It’s been a rough week (so far) for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a.k.a. CAIR. As we reported at the time, on Sunday night at its annual banquet the executive director of the Islamic advocacy organization was served with a summons on a federal fraud and racketeering complaint. Yesterday the Holy Land Foundation — a CAIR-affiliated charity — was convicted on 108 counts of funneling money to Hamas.

And today comes the biggest surprise of all: legally speaking, CAIR doesn’t even exist.

That’s because the organization failed to file the proper paperwork this past September to renew its charter as a non-profit corporation in the District of Columbia. Jihad Watch and WorldNet Daily have reported that David Yerushalmi’s lawsuit — the same one that named Nihad Awad when it was served on Sunday evening — demonstrates that beccause its registration has lapsed, CAIR is officially non-existent.

“The organization is no longer a valid corporation,” Yerushalmi revealed on the program. “The District of Columbia delisted it on Sept. 8, 2008.”

He said the organization failed to file its paperwork to continue to exist.

“They are not allowed to be operating, according to the law,” he said.

And yet CAIR continues to function as if it were a corporation, lobbying, fundraising, and engaging in political advocacy. Considering that the organization has insisted on the prosecution of misdemeanors and full penalties applied to anyone else, it’s only fair that the D.C. government throw the book at it.

And what does the book say? According to the District of Columbia Official Code — under which CAIR was incorporated while it still existed — the offense is a misdemeanor, and penalties may include a $500 fine and a possible one-year prison term. Here are excerpts from relevant sections of the official code:
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§ 29-301.85. Two-year report of domestic and foreign corporations—Effect of failure to pay or file.

If any corporation incorporated under this subchapter, or any corporation which has elected to accept this subchapter, or any foreign corporation having a certificate of authority issued under this subchapter, shall fail or refuse to pay any report fee or fees payable under this subchapter, or fail to file a report as required by this subchapter, then, in the case of a domestic corporation, the articles of incorporation shall be void and all powers conferred upon the corporation shall be inoperative, and in the case of a foreign corporation, the certificate of authority shall be revoked and all powers conferred pursuant to it shall be inoperative.

§ 29-301.86. Proclamation of revocation; effect of publication.

(a) On the second Monday in September of each year, the Mayor shall issue a proclamation listing the names of all domestic corporations and all foreign corporations which have failed or refused to pay the 2-year report fee or fees or failed or refused to file the 2-year report as required by this subchapter for a reporting period next preceding June 30th in the year in which such proclamation is issued and upon the issuance of such proclamation the articles of incorporation or the certificate of authority, as the case may be, shall be void and all powers thereunder inoperative without further proceedings of any kind.

§ 29-301.87. Penalty for conducting affairs after issuance of proclamation.

Any corporation, person, or persons who shall exercise or attempt to exercise any powers under articles of incorporation of a domestic corporation or under a certificate of authority of a foreign corporation which has been revoked shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be punished by a fine not exceeding $500 or by imprisonment not exceeding 1 year, or both. Civil fines, penalties, and fees may be imposed as alternative sanctions for any infraction of the provisions of this subchapter, or any rules or regulations issued under the authority of this subchapter, pursuant to Chapter 18 of Title 2. Adjudication of any infraction of this subchapter shall be pursuant to Chapter 18 of Title 2.

Now, we all know that CAIR is too big and too powerful to have to answer for something that will undoubtedly be described as a “minor technical infraction”, a trivial matter to be brushed away like an annoying gnat. That’s why they pay their lawyers all those millions of dollars in retainer fees. It doesn’t require the accession of Barack Hussein Obama to protect them from niggling disputes such as this.

Still, it would be refreshing if the D.C. government were to demonstrate that the law is the same for both the princes and the serfs. We all know what would happen if the Heritage Foundation made a similar mistake. The same rules should apply to CAIR.

But don’t hold your breath.

Thanks to Frontinus for both the original tip and the legal research.

Remember those missing Minnesotan Somali “youths” I wrote about yesterday? It seems that the FBI has determined the whereabouts of one of these fun-loving young whippersnappers: he’s back in Somalia, and may no longer be in one piece.

According to Refugee Resettlement Watch:

Somali terrorist group wants to throw the West “into hell”

And, guess where they are recruiting? According to a pair of stunning articles today, it looks like right in the good old USA. Yes, that is right! Remember those Minneapolis missing young men? When we suggested in that post yesterday that we are breeding and raising Jihadists, whose families have possibly arrived in the US fraudulently through the Refugee Resettlement Program, we might really be on to something.

No wonder the Department of Homeland Security put the squeeze on the State Department to shut the family reunification (P-3) program down. Family reunification, we have learned previously, is the largest portion of our legal immigrant program. I don’t think Somalis come into the US in any other way than through Refugee Resettlement (or I suppose illegally).

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From Minneapolis 5 Eyewitness News :

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS has learned that federal law enforcement sources believe that a Twin Cities man blew himself up in a suicide bombing in Northern Somalia last month.

The FBI and Homeland Security are investigating whether Shirwa Ahmed had developed a terrorist recruiting network in the area.

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS learned that Ahmed came to the Twin Cities in 1996 and graduated from Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis. He was a naturalized U.S. citizen.

More than a dozen young men of Somali descent, mostly in their 20s, from the Minneapolis area have recently disappeared, U.S. law enforcement officials tell 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS. All are thought to be associates of Ahmed. U.S. officials suspect most of the young men have departed for Somalia to fight in ongoing violence there or to train in terrorist camps. Family members of the young men are said to be distraught, trying to figure to out what happened to them, sources say.

So far, the investigation has not uncovered credible evidence of a plot targeting the U.S. but American officials want to track down all these young men before they can say for certain what this is or is not…

There’s more at Refugee Resettlement Watch.

OK, now is the time to put all that expensive state-of-the-art high-tech TSA equipment to good use. Retinal scans, facial recognition software, fingerprints, X-rays, whatever it takes — if Granny has to take off her shoes at the airport, then surely we can keep these punks from re-entering the United States.

If we can’t, then what good is the Department of Homeland Security, anyway?

Or at least his book Defeating Eurabia does. A reader in Los Angeles sends some good news for Americans about shipping from Europe:

Dear Baron,

Please inform Fjordman that my copy of his book from Lulu arrived in Los Angles good condition in just 6 days from when I ordered it. I’m looking forward to reading all the articles I missed before.

[Nothing follows]

Last spring El Inglés caused a bit of a stir here with his essay “Surrender, Genocide… or What?”. In recent weeks he has been busy researching and writing a follow-up, and the result is posted below.

A prefatory note from El Inglés:

I started writing ‘Surrender, Genocide… or What?’ with a fairly loose set of topics I wished to write a paragraph each on. There was no hint in my mind of how it might take shape when finished, or what threads of argument might bind it together. However, as I started to put metaphorical pen to paper, some paragraph headings were discarded as superfluous, others used at greater length, and the resulting chunks of text reorganized in accordance with an increasingly clear notion of what it was I wanted to say.

Having enjoyed the great privilege of having a number of very different essays read, enjoyed, loathed, praised, and torn down by presumably some thousands if not tens of thousands of readers, I would like to bring an end to my rather strange and short career as an analyst of Islamization and related issues with a long-brewing update to ‘Surrender, Genocide, or What?’ in which I consider again some of the key arguments, some new developments, and some factors which may be of relevance to issues of central importance.

Surrender, Genocide… or What? — An Update
by El Inglés

Prelude

The controversy over ‘Surrender, Genocide… or What?’ (hereafter referred to as SGW) was, by and large, fraudulent. It was simply used as ammunition in an ongoing conflict, by certain parties with limited reading comprehension skills and even more limited integrity. Nor is there any obvious reason why it should have been controversial. Given the prevalence of violent conflict of various sorts in human history, it is surely not unreasonable to suggest that any polity, no matter how peaceful or prosperous, is never more than one or two macrohistorical wrong turns away from reacquainting itself with the unpleasantness such conflict results in. Given further the innumerable examples to be found even just in recent history of the extraordinary violence human beings will use to attack and/or separate themselves from others with whom they do not identify, the likelihood of an outbreak of vicious tribal conflict in Europe as a consequence of mass immigration struck me as obvious. Indeed, it still strikes me as being so obvious as to be slightly embarrassing to suggest at all.

Despite the above, there was a slightly surreal quality to the process of considering, in as much detail as I could manage at the time of writing, the implications of the fairly simple positive feedback arguments that were central to the essay. The conclusions I reached in SGW struck even me, the author, as being slightly fantastic in some regards. But that they did so was, I think, more a consequence of the unprecedented nature of the phenomena I predicted for post-war Western Europe than of any flaw in the arguments themselves. Indeed, nothing that has happened between now and my writing SGW has led me to believe that the reasoning therein was not fundamentally sound and the dynamics I claimed to see in the Islamization of Europe not actually real. On the contrary, subsequent events have convinced me that the point of no return I mentioned in SGW has, in all likelihood, already been crossed by at least some European countries, and others are dangerously close to crossing it. Before explaining why I think this, I would like to briefly review the key line of argument in the original essay.

Boiled down to its essentials, the argument goes as follows. Political elites in most Western European countries are wedded, through genuine ideological conviction, institutional entanglements, or both, to a politics which has taken the influx of large numbers of Muslim immigrants to be both natural and beneficial. This position, facilitated by a belief in the equal worth and validity of all cultures and a consequent desire to allow all cultures consideration and concessions, has permitted Islam to start to display its true colours, as a vicious, expansionist, and totalitarian ideology that will continue to demand ever greater degrees of obeisance.

With both endogenous and exogenous growth of European Muslim communities driving up the Muslim population fractions in afflicted countries, a positive feedback loop emerges. The abovementioned political elites, baffled by and helpless in the face of a tribalism the likes of which they had, one assumes, forgotten ever existed, rush to appease the followers of Allah as, their worldview informs them, all conceivable tensions can be resolved to the satisfaction of all relevant parties through compromise. Such capitulation as then takes place emboldens Muslim fifth columnists whilst allowing their numbers to continue to grow unabated. Before too long, further capitulation is required to soothe the anger of an ever-stronger Muslim community, thereby wearing the groove of a coupled behavioural pattern ever deeper into the minds of demanders and appeasers, predators and prey.

It is my contention that this disastrous positive feedback loop cannot be escaped from through the actions of extant political elites with decades of psychological and intellectual investment in its creation. Accordingly, it will be broken only by the emergence of qualitatively different political actors, who can be categorized in one of two ways: non-mainstream political parties who gain power on the back of opposition to Islamization and mass immigration more generally in electoral discontinuities; and agents acting outside of or after the breakdown of established political mechanisms in non-electoral discontinuities, which imply some significant collapse of law and order. Both of these discontinuities are likely to be extremely unpleasant and feature much violence. Furthermore, there is a very real possibility that even electoral discontinuities will be induced by additional dynamics to collapse into non-electoral discontinuities with all that that implies. Note that none of these claims is offered up as some fundamental law of European societies pertinent to the situations they find themselves in today. Rather, they simply constitute a formalization of a number of easily observable, loosely bundled European dynamics vis-à-vis Islam.
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Continuation

I commenced the discussion in SGW with a review and analysis of the stance of the British police with respect to Islam, in order to demonstrate the rot in modern Britain through focusing on a specific institution. Continuing in this vein, I would like to consider more recent developments in this and related areas to show that things have only worsened in the interim and that the positive feedback dynamic I identified in SGW is alive and well.

In 2004, a documentary called Edge of the City was due to be shown on British TV. The filmmakers had spent a year working with social services in Bradford and produced a 90-film exposing the darker aspects of life in that town in northwest England. Originally due to air in May 2004, the broadcast was withdrawn from the schedule at the last moment due to an apparently unprecedented request by the police. This request, made due to a concern that broadcasting the film could result in an outbreak of race riots, resulted in the eventual broadcast being delayed by several months.

Why the concern? The film examined, among other issues, the rather vexing problem of underage white girls in Bradford being systematically pimped out by Pakistani gangs. Despite a furore of claim and counterclaim, the actual scale and nature of the underlying problem was not clear to me at the time, and I was only dimly aware of the controversy. Pakistani gangs were responsible; the police said they had arrested whites for the same crimes. The police were pressured to try to reduce the possibility of the British National Party gaining support prior to the European Parliament elections; the concerns were about the outbreak of rioting a mere three years after the Bradford riots. It was a racial problem; it wasn’t a racial problem. It was a cultural problem; it was a misogyny problem. And so on and so forth.

The entire episode slipped from my mind until fairly recently, when I happened upon a detailed and well-sourced article in The Times that touched on related subjects. Entitled Mothers of Prevention, the article provided a great deal of clarification of what had been happening over the last few years with respect to the pimping of young white girls in the northwest of England. I belatedly discovered that, to put it bluntly, the claims of a disproportionate ‘Asian’ presence in the exploitation of underage girls appeared to be not only true, but horrifyingly so.

The article was written in response to the convictions obtained against two Blackburn men, Zulfqar Hussain and Qaiser Naveed, for abduction, sexual activity with a child, and the supply of a controlled drug. As was demonstrated in some detail, the backdrop to the case was essentially that which Edge of the City had reported on some years earlier, with a vast swath of the North of England seemingly affected. To quote the article:

‘It seemed a shabby, seedy episode, probably typical of many cases down the years that have involved exploitative men and naïve women. Yet, until these convictions, the police in over a dozen towns and cities, including Leeds, Sheffield, Blackburn and Huddersfield, had appeared reluctant to address what many local people had perceived as a growing problem — the groups of men who had been preying on young, vulnerable girls and ensnaring them into prostitution.

‘It was a very uncomfortable scenario, not least because many of these crimes had an identifiable racial element: the gangs were Asian and the girls were white. The authorities, in the shape of politicians and the police, seemed reluctant to acknowledge this aspect of the crimes; it has been left to the mothers of the victims to speak out.’

Here, I will present certain key claims in the article at length to provide the material for the analysis that follows.

(1)		The mother of one young victim ‘[…] was told by one police officer that he did not ‘want to start a race riot’ by arresting Pakistani men for sexual offences.’
(2)		The problems discussed in the article are widespread, as ‘Blackburn, in common with many northern towns, is experiencing a huge upsurge in pimping, and it is an unpalatable truth for the authorities — and indeed the police — that many of the newest wave of pimps come from within the Asian [sic] community.’
(3)		Blackburn, the most obviously afflicted town, is the constituency of Jack Straw, a key Cabinet member under the Labour government in power since 1997. According to Mr. Straw: ‘I have had two cases at my constituency surgery over the past two years and have discussed this with the police, council, community leaders and the Lancashire Telegraph.‘
(4)		Affected families are ‘meeting lawyers to discuss possible action against the police. This could result in the biggest civil action ever brought against police for failing to protect children from sexual predators.‘
(5)		The mother of one victim said that ‘We parents are doing more to investigate these criminals than the police […] My husband and I have sat for hours outside hot spots, taking down car-registration numbers. I have given the police dozens of names from my daughter’s mobile phone, but they have done nothing.‘
(6)		Predictably, there are efforts to minimize the importance of the ‘evidence from rigorous research by organisations such as Crop [Coalition for the Removal of Pimping] that the gangs are largely made up of men from the Pakistani Muslim communities‘. ‘What we’re dealing with is gross criminality,’ says Aravinda Kosaraju, a researcher at Crop. ‘That should be confronted whatever the race of the perpetrator.’
(7)		Mike Cunningham, an assistant chief constable with Lancashire police was quoted as saying that ‘Offenders can and do come from a variety of cultural backgrounds, and we deal with each case on its own individual merit.‘
(8)		During the events leading to the postponing of the broadcast, ‘A spokesman […] said police had found no evidence of the alleged systematic exploitation, and the chief constable of West Yorkshire Police warned Channel 4 that he felt the timing of the programme could contribute to community unrest in Bradford and possibly even provoke public disorder in the city.‘
(9)		Sunny Hundal, a young British Sikh journalist and commentator said that ‘Although it’s obvious that it’s young, lawless Pakistani boys, it’s tricky to make this an issue about race or religion when neither are contributing factors.‘ He also claims that some young ‘Asian’ men ‘hold very disparaging attitudes towards white girls‘.

This assembly of points, depressing and enraging in equal measure, can be pieced together to help reiterate and reinforce the key claims in the central argument of SGW as follows.

Key Claim 1 — Political elites in most Western European countries take the influx of large numbers of Muslim immigrants to be both natural and beneficial.

This claim is not demonstrated explicitly in the article, but is the foundation on which everything in the article stands. Point (3) mentions Jack Straw, who has been Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary, and Leader of the House of Commons since Labour’s ascent to power in 1997. It was in that year, soon after winning the general election, that Labour abolished the Primary Purpose Rule, which made it incumbent on those who would bring spouses into the UK to establish that the marriage in question was not being undertaken for the purpose of enabling the immigration of the non-British spouse. Muslim immigration soared after this change, and has remained ever since at annual levels much higher than those seen under the previous Conservative administration. To all intents and purposes, there seem to be no barriers of note to the influx of ever-greater numbers of Muslims, particularly from the Indian sub-continent. This was, undoubtedly, the purpose of the change, though why it was considered desirable is a question I do not pretend to be able to answer.

Key Claim 2 — Islam has started to display its true colours, as a vicious, expansionist, and totalitarian ideology.

This claim is not demonstrated explicitly in the article either, but will already be crystal clear to most of the people reading this essay, so I will not rehash the evidence for it here. Suffice it to say that the standard wall of denial comes down in point (6), in which a red herring statement of the blindingly obvious is used to deflect attention from gross disproportionalities in the identities of the criminals, point (7), in which we hear the same thing from a police representative with no intention whatsoever of straying from the prevailing taboos of his decaying society, and point (9), in which an occasionally sensible commentator admits the disproportionality but essentially shrugs and admits defeat on the thorny topic of what its significance might be. Neither race nor religion are contributing factors, leaving said disproportionality as one of the great mysteries of modern social science, shuffled awkwardly out of sight with vague references to ‘disparaging’ attitudes towards white girls. Note also the ascribing of the problem to the meaningless construct of the ‘Asian’ population in point (2), an inexcusable slap in the face to the UK’s productive and law-abiding Hindu and Sikh populations from an otherwise reasonably clear-eyed article.

Key Claim 3 — With the Muslim population fractions in afflicted countries increasing, a positive feedback loop emerges.

This is the heart of the argument. Points (1), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), and (8) all testify to the conflict-avoidance of political elites, the consequent deterioration of the situation, and the subsequent occurrence of similar but even more difficult problems. Points (6) and (7) have already been touched upon, so let us consider points (1), (3), (4), (5), and (8).

In point (1), we have a frank statement on the part of a police officer that the investigation of certain types of crimes by certain groups will not take place if it could lead to race riots. Sadly, it seems improbable that there will come again a time when such investigations have no potential to do so in areas with large Pakistani Muslim populations, forcing us to conclude that the police will avoid such investigations as and when possible in such areas in perpetuity. This is the implication of this simple statement; to wit, that the larger these communities become, the more feebly the long arm of the law must extend into them. Note that this claim is not refuted by the disproportionately large numbers of Pakistanis in our prisons; rather, it suggests that this number would be even larger if the police were so old-fashioned as to actually do their jobs.

Moving onto point (3), we observe the response of the previously mentioned, democratically elected Member of Parliament for Blackburn, Jack Straw. I will repeat it here due to its great comedic value: ‘I have had two cases at my constituency surgery over the past two years and have discussed this with the police, council, community leaders and the Lancashire Telegraph.‘ Mr. Straw is actually admitting, albeit tacitly, that he has accomplished nothing whatsoever to aid those young girls being systematically drugged, raped, and pimped by vicious sexual predators who only exist in Britain in such large numbers in the first place due to the pro-immigration policies of the government in whose Cabinet he has been such a prominent figure. According to the 2001 census, the population of Blackburn was nearly 26% Muslim in that year, and this number can only have risen since. Presumably this has something to do with Mr. Straw’s reluctance to help pursue Pakistani Muslim child rapists.

Points (4) and (5) drive home the evolution of the police from an organization dedicated to bringing criminals to justice and thereby deterring possible future offenders, to a passive riot prevention tool. This astounding law enforcement innovation requires some explanation. Faced with the widespread sexual abuse of young girls by an actively hostile fifth column, the concern of the police is simply to avoid riots (not an unworthy objective in its own right), a goal it achieves largely by not doing anything in response. The churlish might argue that this important goal could be achieved at lesser cost by simply not having a police force in the first place, but, at times, the police also have an active riot prevention function to perform, hence their enduring utility. This is made clear to us by point (8), where we see not only the astounding deceit the police are prepared to resort to in pretending not to see what is in front of their faces, but also their attempts to prevent the broader public from learning about their gross negligence at times considered politically inconvenient due to the proximity of elections for the European Parliament.

Key Claim 4 — This positive feedback loop cannot be escaped from through the actions of mainstream political elites.

This point is a logical extension of the previous one. Once a positive feedback loop has been established as outlined in more detail in SGW, by its very nature it will prove impossible to break in the absence of some influence being extended over the system by an agent external to it. Much could be said to further develop this idea, but I will refrain from saying it to simply observe that no mainstream political party (i.e. a party once a part of the multicultural consensus) has yet come to its senses and unapologetically started to oppose the Islamization of its country, as far as I am aware. Nor does any seem to have come close. This empirical reality speaks far more eloquently on the subject than any theoretical claims could hope to.

Key Claim 5 — Accordingly, the positive feedback loop will be broken only by the emergence of qualitatively different political actors, in an event which will constitute a discontinuity.

This final claim cannot be definitively established in advance for any country, but it is reasonably clear that we can, with some confidence, expect political actors to emerge and gain support from outside the political mainstream across Europe to challenge Islamization, its supporters, and its enablers. These forces, when ascendant, will cause a rupture between the European recent past and the European future, which I have referred to as a discontinuity. These discontinuities will be, as mentioned before, of two different types, electoral and non-electoral, with the former likely to be structurally unstable enough to collapse into the latter.

Colonization

Is there one convenient word for describing what we are witnessing when we look at the sort of phenomena plaguing the north of England? I believe there is, and the word in question is colonization. Until recently, I have always been suspicious of suggestions that this is what is occurring, as they seemed to smack of a genuinely hysterical xenophobia. Upon more careful consideration however, it occurs to me that it is a very simple and accurate description of what is happening.

When we examine unambiguous historical examples of colonization, such as the colonization of North America by Europeans, what precisely are the characteristics of these historical events that lead us to describe them as colonization at all? I submit that there are three conditions, related but distinct, all of which must be satisfied for us to be observing an instance of colonization. Others might produce different lists, but the key principles will be the same.

1)		Population — Colonization must involve the colonizing population putting the colonized population under continuous demographic pressure. It can do this by continued settlement/immigration, higher fertility rates, gradually killing off the colonized population, undermining its ability to maintain itself economically, or some combination of these factors. If the colony at Jamestown, Virginia, had remained the only European settlement in North America, we would surely not talk today about the colonization of America, irrespective of the other behaviours of the colonists.
2)		Territory — Colonization must also involve the colonizing population putting the colonized population under geographic pressure. If the ‘colonized’ population enjoys permanent control of substantial territories in which it is able to maintain its way of life without major hindrance, then it has not yet been colonized, though it may have been inconvenienced by the influx of newcomers. If the colonization of North America had been limited to a number of large, populous settlements along the Atlantic seaboard, we would not talk about the colonization of the continent, though we could still legitimately talk of the existence of colonies.
3)		Zero-Sum Game — Last but not least, colonization must involve the creation of a zero-sum game between colonizers and colonized, a game which the colonized start to lose. Whether competition over resources, markets, and territory, or outright wars of extermination, there must be winners and losers in interactions between the two groups. If the native population of North America had simply been incorporated into an ever-growing yet prosperous, peaceful and productive polity, membership of which they greatly preferred to their previous nomadic ways, using the word colonization to describe the process would feel somehow wrong, despite its obvious applicability in other, technical regards. Colonization is not colonization if it is welcomed.

It seems to me that these three conditions are, taken together, both necessary and sufficient to establish an encroachment of one people on another as being colonization. This said, can it then be observed that Europe is being colonized by a mishmash of various Muslim populations? I would argue that it can. The demographic pressure of Muslim populations on native populations in European countries, spurred on by ongoing immigration and high fertility rates, is too well-established to be discussed again here. The territorial pressure on the native population, brought to bear on both private citizens and organs of the state too, will be similarly familiar to anyone with the briefest acquaintance with the growing Muslim ghettoes in European cities.

More interesting is the last condition, that of the zero-sum game. This implies a transfer of some sort from colonized to colonizers, but the nature of the transferred object can vary. It can be tangible, such as a piece of land, a gold nugget, or a horse, or intangible, such as a trade concession, a social privilege, or a legal privilege. It will not be lost on the observant reader that at the same time as Muslim colonizers extract great tangible wealth from their colonized populations in the form of welfare and other payments, they extract intangible concessions in the form of, for example, ‘hate speech’ laws which reduce the freedom of those populations whilst increasing the political utility they themselves enjoy.

There is more to be said on the subject, but this should suffice. The fact that most of the Muslims in Western European countries arrived there legally is neither here nor there. Legality is beside the point, a thin and pathetic smear of superficial legitimacy slapped onto mass population movements by political elites who long since stopped attempting to implement the will of the electorates they supposedly served. Colonization with the help of collaborators is still colonization.

I am well aware of the fact that many reasonable-minded people will consider the description of Muslim immigration into Western Europe as colonization to be overstating the case. But the fact of the matter is that colonization was not a historical aberration inflicted by white Europeans on unsuspecting indigenous peoples around the world during a now long-gone historical period. Rather, it is an ever-present historical force that will exist as long as human beings do. The Chinese government is quite deliberately colonizing Tibet and Xinjiang by subsidizing influxes of Han Chinese into these provinces and providing greater political freedoms to those who choose to relocate. America is gradually undergoing a colonization by the various peoples of Latin America, many of whom believe that large swathes of the American southwest are rightfully theirs. In Africa, Bantu peoples continue to gradually encroach upon the few remaining lands of the Bushmen, who used to roam a much larger portion of the continent.

Also noteworthy are failed or only partially successful colonizations. The Russian attempt to colonize the Asiatic land mass from the Urals to the Japan Sea seems doomed to eventual failure, as the country undergoes a demographic collapse and the thinly distributed population of the Russian east heads back west. Similarly, the attempts of white settlers in southern Africa to carve a new America out of the tip of that continent foundered and are now, slowly, in the process of being reversed. Encroaching, retreating, swamping, receding; these human tides are not and will never be merely a feature of some bygone age, or a historical curiosity. They will endure as long as human beings do, and there is a pressing need for European peoples to realize that new waves of colonization are already lapping around their feet.

Considerations

The coming discontinuities, be they electoral or non-electoral, will be attempts by the native populations of European countries to reassert the primacy of their historic ways of life over those of alien and hostile colonizing forces. They will not, I hope, be attempts to reject, tout court, all ethnically non-European peoples who have, in one way or another, come to make their homes in European countries and lived law-abiding and productive laws without endangering the stability or integrity of those countries. I suggested in The Danish Civil War that notions of identity which can encompass such people, while rejecting those who need to be rejected, will be important if we are to steer away from the gradually increasing likelihood of the resurgence of a featureless racial tribalism the consequences and aftermath of which would not be difficult to imagine. Given that I am capable neither of formulating nor propagating such notions, I will content myself here with some final thoughts on topics of relevance.

1) Size of Country

I suspect that geographically small countries with high population densities will have an advantage in somehow successfully responding to the threat posed by Islam in the long term. Larger, more sparsely populated countries will provide too many opportunities for their inhabitants to simply move away from the deepening nightmare of Islamization. Of course, these opportunities will always exist in the form of emigration, but given that many people will naturally be reluctant to completely give up on their countries due to the encroachment of hostile invaders, the greater psychological pressure exerted by the growing inescapability of Islam in a country like the Netherlands will give it a major advantage over a country like Sweden, in that the problem is likely to come to a head sooner.

2) Military Capabilities Relative to Population

In the event of any type of discontinuity, the single most obvious salient factor in determining the outcome will be the capabilities and disposition of the country’s military. In Denmark, which has a substantial and serious Muslim-free military establishment for the size of the country, and in which military experience is widespread among those not in the standing military, any sort of civil breakdown could undoubtedly be met effectively if the political will existed. Sweden, on the other hand, is a country which appears to attach much less value to the maintenance of an effective military and, as far as I am aware, is currently downsizing its already fairly underwhelming forces. Should it continue in this vein, it may well find that its ability to maintain even a semblance of order in the event of a discontinuity will be extremely limited. This will shut some doors and open others considerably less likely to lead anywhere pleasant.

3) Private Gun Ownership

It is probably fair to suggest that in the event of a collapse of civil order and the outbreak of hostilities between Muslims and others, the types of violence that the two sides will bring to bear on each other will be very different. We have been given great insight into the Muslim way of war by events in Iraq over the last few years, with the spreading of diffuse webs of terror through entire societies as the various sides try to crush the will of their opponents. In contrast, the key characteristics of the Western way of war are the forcing of decisive shock battle with highly trained and technologically intensive concentrations of force, the occupation of territory, and the forcing of favourable political settlements after favourable results on the battlefield. Insofar as the defence of European countries falls to the common man rather than professional militaries, the application of this latter way of war or a related one will largely depend on the availability of firearms to that common man. European countries in which such availability is high will be well-positioned to play to their own strengths, irrespective of the actions of their opponents.

4) Urban Vs. Rural

It is a peculiar irony that the brunt of Islamization is born by those in urban areas, whereas the will and means to oppose it may well turn out to be concentrated in more conservative and less cosmopolitan rural areas, where gun ownership is more common and the bond felt with nation and soil presumably stronger. The ability to mobilize, in some fashion, the outrage of the countryside against the Islam-induced decay of the city may well play an important part in determining the post-discontinuity course a given country follows. If a city sees its Muslim population reach parity with its non-Muslim population, as many European cities are projected to in the not-too-distant future, then the necessity of such a mobilization in the event of a discontinuity not contained by the military is not difficult to see.

5) Discrete Opportunities for Electoral Discontinuity

It would take a more knowledgeable observer of Dutch politics than such as myself to say for sure, but it may be the case that the Netherlands is teaching us an important lesson about the likelihood of electoral discontinuities: that such opportunities are discrete entities, arriving, remaining available for a limited time, then receding again. First Pim Fortuyn, now Geert Wilders — if Wilders’ efforts fail, in one fashion or another, perhaps the next chance for an electoral discontinuity will not come for several years, by which time it may be too late to avoid a collapse into a non-electoral discontinuity. If such opportunities do indeed possess this discrete nature, then pressure for such a discontinuity will not be something that steadily builds, but that can be periodically batted away by clueless political elites.

6) Whither the Netherlands?

As I implied in the three scenarios I wrote, in which I laid down three possible futures for Britain with respect to Islamization, my personal belief is that the Netherlands is the country most likely to hit a discontinuity first. This belief, largely impressionistic in nature but also supplemented by a consideration of the country’s size and population density (see above), is further heightened by the existence of all the key elements necessary for the drama to proceed: a rapidly-growing Muslim population both criminal and seditious; a charismatic politician identifying the threat without bending a knee to multicultural platitudes; growing public alarm and anger; and a witless government capable of convincing itself that sending squads of policemen to kick in the doors of cartoonists constitutes the optimal response to the problems it faces. It would be foolish to expect all countries afflicted by Islam to read from a single script, but there is no better country than the Netherlands to observe if we wish to glean an insight what lies in our futures.

7) Whither France?

France would seem to enjoy the dubious privilege of being the European country most likely to continue its slide into Islamization without meeting a discontinuity along the way. Anyone who has read SGW will understand that I do not predict post-discontinuity events to be particularly enjoyable for either side, but it seems hard to avoid the conclusion that the only thing worse than experiencing a discontinuity would be not experiencing one. I am indebted to certain colleagues for trying to explain to me exactly how and why France has reached its own distressing position vis-à-vis Islam, and understand and appreciate many of the germane points. However, any genuine understanding of what exactly the French establishment thinks it is doing eludes me. I will only venture to say here that after the disappointment of Sarkozy and the lack of any obvious widespread attempts to reverse the Islamization of the country despite a Muslim population perhaps as high as 10%, we should at least consider the possible that one of the most populous and powerful countries in Europe will not crash into the wall of Islam at all, but somehow intermingle with it to create a type of polity for which no precedent springs to mind. Though an Islamic France would doubtless be a crippled and enfeebled version of its former self, opponents of Islam and Islamization in the vicinity might do well to start asking themselves what such a development might mean for them.

The big news of the evening is that the Holy Land Foundation was convicted of 108 counts related to the funneling of money to Hamas. Add this to the serving of CAIR (see last night’s GoV), and we can only hope that Nihad Awad has heartburn from it all.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, Islam in Action, JD, Srdja Trifkovic, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
– – – – – – – – –

	USA
	Holy Land Charity Guilty on 108 Counts!!
	How to Keep US Carmakers on the Road — Mitt Romney
	The Price of Hillary
	What a Single Nuclear Warhead Could Do
	Europe and the EU
	A Near-Riot and Parliament Besieged: Iceland Boiling Mad at Credit Crunch
	Brussels Plans Changes to Fight Tax Evasion
	Gatecrasher Jailed for Stabbing Groom and Best Man at Wedding Reception
	Italy: Euro-MP Outlines Measures to Combat Global Slowdown
	Man With Axe Stuns Stockholm Congregation
	Norway’s Police Headquarters Robbed
	Pub’s Name Changed to Avoid Offending Muslims Public Angry: No Right to ‘Wipe Away 300 Years of History’ at Saracen’s Head
	Spain: Technical Tie Between Psoe and Pp, Cis Barometer
	UK: the Speed Trap Set by Your Neighbour
	Balkans
	EU: ETF, Italy Multicultural Model for Balkans
	Reuters: No Comment From Germany on Kosovo Spy Report
	Mediterranean Union
	Energy: Algeria; Work Complete on Underwater Medgaz Gaspipe
	Food: New Oil Mill in South Lebanon With Lombardy Funds
	Morocco: Agriculture; 5 Million Euro Gift From Belgium
	North Africa
	Egypt: Nine Arrested in Clashes at Opposition Party HQ
	Mauritania: Ex-Premier in Prison for Airmauritanie Crack
	Middle East
	Arab States Import 94% of Medicines, Says Official
	South Asia
	Nepal: Maoist Government: Law on “Desaparecidos” Would be Retroactive
	Far East
	Vietnam: New Attack on Parish of Thai Ha
	Australia — Pacific
	Internet: First Site to Look for Muslim Soul-Mate
	Sub-Saharan Africa
	Somalia: Pirates Want $15mln for Seized Ship, Says Islamist Leader
	Culture Wars
	Stubborn Glaciers Fail to Retreat, Awkward Polar Bears Continue to Multiply
	Washington State Voters Legalize Physician-Assisted Suicide
	General
	Italy: Israeli Company to Secure Vatican City
	Race in the Third Millennium
	When Seconds Count: Stopping Active Killers

Holy Land Charity Guilty on 108 Counts!!

Over a year after escaping the first trial because of a declared mistrial theHoly Land Foundation was finally found guilty of 108 counts of funneling money to the Hamas terrorist organization in Palestine.

— Hat tip: Islam in Action

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How to Keep US Carmakers on the Road — Mitt Romney

If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout from the US Government that their chief executives have asked for, you can kiss the American car industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.

Without that bailout, Detroit will have to restructure itself drastically. With it, carmakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labour and pension burdens, technology atrophy, inferior products and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a cheque.

[…]

First, their huge disadvantage in costs relative to foreign brands must be eliminated. That means new labour agreements to align pay and benefits to match competitors such as BMW, Honda, Nissan and Toyota. Furthermore, pension costs must be reduced so that the total burden for each car is not higher than that of foreign producers.

That burden is estimated to be more than $2,000 per car. Think what that means: Ford must cut $2,000 worth of features and quality out of its Taurus to compete with the Toyota Avalon. Considering this disadvantage, Detroit has done a remarkable job of designing and engineering cars. But if this penalty persists, any bailout will only delay the inevitable.

— Hat tip: JD

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The Price of Hillary

by Srdja Trifkovic

No secretary of state will come to that office with stronger pro-Israel credentials or closer ties to the Jewish community than Sen. Hillary Clinton, Douglas Bloomfield assures his readers in The Jerusalem Post. Good for them; but for the rest of us, Mrs. Clinton’s appointment as the third woman U.S. Secretary of State is hugely problematic. It heralds “the end of the world as we know it,” in many ways, although neither she nor her coterie necessarily know what they are doing. That dumb bliss may be their sole saving grace.

At the technical level, Hillary Clinton is likely to deepen the chronic crisis of the once-venerable institution at Washington’s Foggy Bottom, to which her two female predecessors have contributed in two different ways.

Madeleine Albright was an activist who will be remembered for her hubris (“If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future.”), coupled with studied callousness. Asked on “60 Minutes” about the death of a half-million Iraqi children due to sanctions, she promptly responded, “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price is worth it.” Her crowning glory was her premeditated 1999 war in the Balkans, prior to which she said that “the Serbs need a little bombing.” Her State Department contributed to the formulation, as well as execution, of Bill Clinton’s doctrine of “humanitarian intervention.”

Condoleezza Rice, less evil and more obtuse, will be remembered for nothing. She was an auxilliary tool of the Bush-Cheney team, with all key decisions made elsewhere.

Mrs. Clinton will try to rebuild the relative importance of the Department of State, which will become her personal fiefdom, but her labors will not be for the better. Her appointment, the most significant among several major figures from the Clinton era, belies Obama’s rhetoric of “change” when it comes to foreign affairs. There will be tectonic shifts, cultural and moral, at home. The established premises of an imperial presidency — which in world affairs inevitably translates into the quest for dominance and justification for global interventionism — will not be challenged, however.

— Hat tip: Srdja Trifkovic

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What a Single Nuclear Warhead Could Do

Why the U.S. needs a space-based missile defense against an EMP attack.

As severe as the global financial crisis now is, it does not pose an existential threat to the U.S. Through fits and starts we will sort out the best way to revive the country’s economic engine. Mistakes can be tolerated, however painful. The same may not be true with matters of national security.

Although President George W. Bush has accomplished more in the way of missile defense than his predecessors — including Ronald Reagan — he will leave office with only a rudimentary system designed to stop a handful of North Korean missiles launched at our West Coast. Barack Obama will become commander in chief of a country essentially undefended against Russian, Chinese, Iranian or ship-launched terrorist missiles. This is not acceptable.

The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, have proven how vulnerable we are. On that day, Islamic terrorists flew planes into our buildings. It is not unreasonable to believe that if they obtain nuclear weapons, they might use them to destroy us. And yet too many policy makers have rejected three basic facts about our position in the world today:

First, as the defender of the Free World, the U.S. will be the target of destruction or, more likely, strategic marginalization by Russia, China and the radical Islamic world.

Second, this marginalization and threat of destruction is possible because the U.S. is not so powerful that it can dictate military and political affairs to the world whenever it wants. The U.S. has the nuclear capability to vanquish any foe, but is not likely to use it except as a last resort.

Third, America will remain in a condition of strategic vulnerability as long as it fails to build defenses against the most powerful political and military weapons arrayed against us: ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. Such missiles can be used to destroy our country, blackmail or paralyze us.

Any consideration of how best to provide for the common defense must begin by acknowledging these facts…

— Hat tip: Vlad Tepes

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A Near-Riot and Parliament Besieged: Iceland Boiling Mad at Credit Crunch

THOUSANDS of Icelanders have demonstrated in Reykjavik to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Geir Haarde and Central Bank governor David Oddsson, for failing to stop the country’s financial meltdown. It was the latest in a series of protests in the capital since October’s banking collapse crippled the island’s economy. At least five people were injured and Hordur Torfason, a well-known singer in Iceland and the main organiser of the protests, said the protests would continue until the government stepped down.

As crowds gathered in the drizzle before the Althing, the Icelandic parliament, on Saturday, Mr Torfason said: “They don’t have our trust and they are no longer legitimate.”

The value of the Icelandic krona has been cut in half since January.

[…]

Gudrun Jonsdottir, a 36-year-old office worker, said: “I’ve just had enough of this whole thing. I don’t trust the government, I don’t trust the banks, I don’t trust the political parties, and I don’t trust the IMF.

“We had a good country and they ruined it.”

— Hat tip: JD

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Brussels Plans Changes to Fight Tax Evasion

The European Commission wants to close loopholes in the taxing of interest on savings in a move to crack down on tax evasion.

Switzerland, which is not a member of the European Union, has already signalled its willingness to discuss the new measures because they will not affect the country’s banking secrecy legislation.

Since 2005, Switzerland has levied a withholding tax on the interest income of EU taxpayers with an account in Switzerland, which will eventually reach 35 per cent.

The EC’s commissioner for taxation and customs, László Kovács, commented on Thursday that there were loopholes in the present system.

When non-EU countries such as Switzerland and Liechtenstein signed the EU’s savings tax rules, they only covered bank accounts. He said the current scope of the EU savings tax directive needed to be extended.

“At present, it is relatively easy for individuals to circumvent it (the directive) … it is beneficial to all parties to go further in extending the scope of measures,” Kovács said.

Ways of getting round the rules included using trusts or foundations where there was no income tax, he said, or rearranging financial portfolios so that income from interest fell outside the EU’s formal definition of interest payments.

Swiss Economics Minister Doris Leuthard said earlier this month that Switzerland was open for dialogue on the issue as long as there was “protection of privacy” with banking secrecy.

Tax evasion is not a criminal offence in Switzerland; tax fraud is.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Gatecrasher Jailed for Stabbing Groom and Best Man at Wedding Reception

Mr Loader said Gould had been unable to sleep on the night of the party and had gone into the kitchen to make something to eat.

Gould he said had been drinking previously, heard the music then snapped.

He entered the party with the knife in his pocket but had no intention to use it.

He said: ‘He is a young man who needs to change his life. He recognises he has problems with control, anger management and alcohol.’

Sentencing Gould today at Lewes Crown Court, judge Richard Hayward said: ‘You became annoyed by the music and had been drinking.

‘You telephoned the police, but instead of leaving it to them you decided to take action yourself.’

He said the case demonstrated the dangers of carrying a knife and the injuries which could be caused by such blades.

Gould, he added, possessed a ‘bad record’ with sixteen past convictions for 42 offences.

Mr Hayward sentenced Gould to 15 months in prison for possession of a knife and 21 months for each of the two wounding charges, to run concurrently.

— Hat tip: JD

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Italy: Euro-MP Outlines Measures to Combat Global Slowdown

Strasbourg, 21 Nov. (AKI) — Italian European Parliament member Umberto Pirilli and other Euro-MPs are proposing a series of bold measures to help European Union countries fight back from the global economic slowdown. “To combat the global financial crisis firm action must be taken: shock therapy is needed,” Pirilli told Adnkronos-Labitalia.

“The problem is to restore confidence. Measures taken by single governments are not enough because the crisis is huge and markets are continuing to post losses,” said Pirilli (photo).

Pirilli’s conservative UEN-EA group recently presented to the European Parliament in Strasbourg a series of measures to tackle the financial crisis by restoring investor confidence and kick-starting economies.

The proposed measures include the ‘virtual transfer’ to the European Central Bank from national central banks of their gold and foreign currency reserves, or part of these, and the issuing of bonds worth five times the value of these assets. Individual states can negotiate the value of these bonds on the market.

The measures propose funding by individual EU member states for infrastructure projects and social policies, as well as those to kick-start the real economy, boost research and the exemption of these funds from the parameters of the Treaty of Maastricht.

“The transfer by individual member states of their reserves, their ‘family jewels’, is an act of faith. The issuing of bonds would be guaranteed and the Maastricht criteria would be respected, without running inflationary risks.

“The combination of these proposals can contribute to the re-launching of the European economy, which is suffering the commercial impact of the financial crisis more than the United States,” Pirilli said.

“Precisely for this reason, at a time of economic and financial crisis, Europe needs to show political unity,” he stressed.

Funding for research is key to the innovation that is needed for firms’ international competitiveness, Pirilli said.

“Competitiveness does not just depend on individual firms’ liquidity, but also on innovation, which means investing in research,” Pirilli added.

Italy invests just one percent of its Gross Domestic Product in research, half the European average (two percent), he noted. Developing countries, on the other hand, are investing between eight and 12 percent of their GDP in research, Pirilli added.

“Investing in research is important not only to stop the brain drain, but to finance long-term projects. It is exactly this injection of funding into research that can help regain competitiveness and restore confidence,” Pirilli said.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Italy: Unicredit Chief Urges Continuing Credit to Keep Firms Afloat

Palermo, 20 Nov. (AKI) — To emerge from the current global economic slowdown, banks need to establish a new relationship with companies, especially those which are struggling, Alessandro Profumo, chief executive officer of Italy’s largest bank, Unicredit said on Thursday. He gave the inaugural address at the United Nations sponsored conference in Sicily’s capital, Palermo to mark World Philosophy Day 2008.

In his address to the conference on the theme ‘Finance and Economics: a virtuous circle’, Profumo underlined the need for banks to intervene swiftly when companies show the first signs of difficulty.

“It is necessary to redirect and restructure as soon signs of difficulty appear, not when the situation has totally deteriorated,” Profumo said.

To keep companies in business means doing things now that are to be avoided in normal times, he stressed.

“These include banks becoming company shareholders, or getting directly involved in complex restructuring operations, such as their sale, the close of subsidiaries and the separation of phases of production,” Profumo said.

European, especially Italian banks are more solid and less exposed to the global financial crisis than those in the United States, he stated. “But the suspension of normal inter-bank lending has made their situation difficult.”

Italy, which is still the eurozone’s third biggest economy, slipped into a recession in the third quarter of this year — its fourth recession in the past ten years. The IMF has predicted Italian GDP will contract by 0.1 percent in 2008 and by 0.2 percent in 2009.

The proportion of Italian firms going out of business in the second quarter of this year rose to 2.3 percent this year from 1.7 percent over the same period of 2007, Profumo noted, quoting data from Italy’s Chamber of Commerce.

However, on a positive note, Profumo noted that the average proportion of medium-to-long-term debt companies hold increased to 58 percent in June this year, compared with44.4 percent in 2000. “This means they are structurally more stable and are presumably able to better plan their investment decisions,” he said.

Southern Italy will suffer from the current economic crisis, Profumo told journalists on the sidelines of the Palermo conference ahead of his address.

“This because entrepreneurship is weaker, and there is greater financial hardship, “ Profumo said.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Man With Axe Stuns Stockholm Congregation

Worshippers at the All Saints Church in Stockholm panicked on Sunday when a man wielding an axe and a can full of gasoline interrupted the pastor during services.

“Everyone was scared and as many people ran out the church as they could,” said witness Mathias Bridfeldt to the Aftonbladet newspaper.

The pastor was in the middle of his sermon when the man walked slowly toward the altar.

It was only after people noticed the man was holding an axe and a large gasoline canister that the congregation became gripped with fear.

The man then began speaking out load and interrupted the pastor, instructing everyone to remain calm.

“It was a unbelievably strange situation, like a shock that slowly spread,” said Bridfeldt.

“The man was really calm, he didn’t behave violently. But it was still really scary when you thought about what he had in his hands.”

A few members of the church decided to confront the man and were able to convince him to put down the axe and gas can.

He was then taken from the church and police were called.

Police took the man to St. Göran’s Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation while the pastor did his best to continue with his sermon.

“But many were still shaken and a few were crying, so the pastor had to revisit the incident one more time,” said Bridfeldt.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Norway’s Police Headquarters Robbed

Thieves broke into the Norwegian criminal police’s headquarters in Oslo, making off with several computers, police said on Monday. Skip related content

“I can confirm that we were the victim of a robbery overnight Saturday to Sunday,” Pia Solhaug, a spokeswoman for Norway’s criminal police Kripos, told AFP.

“Several computers were taken,” she added.

According to tabloid Verdens Gang (VG), the intruders smashed a window to gain entry into the building. The robbery was discovered three hours later.

Oslo police have launched an investigation.

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Pub’s Name Changed to Avoid Offending Muslims Public Angry: No Right to ‘Wipe Away 300 Years of History’ at Saracen’s Head

BIRMINGHAM Mail readers have spoken out against the decision to change the name of a historic city pub — accusing it of being “politically correct”.

The home of the famous Saracen’s Head, in Kings Norton Green, will become known as Saint Nicolas Place said its owners, at the nearby St Nicolas Church.

Angry letters fired off to the Mail said the church had no right to “wipe away 300 years of history” for fear of offending Muslims.

Ann Spooner, of Kings Norton, wrote: “To us it will always be the Saracen’s Head.”

The 18th-century former inn was originally built as a rich wool merchant?s house in the 1400s and was given to the church in 1930. In 2004 it won £500,000 to help bring it back to its former glory in the BBC programme Restoration.

Cannon Rob Morris said the church consulted with its congregation of more than 300 and the Friends of Historic Kings Norton in reaching the controversial choice.

In 2004 the Birmingham Mail reported how the Very Rev Morris said the name was “offensive” to Muslims. But he said the reason behind the name-change was to stop people from mistaking the building — now a community centre and church office — for a pub. It was also to recognise the role of the church and its more than a million pounds’ worth of investment.

— Hat tip: JD

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Spain: Technical Tie Between Psoe and Pp, Cis Barometer

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, NOVEMBER 5 — If they went to the ballot today, Spaniards would vote in almost exactly equal numbers for the governing PSOE and the opposition PP, with support for each one at about 39.7% according to results from the Opinion Barometer of the Centre of Sociological Research (CIS). Despite all the negative economic indicators from October, the political situation in Spain has remained basically unchanged in respect of July’s Barometer, which attributed a slight lead for the PSOE: 39.5% for the PSOE, and 39.3% for the PP. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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UK: the Speed Trap Set by Your Neighbour

Motorists will face amateur speed traps run by local volunteer groups in towns and villages across the country, it was revealed yesterday.

Under rules to be sent to police forces in the new year, bands of volunteers will be supplied with speed detection equipment and asked to use it to identify drivers exceeding limits in their area.

The guidelines, prepared by the Association of Chief Police Officers, will set a national pattern for schemes which have been trialled in some areas — often with controversy.

Drivers caught breaking limits by ‘community speed watch’ groups have their numberplates checked on the police national computer and are sent warning letters by police forces.

They can be targeted for prosecution if they get three letters for speeding through volunteer group traps. Motoring organisations warned yesterday that the proposals risk setting neighbour against neighbour and encouraging vigilantism. Some trial schemes had to be abandoned after they led to disputes between local people.

The decision to encourage speed trap volunteers follows the move by local councils to recruit members of the public to watch for breaches of rubbish collection and recycling rules.

That has been condemned by critics as an attempt to get neighbour to spy on neighbour. Acpo spokesman Trevor Hall said the guidelines would encourage national consistency in the schemes.

— Hat tip: JD

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Yobs Have Overturned Your Car? Call the AA Say Police

When a gang of youths rolled his girlfriend’s parked car on its side, Simon White thought there was a good chance that the police would catch the culprits.

But instead of the swift response he had hoped for, they told him to call the AA.

‘I couldn’t believe they were telling me to call a breakdown service,’ said estate agent Mr White.

‘I explained to them that a neighbour had seen a gang of about 30 youths hanging about when he was walking his dog and had come back half an hour later to see my girlfriend’s car on its side.

‘At no point did the police ask me anything to do with solving the crime. There was no mention of witnesses, possible fingerprints, or any desire to catch who’d done it.

‘All they said was call the AA or Green Flag. When I told them there was petrol leaking from the car they said they’d call the fire brigade and then ended the conversation.’

— Hat tip: JD

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EU: ETF, Italy Multicultural Model for Balkans

(ANSAmed) — TURIN, NOVEMBER 20 — Italy could become a model of social and ethnic integration for the Balkans, according to the European Union education sector experts who took part in the international conference in Turin organized by the European Training Foundation (ETF). Among those in attendance was Semsi Sainov from the Fund for Rom education. “The Balkans,” stressed Lidia Kita, the ETF head of projects for the Balkans, “need societies that are well-integrated, founded on ethnic reconciliation, non-discrimination, equal opportunities and cultural diversity. In order to respond to these challenges, ETF is committed to helping the western Balkans to support quality education contributing to the struggle against social exclusion in a complex context, made up of very heterogeneous societies.” As part of the event a visit was organized to two schools in Turin: the Leonardo da Vinci institute for the integration of Rom in Turin and the elementary school Lessona. The two schools could be considered “laboratories for living together” between Italian children and their counterparts from second-generation immigrants who are fully integrated into the city itself. According to ETF figures, which has its head offices in Turin and answers to the European Commission, the pro capita gross domestic product in the Balkans — measures in terms of buying power — is among the lowest in Europe and range between 3,652 euros in Albania and 8,327 in Croatia. Employment levels in the western Balkans are the lowest in the EU and vary between 63pct in Serbia and 45pct in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Reuters: No Comment From Germany on Kosovo Spy Report

PRISTINA, Nov 22 (Reuters) — Germany declined to comment on on Saturday on reports that three Germans arrested on suspicion of throwing explosives at an EU office in Kosovo were intelligence officers.

The explosive charge was thrown on Nov. 14 at the International Civilian Office (ICO), the office of EU Special Representative Pieter Feith, who oversees Kosovo’s governance, but caused only minor damage. The men were detained on Thursday.

A spokesman for the German foreign ministry in Berlin confirmed that three Germans had been arrested, but declined to make any further comment as an investigation was under way.

A police source in Kosovo told Reuters: “They are members of the BND”, but gave no further details.

The German weekly Der Spiegel also said the men worked for the German intelligence agency BND, and that they had told investigators they had been examining the scene of the explosion, but had not been involved in it.

[…]

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in February after nine years under U.N. stewardship and is recognised by more than 50 countries, including Germany.

Four days before the bomb attack, its leaders rejected a plan by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s for the deployment of an EU police and justice mission, EULEX.

— Hat tip: JD

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Energy: Algeria; Work Complete on Underwater Medgaz Gaspipe

(ANSAmed) — ALGIERS, NOVEMBER 3 — Work by Saipem has finished, to place a Medgaz trans-Mediterranean gaspipe in deep water which will transport 8 billion cubic metres of Algerian gas to Spain each year. Algeriàs Ministry for Energy announced to APS that “work to complete the compression station at Beni Saf (in the West of Algeria) and the land connections between Almeria and Albacete, in Spain are all that is needed to complete the work”. Medgaz — a consortium of Algerian company Sonatrach (36%), Spanish companies Cepsa and Iberdrola (20% each)and Endesa and Francés Gaz de France (12% each) — with an estimated cost of around 900 million euros, will be 210km long offshore and will go 2,000 metric miles deep. Contributing to the project, apart from Italy’s Saipem, are Japan’s Mitsui and Sumimoto, Britain’s Rolls Royce and the Franco-Spanish consortium Tecnicas Reunias Amec-Spie. On 17 September four workers, including one Italian, were killed in an accident on bord the sea-platform, Saipem 7000, while they were working on the underwater positioning of the Medgaz pipe. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Food: New Oil Mill in South Lebanon With Lombardy Funds

(ANSAmed) — MILAN, NOVEMBER 3 — The opening of a new oil mill is scheduled for today in Alma Ash Shaab, a city in South Lebanon seriously affected by the war in 2006. A statement published by the Lombardy region stated that it had covered half of the cost of the operation with a contribution of 118,000 euros. “The cultivation of olives” explained the representative of the President of Lombardy for International Relations, Robi Ronza, opening the plant today “a main source of income for the region, suffered from a lack of a modern oil press. A humanitarian agency for the Holy See, the Papal Agency for Middle East Relief and Development had donated the equipment on condition that the oil press was ready for the 2008 harvest, but the initiative was at risk of failure because the building was inadequate and there was no technical expertise to begin production. The plant needed modern electrical and plumbing, machines and technical assistance for start-up”. Since 15 October the oil press is working at full capacity, thanks to this help. More than 4,000 farm workers and their families are benefitting from the plant (around 20,800 people in all). (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Morocco: Agriculture; 5 Million Euro Gift From Belgium

(ANSAmed) — RABAT, NOVEMBER 19 — Belgium has donated five million euros to Morocco, with the aim of financing two projects in the north of the country relating to the promotion of rural micro-businesses. The news was reported by the MAP press agency, adding that two million euros will be used to finance the development of micro-businesses in the north of the country, and in particular in the the Tetouan area. It is thought that business will be helped by the concession of easy credit. Three million euros, on the other hand, will be used for professional training programs in Tetouan, M’Diq-Fnideq, Chefchaoucen and Al Hoceima. The project will contribute to the fight against poverty and therefore to socio-economic development in the region, improving job prospects and the integration of uneducated young people. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Egypt: Nine Arrested in Clashes at Opposition Party HQ

(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, NOVEMBER 6 — Nine people have been arrested by security forces in clashes during the morning in central Cairo, in front of the headquarters of the Opposition party Al Ghad — the most well-known supporter is lawyer Ayman Nur, who has been in prison for some time — during aggression against supporters of the political faction. The clashes were between supporters of Nur, removed from office as President of the party by a Government committee, and supporters of Mustafa Mussa, appointed as President by the same committee. The wife of Nur, journalist Jamila Ismail headed the attack on the headquarters on the first floor of a city centre building, with an exchange of stone- and firebomb- throwing . A fire in the area of Al Ghad was put out by fire fighters. Eye witnesses said that security forces had witnessed the aggression without intervening and had then arrested nine supporters of Nur. In 2005 the lawyer was sentenced to five years in prison for producing false documents to obtain authorisation to found the Al Ghad party. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Mauritania: Ex-Premier in Prison for Airmauritanie Crack

(ANSAmed) — PARIS, NOVEMBER 21 — The Mauritanian Premier, Yahya Ould Ahmed Waghf, ousted by the military junta which took power on August 6, was sentenced and imprisoned with another four people with the accusation of “having orchestrated the failure of the flagship airline Air Mauritanie” which he directed between 2004 and 2006 and that is currently in forced liquidation. Among the others who wound up in prison, the businessman Abdallahi Ould Moctar who chaired the board of directors between 2002 and 2006. Another ex-manager and a second businessman are under international arrest warrants. The ex-premier was arrested on August 6 together with the dismissed president Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi. Freed on August 11, he was stopped ten days later while participating in a protest meeting against the coup and placed under house arrest. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Arab States Import 94% of Medicines, Says Official

(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, NOVEMBER 17 — Chairman of the Arab Company for Pharmaceuticals and Medical Supplies Mohamed Awad Tagedddin said the Arab states import medicines by 94%, calling for the need to reach cooperation in the Arab world in the pharmaceuticals domain to guarantee supply of drugs. Tageddin expected Arab pharmaceutical production to reach 2.5 billion dollars at the start of the 21st century to cover around 45% of consumption which amounts to 5.5 billion dollars. The size of investments in pharmaceuticals in the Arab world reaches around five billion dollars, he said, adding that the private sector owns its biggest share. Dumping policies adopted by factories and foreign companies are among obstacles facing the Arab pharmaceutical industries sector, he said. (ANSAmed)

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Nepal: Maoist Government: Law on “Desaparecidos” Would be Retroactive

The measure, which must still be approved, provides prison sentences and fines for those who commit kidnappings, and their accomplices. The law would regulate cases of disappearance recorded between 1996 and 2006, the year in which the agreement was signed between the communist guerrillas and the coalition government. Human rights activists say there are 2,200 cases of disappearance.

Kathmandu (AsiaNews) — The Nepalese Maoist government has released a proposed law on the “desaparecidos,” providing prison sentences and fines for those who carry out kidnappings, and their accomplices. The law would be applied retroactively, covering the decade marked by the Maoist conflict (1996-2006); but would not apply to crimes after November 21, 2006, the day on which the communist guerrillas and the seven parties making up the coalition government signed the peace agreement.

The draft law was presented by Janardan Sharma, minister for peace and reconstruction, in the presence of the head of the justice department and Nepal’s attorney general, in addition to activists and experts on human rights. The measure would regulate the cases of disappearances recorded in the period between February 13, 1996, and November 21, 2006. It provides penalties of up to five years in prison, and fines of 5,000 euros for those who commit kidnapping; the penalties are cut in half for accomplices. If the cases of disappearance concern women and children, the penalty could be raised to seven years in prison.

The proposed law also provides for the creation of an independent commission formed by five prominent figures. These would include the president of the constituent assembly, activists, psychologists, lawyers, or experts in conflict with at least 10 years of experience.

Gauri Pradhan, a member of the Nepalese human rights commission, says that during the period under discussion, 2,200 cases of disappeared persons were reported. The relatives of the “desaparecidos” would be given compensation in the form of free health care and education, jobs, and assistance in finding housing.

The draft law must now be reviewed by Dev Gurung, the minister of justice and parliamentary affairs, who will make any necessary changes; the text would then have to be approved by the government and would go to parliament, for final ratification and implementation.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Vietnam: New Attack on Parish of Thai Ha

An official of the people’s committee tries to keep the Redemptorists occupied, while members of party organizations attack the chapel of Saint Gerardo. Summoned by bells, phone calls, and e-mails, hundreds of faithful come, and the attackers leave. The operation raises troubling questions.

Hanoi (AsiaNews) — Disturbing questions are being raised by the attack carried out Saturday night by a group of communist party activists on the chapel of St. Gerardo, on the property of the parish of Thai Ha. Similar to the one carried out on September 21, against the same target, it saw the participation of a delegate of the people’s committee of Quang Trung (the local administration), while police and security forces looked on passively at the sacking of the chapel, which did not have serious consequences only because of the immediate arrival of faithful from Thai Ha and other parishes.

Fr. Joseph Nguyen Van That, vice superior of the Redemptorist convent, who also takes care of the parish, says that “At 10 pm local time, on Saturday night, a delegate of the people’s committee of Quang Trung precinct came to Hanoi Redemptorist Monastery asking for an urgent meeting with Redemptorists, while hundreds of people attacked our Saint Gerardo Chapel.”

There were police officers, members of a women’s association, and young people of the party. They began shouting, throwing stones at the church, trying to provoke the priests and faithful present to a fight. Catholics were called to the scene by church bells, but also by telephone calls and e-mails sent to the parishes of Hanoi. At 11 o’clock, a fairly significant number of faithful were on the scene, and without responding to the provocations, they tried to enter the chapel.

The officers, who did not intervene to stop the attack, tried (in the photo) to stop the faithful from entering the church. One parishioner says that at a certain point, a group that was participating in the attack asked the police if they could set it on fire. They were instructed to “wait for an order from higher ranking officials.”

At 11:30, the growing number of faithful on the site forced the attackers to leave.

Eglises d’Asie reports that inhabitants of the neighborhood say that beginning in the afternoon, while the church was celebrating the feast of the Vietnamese martyrs, the young communists had taken up position to prepare the operation. The same thing was happening at the same time in security offices of the neighborhood.

A letter denouncing the incident has been addressed by Fr. Matthew Vu Khoi Phung, the superior of the monastery, to the people’s committee of Hanoi and to the police of Hanoi and of the district of Dong Da.

Catholics are concerned over the reasons for the attack, which came after the conclusion desired by the authorities — meaning with rejection — of the request by the Redemptorists for the restitution of the parish land. Some think it is retaliation — the land that was given to a clothing company has been turned into a public park — and are afraid of further aggression against the monastery, parish, and chapel.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Internet: First Site to Look for Muslim Soul-Mate

(by Cristiana Missori) (ANSAmed) — ROME, OCTOBER 29 — Are you a Muslim and have yet to find your soul-mate? Are you trying to flirt with one of your co-religious counterparts, or even more simply looking for new friends? Have no fear, wherever you are in the world, there are new portals to help you like Muslima.com, directed at, like its Christian version (Christiancupid.com), by Australian CupidMedia, a company that manages internet portals dedicated to looking for a mate and those who are looking for and inter-racial union, and that in total has more than 5 million users all over the globe. Yet again, love is transformed into a business: this time though, it is not about dress, or choices made at the gift shop, or catering, but criteria based on ethnic origin, religious creed, sexual tastes, particular interests, and naturally, physical appearance. Born this year, Muslima.com with its 784 thousand subscribers, is the first Muslim dating website in the world. The principal is the same as other online dating sites: after having filled out a personal profile, entering tastes and general information, you go on to physical aspect (height, eye colour, profession, and maybe even favourite sport), Muslim.com also asks to specify faith (Sunni or Shiite), as well as ethnic origin. Signing up costs nothing, you just have to be between 18 and 80, have an e-mail account, and a lot of good will. Privacy is guaranteed, in fact, to other users, only name and nickname appear. For those who want to increase their probability of finding someone to share their existence with, there is a ‘‘gold membership’’ or ‘‘platinum membership’’. For users who decide to spend 25 dollars or more, the possibility of entering more details is given, chat rooms, or having your profile highlighted compared to non-paying users, as well as having unlimited contacts are all options. Given the great success of the users, the portal has already been translated into Dutch, French, German, and Italian. One peculiarity, there is not an Arab version. Entering into the Italian page it is easy to note how from North to South there are many people who are interested in finding someone to correspond with, or ‘‘to establish a true friendship with other Muslims’’ or to find ‘‘a faithful woman’’ to marry. Perhaps because far from your country of origin, maybe because it is difficult to find someone who understands your traditions, or simply because the internet is the most rapid means to communicate, many people seem to appreciate this tool. The same idea for Christiancupid.com, which counts 62 thousand registered users today, where Christians from every latitude look for a long lasting relationship, a passing love, or a pen pal, and do it in total security, knowing that they share the same values. Here, there is also the option of becoming o ‘‘gold’’ or ‘‘platinum’’ member, obtaining various advantages in terms of interactivity with those who are interested in the profile of the user. There are also chat rooms, advice on Christian life, marriage, relationships, and ‘‘verses of the day’’ from the Bible. In a world that makes an effort to overcome differences based on race, ethnicity, religion, or personal convictions, the new frontier of online dating is discrimination. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Somalia: Pirates Want $15mln for Seized Ship, Says Islamist Leader

Mogadishu, 24 Nov. (AKI) — A Somali Islamist leader said the ransom for the hijacked supertanker Sirius Star has been reduced from 25 to 15 million dollars. “Middlemen have given a $15 million ransom figure for the Saudi ship. That is the issue now,” said Abdurrahim Isse Adou, the spokesman of the Islamic Courts Union quoted by various media reports.

Saudi oil giant Aramco’s subsidiary Vela International owns the hijacked supertanker Sirus Star, which has a 25-member crew on board from Poland, Britain, Croatia, Saudi Arabia and the Philippines.

The tanker is fully loaded with two million barrels of oil worth over 100 million dollars.

Last week, pirates warned that they have a machine that can detect false banknotes, said Bili Mahmoud Qabusad, spokesman for the Somali region of Puntland’s president.

According to Qabusad, the pirates probably come from the Somali capital, Mogadishu, and set sail ten days ago on their mission to hijack the Sirius Star.

A number of the pirates operating in the Gulf of Aden are belived to be former members of the Somali navy, reports have said.

More than 92 ships have been attacked his year, more than three times the number in 2007, according to the International Maritime Bureau. At least 14 of these vessels, carrying over 250 crew members, are still in the control of hijackers.

An estimated 25-30 million dollars has been paid in ransom to Somali pirates this year, according to a UN report released last Tuesday.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Stubborn Glaciers Fail to Retreat, Awkward Polar Bears Continue to Multiply

Second only to the melting of the Arctic ice and those “drowning” polar bears, there is no scare with which the global warmists, led by Al Gore, more like to chill our blood than the fast-vanishing glaciers of the Himalayas, which help to provide water for a sixth of mankind. Recently one newspaper published large pictures to illustrate the alarming retreat in the past 40 years of the Rongbuk glacier below Everest. Indian meteorologists, it was reported, were warning that, thanks to global warming, all the Himalayan glaciers could have disappeared by 2035.

Yet two days earlier a report by the UN Environment Program had claimed that the cause of the melting glaciers was not global warming but the local warming effect of a vast “atmospheric brown cloud” hanging over that region, made up of soot particles from Asia’s dramatically increased burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.

Furthermore a British study published two years ago by the American Meteorological Society found that glaciers are only shrinking in the eastern Himalayas. Further west, in the Hindu Kush and the Karakoram, glaciers are “thickening and expanding”.

Meanwhile, all last week, ITV News was running a series of wearisomely familiar scare stories on the disappearing Arctic ice and those “doomed” polar bears — without telling its viewers that satellite images now show ice cover above its 30-year average, or that polar bear numbers are at record level. But then “polar bears not drowning after all — as snow falls over large parts of Britain” doesn’t really make a story.

— Hat tip: JD

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Washington State Voters Legalize Physician-Assisted Suicide

Rita Marker, an attorney and executive director of the non-profit International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, calls physician-assisted suicide a Trojan Horse — a policy that enters a state’s legal system as a gift of compassion but is full of deadly consequences. In Washington, as in Oregon, the crime of assisted suicide has been transformed into a medical treatment.

“If a lethal dose of drugs is considered good medical treatment, isn’t the requirement of ‘self-administration’ both illogical and overly restrictive?” she asks. “What about the person who is physically unable to self-administer the lethal dose? After all, is there any other medical treatment that a physician can prescribe for, but not administer to, a patient?”

Once it’s legally regarded as a medical treatment there’s nothing to prevent its expansion “to include euthanasia by lethal injection and to encompass everyone from children to the frail, demented elderly.”

[…]

But in Oregon, despite increased efforts by Health Services Department officials to hide the law’s shortcomings from the public, word gets out and occasionally comes to the attention of the media — as in the notorious case of Barbara Wagner, a 64-year-old cancer patient, which was reported by the Eugene Register-Guard.

In May, Wagner’s doctor told her that her cancer, which had been in remission, had returned, but there was a new drug that would probably slow its growth and extend her life. He wrote her a prescription, but because the drug is expensive the Oregon Health Plan — the state’s Medicaid program through which she was insured — let her know via an unsigned form letter that it would not cover the cost. However, the letter said, the plan would pay for “comfort care”, including “physician aid in dying.” The drugs which would be provided free cost less than $100 — a matter not mentioned in the letter.

“They would pay to kill me, but they will not give me the medication to slow the growth of my cancer,” Wagner says tearfully in a video for the Coalition Against Assisted Suicide.

When Wagner’s story became known, others came forward to report receiving similar letters. The Oregon Health Plan director eventually admitted they send such letters to patients whom they think have little chance of surviving.

— Hat tip: JD

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Italy: Israeli Company to Secure Vatican City

Vatican City, 20 Nov. (AKI) — An Israel-based company was awarded a multi-million dollar contract to secure sensitive areas of Vatican City. IoImage, a company based in the Israeli coastal city of Herzliya was awarded the contract, estimated to be between 4-5 million dollars. “The Vatican has the highest security demands. We got the contract after an examination that lasted three years,” said IoImage director Roni Kaz, quoted by Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth.

“IoImage intelligent video appliances, monitored by an IoIware Command Center, are being used to detect intruders along a 60-kilometre perimeter of sensitive areas, entry and exit gates and the wall surrounding the Vatican,” said the company in a statement on its website.

“The IoIcam….will be centrally monitored and managed by the Corpo della Gendarmeria, the Vatican’s security force from their control room.”

In 1929, Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini signed the Lateran Treaty, which recognised the full sovereignty of the Holy See in the State of Vatican City.

The Holy See is a member of the United Nations and is considered an independent country of 0.44 square kilometres with less than 500 inhabitants.

Its world-renowned museum and library collections make it one of the world’s most important sites. The Vatican Museums alone were visited by 4.3 million tourists last year.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Race in the Third Millennium

[…]

Then there is the matter of how communism is viewed kindly relative to National Socialism (which partially explains why “big C” communism is again on the rise). We are outraged that 11 million were killed because of a racial agenda, as we should be, yet it seems that it would make modern man’s inner little girl feel better if they had been exterminated in the name of an atheistic/economic one. After all, while the communists killed about ten times as many — 100 million worldwide during the 20th century — its defenders are never lowered to where they belong, the nadir of pariah status occupied by a neo-Nazi. But, of course, godlessness and economic egalitarianism are all the rage in these enlightened times.

Many will justify such bias, claiming that the demon of discrimination cannot be exorcised without constant prayer to the god of government; there must be a bit of over-compensation in much that same way that a crooked wire cannot be made right unless it’s bent beyond straight in the other direction. But it is also true that if you keep bending it in the fashionable direction, it becomes more crooked than it was before. The yoke of tyranny isn’t less burdensome just because it’s born of an unfashionable lie’s opposite.

[…]

Another characteristic of the National Socialists is that before they gained the power to impose their agenda through the law, they did so through the lawless; they used brown-shirted thugs to intimidate and silence opposition.

We’re not like that at all.

Our mobs don’t wear brown shirts. They just storm stages (Columbia and other attacks on traditionalists at colleges), intimidate voters, steal conservative newspapers, attack conservative students and vandalize their homes, and force-feed students politically-correct ideas in academia.

Then there are the aspirations, which are sometimes expressed by readers of left-wing news sites. For instance, at a very popular site I came across a post to the effect of (I’m paraphrasing):

“Racists should be beaten and then put in re-education camps until their thinking is changed.”

This was not an uncommon sentiment at this site and was unchallenged by the other respondents.

— Hat tip: JD

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When Seconds Count: Stopping Active Killers

Based on the Virginia Tech data, top tactics training facilities determined the first officer on scene should make entry immediately with an aggressive attack on the shooter. Every minute the officer waits for back-up, another three or more people could die.

In other words, while it was once considered suicide for a lone officer to take on an active killer, it is now considered statistical homicide for him not to do so.

Tactical Defense Institute in Adams County, Ohio developed one of the first “single officer response” programs in the nation. TDI was teaching the tactic even before Virginia Tech. Now the National School Resource Officer Organization (NSRO) is using TDI instructors to teach school resource officers nationwide how to confront a gunman immediately.

[…]

The other statistic that emerged from a study of active killers is that they almost exclusively seek out “gun free” zones for their attacks. In most states, concealed handguns are prohibited at schools and on college campuses even for those with permits. Many malls and workplaces also place signs at their entrances prohibiting firearms on the premises.

Now some tacticians believe the signs themselves may be an invitation to the active killers.

The psychological profile of a mass murderer indicates he is looking to inflict the most casualties as quickly as possible. Also, the data show most active killers have no intention of surviving the event. They may select schools and shopping malls because of the large number of defenseless victims and the virtual guarantee no on the scene one is armed.

As soon as they’re confronted by any armed resistance, the shooters typically turn the gun on themselves.

— Hat tip: JD

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The ongoing conflict in Kashmir has taken an enormous human toll. Last week the Indian journalist Shabir Ibn Yusuf sent us a report about the psychological aftereffects of violence on the local Kashmiri populace. Here’s a follow-up article on the same topic.

Shell-Shocked in Kashmir, Part 2
by Shabir Ibn Yusuf

KASHMIR (INDIA), Nov 23 :An international organization research on the Kashmir conflict has reported that 85 per cent of Valley populations have had a confrontation with violence while 66 percent have witnessed torture.

The research was conducted by the web portal www.7thspace.com in two districts across 30 villages during the last three months and those occurring since the start of the conflict, to assess experiences with violence and mental health status among the conflict-affected Kashmiri population.

The survey reported that the civilian population in Kashmir is exposed to high levels of violence, as demonstrated by the high frequency of deliberate events as detention, hostage-taking, and torture.

Respondents reported frequent direct encounters with violence since the start of the conflict, including exposure to crossfire (85.7%), round-up raids (82.7%), the witnessing of torture (66.9%), rape (13.3%), self-experience of forced labour (33.7%), arrests/kidnapping (16.9%), torture (12.9%), and sexual violence (11.6%).

– – – – – – – – –

The male population has reported more confrontations with violence than females, and had an increased likelihood of having directly experienced physical/mental maltreatment, violation of their modesty, and injury. Males also had high odds of self-reporting arrest/ kidnap. The portal’s survey found that the Kashmiri male population reported significantly more confrontations with almost all violent events; this can be explained by higher participation in outdoor activities. The reported violence may result in substantial health problems, including mental health problems, the survey noted.

The survey found high levels of psychological distress that impacts on daily life and places a burden on the health system. Ongoing feelings of personal vulnerability (not feeling safe) were associated with high levels of psychological distress.

Over one-third of respondents were found to have symptoms of psychological distress; women scored significantly higher. A third of respondents had contemplated suicide.

Community mental health programmes should be considered as a way reduce the pressure on the health system and improve socio-economic functioning of those suffering from mental health problems. The ongoing conflict exacts a huge toll on the communities’ mental well-being, writes the portal.

The survey was done as part of routine programme evaluation to assess confrontation with violence and its consequences on mental health, health service usage, and socio-economic functioning.

I met Professor Johannes Jansen at the Counterjihad Brussels conference last year, and found him to be an intelligent and well-informed commenter on the status of Islam in the Netherlands. Our Flemish correspondent VH has kindly taken it upon himself to translate one of Prof. Jansen’s lectures, and includes his own introductory material.

I recommend reading this excellent lecture in its entirety, but here are a couple of noteworthy quotes:

Sharia is a continuation of the Jihad, but by other means.

Also:

To portray the Crusades as the equivalent of the Jihad, as the multiculturalists do, is a false presentation of the matter, an absurd distortion of history. It is like equating a cold with AIDS: both are viral diseases that lack appropriate curative drugs.

About Prof. Johannes J.G. Jansen
by VH

A few days ago the lecture below (.doc format) was linktipped at the Dutch site Het Vrije Volk. I admire the writings of the Arabist Hans Jansen, and in this recent lecture (Nov.7) he explains why Western culture is not only superior to Islam, but is also embroiled in the second Jihad while so many people are still not aware of it, or not willing to be aware of it.

Hans Jansen earlier this year brilliantly defended Geert Wilders in a TV program against a bunch of leftist Muslims and appeasers. A few quotes (my translation):

[01:12] Interviewer Paul Witteman: The future image of the Netherlands, has that not been pictured as a caricature by Wilders?

Hans Jansen: Well, you cannot look into the future of course. When I was ten years, my old mother told me that 110% of the Dutch would be Catholic in 2000, and that also didn’t happen. When the apostates within the Muslim community come out in the open, and truly I can tell you there are many of them … gentlemen [looks at the Leftist Muslims Ahmed Aboutaleb from Labour, and Taoufik Dibi from GreenLeft], when they would dare to come out of the closet, these things will go differently, of course.

But may I say something else: Wilders has for months now been demonized and portrayed as a dangerous madman. Now he has made a film in which you can see things being done by Muslims, Muslims of whom nobody would have thought such things possible. These Muslims did these things in the name of Islam; that is quite factually presented, and now we sit here with this mess. Wilders has a hold on the complete Leftist church, because it is not a provocative film, it is not an insane film, it is not a hatemongering film, he just has a hold on [gestures at the Leftist politicians] that complete Leftist bunch.

[… at 5:19] Look here, you can hear in many sermons Islam is the third of three, but then those three are not Christianity, Judaism and Islam, but Communism, Nazism, Islam. That has not been made up by Wilders, that can already be read with others.

[… at 6:15] I am not afraid at all, but there is a certain risk. I am not afraid to drive a car, but there is a certain risk that you might kill yourself with one. Aspirin is a blessing for humanity, but there is a risk, and when you have a couple of million Muslims in your country, the chance of having a few hundred thousand radicals and terrorists … that is just a risk. [“A few hundred thousand radicals?” the Leftist politician and appeaser Pechtold from Democrats ‘66 asks] I estimate roughly that is between seven and twenty percent of the Muslim population in a country.

The “Utrecht Lecture” (one of a series of lectures organized by the University of Utrecht and held at different locations) by the eminent Dutch Arabist Hans Jansen. It was presented for the Utrecht Alumni Association on Friday November 7, 2008 in the auditorium of the Academy Building. Earlier this year he published his book Islam for Pigs, Apes, Donkeys and Other Animals and Reading the Quran by Yourself. An interview (in English) with Hans Jansen can be read at Religioscope.

And now for my translation of his lecture (update: a printable version is available here):

The impossibility of bridging the gap between Islam and the West
by Johannes J.G. Jansen
Utrecht Lecture 2008

“Islam” is the name of a religion, and “the West” is the name of a region. At first sight it is therefore strange, if not impossible, to discuss how to bridge the contradictions between Islam and the West. You should not compare Islam with “the West” but with Christianity; at least both of them are religions. The West must then be compared with the Middle East, because those are both regions. Those who do so though, are really going wrong. Islam is spread over a much wider area than the Middle East; Islam now stretches from Pakistan to the Kanaleneiland [troubled immigrant neighborhood in Utrecht, the Netherlands]. And the West is not really Christian anymore, it is largely inhabited by modern unbelievers. However, the comparison of Islam with the West forms a sort of shorthand that is understood by any person of good will.

Contrasting “Islam versus the West” is about two cultures, one dominated by Islam, and in the past was originally located in the Middle East; the other mainly present in Europe and America and in the past was dominated by Christianity. This Euro-American culture is of course not uniform. You surely can not lump together all Westerners. But this polymorphic Western culture is the primary end product of America, Europe, the churches, and Christianity. It is a culture that is therefore related in countless ways to the explicit and implicit views of Christianity on people, society, and the world. The many modern disbelievers within this cultural area do not just believe in the God of Christianity. Their idea about what God, if he did exist, should be and do, is dictated by the notions of Christianity.

The Muslims, of course, do not have a uniform culture for the same reasons, but within the Islamic cultural area everyone, for example, is firmly convinced that no culture is closer to the true Islam than theirs. Also every Muslim would like to contribute to his local Islamic culture, so it develops in such way that the distance to true Islam becomes smaller. Writing and talking is making mistakes, that is why so terribly little is published by some faculties. But after this introduction to the shorthand skills of the art of comparison, I do dare to compare “Islam” and “the West”.

It is about a pair that have been quite often engaged in war with each other. Lodged in everyone’s memory is the rescue of Vienna in 1683. Also the Battle of Poitiers in central France in 732, where Charles Martel defeated an invading Arab army, has not been forgotten. But there are obviously lots more. Wasn’t there also something about the Crusades, the Reconquista of Spain, and the Islamic Jihad?

– – – – – – – – –

Actually we would should address all these issues in detail, but then we’d be sitting here a for few years instead of a few hours. We have to limit ourselves to a few key issues. Well, one of those key issues is that the West lacks a good authoritative and generally shared theory about Islam. Conversely it is different. Islam does have a fairly common shared theory about the West and Christianity. Let’s have a look at this Islamic theory.

The classical Islamic theory divides the world into two zones. One zone is called the “House of Islam,” the other zone “the House of War”. This basic idea is deeply rooted in the history of Islam and Islamic expansion. It is, by the way, not the Koran itself which already makes this distinction. The Koran though — as you know according to the Islam the literal word of God — does state that the Muslims owe it to Islam to take part in the war[1]. In Surah 9, verse 39 we read for example: “If thou dost not march out — He will punish you with painful punishment,” illaa tanfiruu, yu’adhdhibukum ‘adhaaban aliiman.

The Islamic texts that come after the Koran, the so called Traditions of Mohammed, tell that Mohammed shortly before his death in 632 sent letters to the sovereigns of the empires that bordered on the stateless Arab peninsula, namely the Emperor of the Roman Empire, the King of Persia, the Negus of Ethiopia and the Governor of Egypt. The oldest version of these letters that has been preserved, was not been written until about the year 750, and contained three lines. We also find this letter in the canonical collection of Traditions written by Al-Bukhari, which dates to about a century later. But by this time the letter contained eight lines. A modern researcher can only conclude from this that the stories about this letter have gradually emerged.[2]

Anyway, in this letter Mohammed is threatening his neighbors. The letter contains the memorable but ambiguous line aslim taslam, “if you surrender, you will not be killed”, also translated as “if you are Muslim, you will be preserved”. These letters are of course ancient history, but the Iranian head of state Ahmadinejad sent a similar letter to President Bush[3] and Osama bin Laden sent a handful of such letters both to America and to Europe[4]. Anyway, as the old stories about those letters of Mohammed have a historical basis, it is clear from the text of those letters that Mohammed himself has been dividing the world in two: a House of War and a House of Islam.

The fact that Islam divides the world into two, a house of war and a house of Islam, has received a peculiar general notoriety. The idea apparently possesses a macabre charm. Actually, everyone in the East or the West has heard of it. Moreover, it is obvious that this division is not an eccentric doctrine of Islamic fundamentalists. It is the general Islamic view. In later times, the theologians of Islam refined this division, and designated a third “house”: the House of the Treaty, a term that lawyers started to use to describe areas which in exchange for paying tribute or on the basis of an agreement, need not to be confronted with war for a limited period, usually not more than ten years.

Modern unbelievers in the West know this theory but are not worried about it. This has at least two reasons. Public opinion in the West has forgotten a bit what war was like. War, may I remind you, means robbing, killing, raping, and making slaves of workers or taking slaves. Secondly, modern Western unbelievers consider all religious beliefs, including this one, as harmless delusions. The Western academic world is convinced that Islam is a peaceful religion and that this dichotomy in the House of War and House of Islam has no meaning.

Anyone who takes this division seriously does not belong in a university. Even the fact that Islam has strictly forbidden the use towards unbelievers of the antique — originating in the Middle East — greeting formula “Peace be with you,” has not been able to persuade academic scholars to think differently.

It is therefore not at all so strange that most Westerners have forgotten what such a dichotomy could bring with it. If we had been thinking about that dichotomy in time, perhaps we would have understood that the Islamic acts of aggression against the West that took place in recent decades, have not been isolated incidents, but the result of a consistent theory that is as old as Islam itself. There is nothing radical in the present attacks against the West. It is simply the application of an old theory, albeit under changed, new circumstances.

From a politically correct point of view, three objections are raised now. The first is that only a small percentage of all Muslims took part in these attacks against the West. “The majority of Muslims has nothing to do with it, and can not be blamed for it.” Literally speaking, of course this is true. But may I remind you of the German invasion of 1940 in the Netherlands?

We usually say that on May 10 “the Germans” invaded the Netherlands, but that was of course not so. Most Germans simply sat at home that morning, having breakfast, or possibly doing the dishes. Percentage-wise, the Germans that where involved in this raid was minimal. In the same way also a percentage of all Muslims participated in the attacks of Sept. 11, of July 7, or in Bali, or against my friend Theo van Gogh. Although, according to some sources on the Internet, it involves more than 12,000 large and small terror attacks since 9/11[5].

But that only a small percentage of all Germans, or all Muslims, have participated in acts of war does not mean that Germany, or Islam, have no responsibility for these acts of war. There can be no peace or a normalization emerging if this responsibility is not recognized, or in fact denied. Everyone knows how often Germany after 1945 has admitted and took responsibility for the German acts of war. You also know how often the Islam has admitted its responsibility for whatever. Well, I have bad news for you. The denial of history and the pretension nothing has happened will over time lead to disaster.

The second objection sounds unusually modern. “In this world of globalization, we can not stick to such a dichotomy. Everything and everyone is connected with each other. In its classic form that old Islamic dichotomy in a House of War and a House of Islam really belongs to the past. That dichotomy is simply no longer valid.” Most Westerners and many Muslims will agree on that.

But there are exceptions. The prominent Muslim thinker Sayyid Qutb was executed in Cairo in 1966. His books are present in every Muslim bookstore. He has argued that in modern times Islam and non-Islam indeed have become intertwined with each other. Previously, non-Islam and Islam where both in time and in place clearly separated by boundaries. But today they exist alongside each other and in between each other. Islam and what Sayyid Qutb called the Jaahiliyya are forced to coexist. But, as Sayyid Qutb suggests, that may never lead to a peaceful coexistence.

Muslims are usually familiar with the term Jaahiliyya. In the belief system of Islam, Jaahiliyya is the word for the period of paganism and unregulated violence that preceded Islam. Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, declared war on Jaahiliyya, and he triumphed. Sayyid Qutb now demands that all Muslims follow the example of Mohammed, and also pursue the struggle with Jaahiliyya by battling against the non-Islamic world that surrounds them now, and even penetrates their towns and villages, sometimes even their homes and families.

Mohammed died in 632. Sayyid Qutb calls the period from Mohammed until the 17th/18th century, the “first round” of the Islamic struggle against the Jaahiliyya. That first round, al-gawla al-uulaa[6], came to an end with the rescue of Vienna in 1683, when the Polish army forced the Turkish army to beat a shameful retreat.

Sayyid Qutb and his many followers[7] are convinced that the modern world gives Islam a new opportunity to beat the West. Jihad is now no longer executed by Muslim states against Western states; that would be too dangerous for Islamic states: think of the fate of Afghanistan or Iraq, or the results of the wars against Israel that the Arab countries pursued. The states have since the nineties been replaced by individuals like Osama bin Laden and non-state entities such as Al-Qaeda, Hizbullah, and Hamas, who resumed the fight against the West on many fronts and with all imaginable methods. According to many people, this time it looks like the Muslims have a good chance of winning, and a third round will no longer be needed.

The third argument against the division of the world that Islam originally made sounds a little childish, but nevertheless is often raised. The objection reads something like this: “All right, Islam divides the world into a war zone and a Muslim area. Islam has a special word for the battle between these two zones: Jihad. But didn’t Christians have the Crusades? Islam and Christianity are both equally bloodthirsty and warlike.”

The moral and religious equivalence of the Jihad with the Crusades is, as you know, an essential doctrine of the multicultural ideology. Nevertheless, no matter how often even repeated, it is still nonsense. Why? Jihad existed for almost five centuries before the Christians for the first time came up with the idea of launching a crusade themselves[8]. Furthermore, the Crusades focused on a small piece of the world, namely the Holy Land. Jihad, however, focuses on the whole of Europe, Asia and Africa, and for some centuries America. These are big differences. To portray the Crusades as the equivalent of the Jihad, as the multiculturalists do, is a false presentation of the matter, an absurd distortion of history. It is like equating a cold with AIDS: both are viral diseases that lack appropriate curative drugs.

There is still something else to be added to this. When the Crusades were wrong, and time and again apologies have to be offered for the Crusades, or forgiveness asked, how much more wrong is the larger Islamic Jihad, for which I have never heard any apology?

But it’s not only the history that is presented falsely by the multicultural specialists and their Muslim friends. The text of the Bible and the Koran are the victim of gross multicultural distortions. The multiculturals and their allies will tell you that both Bible and Koran are bloodthirsty and contain stories full of atrocities. That’s a similarity. But the differences are bigger. The Bible describes specific atrocities, sometimes even looks forward to it, and hopes that God will keep giving the enemies of Israel a good licking. But that is something quite different from the Koran.

The Koran does not contain story after story like the Bible, but the Koran contains a few stories (which are often derived from the Bible) and dozens of calls — often very general in nature — to perform deadly violence. The best known call is “Kill them wherever you find them.”[9] This is repeated three times within the Koranic text: it is clearly not a slip of the tongue. It is unfair to compare this with Ezekiel 33:11, where the prophet imagines that God says “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, nolo mortem impii, but rather that the wicked converts form its path, and lives.” The difference with the prophet of Islam who imagines that God calls kill them, kill them could not be greater.

Unlike the Bible, the Koran contains a large number of generally worded calls for murder and manslaughter. There are Muslims who regard such passages as a license to kill. I need not to remind you the fate of Theo van Gogh. On the Internet there circulates a list of 164 calls to war to be found in the Koran. For such a short book, 164 is an incredible number. There is no such list of Bible passages. Believe me, if it was possible to establish such a list, it would have been made long ago. And then the Internet List is not even complete. Quran 9:30 for example, is omitted. At the end of that verse anyone is cursed who believes that Christ is the son of God. The curse expresses the wish that the accursed ones will be slain by God in the battle, qaatalahumullaah. I do not need to indicate here how many millions of people, mostly decent God-fearing people who are aware of nothing, are being threatened with murder and manslaughter because of this Koranic verse.

Arriving at this point, the allegations sometimes appear that I spread hate. I am sorry if anyone might think that. I want to remind you that in the Koran, hatred spatters the pages. I bring you bad news. But to say that I am the hatemonger is turning the thing around. If only the problem were with me, it would have been rapidly resolved.

A good discussion leader must now actually broaden the debate and point out that we always have talked about the Koran, and that Muslims are no vending machines who, like robots, execute what the Koran mandates. That is a valid point. The Protestant slogan sola scriptura, “by Scripture alone”, has outside Protestantism little or no meaning. The authority of the Bible towards Christians functions differently from the authority of the Koran towards Muslims. We should not look to the Koran, but to the manuals of Sharia, in which the ideal behavior of a good Muslim is described. What do those manuals say? What, according to those widespread manuals, is the ideal behavior of a good Muslim in his contacts with non-Muslims?

It is tedious, but the news again is not good. The authoritative manuals may differ on small details, but they completely agree on a key point. It is the duty of a good Muslim to fight for what Muslims see as the truth, that means: Islam. The experts and manuals suggest that anyone who in any detail whatsoever rejects the rules of Sharia as described in the manuals, commits capital a crime against Islam by doing so. This has two dreadful consequences. Every Muslim ruler who does not fully apply the Sharia but also decrees its own laws, makes it an implicit criticism of the Sharia, and therefore, according to the experts, a capital offense of Islam. It is this simple reasoning that formed the background for the assassination of President Sadat in October 1982.

But there is another implication. Someone who engages in a debate about one aspect or another of Sharia also has a big chance of being accused of apostasy from Islam, again with all the consequences. Men or women who are affected by these accusations are often terribly haunted. This all contributes to an atmosphere of intellectual stagnation. Religious reforms under such a regime are as good as impossible.

At the same time, the rules of Sharia are humiliating for non-Muslims and women. No Western government would dare come up with the idea to deal with the Muslim minority according to the rules the Sharia gives for the treatment of non-Muslims. And rightly so. Sharia is a continuation of the Jihad, but by other means.

Whoever is not a Muslim might think it should be clear though that the Sharia is the work of humans, the result of centuries of mutual discussions among Islamic Scholars. Indeed, there have been Islamic thinkers who raised this idea, Shukri Mustafa for example, who was hanged in 1978 in Cairo. But the general prevailing view among Muslims is different.

Islam ascribes to Mohammed the expression that his governance will not agree on any aberration. After all, it would show rudeness if God allowed his chosen ones to take the wrong road. Under this reasoning any rule or regulation, once agreement about it has been reached, is widely regarded as God-given. With this the Sharia became more than the work of humans. Because of this the Sharia is as good as sacrosanct; it became sacred and inviolable. Man-made laws, in the eyes of the broad Muslim audience, may never compete with something as great as the Sharia.

It is precisely this point that makes visible the significant gap between the Western and Islamic ideology. In a Western society laws are made through various democratic processes and are more or less constantly adapted to changing circumstances. Laws in the West come from below. In the Islamic system which stems from the Sharia, laws do not come from below, but from above, and once accepted by competent religious experts, they are unchangeable. These two visions of the law cannot be harmonized. The laws are made by people and thus changeable and can be criticized, or they are not. After more than two millennia of man-made laws, it would not be a good idea for the West even partially to submit to an Islamic system of laws that are assumed to be of divine origin.

There is another unbridgeable difference of opinion between Islam and the West. Christianity looks at the world with a certain metaphysical naïveté. The world simply exists; the observable world is for instance not a veil behind which true reality hides, as is the case in many Asian religions. The West sees the world as changeable by man. People may even improve the world. These are not provable, verifiable propositions. They are axiomatic points of belief. Modern science, after all, has convinced us that the combinations of molecules and atoms as by the observed naked eye, consist of emptiness and shells rather than massiveness. It is highly questionable whether the world indeed just exists, and is “real”. But we just pretend day in day out that it is.

What is the official position of Islam on this issue? The Islamic theologians teach that God not only created the world but that he also permanently re-creates the world. In this constant process of transformation God is not bound — according to Islam — to any restriction or rule, not even for example the need to be fair or predictable. God is “free and powerful in the creation”, and also in regeneration.

This seems a strange impractical question without much importance for practice, but this distinction between the West and Islam means that in the West there was a religious basis for the development of science and technology. The world was real anyhow, and simply existed, and even will tomorrow. Islamic thinkers, on the other hand, had in theory to take into account the possibility that tomorrow the world could be very different from today. For those who are working in engineering and science, that is discouraging.[10]

The West does not believe in unchangeable laws that are applied to a society, but in unvarying laws of nature. Islam on the contrary believes that laws that apply to society are fixed, but in terms of the laws of nature they are not so sure. It is tempting to see a connection with the distribution of Nobel Prizes. Nobel Prizes for science and technology have never ended up in the Islamic world. That looks like a confirmation of our suspicions about the unbridgeable complacency. Even with bridgeability it is not that good.

There is little choice other than to admit that since 9/11 Islam and the West are at war with each other. Who is going to win? Islam has the advantage that it knows what is happening. In Muslim eyes it is the old battle between the House of Islam and the House of War. The West has the disadvantage that it can not believe its eyes, and has great difficulty in admitting that something is going on. The West assumes that those who are attacked have not been friendly enough to those who attack. There must be a reason why the victim is attacked. Why do they hate America? That an attacker may have his own reasons to proceed to attack, reasons that are entirely separate from those who are attacked, does not come up to the average Westerner.

There is another factor that blinds the West: The Left has been unable to change the free, capitalist societies in the West. Islam also wants to change the society. The Left now hopes with the help of Islam to finally have success in changing society. It is questionable whether that is a realistic expectation. Islam does aim at social reforms, but Islam has a very different ideal of society than the European or American Left. When Khomeini came to power, as you may recall, he liquidated his wildly enthusiastic Leftist allies within a few months.

The Islamic strategy aims first to take in Europe, and strategically that is undoubtedly true. After Europe has fallen, Israel can not cost that much trouble, and America will readily follow after this. In order to conquer Europe it is also likely that remarkably little violence will be needed. The demographics do what they do, and the occasional assassination of a cartoonist, writer, or politician who makes bit too much trouble will do the rest.

The European elites are bending over backwards to comfort Islam, and are certainly not willing to become aware of the history of the expansion of Islam. Even with the CDA [Christian Democrats — a party in the current governing coalition] and the Christian Union [Christian Socialists — also a party in the current governing coalition] there is a peculiar reluctance to inform themselves about the history of the decline of Christianity under Islam. There cannot even a trainee at the party office being spared to do so.

At the same time, the ruling elite positions itself rock-hard against critics of Islam, who are if necessary, think of Gregorius Nekschot rousted from his bed by a platoon of mobile police units, but the same mobile units are not deployed to deal with misconduct by Muslims, because then all that matters is to do everything “to prevent worse happening”.[11] The leaders of the Muslim communities couldn’t wish for more. Under such circumstances, it is sufficient that the test of time does its useful work, and within a few decades everyone forgets why you should not become a Muslim.

Does one of the two parties deserve to win or lose the war? Is Western culture superior to the Islamic, or vice versa? The university spends numerous man-hours to prevent students from wanting to answer that question. From the perspective of a researcher all cultures are equal. But that question about the superiority of Islam or the West should not be answered from the perspective of an academic researcher who may or may not come to lay eggs in NOVA [leftist TV news program] or Pauw and Witteman [Leftist political interview TV program]. That question must be answered from the perspective of Western taxpayers. Those who pay their taxes to a government which in return has promised them where necessary to protect them against violence. It is desirable that both parties fulfill their obligations.

Is Islamic culture superior to its Western counterpart? It is almost unbelievable that societies that are incapable of providing their citizens with an operating sewage disposal system can be seen as equal to — or superior to — the West. The practice of dentistry alone should convince outsiders that the West is far superior.[12] And then there is the rest of medical science, and technology. But, as the Bible says somewhere: “The fastest does not always win the race.” (Eccl. 9:11)

Ladies and Gentlemen! The end is near. Islamic tradition asserts that Mohammed said man Zafirtum bihi min rijaal al-yahuud, fa-qtuluuh, “Kill every male Jew that falls in your hands.” A culture or religion that does not distance itself from statements of such bloodthirstiness can only hope to collect what it wishes on others. Who will win the battle? It looks good for Islam, but it’s still a bit too early to start predicting.

Think later also, while raising your glass, of two absent friends, Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh. That they both, despite all their craziness, may be sheltering with the martyrs and saints beneath the throne of the Most High.

Notes:

1.		Koran 9:38-58 and 9:87.
2.		Hans Jansen, De historische Mohammed: de verhalen uit Medina [“The historical Mohammed: the stories from Medina”], Amsterdam 2007, 257-58.
3.		See Henryk M. Broder, Hurra, wir kapitulieren! Von der Lust am Einknicken [“Hurray, we are capitulating! About the lust to bend over backwards”], Berlin 2006, pp. 71-90 on the international political context of this letter, and the European reactions to it.
4.		See Bruce Lawrence, Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden, London/New York 2005.
5.		www.thereligionofpeace.com.
6.		Sayyid Qutb, Zilaal, iii, 1560, in the commentary on Sura 8.
7.		Such as the influential Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who in an interview in January 9, 1998 talks again about the House of War, et cetera. Dr Al-Qaradawi is chairman of the ‘mainstream’ European Council of fatwa and Research.
8.		The first crusade took place form 1096 till 1099. The Crusades ended with the fall of Acre in 1291. Jihad began in the years 620-630 and is still continuing.
9.		Quran 2:191 (twice) and 4:89.
10.		See, for example, the standard adopted by the authoritative Sunni Azhar University, by N.H.M. Keller, ed & transl., Reliance of the Traveler, p. 598: He who believes that things in themselves or by their own nature have any causal influence independent of the will of Allah has committed apostasy from Islam.
11.		A not completely similar case that even so raises questions about the position and the independence of the police is the following incident: In mid-October 2008 the Amsterdam police refused to register the declaration of a Jewish young man who on October 15 at the Stadionplein [in Amsterdam] effectively was assaulted [and beaten up] by Moroccans in Amsterdam. Only after the intervention of the CIDI [Center for Information and Documentation on Israel] something happened. In early 2008, the police took every effort to stimulate the public to file complaints against the potentially critical Islam movie Fitna and its creator, and this while the film had not yet been published and the contents of the film was only known to the maker, and maybe not even that. There were even specially printed forms held ready for the Fitna-complaint, but that may have been a rumor, because such forms have not (yet?) come into the open.
12.		Muslims know nevertheless in this debate to maintain courage to hold on by the persistent practice of comparing the non-Muslim world with the ideals of the Islamic world, many examples, for instance in Hans Jansen & Abdul-Jabbar van de Ven, Bombrieven [“Letter Bombs”], Amsterdam 2008; and www.thereligionofpeace.com, and on this website especially the section Games Muslims Play. The only proper course is to compare the practice with the practice, and the ideals with the ideals.

Gone to jihad, every one?

Maybe. But in any case, they’re disappearing from the streets of Minneapolis and St. Paul. According to the local TV news station KMSP (spelling errors and typos cleaned up by BB):

The Missing: Somali Men Off Twin Cities Streets, Back in Somalia

Somali community fears young men leaving to fight holy war

MINNEAPOLIS — Young Somali men are vanishing off the streets of the Twin Cities. More than 20 have left in the last few months, and the community fears they’ve gone back to Somalia to fight in a holy war.

They’re known in the Somali community simply as The Missing. More than 20 young Somali men, between the ages of 17 and 22, who have left the Twin Cities in the last few months, without a single word to their families.

The families and community leaders believe the men have gone back to fight in a bloody civil war, in which Al Qaeda is a major player.

“They’re concerned emotional and in shock,” Omar Jamal, of the Somali Justice Center said. “They’re completely grief stricken.”

We’ll hit the pause button here and take a closer look at Omar Jamal. Refugee Resettlement Watch has this to say about the spokesman for the Somali community of the Twin Cities:

Omar Jamal is the ultimate spinmeister. We first heard about him in August 2007, only a month after RRW was launched. He was spinning and defending a Somali rapist in St. Paul who had been caught on camera doing the crime. I’ll let you review our Omar Jamal archive…

I called him the Somali Jesse Jackson when he got involved in the Denver Somali Cyanide death telling the media that the Canadian found dead with enough cyanide to kill hundreds was just a nut, not a terrorist. In that post we learned Jamal had been ordered deported due to immigration fraud. He reportedly lied to get into the US. Of course, the big question now is why is he still here?

We also learned in that post that Jamal is the uncle to a Canadian Somali indicted for giving material support to Al-Qaeda in 2003.

– – – – – – – – –

Then we caught site of him again in an article in which it says the Socialist Workers Party helped him fight his deportation.

[…]

Most recently he was in the middle of the mess involving a possible election fraud in a predominantly Somali community. We learned in that article that Jamal is related to the president of Somalia.

And, now here he is again telling us how distraught the families are that their young sons have gone off to Africa to fight in the Somali civil war. Or possibly they heard how much they can make from piracy, beats working in meatpacking for a living?

Back to the story of “The Missing”. Where did all the young men go? Nobody seems to know, although they didn’t go directly to Somalia:

From multiple sources in the Somali community, FOX 9 has learned eight men are believed to have left on August 1, and another ten on November 4.

Flight itineraries discovered by their families show they left Minneapolis to take the winding trip back, through Dubai, Nairobi, Malindi, Kenya, where they’re believed to have snuck in by boat to Somalia.

Then, last week, five families went to the FBI, worried their kids were part of some jihad in Somalia. For their part, the FBI would not confirm or deny whether they have an ongoing investigation.

Presumably the FBI is glad to have the “youths” out of its hair. I wouldn’t expect them to take any interest until the young men return to the USA.

Another big question: who paid for these unemployed indigent youths to fly to Africa?

Sheik Imam Abdighani Ali is on of the few religious leaders who would discuss The Missing. He believes someone is organizing the trips.

“A lot of parents coming to us asking where their kid is going,” Ali said. “We are trying to find out who financed (the trips). They are 17 years old, $1,700 dollars and most of them didn’t work.”

Some of The Missing are believed to be former gang members, escaping the street violence that’s claimed the life of seven young Somali men this year. Others are in college, and some were said to be deeply religious.

Some of them were in college. What kind of college? If they’re educated young men, what draws them into the same group as the former gang members and mujahid-wannabes?

The irony is their families risked everything to escape the violence and religious wars, yet something or someone is luring the young men back.

The article doesn’t make any mention of it, but an obvious possibility is that the young men are being lured back to Somalia by the promise of a career in piracy. If they’ve been watching the news, they know that they and a handful of like-minded fellows can divvy up a cool $15 million if they bag a Saudi supertanker. It’s just like gang violence, only with a much larger payoff. Throw in the warm climate and the fresh sea breezes, and who could resist?

Not only that, the pirate life is a form of jihad, and is fully compatible with the tenets of Islam. It’s in the Koran!

And it’s nice work if you can get it:

An estimated 25-30 million dollars has been paid in ransom to Somali pirates this year, according to a UN report released last Tuesday.

So maybe there’s an up side to all this piracy off the Horn of Africa: it’s a scum magnet, sucking away the violence-prone “youths” from the cities of America, and relocating them in a more favorable climate.

Go Pirates!

Hat tips: Anon and C. Cantoni.

Of interest tonight: the Spanish government is moving strongly to make sure that Russia doesn’t by a large chunk of the Repsol oil company. Prince Alwaleed intends to buy a 5% share of Citigroup. Kuwait lost $1.4 billion dollars in its investments in derivatives. And a professor at UC Irvine risks being put on unpaid leave for refusing to participate in mandatory sexual harassment training.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Conservative Swede, Insubria, JD, Steen, TB, TV, VH, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
– – – – – – – – –

	USA
	Hillary Plays Hardball
	Europe and the EU
	“The Turkish Question” by Paul Belien
	Belgian Travel Show Ad Features Hitler in Stripper Costume
	Dutch Islamic Schools Need to Shape Up
	Immigrants Behind Most Attacks on Amsterdam Gays
	Italy: Islam at the Centre of the Debate in World Philosophy Day 2008
	Moderates: ‘Immigrants Should Sign Swedish Contract’
	Muslim Fanatics ‘Hijack British Prison’
	Oil: Spanish Gov’t Zooming in on Repsol Against Lukoil
	Students Flock to Perugia a Year After Kercher Killing
	Sweden: Army Hushes Up Afghanistan Risks
	UK Officials to Hold Summit on Church Closure Crisis
	UK: Christmas Carols Rewritten to Attack Israel
	Who Would be Part of the BNP?
	Balkans
	Serbia: Trade With Italy Seen Reaching $3bln in 2008
	Mediterranean Union
	Crisis: Emirate Minister; EU Free-Trade Pact Must Come Soon
	Maghreb: Economic Development Up Despite Global Crisis
	North Africa
	Egypt: Suez Canal Authority Keep Eye on Piracy Drama
	Egypt: Armed on the Bus, Pins to Ward Off Molesters
	TV: Egypt, EU Launches Comedy Series Which Helps Women
	Israel and the Palestinians
	Mideast: Gaza; Hamas, We Want to Extend Truce
	Netanyahu Hires 2 of Obama’s Advisors
	Middle East
	Dubai Shrugs Off Crisis With New Luxury Hotel
	Kuwait’s Gulf Bank Lost USD 1.4 Billion on Derivatives
	US Forecasts: Iran Will Have Makings of 3 A-Bombs by End of 2009
	Russia
	Religious Row Over Muslim Lifestyle Book Ban
	Caucasus
	Grozny Bombing Kills Four
	South Asia
	British Liquid Bomb Suspect ‘Killed’ as Unmanned U.S. Drone Strikes Al Qaeda Strongpoint
	India Shocked by Discovery of 1st Hindu Terror Cell
	Orissa, Hindu Fundamentalists Offer Rewards for Killing Christians
	Far East
	Vietnam: Authorities Pressure New Christians to Recant
	Sub-Saharan Africa
	Inside the Somali Pirates’ Lair
	Latin America
	Brazilian Gay Groups Launch Multiple Lawsuits to Silence Christian Opposition
	Immigration
	Immigration: Over 400 Arrive in Three Landings on Lampedusa
	Culture Wars
	Emergent Church Leader Says ‘Gay’ Can be Biblical Lifestyle
	Ex-Episcopalians to Unveil Church Constitution
	Re-Education by the State
	The Sham of Sex Harassment Training
	General
	Crisis: Citigroup; Alwaleed Aims to Up Stake to 5 Pct
	Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan to Get Life Saving Anti-Sniper Device
	Vatican Remembers the Beatles

Hillary Plays Hardball

The first sign of friction in the Obama camp as Mrs Clinton demands — and gets — a purge of her critics before accepting Secretary of State role

Before Hillary Clinton has been formally offered the job as Secretary of State, a purge of Barack Obama’s top foreign policy team has begun.

The advisers who helped trash the former First Lady’s foreign policy credentials on the campaign trail are being brutally shunted aside, as the price of her accepting the job of being the public face of America to the world. In negotiations with Mr Obama this week before agreeing to take the job, she demanded and received assurances that she alone should appoint staff to the State Department. She also got assurances that she will have direct access to the President and will not have to go through his foreign policy advisers on the National Security Council, which is where many of her critics in the Obama team are expected to end up.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

“The Turkish Question” by Paul Belien

Turkey, however, is a special case in the United Nations. It is the only country that participates as a full member in two regional groups. As it geographically belongs to Asia, Turkey is also a member of the Group of Asian States. And as an Islamic country Turkey is also a member “and a prominent one “ of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) which includes all Islamic states from Senegal to Indonesia and which is also recognized by the UN.

[…]

Four years ago, Brussels and Ankara started negotiations intended to lead to Turkey becoming an EU member. The issue is highly controversial because the economic and institutional consequences of Turkey’s admission will be far-reaching for the EU.

To raise Turkey to a European standard of living would require enormous and sustained efforts of wealth redistribution from the European taxpayers, which would impoverish Europe without a guarantee of success in Turkey. Moreover, if Turkey joins the EU, an additional 80 million people become EU citizens. As an EU member, Turkey will be the most populous member with the highest number of representatives in the European Parliament. In the European Council it will be on a par with the present Big Ones. Its foreign interests will dominate Europe’s. Turkey is too big for Europe to swallow.

What worries ordinary Europeans most, however, is that the 80 million potential additional EU citizens are Muslims. Does it serve the interests of the West if the largest member state of the EU is an Islamic country?

Some think it does. They believe that Turkish EU membership will turn the country into a democratic state and an example for other Muslim nations, and hence prove that Islam and democracy can be reconciled. But what if they are wrong? Many ordinary Europeans would rather play safe. However, that is not the attitude of the political establishment.

[…]

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Belgian Travel Show Ad Features Hitler in Stripper Costume

A Belgian public broadcaster, which recently canceled a cooking show on Adolf Hitler’s favorite meal, is now being criticized for promoting a travel show with advertisements featuring Hitler.

The ads, which ran in a nationally circulated magazine associated with the daily De Morgen, caricature television presenter Thomas Desoete, in a stripper costume, sporting a Hitler mustache and a swastika armband.

The show airs on Canvas, a channel belonging to the Flemish broadcaster VRT. The broadcaster’s management in Brussels could not be reached for comment.

Michael Freilich, editor of the Antwerp-based Jewish weekly Joods Actueel, said the new ad shows that VRT is “looking for excuses” to portray Hitler.

“They obviously weren’t happy with our response [to the cooking show], so have added Hitler for no obvious reason other than getting attention and angering the Jewish community and the 15,000 Belgian non-Jews who were deported during WWII,” Freilich told Haaretz. “The Jewish community is furious. Some are even considering whether they want to live here.”

Meanwhile, as reported on VRT, a Belgian court last week fined two Dutchmen — a Hitler look-alike and a far-right politician — 1,100 euros each for making a Nazi salute at a white supremacy event last year.

— Hat tip: TV

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Dutch Islamic Schools Need to Shape Up

Fake names on the payroll; entire schools taking trips abroad with school funds; school boards fired for incompetence. Just a few of the problems the government has found at Islamic Schools in the Netherlands. Radio Netherlands visited an Islamic School in Amsterdam to find out why these schools are doing so poorly.

The As Soeffah school is in one of the poorer neighbourhoods of Amsterdam. Founded just a few years ago, the school already has 400 children and opened a sister school in The Hague. Director Rahmat Khan Abdur Rahman sums up the characteristics of a Muslim school: “If you would come to the school in the morning for the start of the day, you’d see the kids recite the Qur’an, sing Islamic songs, have a talk, things like this.

The kids pray at school. We celebrate Muslim holidays. Of course, Dutch holidays are also normal at the school. We give them attention, too.” […]

Accounts of fraud at other Islamic schools point to more obvious misuse like trips to Mecca and payments to board members for non existing tasks. Deputy Education Minister Sharon Dijksma is critical towards the school boards. […] The Dutch parliament asks for stern measures, while some politicians want to ban Islamic schools altogether. But to do so would mean dismantling a one-hundred-year-old system based on the idea of separate but equal schools. […]

For the foreseeable future, that old-fashioned system will remain in place. And the kids at the As Soeffah school in Amsterdam will have to make the best of it.

— Hat tip: VH

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Immigrants Behind Most Attacks on Amsterdam Gays

People from immigrant backgrounds are behind a wave of attacks on homosexuals in the Dutch capital, a new study has found. But researchers also discovered that religious views play no part in the attacks.

The research, which was carried out by the University of Amsterdam, said that there were between 250-1,000 attacks on homosexuals in the capital during 2007. They also found that two out of three perpetrators were from immigrant backgrounds.

Police say that there were 67 reports of physical violence against homosexuals in Amsterdam last year. The researchers claim, however, that the actual figure is much higher, because 75 to 95 per cent of the victims do not go to the police.

White Dutch people are responsible for 36 per cent of the violent incidents in Amsterdam. Moroccans, who form 16 per cent of the population of the capital city, are also responsible for 36 per cent. The other 28 per cent of the attacks were committed by people from other ethnic backgrounds…

— Hat tip: Steen

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Italy: Northern League Has ‘Narrow View’ of Constitution, Says Former Judge

Palermo, 21 Nov. (AKI) — The former President of Italy’s Supreme Court said Italy’s anti-immigrant Northern League party has a narrow and closed view of the constitution. Valerio Onida referred to the NL’s proposal of curbing the influx of new immigrants to Italy by calling a two-year moratorium.

“The view (of the NL) is a narrow and closed vision that betrays the true spirit of our constitution,” said Onida speaking on the sidelines of three-day United Nations sponsored conference in Sicily’s capital, Palermo to mark World Philosophy Day 2008.

“It is clear that states are still in charge of who enters their territory, but we cannot forget those foreign citizens who come to Italy to work, and are entitled to the same human rights as Italians,” said Onida in an interview with Adnkronos.

Onida (photo) was also vocal on his opposition to the recent government measure put forth by the NL that will allow schools to have separate classes for immigrant children who do not speak the Italian language or fail admission tests for Italian state schools.

“This measure risks the return to segregation, or to go back to the old conception that was in vigour in the US until the 1950’s of ‘separate but equal’,” he said.

NL claims that the separate classes for immigrant children who fail language and ‘general evaluation’ tests for admission to mainstream schooling will help them integrate and will counter racism.

It also wants mainstream classrooms to contain a ‘proportionate’ number of Italian and immigrant pupils. The measure has been criticised by immigrant leaders, Italy’s opposition and Catholic churchmen.

World Philosophy Day 2008 opened on Thursday and ends on Saturday.

Philosophy students, journalists, academics, diplomats and numerous other philosophy enthusiasts are also gathering for the conference, whose theme is “Power and Rights”.

The subject has been selected to contribute to international debates on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Ten debates on topics ranging from the state, local communities, science to public authority and cultural diversity will take place during the conference.

The event is co-organised by UNESCO, the Italian National Commission for UNESCO, and the Permanent Delegation of Italy to UNESCO with the support of the Banco di Sicilia Foundation.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Italy: Islam at the Centre of the Debate in World Philosophy Day 2008

Palermo, 21 Nov. (AKI) — Man has remained at the centre of Western humanistic thought, while Islamic humanism has continued to subjugate him to God, Muslim thinker Abdenour Bidar, said on the sidelines of three-day United Nations sponsored conference in Sicily’s capital, Palermo to mark World Philosophy Day 2008. The conference opened on Thursday and ends on Saturday.

“Islam has remained a theocentric humanism where man is considered an inferior being, while in the West, humanism is anthropocentric, which sees man as the centre of everything,” said Bidar.

“The West asks if in the future, Islam will be able to put man at the centre of the world. Therefore, is Islam capable of going from a theocentric humanism to an anthropocentric one? In the Koran there is a track that can be explored,” Bidar continued.

“We Westerners are fascinated by the thought process of (Friedrich) Nietzsche, when he says ‘God is dead and we have killed him’. It is useful to ask ourselves about Nietzsche’s remarks”, he said.

Philosophy students, journalists, academics, diplomats and numerous other philosophy enthusiasts are also gathering for the conference, whose theme is “Power and Rights”.

The subject has been selected to contribute to international debates on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Ten debates on topics ranging from the state, local communities, science to public authority and cultural diversity will take place during the conference.

The event is co-organised by UNESCO, the Italian National Commission for UNESCO, and the Permanent Delegation of Italy to UNESCO with the support of the Banco di Sicilia Foundation.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Moderates: ‘Immigrants Should Sign Swedish Contract’

Immigrants to Sweden should sign a contract to testify that they are familiar with Swedish laws, rules and values. If the contract is not met then their benefits should be reviewed, the Moderate party has proposed.

A working committee from within the Moderate has developed the proposal and the party will consider the idea at its future convention, reports Sveriges Radio’s Ekot news program.

“It is important that when people from different cultures congregate in the same country, that we are very clear over how things are done in Sweden,” said Moderate party secretary Per Schlingmann to Ekot.

“The purpose is ensure that we pass on core Swedish values about equality and so on.”

There will be no requirement to sign the contract in order to claim asylum. The exact form of the contract and who shall be obliged to sign it is as yet uncertain, but Schlingmann says that those arriving from other EU countries to work perhaps do not need to sign the papers.

The working committee has also presented proposals to address the problem of counties with a excessively large immigrant populations. New arrivals would have their benefits withheld in order to get people to move to places where work is available.

— Hat tip: TB

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Muslim Fanatics ‘Hijack British Prison’

Muslim prisoners have launched a reign of terror inside a top security British jail.

The fanatics are forcing fellow inmates to convert to Islam or face punishment beatings.

One man who stood up to the thugs was branded with a lump of hot metal, according to a prison source.

The crisis at Whitemoor jail in Cambridgeshire has led to calls by staff for the 100 Muslim inmates there to be dispersed to other prisons round the country.

Some Al Qaeda supporters have set up a kangaroo court, sitting in judgment on prisoners and ordering punishments, the source said.

The violent disciples of Osama Bin Laden have targeted even the toughest non-Muslim prisoners, including killers and rapists.

Local Tory MP Malcolm Moss said: “They are a law unto themselves. The governor should sort these problems out.”

Mr Moss, who recently visited the jail with Prisons Minister David Hanson, added: “There is a fear in the prison about what Al Qaeda stands for and what they can do. There are threats made to people to make them convert and if they lapse it is even worse.

“It is not an easy situation for the prison officers working there. Either additional resources should be made available or better training.”

Brian Caton, general secretary of the Prison Officers’ Association, said: “We have been calling for the Muslim leaders to be dispersed to other jails. The service must step in to break up this gang culture with immediate effect.”

Concern over the way Whitemoor is being run surfaced last week when it was revealed an Al Qaeda terrorist had been training to be a stand-up comic.

Zia Ul Haq, 29, jailed for 18 years for planning a bombing campaign in London, signed up to an eight-day comedy workshop at the jail.

Justice Secretary Jack Straw stepped in on Friday to cancel the workshop, saying it was “totally unacceptable”…

— Hat tip: Steen

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Oil: Spanish Vice-Premier, Respol to be Run by Spanish

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, NOVEMBER 21 — The Spanish vice-premier,Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega, expressed her hopes today that Repsol will continue to be “directed by Spanish management”, as it is in a “strategic sector”, and to “guarantee energy supplies”. The Zapatero government’s second in command indicated today in the press conference at the end of a meeting that the checks that will possibly be employed by the socialist executive in Madrid concerning the entrance of the private Russian company Lukoil into Respol in a sector which is considered to be strategic. Caixa confirmed this morning that it was available to the sale a part of its 12.5% stake in Respol through Criteria on the condition that Lukeoil reaches an agreement with Sacyr-Vallehermoso to purchase the real estate company’s 20% stake in the Spanish oil company. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Oil: Spanish Gov’t Zooming in on Repsol Against Lukoil

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, NOVEMBER 20 — The Spanish government is cornering Repsol, in which the enormous Russian oil company Lukoil is interested, and is reportedly negotiating for the acquisition of a 30% share, according to reports today in Spanish media. The government “will do everything possible to keep Repsol independent and Spanish”, since it is a “key” enterprise for the country’s energy supplies, as said today by Industry Minister Miguel Sebastian, taking part in the forum ‘Nueva Economic’ in Madrid. Lukoil is about to finalize a deal for a share in Repsol by acquiring the 20% share held by Sacyr Vallehermoso and an additional 9.9%. Criteria, the investment company of the banking institute La Caixa, with a 12.5% stake in Repsol, has recognized the existence of “informal contracts” to sell “all or part of its holding in Repsol”, without however having received a tangible offer. Apart from the 12.5% of the oil group controlled by Criteria, the company Repinvest, made up of La Caixa and Caixa Catalunya, controls an additional 6% of the oil company. If the sales transaction were to be finalized, Lukoil would become the main shareholder of Repsol at 30%, the legal limit over which it would be obliged to submit a takeover bid for the company. Last week Russian vice president Alexander Zhukov spoke in Madrid of an interest held by the state-owned Russian company Gazprom in acquiring the 20% holding of Sacyr in Repsol, which was later denied by the Russian group itself after the opposition to it shown by the Spanish government. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Students Flock to Perugia a Year After Kercher Killing

Numbers up at university where victim studied

Music spills out on to the stone-flagged streets of Perugia from neon-lit pubs and clubs where newly enrolled students at the town’s universities are downing cheap shots. One year on from the murder of Meredith Kercher, the headlines generated by the tragedy have — for some — given the hilltop town a certain cachet.

“Lots of parents got scared by the murder,” said Elisa Calo, 23, an Italian student from southern Italy who had driven up to meet friends. “But their children read the articles about Perugia being the Ibiza of Italy and were more determined than ever to enrol at the university.”

But for those who were studying alongside Kercher, and lived through the disturbing days of last November in Perugia, the reaction was enduring fear rather than titillation.

“After Meredith died many students, including foreigners, put in requests to move from their rented apartments into halls of residence,” said Prof Maurizio Olivieri, who organises student welfare programmes. “I don’t know if it is connected to the murder, but our team of psychologists has also had thousands more requests for appointments this year from students.”

“A good few students went home early for Christmas after Meredith’s death and didn’t come back,” said one local living off Corso Garibaldi, which is packed with student flats. “The rumble of suitcases on the street as they left went on for days.”

The murder also formed part of a string of crimes against women in the area. Three women have been murdered in the province of Perugia this year, said Monica Napoleoni, head of the city’s murder squad, while in a national survey last year, 6.4% of women in the region of Umbria reported being attacked or sexually assaulted in the previous 12 months, higher than the 5.4% national average.

This week, Ivory Coast-born drifter Rudy Guede was sentenced to 30 years for the sexual assault and murder of Kercher, while her housemate, American student Amanda Knox, and Knox’s Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, will stand trial in December.

As they wait in jail for their day in court, Perugia is again full of students. Enrolment this term at the city’s main university remains “more or less” the same as last year’s 34,000, said chancellor Prof Francesco Bistoni. Monthly enrolments at Perugia’s University for Foreigners, where Knox and Kercher both studied Italian, totalled 5,540 by the end of last year, up by 4% on the previous year, and could rise again if the university’s promotional work in China pays off.

New students are flocking to the Merlin, which 12 months ago hosted the Halloween party where Kercher was famously photographed in a vampire outfit, her last night on the town before she was brutally stabbed the following evening.

“The foreign student numbers this autumn have boomed,” said co-owner Pasquale Alessi, after politely telling two plastered American students to head home. “We keep an eye on drunks but many bars are again battling for business, charging €10 (£7) for all you can drink.”

Student spending power is also appreciated by Perugia’s army of drug dealers, who have turned the town into central Italy’s biggest cocaine, heroin and marijiuana outlet, even recruiting well-to-do students as pushers.

Sollecito and Knox claimed their memories of the night of the murder were blurred by the large quantity of marijuana they had smoked, while Guede is depicted by witnesses as a cocaine user, although that is denied by his lawyer.

Giacomo Silenzi, the downstairs neighbour Kercher was dating, had a collection of marijuana plants, while the car park across the street from the house Kercher and Knox shared was a favourite hang-out for dealers.

Perugia may boast stunning views across the Umbrian hills and a world-class jazz festival held in frescoed palazzi, but it also has the highest number of overdose deaths per capita in Italy, as addicts move to be where the wholesalers are. North African dealers lurk on corners in the city centre and Nigerians control the suburbs, all under the watchful eye of the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta mafia.

A spokeswoman for the University of Foreigners said students were invited to films and poetry readings to help them integrate, but added: “We don’t talk to them about drugs.”

At the Merlin, British student Emma Guttridge, who arrived six weeks ago, said she had not noticed dealers and was happy to walk home to her flat on Corso Garibaldi alone in the middle of the night.

“Meredith Kercher was killed two days after I applied to come and study here, but I stuck with it and have no regrets,” said Guttridge, 20. “I come from Nottingham, which, after all, is not exactly paradise.”

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Sweden: Army Hushes Up Afghanistan Risks

The Swedish armed forces have hushed up the circumstances surrounding the November 8th firefight in Afghanistan involving Swedish troops. The Swedes were attacked with anti-tank weapons and were nearly killed, Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) reports.

The weapons used to attack the Swedish troops were more dangerous than first reported, a deliberate attempt to play down the risks faced by the Swedes in Afghanistan, according to the newspaper.

The armed forces state on their web-page that the Swedes were shot with small-bore weapons, but sources within the Swedish Afghanistan deployment force have revealed to SvD that in fact they were shot at with an RPG 7, an anti-tank weapon that the Swedish vehicles offer no protection against. But the shots did not hit their intended target.

The weapon is designed to penetrate armoured vehicles and there are a large number of them in Afghanistan, but they have hitherto not been used against Swedish troops.

According to SvD the soldiers involved in the firefight have been made complicit in hushing up the events of November 8th. The troops have been ordered not to speak to anyone outside the armed forces about the attack.

— Hat tip: TB

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UK Officials to Hold Summit on Church Closure Crisis

‘On the brink of viability’: 1 in 5 at risk of shutting down

Ministers are to examine how extra funding can be given to churches, with one in five of them under threat of being closed.

Andy Burnham, the culture secretary, said there would be a new drive to make them central to community regeneration, backed up with financial support.

His comments follow The Sunday Telegraph’s Save our Churches campaign, which has called on the Government to increase grants to churches and allow them greater freedom to make the buildings suitable for community use. The campaign has been backed by politicians, celebrities and leading church figures, including Joanna Lumley, Jools Holland, David Cameron and Archbishop Rowan Williams.

— Hat tip: JD

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UK: ‘Secret Open Jails’ Boss Gets a £400,000 Pay Rise Funded by the Taxpayer

The boss of a private hostel company being paid millions by the Government to house suspected and convicted criminals in residential areas has been awarded a £400,000 pay rise.

Graham King, chairman of Essex-based ClearSprings, has seen his salary increase from £243,000 to £637,000 in the past year, while the annual profits of the firm have risen from £1.2million to £2.2million.

ClearSprings, which also provides housing for asylum seekers, was the main beneficiary of a controversial £18million-a-year Ministry of Justice scheme to offer new bail accommodation and support services to offenders.

The scheme, introduced in May in an attempt to reduce the high prison population, plans to provide housing for between 7,000 and 10,000 prisoners and suspects a year.

Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Herbert said: “It’s wrong that the taxpayer is funding companies to set up what amount to secret open jails in communities..”

— Hat tip: JD

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UK: Christmas Carols Rewritten to Attack Israel

Famed church holds concert: ‘War crimes,’ ‘assassinations,’ ‘oppression’ of Palestinians

Organisers of a Christmas carol concert being held in a famous church have been condemned for rewriting traditional verses to attack Israel.

Far from bringing tidings of comfort and joy, the participants will instead sing about “war crimes”, “assassinations” and the “oppression” of Palestinians.

The concert, which has been organised by anti-Israeli campaigners, is due to take place on Wednesday at St James’s, Piccadilly, a Christopher Wren-designed church in Central London.

Its critics include the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, who said that the rewriting of much-loved traditional carols for such partisan political purposes was deeply offensive.

— Hat tip: JD

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Who Would be Part of the BNP?

The British National Party’s leaked membership list was supposedly full of middle-class professionals. So where were they during its annual festival, asks Anna van Praagh.

[…]

Last week, Griffin seized upon the publication of a list purporting to comprise the entire membership of the British National Party as proof that it had left behind its street-fighting days, and that it is now attracting a broad range of professionals: doctors, teachers, IT workers, clergy, more than a dozen soldiers, and a former Conservative constituency chairman.

He said: “Instead of the public being terrified, they can see we are not a bunch of knuckle-dragging morons but a party of people just like them. Long term, it’s going to do us a great deal of good in the public’s eyes.”

However, The Sunday Telegraph has discovered that at least 30 people named on the list have criminal convictions. And there are thought to be many more.

The party still has dozens of members on its books who have been convicted of violent offences and others who have been involved with neo-fascist groups such as Combat 18 and the Ku Klux Klan.

[…]

Still, mainstream politicians have been shaken by the list’s publication. Yesterday, the Communities and Local Government Secretary, Hazel Blears, voiced concern at the inroads made by the BNP.

She said that, with Griffin at the helm, the party had “started a process of detoxification”, which had enabled it to expand beyond its traditional base of disaffected working-class voters. Having “claimed to be respectable, mainstream and democratic”, it had begun to attract “all kinds of people”.

Party membership remains tiny — the list contained fewer than 13,000 names. But it highlighted an uncomfortable truth: that the party’s “cunning strategy” (as Blears described it) to appeal to those who feel ostracised by mainstream politics is gaining traction.

Griffin, an erudite Cambridge law graduate, has indeed turned the party from an irrelevant and roundly derided motley crew into something that — until the amateurish leaking of the membership list last week — had been looking worryingly credible.

— Hat tip: JD

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Serbia: Trade With Italy Seen Reaching $3bln in 2008

Belgrade, 18 Nov. (AKI) — Italy is Serbia’s second biggest trading partner and total trade turnover is expected to reach three billion dollars by the end of this year, Mihailo Vesovic, vice-president of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce said on Tuesday.

Hosting a visiting delegation of 24 Italian businessmen from the southern region of Basilicata, Vesovic said there was ample scope to expand cooperation in agriculture and the food, metals, textiles, shoes and timber industries.

Vesovic said Italy was second only to Germany in trade with Serbia and total bilateral trade in the first nine months of this year amounted to 2.6 billion dollars.

He pointed out that the trade with Italy has increased seven times in the past seven years and is expected to top three billion dollars this year.

Director of the Italian Institute for Foreign Trade, Fabio Corsi, predicted a growth in investments, saying Serbia had a cheap work force, skilful workers and favourable environment for cooperation.

The Serbian government and Italian car giant Fiat in October signed a 700 million euro deal to coproduce vehicles with Serbian car-maker Zastava.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Crisis: Emirate Minister; EU Free-Trade Pact Must Come Soon

(ANSAmed) — DUBAI, NOVEMBER 20 — The current global economic crisis makes the finalising of the free trade treaty between the Gulf Cooperation Council (CCG) and the European Union, more urgent than ever. This is the opinion of Foreign Trade Minister, Lubna al Qasimi, quoted in the local press. Negotiations between the two blocks, which have been under way for 18 years, accelerated after 2000, giving grounds for hope of a signing at the end of 2007. The pact was, however, never signed, getting tangled over two main points: a greater opening to the GCC countries — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman — in the energy and financial services sectors, as called for by the EU, and greater flexibility over raw material norms, as requested by the oil monarchies. Talks over the past months have concentrated on the abolition of European import tariffs for aluminium and petro-chemical products coming from the region in exchange for the possibility of being able to take greater-than-50 pct stakes in Gulf-state companies. Despite the progress made, a completion of the pact’s final draft by the end of the year, as had been hoped for in May by the then EU Trade Commissioner, Peter Mandelson, now appears impossible. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Maghreb: Economic Development Up Despite Global Crisis

(by Paola Del Vecchio) (ANSAmed) — MADRID, NOVEMBER 13 — At a time of great dynamism in relations with the European Union, North Africa has not only seen commercial activity multiply, but it has established itself as a privileged area of international investment in production. This is why, despite the international economic crisis, it has shown a growth in finance, through returning immigrants and new financial instruments, but above all thanks to private initiatives which, with Government support, is contributing to the socio-economic development of the Maghreb countries. New players, interested in the great economic potential, such as business or funds from the Gulf countries, are showing a growing interest, investing above all in the telecommunications sector, logistics and tourist housing. This is the backdrop for representatives from fifty companies in the area, taking part in Barcelona in the fifth edition of the North Africa Business Development Forum, called by the Chamber of Industry, Commerce and Navigation of the Catalan capital, and by the European Institute of the Mediterranean (IEMed). A meeting which Miquel Valls, President of the Chamber of Barcelona, said “establishes even more firmly the contribution to the increase in North-South economic relations, but also to the development of horizons for South-South integration”. Senen Florensa, Director of IEMed traced the history of relations between the Euro-Mediterranean countries, starting from the Process of Barcelona which founded the Euromediterranean partnership in 1995, up to the newly-created Union of the Mediterranean, which aims to carry out major regional projects in key sectors for sustained development in the Maghreb countries. Starting with the main projects for port, air and land infrastructure, like the great logistics ‘hub’ of the Tangermed port, to the Sea Motorways, to important ports of the north and south Mediterranean, which are multiplying new short sea shipping routes. The environment and renewable energy, with the enormous potential of solar energy, and the increasingly important role of the private sector in managing utilities privatised by the governments involved, for the personalities from the world of economics at the Barcelona forum, these are other great opportunities for development in the region. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Egypt: Suez Canal Revenues Hit Record of $470 Mln in October

(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, NOVEMBER 6 — The Suez Canal revenues hit a fresh monthly record of $470 million despite the global financial crisis. A Suez Canal Authority official said that some 1934 ships with cargos weighing 81.8 million tons have transited Egypt’s international waterway, upping to $ 4.571 billion the canal’s revenues during the past 10 months. Meanwhile an authority official expected a booming oil freight in the canal after a period of ebb during the financial tsunami that swept capital markets.(ANSAmed)

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Egypt: Suez Canal Authority Keep Eye on Piracy Drama

(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, NOVEMBER 21 — The Suez Canal Authority is following up round the clock the developments of the international navigation and trade movement after piracy developments in the Gulf of Aden, a spokesman for the authority said on today. An ad-hoc committee is watching the developments, the spokesman said. Piracy off Somalia is threatening Suez Canal, Egypt’s third largest source of foreign revenue, as ships are being instructed to avoid the international water way route. Today, 54 ships transited the canal, among them was Queen Elizabeth en route to Dubai, he said. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Egypt: Armed on the Bus, Pins to Ward Off Molesters

(ANSAmed) — ROME, NOVEMBER 21 — A pin to ward off “the groping” of molesters who on public transportation in Cairo are bothering young Egyptian women. Veils, separate cars on the underground, and reserved or occupied spaces for females on buses are not able to reduce the number of sexual molestations against them. For this reason, many girls by now are getting on the bus, ‘armed’ with large pins. Many studies, wrote Egyptian weekly, Al Ahram Hebdo, have highlighted that in Egypt, more than 50% of cases of sexual attacks take place on public transport. “In comparison to other European studies — explained Racha Mohamad, researcher in the Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights — it has emerged that in Europe, these abuses usually occur at work or in closed places”. Groping on packed minibuses, whistles, penetrating stares, winking, and busy hands are very common in Egypt. Chaotic traffic in a capital that has about 20 million inhabitants creates interminable trips and forces victims to get on despite crowds, which creates a multitude of chances for molesters. Often, all of this occurs with the total indifference of the rest of the passengers. And the driver of a minibus can sneakily transform, into an aggressor. Pulling the gear shift can in fact be a chance to stretch out onés hand and touch a passenger’s leg. After 9pm, many men get onto the underground in search of women travelling alone to molest them undisturbed. In this desolate panorama, few victims have dare to denounce their molesters due to fear of the repercussions and pressure from families who fear scandals. The first (in total there are only two), reminded the periodical, to file a lawsuit for sexual molestation to have obtained a three year prison sentence for their molester, was Noha. Exaggerations by the media, said the Egyptian first lady a few days ago, “give the impression that the streets in Egypt are unsafe, and this is not true”. “Egyptian men still respect Egyptian women”. Many observers believe that the country’s mentality represents a real obstacle to the problem’s solution: “for many — they reported — a woman who decides to get on crowded public transportation, maybe with tight clothes, already knows what she is getting into”. But in expectation of a law that better protects young women, Chaimaa, 20 years old and veiled, brings a pin, the only weapon she has left to defend herself. And if a man protests? “My response — she said — is still the same: oh, excuse me, the pin that holds my veil in place must have come off”. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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TV: Egypt, EU Launches Comedy Series Which Helps Women

(by Chiara De Felice) (ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, JUNE 25 — If in the West TV series launch new fashion trends, in the Arab countries they will dictate values: in order to get Egyptian women to reflect on discrimination, rights, domestic violence and equal opportunities, the European Union has chosen a TV film, “Coiffeur Ashwaq”, which for 20 minutes a day faces the large women’s audience with problems that are underestimated or ignored too often. The sit-com is set in the waiting room of a beauty parlour, where tens of women with different personal stories pass every day. The main character is the parlour’s owner — played by renowned Egyptian actress Mimi Gamal — who every day has to deal with women from different social classes, the cue for many amusing situations. But behind the amusement, which the scriptwriters admitted is the attraction factor, hotter issues are hiding, concerning women and their role in the Arab society: domestic violence, forced marriages, sexism, abuses, divorces. Political and religious matters are, instead, absent to avoid that some lady, feeling that her faith is offended, might switch off the TV. At the same time as the broadcast of Coiffeur Ashwaq, the producers have also opened an online discussion forum, very popular with the fans of the TV series who exchange comments on the episodes as well as experiences and advices. This is exactly what the European Commission was looking for when it decided to draw on its budget to produce the 15 episodes of the first season: to reach the women’s audience and create an interaction which ensures a wide spreading of the message. The idea to use the TV as vehicle for social information came to an Egyptian non-governmental organisation, Madev, which for years has been producing adverts for awareness campaigns about women’s and children’s rights. This time the purpose is to involve the widest possible audience, therefore an amusing product for family viewing was chosen. The scriptwriters’ team of Coiffeur Ashwaq includes almost only men, something which caused some discontent, but was soon explained by one of the authors, Mohamed Ismail: “It is true, we are men, but we live in Egypt and we see every day Arab women fight to affirm and defend their rights”. TV series are a recent phenomenon for Cairo and the Arab countries, which up to a few years ago had never produced any, but, since they discovered them, have been producing them in great quantity. The pacesetter was Tamer and Shawqiya, which has been broadcast during Ramadan in the past two years with a success never seen before. This series was soon followed by Ragel wa sit Settat, shown on all the Arab satellite TV channels, and Abbas wi Inas will be next, about the problems of the couple during the first year of marriage. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Mideast: Gaza; Hamas, We Want to Extend Truce

(ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM, NOVEMBER 21 — The Premier of the unrecognised de-facto Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniyeh, has today stated that all armed Palestinian groups present in the area are interested in prolonging the ceasefire with Israel. “I have met the armed factions over the past days — Haniyeh declared — and they told me their position clearly: they are committed to calm until it is respected by Israel”. Haniyeh’s statements come on top of signals both from Hamas and from Israel of a desire to continue the truce in place since June, although repeatedly broken since early November following the firing of rockets on Israel — one fell close to Ashkelon today as well, without causing casualties or damage — and raids by Israeli troops into the Gaza Strip. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Netanyahu Hires 2 of Obama’s Advisors

After designing website similar to that of US president-elect, Likud chairman recruits Obama’s consultants to help him in his election campaign.

— Hat tip: JD

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Dubai Shrugs Off Crisis With New Luxury Hotel

(ANSAmed) — DUBAI, NOVEMBER 21 — Shrugging off the global financial crisis, Dubai overnight toasted a new luxury hotel with a 20 million dollar bash attended by film stars and sporting greats and marked by a spectacular fireworks display, Khaleej Times online reports. More than 2,000 world celebrities were invited to the event, which began Thursday night and continued into Friday. Among those who showed up for what the local press described as the “party of the decade” were Hollywood stars Robert de Niro, Charlize Theron, Mischa Barton and Wesley Snipes. Located at the trunk-top of the Palm Jumeirah, one of three palm-shaped islands, Atlantis occupies the entire central part of a huge breakwater. The 1,539-room hotel is made up of two pale rose towers, which are linked by a bridge which houses a 35,000-dollar-a-night suite that has a long waiting list, according to the management. “Where we are now there was water five years ago,” said Sultan Ahmad Bin Sulayem, the chairman of local developer Nakheel, at the inauguration. The bash cost a hefty 20 million dollars, said Sol Kerzner, the South African billionaire, hotel and gambling tycoon, who organised the party. The hotel opened unofficially on September 24 and has had an occupancy rate of 80 percent, Kerzner said. The Dubai hotel is inspired by the original Atlantis that Kerzner built in the Bahamas but is not an average 5-star hotel. It boasts the largest waterpark in the Middle East and a gigantic aquarium in which 65,000 fish, along with an enormous whale shark, swim in 11 million litres of water. But the lavish party took place as Dubai, which has become a regional business and tourism hub, begins to feel the heat of the global financial meltdown. The wealthy government of the United Arab Emirates has earmarked a 32.6 billion dollar credit facility to shore up confidence in its banking sector but has failed to encourage banks to continue financing the real estate sector, a major engine of Dubai’s rapid economic growth over the past few years. The government-controlled Nakheel had announced few days ago that it was scaling down its activities, although the two other iconic palm-shaped islands are far from being complete. In a sign of serious concern, Dubai set up Wednesday a high-profile committee to assess the impact of the crisis on the emirate’s economy. Those financial concerns were however put aside yesterday night for the memorable party in this Muslim, yet very open, emirate, where local dignitaries in traditional white tunics, and women in black cover-all abayas mingled with women in fashionable revealing dresses, while alcohol flowed like water. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Kuwait’s Gulf Bank Lost USD 1.4 Billion on Derivatives

(ANSAmed) — ROME, NOVEMBER 17 — Kuwait’s Gulf Bank revealed on Monday that it lost a total of 375 million dinars (1.4 billion dollars) on derivatives deals, as Middle East Online reports. The bank, the country’s second biggest lender, also said it has decided to double its capital to raise an amount equal to the losses in order to restore shareholders’ equity to its level before the crisis. The board of directors will step down and their resignation will be effective after the capital increase is completed, the board said in a statement. The central bank of Kuwait said last month the Gulf Bank incurred losses from derivatives deals which the bank carried out on behalf of clients who defaulted. Bassam al-Ghanem resigned as chairman and his brother Qutaiba al-Ghanem replaced him. Gulf Bank shares remain suspended on the Kuwait Stock Exchange for the fourth week. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Tax: CCG, Crisis is Right Climate for Introduction of VAT

(ANSAmed) — DUBAI, OCTOBER 27 — International financial instability and the fall in the price of oil make this a good time to introduce VAT in the Countries for Cooperation in the Gulf (CCG), was the conclusion of the conference organised by the six oil block countries to finalise tax measures to be taken in 2009, but which will probably be postponed until 2011. Despite the strongly positive national accounts the countries in the oil block — Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain — “must think about VAT as insurance against a possibly negative future” remarked Vito Tanzi, an former economist with the IMF. Not all the CCG countries can trust in the long term in incomes from crude and from 2010 when free exchange treaties come into effect the volume of tax income will dwindle. The rate of tax, not yet fixed but understood to be between 3 and 5 pct will nevertheless be one of the lowest in the world. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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US Forecasts: Iran Will Have Makings of 3 A-Bombs by End of 2009

The most up-to-date intelligence predictions of US nuclear experts is that by the end of 2009, Iran will have stocked enough weapons-grade fuel to build three nuclear bombs.

The first will be ready for assembly by the time Barack Obama is sworn in as US president on January 20, 2009; the second shortly after Israel’s February 10, 2009 general election produces a new prime minister, and the third by the end of the year.

Iran may deny the latest IAEA conclusion that it has stockpiled 630 kg of low-enriched uranium, enough to upgrade a nuclear weapon. But Tehran’s limited on-and-off cooperation with the nuclear watchdog leaves it wide open to the suspicion of a secret location churning out enriched uranium far from the declared Natanz facility.

So what happened to the pledges made by the world powers over the years to keep nuclear weapons out of the Islamic Republic’s hands, including declarations by US and Israeli leaders that their military options remained “on the table?”

Those pledges came from Israeli leaders on both sides of the aisle — prime minister Ehud Olmert, foreign minister Tzipi Livni (who has replaced him as Kadima chairman), defense minister Ehud Barak and opposition Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu. […]

— Hat tip: VH

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Religious Row Over Muslim Lifestyle Book Ban

A new law on extremism in Russia has come under fire after the banning of a book about the Islamic way of life. ‘The Personality of a Muslim’ was banned by a court in the Orenburg region after it was decided the book risked inciting religious hatred. A translation of the book, by Arabic author Muhammad Ali Al-Hashimi, could see its publisher, Aslambek Ezhayev, behind bars.

But a number of scholars say the book teaches good behaviour and are critical of the court’s decision. Russian State Duma Deputy Semen Bagdasarov, who has long studied Islamic extremism, doesn’t see any grounds for the ban.

“I believe it’s a good book,” he said. “It teaches Muslims tolerance towards other religions, in particular towards Jews and Christians. It’s more propaganda against extremism.”

Ezhayev, the Director of the Ummah publishing house who now faces three years in jail, said: “Provincial courts are using their regional experts in such cases. They cannot be called proper experts. Most of them are philologists or linguists.”

He added that prosecutors have no proper grounds for a trial. He said: “I do not understand the logic of it. The book was published in January. The banned list was published almost a year later and I immediately removed it from sale. I simply asked them to prove my guilt first.”

According to Russian law, the book cannot be quoted, although it is easy to find it on the internet.

The ban triggered protests from the head of the Russian Council of Mufti. Nevertheless, some people in the Muslim community agree with the decision…

— Hat tip: Conservative Swede

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Grozny Bombing Kills Four

A bomb attack in the Chechen capital Grozny has killed three police officers and a passerby. The Justice authorities say the officers were investigating a report of a shooting when the blast occurred.

The republic was the scene of two bloody civil wars between Chechen rebels and Russian forces, but has been relatively calm in recent years. In contrast, the violence in neighbouring Ingushetia and North Ossetia has increased recently.

— Hat tip: VH

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British Liquid Bomb Suspect ‘Killed’ as Unmanned U.S. Drone Strikes Al Qaeda Strongpoint

A British terror suspect linked to the alleged plot to use liquid bombs to blow up transatlantic airliners has been reported killed in an air raid on an Al Qaeda stronghold in Pakistan.

Rashid Rauf was said to have died during a US strike in Pakistan’s lawless Afghan border region — a haven for militants and the Taliban. Unconfirmed reports said he was killed with several others when rockets believed to have been fired from an American pilotless drone hit the house where he was staying.

Rauf, on the run after escaping from a Pakistani jail last year, is alleged to have helped a group planning to blow up transatlantic planes from Britain. Pakistani intelligence sources said they had intercepted communications between militants after the strike, indicating that Rauf was among the victims, but cautioned that no direct evidence of his death had yet been found. […]

Yesterday a bearded man in his 20s who opened the door at Rauf’s family home in Birmingham said he did not want to comment on his reported death. The man, who would not identify himself, said: ‘I’m very angry right now, so you should leave for your own safety.’

Rauf was arrested in Pakistan in August 2006 on terrorism charges unrelated to the British plot but his capture led to a string of arrests in Britain. Last September, three of those held were convicted of conspiracy to murder. The case also led to tighter airport security and a ban on liquids being taken on to planes in hand luggage. […]

— Hat tip: VH

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India Shocked by Discovery of 1st Hindu Terror Cell

10, including monk, army officer, held over bombings initially blamed on Islamists

India is in something of a state of shock after learning from official sources that its first Hindu terror cell may have carried out a series of deadly bombings that were initially blamed on militant Muslims. The revelation is forcing the country to consider some difficult questions.

At least 10 people have been arrested in connection with several bomb blasts in the Muslim-dominated town of Malegaon in the western state of Maharashtra in September, which left six people dead. But reports suggest that police believe the cell may also have carried out a number of previous attacks, including last year’s notorious bombing of a cross-border train en route to Pakistan, which killed 68 people. Among the alleged members of the cell are a serving army officer and a Hindu monk.

— Hat tip: JD

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Orissa, Hindu Fundamentalists Offer Rewards for Killing Christians

Rewards are given in money, clothing, liquor, and other goods, to those who kill a Christian or destroy Christian property. The interior minister calls for the creation of a special police division to protect the victims of violence. Women are also being recruited for the pogrom launched by the fundamentalists, being trained in secret locations to use swords and clubs.

Bhubaneshwar (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Hindu fundamentalists are offering compensation in money, clothing, or basic necessities for those who succeed in killing Christian leaders, destroying their property, or burning down churches. The escalation of the situation has prompted the Indian government to create a special branch in the security forces, to stop the wave of violence that has overwhelmed the country. This morning, interior minister Shivraj Patil, during a summit with police leaders, recalled the violence against Christians in Orissa, Karnataka, and Kerala, adding that only a special security division can guarantee adequate protection for the victims and the displaced.

A source at the All India Christian Council (AICC) says that the rewards vary according to the importance of the target: the “going rate” for the death of a priest or a pastor is 250 U.S. dollars, but food, gasoline, or imported liquors are also offered. In order to complete the project of wiping out Christians in Orissa, the fundamentalists are also enlisting women, who receive specific training in centers set up by the Bajrang Dal, the youth wing of the nationalist Hindu party Vishwa Hindu Parishad.

“Different objectives have different prices,” reports the British NGO Release International, relating the words of the AICC spokesman, and these can range “from murder to the destruction of churches or of Christian property.” “The killing of a pastor or priest,” confirms Faiz Rahman, president of Good News India, “is worth 250 U.S. dollars.” Rahman says that he has helped 25 priests to leave the refugee camps, but there are still “about 250 religious leaders still in the centers set up by the government.” He maintains that “they are top-tier targets” for the Hindu fundamentalists, so they must be helped to leave the refugee camps for more secure locations.

Sources in the AICC affirm that in addition to the rewards, the Bajrang Jal has begun training programs specifically for female soldiers to be used to exterminate Christians in rural areas. “They meet in secret,” says the spokesman of the Christian movement, “and they are trained to use swords and clubs to fight and kill.”

In addition to persecution, the displaced Christians in the refugee centers must now also confront the arrival of winter: “Thousands of Christians now face the hardship of winter in camps for the displaced,” says Andy Dipper, head of Release International. “Relief aid is needed now, and India must take urgent action to contain the violence, which has spread to other states. The authorities must safeguard the lives and homes of Christians under threat from ultra-nationalist Hindus.”

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Sister Who Was Raped Gives Deposition to Police, But Will Not Return to Orissa

Sister Meena and Fr. Thomas Chellan have recounted the violence they suffered on the night they were assaulted by Hindu fundamentalists. This sister remains in Delhi, and will not participate in the “American-style” lineup scheduled today in Baliguda. Ministers of the central government are meeting with Christian families from Orissa living in refugee camps.

Delhi (AsiaNews/Agencies) — About three months after their assault, Sister Meena Barwa and Fr. Thomas Chellan have told investigators about the violence they suffered on the night of last August 25, during the first days of attacks against Christians.

Their statements were recorded by the anti-crime section of the Orissa police, who came to Delhi to meet with the sister and priest. Inspector general Arun Ray confirms that the sister and priest — she was the victim of sexual violence, and both suffered brutal beatings — gave a deposition between 5:00 and 7:30 p.m. on November 18, in the presence of a team of investigators who had come from Orissa for that purpose.

The sister, still dealing with the violence she suffered, has repeatedly said that she does not want to go back to Baliguda, in the district of Kandhamal, where today, November 19, an “American-style” lineup is scheduled to proceed with the identification of those responsible for her rape. The sister has always maintained her firm refusal, saying she does not trust the police of Orissa, some of whom she accuses of covering for those who perpetrated the violence.

Raphel Cheenath, archbishop of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar, says that during the meeting between the religious and the policemen from Orissa in Delhi, they “supplied their version of the events.” The bishop also explains that the sister cannot participate in the “American-style” lineup scheduled for today because the trip is too long and she still seems to be suffering from shock.

On November 18, a delegation of ministers from the central government went to Orissa to visit the places that were the theater of the massacres against Christians: it was composed of agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, social justice minister Meira Kumar, and the minister for tribal affairs, P.R. Kyndiah. The ministers met with families living in refugee camps in Raikia: these expressed their desire to go home, while denouncing the persistent climate of violence and persecution that makes this impossible.

The government delegation finally visited the Jalespata ashram in Tumudibandha, where the assassination of Hindu fundamentalist leader Lakshmanananda Saraswati and four followers took place, used as the pretext for the pogrom against the Christians.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Vietnam: Authorities Pressure New Christians to Recant

Converts from ancestral animism threatened with violence, imprisonment.

HO CHI MINH CITY, November 21 (Compass Direct News) — In violation of Vietnam’s new religion policy, authorities in Lao Cai Province in Vietnam’s far north are pressuring new Christians among the Hmong minority to recant their faith and to re-establish ancestral altars, according to area church leaders.

Local authorities have warned that on Sunday (Nov. 23) they will come in force to Ban Gia Commune and Lu Siu Tung village, Bac Ha district, where the Christians reside, but they did not say what they would do.

When the authorities in Bac Ha district in Vietnam’s Northwest Mountainous Region discovered that villagers had converted to Christianity and discarded their altars, they sent “work teams’ to the area to apply pressure. Earlier this month they sent seven high officials — including Ban Gia Deputy Commune Chief Thao Seo Pao, district Police Chief A. Cuong and district Security Chief A. Son — to try to convince the converts that the government considered becoming a Christian a very serious offense.

Christian leaders in the area said threats included being cut off from any government services. When this failed to deter the new Christians, they said, the officials threatened to drive the Christians from their homes and fields, harm them physically and put them in prison.

When the Christians refused to buckle under the threats, a leader of the Christians, Chau Seo Giao, was summoned daily to the commune headquarters for interrogation. He refused to agree to lead his people back to their animistic beliefs and practices.

— Hat tip: JD

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Inside the Somali Pirates’ Lair

As brigands hold the Sirius Star supertanker to ransom, we go inside the Somali pirates’ lair

After a gruelling ten-hour drive along a potholed desert track, we finally make out the hazy silhouettes of massive ships anchored off the dusty port village of Hobyo, 250 miles north of Mogadishu. All around is an unrelenting no-man’s land of sand and rocks, populated only by camels and small groups of armed men.

The Greek, Japanese and Ukrainian ships we can see are being held for ransom by the Somali pirates we have trekked overland to meet on a deserted beach a few miles along the coast.

Shortly after we arrive, a pick-up truck bristling with armed men pulls up alongside us. Everyone on the truck carries a machine gun. All are festooned with ammunition.

— Hat tip: JD

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Brazilian Gay Groups Launch Multiple Lawsuits to Silence Christian Opposition

Flurry of Lawsuits is Attempt to Prevent Criticism of Homosexual Movement

BRAZIL, August 29, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com)—In recent weeks, homosexual groups in Brazil have attempted to silence their opponents with a flurry of lawsuits that take advantage of Brazil’s pro-gay political climate.

On August 5th, the Brazilian Association of Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Transgender People (ABGLT) filed a criminal complaint against several websites for exposing the fact that the leader of Brazil’s homosexual movement, Luiz Mott, is a promoter of pedophilia and pederasty (see LifeSiteNews’ recent coverage at http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/jul/07073011.html).

The sites, Media Without a Mask, the Christian Apologetics Research Center, and Jesussite, are accused of “charlatanism, infamy, defamation, and calumny”, for having quoted Mott’s numerous statements endorsing sex with children and adolescents. The Association is asking for criminal prosecution as well as monetary damages.

In the last week, the Association has also filed a motion against Rozangela Alves Justino, a Brazilian psychologist who offers therapy to homosexuals who wish to change their orientation. Brazil’s Federal Council of Psychologists has ruled that psychologists are prohibited from doing reparative therapy for homosexuality, and ABGLT is asking that Alves Justino’s license be revoked.

[…]

Carvalho told LifeSiteNews that he sees the homosexual movement’s quest for power as a subset of the larger socialist movement in Brazil, which is seeking more and more power: “I believe they really want lots of power because the homosexual movement is not independent. It is part of the leftist machine. And the left now in Brazil has almost total power. They control everything.. They are more powerful than the Brazilian state itself, and this is not enough for them. They want more and more and more and more, and the homosexual movement is a tool of this strategy.”

Although a law has been proposed to prohibit criticism of homosexuality, it has not yet passed. Nonetheless, many Brazilian judges simply act as if such a prohibition already exists. “They are proceeding as if the law existed…They want to force the parliament to approve the law , so they act as if the law were approved already. Many Brazilians believe that this law actually exists. It’s a kind of psychological fraud,” said Carvalho.

— Hat tip: JD

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Immigration: Over 400 Arrive in Three Landings on Lampedusa

(ANSAmed) — LAMPEDUSA (AGRIGENTO), NOVEMBER 21 — A new wave of landings on the island of Lampedusa where in the span of a few hours ‘‘three arrivals’’ were recorded with a total of 400 migrants. Over the night, men from the Harbour Office of the port stopped 9 non EU citizens on the wharf who had just landed directly on land with a dinghy. Around 1:30, 10 miles south of the island, a boat with 340 immigrants on board was intercepted by the Customs Police patrol boat. They have all already been transferred to an immigration centre on the island where identification procedures are still underway. Finally, a third boat with about 60 people on board launched an SoS with a satellite phone. In the zone, about 26 miles south of the island, a Customs Police boat is on the way. (ANSAmed)

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Emergent Church Leader Says ‘Gay’ Can be Biblical Lifestyle

The “Emergent Church,” as these mostly young, community- and mission-driven congregations are collectively known, is criticized by some for being “theologically liberal,” praised by others as the best hope for passing the torch of Christianity to future generations.

[…]

Jones acknowledges that detractors against the somewhat nebulous and hard-to-define Emergent churches will pick up on his statement and repeat a common refrain of criticism.

“‘Aha!’ my critics will laugh derisively, ‘I knew he and his ilk were on a continuous leftward slide!’“ Jones admits.

Some of the comments show he was correct in his prediction.

“So, your statement is that you believe this. … Why do you believe it? Because it seems right to you?” asks a respondent identified as Michael C.

“I suppose if you re-define Biblical Christianity to mean: whatever I believe is biblical Christianity, and there is no outside authority to judge it — then yes it can be in accord. If however you mean biblical Christianity as judged by the Bible, then no it cannot be in accord,” Michael C. writes. “I’m sorry to say but these arguments that I’ve heard from the Emergent movement seem to rely a whole lot more pleading and a lot less on Biblical exegesis (our rule and faith — especially when you say ‘biblical’ Christianity).”

— Hat tip: JD

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Ex-Episcopalians to Unveil Church Constitution

Breakaway Episcopalians are preparing to form a new Anglican Church in North America.

A church constitution, to be unveiled December 3 at Wheaton College near Chicago, would unite some 100,000 disaffected former Episcopalians who now adhere to various conservative Anglican archbishops abroad. Rev. Daryl Fenton says breakaway Episcopalians will soon unveil a new church constitution.

“What’s being planned is the organizing of a new Anglican Church in the U.S. that will be related to the rest of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and that will distinguish itself from the Episcopal Church in the U.S. by virtue of its holding to historic doctrines of the faith,” he explains.

— Hat tip: JD

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Re-Education by the State

This poster from the French government is aimed at reassuring young people who are “discovering” themselves that there is no difference between homosexuality and heterosexuality. It reads:

The only difference between homosexuality and heterosexuality is homophobia.

When you are an adolescent and wondering about your emotional and sexual orientation, you may unfortunately also discover homophobia and its violence. This period in your life is often difficult to endure and can lead to serious problems, sometimes even suicide.

A national re-education campaign signed by: The Ministry of Health, Youth, Sports and Related Associations; and the National Institute of Health.

— Hat tip: JD

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The Sham of Sex Harassment Training

It’s little more than politically correct indoctrination.

Four years ago, the governor signed Assembly Bill 1825 into law, requiring all California employers with more than 50 people to provide sexual harassment training for each of their employees. The University of California raised no objection and submitted to its authority.

But I didn’t. I am a professor of molecular biology and biochemistry at UC Irvine, and I have consistently refused, on principle, to participate in the sexual harassment training that the state and my employers seem to think is so important.

For a while, it didn’t seem to matter much that I had refused. I (and fellow scofflaws) were periodically notified that we were not in compliance, and we were advised to get with the program like everybody else. Then the university began warning me that my supervisory responsibilities would be taken away if I did not promptly comply.

Last month, the university finally followed through, sending me a letter announcing that my laboratory and the students I oversaw were to be immediately turned over to other university officials and faculty. I continued to refuse to take sexual harassment training, and do so now.

I am not normally confrontational, so I sought to find a means to resolve the conflict. I proposed the following: I would take the training if the university would provide me with a brief, written statement absolving me of any suspicion, guilt or complicity regarding sexual harassment. I wanted any possible stigma removed. “Fulfilling this requirement,” said the statement I asked them to approve, “in no way implies, suggests or indicates that the university currently has any reason to believe that Professor McPherson has ever sexually harassed any student or any person under his supervision during his 30-year career with the University of California.”

The university, however, declined to provide me with any such statement, which poses the question: Why not? It is a completely innocuous, unobjectionable statement that they should have been willing to write for any faculty member whose record is as free of stain as is my own. The immediate reply of the administration was that if I didn’t comply with the law, I would be placed on unpaid leave.

[…]

— Hat tip: JD

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Crisis: Citigroup; Alwaleed Aims to Up Stake to 5 Pct

(ANSAmed) — ROME, NOVEMBER 20 — Saudi billionaire, Prince Alwaleed, has announced the intention to strengthen his stake in Citigroup, bringing it up to 5 pct. The news comes from the Bloomberg agency, which states that Alwaleed himself announced in a memo today that he had “started buying Citigroup shares” as they are “strongly undervalued”. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan to Get Life Saving Anti-Sniper Device

British and American forces fighting the guerilla insurgence in Iraq and Afghanistan could soon be protected by an anti-sniper device that can pinpoint the position of the shooter within a fraction of a second.

The palm-sized device designed by Qinetiq, the British defence firm that was once the government research laboratories, is pinned to the uniform and uses acoustic technology to calculate the exact position of the rifle fire.

Then a electronic voice passes on the “bearing and range” to the soldier allowing him to jump to safety and return fire.

The machine has already been purchased by the Americans for deployment in the New Year and the British are looking at a vehicle mounted version.

After roadside bombs, snipers have been the biggest cause of the 301 British fatalities in both wars, and army chiefs are convinced the device could save dozens of lives.

— Hat tip: JD

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Vatican Remembers the Beatles

‘More famous than Jesus’ remark ‘just a quip’

(ANSA) — Vatican City, November 21 — The Vatican on Friday praised the Beatles in a newspaper article that appeared to bury the hatchet on John Lennnon’s infamous ‘more famous than Jesus’ remark.

Vatican daily Osservatore Romano said Lennon’s comment, which sparked outrage in the mid-1960s, ‘‘today just sounds like a quip from an English working-class lad struggling to cope with unexpected success after growing up with the Elvis myth’’.

In the article, marking the 40th anniversary of the famous White Album, Vatican music critics said ‘‘snobs’’ might dismiss the Fab Four but ‘‘the talent of Lennon and the other Beatles gave us some of the best pages in modern pop music’’.

The critics said: ‘‘38 years after the band split up, the Lennon-McCartney songs have shown an extraordinary resistance to the effects of time, providing inspiration for several generations of pop musicians’’.

Osservatore Romano made its peace with Elvis in July.

It recalled the the once-outlawed pelvis-twister as a ‘‘nice, sensitive young man’’ who was doomed by fame.

Lennon made his comment on March 4, 1966, to London’s Evening Standard.

‘‘Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink… We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first — rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me’’.

The response was immediate. Christians, especially in the American South, made huge pyres of Beatles albums and Protestant pastors threatened fans with excommunications — though the Vatican did not comment.

Elvis fans had been threatened with excommunication by Protestant churches a decade earlier.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Wyoming is going the extra mile for its Muslim prison inmates to make sure they can practice their religion fully and freely, down to the finest detail.

You’ll notice that the ACLU, rather than defending the right of conservative radio commentators to broadcast unimpeded on the airwaves, or resisting the regulation of political speech on the internet, chooses instead to insist that Muslim convicts are not inconvenienced by any disruption of their prayer times.

If Christians made similar demands, would they be accommodated? It used to be that a prisoner was allowed to have a Bible in his cell and a crucifix on the wall behind his bed — no more elaborate accommodations were required or offered.

But suppose a devout Catholic from a monastic background wanted to celebrate Matins, Lauds, Prime, Tierce , Sext, Nones, Vespers, and Compline at their proper times every day, and with full liturgical rigor. Would the prison authorities accommodate his demands?

In any case, Wyoming’s Muslim cons are getting what they asked for, including a special microwave. According to Billings Gazette:

Muslim Inmates at Rawlins Accommodated

CHEYENNE — The Wyoming Department of Corrections says it will allow Muslim inmates at the state penitentiary in Rawlins to time their meals to accommodate their daily prayers.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit earlier this year on behalf of two Muslim inmates. The lawsuit challenged a prison rule requiring inmates to eat their meals within 20 minutes after delivery, saying the policy forced them to choose between eating meals and praying.

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U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer approved an agreement on Wednesday that allows prisoners receiving religious meals to keep their meals in their cells until the next meal is served. It also requires the prison to install a new microwave for inmates that won’t be used for pork, which is forbidden to Muslims and members of some other religions.

Stephen Pevar, a lawyer with the ACLU in Connecticut, said Thursday that he credits prison officials for their willingness to make changes to accommodate the inmates. Congress passed a law in 2000 that was intended to make certain that prisoners could practice their religions in prison unless doing so clearly threatened prison security, Pevar said.

It’s not just prison security. It’s also cost. Elaborate accommodations for prisoners can cost a lot to implement, especially if they require extra staffing and new infrastructure.

If you mind your tax dollars being spent in this manner, I suggest a calm but emphatic letter to your congressbeing. Unfortunately, given the results of the recent elections, I don’t know that it will do you very much good…

Hat tip: JD.

As I write these words, the 14th Annual Banquet of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is underway at the Marriott Crystal Gateway in Arlington, Virginia.

The keynote speaker is America’s first Muslim member of Congress, Rep. Keith Ellison, and many other luminaries are in attendance.

According to the Madina Minaret:

‘Muslims and the Obama Administration’
Keith Ellison to Speak at CAIR Banquet

On Sunday, November 23rd, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) will offer a keynote address, titled “American Muslims and the Obama Administration,” at the 14th Annual Banquet of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Arlington, Va.

Banquet attendees will also hear from Muslim comedian Azhar Usman, former Ambassador Edward Peck and from Debbie Almontaser, founding principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy in New York. The dinner program will also feature the “2008 Rosa Parks Civil Liberties Award” and the “2008 Muslim Community Service Awards”

The link for the official banquet site at CAIR was not working as of this writing.

Unfortunately for the guests at tonight’s banquet, events have not proceeded as planned. A few days ago David Yerushalmi filed a federal civil complaint alleging criminal fraud and racketeering against CAIR. The alleged fraudulent behavior stems from CAIR’s advertising the services of Morris Days as an attorney at the local CAIR office in Herndon, Virginia. Mr. Days was billed as an advisor and counsel who could provide legal services to members of CAIR in need of help.

According to the complaint, not only did Mr. Days fail to provide legal services as requested and paid for, he was not even an attorney. The complaint asserts that when CAIR found out about the problem, the organization covered the situation up, even going to the extreme of denying any direct relationship with Morris Days. Several clients of CAIR were referred to David Yerushalmi, whose law office put together the civil complaint and filed it in federal court.

Associates of Mr. Yerushalmi took the opportunity of tonight’s banquet to serve CAIR director Nihad Awad with a summons. We are fortunate that volunteers were on hand to videotape this auspicious occasion. Below is the video of Dave Gaubatz, a member of Mapping Sharia, who served a summons on Nihad Awad, the Executive Director of CAIR:

Mr. Gaubatz’s assistant distributed copies of the summons to tables throughout the dinner. It is also available at saneworks.us.

The other people named in the complaint can look forward to being served within the next week.

From the organizers of this effort comes this alert:

ALERT: at approximately 7:00 p.m. this evening, Nihad Awad, Executive Director of CAIR, was served a summons at the CAIR 14th Annual Banquet – onstage – by Dave Gaubatz. The dinner is ongoing and readers here will be able to see the Youtube video which was edited and uploaded to Youtube immediately after the dessert course.

Awad has just finished talking at the banquet, and the notorious Siraj Wahhaj is about to speak. Readers at GoV know that the Youtube video is up; CAIR officials, currently drinking their coffee, will find out soon enough…

In addition to the Council on American-Islamic Relations Action Network Inc., the individuals named in the complaint were:

• Nihad Awad a.k.a. Nihad Hammad, executive director of CAIR National
• Parvez Ahmed, chairman of the board of CAIR National during the relevant time period
• Tahra Goraya, former national director of CAIR who has since resigned
• Khadijah Athman, manager of the “civil rights” division of CAIR
• Nadhira al-Khalili, Esq., in-house legal counsel for CAIR.
• Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR’s director of communications
• Amina Rubin, coordinator of communications

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According to David Yerushalmi, “The evidence has long suggested that CAIR is a criminal organization set up by the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas to further its aims of stealth Jihad in the U.S.

“But our investigation and this complaint makes clear that CAIR’s criminal activities know no bounds.

“According to the facts as carefully laid out in this complaint, CAIR has engaged in a massive cover-up of a criminal fraud in which literally hundreds of CAIR clients have been victimized and because of the CAIR cover-up they still don’t realize it. The fact that CAIR has victimized Muslims and non-Muslims alike demonstrates that CAIR is only looking out for CAIR and its ongoing effort to bilk donors out of millions of dollars of charitable donations thinking they are supporting a legitimate organization.”

Since this is still a breaking news story, I may be posting updates as more information arrives. Stay tuned.

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Below is the press release issued by David Yerushalmi’s office:

CAIR Sued by Former Clients for Racketeering,
Fraud, & Breach of Fiduciary Duties

For more information:
David Yerushalmi, Esq.
Law Offices of David Yerushalmi
ContactYerushalmiLaw@verizon.net
646.262.0500

November 24, 2008 — Washington, DC: Four clients of the Council on Islamic-American Relations (CAIR) have filed a federal civil complaint alleging criminal fraud and racketeering against CAIR, a self-described public interest civil rights law firm. The lawsuit also names CAIR’s national leadership as individual defendants.

Some of the defendants were served with the complaint and summons to appear while attending the CAIR 14th Annual Dinner Sunday night in Arlington, Virginia. Congressman Ellison (D-Minn) was a guest speaker at this affair.

The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that Morris Days, the “Resident Attorney” and “Manager for Civil Rights” at the now defunct CAIR MD/VA chapter in Herndon, Virginia, was in fact not an attorney and that he failed to provide legal services for clients who came to CAIR for assistance and who had paid for CAIR legal services.

While attorney David Yerushalmi represents the four plaintiffs in this particular lawsuit, two of whom are African American Muslims, the complaint alleges that according to CAIR internal documents, there were hundreds of victims of the CAIR-Days fraud scheme.

According to the complaint, CAIR failed to conduct a background check on Days prior to hiring him and when they did discover his massive fraud, they immediately set about to cover it up. CAIR officials purposefully concealed the truth about Days from their clients, law enforcement, the Virginia and D.C. state bar associations, and the media. When CAIR did get irate calls from clients about Days’ failure to provide competent legal services, CAIR fraudulently deceived their clients about Days’ relationship to CAIR, suggesting he was never actually employed by CAIR, and even concealed the fact that CAIR had fired him for criminal fraud.

“The evidence has long suggested that CAIR is a criminal organization set up by the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas to further its aims of stealth Jihad in the U.S.,” Mr. Yerushalmi said referring to the fact that CAIR has been named by the federal government as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror financing trial.

“But our investigation and this complaint makes clear that CAIR’s criminal activities know no bounds,” Yerushalmi continued.

“According to the facts as carefully laid out in this complaint,” Yerushalmi explained, “CAIR has engaged in a massive cover-up of a criminal fraud in which literally hundreds of CAIR clients have been victimized and because of the CAIR cover-up they still don’t realize it. The fact that CAIR has victimized Muslims and non-Muslims alike demonstrates that CAIR is only looking out for CAIR and its ongoing effort to bilk donors out of millions of dollars of charitable donations thinking they are supporting a legitimate organization.”

The complaint also alleges that in addition to covering up the Days fraud scheme, CAIR officials in D.C. forced angry clients who were demanding a return of their legal fees to sign a release that bought the client-victims’ silence by prohibiting them from informing law enforcement or the media about the CAIR-Days fraud. According to the agreement, if the “settling” clients said anything to anyone about the fraud scheme, CAIR would be able to sue them for $25,000.

This enforced code of silence left hundreds of CAIR client-victims in the dark such that to this day they have not learned that Days is not an attorney and that he had not filed the legal actions on their behalf for which Days and CAIR publicly claimed credit.

The four plaintiffs contacted their attorney David Yerushalmi only after they had spoken to Dave Gaubatz, a private researcher who had been investigating CAIR for its connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and its ties to global jihad. Had Gaubatz not informed the plaintiffs of the fraud, they would still be under the impression that Days was a competent attorney representing their legal interests in various lawsuits and administrative proceedings.

The complaint identifies CAIR as a racketeering enterprise under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), which is a criminal racketeering statute that allows victims to sue the defendants in civil court. In addition to damages, the plaintiffs are seeking injunctive relief under this and other statutes to shut down CAIR and to prevent the individual defendants from engaging in public interest legal work in the future.

The named defendants are: the Council on American-Islamic Relations Action Network Inc. (dba CAIR); Nihad Awad aka Nihad Hammad who serves as executive director of CAIR National; Parvez Ahmed who was the chairman of the board of CAIR National during the relevant time period; Tahra Goraya who was the national director of CAIR but who has since resigned; Khadijah Athman who is the manager of the “civil rights” division of CAIR; and Nadhira al-Khalili, Esq., who is in-house legal counsel for CAIR.

According to the complaint, CAIR’s in-house Washington, D.C.-based attorney Khalili was directly involved in taking the legal files out of the CAIR Virginia office and concealing them in the D.C. office.

Also named as defendants are Ibrahim Hooper and Amina Rubin, CAIR’s director of communications and coordinator of communications, respectively. According to the complaint, these two were directly responsible for issuing fraudulent press releases about the Days fraud scheme, thus aiding and abetting the CAIR cover-up.

About David Yerushalmi, Esq.

David Yerushalmi has been practicing law for almost 25 years. He is a litigator specializing in securities law, public policy relating to national security, and public interest law. Mr. Yerushalmi is licensed and practices in Washington D.C., New York, California, and Arizona.

For a copy of the complaint, email ContactYerushalmiLaw@verizon.net.

This is the full 71-minute version of Zudi Jasser’s movie The Third Jihad:

The text of the blurb accompanying the movie:
– – – – – – – – –

The Third Jihad — Radical Islam’s Vision for America
The Hidden War

There’s a war going on and the major battles take place right here in America. It’s a hidden war against the freedom and values we all take for granted. The enemy is taking advantage of our country’s democratic process, and using it to further its own aims.

Most people, busy with their daily struggles, don’t even realize there’s a war. And that’s just the way the Radical Islamists would like things to remain.

The Third Jihad is the ground breaking film that reveals the truth. It exposes the destructive aims of Radical Islam and its mounting threat for America and the world. It covers all the major players — the radical extremists and the leaders trying to stop them.

The Third Jihad will update you on the most urgent issue of our time in ways you can’t find in the media.

Using footage from the Arab media, the mounting dangers of jihad are uncovered: The numerous terrorist threats since 9/11, and the likelihood that more are being planned now. The threat of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists. The subtle dangers of non-violent cultural jihad and its influence in America’s universities An update on radical Moslem prisoner recruitment.

Hat tip: Steen.

Andrew Ian Dodge has posted a review of Fjordman’s book Defeating Eurabia at Blogger News Network. Here are some excerpts:

As you can tell from the rather odd name for the author of this book he chooses to remain anonymous is his writings. It is no surprise considering the tolerance of some Muslims in Europe to anyone who dares question some of their motives… I have followed this brave man’s writing since he first appeared on the European blogging scene and can highly recommend his pieces.

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Fjordman is able to create a picture for the reader of the situation on the ground in many European countries regarding their growing Islamic populations and the attempts by activist Muslims to change the very nature of European society to fit them rather than the “indigenous” populations. He, as well as Dissident Frogman make it clear to the reader that non-Muslim “no-go” areas are not a media creation but an actual fact in many European countries.

If you are actually interested in what is happening, on the ground, then I highly recommend this professional collection of pieces. If you are fond of Fjordman’s writing and know it well then I urge you to buy this book and give it anyone who scoffs at the extent of the problem. Fjordman is doing a valuable service for Europe and beyond in his writings. We owe it to support him in his endeavors.

Read the whole thing at Blogger News Network.

Lars Vilks and his infamous Modoggies have been out of the news for a while, but the controversial artist (and ruler of Ladonia) has returned to the headlines today with the long-awaited opening of his musical Dogs.

According to The Local:

Swedish Artist’s Muhammad Musical Courts New Controversy

Swedish artist Lars Vilks is at the centre of a new controversy as his new musical Dogs premiered in Stockholm on Saturday.

Meanwhile, an exhibition of his Muhammad caricatures has been blocked by Kalmar Art Museum.

At a panel discussion after the premiere of the musical — a filmed documentation of events occurring after the drawings of the Muslim prophet Muhammad as a roundabout dog, chaos reigned on Saturday.

This is no surprise. All the previous incidents involving Lars Vilks — in which each new ridiculous roundabout dog drawing caused a new furor — demonstrated the impossibility a civil discussion in Sweden about even the mildest mockery of Islam.

The artist has further confounded his critics by making cryptic utterances, engaging in elaborate pranks and jokes at the expense of the press and the public, and in general refusing to become the Islamophobic ideologue that his critics expect.

If the trailer for Dogs is any indication, another free-associative Vilks masterpiece can be expected, this time in musical form.

In the wake of the premiere, the discussion turned ugly:
– – – – – – – – –

When Vilks stood to address the several hundred people gathered in the ABF building in Stockholm, a young woman rose to her feet, made threatening gestures with her key ring and screamed at the artist.

One of the debate’s organizers seized the woman in order to escort her from the premises.

“She then scratched her keys over his underarm, cutting him in two places,” said Filip Björner for the event’s organizers, the Swedish Humanist Association.

According to Björner the association had reached an agreement with the police to deal with any demonstrators gently. The woman was therefore allowed to join other demonstrators outside the building in central Stockholm.

But after the woman was removed from the debate, another woman swiftly took her place. She was permitted to participate in the debate and took the opportunity to verbally abuse the co-organizers, the Ex-Muslims, a group known internationally as “Muslims for Christ.”

After the conclusion of the debate, Vilks was obliged to leave the building by the back entrance in the company of a police escort.

Furthermore, local media reported on Saturday that a retrospective exhibition by Vilks had been stopped at Kalmar Art Museum.

The move has caused controversy as the museum’s board overruled a decision by the head of the museum, Clas Börjesson, and the museum’s curator, to support the exhibition.

The head of the museum’s board, Sven Lindgren, denies that Börjesson’s authority has been undermined.

“As a rule we should not get involved but in this instance, and with a new art museum which has attracted a great deal of attention, it is important to be careful with the exhibitions that are chosen,” he said to Sveriges Radio Kalmar.

Lindgren denied that the decision was made due to fears over the consequences of showing the controversial artist’s work, and explained that it was a question of quality.

He argued that Vilks’ work simply displayed insufficient artistic quality to be shown at the Kalmar museum.

This is blatantly disingenuous. Anyone who has researched Mr. Vilks’ oeuvre will confirm that the Modoggies are entirely consistent in style and technical execution with works the artist has created previously. The sole objection to them is that they point to a topic that the cognoscenti have deemed out of bounds. This particular topic — the mockery of Islam — simply can’t be touched.

The very reaction of the museum and other cultural gatekeepers proves Mr. Vilks’ point: Muslims enjoy special protection that is granted to no other group. Christians and atheists may be mocked without restriction, but Islam is off-limits.

Undeterred by a slew of death threats, Vilks began working on a musical about the controversy, a move he explained at the time to Dagens Nyheter:

“It is part of the rules of the game to be able to criticize religion and politics. It is nothing personal and I do not have it in for anyone.”

Vilks intends for the musical Dogs to have further showings but has said that he expects interest to wane and the attendant controversy to ease with time.

“Looking at the bigger picture, you should see that something is happening. The more cartoons and drawings are made, the less interesting it will be. In the end people will get used to it,” Vilks told The Local in March 2008.

We shall see.

If a Motoon or a Modoggie were to appear in the newspaper every day, public interest — possibly violent public interest — would increase for an indefinite period. But such an eventuality is impossible — the newspapers and magazines of the West, even if permitted by their governments, will not publicize such material. Only the censorship and censuring of the artist will be described in the press. The blasphemous images themselves will remain hidden behind the MSM firewall.

Except in Denmark, of course.

Mr. Vilks is light-hearted and whimsical about the whole affair, but he’s well aware of the underlying seriousness of what he’s doing. Last year, during the height of the Roundabout Dog Crisis, someone asked him if drawing the Modoggies was worth dying for.

In reply he said simply, “Yes, it is.”

For previous posts on Lars Vilks and the Roundabout Dogs, see the Modoggie Archives.