Merah. The 23-year-old “troubled-housing-estate’“kid turned jihad warrior had a truly dismal life record. It covered almost every manifestation of alienated immigrant angst, from petty crime, through to indoctrination in prison, right up to murderous terrorism.

Marine Le Pen, leader of the Front National, has already set the bar in clichéd scare-mongering by saying that French children of all faiths need “protection” from “fundamentalists” like Merah. The implication, of course, is that there are plenty more like him in the so-called banlieues — the vast housing projects on the outskirts of major cities like Toulouse and Paris. It was while growing up in one that Merah is said to have become exposed to Islamic extremism, at one stage even marching around the grey tower blocks holding a sword while shouting “al-Qa’ida!” It is a pathetic, cartoon-look image, but the kind that has sadly gained increasing credibility over the past few years, as Nicolas Sarkozy’s government has lurched determinedly to the right. Claude Guéant, the President’s notoriously combative Interior Minister who presided over Merah’s death, last year described the growing number of Muslims in France as a “problem”. There are now some six million in the country compared to a few hundred thousand when the Republic became a secular one in 1905. Both Sarkozy and Guéant have regularly highlighted every perceived “problem” associated with Muslims, including burqa-wearing, eating halal meat, and praying in the street because of a lack of mosques.

Behind all of these day-to-day issues is the growing and even more divisive implication that ordinary Muslims are not only anti-social and undesirable, but directly linked to global terrorism. One of the main reasons offered for a burqa ban, for example, was to stop radicals using the garments to hide bombs underneath, and to disguise their identities. Centrist presidential candidate François Bayrou was among those who described the formulation of such theories as “poisonous”, while even Gilles Bernheim, France’s grand rabbi, admitted: “It’s often difficult to be a Muslim in France. This difficulty is worse today in this unhealthy climate, aggravated by talk that divides rather than unites.”

Extremist rhetoric underpinned by policies designed to stigmatise will attract disillusioned nationalist voters in the race for the Elysée Palace, but they ignore the real problems facing Muslim communities in modern France: those of discrimination and underachievement. Yes, there are thousands of young men with the same Algerian background as Mohamed Merah, but that does not make them all murderous criminals. Many are the sons of immigrants forced to leave a North African country crippled by 132 years of colonial exploitation. It is now exactly half-a-century since the end of the Algerian War of Independence — one in which up to 1.5 million died and which opened huge divisions between aggrieved survivors. The legacy of hatred between expats forced to return to France and the Algerian economic migrants who joined them burns with a uniquely Gallic ferocity.

Such discord was exacerbated by Mr Sarkozy last month when he said that France would “not repent” for what went on during the war, even though close to 2.5 million Algerians live in the Republic today. They not only form the largest Muslim community, but for the most part still live in those marginalised urban estates which rose out of their forebears’ refugee camps. Life has traditionally been hard for all French Muslims, but the kind of images which have been coming out of Toulouse over the past fortnight will make it even worse.

Nabila Ramdani is a Paris-born journalist of Algerian descent who regularly writes about French politics and Islamic affairs

— Hat tip: JP

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France: Sarkozy Says Qatar’s Influential Muslim Cleric Not Welcome in France

Qatar-based Sunni Muslim cleric Yousuf Al Qaradawi not welcome in France

Paris: President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Monday that influential Qatar-based Sunni Muslim cleric Yousuf Al Qaradawi was not welcome in France. Egyptian-born Qaradawi, 86, has been invited to visit next month by the Union of Islamic Organisations in France (UOIF). “I told the emir of Qatar himself that this gentleman was not welcome in the territory of the French Republic,” Sarkozy told France Info radio. Qaradawi, who hosts a popular show on Al-Jazeera satellite television, backed Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, and has launched a fund-raising effort for the Syrian opposition. He had been due to attend the UOIF congress at Le Bourget near Paris on April 6 alongside renowned Egyptian preacher Mahmoud Al Masri. “I said that a certain number of people, who have been invited to this congress and who maintain or who would like to take positions that are incompatible with the republican ideal, would not be welcome,” Sarkozy said. Qaradawi, who has close ties with the leadership of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, left the country in the 1960s after being imprisoned. He is accused of having made anti-Semitic and homophobic statements and was banned from entering Britain in 2008. He has been banned from entering the United States since 1999.

— Hat tip: JP

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France: In Rouen: A Teacher Calls for a Minute’s Silence — for Merah

Here is a quite remarkable story, from Rouen in Normandy:

Fifteen students, in the final year of the Lycee Gustave Flaubert in Rouen, walked out of their classroom Friday morning, March 23, shortly after 8 am, after their English teacher asked them to observe a minute of silence in memory of the killer of Toulouse, Mohamed Merah, who she described as a “victim.” According to students, who immediately wrote a letter to the headteacher , they alerted Rectorate of Rouen, that this certified teacher had claimed that the link with al-Qaeda was “invented by the media and Sarko.” Only a half dozen students who were “taken aback” remained in the classroom, “wanting to know why she had behaved in this way”, according to the testimony of a student. One told us she would be excused at the end of the conversation. “She said she was not well and would perhaps take time off,” he added.

The letter of protest by students is here.

— Hat tip: JP

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Italy: 89-Year-Old May be Indicted for WWII Massacre

Ex-corporal executed ‘117 Italian officers’ says prosecutor

(ANSA) — Rome, March 20 — A Rome military prosecutor on Tuesday called for the indictment of an 89-year-old former German officer for alleged involvement in the massacre of thousands of Italian soldiers on the Greek island of Cephalonia in World War II.

The suspect, ex-corporal Alfred Stork, should be called to trial for ordering the execution of “at least 117 Italian officers” after they surrendered, said Rome Prosecutor Marco De Paolis, who claimed to have material evidence for his case.

Among his evidence is an alleged 2005 confession in which he told German prosecutors he was a member of one of the two execution platoons. The incident was just one episode amid a much larger massacre which came after the 1943 armistice between Italy and the Allies that instructed Italian troops to switch sides.

After news of the September 8 armistice filtered across to the island on September 14, 1943, General Antonio Gandin told each of his men in the Acqui division to follow his own conscience and choose between three alternatives: fight on alongside the Germans, surrender his weapons, or keep them and resist German attacks.

Over the next eight days, 1,300 men died in battle, 5,155 were shot after being taken prisoner, and 3,000 drowned when a ship carrying them to Nazi concentration camps sank.

The bodies of 200 men were tossed down a well, from which they were only recovered and sent back home a few months before former Italian president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi’s visit in 2001.

To the outrage of Italy, a German court cleared then 86-year-old former lieutenant Otmar Muhlhauser of war-crime charges in 2006.

Deceased in 2009, he was believed to be the last survivor of the Werhmacht regiment which carried out the massacre, and he reportedly admitted he had personally ordered the execution of hundreds of soldiers including General Gandin.

The incident forms the backdrop to the best-selling 1994 novel, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, which became a film in 2001 starring Nicholas Cage and Penelope Cruz.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Spain: 10 Years Disqualification for Wasting Administrators

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, MARCH 23 — Public administrators who falsify or hide data on the deficit and figures regarding the wages of directors of local governments will be disqualified from holding public offices for ten years. The measure is part of a bill for more transparency and access to public information which was approved in today’s cabinet meeting. It was presented in the press conference that followed the meeting, by Vice Premier Soraya Sanz de Santamaria. The vice premier called it one of the most important regulations in the political programme of the Mariano Rajoy government. The government bill includes a code of good governance with sanctions in case of violations. It forces politicians and public managers to inform taxpayers about the use of their money, following a similar initiative taken in the United States and in other European countries. Politicians and managers in the public sector can be suspended for hiding bills or accounts, for not handing over requested documentation, for surpassing the public deficit limit and for wasting tax money, which will be seen as a crime. Public administrations must be transparent about the way they spend public money. The government will open an internet portal for transparency, on which subsidies, data regarding public tenders and the salaries of public sector managers will be published. The portal is scheduled to be ready by this summer, when the bill is expected to have completed its examination in parliament. As soon as the regulation comes into force, public officials must respond to any request by citizens for information about the management of public funds within one month.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Spain: President of Cannabis Consumer Group Arrested

Promoted crisis-tackling marijuana plant project in Rasquera

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, MARCH 23 — Catalan police have arrested the head of the Barcelona association of cannabis consumers (ABCDA), which has promoted the controversial scheme to plant marijuana in the town of Rasquera (Tarragona). Local police sources quoted by the media today say that the man was arrested on drug-trafficking charges. Four other members of the association were also charged with the same crime. During the operation, police also raided one of the offices managed by consumer group in the Barceloneta area of Barcelona, seizing 1.3 kilos of marijuana, weighing equipment and 2,000 euros in cash. At the time on the office, which was later taken over by police, a dozen people smoking or waiting to buy the drug were on the premises.

On March 1, the Catalan town of Rasquera approved the sale of state-owned land to the ABCDA association, which has 5,000 members, to plant a “cannabis cultivation for recreational and therapeutic purposes”, in exchange for the creation of forty jobs in an attempt to cancel the 1.3 million euros of deficit in the town’s coffers. The decision brought provoked intervention by the Catalan regional government, which said that such a plantation would violate Article 368 of the penal code, which bans cultivation, treatment and trafficking of drugs.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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UK: Al-Qaeda Plotting Cyanide Attack at Games

Web fanatics target Olympics

AL-QAEDA fanatics are plotting a deadly cyanide poison attack on the London Olympics, a Sun investigation has found.

Extremists on a website with links to the terror group have posted detailed instructions on how to cause carnage at this summer’s Games.

The chilling online plot was uncovered as two convicted al-Qaeda terrorists were released early from jail and put back on the streets ahead of the Olympics.

And the specific nature of the “cyanide slaughter” web posts suggest they should be taken seriously by the security services.

An extremist who called himself Abu Hija Ansari said the poison should be mixed with a handcream that would enable it to be absorbed through the skin.

He wrote in Arabic: “Through skin: 1 — cyanide, 2 — skin cream. Mix the ingredients. The skin cream will open the pores in the skin and speed up the absorption and effectiveness of the poison.”

He said plotters should wear “medical gloves” when producing the lethal mixture.

A second extremist said on the website: “It is a good idea and you need to plan well.”

She added chillingly under a logo of the 2012 Games: “It’s time to prepare for the event, as once again they are interfering with innocent Muslims.”

Our investigator used a false identity to access the website which has 17,000 members worldwide and known links to six al—Qaeda terrorists.

He said: “There is a contingent using this site who want to strike at the Games. The explicit nature of what is being said would indicate more than just sabre-rattling but a wish to do real harm to the event and the people at it.”

Tory MP Bernard Jenkin, chairman of the all-party homeland security group, said: “I hope the individuals are identified so action can be taken. Those who believe there is no terrorist threat are living in cloud cuckoo land.”…

— Hat tip: Nick

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Dubai Top Cop Sees Gulf Islamist Plot

KUWAIT: The Muslim Brotherhood, the main Islamist force that emerged after the Arab Spring, is plotting to take over Gulf states, Dubai’s police chief said in remarks reported yesterday. Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan said he had his reasons to claim that the “Brotherhood was plotting to change the regimes in the Gulf”, in an interview published in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Qabas. “My sources say the next step is to make Gulf governments (their ruling families) figurehead bodies only without actual ruling. The start will be in Kuwait in 2013 and in other Gulf states in 2016,” he said.

Khalfan has been involved in a tit-for-tat controversy with the Brotherhood after he threatened earlier this month to arrest cleric Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, a leading Brotherhood figure, for criticising the United Arab Emirates for deporting Syrian protesters. The police chief said he based his information on “leaks” from Western intelligence agencies and said this “had been known to us”. “If these leaks from Western intelligence were to be correct, by 2016 all Gulf rulers” will be just figureheads with no actual power, Khalfan said. “I am warning Gulf states about these groups.”

All of the six oil-rich Arab states in the Gulf have been governed for centuries by ruling families that dominate almost every aspect of life and who have the final say on almost everything. These states — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE — together sit on more than 40 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves and around a fifth of its natural gas. Khalfan said the alleged plot will begin in Kuwait because “it is ready more than any other Gulf state… this is a strategy”. Sunni Islamists made an impressive show in a Feb 2 snap election in Kuwait, securing more than 20 seats in the 50-member parliament. — AFP

— Hat tip: RR

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Jordan Islamists Against Corruption, No to Gov’t Propaganda

Rally to ask for concrete reforms

(ANSAmed) — AMMAN — Hundreds of Islamist leads activists rallied in downtown Amman Friday against what they say lack of genuine drive to eradicate corruption in the kingdom.

Security forces were mobilized to prevent clashes with pro-regime groups that arrived in the scene to disrupt protests.

Leaders from the Islamist movement spearheaded the rally, which kicked off from king Hussein mosque in down town Amman after Friday prayer.

“We are tired of hearing about elections and reform, while no action is being taken against corruption. The whole nation is demanding genuine reforms, not media prooganda by authorities,” Salem Falahat, former overall leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, told ANSA during the protest.

Minor clashes took place between security forces and protesters, but nobody was injured. Islamist leaders said authorities lack genuine policies to fight corruption.

The government has recently come under fire from the opposition for what has been seen as a deliberate attempt to impede investigation into a number of high profile corruption cases that involve ministers and influential businessmen.

The aid-dependent kingdom is struggling with its worst economic meltdown in decades amid lack of job opportunities and foreign investment.

Activists say the sale of state assets over the past years has enriched the country’s business and political elite but has done little to help the poor.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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S. Arabia: Male Assistant Selling Lingerie, 600 Shops Close

Wave of inspections checking enforcement of male staff ban

(ANSAmed) — DOHA, MARCH 22 — Six hundred underwear stores have been shut down in Saudi Arabia for breaking a law that forbids male staff from being hired, while 30 others have been given a deadline of 2 weeks to take on exclusively female members of staff. The news has been reported today in the Gulf press. A Saudi law approved in June last year not only forbids men from working as assistants in underwear and cosmetics shops, but also forbids men from even having access to the stores, meaning that men are unable to buy underwear for women. Women hired will also have to wear the hijab, which is traditional dress in Saudi Arabia and in a number of Gulf states, and consists of a long black tunic and a veil covering the head.

The Saudi Employment Minister has sent a number of inspectors to check that the law is being enforced and has suspended the approval of male assistants who had been working in underwear and cosmetics shops. A similar regulation had been discussed by the Qatari government after controversy in the Emirate over women’s unease at being served by men as they purchased underwear. In the end, the country opted for a gradual substitution of men by female staff when new assistants are hired.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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UAE: Dubai Police Chief: Muslim Brotherhood Wants to Overthrow Gulf Leaders

The head of Dubai police has openly accused the Muslim Brotherhood, the Arab Spring winners, of plotting to overthrow the Arab Gulf monarchies. “The Muslim Brotherhood, the force that has emerged from the Arab Spring, plotting regime change in the Gulf,” General Dhahi Khalfane was quoted in an interview published Sunday by the Kuwaiti daily Al-Qabas.

“My sources say that the next step is to make the Gulf ruling families powerless. This will begin with Kuwait in 2013 and end in 2016 with other countries,” he said, ensuring that this information came partly from Western intelligence services. Note that the Islamists won the parliamentary elections held February 2nd in Kuwait, capturing 23 of 50 parliamentary seats. Earlier this month, General Khalfane threatened to issue an arrest warrant against the influential Qatar-based Sunni cleric Youssef al-Qaradawi for criticizing the decision of the Emirati authorities to expel the Syrians who demonstrated in Dubai without permission. They protested against the Syrian regime. Khalfane said he had warned the six Gulf monarchies (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait) against the Muslim Brotherhood.

— Hat tip: JP

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India: Intra-Community Clash at Mosque in Saidabad

HYDERABAD: Police resorted to a mild lathicharge to disperse two clashing groups of the same community at Saidabad in the old city during prayer time on Sunday. According to the police, a group of people belonging to the dominant sect went to the Ahmadiya mosque and asked the devotees to stop their prayers. An argument ensued which led to stone-throwing on business establishments in the vicinity. Saidabad police inspector K Narsing said that some locals abused the people present at the mosque saying that they were not Muslims and told them to immediately stop the prayers. They distributed some pamphlets which those inside the mosque found objectionable. The agitated devotees tried to push out the miscreants and a scuffle ensued between the two groups. In the melee both the groups hurled stones on each other but no one was injured. Police alerted higher officials who rushed special teams to the place to defuse the situation. Meanwhile, some Muslim organisations lodged a complaint with the police on the issue. Mohammed Arshad Ali Quasmi, state general secretary of Majlis Tahfuz Khatam Nuwwat Trust, alleged that Ahmadiyas distributed blasphemous printed material at the mosque. Majlish Bachao Thareek also lodged a complaint making a similar charge.

— Hat tip: JP

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Queensland Election: Update

[This is news analysis by our Perth correspondent Anne-Kit. The news story itself is at the link.]

I noticed an item on the Queensland State Election in the newsfeed today. Let me update you on the results:

Out of an 89-seat parliament the winning LNP (Liberal National Party: in Queensland our two conservative parties, the National Party (country party) and the Liberal Party have amalgamated) is set to win 75 seats and Labor 6 (yes, that’s six!) seats. This means that officially Labor no longer counts as a political party in Queensland and will not get public funding for its electorate offices, staff etc. Apparently they will have to rely on the new Government’s mercy in this matter.

In most seats the swing towards LNP and away from Labor was in double digits. This is pretty exceptional in itself, but in many seats the swing was 20+ points!

It was a bloodbath, and it was very sweet to see! And it is clear for all (except the usual suspects) to see that this is a very strong message to the Federal Gillard government that they are next, come the Federal election in 2013.

The above link was the most recent I could find, and they are still counting, but the latest news is (former) Premier Anna Bligh did not win her seat and has left Parliament.

— Hat tip: Anne-Kit

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Humanitarian Asylum Requests to Italy Highest in EU

Applicants total 301,000 in all of Europe

(ANSA) — Brussels, March 23 — Italy had the highest number of humanitarian-motivated asylum requests in 2011 out of the 27 EU nations, according to a report released on Friday by the European Union’s statistics bureau Eurostat. The highest number of overall requests was in France with 56,300 applicants, followed by Germany with 53,300, then Italy with 34,100 in 2011.

A total of 301,000 asylum applicants were registered in the 27 EU countries in 2011 compared to 259,000 in 2010, and 90% were new applications, 10% repeat. In all of the 27 EU countries in 2011, 75% of first-time applicants were rejected, 12% were granted refugee status, 9% subsidiary protection and 4% authorization to remain for humanitarian reasons.

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

	Financial Crisis
»	Goldman’s Top Economist: There is No Economic Crisis
»	Greece: EU: Regional Funds to Guarantee 1 Bln Loans for SMEs
»	Italy: Economic Crisis Hits Young Business Community
»	Mark Steyn: the Sun Also Sets
»	Serbia: Rising Unemployment, Decline in Production
	USA
»	“National Defense Resources Preparedness” Executive Order: Power Grab or Mere Update?
»	Agenda 21 Treaty on the Horizon
»	Another Modest Proposal — in Earnest, Not Satire
»	Archaeology: Getty Museum Repatriates Antiquities to Greece
»	Establishing a White House Council on Strong Cities, Strong Communities
»	Former Vice President Dick Cheney Undergoes Heart Transplant, A.P. Reports
»	Google Plans to Spy on Background Noise in Your Phone Calls to Bombard You With Tailored Adverts
»	Grand Central’s Gigantic Snake Amazes Commuters
»	National Popular Vote: Goodbye, Sweet America
»	Obama’s Secret War-Making for the U.N.
»	Record-Breaking Laser Pulse Paves Way for Fusion
»	Senator Rand Paul Steps Up to Protect Property Owners
»	Sturm, Ruger Firearms Has Suspended All New Orders Due to High Demand
»	The Socialist Apprentice
»	Tiger Woods Wins First PGA Tournament in More Than Two Years
	Canada
»	Book Tells Muslim Men How to Beat and Control Their Wives
»	Tar Sands Debate: Politicization Dirtier Than Crude?
	Europe and the EU
»	1.5 Mln Greeks “Interested” In Return to Farming
»	Berlusconi Buys Villa on Lake Como
»	British Conservative Party Fundraiser Resigns Amid Scandal
»	Could Crude, Whisky and Wind Make Scotland Richer Than England?
»	Fiat Reiterates Commitment to Italy
»	France: Sarkozy Denies Helping Depardieu in His Business
»	France 2012: ‘Tax Exile’: Noah Lawsuit Against Le Pen
»	France: Jews and Muslims Must Show Unity Against Jihadists
»	France: Laying the Groundwork for the Toulouse Massacre
»	France’s Muslims Fear Backlash After Terrorist Shootings
»	France: Dozens of Jewish Graves Desecrated
»	France: Gunman’s Brother on ‘Preliminary Charges’
»	France: Toulouse: 400 Extremists in Europe, EU Anti-Terrorism
»	French Police Stop March in Memory of Toulouse Killer
»	How to Tackle Terrorism in the 21st Century?
»	Interest in ‘Halal’ Finance Growing in Italy
»	Italian Values Shifting From Autonomy to Fraternity
»	Italy: Priest Fined for Ringing Church Bells Too Loudly
»	Italy: Man Who Gave ‘Gomorrah’ Clan Ferraris Arrested
»	Italy: Justice Minister Says Ex-Prison Islands ‘Could be Reopened’
»	Italy: Anti-Semite Site Publishes List of 163 Italian Professors
»	Italy: Sixteen Tax Judges Arrested in Campania
»	Italy: Government Signs Off Labour Reform
»	Just a Regular French Youth
»	Multinational Military Medical Unit to be Led by Italy
»	Spanish Police Arrest ‘Bar Code Pimps’ Gang
»	The Last Testament of a Psychopath: Toulouse Gunman Found ‘Infinite Pleasure’ In Murdering His Victims
»	The Stasi Watched My Every Move: Dancing on Ice Star Katarina Witt Reveals East German Secret Police Spied on Her Since the Age of Eight
»	The World is Turning Conservative, So Liberals Are Eating Their Words
»	U.S. State Department Actively Promoting Islam in Europe
»	UK: Brave Woman Shopper Pounced on Pervert Taking Indecent Pictures of Children in Sainsbury’s… After Security Guards Refused to Help Her
»	UK: Bullfinch Update: Six Men Charged Over Child Sex Ring Held in Prison
»	UK: I’ve Backed Ken Livingstone for Mayor Before, But This Time I Just Can’t Do it
»	UK: Ken Livingstone Has Lost My Vote, Says Influential Guardian Columnist
»	UK: Mother Left Her 16-Month-Old Baby Home Alone While She Partied for Five Days and Nights
»	UK: Olympic Terror Group Hunted
»	UK: Pensioner Was Left Helpless on the Floor for 10 Minutes While Her Nurse Prayed, Inquest Hears
»	UK: Social Workers Took Away Our Baby for Nine Months: With No Evidence Against Them, Couple Were Banned From Looking After Their Son
»	UK: The Arts Festival Tied Into the Olympic Games That’s Costing us £5.4m
	Mediterranean Union
»	Lebanon: Courses for Judges and Magistrates Financed by EU
	North Africa
»	Algeria: Plan to Save Old Fortified Villages
»	Egypt: Coptic Christians After Shenouda
»	Islamists Dominate Panel Tasked With Drafting Egypt’s Constitution
»	Morocco: Equality in Constitution, Not Yet in Practice
»	Spain and Morocco Compete for Oil Search in Canary Islands
	Israel and the Palestinians
»	Gaza: Islamic Jihad Celebrating After Challenge to Israel
»	Term ‘West Bank’ Only Came About as Result of Jordan’s Imperialist Effort to Expand
	Middle East
»	Borat Anthem Stuns Kazakh Gold Medallist in Kuwait
»	Egypt is Looking to Get Cozy With Iran
»	Lebanon: Policewomen Candidates in Hijabs Spark Row
»	Lebanon: Maid Filmed During Beating Kills Herself
»	Power Elite and the Muslim Brotherhood, Part 10
»	Saudi Arabia and China Team Up to Build a Gigantic New Oil Refinery
»	Syria: Terzi: Turkish Minister Spoke of Air Raids
»	The Rising Tide of Muslim Violence Against Christians
»	UAE: Europe Approves Camel’s Milk
»	UAE: Saadiyat Workers Conditions Improve, But Not Enough
	South Asia
»	Domestic Maids Complain of Rampant Abuse in Malaysia
»	Indian Court Refuses TV for Italian Marines
	Far East
»	China’s Huawei Moves Out of the Shadows to Join Technology Race
»	China’s Massive Water Diversion Project Remains Controversial
»	Classical Music Affects Heart Transplants
»	The Slang Chinese Bloggers Use to Subvert Censorship
	Australia — Pacific
»	Anna Bligh Hangs on to Seat in Bloodbath
»	Australia Deports ‘Silence of the Lambs’ Rapist Back to UK 13 Years After Brutal Attack and Yet We Continue to Dither Over Kicking Out Qatada
»	Gallipoli Anniversary Could Divide Australia, Federal Government Warned
»	James Cameron Set for a Mariana Trench Sequel
	Sub-Saharan Africa
»	A Pirate’s Prison Tucked Inside Seychelles Paradise
	Immigration
»	UK: Ministers Plan Major Immigration Crackdown
	Culture Wars
»	Oregon: “Wrongful Birth” Of Down Syndrome Child
	General
»	Nokia is Looking Into Haptic Tattoos to Help You Feel Who’s Calling
»	‘Warp-Speed’ Planets Flung Out of Galaxy on Wild Ride

Goldman’s Top Economist: There is No Economic Crisis

Crisis, what crisis? That is the attitude of Jim O’Neill, one of the most influential economists and bankers in the world. The head of Goldman Sachs Asset Management and the company’s former chief economist does not believe the world economy is in trouble.

In fact, says Mr O’Neill, the crisis is focused on a handful of nations — the US, the UK and the struggling Mediterranean countries.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Greece: EU: Regional Funds to Guarantee 1 Bln Loans for SMEs

Commissioner Hahn, new instrument agreed with Eib

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, MARCH 21 — EU Commissioner for Regional Policy, Johannes Hahn has today in Athens added another element to boost growth by launching a new Guarantee Fund for Small and Medium-Sized enterprises (SMEs) for Greece. This new facility, agreed in cooperation with the European Investment Bank (EIB), will help SMEs which have been worst hit by the crisis to access credit, by providing the banks in Greece with sufficient liquidity. According to the EU Commissione, this is another step to assist the country in optimising the use of EU Structural Funds: some 500 million euros from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) will guarantee loans with an expected leverage of 1 billion euros through EIB loans to SMEs. Banks will act as intermediary bodies.

“Today’s decision — commented Hahn — is crucial to put the Greek economy back on track and give the country new hope. The European Commission and the European Investment Bank have acted in great cooperation to find tailor made solutions for Greece and secure small businesses financing. This is of crucial importance to turn the wheel around and get business off the ground in Greece”.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Economic Crisis Hits Young Business Community

Study shows drop in under-30 entrepreneurs

(ANSA) — Venice, March 21 — A study published on Wednesday reported that the pan-European economic crisis has hit young Italian entrepreneurs, sharply driving their numbers down over the last three years.

Business owners and administrators under the age of 30 have dropped by 20% since 2005, said the report compiled by Italian statistics organization, Datagiovani. The drop in numbers has affected the northeast more than any other part of the country, said the study.

CEOs and company owners under the age of 30 fell below 350,000 at the close of 2011, compared to the third quarter of 2008, when there were over 378,000 and nearly 436,000 at the end of 2005.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Mark Steyn: the Sun Also Sets

I was in Australia earlier this month and there, as elsewhere on my recent travels, the consensus among the politicians I met (at least in private) was that Washington lacked the will for meaningful course correction, and that, therefore, the trick was to ensure that, when the behemoth goes over the cliff, you’re not dragged down with it. It is faintly surreal to be sitting in paneled offices lined by formal portraits listening to eminent persons who assume the collapse of the dominant global power is a fait accompli. “I don’t feel America is quite a First World country anymore,” a robustly pro-American Aussie told me, with a sigh of regret.

Well, what does some rinky-dink ‘roo-infested didgeridoo mill on the other side of the planet know about anything? Fair enough. But Australia was the only major Western nation not to go into recession after 2008. And in the last decade the U.S. dollar has fallen by half against the Oz buck: That’s to say, in 2002, one greenback bought you a buck-ninety Down Under; now it buys you 95 cents. More of that a bit later.

I have now returned from Oz to the Emerald City, where everything is built with borrowed green. President Obama has run up more debt in three years than President Bush did in eight, and he plans to run up more still — from ten trillion in 2008 to fifteen and a half trillion now to 20 trillion and beyond. Onward and upward! The president doesn’t see this as a problem, nor do his party, and nor do at least fortysomething percent of the American people. The Democrats’ plan is to have no plan, and their budget is not to budget at all. “We don’t need to bring a budget,” said Harry Reid. Why tie yourself down? “We’re not coming before you to say we have a definitive solution,” the treasury secretary told House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan. “What we do know is we don’t like yours.”

Nor do some of Ryan’s fellow conservatives. Texas congressman Louie Gohmert, for whom I have a high regard, was among those representatives who appeared at the Heritage Foundation to express misgivings regarding the Ryan plan’s timidity. They’re not wrong on that: The alleged terrorizer of widows and orphans does not propose to balance the budget of the government of the United States until the year 2040. That would be 27 years after Congressman Ryan’s current term of office expires. Who knows what could throw a wrench in those numbers? Suppose Beijing decides to seize Taiwan. The U.S. is obligated to defend it militarily. But U.S. taxpayers would be funding both sides of the war — the home team, via the Pentagon budget, and the Chinese military, through the interest payments on the debt. (We’ll be bankrolling the entire People’s Liberation Army by some point this decade.) A Beijing-Taipei conflict would be, in budget terms, a U.S. civil war relocated to the Straits of Taiwan. Which is why plans for mid-century are of limited value. When the most notorious extreme callous budget-slasher of the age cannot foresee the government living within its means within the next three decades, you begin to appreciate why foreign observers doubt whether there’ll be a 2040, not for anything recognizable as “the United States.”…

— Hat tip: DS

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Serbia: Rising Unemployment, Decline in Production

Situation is worrying, says president of Chamber of Commerce

(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, MARCH 20 — The economic situation in Serbia is very worrying according to the President of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce (Pks) Milos Bugarin. He underlined that besides the rising unemployment and lack of liquidity , there are also a decline in industrial production and processing industry and the domestic and external debts of about 4.4 billion euros to be paid this year.

According to Bugarin, the economic growth rate that was revised from 1.5 to 0.5 percent was also cause for concern, because it could easily slide into a recession under the pressure of the external crisis.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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“National Defense Resources Preparedness” Executive Order: Power Grab or Mere Update?

by Ed Morrisey

We’re getting a lot of e-mail this weekend about an executive order issued on Friday afternoon by President Obama titled “National Defense Resources Preparedness.” While the timing of the EO is curious — why send it out on a Friday afternoon when an administration is usually trying to sneak bad news past the media? — the general impact of it is negligible. This EO simply updates another EO (12919) that had been in place since June 1994, and amended several times since.

[…]

this is almost identical to EO 12919 from 18 years earlier. Note what this EO specifically orders: identify, assess, be prepared, improve, foster cooperation. None of these items claim authority to seize private property and place them at the personal disposal of Obama. What follows after Section 103 are the directives for implementing these rather analytical tasks, mostly in the form of explicit delegations of presidential authority to Cabinet members and others in the executive branch.

Why the update? If one takes a look at EO 12919, the big change is in the Cabinet itself. In 1994, we didn’t have a Department of Homeland Security, for instance, and some of these functions would naturally fall to DHS. In EO 12919, the FEMA director had those responsibilities, and the biggest change between the two is the removal of several references to FEMA (ten in all). Otherwise, there aren’t a lot of changes between the two EOs, which looks mainly like boilerplate.

[…]

Barack Obama may be arrogant, and the timing of this release might have looked a little strange, but this is really nothing to worry about at all.

[…]

EDITORIAL NOTE: See same conclusion at

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/03/18/national-defense-resources-preparedness-executive-order-power-grab-or-update/

[Return to headlines]

Agenda 21 Treaty on the Horizon

International Covenant on Environment and Development: Convert the “soft-law” non-binding Agenda 21 into firmly binding global law.

While liberal journalists continue to claim that Agenda 21 is just a “conspiracy theory” being advanced by right-wing crackpots, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the International Council for Environmental Law (ICEL) have released their fourth Draft of the International Covenant on Environment and Development. This document was designed from the beginning to convert the “soft-law” non-binding Agenda 21 into firmly binding global law – enforceable through the International Criminal Court and/or the dispute resolution features of the Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Two excellent analyses of this document are available here, and here. Read the entire 242-page document here.

Few people understand that it is standard operating procedure for the U.N. to issue a massive non-binding policy document to test the water and make adjustments to its plans before introducing the real, legally-binding treaty.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Another Modest Proposal — in Earnest, Not Satire

Modest proposals, in sense given the phrase by the great 18th century satirist Jonathan Swift, are flavour of the month in the bioethics community. Hot on the heels of an infanticide proposal in a leading journal comes a modest proposal to genetically modify children to save the world from climate change.

In a soon-to-be-published article in Ethics, Policy and Environment, three bioethicists, from New York University and from Oxford, float some quite eye-popping ideas. An interview with the S. Matthew Liao, of NYU, in The Atlantic sparked a firestorm on blogs.

Dr Liao explained that human engineering must be explored because other solutions for climate change, like international agreements and geoengineering, are clearly not working.

Among his suggestions are drugs to provoke aversion to meat to wean people off eating animals. This would help enormously, because half of the world’s greenhouse emissions may come from livestock farming.

Genetic modification and drugs to make people smaller is another solution. “For instance if you reduce the average U.S. height by just 15cm, you could reduce body mass by 21% for men and 25% for women, with a corresponding reduction in metabolic rates by some 15% to 18%, because less tissue means lower energy and nutrient needs.”

One of the most intriguing proposals is inducing positive attitudes towards the environment with drugs, although he sees it as a way of boosting willpower rather than inducing beliefs.

“If you crave steak, and that craving prevents you from making a decision you otherwise want to make, in some sense your inability to control yourself is a limit on the will, or a limit on your liberty. A meat patch would allow you to truly decide whether you want to have that steak or not, and that could be quite liberty enhancing.”

He proposes an interesting twist on the one or two-child policy advocated by some environmental groups: a child-per-family quota based on volume and weight rather than number:

“…given certain fixed allocations of greenhouse gas emissions, human engineering could give families the choice between two medium sized children, or three small sized children. From our perspective that would be more liberty enhancing than a policy that says ‘you can only have one or two children.’ A family might want a really good basketball player, and so they could use human engineering to have one really large child.”

Preposterous? Not so fast. “Human engineering may seem bizarre and unrealistic, but this does not mean it could not turn out to be feasible and promising: telephones, ‘test tube babies’, and personal computers are all important aspects of modern life that were once regarded as bizarre and unrealistic,” another author, Rebecca Roache told the Guardian.

The article has been criticised even by colleagues, Anders Sandberg told the Guardian. But the authors are unperturbed by labels like “eco-Nazis” and “eugenicists”. “We are fairly typical liberal academics thinking about the world,” Sandburg says.

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Archaeology: Getty Museum Repatriates Antiquities to Greece

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, MARCH 9 — Three ancient marble fragments from the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles have been repatriated to Greece following a deal last year, as daily Kathimerini website reports. A culture ministry statement says two of the 2,400-year-old pieces are parts of the same broken gravestone decorated with relief sculptures, and will be joined onto a third section in a Greek museum. The Getty also returned an inscribed slab related to a religious festival. The 5th century BC fragments arrived in Athens on Friday. Greece is discussing lending an ancient Greek inscription to the Getty in return. In recent years, the Getty has repatriated to Athens another four significant ancient works, including a gold wreath allegedly illegally excavated in northern Greece.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Establishing a White House Council on Strong Cities, Strong Communities

A new Executive Order issued on March 15, 2012, establishing a White House Council on Strong Cities, Strong Communities, received no attention from the mainstream media.

Why would MSM report the news that is so important to the American people when there are so many pointless reality shows to occupy the citizens’ time? The Romans had pane et circenses, bread and circuses, in the gladiatorial arenas. Americans have sports and reality TV to dull their senses and perception of the troublesome reality.

The new Executive Order establishes another bureaucracy to “lift communities out of distress,” and to “support comprehensive planning and regional collaboration.” Communities would not be in distress if the economy and the country were not purposefully destroyed through burdensome regulations, insane energy policy, directives, wasteful stimuli, resolutions, omnibus overspending bills, and executive orders.

The Council is a “pilot initiative” that partners with “cities and regions to augment their vision of stability and economic growth.” This partnership aims to drive communities toward “regional planning” that leads to “sustained economic growth.”

The end goal of the initiative is to persuade regions to accept federal resources more effectively and efficiently to develop and implement economic strategies to “become more competitive, sustainable, and inclusive.” There will be strings attached to these federal resources. The operating words are “sustainable,” and “regional” or “regionalism,” buzzwords for UN Agenda 21.

[…]

What is wrong with regionalization? It is a step toward globalization. It is another layer of unaccountable, unelectable, and parasitic government. Municipalities are shaped into borderless groups that develop comprehensive plans in many areas but especially land use. These plans supersede local laws and often disregard property rights. The unelected layer of “regional” government will then ask each community to bring their laws and zoning in line with those of the “region.”

— Hat tip: JD

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Former Vice President Dick Cheney Undergoes Heart Transplant, A.P. Reports

Former Vice President Dick Cheney had a heart transplant Saturday and is recovering at a Virginia hospital, his office said.

An aide to Mr. Cheney, Kara Ahern, said that he had been waiting for a transplant for more than 20 months and did not know the identity of the heart donor.

Mr. Cheney was recovering Saturday night at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, Va., after surgery earlier in the day.

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Google Plans to Spy on Background Noise in Your Phone Calls to Bombard You With Tailored Adverts

Adverts could soon be tailored according to the background noise around you when using your smartphone, if a patent application by Google becomes reality.

The search engine giant has filed for a patent called ‘Advertising based on environmental conditions’.

As that title implies, it’s not just background sounds that could be used to determine what adverts you seen on your mobile phone. The patent also describes using ‘temperature, humidity, light and air composition’ to produced targeted adverts.

— Hat tip: JD

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Grand Central’s Gigantic Snake Amazes Commuters

NEW YORK — A strange sight is accosting visitors at Grand Central Station here this week: a gigantic snake. A life-size model of the 60-million-year-old Titanoboa has taken stage at the train terminal, an advertisement for a new documentary on the Smithsonian Channel.

“That thing would swallow me whole,” Grand Central visitor Sarah Bouroque said when she saw the giant snake. “I’d have to run and hide if I saw that thing in real life.”

Remains of the ancient Titanoboa snake, which weighed in at a whopping 2,500 pounds (more than 1,100 kilograms) and a length of 48 feet (almost 15 meters), were first found near fossilized plants, giant turtles and crocodiles dating back to the Paleocene Epoch (about 60 million years ago). This was when the world’s first known rain forest emerged, and dinosaurs no longer ruled the Earth.

“It was an actual animal? A real animal? It’s huge, that’s impressive,” visitor Chris Wood said, eyeballing the giant reptile. “It’s pretty impressive — I don’t know what to make of it, really.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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National Popular Vote: Goodbye, Sweet America

Our Constitution is under constant attack.[1] One of the most pernicious attacks is being waged by those who seek to override the constitutional provisions under which The States, as political entities, elect the President; and to replace it with a national popular vote (NPV) under which inhabitants of major metropolitan areas will choose the President.

What Form of Government Did We Create In Our Constitution?

Before you can see why it is so important that The States elect the President, and why the NPV is so execrable, you must understand how our “federal” government was structured and intended to operate. “Federal” actually referred to the form of the national government created in our Constitution, and to the division of powers between the national government and The States.

[…]

How The National Popular Vote Will Work

Here is the nefarious 888-word interstate compact. It is written in the bureaucratic style favored by those who seek to confuse, confound and conceal. Their Explanation of National Popular Vote Bill expressly discloses, however, that

“Under the National Popular Vote bill, all of the state’s electoral votes would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.”

In other words, if the popular vote in Virginia is for James Madison, but the total national popular vote favors Adolf Hitler, then all of Virginia’s 13 Electoral Votes are given to Adolf Hitler.

Indeed, the winner of the national popular vote will end up with all the electoral votes for every State. Do you see? And do not think that the winner will fail to claim a “Mandate” for whatever he wants to do.

— Hat tip: JD

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Obama’s Secret War-Making for the U.N.

You may not have heard of PSD-10 because it has received no significant coverage from the major media. Yet, President Obama issued “Presidential Study Directive 10” last August 4, 2011, and posted it on the White House website. It amounts to a new and potentially far-reaching exercise of American military power cloaked in humanitarian language and conducted under the auspices of the United Nations and the International Criminal Court.

Under this new “Obama doctrine,” U.S. troops can be deployed to arrest or even terminate individuals wanted by the International Criminal Court, which is based on a treaty that has not been ratified by the U.S. Senate and isn’t even up for Senate consideration.

This “Presidential Study Directive on Mass Atrocities,” another name for PSD-10, declares that “Preventing mass atrocities and genocide is a core national security interest and a core moral responsibility of the United States.” This is at sharp variance with the traditional role of the U.S. military—self-defense and protection of the homeland. Toward this end, an “Interagency Atrocities Prevention Board” is being formed to develop and implement this new Obama doctrine. However, it is apparent that the doctrine is already going forward.

Members of the public haven’t heard of PSD-10, but they may have heard of a decision Obama made on October 14, 2011, when he informed Congress that he had authorized “a small number of combat equipped U.S. forces to deploy to central Africa to provide assistance to regional forces that are working toward the removal of Joseph Kony from the battlefield.”

Kony, a Ugandan warlord who runs the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), is better known than most foreigners, since he is the subject of the viral “Kony 2012” video about the more than 30,000 “invisible children” he has allegedly murdered or abducted. His whereabouts are unknown, although it is believed he is no longer in Uganda.

Despite the name of his group, Kony is not a Christian and instead receives backing from the Islamic regime in northern Sudan. Although he poses no direct threat to the United States and has not carried out terrorist attacks on the U.S. or killed any American citizens, the Department of Treasury has designated him as a “global terrorist” under Executive Order 13224, a measure signed into law by President Bush after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

— Hat tip: JD

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Record-Breaking Laser Pulse Paves Way for Fusion

In terms of laser energy, it was the biggest bang yet. On 15 March, the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California fired a single laser pulse containing 1.875 million joules of energy, exceeding its design energy of 1.8 megajoules for the first time. “This is very exciting, like breaking the sound barrier,” says NIF director Edward Moses. Next on the agenda for the building-sized laser is firing a pulse that energetic at a target, thereby igniting nuclear fusion.

The milestone comes $4 billion and 15 years after construction began on the massive laser, which started operating in 2009. Since then Moses has gradually been turning up the power, so the new record is only a small step above NIF’s previous record of 1.6 MJ. Still, no other laser in the world comes close to such energies — the 192-beam NIF delivers dozens of times more energy than the 30-kilojoule pulses from the world’s next-largest operating laser, the 60-beam Omega laser at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics in Rochester, New York.

NIF’s ultimate goal is to reach fusion’s “ignition threshold”, where fusion reactions generate more energy than the laser pulse contains. This will require delivering lots of energy in a very short time to heat and squeeze a tiny hydrogen target into such a hot, dense mass that the nuclei fuse, releasing energy.

The energy required is relatively modest — 1.8 megajoules is about the energy released by a half kilogram of high explosive. But NIF delivered that energy in only 23 billionths of a second, so that its power during that period reached 411 trillion watts, 1000 times more power than the US electric grid generates on average.

It has been a long, hard slog to achieve this goal. Livermore took its first shots at fusion targets in the 1960s with much smaller lasers, and NIF itself had a troubled birth in the 1990s. Though it has taken more time than expected to reach the energy required for igniting fusion, Livermore hopes to reach ignition by year’s end.

Meanwhile, the lab is already planning an even bigger laser called LIFE (Laser Inertial Fusion Energy).

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Senator Rand Paul Steps Up to Protect Property Owners

U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has just introduced legislation designed to reign in out-of- control federal agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers. The bill, if enacted, will be a vital blow to the enforcement of radical environmental/Agenda 21- inspired regulations. The bill is called the Defense of Environment and Property Act of 2012 (S.2122).

A little history: in 1972, as the environmental movement was getting its start through popular efforts to stop pollution in our rivers and air, Congress passed the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (later called the Clean Water Act). The law prohibited the discharge of pollutants into “navigable waters” without a federal permit. The problems began when the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers made a power grab by enforcing the act over ponds, occasional mud puddles, and even dry lands by labeling them as wet lands.

The result has been disastrous to property owners and businesses, sometimes even leading to jail sentences to “violators.”

The result of such outrageous interpretations of the Clean Water Act has led Senator Paul to introduce his bill to do the following:

[…]

The EPA, Army Corps and other agencies of the government have been using the intimidation of government power to enforce the policies of Agenda 21 and Sustainable Development. These policies do not recognize private property rights and they have made a sham out of the rule of law and the court system, replacing it with rule by edict. Until now these outlaw agencies have terrorized American citizens without interference or control by their rightful masters — Congress.

— Hat tip: JD

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Sturm, Ruger Firearms Has Suspended All New Orders Due to High Demand

[Orginally from Zero Hedge, posted at Urban Grounds]

From the Sturm, Ruger news release:

“Despite the Company’s continuing successful efforts to increase production rates, the incoming order rate exceeds our capacity to rapidly fulfill these orders. Consequently, the Company has temporarily suspended the acceptance of new orders.”

I haven’t heard any similar information from the other leading firearm manufacturers, but will look into it after seeing this.

It was reported a few days ago that the Department of Homeland Security made a commitment to purchase 450 million rounds of .40S&W Hollow Point ammunition.

[…]

Looking back at the increased purchases of firearms and ammunition in the run-up to the ‘08 election and after, it would appear that with this administration and the current economic, social and political climate, there is about to be another run on these products.

In conjunction with what has transpired in the past four years, is it any surprise that there are a plethora of survival blogs and television programs?

My advice is this, if your money is invested in anything, move it to precious metals, such as brass, copper, lead and steel.

• In states in the Northeast, a stock of 25,000 rounds for an individual might be considered excessive — and maybe even someone to “keep an eye on.” Maybe local police ought to know.
• In the West, in a state like Oregon, that’s a fair amount of ammo.
• In other states, Utah comes to mind, it’s a good start.
• And in parts of Texas? “Shoot, Bubba, you’re almost out!”

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The Socialist Apprentice

Socialism: The sweet siren song of the shortcut promising us that we don’t have to work, that we don’t have to think, that we don’t have to plan… someone else will be doing those things for us

And that is how tyranny begins. When we forget that government isn’t magic, that it’s a tool we made and set to work. A tool that forgot its purpose and its masters. A tool that became too complex and unwieldy to fulfill the tasks we designed it for. We made government. It’s ours. And it is only as human as we make it.

Government stops being human when we forget that we made it and that only we can shut it off. But when we let it go, when we watch dazed while it spins out of control, and the buckets fly, and we accept the messes in the hope that eventually the room will somehow be clean, then we ourselves have let the monster loose. Power has shifted, and the users become the used.

— Hat tip: JD

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Tiger Woods Wins First PGA Tournament in More Than Two Years

Tiger Woods won the Arnold Palmer Invitational on Sunday, his first PGA Tour victory in more than two years.

Woods shot a final round 70 to finish at 13 under par at the Bay Hill course, where he had won six times before, Reuters reported. This was Woods’s 72nd PGA Tour title and his first since the BMW Championship in September 2009.

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Book Tells Muslim Men How to Beat and Control Their Wives

A local bookstore has “sold out” of a controversial marriage guide that advises Muslim men on how to beat their wives.

The 160-page book, published by Idara Impex in New Delhi, India, is written by Hazrat Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi, who’s described in the book’s foreword as a “prolific writer on almost every topic of Islamic learning.”

— Hat tip: KGS

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Tar Sands Debate: Politicization Dirtier Than Crude?

by Daniel J. Graeber

Canada’s natural resources minister told delegates at the International Energy Forum in Kuwait that his country was on the cusp of becoming an “energy superpower.” Canada ranks No. 6 in terms of global oil production, but much of its crude exists in the form of oil sands. European leaders are considering a measure that would classify oil sands as an environmental issue, prompting Canada to threaten to take the issue to the World Trade Organization.. With the U.S. political system in a deadlock over Canadian crude, the Ottawa government is now working to convince the international community that the global market is in jeopardy if polices “discriminate against oil sands..”

Drill-happy critics of the Obama administration are painting the Keystone XL oil pipeline planned from Alberta as a panacea to U.S. economic woes. Because of debates over the planned route through Nebraska, however, the White House has pushed the issue aside for now. The pipeline company behind the project, TransCanada, has opted for a smaller leg in the United States while the Canadian government has thrown its support behind the Northern Gateway pipeline meant for Asian exports.

Canadian Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said his presence at the IEF summit in Kuwait proved his country was “an emerging energy superpower.” Canada has around 175 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, which means it’s the only non-OPEC member in the global top five, just behind Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.

[…]

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1.5 Mln Greeks “Interested” In Return to Farming

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, MARCH 21 — More than 1.5 million Greeks living in the major urban centres of Athens and Thessaloniki have expressed an “interest” in returning to the countryside and taking up farming as a way of making a living, Athens News Agency reports quoting deputy Agricultural Development and Foods Minister Yiannis Drivelegas as saying. In statements during the signature of the first contracts for the lease of public land in Central Macedonia for use by farmers and livestock breeders, he said this was discovered in a survey conducted that the ministry that is due to be presented in the next few days. Other officials noted that the process to lease state land for farming began 20 weeks ago and that every Thursday there would be new posts of land available for lease on the website of the agency in charge of payment, control and providing information on Community aid OPEKEPE. The same officials said they had already received 4,000 applications for leases and hoped to have leased up to 10,000 plots of agricultural land amounting to 10,000 hectares by the summer.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Berlusconi Buys Villa on Lake Como

30-room mansion belonged to ex-aide Dell’Utri

(ANSA) — Como, March 21 — Former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi has bought a villa on Lake Como that used to belong to his former business aide Senator Marcello Dell’Utri, Italian daily Il Giorno said Wednesday. After years of home-hunting, the billionaire tycoon settled on a historic mansion with 30 rooms, a tennis court and boat dock on the northern Italian lake famous for jet-set residents such as George Clooney. Dell’Utri, who acted as Berlusconi’s campaign manager in the 1994 election that first brought the media magnate to power, reportedly left the villa 10 years ago.

He recently received a seven-year jail sentence for allegedly helping the Mafia, but Italy’s highest court ruled he should have a retrial.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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British Conservative Party Fundraiser Resigns Amid Scandal

A British Conservative Party fundraiser resigned on Sunday after a report alleging he offered journalists posing as financiers access to Prime Minister David Cameron in return for donations of £250,000 (299,000 euros).

The party’s co-Treasurer Peter Cruddas stood down within a few hours of the Sunday Times report and video of him telling the bogus financiers the contributions would allow them to ask Cameron “practically any question you want. “

“I deeply regret any impression of impropriety arising from my bluster in that conversation,” Cruddas said in his resignation statement.

“Specifically, it was categorically not the case that I could offer, or that David Cameron would consider, any access as a result of a donation,” he added.

“But in order to make that clear beyond doubt, I have regrettably decided to resign with immediate effect.”

In resigning, Cruddas emphasized that he had not consulted any politicians or senior party officials before meeting the undercover journalists, and he denied that donors would have been able to influence policy or gain undue access to politicians.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Could Crude, Whisky and Wind Make Scotland Richer Than England?

As the Scottish referendum approaches, the debate on who wins control of the UK’s North Sea oil fields will be bitter, complex and potentially life-changing

“It’s Scotland’s oil” is one of the most highly charged slogans in Scottish politics. First used by the Scottish National Party in 1974, the notion that Scotland “owns” up to 90% of the North Sea’s reserves remains one of the strongest sources of grievance for nationalists.

And in the next two years, as Alex Salmond leads the country into a referendum on independence, it is likely to become one of the central arguments for nationalists: they believe it will help decide the fate of the UK.

Ever since it became clear that North Sea oil fields would generate immense riches, the SNP has insisted that that wealth has been squandered by successive governments at Westminster. They point out that Norway, a country with a similar population to Scotland at just under 5 million, has saved much of its oil income: surplus revenue is ploughed into the government pension fund, which is now Europe’s largest owner of shares and is worth about 3.3 trillion kroner (£360bn).

The SNP argues that if you extend a line east from where the Scotland-England border hits the coast north of Berwick, the division of the seabed would give Scotland control over nearly all North Sea oil and gas fields.

The Scottish government, which is drawing up a detailed case to support that 90% claim as its civil servants prepare for the referendum, asserts the North Sea will generate about £54bn in revenues over the next five years, while its “asset base” is valued at roughly £1tn, including remaining reserves.

Salmond claims that, combined with Scotland’s significant offshore wind and marine energy resources, and other industries such as whisky, this would make Scotland the OECD’s sixth wealthiest nation, leaving the rest of the UK trailing in 15th place.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Fiat Reiterates Commitment to Italy

CEO Marchionne says meeting with Premier Monti was ‘perfect’

(ANSA) — Rome, March 16 — Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne on Friday reiterated the automaker’s intention to carry out its ambitious investment program in Italy at a meeting with Premier Mario Monti on Friday.

But Marchionne is said also to have told Monti that it was imperative that the firm is able to produce cars at competitive costs, which requires greater labor flexibility.

The meeting between Monti and Marchionne, also attended by Fiat Chairman John Elkann, was arranged following concerns voiced by unions that Fiat was focusing more on its alliance with US automaker Chrysler, in which it holds a 58.5% stake, and was not actively applying its 20-billion-euro investment plan in Italy.

Coming out of his meeting with Monti, Marchionne said their talks had been “perfect”.

Unions and some political figures have also been concerned about the mixed signals the CEO has sent about the possibility of shutting down two of Fiat’s five plants in Italy.

Last month Marchionne said Fiat may be forced to shut two of its five plants in Italy if it cannot use them to produce cars to export to the American market at a competitive cost and that this meant ensuring that these plants can be utilized “in full and flexible capacity”.

“Our intentions are to embark on an industrial policy which opens opportunities for our plants in Italy, if they can achieve a level of productivity that will allow us to compete on an international level, to export to other countries. Fiat is ready to offer Italy the enormous opportunities being created in America, but we can only do this under conditions that are extremely clear ,” he added Marchionne later added that Fiat was “maintaining its commitments” in Italy and at its Mirafiori plant in Turin “we are working at lightning speed (to revamp the plant) and this is why we have announced we will also be producing Jeep vehicles there starting next year”.

Speaking this month on the sidelines of the Geneva automobile show, Marchionne reiterated there was “no threat to the plants in Italy. We have already begun to invest in Pomigliano and for Mirafiori we have confirmed the timetable for its restructuring and production there will resume in 2013. As for our other plants, they are involved in other products on which we have nothing to say. Thus there is no threat and we are moving ahead with our business plan” Labor flexibility was also at the center of an address he recently made to the European Automaker Association ACEA, of which he is chairman.

‘If I could do just one thing, most likely it would be to create a flexible labor system capable of managing supply and demand, he said.

“I am convinced that the conditions exist to create positive flexibility. What we need to do is break with mentalities of the past. “If we continue to insist that what we had and built in the past is essential for the future, when in reality it has become an obstacle to a nation’s industrial growth, then it is clear that we are not going to go far”.

Observers believe Marchionne may be ‘playing hardball’ to get unions to agree to greater labor flexibility.

Marchionne and Elkann arrived at their meeting with the premier abroad a new Fiat Panda, the automaker’s best-selling city hatchback car the production of which Fiat recently moved from Poland to its plant in Pomigliano d’Arco, near Naples.

Friday’s meeting came on the day that Fiat was forced to shut down three of its five plants in Italy due to a truckers’ strike that has blocked the arrival of materials and parts, as well as the delivery of finished cars to dealerships.

A statement from Fiat said the strike was “de facto paralyzing automotive logistics, especially in central-southern Italy” and added that the labor action had already resulted in delaying production by some 20,000 vehicles and that it would be “very difficult to recover this during the year”. Friday’s closures involved Fiat’s Pomigliano, Cassino and Sevel plants, while the Mirafiori and Melfi factories were already closed in order to allow them to be revamped to produce new models. Fiat has blamed previous strikes for its drop in sales and market share in Europe last month and said a further 10% drop was expected for March.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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France: Sarkozy Denies Helping Depardieu in His Business

(AGI) Paris — Almost a month before the April 22nd presidential elections Nicolas Sarkozy has denied helping Gerard Depardieu.

Sarkozy stated that he has never intervened to apply pressure or help Gerard Depardieu in his private business. In recent days it was the well informed satirical weekly “Le Canard Enchaine’ “ which reported the boasts of the French actor.

During a lunch Depardieu launched into raving praise for the president, declaring that he would certainly vote for him because he had helped him when he had “a problem with one of his businesses abroad.” .

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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France 2012: ‘Tax Exile’: Noah Lawsuit Against Le Pen

(AGI) Paris- Former French tennis player Yannick Noah has announced a lawsuit against Marine Le Pen, who called him a “tax exile”. The controversy stems from a televised speech by the Front National presidential candidate on 9 March pointing to the 52 year-old former sportsman and singer of Cameroonian origin as a negative example due to his dispute with the French tax authorities.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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France: Jews and Muslims Must Show Unity Against Jihadists

by Ed Husain

“God forbid that the recent killer of Jewish children and a rabbi in France be a Muslim or of Arab descent,” I tweeted a day before the French authorities named Mohamed Merah as the prime suspect in last week’s terrorist atrocity. People on Twitter responded to me saying: “He also killed Muslims”. And yes, he did — but it does not take away from the severity of the killer’s antisemitism that led to him target Ozar Hatorah school and killing Rabbi Jonathan Sandler and the blessed children he was trying to protect. What was their crime? Miriam Monsonego, aged 7, was killed in cold blood as the murderer grabbed her by her hair to shoot her in the head. She was the headmaster’s daughter. Rabbi Sandler’s two sons, Gabriel and Arieh, aged four and five, were killed too.

I remember their names because I am a father of two young daughters, aged two and four — I can imagine no greater torment in life than to lose our children, and worse, to have them killed before our eyes. My sympathies and prayers are with the parents and Jewish communities globally who continue to suffer at the hands of butchers who take antisemitism to its logical conclusion. The self-proclaimed al-Qaeda jihadist who committed these heinous acts did not only hate Jews. He and his ilk equally abhor their fellow Muslims who are integrated, pluralist, and do not harbour Jew-hatred. Merah slaughtered Jewish children, but before that he also killed proud French Muslims who served in their nation’s armed forces: Sergeant Imad Ibn Ziaten, Corporal Abed Chennouf, Private Mohamed Legouad.

The cancer that is takfiri thinking — the jihadist declaration that people like me or other normal Muslims are not Muslims because we do not share their extremism — underpins this terrorist violence. It is a fact that al-Qaeda has killed more Muslims in Iraq, Pakistan and elsewhere than it has non-Muslims. To the violent Salafist jihadi, the majority of Muslims are misguided, deviant and a barrier to creating their dream of a global caliphate. In these testing times, it is vital that Jews and Muslims demonstrate togetherness against the common enemy. Mahmoud Abbas, for all his faults, was swift to demand that terrorists stop using the Palestinian cause to justify their evil. French-Muslim leaders have rallied around Jewish communities. What starts as refusing to honour the dead at Holocaust Memorial Day, leads to dehumanising Jewish and other deaths, and then to producing men like Mohamed Merah who in cold blood kill children and other innocents.

Ed Husain is author of ‘The Islamist’ and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations

[JP note: Fat chance, and empty rhetoric from a softly-softly jihadist won’t butter any parsnips.]

— Hat tip: JP

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France: Laying the Groundwork for the Toulouse Massacre

by Melanie Phillips

When the Toulouse school massacre happened, the media rushed to say that the perpetrator was a white far-right racist. The lone gunman had mown down at close range a rabbi and three children at a Jewish school, wounding several others. He was thought to be the same killer who a few days earlier had murdered three black French paratroopers in two separate attacks. A killer who targeted Jews and blacks — must be a far-right white racist, right? Wrong. The suspect who the French police have now cornered turns out to be a jihadi Islamic terrorist with self-declared links to al Qaeda, who has made trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan in the past. Well, there’s a surprise.

Jews throughout the world are all potential targets for attack in a terrifying manifestation of global incitement to murder. Islamists regularly declare their intention to kill Jews wherever they can find them. Hundreds of rockets fired from Gaza at southern Israel over the past couple of weeks bear out daily the frenzied attempt to murder as many Jews as possible. In the Mumbai massacre in 2008, it turned out that the attack on the tiny ultra-orthodox Lubavitch centre was for the Islamic perpetrators of that atrocity the most important target. There have been repeated Islamic terrorist attempts on Jewish targets around the world. Oh — and Islamists have been murdering black people in Libya because they are black. Yet all this is ignored by the mainstream media. Desperate to sanitise Muslim genocidal terrorism and prove that racism and Jew-hatred is confined to white people and the ‘far right’, the media simply did not entertain the possibility that the perpetrator of the French killings might have been a Muslim. So a range of likely perpetrators was canvassed — but they were all variations on white racists.

And even when the perpetrator turned out to be an Islamic terrorist the media were still trying to spin it away, with Sky News stressing the deprivation of the killer and his family and interviewing a French female journalist living in London who claimed that this was ‘an attack against diversity’. As blogger Edgar Davidson observed here:

‘She said that it was all down to the racist climate in France which had been made worse by Nikolas Sarkozy in the last five years and she picked out, as an example of racist lack of tolerance, the burka ban he had introduced.’

Not only are the media and ‘progressive’ commentators in the west desperate to sanitise Islamic terrorism and genocidal incitement; they also join in. The Toulouse jihadist said he was ‘seeking revenge for Palestinian children and French military postings overseas.’ But no Palestinian children have ever been targeted by Israel for murder. Quite the reverse: Israel regularly puts its own soldiers in harm’s way in order to any minimise civilian casualties in military operations against Palestinian terrorists and their infrastructure which it undertakes solely to protect its own people from further murderous Palestinian attacks. Any Palestinian child casualties in such operations occur solely as a tragic and inadvertent by-product of war — and as often as not because the Palestinians have put their own children in harm’s way.

Yet this deranged belief that the Israelis deliberately kill Palestinian children is not only pumped out daily by the Arab and Muslim world inciting their people to hate Jews and to murder them as a holy act; not only do western progressives ignore this incitement and pretend instead that Islamic terrorism arises from legitimate ‘grievances’; these same western progressives themselves pump out precisely the same lies and incitement — and then suggest that the deliberate murder of Jewish innocents is the moral equivalent of attempts by Israel to prevent the slaughter of yet more innocents. Thus the EU foreign affairs chief, the British Baroness Ashton, seemed to equate the murder of the French Jews in Toulouse with the deaths of Palestinian children in Gaza in Israeli military operations there. Although the EU now claims she was misunderstood and that she was merely referring to all violence against children, that does not let her off the hook — indeed, by underscoring the fundamental amorality of the remark, it not only attaches Lady Ashton to that hook yet more firmly but also now attaches the EU itself. And now Hamas itself, no less, has sprung to her defence:

‘“Ashton’s declarations are worthy of appreciation and support due to Israel’s attempts to pressure her,” said a senior Hamas official, Izzat al-Rishq, on his Facebook page.’

As a fine article in The Commentator points out:

‘No-one will ever know whether the tragedy in Toulouse would not have taken place if the atmosphere were different. But we can say that history teaches that mass demonisation can all too easily lead to the dehumanisation of the group or people or nation that is being demonised. From there it is only one single step to the belief that murder itself can be justified.’

The terrorist who carried out the French killings may now have been caught. But those in the west who provide an echo chamber for the diabolical discourse that incubates genocide have yet to be brought to account.

— Hat tip: JP

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France’s Muslims Fear Backlash After Terrorist Shootings

The recent murder of seven people including three children in Toulouse by self-proclaimed jihadist Mohamed Merah outraged France and has left the country’s six million Muslims fearing a hostile reaction. By FRANCE 24 (text) After Toulouse terrorist Mohamed Merah was shot dead by a police marksman, French President Nicolas Sarkozy was quick to call on the French not to “give in to vengeance”.

“Our Muslim counterparts have nothing to do with the crazy motivations of a terrorist,” Sarkozy said on Thursday.

But despite the president’s call for calm in the wake of Mohamed Merah’s violent killing spree Muslim communities in France are living in fear of a backlash.

Leading Muslim clerics across the country have been swift in condemning the actions of 23 year-old Merah, and distance the beliefs of the self proclaimed Jihad inspired terrorist from the majority of those who follow the faith.

‘Do not confuse Merah with Islam’

“We do not want there to be any confusion between the Muslim religion and what happened in Toulouse. That had nothing to do with Islam,” Dalil Boubakeur rector of Paris’ Grande Mosque told FRANCE 24 on Friday.

“We ask that the French community do not pass judgement on our religion based on these events,” Boubakeur added…

— Hat tip: Nick

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France: Dozens of Jewish Graves Desecrated

Over 30 Jewish graves vandalized in southern city of Nice. City’s chief rabbi: Incident may be connected to Toulouse shooting

Over 30 Jewish graves were vandalized in a cemetery in the city of Nice in southern France, media outlets reported Saturday, five days after three schoolchildren and a rabbi were murdered in front of a Jewish school in Toulouse.

According to reports, the vandals tore off 22 Stars of David that were affixed on candle lamps built into the tombstones. They also tried to tear out nine other Stars of David, but only managed to twist them. In addition, four candle lamps were missing.

— Hat tip: Steen

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France: Gunman’s Brother on ‘Preliminary Charges’

French prosecutors have filed preliminary murder and terrorism charges against the brother of a gunman who killed Jewish schoolchildren and paratroopers.

An official from the prosecutor’s office confirmed the charges of suspected complicity were handed to Abdelkader Merah, 29.

He has denied helping his 23-year-old sibling Mohammed, who was killed by police on Thursday, commit three deadly attacks that claimed the lives of seven people.

Preliminary charges under French law mean there is strong reason to suspect a crime was committed but allow magistrates more time to investigate.

Merah’s younger brother Mohamed, 23, was shot dead by police after claiming responsibility for killing three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi and three paratroopers earlier this month.

His older brother and his partner, who has since been released, were arrested on Wednesday after Mohammed Merah was shot at the end of a 30-hour siege at his flat in Toulouse.

A post-mortem examination showed he was hit by more than 20 bullets.

During the standoff, Mohammed admitted killing three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi and three soldiers in separate attacks.

The Paris public prosecutor’s office earlier said in a statement: “Police inquiries have produced grave and matching pointers that suggest his (Abdelkader’s) participation as accomplice in crimes relating to a terrorist enterprise is plausible.”

The inquiry will seek to establish whether Abdelkader, who state prosecutors say was already known to security services for helping to smuggle Jihadist militants into Iraq in 2007, should stand trial.

Abdelkader said during preliminary questioning he was proud of his sibling’s killing spree, a police source has said.

Police also found explosives in a car that he owned, according to the Paris prosecutor leading the case.

Zoulika Aziri, the mother of the siblings, was released on Friday.

— Hat tip: Nick

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France: Toulouse: 400 Extremists in Europe, EU Anti-Terrorism

“Single actors” like Merah difficult to monitor

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, MARCH 23 — There are about 400 Islamic extremists trained by Al Qaeda in Europe, with most of them in Germany, France, Great Britain and Belgium, according to the EU anti-terrorism coordinator Gilles De Kerchove. He went on to say that the European monitoring system has a number of faults that make keeping an eye on the individuals most at risk difficult. The expert said that there is no European data archive for airline passengers, making it almost impossible for the secret services of different countries to know the exact number of people who have undertaken “dangerous” trips to countries at risk like Afghanistan and Pakistan. Moreover, the problem that leads to such incidents like the one in Toulouse is that the “weakened” Al Qaeda is relying ever more on “single actors” often recruited online or in prisons, ever more difficult to individuate. De Kerchove said that EU countries should step up collaboration, and that the latter should not be restricted to “financial flow control”.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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French Police Stop March in Memory of Toulouse Killer

(AGI) Toulouse — Police in France prevented a group of people from holding a demonstration in memory of the Toulouse killer.

This afternoon, some one hundred riot police officers intervened to disperse about thirty people who were trying to hold a demonstration in memory of Mohammed Merah, the man behind a series of shootings in Toulouse who was killed by the police two days ago after an over 32-hour siege. Most of the demonstrators were burqa-clad young women. Wearing the full-body burqa veil in public is illegal in France. . .

— Hat tip: Steen

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How to Tackle Terrorism in the 21st Century?

It could not be further removed from the streets of Toulouse.

It was on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan that Mohamed Merah trained in terrorism.

As a leading expert told euronews, he is not the only one to have made the trip from Europe.

EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator Gilles de Kerchove estimates several hundred youths from the bloc have been to Afghan-Pakistani tribal zones.

For Western counter-terrorism agencies there is another more insidious threat — online propaganda glorifying hatred and extremism.

“The Internet is an incubator of radicalisation,” de Kerchove said. “What is common to terrorists is dehumanising their victims, so they no longer feel the consequences of their actions. Giving them back a voice and returning victims to the forefront, showing the abominable consequences of terrorist actions, in a way, helps remove the ‘glamour’ from the terrorist act and in that way it is concrete counter-narrative policies that need to be developed.”

France is now reinforcing the fight against extremist indoctrination, online or otherwise, more aware than ever of the danger it presents.

Toulouse: psychological harm

In measuring the psychological impact of traumatic experiences, proximity to an event, or to people who suffered, is a major factor.

The murders of four people at a school in Toulouse, and three at a barracks, are therefore expected to affect those in the immediate vicinity the most.

But not only.

euronews spoke with psychologist Helene Romano about possible wider repercussions.

Giovanni Magi euronews asked: “What psychological consequences could this have for everyone? First the terrorist acts, children being murdered, then relief, that the person responsible was identified, then the long negotiations…”

Hélène Romano said: “The very strong impact is due to several things: it happened at a school, children were killed. Then there’s the face of the killer — I’ll use a generalist word here — he looked ‘normal’, where we’d want him to look like a monster. This can be very destabilising, very wounding, because it’s not reassuring at all. So the impact can be one of insecurity for the individual. This is why the reactions of the grownups are so important to make the children feel safe again.”

euronews: “From the point of view of communities, in this case the Jewish and Muslim communities, what psychological interplay is involved in these cases?”…

— Hat tip: TV

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Interest in ‘Halal’ Finance Growing in Italy

Milan conference, Deloitte viewing products respecting Sharia

(ANSAmed) — MILAN, MARCH 19 — Islamic finance has existed in Europe for more than forty years, with the United Kingdom one of the world’s leading countries in the field, and others, such as Malta and Luxembourg, also at the forefront. In Italy, where the sector is more or less non-existent, results of the first experiments are now beginning to be seen.

In 2009, for instance, Deloitte set up a sector dedicated to Islamic finance. “At the moment, we are developing products compatible with Italian regulations,” says Alberto Liotta, a director at the consultancy firm, a guest at a conference organised by Islamic Relief Italia. “Attention is mainly focussed on conventional financing instruments, such as leasing, the concept of which can be brought closer to those of Islamic finance”.

“In the West, there is strong financing demand based on religious principles as a result of the growth of the Muslim middle-class, due to interest in “halal” products by ethical finance and because there is a serious amount of money to be made,” says Alberto Brugnoni, a director at Assaif, another consultancy firm. “Major investment funds are also focussing on this not so much for interests as to diversify their portfolio”.

Yet although the issue has been discussed for a few years now, the time appears not yet right for the birth of a retail Islamic bank in Italy following the model of the Islamic Bank of Britain. “In truth, it would be possible to create it in Italy because the regulations here are harmonised with the rest of Europe,” says Valentino Cattelan, a sector expert and professor at Rome’s Tor Vergata University. “From an investor’s point of view, the problem is that it would not yet be very profitable business because of tax problems and because there is not yet a market considered to be useful”.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italian Values Shifting From Autonomy to Fraternity

Individualism in ‘crisis’ says thinktank Censis

(ANSA) — Rome, March 13 — The same Italian individualistic drive that helped spur growth and development in the country during the 1970s is now in crisis, said a report released on Tuesday by social and economic thinktank Censis.

Italians are looking for relationships and partnerships, said the report ‘Italians and their Values’, presented Tuesday in the presence of ex-premier Giuliano Amato, Censis Director General Giuseppe De Rita and Cabinet Undersecretary Paolo Peluffo, for the 150th anniversary year of Italian Unification. According to the report, Italy and Italians seem to be driven less by autonomy and more by the desire for “relationships and responsibility”. Figures regarding social values polled by Censis revealed that 65% of Italians have a strong sense of family, 25% are seeking a higher quality of life, 21% embrace religious tradition and 20% share their love of beauty with their fellow nationals. The data contrast a 2010 Censis report pointing to “individualistic pulsations in which the only thing that counts is the private sphere”. The shift in values should be “nurtured and strengthened” to continue its positive effect on development trends, said the report.

Traditionally, Censis combines economic analysis with detailed social analysis to evaluate the economic and social environments in their entirety, seeing them as closely interrelated.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Priest Fined for Ringing Church Bells Too Loudly

‘I’m contesting the ticket’

(ANSA) — Venice, March 21 — A Venice parish priest was cited Wednesday for disturbing the peace by ringing the church bells too loudly. According to local environmental authority Arpav, Father Rinaldo Gusso from San Pietro Orseolo church in Mestre is guilty of noise pollution over the past four years. The case could set a precedent. In 1997 the government passed a law setting the maximum number of decibels that many belfries regularly surpass in Italy. Saverio Centenaro, Venice city council vice president, has asked Mayor Giorgio Orsoni to amend the law to grant special privileges to churches. “I’m following the law carefully, and then I’ll decide what to do,” said the priest. “In any event I’m contesting the fine”.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Man Who Gave ‘Gomorrah’ Clan Ferraris Arrested

Businessman also provided safe houses, police say

(ANSA) — Caserta, March 21 — A businessman who laid on Ferraris and Maseratis for the mobsters described in Roberto Saviano’s Neapolitan mafia expose’ Gomorrah was arrested for the fourth time Wednesday.

Paolo Diana is also accused of providing safe houses for the clan whose death threats have forced Saviano into round-the-clock protection, the Casalesis.

Police seized 25 million euros in assets from Diana.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Justice Minister Says Ex-Prison Islands ‘Could be Reopened’

Idea may go ahead ‘if we can meet costs’ says Severino

(ANSA) — Rome, March 20 — Two of Italy’s former prison islands, Asinara off Sardinia and Pianosa off Tuscany, could be used again to ensure maximum-security regimes for mafiosi and to ease overcrowding in Italy’s jails, Justice Minister Paola Severino said Tuesday.

Severino said the costs might be “high” but “if we were able to meet those costs we might think of reopening them”.

Some politicians welcomed Severino’s idea but local officials, especially in Sardinia, were critical.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Anti-Semite Site Publishes List of 163 Italian Professors

(AGI) Rome — A real “proscription”. A list of 163 Italian university professors “guilty” of belonging or being close to the Israeli intelligence. The NeoNazi website HolyWar published it, defining the professors “Sayanim”, namely “people glad to serve Israel, despite living in another state”. A page drenched with anti-Semitism, in which the authors of the article explain that “the Sayanims of our universities collaborate with the Israeli intelligence, whose fulcrum is the largest Israeli university, where data is collected. That’s why these people are to be considered extremely dangerous”. A list of 163 Italian university professors follows. “Obviously — the anti-Semite website admits — we are not absolutely sure that every single one of these people is a Sayanim, but we have reasons to suspect they are, seen as they have actively cooperated with the lobby that has subdued us”. The website also published a long list of journalists, writers, MPs accused of “wanting to gag the Internet” and another threatening list of names of people claimed to be “activists of the Italian Jewish communities, one of the Zionist organisations”.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Italy: Sixteen Tax Judges Arrested in Campania

Financial police arrest eight tax tribunal officers in Camorra swoop

MILAN — At least sixteen tax magistrates, eight tax tribunal officer, a prominent lawyer who also teaches at university, and an accountant are among those arrested in the Naples area in the course of an operation against Camorra gangs. Magistrates have ordered three of the sixteen judges to be remanded in custody while the other thirteen have been placed under house arrest. In the course of inquiries, investigators are believed to have identified dozens of corruption-tainted tax disputes that led to sentences in favour of the often Camorra-implicated appellants, to the detriment of the public purse.

ARRESTS — A total of sixty pre-trial supervision measures were issued following requests by the Naples anti-Mafia directorate. Twenty-two are for preventive custody, twenty-five are for house arrest and thirteen are bans on residing in Naples. Magistrates, tax officials and clerks — all of whom worked at the Naples provincial tax tribunal or the Campania regional tribunal — subject to house arrest are joined by a member of the taxpayer ombudsman’s office. An official at the Naples tax agency has been banned from residing in Naples…

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Italy: Government Signs Off Labour Reform

Minister Fornero says no going back, the only way is forward. Confident that magistrates will provide safeguards. Bishops warn that workers are not goods

ROME — “We are changing the rules on economically motivated redundancies”. At four in the afternoon, a note from Raffaele Bonanni rekindled enthusiasm among supporters of Workers’ Statute Article 18. Their hopes were swiftly dashed, however, turning the clock of negotiations back by twenty-four hours. There has been no change of heart over the crucial issue of labour reform. Mario Monti and Elsa Fornero are pressing ahead and are now looking to extend the reform to public-sector employees. Union leaders left the negotiating table without a written text because the reform will be approved today by the Council of Ministers: “unless otherwise agreed”, which indicates that the government is allowing itself a few more days for the final draft, even if it means sending the text to the president of Italy when the prime minister is already on his way to the Far East.

Yesterday morning, Mr Monti had some face time with CISL trade union leader Bonanni, and then visited the president’s Quirinale Palace with employment minister Fornero and junior minister Antonio Catricalà, before meeting the social partners at 5 pm. The CGIL would later complain that he stayed for only a few minutes, making it abundantly clear that Article 18 was not up for discussion.

Any hopes of a U-turn over redundancies on economic grounds were dashed — the government “has not changed its mind” — while the prime minister strove to calm troubled waters, brushing aside “abuse” on the most painful issue: “We have perceived widespread concern over Article 18 and I would like to reassure everyone. I pledge that, with a minimum of care over drafting, there will be no risk of economically motivated redundancies being abused with discriminatory intentions”. The statement leaves the door open for a clause, along the lines proposed by Mr Bonanni, which would allow magistrates to quash dismissal in cases where the employer cites economic issues. “The CISL also wants to modify the regulation and construct a credible labour reform”, Mr Bonanni said before the meeting, declaring himself “in full agreement” with the Democratic Party (PD) economics spokesman Stefano Fassina, a sworn enemy of the “Fornero treatment”…

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Just a Regular French Youth

by Srdja Trifkovic

As soon as I heard the news I suspected the score. “Far-Right extremists!” screamed the media pack, but my hunch was right: the murderer of a rabbi and three children at a Jewish school near Toulouse, and of three French soldiers only days earlier, was not French. He was a French citizen of Algerian descent, as we now know, but his allegiance and his identity had nothing to do with passports and ID cards.

Mohammed Merah (23), who was killed at his apartment on Thursday after a 30-hour standoff, was a Muslim—one of at least twenty million who now inhabit the European Union. The “context” was duly provided by The New York Times: “Much of the concern about domestic terrorism in Britain, Belgium, Germany and France has focused on these young people, who may have had little formal religious education but are susceptible to calls for jihad, especially when their own lives have been marked by disappointment, crime, racism and joblessness.”

The suggested narrative about this “soft-spoken and alienated youth” is clear:…

— Hat tip: Srdja Trifkovic

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Multinational Military Medical Unit to be Led by Italy

Strategic initiative pools EU member states’ capabilities

(ANSA) — Brussels, March 22 — Thirteen European countries signed a declaration Thursday to create a multinational military unit led by Italy to provide medical support to multinational operations. The project is part of a strategic initiative to pool and share more military capabilities among EU member states.

Claude-France Arnould, the European Defence Agency head, announced the cooperation on Thursday as part of a broader plan to cope with defense-budget cuts imposed by the financial crisis.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Spanish Police Arrest ‘Bar Code Pimps’ Gang

Spanish police arrested 22 suspected pimps who allegedly used violence to force women into prostitution and tattooed them with bar codes as a sign of ownership, officials said Saturday.

Police are calling the gang the “bar code pimps.” Officers freed one 19-year-old woman who had been beaten, held against her will and tattooed with a bar code and an amount of money — (EURO)2,000 ($2,650) — which investigators believe was the debt the gang wished to extort before releasing her.

The woman had also been whipped, chained to a radiator and had her hair and eyebrows shaved off, according to an Interior Ministry statement.

All those arrested were of Romanian nationality and had forced the women to hand over part of their earnings, the statement said.

The women were tattooed on their wrists if they tried to escape, the statement said. Police also seized guns and ammunition. It was not immediately clear when the raids took place.

Police seized (EURO)140,000 ($185,388) in cash, which had been hidden in a false ceiling, a large amount of gold jewelry and five vehicles, three of which were described as luxury cars.

The gang was made up of two separate groups, referred to as “clans” in the statement, each dedicated to controlling prostitution along fixed stretches of a street in downtown Madrid.

One of the alleged ringleaders who was identified only by the initials “I.T.” is wanted by authorities in Romania for crimes linked to prostitution, the statement said.

The women were controlled at all times to ensure “money was taken off them immediately,” the statement said.

Sex is a multibillion-dollar industry in Spain, with colorfully lit brothels staffed mainly by poor immigrant women from Latin America, Africa and eastern Europe lining highways throughout the country.

Prostitution falls in legal limbo: it is not regulated, although pimping is a crime. The northeastern city of Barcelona plans to introduce regional legislation in coming weeks banning prostitution on urban streets.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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The Last Testament of a Psychopath: Toulouse Gunman Found ‘Infinite Pleasure’ In Murdering His Victims

Police recordings of the Toulouse gunman while he was under siege suggest he was a psychopath who took ‘infinite pleasure’ in killing his victims.

Islamic extremist Mohammed Merah, 23, murdered seven people including a Rabbi, three children and three soldiers in three seperate scooter-bourne attacks before being shot dead at the end of 32-hour police siege.

But during the stand-off following the murders, Merah showed no remorse — and even claimed his only regret was arriving too late to kill more Jews outside the Lycee Ozar Hatorah school.

In police recordings of Merah, leaked to a French newspaper, he boasted that the killings gave him ‘infinite pleasure’.

The Independent reported that Merah said he had no interest in being a suicide bomber and just wanted to ‘see’ his victims, ‘touch them’ and ‘film them.

He told police negotiators he wanted to ‘have the honour of dying with a gun in my hand like a mujaheddin’.

The French newspaper Journal du Dimanche quoted a police source as saying: ‘He wanted to give himself a star role.

‘He had a narcissistic need to seem important.’

The French-Algerian, a known fundamentalist, had been on a French security service ‘watch list’ since 2008, was on the U.S. no-fly list, and had attended an al-Qaeda training camp.

After the first the series of attacks he was placed on a list of possible suspects but little was done to trace him until the Jewish school massacre when he shot a teacher and his two sons, aged four and five, as well as a seven-year-old girl.

Following the murders he resisted arrest for 32 hours while under siege at his council flat but was killed by gun wounds in a blazing shoot out with police last Thursday.

Merah, who filmed himself carrying out the executions of four Jewish people and three French soldiers, had fought in Afghanistan and was a self-styled Jihadist.

He said he wanted to kill Jewish children in revenge for the lives of Palestinian youngsters who had died at the hands of the Israeli army.

— Hat tip: Nick

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The Stasi Watched My Every Move: Dancing on Ice Star Katarina Witt Reveals East German Secret Police Spied on Her Since the Age of Eight

Katarina was originally accused by anti-government activists of being an informant to police. She then discovered a 3,000 pages which documented her every move, including a suspected sexual encounter. Her first boyfriend was deliberately stationed thousands of miles away because authorities worried the relationship would affect her performances

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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The World is Turning Conservative, So Liberals Are Eating Their Words

by Damian Thompson

Liberals of various descriptions make so much noise in British public life that it’s easy to overlook the fact that liberalism has run into deep trouble on the world stage. For an illustration, consider a joint interview given this week by Tony Blair and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, president of Liberia and Nobel Peace Prize winner. Mrs Sirleaf is asked about the fact that homosexuality is illegal in her country. She replies: “We like ourselves just the way we are.” Pressed on the point, she confirms that she will not sign any legislation decriminalising “sodomy”. Mr Blair is a champion of gay rights, so you’d expect him to take issue with this statement. Not a bit of it. “The President’s given her position, and this is not one for me,” he says.

Here’s another interesting vignette, again involving a Labour politician, but this time on his home turf. This week Ken Livingstone was accused by Jewish Labour supporters of telling them at a private meeting that since Jews tended to be rich he wasn’t expecting them to vote for him. In a letter published in the Jewish Chronicle, they also accused Livingstone of using the word “Jewish” in a pejorative manner. And this just weeks after he described the Tories as “riddled with homosexuality”. The Ken of the 1980s was painful to listen to, but I don’t remember him dog-whistling like that. In those days he was an ultra-liberal politician, the whining incarnation of rainbow ideology. What has happened? Call me a cynic, but one possible explanation is that, 30 years ago, Livingstone wasn’t chasing a Muslim bloc vote influenced by raging anti-Zionists and homophobes.

A mixture of demographic crisis and the loss of economic power is turning into a disaster for Western liberalism. Left-wing politicians are adjusting their principles rather than offend the world’s conservative non-white majority. Right-wing politicians and multinational corporations are no better: they turn a blind eye when confronted by the brutal ethnic nationalism of East Asia. Not only do the Han Chinese subjugate their own minorities, but they also treat their African employees like children. Time to call in the Western race-relations police? I think not. Because if there’s one thing Chinese and Africans have in common, it’s contempt for degenerate Western values. In the words of Mrs Sirleaf, “We’ve got certain traditional values in our society that we would like to preserve.” Which, as it happens, is precisely Beijing’s view.

For international liberals, the 21st century has been a sequence of distressing setbacks. Europe has absorbed the unprecedented immigration of deeply conservative Muslims. The new regimes of the Arab Spring are planning even more effective suppression of women’s rights. Russia is run by the corrupt and illiberal remnants of the KGB. And, as I’ve said, neither the exploiters nor the exploited in the Sino-African empire give a damn about the progressive agenda of the BBC or the Guardian. To be sure, there will be gay weddings in Britain and other European countries, but the idea that they can be marketed to other cultures is fantasy. Most of the developing world isn’t interested in Enlightenment-inspired human rights, which it regards as cultural imperialism. If liberals want to preach against Zionism, that’s fine; foreign aid is welcome, too. But when it comes to sensitive questions of faith and culture, the only message non-Western leaders want to hear is the one offered by brave Mr Blair: “This is not one for me.”

[JP note: And it’s good night from him.]

— Hat tip: JP

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U.S. State Department Actively Promoting Islam in Europe

by Soeren Kern

The French government — which has been trying to reverse the pernicious effects of decades of state-sponsored multiculturalism — expressed dismay at what it called “meddling.”

The United States ambassador to Spain recently met with a group of Muslim immigrants in one of the most Islamized neighborhoods of Barcelona to apologize for American foreign policymaking in the Middle East.

U.S. Ambassador Alan Solomont told Muslims assembled at the town hall-like meeting in the heart of Barcelona’s old city that the United States is not an “enemy of Islam” and that U.S. President Barack Obama wants to improve America’s image in the Middle East as quickly as possible by closing the “dark chapters” of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan.

“There are things that the United States has done badly,” Solomont said at the February 28 gathering organized by a non-profit organization called the Cultural, Educational and Social Association of Pakistani Women. “But now the Obama government wants to improve relations with Muslims,” he promised.

During the one-and-a-half-hour question-and-answer session, Solomont asked those in attendance simple rhetorical questions, including: “Did you know that the United States sends a lot of money to Pakistan?” and “Did you know that the decision to destroy Osama bin Laden’s house was made by the United States?”

After responding to queries about the “Talibanization of Pakistan due the war in Afghanistan” and the “demonization of Islam in the West,” Solomont said Obama wants to end the long-time American practice of establishing alliances with dictators in the Middle East, a strategy which he said has failed to prevent the rise of “the bearded ones” [radical Islamists], this according to the Barcelona-based newspaper La Vanguardia, which also interviewed Solomont on the sidelines of the event.

The Barcelona meeting, which was held in a Muslim ghetto called Raval (a.k.a. Ravalistan because Muslim immigrants now make up 45% of the barrio’s total population), is an example of the Obama administration’s so-called Muslim Outreach.

The U.S. State Department — working through American embassies and consulates in Europe — has been stepping-up its efforts to establish direct contacts with largely unassimilated Muslim immigrant communities in towns and cities across Europe.

Proponents of Obama’s approach to public diplomacy — some elements of which originated with his immediate predecessor — say it is part of a “counter-radicalization” strategy which aims to prevent radical Muslims with European passports from carrying out terrorist attacks against the United States.

A key component of the strategy is to “empower” Muslims who can help build a “counter-narrative” to that of terrorists. In practice, however, Obama ideologues are crisscrossing Europe on U.S. taxpayer funded trips to “export” failed American approaches to multiculturalism, affirmative action, cultural diversity and special rights for minorities.

Further, American diplomats are repeatedly apologizing to Muslims in Europe for a multitude of real or imagined slights against Islam, and the U.S. State Department is now spending millions of dollars each year actively promoting Islam — including Islamic Sharia law — on the continent.

In Ireland, for example, the U.S. Embassy in Dublin recently sponsored a seminar ostensibly designed to help Muslim immigrants increase their influence within the Irish business and financial communities.

The opening speech at the event was delivered by Imam Hussein Halawa of the Islamic Cultural Center of Ireland, despite the fact that leaked U.S. State Department cables show that the U.S. government has known for many years that Halawi is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and serves as the right-hand man of the radical Egyptian cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

Halawa, an Egyptian immigrant who has dedicated his life to the cause of introducing Islamic Sharia law in Europe, told those in attendance that the main purpose of the conference was to bring the Irish banking system into conformity with Islamic legal principles. U.S. Ambassador Dan Rooney, a lifelong Republican turned Obama acolyte, said at the same conference that the United States was a “solid partner” behind Halawa’s venture.

In Austria, the U.S. Embassy in Vienna sponsored a film contest in February on the theme of “Diversity and Tolerance” aimed at teaching wayward Austrians that they should show respect for Muslim immigrants who refuse to integrate into their society.

Ambassador William Eacho, an Obama campaign fundraiser turned political appointee, awarded the first prize to a group of students in the northern Austrian town of Steyr who produced a one-minute silent film promoting tolerance for Muslim women who wear Islamic face-covering veils such as burkas in public spaces.

Obama and his team may think they know what is best for Europeans, but according to recent polls, more than 70% of Austrians are in favor of a law that would ban the burka.

In Belgium, U.S. Ambassador Howard Gutman, another Obama fundraiser turned diplomat, told lawyers attending a conference in Brussels in November 2011 that Israel is to blame for Muslim anti-Semitism in Europe.

[…]

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UK: Brave Woman Shopper Pounced on Pervert Taking Indecent Pictures of Children in Sainsbury’s… After Security Guards Refused to Help Her

A shopper who suspected a man had been taking indecent photographs of children in a supermarket pounced on him herself — because the store’s security staff refused to help.

Jane Gothard, 47, followed Mohamad Hatef out of the store and detained him while she waited for police to arrive at the scene — despite security guards refusing to get involved.

Her brave actions resulted in Mohamad Hatef being jailed for two years after police launched an investigation that revealed numerous offences against children.

— Hat tip: JD

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UK: Bullfinch Update: Six Men Charged Over Child Sex Ring Held in Prison

SIX men charged following an investigation into an alleged child sex ring have today been remanded in custody.

The six have appeared at High Wycombe Magistrates’ Court accused of a number of offences and all asked District Judge Lynne Matthews to release them on bail.

However after prosecutor Clare Tucker opposed their requests they were remanded in custody until they appear at Aylesbury Crown Court on Friday.

The six were arrested on Thursday as part of Operation Bullfinch, a police investigation into a gang alleged to have sexually exploited up to 24 girls from Oxford aged between 11 and 24.

The men are:

Thirty-one-year-old hospital porter Akhtar Dogar, of Tawney Street, East Oxford, who faces three charges of rape, one of conspiring to rape a child, three of arranging the prostitution of a child, one of making a threat to kill and one of trafficking.

His 30-year-old unemployed brother Anjum Dogar, who faces one charge of conspiring to rape a child, one of arranging prostitution of a child and trafficking.

Twenty-six-year-old security guard Kamar Jamil, of Aldwich Road, Oxford, who faces four charges of rape, two of arranging the prostitution of a child, one of making a threat to kill and one of possession of cocaine with intent to supply.

Unemployed Zeshan Ahmed, also 26, of Palmer Road, Headington, who faces 10 charges of sexual activity with a child.

Security guard Bassan Karrar, 32, of no fixed address, who is accused of raping a girl.

And his brother Mohammed Karrar, who is 37 and lives in Cowley Road, Oxford, and is accused of two charges of conspiracy to rape a child and one of supplying a class A drug to a child. He is unemployed.

Seven other men also arrested on Thursday are now on police bail while detectives’ enquiries continue.

The six will appear for a preliminary hearing at Aylesbury Crown Court for the next stage of the proceedings.

— Hat tip: Salome

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UK: I’ve Backed Ken Livingstone for Mayor Before, But This Time I Just Can’t Do it

by Jonathan Freedland

I agree with Livingstone’s manifesto for London, but he shows too hard a heart to the capital’s Jewish community

Ken Livingstone got my support in 2000, 2004 and 2008. I backed him early on in his late 1990s campaign to become London’s first mayor, defying the control freaks of the New Labour machine. And I endorsed him last time round, not just here but also in the Jewish Chronicle — a column for which I took more flak than almost any other I’ve written.

His manifesto promises for 2012 are as appealing as ever. I like his plans to cut fares, slash energy bills and ease the capital’s housing shortage, all of which are superior to the policy black hole offered by Boris Johnson. I should be an automatic vote for Livingstone. But I’m not. I am among the one in three Labour supporters in London who, according to this week’s YouGov poll, cannot bring themselves to vote for the party’s candidate for mayor. I can no longer do what I and others did in 2008, putting to one side the statements, insults and gestures that had offended me, my fellow Jews and — one hopes — every Londoner who abhors prejudice. Back then I tried to shrug off Livingstone’s quip to property developers the Reuben brothers that they could “go back to Iran and see if they can do better under the ayatollahs”, even though telling immigrants to go back to where they came from is the language of a pub racist from the 1950s. (The Reubens are in fact an Iraqi-Jewish family and the brothers were born in India.)

Likewise, I accepted that when the mayor repeatedly likened a reporter to a concentration camp guard — even after he knew the reporter was both Jewish and offended — he was merely being irritable, his tongue loosened by a glass or two. I condemned his hugging embrace of Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the scholar who supports female genital mutilation, the murder of homosexual people, and suicide bombing so long as the victims are Israeli civilians, deeming even the unborn child inside an Israeli mother’s womb a legitimate target, because that child will one day grow up to wear his country’s uniform. I condemned all that but allowed my concern to be trumped by my wider interest in London and my belief that Livingstone would be a better mayor than Johnson, who had himself, let’s not forget, casually referred to “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles” and who had, after 7/7, suggested that it was Islam, not merely violent Islamism, that was at fault. But that position is no longer sustainable. For in the years since his defeat, Livingstone has, if anything, got worse, stubbornly refusing even to recognise, let alone apologise, for the hurt he has caused — and then adding to the pain.

This week he made the news again, as a group of Jewish activists, all lifelong Labour supporters, wrote to Ed Miliband describing a closed-door meeting they had had with Livingstone that had left them “despondent”. The letter was leaked, with most attention focusing on its account of Livingstone’s suggestion that “as the Jewish community is rich, [it] simply wouldn’t vote for him”. As it happens, I was at that meeting and I can confirm that the former mayor did make precisely that argument, linking Jewish voting habits to economic status, even if he did not baldly utter the words “Jews are rich”, a phrase that would have been additionally offensive. I and others shot back that the US evidence — where an economically successful Jewish community has remained almost monolithically loyal to the Democrats — suggested he was wrong. We also reminded him of the ultra-orthodox Jewish community, among whom poverty rates are high.

He’s been in further trouble over his tax arrangements — which may well explain his sudden plunge in the polls. That has perhaps obscured the fact that he earned some of that money presenting shows on Press TV, the English-language broadcaster owned and controlled by the Iranian government. That put him in the pay of a theocratic dictatorship that denies the Holocaust and believes that both homosexuality and adultery merit stoning. He says it’s no different from writing a column for the Sun. His autobiography is similarly unrepentant and notable for its repeated interest in Jews, Israel and Zionism. I’m told that Miliband’s office saw an early draft which had plenty more on those subjects, including statements that had them raising their “eyebrows to the heavens” — and which they were mightily relieved to see did not make the final version.

The case against Ken Livingstone is not that he is some crude racist. It is rather that, when it comes to this one group of Londoners and their predicaments, their hopes and anxieties, he simply doesn’t care. Consistently warm to some communities — this week he went to Finsbury Park mosque, quoted Muhammad’s final sermon and expressed the hope that as mayor he would educate Londoners in the teachings of Islam — he doesn’t care what hurt he causes Jews. He shows Jews, says one Labour parliamentarian, a “hard heart”.

Labour brass don’t deny the problem, one conceding that Livingstone’s approach “looks like a sectional strategy”, pitting one community against another — and favouring the one with more votes — even if that is not its intention. Such an approach is doomed, if not dangerous in our diverse, plural capital. As that Labour source says, “You have to be a mayor for all of London, not bits of London”.

The meeting that night was packed with people who desperately wanted Livingstone to reassure them they could vote Labour. One explicitly said he sought no recantation of past remarks nor a change of position on Israel, just reassurance that “you won’t put us through another four years of this”. Even that Livingstone could not provide. Afterwards, one activist told me he felt as if he had grown up in two tribes, both intertwined in his DNA: one was the Jewish community, the other the Labour party. Yet now he was being forced to choose — because Livingstone had made it impossible to remain true to both. People will wrestle with their own dilemmas. Some will conclude that only Livingstone’s policy positions on transport or housing matter. I’m afraid I’ve reached a different conclusion. I don’t want to see Boris Johnson re-elected, but I can’t vote for Ken Livingstone.

[Reader comment by Brouillard on 23 March 2012 at 7:45pm with 979 recommends.]

Ken is an odious self regarding individual. He’s also a prejudiced bigot. Why anyone would be a fan of his is beyond me.

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Ken Livingstone Has Lost My Vote, Says Influential Guardian Columnist

by Andrew Gilligan

In his Guardian column tomorrow, Jonathan Freedland says the following:

Ken Livingstone got my support in 2000, 2004 and 2008. I backed him early on in his late 1990s campaign to become London’s first mayor, defying the control freaks of the New Labour machine…His manifesto promises for 2012 are as appealing as ever. I like his plans to cut fares, slash energy bills and ease the capital’s housing shortage, all of which are superior to the policy black hole offered by Boris Johnson. I should be an automatic vote for Livingstone. But I’m not. I am among the one in three Labour supporters in London who, according to this week’s YouGov poll, cannot bring themselves to vote for the party’s candidate for mayor. I can no longer do what I and others did in 2008, putting to one side the statements, insults and gestures that had offended me, my fellow Jews and — one hopes — every Londoner who abhors prejudice.

This is a significant moment for three reasons. First, Freedland was actually present at the disastrous March 1 “fence-mending” meeting between Livingstone and Jewish Labour supporters which culminated in several of them (though not him) sending the party leader, Ed Miliband, a private letter (leaked to the Jewish Chronicle) saying that Ken “does not accept Jews as an ethnicity and a people.” Livingstone has “absolutely” denied something else the letter-writers claimed, that he told them did not expect the Jewish community to vote Labour “as votes for the left are inversely proportional to wealth levels, and suggested that as the Jewish community is rich we simply wouldn’t vote for him”.

Freedland bluntly contradicts Ken’s denial, writing:

I can confirm that the former mayor did make precisely that argument, linking Jewish voting habits to economic status, even if he did not baldly utter the words “Jews are rich.”

For the 950th time, Ken is exposed as a liar. Though Freedland deplores Livingstone’s many offensive outbursts against Jews, accuses Livingstone of having used “the language of a pub racist from the 1950s” when he told a pair of Jewish developers to “get back where you came from,” he adds:

The case against Ken Livingstone is not that he is some crude racist. It is rather that, when it comes to this one group of Londoners and their predicaments, their hopes and anxieties, he simply doesn’t care. Consistently warm to some communities — this week he went to Finsbury Park mosque, quoted Muhammad’s final sermon and expressed the hope that as mayor he would educate Londoners in the teachings of Islam — he doesn’t care what hurt he causes Jews. He shows Jews, says one Labour parliamentarian, a “hard heart”.

Secondly, Freedland essentially agrees with something I’ve been writing about this election — that personality trumps policy. Finally he cannot, of course, be accused of being an evil member of the Tory lie machine and may give those on the left permission not to vote for Ken. What he says today throws into even sharper relief Miliband’s decision to back Livingstone so wholeheartedly, including over the Jewish issue. It may be a subtle attack on Miliband, too, about whom Freedland has been sceptical — but maybe I’m reading too much into it.

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Mother Left Her 16-Month-Old Baby Home Alone While She Partied for Five Days and Nights

A mother is facing jail after leaving her baby home alone which she partied for five days and nights.

Neighbours of the 20-year-old woman heard the baby girl’s screams and alerted police officers who broke into her filthy house.

They found the 16-month-old starving in her cot, her nappy and clothes had not been changed for days and there was blood on a blanket.

The distressed youngster was so hungry she grabbed at food which she was offered by police officers and also gulped down water.

— Hat tip: JD

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UK: Olympic Terror Group Hunted

BRITISH security forces were last night hunting a group of Islamic terrorists intent on wreaking havoc during the Olympic Games.

Security sources have told the ­Sunday Express that 15 to 20 ­terror suspects entered Britain from France in the past week.

The warning, issued by the ­Renseignements Généraux, France’s equivalent to MI5, was given to British MI6 agents in ­Toulouse, south-west France, examining the home of extremist gunman Mohamed Merah, 23.

The security officers were searching for a UK link on the killer’s computers. According to sources French RG officials then revealed that up to 20 out of 50 known terror ­suspects had slipped out of France for ­Britain.

Last night MI5 were on a high-level alert after fears sleeper cells already based in the UK are poised to strike. Fears grew over individuals who have secured Leave to Remain status since coming to Britain at least five years ago from Iraq, Kurdistan, Afghanistan and North Africa. Most of the “cleanskins” are believed to be working for local authorities as cleaners, hospital porters or taxi ­drivers.

They obtain Certificates of Good Contact, a police check that establishes they have no criminal record in Britain, giving them the perfect cover until called upon.

One security source said yesterday: “We went through a period when hundreds were entering ­Britain every week through Heathrow and many were not challenged or detained…

— Hat tip: Vlad Tepes

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UK: Pensioner Was Left Helpless on the Floor for 10 Minutes While Her Nurse Prayed, Inquest Hears

Abdul Bhutto was in charge when Alzheimer’s sufferer Dorothy ­Griffiths, 87, toppled off her bed

An OAP who died after a fall at a care home was left helpless for 10 minutes because a nurse was praying, an inquest heard.

Abdul Bhutto was in charge when Alzheimer’s sufferer Dorothy ­Griffiths, 87, toppled off her bed.

Another carer asked him for help to lift the pensioner back up.

But Muslim Mr Bhutto allegedly said he must finish his prayers first.

An ambulance was not called for four hours and Mrs Griffiths, who suffered a cut to her head and a gash to her hip, later died in hospital.

Carer Zoe Shaw, who was in tears in the witness box, said: “He was praying upstairs in the office on his prayer mat. A staff member told me we had to wait for him to finish.”

Agency nurse Mr Bhutto failed to appear at Monday’s inquest in ­Sheffield. Assistant deputy coroner Donald Coutts-Wood called him in the recess to ask why he was not there.

He told the hearing Mr Bhutto denied to him he was duty nurse on the night the OAP fell at private Valley Park near Barnsley, South Yorks, last October.

He claimed he had been there on a course.

After her tumble, the pensioner was checked and left in the lounge.

But at breakfast she was unresponsive and paramedics were called.

Mr Bhutto has now been issued with a summons to attend the resumed hearing later this year.

Dorothy’s daughter Jean David said after the inquest: “We are quite upset he hadn’t appeared.”

Home operator Mimosa declined to comment.

— Hat tip: Nick

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UK: Social Workers Took Away Our Baby for Nine Months: With No Evidence Against Them, Couple Were Banned From Looking After Their Son

When Julie Nevin put her only son to bed in late December 2010, he was seven months old.

The next time she was allowed to perform that simple act, Reilly was a 16-month-old toddler.

She and her husband David lost nine months of their little boy’s life after social services took him away over a minor bruise on his forehead.

They believed Mr and Mrs Nevin may have slapped their beloved son, with the couple at one point being arrested on suspicion of assault and subjected to the humiliation of police taking their DNA, fingerprints and mugshots — despite all the initial checks coming back clear.

The couple’s nightmare only ended when a consultant paediatrician belatedly conceded that the bruising had most likely been caused by the little boy accidentally bumping into the metal legs of the family’s sofa — as they had originally suggested.

— Hat tip: JD

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UK: The Arts Festival Tied Into the Olympic Games That’s Costing us £5.4m

If madcap art was an Olympic sport, Britain would be there on the podium claiming gold, silver and bronze.

From carting a plane fuselage around Wales, to felling a forest for an immigrant-only football match, to sailing a chunk of Norway to the south coast of England; the nation’s artists have excelled themselves in their attempts to celebrate the London Games.

Mind you, they have had some help — £5.4million of taxpayers’ cash to be exact.

The artists have been given up to £500,000 each by the Arts Council to mark the Olympics in their region. But their projects were yesterday dismissed as ‘fripperies’.

— Hat tip: JD

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Lebanon: Courses for Judges and Magistrates Financed by EU

Project with total investment of 2.7 million euros

(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, March 19 — The Lebanese Institute for Judicial Studies has concluded a training course of 34 judges who in turn will become instructors in a training initiative for judges and lawyers sponsored by the European Union with funding total of 2.7 million. The ceremony that marked the conclusion of the course was attended by Lebanese Justice Minister Chakib Qortbawi, and the head of the EU delegation in Lebanon, Angelina Eichhorst. The project funded by the EU has so far benefited 3,500 judges and lawyers, more than the originally anticipated 2,625.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Algeria: Plan to Save Old Fortified Villages

New school to train architects specialising in ksours

(ANSAmed) — TUNIS — The typical red clay buildings, or ksour, that dot the horizon in rural areas of North Africa in particular, are considered in Algeria to be not only a form of architectural heritage, but also fundamental to the history and culture of the country, which is why are plans are in place to protect them from the slow destruction of time.

The remarkable heritage, however, is at significant risk of degradation because of the material used to build the constructions, which descend from Berber architecture and remain to this day an example of air control in a country that is forced to deal with extreme temperatures.

The etymology of the word “ksar” (“ksour” in the plural) is telling. The word derives from the Arabic “qsar”, meaning fortified village or castle, itself mutated from the latin term “castrum”, as military camps were known. The constructions were built close to oases and not far from the caravan routes, located in areas guaranteeing greater security against potential attacks or raids by plunderers.

After various statements and promises, the government in Algiers has taken a more concrete step, with the country’s Culture Minister, Khalida Toumi, announcing the creation in Adrar of a school for the training of technicians and architects specialising in the construction of buildings made from earth.

The decision to base the school in Adrar can be explained by the vast number of ksour in the area. Toumi said that the centre would be a “hub of excellence” and would focus on both education and training. This, the minister added, is a necessary step because there are currently only five architects in Algeria specialising in the buildings, which demand “respect of materials and techniques” if they are to be adequately preserved and handed down to future generations.

Over the years, ksour have been the subject of classification by the Algerian authorities, who have identified them in the Mzab Valley in particular, in the towns of Yamerna, Laghouat, Ouargla, Naama and Adrar.

Another concrete step is the plan that will see the restoration of 700 earth constructions located in In’Salah (some 750 kilometres north of Tamanrasset). The operation will involve more than simple building restoration work, as the social and economic purposes of the buildings will also be taken into consideration. The purpose of the ksour was often to provide communities or individual families with an area in which to leave food in the best possible conditions for a whole season, according to the climate in a given area. Attention will also be paid to their preservation as fundamental elements of the urban framework. Technicians and architects will therefore work with sociologists and popular culture experts to ensure that restoration works do not alter the philosophy at the root of these buildings.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Egypt: Coptic Christians After Shenouda

The late patriarch ruled his Church for 40 years. Spirituality, vocations, participation in rituals have increased, but ecumenism and lay involvement slowed. Skirmishes on intermarriage with Catholics. Nationalist and anti-Israeli, Shenouda clashed with Sadat, who imprisoned him. An alliance with Mubarak to build new churches. The urgency of the mission in society and in defense of women. Egypt caught between a military dictatorship and fundamentalism.

Beirut (AsiaNews) — The death of Shenouda III, head of the Coptic Church for more than 40 years, leads me to take stock of the life of this Church, its relations with other churches, with Islam and Egyptian policy ..

Shenouda III, born Abnub, Asiut province on August 3, 1923, named Nazir Gayyed Rufa’il, studied history and archeology at Cairo University and theology at the Faculty of Theology until 1946. He taught there for several years, and in 1954 entered the monastery of Suryani (Dayr al-Suryan) which is in the Nitria Scetis desert, about 120 kilometers from Cairo on the road to Alexandria. This monastery is linked to that of Deir Anba Bishoy (Monastery of Abba Bishoy). As Patriarch, Shenouda went on to choose all the bishops of the dioceses of Egypt from these two places.

In 1962 he was appointed Bishop of Ecclesiastical Studies by the 116 ° Patriarch Cyril VI, and he took the name Shenouda. Finally, 14 November 1971 the synod elected him patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church, a year after the death of Gamal Abdel Nasser in September of 1970.

In fact, the patriarch in the Coptic Church is always a monk, as well as a bishop. And when choosing a layman to be a bishop, he must spend a few months in a monastery, before being ordained a bishop.

As patriarch, Shenouda governed both under Sadat and Mubarak. During these years he has given a very strong spiritual impulse to the Coptic Church through his weekly general audiences which lasted for almost 40 years. Every Wednesday there was an audience for more than an hour with questions and answers, and discussions with the faithful. Each time there were several thousand attended. Later, these were recorded on video and cassette and broadcast by the mass media.

He is also the author of 50 books that touch on all religious questions, from a spiritual angle. He was a monk who knew the tradition and the Bible by heart. He could quote chapter and verse. He knew the spiritual literature and monastic life of the saints, drawing on them in abundance in his sermons and writings. It was not a theologian, with an advanced research in the fields of dogma, but he made a major contribution to spirituality.

He also contributed to a renewal of the dioceses, founding many new ones and downsizing exisiting ones. This allowed the bishops to have more daily contact with the faithful for a more effective ministry. At the same time, some people think that this was a move to elect and consecrate several bishops who were his supporters for a majority in the Coptic Synod.

His fame as a bishop was already great, it then grew with his election as Patriarch (“Baba Shenouda”). I met him when he was bishop: we worked together in the World Council of Churches for Middle East (MECC). We always had a very good relationship, even if we did not agree on everything. I was also in charge of the “Ecumenical Youth Service” (YES) for young people of different denominations throughout Egypt. The Patriarch loved to come for all occasions. To the very end, our relationship was direct and friendly. He would say to me: “You are young, you’re like my son, hear what I have to say …”. He had great respect for my studies on the history of the Church, though — he said — “we should not implement everything that is in the tradition.”

His views were constructive, very respectful of the difference between us. Perhaps this is due to the fact that I did not belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church. Within his won community, however, he was known for his authoritarian decisions.

This policy has however led to a strengthening of the formation of the faithful in Egypt. Having consecrated very young and learned bishops (35-40 years) all his disciples, he could spread his vision across the country.

With the laity the situation was more delicate. Shenouda was conscious of having the responsibility of all the Church and thus some of the laity were humbled.

During his patriarchate vocations to the priesthood and religious life multiplied. He expanded the pastoral care of students, asking young people to always have a spiritual director, and to practice confession. The practice of communion was also widespread, but only after confession. Sometimes there were priests who before giving Communion to a young person, would ask him whether he had confessed and with whom … He has done so much for spirituality and devotion in the Coptic Church, increasing the practice of the Sunday liturgy.

There were also conflicts with the laity, and differences of views with other brothers in the

Relations with other Christian Churches

Relations with other churches were more problematic. He was never very warm towards the Protestants. He said that “we must learn from the Protestant Bible study,” but was always wary of collaboration. His relationship with Catholics was better.

In 1973 he visited Pope Paul VI and even signed the first official document of agreement between the Catholic and Orthodox Church, in which it was agreed not to carry out mutual proselytism. Proselytizing is an accusation that the Orthodox Churches have often made against Catholics. The agreement provided that if there were any cases, Shenouda would call Rome, which would intervene to remedy the situation.

Once, in Upper Egypt, near Dayrut, in an Orthodox village 300 km south of Cairo, forgotten for years by the Orthodox bishop, they threatened him: “If you do not come, we’ll become Muslims.” But before they came to the Catholic church in the village nearby and asked to become Catholics. The priest and the bishop of the diocese of Asyut discouraged them, exhorting them to remain Orthodox. At a renewed threat that they would become Muslims, the bishop relented and sent a Catholic priest to the village. This fact, however, caused problems between Shenouda and Rome, which led to an agreement: the Orthodox would find a solution for the village within six months. After this period, if nothing happened, then the faithful — at least some of them — would enter the Catholic Church. In itself there was no desire to proselytize, but only the desire to help these Christians, who otherwise would have become Muslim.

Things got worse between Catholics and Orthodox after a few years after his election as Patriarch over the rules he imposed on mixed marriages. In the east marriages between Orthodox and Catholics are common and do not raise problems in families because the faith is common, despite differences in the rituals and traditions. The traditional use, throughout the East, is that marriage is celebrated in the church of the groom, the children follow the tradition of their father, but it is possible that agreements are made between them. In any case, the two parts remain in their Christian confession. Shenouda decided that if there were mixed marriages, the Catholic party had to be re-baptized into the Coptic Orthodox Church. In practice, the Catholic means Catholic women. His theologian, argued supporting his position for a while, has pointed out that patristic tradition does not provide for a new baptism, but he, stubbornly, kept this rule until now.

It must be said that his priests are often more open than he. He was a conservative regarding ecumenism and did not make much progress toward unity among Catholics and Orthodox.

In 1984 he also criticized the Syrian Orthodox patriarch, Zakkha Iwas, because he signed, on June 23, an agreement with the Catholic Church (with John Paul II). The joint statement that it resulted in, was very advanced: it provided freedom in marriage, communion with one another and even shared formation of priests, and even today many Syrian Orthodox priests study in Catholic seminaries and theological faculties.

When Shenouda heard about this agreement, he criticized Zakkha, for having dared so much, without first consulting him. It should be noted that the Syrian Orthodox, Copts and Armenians are joined by a bond because they are pre-Chalcedonian Churches. His Beatitude Zakka told him that their churches are sisters, but independent. In addition, he noted that the same Shenouda had signed the 1973 agreement with the Catholics without consulting the other two churches.

Relationship with Islam

In the relationship with Islam, Patriarch Shenouda made a lot of meetings with the Imam of Al Azhar. He knew the Koran and the Arabic language: he even wrote poems in Arabic. He could deal with the Muslims, without cedine ground on the dogmatic aspect, he was rather careful not to provoke Muslims.

Although attacks against churches and killing of Christians and fundamentalist violence continued during the period of his government, he managed to maintain cordial relations with the Muslim world, but without compromise on important issues.

Relations with Anwar as-Sadat

Relations with the State have always been very delicate. He became patriarch under Anwar Sadat. From the political point of view, Shenouda had a very clear position on relations between Egypt and Israel. He was always against an agreement between the two countries.

When Sadat went to Jerusalem, he gave his speech at the Knesset and launched diplomatic agreements, Shenouda condemned this policy. Perhaps this move had tactical reasons: the Coptic Church is a minority (it does not exceed 10% of the population) and Muslims increasingly view Christians as allies of the West (and Israel). His decision allowed him to escape the cliché, in alliance with a powerful anti-Israeli lobby, still present in Egypt.

But Shenouda’s position drove Sadat to put him under house arrest in the Anba Bishoy Monastery in the Desert (Wadi an-Natroun) for four years, from September 1981 until the death of Sadat (assassinated October 6, 1985). Sadat even imprisoned some bishops for the first time in the history of Egypt, in a tense situation that lasted almost a year.

In addition, in order to rule, Sadat garnered support from the Muslim Brotherhood, increasingly tough on Christians. We can say that the whole Sadat period was very difficult for Shenouda.

Relations with Hosni Mubarak

When Mubarak came to power, 31 years ago, the situation changed. The patriarch supported the president and vice-versa. The two made a personal agreement that lifted the ban on the construction of churches. In Egypt, by law, a church may be built only if they comply with 10 rules. But they are so stringent that it is virtually impossible build any. The pact between Mubarak and Shenouda the agreement provided for a certain number of church buildings each year. When it was made public it was criticised by Muslims, but nothing more.

The agreement, however, presupposed that the patriarch would support all decisions by Mubarak. When the Arab spring broke last year, many Christians were in Tahrir Square. But the Patriarch was reluctant to support the movement, because it became increasingly anti-Mubarak.

The problem of Christians in the Middle East is always this: caught between two fires, between a dictatorship and fundamentalism.

Our situation in the Middle East has always been weak and the Coptic Church is an illustration of this: unable to envisage prospects, initiatives, to engage in society and politics. The Coptic Church is often closed in on herself, living in a ghetto to protect themselves and live in peace. They do not try to change society for fear of not succeeding, being a minority.

In the past it was different, 50 or 80 years ago it was much more alive. Then, becaus eof teh deteriorating conditions of freedom, we hid in our monasteries, in prayer, in the Church’s inner life. Now, with the Arab Spring, we are in a moment that has aroused so much hope of freedom for Christians and Muslims, in rejecting a theocratic regime. Unfortunately it seems that we are returning to where we started from.

The other problem is the Egyptian army. The army controlled Egypt since the days of Nasser, for at least 60 years, and does not seem to want to relinquish power. Even now they decide everything. Egypt is at a delicate crossroads: it could become a military dictatorship or a fundamentalist regime. Precisely for this reason, many Christians hesitated during the revolution.

The future of the Coptic Orthodox

Among the Coptic bishops there are very good personalities, who could take over the leadership of the Coptic Church. Among these would I exclude Shenouda’s deputy, who was an executor of his decisions, but lacking in personality.

The Coptic Church remains strong in spirituality, in liturgical prayer, fasting. The Copts have almost 200 days of fasting a year. And their fast means that they do not take anything, no drinks, no food from midnight until the earlier of 3pm the next day. And their meals are very light. This fast, lived in union with Jesus Christ, strengthens the faith and the strength of the Copts, to be able to resist in their identity.

The Copts do not show that they are fasting, but when Muslims realize this, they were surprised in a positive way. The food is vegetarian, then, eggs, cheese, milk, etc are also excluded. It must be said that somehow this religious testimony of the Copts impresses Islamic people who often delineate the West and Christians to atheism.

After the Arab Spring, we are at a new stage that needs new choices. Within the Coptic Church more freedom should be given to the bishop, priests, laity: they need a united but not dictatorial voice. They also need to engage more in society, for the common good, politics, human rights. Coptic Christians are not opposed to this, but do not promote this. But Christians have a very important function, especially to restore dignity and value to the woman, who in Islam are often humiliated.

The relationship with the Muslims should be more active and vibrant: you can not live side by side, without asking any questions. For example, in Egyptian society Islam is publicized on the bus, in taxi. Christians must ask Muslims to build a society that leaves room for all.

Another dimension is mission. In Egypt there is no mission because of sociological conditions: Islam does not allow evangelization. But an urgent and explicit testimony that would be good is working together with other Christian denominations. We have a few: divided we are weakened even more.

Finally, we can only pray to ask God to illuminate the Holy Synod to elect a successor strong in faith, open to the world and its needs and attentive to the needs of the weakest in society at large.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Islamists Dominate Panel Tasked With Drafting Egypt’s Constitution

Egyptian liberals were scrambling Sunday to block the formation of a panel charged with drafting a new constitution, to which the parliament has appointed a large majority of Islamists. Only six women have been named on the 100-member panel. By News Wires (text) AFP — Egypt’s parliament has elected an Islamist-dominated panel to draft a new constitution, and liberal activists are scrambling to block the move, state media said Sunday.

Thirty-nine of the 50 lawmakers chosen for the 100-member constituent assembly are Islamists, according to press reports, with Islamists also represented among the remaining 50 members drawn from outside parliament.

Liberal lawmakers had walked out on the vote in the joint parliament and senate session on Saturday, accusing the Islamist majority of trying to dominate the crucial panel.

The new constitution will replace the one annulled by the ruling military which took power after an uprising ousted president Hosni Mubarak last year.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the largest in the parliament, has the biggest representation on the panel, followed by the ultra-conservative Salafi Al-Nur party.

Only six women — three from the parliament and senate and the rest from civil society — were appointed, along with a handful of Coptic Christians who make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s population of about 80 million.

One of the Copts, Rafiq Habib, is a vice president of the FJP whose mother organisation, the Brotherhood, argues that Copts and women may not head a Muslim country.

The 50 people appointed from outside parliament include a member of the ruling military council, a senior Muslim Brotherhood member seen as the group’s religious guide, judges, lawyers and an activist who lost both eyes in clashes with police.

The official Al-Ahram newspaper reported on its website that the Islamists had the support of almost 40 percent of panel members elected from outside parliament and about 75 percent of its lawmakers.

The assembly is due to hold its first meeting on Wednesday, as a secular leaning group, the National Association for Change, and others pressed a court to annul the vote that elected the panel.

On Saturday, Coptic tycoon Naguib Sawiris, who founded the largest liberal party in parliament, bitterly condemned the process and announced his Free Egyptians Party members had walked out of the vote.

“It’s ridiculous,” he said. “A constitution being written by one force and one force alone. We tried our best but there was no use.”

Two other parties had boycotted the vote from the start, including the leftwing Tagammu.

The liberals and leftists fear the Islamists will try to beef up references to their religion in the new charter.

“The constitution should not reflect the majority, it should reflect all forces in society,” said Tagammu head Rifaat al-Said.

“There is an attempt to posses everything,” he said of his party’s Islamist opponents. “Possessing the constitution is the most dangerous thing.”

According to a military schedule, the panel was meant to finish the new constitution before a presidential election, but that now seems unlikely with the poll scheduled for May.

— Hat tip: Nick

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Morocco: Equality in Constitution, Not Yet in Practice

Difficult journey of Moroccan women towards equal rights

(ANSAmed) — RABAT — King Mohammed VI of Morocco is making an early move on libertarian movements on the back of the “Arab Spring”, and has made a historic speech announcing the need for constitutional reform. Women’s rights organisations have immediately spoken out as part of a coalition known as the “feminist spring for equality and democracy” and are hastily preparing a memorandum to be submitted to the commission tasked with drafting the new constitutional text. One urgent demand is the need to insert into the Constitution the equality between men and women, and there are calls for international conventions to supersede national regulations on the matter.

The women’s battle has ended in victory, with the text approved by the population in the referendum of June 30 advocating “equal opportunities and respect of human dignity” as well as the “pre-eminence of international conventions compared to the country’s internal law”.

Article 19 is even more explicit, sanctioning full equality of rights and individual freedom between men and women. The process of equality in Morocco has come on leaps and bounds over the last decade, at least in legal terms. The first major break with conservatism and Arab and Muslim tradition came in 2004 with the advent of the new family code. The text approved the abolition of the notion of “attaâ” (obedience), the right of women to demand divorce, to marry without need for an agreement from a guardian, and rigid measures on polygamy and underage marriage. Another important step came in 2007, with the introduction of the right to Moroccan nationality for children born to a Moroccan mother and foreign father.

Feminist circles in Morocco are aware of the legal steps forward taken over the last few years, but also that these have not produced any great results in practical terms. The first major disappointment will come with the creation of the new government led by the moderate Islamist, Abdelilah Benkirane, in which female representation, in the first government of the era of the new constitution, will be insignificant. “It is an act of contempt towards women and towards the whole of Morocco. The government cannot be allowed to ridicule women’s rights and violate the measures featuring in the Constitution,” women said in Rabat on February 20, after travelling from around the country to demonstrate outside the country’s Parliament, responding to calls for a “network of women’s solidarity” and a “Democratic League of Women’s Rights” (LDDF).

The main challenge remains to overcome the clash between a party approved on paper and the mentality of a conservative society. The target of equality between the sexes remains a long way off, due to difficulties linked mainly to education rights, female unemployment (which is structurally higher than the male rate), and the weakness of women in the world of work, where they are most exposed to precarious and poorly paid positions. Reforms, therefore, are lacking real implementation. The problem, according to Fatima Zohara, a lawyer and the president of the Moroccan association for the fight against violence, lies in the mentality of judges, which “remains patriarchal”. Legal circles, she says, have not yet picked up on the philosophy and the spirit of the new family code and are therefore incapable of implementing it fully. Regarding the removal of reservations on the international convention against all forms of discrimination against women, “hereditary division should be considered, as should the right of a Muslim woman to marry a non-Muslim”. It is difficult to imagine that such an idea could be accepted, especially by a government led by Islamists.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Spain and Morocco Compete for Oil Search in Canary Islands

(ANSAmed) — MADRID — Spain and Morocco are competing in the search for oil in the deep-sea area of Canary Islands, near the sea border with Morocco. This can be inferred from what the Industry, Tourism and Trade Minister José Manuel Soria has stated today during a radio interview at Radio Onda Zero. Soria confirmed that Morocco “is already carrying out surveys” in the area, which is allegedly located “on the border of the imaginary line ideally separating the Kingdom of Morocco from the Kingdom of Spain”. According to the Minister, if there actually is oil, “there will be two options: either Morocco extracts it or both Morocco and Spain do, each on its side of the line”. Soria ensured that the chance of finding oil “is good”, totalling 20%.

The Minister also underlined that the potential production of any oil fields totals 140,000 barrels of raw oil in 20 years, the equivalent of 10% of daily consumption in Spain. According to the Minister, overall the Canary Island oil would allow Spain to save EUR 28 bln on its energy invoice. With regard to opposition by the Canary Islands’local authorities and environmental protection groups, who fear that the environment and tourism (the archipelago’s main industry) would suffer irreversible damage, the Industry Minister maintained that the debate is “unnecessary and groundless”, because surveys will be carried out at a 61-km distance from the coast “nearly in the middle of the ocean”.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Gaza: Islamic Jihad Celebrating After Challenge to Israel

Complex relations between pro-Iranian group and Hamas

(ANSAmed) — GAZA — Thousands of supporters of Islamic Jihad paraded through Gaza’s central Omar al-Mukhtar Street last night, celebrating the “success” of the four days of armed conflict with Israel, which ended in a ceasefire brokered by Egypt. Protesters, who waved the organisation’s black flags and showed off their weapons, then listened to a message of congratulations from their leader, Ramadan Shallah, who was speaking over the telephone from Damascus. Shallah said that jihad (Islamic holy war) will continue until the whole of Palestine is freed. Shallah focussed on the ideology of the organisation, which was founded in 1978 by Fathi Shkaki, who was inspired by Khomeini’s revolution in Iran and out of disagreement with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, from which Hamas subsequently originated.

One of the differences between the organisations, the analyst Muhammad Hijazi has told ANSAmed, is that in their formative years, while the Muslim Brotherhood were busy spreading Islam in the societies in which they operated (through schools, mosques and charities), Islamic Jihad was already insisting on the need for all-out armed conflict against Israeli occupation, and organised the first armed cells. Only after the first intifada in 1987, says Hijazi, did Hamas feel the need to have its own armed wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, which today is 15,000 strong.

Set up according to the model of the Lebanese group Hezbollah, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad — the al-Quds Brigade — has 5,000 trained members, despite the fact that it does not have any permanent bases and is forced to train in open areas, which are chosen according to availability. According to Israeli intelligence, the group is not to be underestimated, and is theoretically capable of striking the suburbs of Tel Aviv from Gaza with the use of al-Fajr missiles. The identity of the group’s leader remains secret. The management of the al-Quds Brigade, meanwhile, is entrusted to Khaled al-Batash, while the organisation’s political leader in Gaza is Nafez Azzam.

For ideological and religious reasons, relations with Hamas are not easy. Hamas sees Islamic Jihad as a dangerous group, a “vehicle” used by Iran to spread Shia Islam through the Gaza Strip. The phenomenon has so far involved only a few hundred individuals, but Ismail Haniyeh’s men are determined to overcome the group, by force if necessary. Islamic Jihad’s members continue to identify themselves as Sunnis, but some express tolerance for those wanting to embrace the Shia current of Islam. Today in Gaza, Islamic Jihad and Hamas are re-examining their respective relationships, after four days of violence in which Islamic Jihad has launched at least 200 rockets towards Israel (losing around twenty militiamen), while Hamas have been happy following events from a distance.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Term ‘West Bank’ Only Came About as Result of Jordan’s Imperialist Effort to Expand

by David Ha’ivri

Do you know? Have you stopped to think? When did this area start being called “the West Bank” and by whom?

The term “West Bank” is used so widely that one might get the impression that it has some real historical significance. Those who rally together, calling for Israel to pull out of this area and allow the establishment of a Palestinian State here, would like you to believe that one previously existed and that Israel took it over and closed it down. The narrative presumes that people will believe it without question and will not ask for any proof. Amazingly, that strategy has worked pretty well so far.

Many people do not expect to be lied to by TV announcers and academics, and so they just take the narrative at face value. Even people who support Israel often do not realize how un-related to fact many of these claims against Israel are. So Israel’s supporters are more often put on the defensive, trying to point out the good deeds that Israel is doing in the world as a way to cover up for actions that they do not know how to explain.

But, in fact, the West Bank narrative really has little foundation. It only appeared on the stage of history in 1948, when the Hashemite army of Trans-Jordan crossed over its own western border, the Jordan River, which it is named for. The army of Trans-Jordan did so as part of the joint Arab effort to destroy the newly founded Jewish State and push the Jews into the sea.

The line of defense that the Jewish army succeeded in holding as they defended Tel Aviv from invasion was later dubbed “The Green Line” because it was marked with green colored crayon on the map that was used at the signing of the Armistice Agreement between Israel and its neighbors in 1949 on the Greek island of Rhodes. In that agreement, the Arab side refused to define the green line as a recognized border, but only as an agreed ceasefire line — nothing more.

The Hashemite Kingdom of Trans-Jordan tried to annex their newfound land west of the Jordan River by imposing their laws and naturalizing the Arab residents of the area. They went so far as to change the name of the country to Jordan, removing the prefix “Trans” as a way to hide the fact that they belong on east side of the river, but not on both…

— Hat tip: TV

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Borat Anthem Stuns Kazakh Gold Medallist in Kuwait

Kazakhstan’s shooting team has been left stunned after a comedy national anthem from the film Borat was played at a medal ceremony at championships in Kuwait instead of the real one.

The team asked for an apology and the medal ceremony was later rerun. The team’s coach told Kazakh media the organisers had downloaded the parody from the internet by mistake. The song was produced by UK comedian Sacha Baron Cohen for the film, which shows Kazakhs as backward and bigoted.

The spoof song praises Kazakhstan for its superior potassium exports and for having the cleanest prostitutes in the region.

The film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, released in 2006, follows Baron Cohen’s character, the journalist Borat Sagdiyev, as he travels to the US and pursues the actress Pamela Anderson.

The film outraged people in Kazakhstan and was eventually banned in the country. The government also threatened Baron Cohen with legal action. Reports say the film is also banned in Kuwait.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Egypt is Looking to Get Cozy With Iran

Although Saudi Arabia had good relations for more than 30 years with Egypt under now-ousted President Hosni Mubarak, the kingdom is warily watching political developments in Cairo as the Muslim Brotherhood shows increasing strength, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

As a consequence, Egypt is leaning more toward a strategic relationship with Iran. Closer Egyptian ties with Iran also were underscored by Egyptian parliamentary member Mohamed Abu Hamed, who resigned recently from the Free Egyptians Party, or FEP, which has enthusiastically embraced closer strategic relations with Tehran even though it opposes the Brotherhood.

— Hat tip: JD

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Lebanon: Policewomen Candidates in Hijabs Spark Row

Interior Minister, no to religious symbols

(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, MARCH 23 — An initiative by 39 Muslim female police cadets who turned up for training wearing their veils have caused controversy in Lebanon, where the law bans the use of the hijab among security force personnel, as it bans all other religious symbols. The ban reflects fears that sectarian divisions visible among the forces could endanger the country’s delicate political balance.

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel, a Maronite Catholic, has reasserted to the Daily Star newspaper that this rule has to be upheld. “We have been opposed to the use of religious symbols in security force institutions since the early 1970s and it is ridiculous to bring this into discussion today” Charbel said.

According to press reports, some of the 39 women, who turned up for training after having passed the admission examinations, agreed to remove their veil, while others insisted on keeping them on. At this point, Major Suzanne Haji, who is in charge of receiving female recruits, was forced to turn to her commanding officer for advice,who reacted themselves by calling on Minister Charbel, who maintained a firm line.

As security sources reveal, soldiers and police officers are free to pray, each according to their own faith, but not to wear religious symbols while on duty. The need to keep religiou out of security service operations is obvious when one looks back at the 15 years of civil war (1975-1990) that raged between ethnic-sectarian militias in the country. There is a high level of concern that such tensions could suddenly reignite in Lebanon as incidents over the past few days illustrate: at Beirut’s Antonina Catholic university around forty Shiite Muslim students gathered to pray in the courtyard in a protest against the lack of any place of worship for them in the institution. Yesterday incidents broke out involving the police at the Lebanese University when students belonging to the Christian Lebanese Forces movement gathered to protest against the demonstration held by their Shiite fellow students. Several opposition figures have also denounced the Shiite protest as a provocation, saying they belong to Hezbollah, which is allied to Syria and to Iran, and which has been a leading political force in the government since the exit of Sunni premier Saad Hariri.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Lebanon: Maid Filmed During Beating Kills Herself

An investigation has been launched in Lebanon after an Ethiopian housemaid committed suicide a week after video was aired of her being dragged through the street and abducted.

Ethiopia’s consul general said Alem Dechasa killed herself on Wednesday, a week after the LBCI television channel played amateur footage of her being lifted off the ground by her hair and forced head-first into a car.

The horrifying footage sparked national outrage in Lebanon.

The consul general, who saw Ms Dechasa on Tuesday, said she had been taken to hospital in order to recover.

The Lebanese cabinet condemned the violent incident and ordered an investigation into the matter before Ms Dechasa died.

But the campaign group Human Rights Watch (HRW) is calling for a wider investigation into the ill treatment of domestic workers.

It also wants to know why there appeared to be no follow up into Ms Dechasa’s case after she received hospital treatment.

HRW director for Beirut Nadim Houri said: “Obviously her death is a tragedy. What makes it a bigger tragedy is that we think it could have been prevented.

“Her case is not unique, unfortunately, in Lebanon. In the study released a year-and-a-half ago, we saw an average of one death per week of migrant domestic worker in the country, often they commit suicide, so it’s a broader systemic issue.

“So first, we need an independent investigation into first the ill-treatment of this woman and, secondly, why she was not properly followed up when she was transferred to Deir al Salib to get proper treatment.”

The video showed a second man helping a first one as he forced Ms Dechasa into the back of the car whilst she screamed: “No, no, no.”

After the video was aired, LBCI used the car’s licence plate number to identify one of the men.

Activists in Lebanon posted the man’s contact information on social media sites and demanded he be sued by the courts.

Mr Houri said taking the case to court would help highlight the extent of the problem and its prevalence.

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Power Elite and the Muslim Brotherhood, Part 10

In “Truth and falsehood in Syria” (Al-Ahram Weekly, October 13-19, 2011), Jeremy Salt (associate professor of Middle Eastern history and politics at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey) wrote that “the Syrian people are entitled to demand democracy and to be given it.” However, he also revealed that “in the eyes of many Syrians, their country is once again the target of an international conspiracy… Armed groups have killed hundreds of police, soldiers and civilians… Large shipments of weapons have been smuggled into Syria from Lebanon and Turkey… Interrogation of captured members of armed gangs points in the direction of former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri’s Future Movement. Hariri is a front man for the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, with influence spreading well beyond Lebanon. Armed opposition to the regime largely seems to be sponsored by the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood… The Brotherhood has two prime objectives: the destruction of the Baathist government and the destruction of the secular state in favor of an Islamic system… If the Syrian government is brought down, every last Baathist and Alawi will be hunted down. In a government dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, the status of minorities and women would be driven back.”

[…]

And what is the position of Israel regarding the revolution in Syria? While the Israelis do not like Assad, they are also concerned about a revolution that would bring the MB to power. Relevant to this, the London-based Asharq al-Awsat on February 2, 2012 published “The Syrian crisis calculations,” in which Osman Mirghani wrote: “The fears regarding Israel also include the possibility that the fall of the al Assad regime may result in the Muslim Brotherhood rising to power, along the lines of Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco. The last thing Israel would want is to find itself besieged by Muslim Brotherhood regimes along its border from Egypt to Syria, and pro-Iran movements from Hezbollah in Lebanon to Hamas in Gaza.”

— Hat tip: JD

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Saudi Arabia and China Team Up to Build a Gigantic New Oil Refinery

The largest oil exporter in the Middle East has teamed up with the second largest consumer of oil in the world (China) to build a gigantic new oil refinery and the mainstream media in the United States has barely even noticed it.

This mammoth new refinery is scheduled to be fully operational in the Red Sea port city of Yanbu by 2014. Over the past several years, China has sought to aggressively expand trade with Saudi Arabia, and China now actually imports more oil from Saudi Arabia than the United States does. In February, China imported1.39 million barrels of oil per day from Saudi Arabia. That was 39 percent higher than last February. So why is this important? Well, back in 1973 the United States and Saudi Arabia agreed that all oil sold by Saudi Arabia would be denominated in U.S. dollars. This petrodollar system was adopted by almost the entire world and it has had great benefits for the U.S. economy. But if China becomes Saudi Arabia’s most important trading partner, then why should Saudi Arabia continue to only sell oil in U.S. dollars? And if the petrodollar system collapses, what is that going to mean for the U.S. economy?

Those are very important questions, and they will be addressed later on in this article. First of all, let’s take a closer look at the agreement reached between Saudi Arabia and China recently.

— Hat tip: JD

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Syria: Terzi: Turkish Minister Spoke of Air Raids

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, MARCH 23 Referring to the words of his Turkish colleague Ahmet Davutoglu, Italy’s Foreign Minister Terzi said “Following the used of artillery, there is now talk of even using air force bombardment” and that descriptions of the situation in and that descriptions of the situation in Syria “make you shiver”. “The descriptions given by the Turkish minister made you shiver and they gave an idea of the violence that has been unleashed”. Davutoglu “spoke of the siege of Homs and of other cities, of artillery attacks to hit at demonstrators on the streets with snipers firing on the crowds. This action has now become more widespread, with even air bombardment being spoken of following the use of artillery,” the Italian minister reported

— Hat tip: Insubria

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The Rising Tide of Muslim Violence Against Christians

Current affairs website, The Commentator, asks ‘Did you read about Sheik Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, and his call this month to “destroy all the churches of the region?”‘

Hyperbole? Apparently not. The article also cites a number of recent incidents of Muslim persecution of Christians, drawn from a monthly compilation by Raymond Ibrahim of the think tank, Middle East Forum: “Half of Iraq’s indigenous Christians are gone due to the unleashed forces of jihad,” [Ibrahim] wrote. Many fled to Syria where, alas, “Christians are experiencing a level of persecution unprecedented in the nation’s modern history.”

Meanwhile, 100,000 Christian Copts have fled Egypt since Hosni Mubarak’s downfall unleashed Islamic forces, while 95 percent of Christians have left northern Nigeria where the Islamist group Boko Haram has been slaughtering them. The group announced recently that it’s planning a “war on Christians” in the coming weeks to, a spokesman said, “end the Christian presence in our push to have a proper Islamic state.”

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UAE: Europe Approves Camel’s Milk

But further testing necessary before EU market is open

(ANSAmed) — DUBAI, MARCH 19 — Europe says ‘yes’ to camel milk: samples of milk from these desert mammals from the United Arab Emirates have been deemed suitable for export to European markets, an essential outcome paving the way for complete approval of a potential relationship between the EU and UAE for the product. Even though camel’s milk has been promoted as a “safe” food by European labs, final approval for exports is still subject to sanitary certification of the farms where the camels are raised.

Inspections by European Commission scientists in January last year flunked the sanitary conditions at the camel farms and offered guidelines to bring them into line with the requested parameters. The next inspection will not be carried out until next year, but UAE labs are already working at full steam to meet EU standards. The European market holds enormous potential for camel’s milk, nicknamed “the white gold of the desert” in Arab countries, as well as all products derived from it. Not only derivatives such as yogurt and cheese, but also sophisticated sweets and foods like milkshakes, cappuccinos and expensive lines of chocolate. The potential outside of the region, in Europe and worldwide, is extremely high. The FAO estimates the worldwide market volume for camel’s milk to be 10 billion dollars. “White gold”, which has met resistance in some palates and whose image suffers in the West, which tends to consider it to be a strange food, has various advantages: compared to cow’s milk, it has less than half of the fat, 40% less cholesterol, and three times more vitamin C. It is also easy to digest because of its similarity to breast milk and is good for people who are lactose intolerant or who suffer from food allergies. But that’s not all: a group of researchers from the UAE recently announced the creation of a cancer drug derived from a combination of substances found in milk and urine, while the cosmetic properties of “white gold” are a time-honoured secret of women from the Gulf Region. Once the European markets are open, farmers explained, it has not been ruled out that the current number of camels raised in the UAE, which are mainly brought up for racing and not for the food industry, will no longer be sufficient to meet demand (estimated to be 10 times greater than current levels) and they will have to be imported from other countries in the region to increase breeding.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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UAE: Saadiyat Workers Conditions Improve, But Not Enough

HRW, abuse in culture district construction site continue

(ANSAmed) — DUBAI, 21 MARCH — Working conditions of the Saadiyat Island workers have improved, but not enough: this is the conclusion drawn by the Human Rights Protection Association Human Rights Watch (HRW) in a report published in Dubai today.

In 2009, HRW had exposed the subhuman working conditions and several cases of abuse on labourers working on the construction of infrastructures on the island, which will become an elite cultural district with the opening, among other things, of branch districts of the Louvre and Guggenheim Museums.

“Constructors and their international partners have worked to improve the workers’ status”, the Association’s report states; however, HRW adds “abuse continues”.

Even if they recognize the validity of measures taken by United Arab Emirates’ authorities, such as payment of salaries through banks, the opening of hotlines to report abuse, healthcare coverage and regular inspections, the illegal confiscation of passports by employers continues, there are no punishment mechanisms for abusers and the legislation regulating hiring of staff is incomplete.

The TDIC, the company for tourism development and investments in charge of the Island of Happiness (this is what the word “Saadiyat” means in Arabic, replied in a statement that it “appreciated the work carried out” by HRW; however, it underlined that data are “not accurate and not up to date”. “The study is based on interviews carried out between October 2010 and January 2011”, a statement published by the Wam press agency states; TDIC points its finger against the limited number of interviews carried out as a sample.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Domestic Maids Complain of Rampant Abuse in Malaysia

Malaysia is one of the richest countries in Southeast Asia and almost every household boasts at least one domestic worker. Most are from Indonesia or Carmbodia — many complain of abuse.

For years, women working as domestic maids in Malaysia have complained that they are treated badly and abused by their employers. Often from poorer countries, they have filed report after report to their governments about the working conditions.

Two years ago, the Indonesian government imposed a ban on Indonesians working in Malaysia as maids. Jakarta then worked out a list of guidelines with the Malaysian government to ensure working conditions improved.

Nonetheless, these don’t seem to be effective. Now the Cambodian government wants to negotiate stricter regulations with Kuala Lumpur, after many nationals returned.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Indian Court Refuses TV for Italian Marines

Newspapers and magazines permitted

(ANSA) — Kollam, March 21 — An Indian court on Wednesday refused in-cell television privileges for the two Italian marines being held in the town of Thiruvananthapuram, accused of killing two Indian fishermen in February.

However, the judge agreed to requests for reading material to be delivered to the incarcerated sailors, including Italian daily newspapers and weekly magazines.

Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone, who were guarding an Italian merchant vessel against pirate attacks in international waters, have been at the centre of a diplomatic row between Italy and India since being detained last month.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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China’s Huawei Moves Out of the Shadows to Join Technology Race

The telecoms firm has ambitions to join Apple, Samsung and Nokia in the big league — but if it wants to crack the US market, it will have to offer more transparency

The security guard’s mirrored sunglasses reflect Barcelona’s pale winter sunshine. His job is to keep the crowds attending the sprawling trade fair at bay. Behind him, a pavilion the size of a bus garage houses the latest technology produced by China’s Huawei. Those without a meeting to attend are told they cannot enter, and cameras are banned inside.

Huawei is China’s biggest exporter, and its equipment helps run the BT broadband network, but the brand is unknown to most UK households. Regarded as a secretive organisation even within the people’s republic, Huawei is headed by a former Red Army engineer, Ren Zhengfei.

Unlike other Chinese IT firms, such as the PC maker Lenovo and telecoms group ZTE, Huawei is not listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange. A private company owned entirely by its founders and employees, the names of its board members were only published for the first time last year.

But it is also a flagbearer for China’s “going out” policy of encouraging the first generation of corporations created by economic liberalisation in the 1980s to compete on the world stage. Entrepreneurial and unbureaucratic, it has prospered without having the state as a shareholder.

It sells everything from mobile mast radios to software, data-centres and laptop dongles. Founded in 1987, Huawei only began exporting in earnest in 2000, but already over 65% of its revenues are from abroad. Last year, they totalled 185.2bn yuan (£18.51bn), just half a billion pounds less than the world’s largest telecoms equipment group, Ericsson.

Now Huawei is preparing to step out of the shadows. While its governance remains veiled, the company is pushing its brand to the fore. It wants to place its products in the hands of millions of western consumers, and become the fourth largest manufacturer of smartphones by the end of this year.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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China’s Massive Water Diversion Project Remains Controversial

China’s south has too much water; the north does not have enough. That’s why the South-North Water Transfer Project was thought up. But the ecological and social costs are huge.

Workers are putting the finishing touches on the Danjiangkou Dam, a massive wall that has risen to 176 meters over the past five years. The blue steel beams shine in the spring rain while a mist hangs over the reservoir behind.

The water for the second biggest reservoir in China comes from the Han River, the biggest tributary of the mighty Yangtze.

Mao Zedong dreamed of diverting water from the south to the north 60 years ago. From 2014 on, a complex system of canals and pipes is supposed to provide Beijing — 1400 kilometers away — with water.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Classical Music Affects Heart Transplants

Classical music is good for the soul and maybe the heart too. Mice with heart transplants survived twice as long if they listened to classical music rather than pop music after their operation.

Masateru Uchiyama of Juntendo University Hospital in Tokyo, Japan, gave mice heart transplants from an unrelated donor which were therefore expected to be rejected. For a week following the operation, the mice continuously listened to Verdi’s opera La Traviata, a selection of Mozart concertos, music by Enya, or a range of single monotones.

Mice exposed to opera fared best — they survived an average of 26 days, with those who listened to Mozart close behind at 20 days. Mice who listened to Enya survived for 11 days and the monotone group only seven days.

The team tested the effects of La Traviata on deaf mice too. They survived for just seven days, reinforcing the likelihood that hearing the music, rather than another factor, such as feeling vibrations from the music, accounted for the difference.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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The Slang Chinese Bloggers Use to Subvert Censorship

They call it the Grass-Mud Horse lexicon, and, lucky for us language lovers, the China Digital Times just started a recurring word of the week feature to go along with its catalog of the slang China’s bloggers use to subvert government censorship. The first post, which went up last Wednesday, explains the project’s namesake, Grass-Mud Horse. “Grass-mud horse, which sounds nearly the same in Chinese as ‘f*** your mother’ (cào ni ma), was created as a way to get around and poke fun at government censorship of vulgar content,” writes Fiona Smith. The term is perfect for a lot of reasons: It sounds like a swear, has its own YouTube culture and references the Communist party, which is often referred to as “mother.” All of that has led to its evolution as not only a term that means “someone who is web-savvy and critical of government attempts at censorship,” in the words of Smith, but also the representation of an entire language.

Over at China Digital Space, where the Grass-Mud Horse project lives, we find the full alphabetized list of common terms used on the heavily censored Chinese Internet platforms. Each letter has between 2 and 21 entries — there’s a lot on there. Here are some of our favorites:

Term: Love the Future.

Definition: “‘Love the future’ is a coded reference to Chinese artist and dissident, Ai Weiwei (???) that began to be used after Ai’s disappearance in early 2011. Ai’s surname sounds the same as the word ‘love’ in Chinese, and his given name ‘Weiwei’ can be converted into the word “future” by adding two small strokes to the second character.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Anna Bligh Hangs on to Seat in Bloodbath

ANNA Bligh tonight looked set to survive a political scare in her own Brisbane seat as Labor was annihilated in the Queensland state election.

With about half the vote counted in South Brisbane, the Premier had 52.1 per cent of the two-party preferred vote, against 47.9 for LNP candidate Clem Grehan.

Ms Bligh, who won the seat in 1995, earlier appeared to be in deep trouble, but was set to survive courtesy of Green preferences.

The question was whether Ms Bligh would be prevailed upon to stay on in the Labor leadership to help the party rebuild.

With her deputy and heir apparent Andrew Fraser among the Labor casualties, all will depend on whether Education Minister Cameron Dick retains his seat of Greenslopes. His prospects improved slightly tonight, but he remained under the gun.

Earlier, parliamentary speaker John Mickel said Ms Bligh should step down as leader if Labor lost badly.

“The Labor Party needs to move forward and the only way to move forward is to put Anna Bligh behind them,” the retiring Labor MP said today.

He said if Ms Bligh retained her South Brisbane seat, she should continue on as the member but resign as the party’s leader.

“She is the one who chose the ministers and if the Labor party goes down to a historic defeat tonight it’ll be because the electorate at large has found Anna Bligh accountable, because she never kept her ministers accountable,” Mr Mickel said.

“I’m talking about a series of issues that Anna Bligh did not hold ministers to account when she should have.”

Mr Mickel, a former Labor minister, said one of the issues was the Queensland Health payroll debacle, which happened under former health minister Stephen Robertson, who is also retiring.

— Hat tip: The Observer

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Australia Deports ‘Silence of the Lambs’ Rapist Back to UK 13 Years After Brutal Attack and Yet We Continue to Dither Over Kicking Out Qatada

Violent rapist has been deported back to Britain, even though he has lived in Australia since 1967 and no longer has family or any other connections here.

Leslie Cunliffe, 67, known as the ‘Silence Of The Lambs’ rapist, spent 12 years in prison for the abduction and rape of a young woman he kept locked in a homemade dungeon.

He arrived at Heathrow on Thursday after the Australian authorities revoked his visa and put him on a plane.

The resolve of the Australians contrasts starkly with the impotence of our Government in the case of hate preacher Abu Qatada, whom the Government wants to deport to Jordan but cannot because of a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights.

— Hat tip: JD

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Gallipoli Anniversary Could Divide Australia, Federal Government Warned

THE Federal Government has been warned that celebrating the centenary of Anzac Day could provoke division in multicultural Australia — and told there were “risks” in honouring our fallen soldiers.

The centenary is a “double-edged sword” and a “potential area of divisiveness” because of multiculturalism, a taxpayer-funded report has found.

Bureaucrats spent almost $370,000 for focus-group testing and a research paper used by the Government to guide 2015 commemoration plans, which listed multiculturalism under “risks and issues” that should be considered to avoid “unexpected negative complications.”

The report also called on organisers to avoid any reference to current military action because they are “unpopular with young people”.

The paper states: “Commemorating our military history in a multicultural society is something of a double-edged sword.

“While the 100th anniversaries are thought to provide some opportunity for creating a greater sense of unity, it is also recognised as a potential area of divisiveness.

“There are strong views either way in terms of how to recognise any ‘non Australian’ military service of those who now live here.”

— Hat tip: Nilk

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James Cameron Set for a Mariana Trench Sequel

Hollywood director James Cameron is sinking to new depths this week. As soon as stormy weather over the Pacific island of Guam clears, he will attempt to dive to the bottom of the nearby Mariana Trench in a one-man, titanium sphere he designed with Australian engineer Ron Allum.

If successful, he’ll be the first person to reach the deepest known place on Earth since Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh in 1960. Others may try to repeat the 10,994m descent soon, though. Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin empire, is backing a mission in a plexiglass sub that looks like an aeroplane. Two other teams, a Florida company called Triton and Google’s DOER sub are also hoping to make the trip soon.

Cameron will be filming the trench in 3D — possibly for use in the movie Avatar 2 — and he also hopes to collect sediments and a few creatures for analysis.

Submarine technology has come a long way since Piccard and Walsh did their dive. When their craft — the bathyscaphe Trieste — landed on the bottom, it inadvertently threw up a thick cloud of silt that blocked their view. Cameron’s one-man submarine, Deepsea Challenger, is designed to hover just above the bottom to avoid a repeat. It will send out little rovers with cameras and snatchers.

The beauty of deep-sea diving craft, says Paul Tyler at the University of Southampton, UK, is how selective they can be. Rather than trawling to collect samples, craft such as Cameron’s can reach out and grab species straight from the water.

Tyler expects it will pick up critters like sea cucumbers and squishy shrimp-like animals called amphipods.”But generally, animal groups tend to decrease [in abundance] as you go down,” he says. At over 1000 atmospheres of pressure — double that found on the 3000 to 6000-metre-deep abyssal plains that form most of the ocean floor — “there will be no animals with air, no fish with bladders: everything will be solid water and tissue.”

Although Cameron’s mission is the first crewed dive for 52 years, the Mariana Trench isn’t exactly unexplored territory, says Alan Jamieson of the University of Aberdeen, UK. “Just because a human hasn’t been there doesn’t mean it hasn’t been explored,” he says. In 2009, for example, a robot submarine named Nereus made the trip, taking photos and collecting samples for researchers to sift through.

Despite the focus on the Mariana Trench, it is just one of five spots in the Pacific Ocean that are more than 10,000 metres deep. All are isolated from one another and probably contain very different organisms and geology. The Branson-backed project aims to explore these other trenches as well, and Jamieson says there is an argument to be made for even more trench exploration: “A scientific survey of Everest isn’t the same as a scientific survey of Kilimanjaro.”

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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A Pirate’s Prison Tucked Inside Seychelles Paradise

A rare visit to a location deep inside the tropical forest of Mahé, in the Seychelles archipelago, where a prison has been established to hold the captured Somali pirates wreaking havoc in the Indian Ocean. Once captured — and land-locked — the pirates change their ways.

By Paolo Colonnello

Along the granite mountain covered by tropical vegetation, the steep path leads to a courtyard surrounded by three warehouses and a light grey building overlooking the sea. All around this one sqaure-kilometer facility are tall wire fences, watchtowers, and armed men. Welcome to the pirate prison of Mahé, where sea-faring criminals are being held in the middle of the forest of the Seychelles islands.

When we arrived, the accused Somali pirates — Jahamal, Shaif, Mohamed, each in their early 20s — were eating lunch. They wore blue detainee uniforms. “But we are all fishermen,” they said with a laugh. These young men have been convicted without even know their sentences.

Maxim Tirent, the 56-year-old French-born director of the prison, explains that the inmates have been brought here from all over the Indian Ocean. “By now, there are too many,” he says. “Once they are identified with pictures and fingerprints, some are just waiting to be repatriated.”

The most recent arrivals were seized three weeks ago by a British Navy frigate, which left them on the island. “When they are at sea, they are fearless and arrogant, but here they behave well,” explains Tirent. “They are submissive and quiet. They spend their days working to fix the streets, or praying. They’ve never caused any troubles.”

Currently, the prison holds some 500 detainees, including many accused of drug-related crimes. Among the total prison population, there are currently 88 wanted for acts of piracy, many from Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. The Seychelles has become a strategic international outpost against rising piracy in the Indian Ocean. It is the hidden side of this tropical haven, which is beloved by tourists for its natural preserves and beautiful beaches.

Piracy has become a scourge for international commercial interests. Salvatore Puma, the Italian general manager of the exclusive resort Constance Ephelia of Mahé, said that during last Christmas vacation the local hotels “could not serve fish, because the fishermen refused to go out to sea, too afraid of being attacked.”…

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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UK: Ministers Plan Major Immigration Crackdown

Theresa May, the Home Secretary, is planning a major immigration crackdown on tens of thousands of people who “abuse” family visas to settle in Britain, according to a leaked cabinet letter.

The letter from Mrs May to Nick Clegg, which has been seen by The Sunday Telegraph, proposes a tough new minimum income of £25,700 a year for anyone seeking to bring a spouse, partner or dependant to the UK from outside the European Union from June — almost double the current threshold of £13,700.

The minimum income would rise dramatically — up to £62,600 — if children are also brought in.

Mrs May also wants a longer probationary period of five years before spouses and partners can apply to live permanently in Britain, and a higher level of English to be required.

The proposals could cut the number of immigrants allowed in by 15,000 a year — a significant step towards the Government’s aim of reducing “net” migration to 100,000 people each year.

However, they are expected to fought hard by Mr Clegg and other Liberal Democrat ministers, escalating still further the tensions between the two Coalition partners that have risen dramatically since last week’s controversial Budget…

— Hat tip: Nick

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Oregon: “Wrongful Birth” Of Down Syndrome Child

An Oregon jury awarded nearly US$3 million to a couple whose daughter was born with Down syndrome after doctors had reassured them that the baby would be normal. They alleged that it had been a “wrongful birth” because had they known that the baby would be handicapped, they would have aborted her. A number of studies have shown that at least 90% of women who learn that they are pregnant with a Down syndrome child have an abortion.

The baby was born in 2007. The couple, Ariel and Deborah Levy, say that the $3 million will be needed to care for their daughter’s medical and social needs over her lifetime. The case was so controversial that the judge banned publication of photos of the Levys.

Bioethicist Art Caplan commented that the case showed the need for legal reform to cope with mistakes in genetic testing:

“Wrongful birth lawsuits are a horrible way to deal with failed prenatal testing. Forcing parents to argue that their child never should have been born may make legal sense but it is morally absurd. Why ask parents to reject the existence of their own child? Who can really put a value on a life that some argue in court ought not exist?

“There is no reason to permit wrongful birth or wrongful life cases. When a mistake is alleged about genetic testing there ought to be some sort of no-fault insurance scheme under the supervision of neutral mediators, not a courtroom slugfest that demeans the value of a life with disability and reeks of eugenics.”

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Nokia is Looking Into Haptic Tattoos to Help You Feel Who’s Calling

Not satisfied with just getting its own flavor of slide-to-unlock patented, Nokia wants to take haptic feedback to a level you haven’t previously encountered. Haptic tech is employed, for example, when your phone vibrates as you type on its touchscreen. Haptics deal with appealing to your sense of touch by applying forces or vibrations to your skin. Which is exactly what Nokia wants to do, proposing the application of tattoos with ferromagnetic inks, that will vibrate based on commands from your phone.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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‘Warp-Speed’ Planets Flung Out of Galaxy on Wild Ride

Planets in tight orbits around stars that get ejected from our galaxy may actually themselves be tossed out of the Milky Way at blisteringly fast speeds of up to 30 million miles per hour, or a fraction of the speed of light, a new study finds.

“These warp-speed planets would be some of the fastest objects in the galaxy, aside from photons and particles like cosmic rays,” said Avi Loeb, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. “In terms of large, solid objects, they would be the fastest. It would take them 10 seconds or so to cross the diameter of the Earth.”

In 2005, astronomers found evidence of a runaway star that was flying out of the Milky Way galaxy at a speed of 1.5 million mph (2.4 million kph). This hypervelocity star was part of a double-star system that wandered too close to the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy.

The strong gravitational pull at the galactic center ripped the stars apart, sending one hurtling through space at high speeds, while capturing the other to stay in orbit around the massive black hole.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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