Muslims in the Lebanese city of Tyre are demanding that a samba dance troupe from Brazil be banned from performances in their town. The visit of the Brazilian dancers is an annual tradition in Tyre, but the Muslim clerics believe that the time has come to put and end to such pornographic performances.
In other news, the city of Berkeley, California, became the first city in the country to agree to abide by all UN human rights treaties. The city council also decided to send representatives to the UN to report on the city’s compliance.
Thanks to Barry Rubin, C. Cantoni, Diana West, ESW, Insubria, JD, Kitman, Sean O’Brian, TB, TV, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
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Berkeley Agrees to U.N. Rights Treaties
Berkeley became the first city in the United States, and possibly the world, to agree to international human rights treaties on Tuesday night, after the City Council approved a measure usually reserved for countries.
After a brief but spirited debate, the City Council voted unanimously to allow unpaid interns to report to the United Nations on how, or whether, Berkeley complies with treaties on civil liberties, racial discrimination and torture.
“This is extremely important,” said Councilman Max Anderson, who represents south Berkeley. “This is the way Berkeley should be talking. This should be an inspiration to other communities.”
Councilman Kriss Worthington called the initiative a creative and important way Berkeley can support the values put forth in the U.N. treaties.
“In our small and humble way, we can submit our own record,” he said. “I think this is a wonderful thing for us to do.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Dallas Terror Sting Signals New Approach for FBI
But the undercover operation that led to the arrest Thursday of a 19-year-old Jordanian citizen — intent, according to authorities, on blowing up a Dallas skyscraper — may reflect a different approach by the FBI to terrorism investigations.
About two years ago, Addicott said, “a decision was made that we’re going to let these things develop a little bit longer so we can get the more serious offense. And we’ve seen the fruits of that.”
Federal agents arrested Hosam Maher Husein Smadi after a sting operation that lasted several months. Smadi is accused of parking a government-supplied sport utility vehicle loaded with fake explosives under Fountain Place in downtown Dallas and making a call that he thought would set off the device; instead, he was promptly taken into custody.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Democrats Now Plan Forced Obamacare Via House Bill Rider
Democrats know without a shadow of a doubt that the American people-who have actually read their Orwellian HR 3200 ObamaCare bill-are turning against their faux healthcare packages in greater numbers each and every day. However, as I have written myriad times, our elected officials in both the US House of Representatives and Senate neither care what We-the-People want nor about maintaining our Republic. Following the Obama-Marxist model, liberal and leftist Democrat leaders have now devised a plot that will instill their totalitarian controls and forever shut us up.
In Brian Darling’s latest Human Events column, he outlines the way in which the Senate plans to ram government-run (sole provider) ObamaCare through and down the throats of the American people. The Senate plans to attach as a rider its yet-to-be-written version of government-run ObamaCare to the already-passed non-healthcare HR 1586-which addresses the imposition of taxes on certain TARP fund recipients. Darling outlines the Marxist Democrats’ 4-pronged steps (led by Harry Reid D-NV) that will accomplish their takeover of the very bodies of the American people and their ability to receive healthcare ONLY if they support Obama and his and the Marxists tyrannical programs. By the way, did you know that Democrats also rejected a Republican attempt to have Obama live up to his promise of having major bills published on the Internet for 72 hours prior to Congress voting on them? They did. This is not only the most corrupt and depraved White House administration in US history, it is also the most deceptive and covert.
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Diana West: A Marine Corps Sergeant Major Speaks
Writing at a brand new blog created by John Bernard, Jim Sauer, a retired Marine Corps Sergeant Major and combat veteran with over thirty years of service (including post-retirement work in Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel), offers a most robust and enlightening commentary on “counterinsurgency,” Afghanistan, Iraq, Islam, “hearts and minds,” “our geniuses,” and more.
There have been some phony arguments put forth for another “surge” in Afghanistan. We need not a surge of troops, we merely need to let our forces there do what needs to be done — kill the enemy.
There is this misconception of Afghanistan in particular (and Islam in general) that somehow we can bring Central Asia (and the rest of the Islamic world) kicking and screaming into the 21st Century through good will. This is simply not the case. There is no amount of money to spend, infrastructure to build, schools to provide, hospitals to heal, or good will that Americans can display toward the Afghan people that will produce a lasting effect. I was once told by an accomplished Afghan intelligence analyst that, “you can rent an Afghan, but you can’t buy him.”
The hard fact is that the “hearts and minds” of the Afghan “people” are not for sale! The descendants of “The Great Khan” and their tribal cousins have no interest in being Westernized in any way. And, the human sewers that serve as their political leadership can only be rented. Americans are interlopers in a land where interlopers generally have their heads lopped off.
Nobody read their Kipling. (I know, “who or what was Kipling?” Look it up.) Americans do not know their OWN history (except the spun trash that passes for “social studies” in our heavily socialistic high schools) much less the history of Afghanistan. And, this includes our political leadership! Ask an American on the street — or a congressman in the House — to point to Afghanistan on a map, and they will probably start with their finger cautiously orbiting somewhere over Rhode Island.
This writer spent thirty years listening to and deciphering military acronyms and idiotic jargon. The catch phrase today is “COIN” — Counterinsurgency doctrine. Our political and military leadership act like this is some sort of secret knowledge — Gnostic esoteric knowledge — that is now coming to light. That is crap. There is nothing new here.
Counterinsurgency predates Rome. In modern times, the first COIN doctrine called Small Wars Manual was written by the U.S. Marine Corps in 1935 with the final edition being published in 1940. The first few decades of the 20th Century saw Marines intervening as “State Department Troops” from Central America and Hispaniola to China and the Philippines. The Small Wars Manual is a compilation of information describing nation building, establishing “constabularies”, civil affairs, infrastructure repair, election management, donkey packing and inspiration, river crossing, intelligence gathering, psychology and ethnicity of native peoples, disarmament of the populace, force composition, supply and logistics chains, public image (both in the target nation and in the United States), and everything else it takes to drag a Third-World backwash into the current day and age. There is even a section on inspecting the feet of native troops for bunions, corns, and severe trichophytosis (athlete’s foot).
The manual is also full of contradictions. If one were to summarize in a sentence or two the center of conflicting mass, one might say, “Try to be nice, but if they don’t go along with the program manipulate them. If that doesn’t’ work, kill them — every one of them.” It reminds one of a quip from Vietnam that went, “Let us win your hearts and minds or we’ll burn your damn huts down.”
It seems our current crop of political and military geniuses think that COIN can be conducted in a sanitary manner. This belief is insane. The “small wars” of the 20th Century were every bit as dirty and brutal as any conventional war ever fought.
Legendary Marine Corps hero and two time Medal of Honor recipient Major General Smedley Butler wrote of his “COIN” experience a short tome titled “War is a Racket”. It spelled out the misuse of American forces and the waste of American lives during the first three decades of the 20th Century. General Butler was an unlikely critic of the use of military force — the more reason to heed his caveats.
Though published in 1940, the intervening years of conventional war (World War II and Korea) saw the Small Wars Manual fade into disuse.
The formation of the U.S. Army Special Forces in the 1960s led to an attempt to bring COIN doctrine to Vietnam. While this effort met with some success against the Viet Cong, the introduction of North Vietnamese Army (NVA) forces diminished the strategic effectiveness of the Special Forces effort. Further, as the NVA entered the fray and the war progressed, the Viet Cong themselves, although diminished by the Special Forces effort, became more sophisticated with regard to their remaining cell structures, logistics, and weapons employment.
There are several things to consider…
| — Hat tip: Diana West | [Return to headlines] |
For the First Time, Most Jewish Americans Support Iran Attack
(IsraelNN.com) A new American Jewish Committee (AJC) survey of American Jews shows that for the first time, a majority of them would support a U.S military strike against Iran, and an even larger majority would support such a move by Israel.
The AJC survey showed that 56 percent of American Jews would support, and 36 percent would oppose, United States military action against Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. This is a real shift from 2008, when the AJC survey found that 42 percent would support the U.S. taking military action against Iran, while 47 percent were opposed.
66 percent would support, and 28 percent would oppose, Israel taking military action against Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons.
On the Obama Administration’s general handling of the Iran nuclear issue, 49 percent of American Jews approve and 35 percent disapprove.
Mounting concern “Clearly concerns are mounting over the international community’s apparent inability to deploy tough and resolute sanctions to confront a belligerent Iran determined to build nuclear weapons and missiles to deliver them,” said AJC Executive Director David Harris.
94 percent of American Jews agree that the Palestinians should be “required to recognize Israel as a Jewish state in a final peace agreement.”
Distrust of the Arabs is high but slightly lower than it was in 2007: 75 percent agree, and 19 percent disagree, with the statement, “The goal of the Arabs is not the return of occupied territories but rather the destruction of Israel.” In the 2007 survey, 82 percent agreed and 12 percent disagreed.
Nonetheless, regarding the establishment of a Palestinian state, 49 percent favor that outcome, and 41 percent are opposed. In AJC’s 2007 survey, 46 percent were in favor and 43 percent opposed.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Fox News Has a Van Jones Problem
With good reason, the Fox News Channel (FNC) led by Glenn Beck spent many hours exploring the far-left radical views of White House official Van Jones. The scrutiny resulted in Jones being forced out. But officials and hosts of the cable channel clearly failed to “vet” Marc Lamont Hill, who is being presented to the FNC viewing audience on a regular basis as just “a Columbia University professor” with expertise on a wide range of domestic and foreign policy issues.
[…]
In the same way that Van Jones was exposed originally by New Zealand blogger Trevor Loudon by using Internet search engines to look into his controversial background and writings, over the course of just a few days Accuracy in Media has been able to determine the following about Hill from public sources:
* He called the notorious anti-white, anti-Jewish Khallid Muhammad a “mentor, teacher, and revolutionary hero,” and believes that the black racist died not from a brain aneurysm but was assassinated. Muhammad was so extreme that he was ousted from the Nation of Islam because of his hatred of Jews.
* He gave a lecture on “The Importance of Ideological Training in the New Millenium (sic)” at the Polymathematic University’s “Political Education Program for the Poor Righteous Communist Party.”
* He declared on a “MySpace” page that the people he’d like to meet personally include Assata Shakur, Louis Farrakhan, Fidel Castro, and Mumia Abu Jamal, another convicted cop-killer.
* He speaks on “The Importance of the Nation of Islam to Hip-Hop Culture” and says that he once belonged to something called the Ansaaru Allah Community, an Islamic sect with doctrines similar to the Nation of Islam that has been accused of being a religious cult.
* Hill’s “MySpace” page features a slide show of such figures as Assata Shakur, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and Ella Baker, who just happens to be the namesake of the Ella Baker Center, founded by Van Jones.
* The Marc Lamont Hill website includes a graphic and obscene “Sex With Timaree” segment that features advice from a “Sexpert” on how to enjoy the “Land o’ Anal” or anal sex.
[…]
There is no confusion about Hill’s speaking engagement at Polymathematic University (PU). He is so proud of it that he includes the appearance on his publicly available 9-page Curriculum Vitae.
But PU is not an ordinary “university.” PU describes itself as “an institution built on the solid foundation of the revolutionary program of the Five Jewels and Restrictive Laws and the ideology of Polymathematics. In this day and time of intense class contradictions between the world’s working classes of color and the white U.S. empire and their lackeys, the necessity for a revolutionary institution that focuses on the education and training of revolutionaries is extremely important. PU is a direct alternative to the bourgeois universities of the old world of decadent Capitalism, guiding the poor ghetto children of color into the new world of Righteous Communism (Peace.)”
PU, which is an institution of the “Poor Righteous Party of the Black Nation,” has 25 different teachings. They include:…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Hearing Set in November for Employee of Nation’s U.N. Mission
The man who attacked a peaceful protester outside Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s hotel last weekend when the radical Islamic leader was in New York for the United Nation’s general assembly has been charged with assault and has a hearing scheduled in November, according to sources in the city.
An attorney who witnessed part of the incident as it developed said it’s just another case of terror from the rogue state, only this time the actions were inside the United States.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Hopis Say Conservationists Unwelcome on Tribal Land
The Hopi Nation’s Tribal Council sent a message Monday to the Sierra Club and a handful of other environmental groups: Stay off the reservation.
Tina May, a council spokeswoman, said council members meeting in Kykotsmovi unanimously adopted a resolution declaring that the conservation groups are unwelcome on Hopi lands because they have damaged the tribe’s economy by pushing for closure of a coal-fired power plant near Page.
The resolution says environmentalists have “spread misinformation” about Hopi water and energy resources, attempting to “instill unfounded fears into the hearts and minds of Hopi public.”
May said the resolution was meant as a symbolic expression by tribal leaders, and environmentalists will not be arrested if they enter Hopi country.
Nuvamsa said: “This group here has done so much to damage our tribal reputation and to violate our civil rights. As tribal members, we are all environmentalists because we’re supposed to take care of Mother Earth.”
Andy Bessler, a Sierra Club official in Flagstaff, expressed dismay at the resolution.
He noted that another group, Hopis Organized for Political Initiative, supports conservationist efforts to close the power plant.
This spring, a coalition involving the Sierra Club, Grand Canyon Trust, and several Native American groups called on the Environmental Protection Agency to review the Navajo Generating Station’s role in smoggy skies over the Grand Canyon. They claimed the power plant is a source of “excessive pollution” and should be forced to reduce emissions.
The power plant and Hopi coal mines that fuel it support hundreds of families, providing more than 70 percent of the Indian nation’s governmental revenues, said Scott Canty, tribal counsel.
In 2005, environmentalists succeeded in closing the Mohave Generating Station in Laughlin, Nev. The Hopis claim that shutdown cost the tribe more than $6.5 million per year, and closure of Navajo Generating Station would wipe out another $11 million.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Iran Smolders, Afghanistan Burns, And Obama Heads to…Denmark
With growing pressure for decisions on life-or-death issues in Afghanistan and Iran, this morning the White House announced that President Obama will soon travel to…Copenhagen. Obama will be in Denmark for just a few hours — he leaves this Thursday and returns Friday — which is just enough time to make a pitch for Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Olympic Games. He’ll be following First Lady Michelle Obama, who is also going to Copenhagen as part of the promote-Chicago team.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Liberal Lies About National Health Care, Part 6
17) America’s low ranking on international comparisons of infant mortality proves other countries’ socialist health-care systems are better than ours.
America has had a comparatively high infant mortality rate since we’ve been measuring these things, going back to at least the ‘20s. This was the case long before European countries adopted their cradle-to-grave welfare schemes and all while the U.S. was the wealthiest country on Earth.
One factor contributing to the U.S.’s infant mortality rate is that blacks have intractably high infant mortality rates — irrespective of age, education, socioeconomic status and so on. No one knows why.
Neither medical care nor discrimination can explain it: Hispanics in the U.S. have lower infant mortality rates than either blacks or whites. Give Switzerland or Japan our ethnically diverse population and see how they stack up on infant mortality rates.
Even with a higher-risk population, the alleged differences in infant mortality are negligible. We’re talking about 7 infant deaths per 1,000 live births in the U.S. compared to 5 deaths per 1,000 for Britain and Canada. This is a rounding error — perhaps literally when you consider that the U.S. tabulates every birth, even in poor, small and remote areas, while other countries are not always so meticulous.
But the international comparisons in “infant mortality” rates aren’t comparing the same thing, anyway. We also count every baby who shows any sign of life, irrespective of size or weight at birth.
By contrast, in much of Europe, babies born before 26 weeks’ gestation are not considered “live births.” Switzerland only counts babies who are at least 30 centimeters long (11.8 inches) as being born alive. In Canada, Austria and Germany, only babies weighing at least a pound are considered live births.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Mandatory Flu Vaccine for Health Care Workers
Commissioner Tells Health Care Workers: Mandatory Flu Vaccine is in the Best Interest of Patients and Workers
ALBANY, N.Y. (Sept. 24, 2009) — State Health Commissioner Richard F. Daines, M.D., today released this open letter to health care workers in New York State:
As health care workers, we share one of the proudest traditions of all professions: we put our patients’ interests ahead of our own.
As a physician who spent more than 20 years working in hospitals, I had the honor of working side by side with other physicians, nurses, food service workers, technicians and transporters in the early and uncertain months of what would become the HIV epidemic, in those first confused days of the anthrax attacks, and when any new international traveler with a fever might have been carrying SARS. Never once, no matter what our private fears might have been, did we shirk from our duties or put personal anxieties ahead of the interests of our patients. We took the recommended precautions, worked carefully and cautiously, and gave our patients the compassionate and selfless care for which our professions and institutions are rightly given a special place in our society.
In furtherance of that tradition, on August 13th the New York State Hospital Review and Planning Council adopted a regulation recommended by the New York State Health Department making approved annual influenza vaccinations mandatory, unless medically contraindicated, for health care workers in hospitals, outpatient clinics and home care services. Legislation applying the same standards to nursing home workers has also been proposed. The new regulation will apply first to the routine annual seasonal influenza vaccine now available. With the recent FDA approval of the vaccine for novel H1N1 flu (“swine flu”), the regulation will also apply to that vaccine, just in time for the second wave of novel H1N1 influenza already returning this fall.
Questions about safety and claims of personal preference are understandable. Given the outstanding efficacy and safety record of approved influenza vaccines, our overriding concern then, as health care workers, should be the interests of our patients, not our own sensibilities about mandates. On this, the facts are very clear: the welfare of patients is, without any doubt, best served by the very high rates of staff immunity that can only be achieved with mandatory influenza vaccination — not the 40-50% rates of staff immunization historically achieved with even the most vigorous of voluntary programs. Under voluntary standards, institutional outbreaks occur every flu season. Medical literature convincingly demonstrates that high levels of staff immunity confer protection on those patients who cannot be or have not been effectively vaccinated themselves, while also allowing the institution to remain more fully staffed.
Throughout this fall and winter, more patients than ever may enter our hospitals and clinics without effective influenza immunity. Some will be too young or have other contraindications to vaccination or will have failed to receive vaccinations for a variety of reasons. Others will be too frail for vaccination to be effective. Large numbers of people quite clearly would like to take the new H1N1 vaccine as soon as it is available but will be denied that opportunity because they do not fall into one of the first prioritized groups. For all of these individuals, safety lies in being treated in institutions and by health care personnel with the nearly 100% effective immunity rates seen with other long-mandated vaccinations for health care workers, such as measles and rubella.
In recognition of health care’s noble tradition of putting patients’ interests first and understanding the need to keep our health care system functioning optimally during this challenge, federal authorities made a remarkable decision regarding the first groups to be given access to the new H1N1 vaccine. In addition to giving highest priority for the new vaccine to those who would receive the direct or personal benefit — pregnant women, caregivers to infants, children and the chronically ill — authorities declared that health care workers would also be given earliest access to the vaccine, ahead of millions of other individuals who have roughly equal or even higher risks of contracting H1N1 influenza with all the discomfort or worse that could mean for them as individuals.
Knowing that our privileged access to the new vaccine is earned not by our personal risk factors but by the special trust society places in us, then how can we as health care workers maintain that our cooperation in protecting the most vulnerable members of society is nevertheless optional? Without mandated vaccinations, many ethically troubling situations may occur. A health care worker unconcerned about “ordinary flu” might refuse the routine seasonal vaccine, but then expect to be in the front of the line for the “good stuff” — the new and strictly rationed swine flu vaccine. Institutions may find themselves short staffed and less than fully capable if their workers fail to get the seasonal influenza vaccine but then proceed to consume hundreds of doses of the new vaccine, therefore denying those doses to other groups. This scenario will certainly not achieve the staff-wide immunity levels needed to assure patient safety and optimal staffing — the very reasons for which health care workers received their priority in the first place.
Influenza vaccination has saved thousands upon thousands of lives over the last three decades, and thousands more could have been saved if the vaccinations had been more widely used. This year, through effective use of vaccination, we have perhaps the best opportunity to save lives and keep our society and institutions running more smoothly than we have had in 50 years or more. This is not the time for uninformed or self-interested parties to attempt to pump air into long-deflated arguments about vaccine safety in general or to use a single 33-year-old episode to deny decades of safety and saved lives achieved by influenza vaccines prepared in the same way as this year’s formulations.
The seasonal influenza vaccine has completed, and before its approval the new H1N1 vaccine also underwent, the most careful development, production and testing processes leading scientists, clinicians and public health authorities can devise. Approval of the H1N1 vaccine was based on the application of the same scientific standards and methods that we believe should govern all our health care practices. We, as health care workers, owe it to our patients and to society in general to demonstrate our confidence in those scientific standards. Even more importantly, we should reconfirm our noble commitment to the tradition of putting patients’ interests first by supporting the mandatory influenza vaccination requirement.
Richard F. Daines, M.D.
New York State Commissioner of Health
| — Hat tip: ESW | [Return to headlines] |
NY Healthcare Workers Rebel Against Mandatory Forced Vaccinations
About 200 healthcare workers rallied on the steps of the state Capitol in Albany, N.Y., while hundreds more demonstrated at similar events throughout the state, demanding “freedom of choice in vaccination and health care,” and protesting new regulations by the Dept. of Health that mandate all healthcare workers with patient contact receive CDC “recommended” seasonal and swine-flu vaccination or lose their jobs.
Protesters at the Capitol carried hand-made signs proclaiming: “We’re not lab rats,” and “No flu shot, no job?”
[…]
AAPS asks: “Is this really necessary to prevent a replay of the 1918 influenza epidemic, with up to 350 million deaths worldwide instead of 50—100 million? Or is it 1976 all over again, when swine flu immunizations had to be terminated because the dreaded epidemic failed to occur, but thousands suffered adverse reactions, including Guillain-Barré syndrome, from the shots?”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Polanski the Predator
Recently unsealed grand jury minutes detail 1977 sex assault
It’s been 26 years since Roman Polanski’s arrest for sexually abusing a 13-year-old girl, but the director’s Oscar nomination and the success of his film “The Pianist” has again focused attention on the March 1977 crime that prompted his French exile.
Polanski, 69, will not discuss the case and his victim, Samantha Geimer, now 39, has recently said that the sex assault should not color his chances with Academy Award voters. But that, of course, does not lessen the severity of the crime, which is graphically detailed in the following grand jury testimony, which was quietly unsealed four months ago by L.A. Superior Court Judge David Wesley.
[Comments: WARNING: Disturbing and graphic descriptions.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Supreme Court Taking a New Look at Handgun Laws
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court says it will take up a challenge to Chicago’s ban on handguns, opening the way for a ruling that could set off a vigorous new campaign to roll back state and local gun controls across the nation.
Victory for gun-rights proponents in the Chicago case is considered likely, even by supporters of gun control, in the latest battle in the nation’s long and often bitter dispute over the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. A ruling against the city’s outright ban could lead to legal challenges to less-restrictive laws across the country that limit who can own guns, whether firearms must be registered and how they should be stored.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Terrorists’ Explosives Out There Somewhere
Over coffee, I had obtained a more detailed account of the investigation that led to ZAZI’s arrest and the items found on his computer, in his vehicle and at the locations where he lived and stayed in New York. The “alleged” plot and other possible operations were indeed insidious and would have been quite deadly. As I suspected, and based on other law enforcement sources I have interviewed, the threat has not yet been neutralized. Other “unsubs,” or as yet unidentified operatives continue to walk the streets. The investigation continues in Queens, Brooklyn and elsewhere, and police are continuing their search of explosives they have good reason to believe are out there. After coffee, I too had every reason to believe that there is a cache of explosives stowed away somewhere, waiting for the right person and the proper time.
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The World Wearies of the Narcissist-in-Chief
“The beauty of being a narcissist is that even when disaster stares you in the face, you feel neither doubt nor remorse.” -Carl Vogel, A Field Guide to Narcissism
Politicians on both sides of the aisle are becoming perturbed about the president’s “I — ME” fixation — the manifest hubris of Obama. His opening line at the UN speech was “The world has great expectations of ME…” as though the force of his charisma is enough to tame maniacal despots — that his words are all we need — never mind that they are pure perfidy.
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Austria: Schoolgirls Set Muslim Student’s Headscarf on Fire
Two school girls are facing expulsion after they set a 15-year-old Muslim girl’s headscarf on fire.
The pair attacked the teenager — identified as 15-year-old Diana — during a school trip last week at Catholic charity Caritas’ school for business professions in Graz.
Caritas spokesman Harald Schmied said today (Weds) the motive for the attack had been personal, not religious.
He added: “It was an incident that was very unusual at this school for its symbolic dimension and emotional abuse. Fortunately, the headscarf did not fully catch on fire and was only singed.”
Schmied said two girls responsible for the attack had been warned in writing that they could be expelled if anything similar happened again.
He added the school, which has many students with a migrant background, promoted integration and mutual tolerance and respect and that while tensions developed at times they were “constructively handled” rather than “swept under the table”.
| — Hat tip: ESW | [Return to headlines] |
Broadcast Moratorium Looms as Irish Prepare to Vote on Lisbon Treaty
The first vote in Ireland’s referendum on the Lisbon treaty was cast yesterday in Barry Edgar Pilcher’s living room in Raven Cottage on Inishfree — and it went to the “no” camp.
Residents of the island, a 15-minute trip by fishing boat from the northwestern coast in Donegal, were allowed to get the EU referendum under way two days before the rest of the country in case their tiny communities were cut off by bad weather on polling day.
Mr Pilcher, 66, a London-born artist and musician, serenaded locals on his saxophone as they voted. “I voted ‘no’ because I think we shouldn’t give our power away,” Mr Pilcher said. Turnout was high, with five of Inishfree’s seven eligible voters casting a ballot. Patsy Dan Rodgers, the “king” of neighbouring Tory Island, said most of the 150 islanders would vote “no”.
At the end of three weeks of often acrimonious campaigning, a broadcast moratorium came into effect at midnight forbidding further discussion of the pros and cons of the repackaged European constitution before the polling stations close tomorrow evening.
Voters are going to the polls in gloomy mood. Ireland became the first eurozone country to fall into recession a year ago; domestic scandals over state profligacy and accusations of incompetence have dogged the Government and, yesterday, thousands marched through Dublin to protest against cuts recommended by a government-appointed auditor.
Brian Cowen, the Taoiseach, made his final pitch to voters yesterday. He tried to explain why it was essential for Ireland to overturn the “no” that it recorded in a referendum in June last year but, according to the leader of the opposition Labour Party, Eamon Gilmore, many undecided voters were veering towards rejecting the treaty.
Last time the “no” vote prevailed with 53.4 per cent, a result that stunned Europe and plunged the European Union’s expansion project into crisis. Recent opinion polls show a slow growth in the “no” vote — but put the “yes” camp still comfortably ahead with 55 per cent.
All through the campaign, the Irish have had to listen to two competing messages of doom as to the effect of the Lisbon treaty, which aims to streamline decision-making in the expanded 27-member Union. Today is their last chance to digest the two versions before making a final choice.
The embattled Mr Cowen, whose opinion poll rating is the lowest ever recorded for an Irish leader, warned that a second rejection would damage efforts to rebuild Ireland’s collapsed economy. Calling the second referendum “one of the most important decisions in our recent history”, he said voters faced a clear choice in which the stakes could not be higher. “Will we move forward together with Europe or will we take an uncharted and more uncertain road?” he asked.
“Only with a ‘yes’ will we ensure investor confidence in Ireland, protect our influence in vital economic decisions and reform Europe so that it is more dynamic and effective.
“I understand that this is a time when many people are worried and are feeling the impact of the crisis. To them I say: the future is in your hands.
“By voting ‘yes’ you will be helping Ireland achieve economic recovery. By voting ‘yes’ you will be sending a powerful signal to job creators and investors that our country is and will remain at the heart of Europe.” In response to newspaper cartoonists who have been lampooning the exercise by portraying voters preparing for next year’s vote on the treaty, he said: “There won’t be a Lisbon Three.”
Mr Cowen’s appeal was rejected by Declan Ganley, of the anti-Lisbon group Libertas. “The Irish people can choose between two visions of economic recovery,” Mr Ganley said. “On the one hand, we can choose to be scared and vote out of fear. That is what our Government wants. They have spent millions of our own money telling us to be scared. “On the other hand, we can reject our failed political establishment, reject the failed policies of the past that Lisbon enshrines, and set ourselves on the path to growth by removing the real roadblock to recovery: Brian Cowen.
“The only job Lisbon will save is Brian Cowen’s. There is nothing in this treaty which aids recovery. There is nothing that creates jobs. In fact, by handing away more and more power to an establishment that doesn’t want to listen, and won’t have to listen after Lisbon, we would be making a mistake that we would regret for generations.”
Mr Cowen bowed to pressure from President Sarkozy to rerun the referendum after securing guarantees on key issues of Irish concern.
The Republic — which accounts for 1 per cent of the Union’s 500 million population — is the only country constitutionally bound to hold a referendum, because it modifies the constitution. A total of 24 member states have ratified the treaty, with Poland and the Czech Republic the only other countries yet to do so. If Ireland does record a “yes” when all the votes have been counted by Saturday afternoon there will be rapid efforts in Brussels to complete the treaty’s ratification — and introduce new features such as a European president.
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Brussels Welcomes US Move Toward Global Governance of Internet
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS — The body responsible for managing the development of the internet, Icann, has cut its umbilical cord to the US government, a move the European Union has been demanding for four years.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which oversees domain names — the .com, .eu, .org and so on at the end of a web address — as of 30 September will no longer be subject to review by the US Department of Commerce.
Instead, independent review panels appointed by Icann Governmental Advisory Committee (Gac) and Icann itself with the involvement of governments around the world. will perform this task.
Since 2005, the EU has been calling for reform of the governance of the internet, saying that the internet is a global resource and should not be tied to one national government — a position echoed by many other countries and a number of companies.
In June of this year, the European Commission raised the volume on the issue, publishing a policy document that an independent judicial body be set up, which information society commissioner Viviane Reding described at the time as a “G12 for internet governance,” which would serve as a “multilateral forum for governments to discuss general internet governance policy and security issues.”
Wednesday’s move comes close to satisfying the EU demands, and Ms Reding welcomed the development.
“Internet users worldwide can now anticipate that Icann’s decisions on domain names and addresses will be more independent and more accountable, taking into account everyone’s interests,” she said. “If effectively and transparently implemented, this reform can find broad acceptance among civil society, businesses and governments alike.”
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
EU: Plan to Put a Price on Carbon
Commission wants a minimum tax on carbon but proposal would need backing from Council.
The European Commission is pressing ahead with controversial plans for an EU-wide minimum tax on carbon as a measure to combat climate change.
A proposal is being worked on by the Commission’s taxation and customs department so that it can be published by the next Commission, a spokeswoman for the department confirmed.
According to a draft proposal, a minimum tax on carbon of €10 per tonne would apply from 2013, under the long-awaited revision of the 2003 energy taxation directive. Member states would be free to impose higher taxes if they wished.
The Commission will argue that the current rules on energy taxation are “not properly related to the need to combat climate change” and so “not well adapted to ensure the proper functioning of the internal market”.
Setting a carbon tax would help to ensure that energy-users are treated consistently, the Commission argues. Large factories and energy companies are subject to the EU’s emissions trading system (ETS), where carbon prices are currently around €13 per tonne. But other parts of the economy, such as agriculture, transport and buildings, do not face an EU-wide price on CO2, although individual member states have devised their own policies to make polluters pay.
[…]
An Irish diplomat pointed out that Ireland had been given guarantees on tax sovereignty under the Lisbon treaty, which is the subject of a referendum in Ireland tomorrow (2 October).
The UK is also opposed to an EU-wide tax. Joan Ruddock, a junior energy minister, told the French newspaper Les Echos on 22 September that the UK would not support an EU-wide tax.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
France: Tour Eiffel With Turkish Colours, Debates
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, SEPTEMBER 30 — The scheduled illumination of the Tour Eiffel with Turkish colours, between October 6 and 11 is already causing embarrassment in the country. The initiative is part of the Turkish Season in France, but was not enthusiastically welcomed by everyone. According to French magazine VSD, the city council — including the socialist mayor, Bertrand Delanoe — distanced itself from this decision, the responsibility of which, they say, belongs only to the government. Debate sparked when the council received email from town hall unhappy to see the colours of the Turkish flag on the city’ symbol. The Turkey issue is de facto dividing France on many, more serious, accounts, such as human rights and the denial of the Armenian genocide. The city council defended itself claiming that the city’s involvement in the issue is only an ‘answer to the question from France and Turkey”. And then recalls how, in January 2004, the Iron Lady was illuminated with Chinese colours. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
France: In 2010 -33,749 Government Jobs, 500 Mln Euros Saved
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, SEPTEMBER 30 — In 2010, 33,749 jobs in public administration will be eliminated in France, a measure that will create savings of about 500 million euros for the government’s balance sheet. The measure, which is a part of electoral promises made by President Nicolas Sarkozy, is a part of the 2010 financial project announced today in Paris. Since 2007 about 80,000 jobs have been eliminated in public administration which employs some 5 million people in France. In 2007 the cuts involved some 23,000 jobs and in 2009 30,600, following the rule of not substituting one out of every two positions abandoned for retirement. In 2010 the ministries that will be most hit by the measure are those of national Education (-16,000), Defence (-8,250) and the Interior (-3,450). (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
French Government Drops Support for Director Roman Polanski as He Faces Extradition to the U.S. Over Child Sex Charge
The Roman Polanski saga took a dramatic twist today after the French government dropped it support for the film director, who is facing extradition to the US on child sex charges.
President Nicolas Sarkozy’s administration has so far stuck by the 76-year-old, who was born and lives in Paris, saying he should be released from prison.
But government spokesman Luc Chatel said Polanski should face justice because he ‘is neither above nor beneath the law’.
Mr Chatel said: ‘We have a judicial procedure under way, for a serious affair, the rape of a minor, on which the American and Swiss legal systems are doing their job.’
[…]
Despite the latest setback, Polanski is being supported by at least 110 film industry figures who have signed a petition calling for his release.
It now includes Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, David Lynch, and Monica Bellucci.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ireland: Curtain Falls on ‘Dirtiest and Most Unpleasant’ Fight in Living Memory
CAMPAIGNERS on the ‘No’ side of the Lisbon Treaty debate described the campaign last night as the dirtiest in living memory.
Women’s groups, anti-war movements and alliances opposed to the treaty rallied together yesterday in a final push for a ‘No’ vote in tomorrow’s referendum.
The People’s Movement — one the most prominent ‘No’ groups throughout the campaign — hit out at tactics used by the ‘Yes’ side and said that a new low had been reached in Irish political campaigning.
Spokesman Robert Ballagh described the Lisbon II campaign as the “dirtiest and most unpleasant” he had ever observed in this country.
Mr Ballagh told journalists that on his way to the press conference, he noticed that posters belonging to the right-wing Catholic group, Coir, had been defaced overnight by ‘Yes’ campaigners.
“I think that is utterly unacceptable and is in breach of all political traditions in this country. We’ve reached a new low in this campaign.”
He hit out at big businesses and multinationals which had rowed in to support the ‘Yes’ side, using large sums of money to influence the result.
“This is hugely detrimental to democracy in Ireland. I would call for legislation to deal with this situation after the referendum. If we are to hold future referenda in this country, we cannot allow this huge interference in democracy,” he said.
Unbalanced
People’s Movement chairwoman Patricia McKenna rubbished claims by the ‘Yes’ side that Ireland’s voting strength would be increased under Lisbon.
She said that we cannot be stronger in Europe when Ireland’s voting strength is reduced. “I have never seen such an unbalanced campaign,” she said.
Libertas leader Declan Ganley focused his attention on Taoiseach Brian Cowen — urging people to reject the Lisbon Treaty and end the tenure of a leader that had failed to listen to the Irish people.
“We can reject our failed political establishment, reject the failed policies of the past that Lisbon enshrines, and set ourselves on the path to growth by removing the real roadblock to recovery, Brian Cowen,” he said.
The People’s Movement was joined by fishermen and farmers’ representatives yesterday who also called for a ‘No’ vote.
But like the trade union movement, farmers are split over the treaty.
Meanwhile, Mary Crotty — whose father Raymond Crotty successfully took a Supreme Court case against the Irish Government so that Irish people had a right to vote on EU treaties — warned that Lisbon would probably be Ireland’s last EU referendum.
Ms Crotty said that she is non-political and is voting ‘No’ as a wife and a mother.
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Ireland: Former US Detainees Begin Irish Integration
TWO FORMER Guantánamo Bay detainees who arrived in Ireland for resettlement last weekend have begun a 10-week integration programme and are adjusting slowly to their new environment, according to a Government official.
The Uzbeks, Oybek Jabbarov (31) and Shakhrukh Hamiduva, who is in his mid-20s, travelled to Ireland last Saturday after spending seven years in the US-run detention centre in Cuba.
To help them prepare for their new lives in Ireland, the Department of Justice has organised a 10-week series of intensive courses in civics, cookery and other subjects.
Under an agreement between the Government and the US administration, the men have been granted humanitarian leave to remain, a legal status that gives them the right to work and access State services.
While they nominally enjoy the right to travel within the EU, the men have not been issued with travel documents and, as Uzbek nationals, would require visas to visit other European states. Officials say they will be eligible to apply for Irish citizenship after five years.
The men flew into Baldonnel aerodrome on Saturday and were brought directly to the west of the country to begin the integration programme. One of the men has a wife and daughter, and officials expect them to join him in Ireland in due course.
As well as taking courses, the men will be assisted in opening bank accounts and dealing with State bureaucracy.
Three officials from the Department of Justice have been assigned to co-ordinate their resettlement, and while interpreters have also been made available to the men, officials say they have been communicating with staff through English.
A source in the Department of Justice said the men were in good health and slowly adapting to their new circumstances. “It’s a major change of circumstances for these people. They have been incarcerated in Guantánamo Bay for seven years, and they’re suddenly in an entirely new environment, in an alien country with different weather,” the source said.
“They didn’t have many clothes when they arrived, so arrangements were made to bring them to buy new shoes. One of the men went, but the other got nervous and decided against . . . We’re taking small steps at a time.
“They’re in a centre now, but even to leave the centre and go down to the local shop is a major adjustment because they haven’t been outside for a long time.”
Plans for the men’s long-term resettlement have not yet been finalised, but it is expected that they will be helped to find social housing elsewhere in the country before Christmas.
“They don’t pose any security threat, and they’re as well adjusted as you can be after spending the period of time they did in Guantánamo Bay,” the source said.
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Italy: Estimate on Illegal Capital Abroad
Tax authorities put the sum at some 300 billion euros
(ANSA) — Rome, September 29 — Tax authorities have estimated that the amount of financial assets held abroad illegally by Italian citizens is in the neighborhood of 300 billion euros.
The Finance Guard said on Tuesday that it based its calculation on data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and that it included 125 billion euros deposited by Italians in Switzerland and 86 billion in Luxembourg.
Italy’s parliament this week is expected to give a definitive green light to a tax amnesty which will sharply limit penalties on capital brought back to Italy from abroad.
Tax havens around the world are believed to hide between five and seven trillion dollars, of which up to $1.6 trillion belonging to organized crime.
The debate on the decree to allow Italians to bring back capital from abroad has split parliament along partisan lines and a confidence vote is now expected on the measure.
According to Dario Francheschini, leader of the biggest opposition party, the Democratic Party (PD), the measure “is a pardon, a slap in the face of honest citizens who obey the law and regularly pay their taxes”.
“They are going to see that people can break the law and then bring back hidden gains not only without punishment but also paying 10-15 time less tax. It’s disgraceful,” Franceschini said.
Daniele Capezzone, spokesman for the People of Freedom party of Premier Silvio Berlusconi, replied that the measure “means that, finally, people will be paying something rather than nothing. What this government has done is to offer a last chance to settle accounts with the tax man and prepare a concrete strategy to combat tax evasion”.
One of the most contested aspects of the new law is that it exempts those who return capital to Italy from being accused of accounting fraud.
Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti explained on Tuesday that this was necessary because, otherwise, it would have created a “trap” for the tax evaders, who would find themselves incriminated on charges other than tax evasion if they took advantage of the pardon.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy and US in Nuclear Partnership
Cooperation accord for new power plants in Italy
(ANSA) — Washington, September 30 — Italy and the United States have signed an agreement to cooperate in the field of nuclear energy, the second such accord Italy has struck after one with France earlier this year.
The five-year agreement focuses on the development of 12 new-generation nuclear power plants in Italy and there is an option to extend the accord another five years.
The two countries will work together in the areas of research and development, the treatment and storage of nuclear waste, security and efficiency.
This will involve the exchange of information, personnel and materials between Italy and the US.
The accord also sets up a bilateral surveillance panel which will meet once a year to oversee progress in implementing the accord.
The agreement was signed here late Tuesday by Italian Industry Minister Claudio Scajola and US Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
Italy abandoned nuclear power in 1987 after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and is now the only leading western power without it.
This summer the Italian parliament gave its green light to a return to nuclear power through which Italy hopes to cover 25% of its energy needs in the future.
Scajola said earlier this year that Italy would begin to build its first new-generation nuclear power plant by 2013 and start producing energy by 2018.
He added that new-generation plants will produce energy safely, on a large scale, at competitive prices and respecting the environment.
Italy and France struck an accord last February to cooperate in the production of nuclear energy. This agreement called for the building of at least four nuclear power plants in Italy, using French technology, and the participation of Italian electricity utility ENEL in the construction of another five plants in France.
The Italian government has said that by mid-February it will have established the criteria for choosing sites for new nuclear energy plants and storing radioactive waste and for compensatory measures for people who will be affected by the plants.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Camorra Group on Facebook
Investigators checking that ‘recruiting’ is not a prank
(ANSA) — Rome, September 26 — A Facebook group inviting young people to join the Camorra is the latest mafia fan club to pop up on the popular social networking site, web observers said Monday. The group claims to represent a “new Camorra gang made up of teenagers” in the Naples suburb of Pomigliano d’Arco and promises new members “plenty of work”.
Listed under the “common interests” category, the group has just three members, two of them children, and has not been confirmed as an authentic attempt to recruit kids into the Naples crime syndicate.
Investigators said they were looking into the site to see if it wasn’t a prank.
However, town administrators are concerned that the group may be associated with a recent wave of vandalism attributed to juvenile delinquents, such as the destruction of a local playground.
The Pomigliano Camorra group is one of hundreds of clubs on Facebook championing the mafia, many of them dedicated to famous gangsters.
Earlier in the year, Facebook said it took down some mafia-related content, such as a page dedicated to Toto’ ‘The Beast’ Riina which had over 2,000 subscribers.
However, there are still some 300 groups dedicated to the former Cosa Nostra ‘boss of bosses’, many of them demanding his release from prison.
In January, the transnational crime envoy to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Carlo Vizzini, called the thousands of people who had joined mafia fan sites “potential gangsters” who ought to be investigated.
Last week, Facebook announced that its user base had surpassed 300 million, approaching the population of the United States, and that it had turned its first ever profit.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Mafia Soccer Dedication Outcry
Agrigento president’s words ‘take us back 40 years’
(ANSA) — Agrigento, September 28 — The president of a Sicilian soccer team has caused an outcry by dedicating a victory to a Mafia suspect.
Gioacchino Sferrazza, owner of the semi-professional Agrigento team Akragas Calcio, told local radio after Sunday’s 5-0 win over Sporting Arenella: “I’d like to dedicate this victory to my close friend Nicola Ribisi”.
Ribisi, 29, a supermarket owner, was taken into custody in a Mafia probe earlier this month. Police say he has become the new head of a powerful Agrigento Mob family.
Sferrazza, 45, owner of a chain of toy shops, was challenged by reporters Sunday who called the dedication “misplaced”.
The Akragas president responded by announcing an immediate press black-out, saying “I don’t see how anyone can stop you dedicating a victory to a personal friend”.
On Monday he stressed that he was “supporting a friend, not a Mafia suspect”.
But Agrigento police chief Girolamo Di Fazio said Sferrazza’s words “leave us speechless” and “take us back 40 years” to a time when Mafiosi were treated as celebrities.
Di Fazio said Agrigento prosecutors were weighing whether to open a formal investigation.
Giuseppe Lumia, the former head of the parliamentary anti-Mafia commission, said the club owner’s statements were “extremely serious” and could have “devastating effects” on young fans.
“This sends a completely wrong cultural and educational message,” he said. Giuseppe Fava, a leftwing MP whose anti-Mafia journalist father Giuseppe was murdered in 1984, said “dedicating a championship victory to a Mafia boss is not a crime: it is worse, it is a disgraceful sign of absolute moral impunity”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Protection for Reporter Who Wrote Book About Shiite Woman
Threats after account of love story with Amira
ROME — “The envelope was on the windscreen of my car, parked near my home in Rome. Inside, there were two bullets and this piece of paper. Here it is”. The computer-printed note, complete with spelling mistake, says: “Nello Rega you are dead these are for you and we do it right now. You are dead and you will see how because Allah and Hezbollah have decided to get you killed. The bullets are for you Nello Rega because you tell lies and harm Lebanese Shiites and write against Shiites”. “The second envelope arrived at my mother Antonietta’s house in Potenza. Two bullets. More threats, very similar. And a photocopy of the book’s cover”.
The book is “Diversi e divisi. Diario di una convivenza con l’Islam” [Different and Divided. A Diary of Living with Islam]. Nello Rega, 43, is a reporter for Televideo. He wrote the book to tell the story of his three-year affair with Amira, a Shiite woman. “A divided love, lived out by a man and a woman who were different. Distant in their ways of communicating, kissing and making love” say the cover notes. The book has only just arrived in the bookshops but it has been talked about for the past fortnight on the blog of the publisher, Terra del Sole. The introduction was written by Luca Zaia, the minister of agriculture and the Northern League’s strong man in the Veneto region. Mr Zaia uses the episode to conclude that “violence, revenge and the subordination of women are not part of our Christian culture and it is hard to see why we should accept all this without question… West and East have much to learn from each other but I believe that the superiority of the West should be acknowledged in disseminating the rights that should be shared by everyone”.
It is not the first time that Mr Rega has received threats. “In January this year, I found a piece of paper shoved under my door. It was a photocopy of my photograph taken from “Sud dopo Sud” [South After South], a book on Lebanon I published two years ago. There was a message: ‘You will die. We will strike you in the name of Allah because you have harmed the Shiites’“. Other messages followed. “A month later, on my windscreen in the RAI car park at Saxa Rubra. Then at my mother’s home, with a photo of Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader. There was another windscreen delivery, this time outside some friends’ home on the Via Prenestina, where I was having dinner. I could see they knew my movements. Once, when I had been at San Lorenzo with a woman colleague, I found a message at home: ‘We saw you with your girlfriend this morning at the Verano’. I went to the Carabinieri but the first public prosecutor dropped the case, even though the Carabinieri pressed for supplementary enquiries. Then, luckily, I found Francesco Polino, a public prosecutor who would listen to me”. Through the prefect, the interior ministry arranged protection and the case was submitted to Rome’s anti-terrorism group. Is Mr Rega sure that Hezbollah is behind this? “I don’t know. But I am sure they know about it. It was only later that I found out Amira had relatives with links to the organisation. I’m not accusing anyone. But I’m very concerned about my personal safety. This death sentence could be carried out by other fundamentalists driven by the same principles”.
Mr Rega’s romance with Amira began in Lebanon in 2005, when he was covering the elections. “Her family had a hotel at Naqoura, in the south near the Israeli border where the Italian-led UN mission is based. At first, she seemed thoroughly westernised. Apart from her slightly dark complexion, you could have mistaken her for a Roman. She followed me to Italy, we fell in love and we started talking about marriage. Then they took her away from me. In Rome, she fell in with people from fundamentalist circles. She felt attracted by it and all of a sudden she left me. I wrote our story, without bitterness, to put on paper my feelings and how hard it is not being able to live with her”. What now? “I’m terrified. I move around on my own and I don’t feel really protected. So far, none of the papers have told my story. I’ve had expressions of solidarity from the public television workers’ union USIGRAI, the journalists’ association and the Moroccan-born parliamentarian Souad Sbai. And immediately her association’s lawyer, Loredana Gemelli, also received threats. I refuse to be silent. I am not giving in to them. But I do ask the state not to abandon me and to protect my life”. Police and magistrates have the job of assessing the seriousness of the threats. But the fact remains that a writer who receives bullets and death threats over a book from self-proclaimed Islamic fundamentalists has been granted perhaps inadequate protection, yet no one says anything about it.
English translation by Giles Watson
www.watson.it
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Escort to Appear on Talk Show
‘Berlusconi tape’ woman fans TV row
(ANSA) — Rome, September 30 — The Italian escort who claimed headlines worldwide after taping what she said was a night with Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi is to appear for the first time on Italian state TV.
Patrizia D’Addario, 42, will be the guest Thursday of RAI state broadcaster’s prime-time talk show Annozero, currently at the centre of a row about overstepping its public-service remit.
Wednesday’s announcement of D’Addario’s presence increased the pressure on Annozero host Michele Santoro, who has been accused of using the show as a platform for an anti-Berlusconi agenda. Deputy Communications Minister Paolo Romani said D’Addario’s appearance would make the government “even more attentive” about whether “this type of programme is compatible with RAI’s public-service role”.
Romani reiterated that the government will quiz RAI chiefs on October 8 about whether the corporation is fulfilling its duties to the license-fee payer.
But he stressed that “this is not censorship” and claimed that any assessment of RAI and Annozero’s content was up to the parliamentary watchdog on the broadcaster.
The head of the watchdog, distinguished former journalist Sergio Zavoli, responded by saying that some talk shows might be seen by some as favouring the opposition but “every day there are news programmes which are certainly not backing the centre-left agenda, and have a greater penetration because they are repeated several times”.
However, Romani said RAI’s new contract, which is about to be renewed, would include a clause ruling out “grandstanding and partisan coverage”.
Media magnate Berlusconi, who in 2002 slammed Santoro and others for a “criminal” use of the airwaves, resulting in a five-year absence of the host, said earlier Wednesday he wasn’t afraid of programmes like Annozero which “only increase my support”.
But he is suing several Italian and European newspapers over their coverage of the D’Addario case and his estranged wife’s claim that he is unwell and frequents minors like Noemi Letizia, an 18-year-old aspiring actress whose 18th birthday party he attended in May.
D’Addario, who signed autographs at the recent Venice Film Festival, has been interviewed by French, Swiss and Turkish TV several European newspapers.
But in Italy she has only appeared on Sky Italia, Rupert Murdoch’s satellite channel.
Saying he wanted to fill a gap in TV coverage of the escort affair, in which D’Addario said several women were paid to attend the premier’s parties, Santoro devoted his entire season-opening show to the subject last week.
News of D’Addario’s invitation led Flavia Perini, editor of the rightwing party organ Il Secolo d’Italia, to pull out of the show “out of respect for politics and women’s dignity”.
Berlusconi owns Italy’s three biggest commercial TV stations and his brother owns a newspaper which is leading a campaign for Italians not to pay the RAI license fee.
The premier has also been accused of influencing RAI’s coverage and appointments.
He denies the charges and also claims to have no say in the line taken by his own group or his brother’s newspaper. photo: D’Addario performs at disco in hometown of Bari
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Call Girl ‘Fixer’ Tries to Gag Popular TV Show
Rome, 1 October (AKI) — Giampaolo Tarantini, the businessman who allegedly supplied call girls to attend Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s parties was on Thursday trying to gag a prime time TV programme about him. Tarantini claims that the current affairs talkshow Annozero, due to be aired later on Thursday by state broadcaster RAI, could prejudice an ongoing judicial probe centred on him.
The 35-year-old entrepreneur is currently under house arrest in the southern Italian city of Bari, where he is being investigated for suspected drug trafficking, corruption and abetting prostitution.
“The dissemination on television — or in newspapers — of documents relating to a judicial investigation that is still taking place can only damage our client,” Vito D’Ascola, one of two lawyers defending Tarantini, told Adnkronos.
D’Ascola has written to RAI’s board of directors, to Italy’s media watchdog and to Italy’s economic development minister Claudio Scajola, demanding that Thursday’s Annozero show be gagged.
The letter specifically asks for transcripts of prosecutors’ interrogations of Tarantini and phone taps to be withheld.
The 42-year-old Italian escort Patrizia D’Addario, is among guests who have been invited to appear on Thursday’s Annozero talkshow. She says she slept with Berlusconi at his Rome residence last November.
More than five million viewers tuned in to watch a 2.5 hour special edition of Annozero on 24 September, dedicated to press freedom, which featured D’Addario’s first television interview.
The conservative Italian government subsequently ordered an investigation to “verify the impartiality” of the programme.
RAI, could face a fine of up to 90 million euros after senior ministers issued a formal complaint accusing TV executives of waging a “media campaign based on prurience, rubbish, shame, infamy and dirt”.
D’Addario is among 30 women who have been questioned by prosecutors in connection with the judicial probe of Tarantini. And she has handed to prosecutors photos and audio recordings to back up her claims.
Excerpts and transcripts of the recordings were published in July on left-leaning daily La Repubblica and its sister weekly L’Espresso’s websites.
Berlusconi has never denied he slept with D’Addario but says he has never paid a woman for sex.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Slovenia: Serb President in ‘Historic’ Visit
Ljubljana, 30 Sept. (AKI) — Serbian president Boris Tadic ended on Wednesday what he termed an “historic visit” to Slovenia. He and his Slovenian colleague Danilo Turk heralded a new era in relations between the two former Yugoslav republics.
Tadic and Turk opened a Serbian business club in Ljubljana which should promote trade and economic cooperation. He also signed an agreement on social security, which should provide pension benefits for Serbs working in Slovenia and Slovenians in Serbia.
Last year, trade between the two countries topped one billion euros, with Serbia recording a 325 million euros deficit. The two leaders called for expansion and for more balanced trade and discussed joint ventures in third countries.
Unlike Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, whose secession from the former Yugoslavia in 1991 resulted in a bloody war, Slovenia witnessed only minor skirmishes and was the first former Yugoslav republic to become a member of the European Union in 2004.
Serbia, like other west Balkans countries, has proclaimed EU membership its main political goal, but has taken only initial steps along that road.
Turk vowed to lend Belgrade political and technical support towards full EU membership.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Singer Hassam Attacked by 5 Moroccan Men in Madrid
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, SEPTEMBER 29 — Saharawi singer Marem Hassam was attacked in the Anton Martin square of Madrid by a group of five young Moroccan men who insulted and harassed her because she was wearing the melfa, the traditional clothes of western Sahara, an area not controlled by Morocco. Mariem Hassam arrived in Madrid, where she is recording her latest album, on her way back from Italy where she took part in the Womad Sicily music festival in Taormina, together with singers Khaled and Oumou Sangare. According to sources within the State Coordination Centre of Associations for Sahara, the five Moroccans attacked the singer while she was coming out of a cafe in the central Anton Martin square with three friends, a dancer and two musicians. The two musicians intervened to defend the singer and a police car arrived on the scene, causing the attackers to run away and escaping in a taxi. Investigations are still underway regarding the attackers’ identities. Known as ‘the Desert Voice’, Mariem Hassam is a singer and songwriter who writes her songs in hassania, a Saharawi dialect, to give voice to her people, forced to live in the refugee camps of western Sahara. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Are You Old Enough to Own a Spoon? Woman Asked for ID When Buying Teaspoons in Tesco
A shopper was asked for proof of age when she tried to buy a packet of teaspoons from a supermarket.
Emma Sheppard was forbidden to buy the cutlery unless she showed identification to a shop assistant at her local Tesco.
Till operators at the store in Evesham, Worcs, wouldn’t sell the pack of five teaspoons on Monday night as part of their ‘Think 25’ scheme, which demands ID from people who look under 25 when buying certain goods.
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UK: Cervical Cancer Jab Girl Died From Unrelated Chest Tumour as Researcher Calls Vaccine Plan a ‘Mass Experiment’
Teenager Natalie Morton died from a malignant tumour in her chest and not from a reaction to the cervical cancer jab, it was revealed today.
Deputy coroner for Coventry Louise Hunt told Natalie’s parents that the current indication was that the vaccine was not a contributing factor in her death.
Opening and adjourning the inquest at Coventry Magistrates’ Court, she said: ‘It appears that Natalie died from a tumour in her chest involving her heart and her lungs’.
Natalie, 14, collapsed less than two hours after being given a cervical cancer vaccination at Coventry’s Blue Coat Church of England School on Monday.
[…]
‘We have been clear all along that there is no reason to suspend HPV immunisation — the programme against cervical cancer continues today,’ a spokesman said.
‘We have one of the most successful immunisation programmes in the world and have great confidence in the safety of them.
‘Young girls can continue to protect themselves against cervical cancer by having this vaccine.’ But Dr Harper, of the University of Missouri-Kansas, who was involved in the clinical trials of Cervarix, believes it should have been tested for another four years before being introduced in Britain. Prof Diane Harper
Concerns: Prof Harper claims the vaccine needs more testing
Patient trials have only been running for seven and a half years — not long enough to show whether it continues protecting women into their late 20s and 30s, she said.
‘It is a public health experiment,’ she said.
‘Parents consenting to HPV vaccination must be told that the duration of the vaccine is unknown, and that it is entirely possible that the initial vaccination series will only postpone, not prevent, future cervical cancers in their daughter,’ Dr Harper said.
Around one million girls have been given the vaccine. There have been 4,657 reports of suspected adverse reactions — including sore arms, dizziness and swelling.
Although the drug is safe for the majority of women, there are very rare ‘real dangers’ — including the risk of brain damage, paralysis and death, Dr Harper said.
Even if the jab is only dangerous for one person in a million, women should be told the risks, she said.
She also believes the benefits of the vaccine as a ‘cure’ are being exaggerated. The jab does not prevent 30 per cent of cervical cancers — which means women will still need to be screened for pre-cancerous lesions.
Dr Harper helped develop the HPV vaccine which is produced as Cervarix — the GlaxoSmithKline product distributed by the NHS — and Gardasil which is produced by Merck and distributed in the U.S.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Forced Marriage Cases Up by 80pc This Year as Investigators Find Parents Using ‘Bounty Hunters’
The number of forced marriages being investigated in Britain has risen by 80 per cent this year with parents using “bounty hunters” and bogus missing persons campaigns in a desperate bid to track down runaway children and make them wed.
A special Government unit dedicated to stopping teenagers being married off by their families dealt with 300 cases in the first half of this year, up from 168 in the same period of 2007.
But the head of the Forced Marriage Unit, based at the Foreign Office, fears this could be just the tip of the iceberg as many victims are too scared to come forward and communities often close up to hide what is going on.
Wayne Ives also warned that heads of families are going to extreme lengths to get their children to marry, in some instances posing as officials to kidnap runaway brides or paying people to track them down.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Hero Soldier Who Lost Three Limbs in Afghanistan Taunted About His Disabilities by Teenagers
After losing three limbs fighting for his country, Matthew Weston might have expected to be treated with respect by the British public.
But the 20-year-old — who is one of the most seriously injured soldiers to survive since Britain began fighting in Afghanistan in 2001 — has instead had to endure cruel taunts in the street.
Yesterday his family were joined by politicians in condemning the cowards who insulted him.
Sapper Weston, of 33 Engineer Regiment, was first taunted by a callous teenager as he was being pushed in a wheelchair by his mother and girlfriend Bryony Bolland on an outing from hospital.
The yob shouted: ‘Haven’t you forgotten something? Oh yeah, your legs.’
Weeks later, as he was waiting to be served in a fish and chip shop, another lout sneered: ‘If you didn’t want to be blown up don’t go to war.’
The incidents both happened in Birmingham, where he was being treated at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine, Selly Oak Hospital.
His mother Rena Weston, 40, an operating theatre nurse, said: ‘Injured soldiers are a common sight round there. To taunt anyone in a wheelchair is a terrible thing to do, but to do it to a soldier is disgusting.
‘These men are heroes. They put their lives on the line to defend their country and it’s shocking that there are people who repay their bravery with comments like this. They are mindless idiots.
‘I didn’t know what to do when they shouted the legs insult. I choked back the tears before pushing Matthew away and could hear them laughing.
‘I was mortified. The most heartbreaking thing was when Matthew turned to me and said, “I guess I’d better get used to it”.
‘Why should he have to? He’s out fighting and risking his life for this country and this is how he is treated when he comes back. It’s sickening.’
Miss Bolland, 18, said: ‘We were horrified that people can be so ignorant. It’s very sad.’
Their comments were echoed yesterday by Defence Minister Kevan Jones, who said: ‘I’m disgusted. People who do this should be ashamed of insulting a hero like Matthew.’
Shadow Defence Secretary Liam Fox added: ‘Attacks of this kind on our injured veterans are despicable. They deserve respect and admiration from every single person in the UK.’
Sapper Weston, who joined the Army at 17, was halfway through his first tour of duty in Afghanistan when he lost both legs and his right arm to a Taliban bomb during a foot patrol.
As part of Operation Panther’s Claw — the battle to drive the Taliban from a key area in Helmand province — he was using a metal detector to clear mines ahead of an infantry patrol in the Sangin region on June 29.
He was blown into the air as he stepped on a mine that had been placed behind a metal door, where it would not be discovered by his metal detector.
He suffered horrific injuries and was flown back to Britain where surgeons told his family to fear the worst.
But he survived and was nearing the end of 11 weeks of treatment at Selly Oak when he was insulted in the street.
He still has hearing problems and is now being rehabilitated at Headley Court, Surrey.
But Sapper Weston, who will next week be fitted with prosthetic legs, refuses to be cowed by his tormentors.
He said: ‘I didn’t expect to get abuse like that. I’ve encountered worse things in my life, though, and I’m not going to let it get in the way of my rehab or my future.’
Mrs Weston, who lives in Taunton, Somerset, said: ‘What I’d say to the morons who insulted Matt is, If you don’t like what you see, walk on. Don’t hurl abuse at him.
‘He is very strong. Soon after he came round in critical care he said, “I’m not going to die — I’m not going to let those bastards get another one of us. I’m going to fight back”.
‘That sort of courage and determination should be an inspiration to everyone.
‘Matthew plans to return to the Army next year and is even hoping to be considered for the Paralympic shooting team.’
Sapper Weston is not the first soldier to face abuse from the very people he risks his life to defend.
Troops returning from Afghanistan have been told to change into civilian clothes before landing at Birmingham Airport, while in Peterborough, RAF personnel were banned from wearing uniform in town because of the verbal abuse they received.
And in March, Muslim protesters waved offensive placards bearing slogans such as ‘Butchers of Basra’ as members of the 2nd Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment marched through Luton.
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Public Ban at Supreme Court Opening
The promised era of more open justice at the nation’s new Supreme Court has kicked off with the media barred from the historic opening.
Journalists had to wait outside as the 11 new Justices of the Supreme Court were sworn in inside the refurbished Middlesex Guildhall in Parliament Square.
Lord Phillips, head of the new panel of judges who sat at the House of Lords until the end of July, had hailed the new court as an opportunity to bring to the public the workings of the highest court in the land.
But journalists and the public were told there was no room and the proceedings would be broadcast live from the chamber by its own team.
Half a dozen policemen and court security guard were outside the neo-Gothic building newly emblazoned with signs declaring it to be The Supreme Court and Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
The judges emerged from the intricately carved stone portals of their new home resplendent in their modern regalia.
Gone were the full bottomed wigs, robes and breeches.
The Justices of the Supreme Court posed in front of the building wearing their black robes, lavishly threaded with gold. All were bare-headed save for Baroness Hale, who wore a flat black tasselled hat.
Lord Phillips said they had discussed whether they should have headgear and all the male members of the Supreme Court declined but Baroness Hale said she wanted a hat.
| — Hat tip: TV | [Return to headlines] |
Bosnia: Amnesty, Lack of Attention for Rape Victims
(ANSAmed) — SARAJEVO, SEPTEMBER 30 — In a report presented today in Sarajevo, Amnesty International has condemned the “deplorable” lack of attention on the part of the Bosnian authorities towards women who suffered rape during the war in Bosnia (1992-1995). Amnesty’s investigator, Marek Marczynski, said that apart from the trauma suffered, the victims of these war crimes are also stigmatised by society. He added that many dare not speak publicly, because large numbers of the perpetrators of the violence are living alongside them, in the same communities, often in positions of power. As a consequence, the survivors worry over their safety and are not encouraged to testify in front of judges, because of the lack of witness protection programmes. According to Amnesty’s estimates, 20 to 50 thousand women were raped during the war in Bosnia, and the worrying fact is that so far, 14 years after the war, cases for trial have been prepared for only 30 cases, 18 in front of the International Tribunal in the Hague (TPI), and 12 in front of the War crimes tribunal in Sarajevo. The Bosnian authorities are paying no attention to the needs of rape victims in terms of psychological, economic, and other support, says Amnesty. Only 500 women in the BH Federation (Bosnia’s Croatian-Muslim majority) receive some form of help as war victims (the number in the Republika Srpska, RS, with a majority Serbian population is not known) and procedures for obtaining war victim status are discriminatory. The war in Bosnia caused 100,000 dead and 2.5 million refugees, about half the country’s population.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Kosovo: EU: 103.6 Million Euros in Assistance
(ANSAmed) — PRISTINA, SEPTEMBER 25 — The European Commission granted Kosovo economic assistance worth 103.6 million euros to support the Country’s institutional and socio-economic development. The relative agreement was signed today in Pristina by Kosovo’s prime minister Hashim Yhaci and by Renzo Daviddi, head of the EU Commission’s liaison office. Daviddi specified that the assistance plan is subdivided into 13 projects which concern, inter alia, strengthening the legal system, public administration reforms, and assistance to culture, media, sport and youth. Daviddi added that “The projects also aim to improve social and economic infrastructures in Kosovo, including trade, education, agriculture, environment, transport and the energy networks”. Counting today’s agreement, the EU has allocated 80% of commitments made during the donor conference that took place in July 2008. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Ahram Supplement Editor Accused for Welcoming Israeli
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, SEPTEMBER 28 — Having welcomed the Israeli Ambassador to Cairo, Shalom Cohen, in her office, magazine editor Hala Mustafa finds herself facing trial by the disciplinary council of the pro-Government foundation which publishes her periodical. Such has been the fate of the editor of ‘Democracy’, a supplement of Egypt’s daily paper, Al Ahram, according to reports in the independent daily, Shoruk. “This is an illegal act, because none of the regulations of the Al Ahram Foundation prohibits meeting Israelis. The ban on their entry to our offices, which was imposed two days ago, cannot be applied retrospectively”, the journalist commented, according to the Shoruk report. The Board of Directors of Al Ahram decided on Saturday to bring Hala Mustafa before the Disciplinary Council, to ban entry to the newspaper’s offices to all Israelis and to outlaw all collaboration with Israeli researchers. The journalist declined to comment on the fact that the Chairman and Director of the Al Ahram Foundation, Abdelmoneim Said, has in the past been a guest of the Israelis. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: Tripoli: Urban Plan Wipes Out City’s Past
(ANSAmed) — TRIPOLI, SEPTEMBER 30 — People are returning to the neighbourhood where they have worked for years and finding it isolated and guarded while bulldozers flatten the area. This is what is happening in Tripoli in the zone called Suq Al Thalat, where until a few days ago, there were hundreds of shops, which are now being wiped out in order to allow the implementation of an urban plan, which is transforming Libya’s capital into what many people have dubbed ‘Dubai of the Mediterranean’. While the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, is participating in the second summit of African and South American heads of state taking place in Venezuela, Tripoli is shrouded in a cloud of white dust caused by the bulldozers that are demolishing an entire district of the city. While Gaddafi’s speeches at the summit in Venezuela continue to dominate the front pages of the Libyan daily newspapers, the “good reasons” for which part of the city is being razed appear in the margin. Forced expropriations, in this case of entire districts, have been carried out in order that the urban plan, which will transform the city, can be put into motion. The most recent demolition began three days ago in Suq Al Thalat. In one night, the zone, which has no homes but has mosques and shops, was entirely fenced off and the bulldozers were set to work. Only yesterday it was reported in several daily papers that “the secretary general of the General People’s Committee confirm that Suq Al Thalat will be transformed into a public park for all Libyans to enjoy.” However, 35,000 people now find themselves without their earnings from their shops and the cranes, under military escort, are already demolishing what was considered to be the historic market of the city, specialising in household items. Two days ago inhabitants of the Ghargur neighbourhood, near one of the Libyan leader’s homes, were suddenly besieged by bulldozers, accompanied by guards from central security and municipal guards, who asked the citizens to leave their homes “immediately to allow them to be demolished.” No report, not even a single sentence, has appeared in the papers with the exception of the “Libya Al-Youm” website, where it is reported that “with regard to the Suq Al Thalat case, the Secretary for the Unions, Trade Unions and Professional Associations of the Libyan Parliament accuses the Prime Minister of brutal actions and promises to begin an inquiry.” Meanwhile the tradespeople of Suq Al Thalat were yesterday evening threatening to take to the streets and have called for the intervention of Colonel Gaddafi, who has just returned from his American trip. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Morocco: Paper Charged for Caricature of Royal Family
(ANSAmed) — RABAT, SEPTEMBER 29 — Moroccan Interior ministry decided to bring the Arab language newspaper, Akhbar Al Youm, before justice for having published a caricature that portrayed “a private event for the royal family”, announced the MAP press agency quoting a statement from the ministry. The event that the ministry was related to the marriage of Prince Moulay Ismail, cousin of the King, who last week married Anissa Lekmkuhl, a German citizen of Islamic religion. “Apart from the biased use of the national flag, the caricature attacks the symbol of the nation, offending an emblem of the kingdom”, a statement confirmed, adding that “the use of the Star of David brings up questions on the author’s insinuations and indicates an anti-Semite tendency”. The ministry announced the seizure of the newspaper, deciding on “the appropriate measures against its assets”. According to the agency, Prince Moulay Ismail will also present charges against the paper. In August, TelQuel, Nichane and the French paper Le Monde were seized for having carried out a survey on King Mohammed V for the 10th anniversary of his reign. Some journalists were also charged recently for having published “false information” on the health of the King. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Barry Rubin: Meet the Palestinians’ Next Leader, Muhammad (Abu Al-Mahir) Ghaneim
There’s nothing written about more often—and inaccurately—than the Palestinians, yet there is curiously little interest about the politics and ideology which governs their behavior. The same situation applies to the man s slated to become that movement’s next leader, only the third to hold that post in 50 years, after Yasir Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas.
The fact that an issue that is supposedly the most important, high-priority question in the Middle East, or even the world, is so little studied in depth has a simple answer. The contemporary narrative is that the Palestinian leadership yearns for a state, an end to the conflict, and peace, while the failure to achieve can be blamed on Israel. Yet even the slightest real examination shows the exact opposite is true.
This point is only underlined by looking at the current candidate for next leader, Muhammad Ghaneim, often known as Abu Mahir. Of all those who might credibly have been considered for the leadership of Fatah—and hence of the PLO and Palestinian Authority (PA)—he is probably the most hardline one.
Ironically, while media coverage of the 2009 Fatah Congress stressed the accession of young and more flexible leaders, the 72-year-old Ghaneim certainly does not fit that description.
Born in Jerusalem on August 29, 1937. His first political involvement was with the Muslim Brotherhood but he became a founding member of the Fatah movement in 1959 and active ever after, involved mainly in recruitment and organizational matters.
It is difficult to say to what extent Ghaneim’s early involvement with radical Islamism has shaped his thinking and whether it would make it easier for him to reconcile with the even more radical Hamas. Most Fatah and PLO people came out of more secular Arab nationalist or leftist movements. The only prominent leader who blended an Islamist background with nationalism was Arafat himself, and this certainly remained a prominent theme in his worldview during his entire career.
Ghaneim’s big career break came in 1968 when at the age of just 30 Arafat appointed him commander of Fatah’s forces in Jordan…
| — Hat tip: Barry Rubin | [Return to headlines] |
Peace Process: Abbas Less Rigid on Colonies, Press
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, SEPTEMBER 29 — According to media in the region, based on US indiscretion, there have been signals of a less rigid position from the president of the Palestinian National Authorithy (PNA), Mahmud Abbas, on the preliminary request for a complete freeze on all Jewish settlement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem prior to a resumption of peace negotiation with Israel. According to the sources, quoted by Israeli liberal newspaper Haaretz and again by semi-official Palestinian press agency Maan, Mahmoud Abbas should have accepted to set aside his precondition, upon US request, pledging his return to the negotiation table that President Barack Obama is trying to set up once again, with great difficulty, also due to the persisting resistance of Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu on a colonies’ freeze, which should be a precondition of the peace agreement, based on the commitments made in 2003 with mediators from US, Russia, UN and EU as part of the so-called Road Map. In exchange, Washington has allegedly pledged to strongly back Palestine on settlements, at the time of drafting an agreement with Israel. The tactical give-in of the Palestinian president, according to Haaretz, will allow the White House’s special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, to start weaving a new setting to relaunch negotiations in about two days time, despite the inconclusive outcome of the recent summit, in New York, between Obama, Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas. Meetings with two Israeli representatives have already been scheduled on Wednesday: Yitzhak Molcho, one of Netanyahu’s advisors, and Michael Herzog, head of the Cabinet of the Defence Minister, Ehud Barak. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Rabbi Bans Use of Lifts on Sabbath
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV — The ban on the use of lifts on the Sabbath Day for ultra-orthodox Jews is now written in stone. At least for followers of the venerable Rabbi Yossef Shalom Elyashiv, whose verdict tightened regulations that have been followed until now and prohibit special automatic ‘Sabbath’ lifts that allowed people to avoid using the stairs without breaking a rule prohibiting people from pushing electric buttons on the ritual day of rest. The news was reported on religious website Haredim (‘respectful’), which announced the ban with a rather alarming tone, defining the situation as “dramatic”. The Shabbat lift is designed to go up and down continuously, stopping automatically on all floors. But 95-year-old Rabbi Elysahiv, one of the main authorities in the ultra-orthodox community, after having reflected on the issue concluded that this mechanism is unacceptable. It could lead to people thinking that observing Jews can make use of common lifts, which is in violation of regulations governing rest on Sabbath day. In other words, the reason that Elyashiv prohibited the Shabbat lift is associated with appearances. According to the verdict, which was published in today’s edition of Haredi daily, Yeted Neeman, the Shabbat lift must be prohibited even in public buildings and hospitals. And truly pious Jews must take the stairs regardless of which floor they need to reach: even if they are elderly, sick, or surrounded by a group of children. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Shalit: Hamas Celebrate on the Streets
(by Safwat al-Kahlout) (ANSAmed) — GAZA, SEPTEMBER 30 — Hamas activists swarmed onto the streets today, in improvised parades, waving the Islamic flag, after learning that 20 Palestinian women are to be released by Israel in exchange for a video of Ghilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier captured three years ago in the Gaza Strip. The news was announced this morning by Abu Obeida (spokesman for the armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedin al-Qassam brigade) in a press conference organised at the last minute and broadcast live by local stations. Crowds gathered on the streets around radios, commenting loudly on the day’s big news: Hamas had managed to get Israel to free twenty Palestinian activists. Surprised by the latest news on her way out of school, Professor Manal made an emotional statement of thanks to Hamas “and the other Palestinian resistance groups. I hope they kidnap more Israeli soldiers, so that all our prisoners can come home”, she exclaimed. There was especial excitement in the refugee camps in Jabalya (where Hamas organised a celebratory parade) and Sajaya, where lives the husband of Fatma Zek, the only prisoner originally from Gaza to be released on Friday. She gave birth behind bars, and will come home with her baby. The Hamas spokesman repeated several times that it was no coincidence that the women’s release was requested in exchange for the recording of Shalit. There are just four Hamas activists, fewer than the activists from al-Fatah and other organisations. “This shows that we are a national organisation, capable of overcoming internal political divisions when they are in the overwhelming interests of the people”, said Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas leader. Abu Zuhri also expressed his thanks to mediators from Germany and Egypt. Cairo is currently carrying out a new attempt to smooth out the divisions between Hamas and al-Fatah. The Hamas spokesmen insisted on calling the agreement reached with Israel today as “a great success” during their live broadcasts, but they also warned that negotiations for the release of prisoners are still lengthy, and bristling with difficulties. Not everyone felt like celebrating though. Salem H., for example, a taxi driver, pointed out that three thousand Palestinians have died in Gaza since Shalit’s capture (in June 2006). Thousands of homes have been destroyed or damaged, the passes are still closed, and the economy is on its knees. “I am glad that twenty prisoners have been released, but frankly, I expected more”. He will celebrate, he says, only when the 11 thousand Palestinians held by Israel come home. For Salem, today is not much different from any other.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Yes Vote Would Bolster EU’s Role, Says Palestinian Envoy
MIDDLE EAST: THE PALESTINIAN envoy to the European Union has said she believed the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty would strengthen the EU’s role in brokering a peace deal in the Middle East.
Leila Shahid said yesterday that Palestinians were keen to see the EU become “more operational” in foreign affairs to keep the fledgling peace process alive and ensure that progress can be made towards of an independent Palestinian state.
Ms Shahid told The Irish Times that while the EU was the biggest donor of financial aid to the Palestinian territories, it has traditionally struggled to present a unified foreign policy position because of the mechanisms of the Nice Treaty.
The Irish Friends of Palestine group, which has been campaigning for a No vote, questioned Ms Shahid’s credentials to speak for the Palestinians
Spokesman Seán Clinton claimed she was part of the Fatah movement, which was “hand in glove with the EU in this charade of a peace process”.
| [Return to headlines] |
Iran Diplomats: ‘Israel is Bluffing’
In 20 minutes at the Intercontinental Hotel in New York City where Iran’s infamous president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, stayed during the U.N. General Assembly, six Revolutionary Guard diplomats responded to my question, “How will you avoid an attack upon your nuclear reactors, especially in view of President Ahmadinejad’s belligerence at the U.N.?”
In my conversation with the Iranian diplomats, the men made it quite clear Iran had nothing to fear. They said there would not be an attack. “Israel is bluffing,” confidently averred one of the men. “There is absolutely nothing for us to concern ourselves with because neither Israel nor the United States tried to save its ally, the shah. They could have with their military, but were too weak to do it. If you think either one will go to war with us, I can tell you, it will never happen.”
He went on to say that stringent sanctions, including an oil embargo imposed by the West or an attack by Israel or the U.S., would serve only to unite the people behind Ahmadinejad, who has been under attack since the mullahs in Iran confirmed his re-election earlier this year.
These men consider President Obama just another Jimmy Carter who would never attack Iran. They believe he is already losing two wars on their borders — Iraq and Afghanistan — and would not dare instigate a third — especially a war that could mean a 10-year ground offensive with the probability of over one-quarter million body bags.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Iran: Book Excerpt: Can Obama Negotiate With Iran?
Mullah regime even more dangerous after deadly crackdown on protests
On June 19, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Hoseyni Khamenei made a rare speech at the Friday prayer service at Tehran University to declare that Ahmadinejad had achieved “absolute victory,” threatening that those who “ignore or break the law” by continued protests would face consequences, including being held accountable “for all the violence, bloodshed and rioting.”
From this moment on, the Iranian regime had spoken, crushing Mousavi’s hope for a new vote and putting all Iranian citizens on notice that the riot police and Basij would no longer hesitate to use violence to put down any and all expressions of dissent. The Basij are Iran’s brutal civilian vigilante force, estimated to number in the millions and best understood as a group of thugs ready to enforce the regime’s dictates.
Almost immediately after Khamenei spoke, the regime sent out hundreds of fully armed riot police on motorcycles and thousands of Basij to crush the protests. The Basij entered the fray armed with batons and pipes that could be used to beat protestors and inflict massive vandalism, especially upon the student dorms at Tehran University, which the Basij promptly invaded and left in shambles.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Iran: We’ll Buy Enriched Uranium From Third Party
Iran is willing to purchase uranium enriched to the grade it requires for its Tehran reactor from a third party, rather than carry out the enrichment itself, the French news agency AFP quoted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying on Wednesday.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Jordan: Three Brothers Kill Sister and Burn Body, Source
(ANSAmed) — AMMAN, SEPTEMBER 29 — Police officials arrested three brothers on suspicion of killing their sister and burning her in the latest crime of honour committed in the kingdom, judicial sources said today. Officials discovered around 15 stab wounds in the body of the middle aged woman when she was rushed to hospital after a fir at her saloon parlour, said the source who requested anonymity. The three brothers are said to have created the fire after killing their sister to cover their tracks, but the victim was sent to hospital before her body was completely burnt, said the source. Police sources said one of the brothers admitted to killing the sister for honour reasons after receiving information about her involvement in a sexual relation with a man. “We have a strong feeling that this is an honour crime because of the circumstances surrounding it,” said the source. Every year between 15 to 20 women are killed in the so-called honour crimes in Jordan, a country dominated by tribal culture deeply rooted in the conservative society. Human rights groups have been struggling to push authorities take a tough stance on honour crimes, but their efforts failed. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Jordan’s Opposition Protest Against Clashes Near Aqsa Mosque
(ANSAmed) — AMMAN, SEPTEMBER 28 — Dozens of protesters staged a sit in today to protest against attack by Israeli soldiers against Muslim worshipers near al Aqsa mosque. Urging Jordan to end peace ties with Israel, protesters burnt the Israeli flag and pledged support to al Aqsa mosque and the disputed city. “Israel is not respecting any accord and continuously infringes on our religious sites. We warn their will be a volcano of anger coming out from Jordan if the holy mosque is harmed,” Hamam Said, overall leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan told ANSA during the protest. “Jordan must learn the lesson and realize that Israel is the enemy. We must end this shameful peace treaty,” he added, calling on the government to shoulder its political responsibility over Jerusalem and protect the city. The rally was held at the headquarters of the Jordan professional associations, an umbrella of 14 professional associations including doctors, engineers, lawyers and others. The organization is vocal in its opposition to peace with Israel and support resistance as the main option for dealing with Israel. Jordan, the second Arab country to make peace with Israel, maintains religious guardianship over Muslim and Christian sites in Jerusalem, a city that was occupied by Israel in 1967 war. According to Palestinian officials, clashes erupted near al Aqsa mosque when a group of Jewish worshipers tried to enter al Aqsa mosque a sacred site for Muslims. Worshipers clashed with police, leading to injuries on both sides. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Lebanon: Foreign Maids Abused and Attacked
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, SEPTEMBER 30 — Completely naked, out on the street and pounding on a neighbours door shouting, “The owner tried to rape me while I was taking a shower and I escaped” is the emotional story told by a young housemaid from Sri Lanka who has worked in Lebanon for two years, Delia G., described her misadventure. There are dozens of foreign women like her, hired to do the housework, they are often victims of abuse, threats and humiliation by their too demanding employers. “These girls are treated worse than animals,” the director of the centre for Afro-Asian migrants in Beirut, Father Martin McDermott, told ANSAmed. The American priest said that on some Lebanese employment web sites housemaids can be selected based on their profile, like in a catalogue. “You chose the one you like best, or the most educated”, said the Jesuit priest who has been listening to the sad stories of the young Philippine, Senegalese, African and Bengali women who come to Beirut looking for work and often find the conditions humiliating. “What can be done for these girls, is done”, added Adib Zakur, a Lebanese lawyer on the front lines in defending the rights of foreign workers. Sometimes the effort is repaid, as in the case of the young made from Burundi, kidnapped and forced to have an abortion in an illegal clinic. In this case, McDermott and Zakur were able to get the young woman’s passport back, which had been confiscated by the employment agency and enable her to return home. Next December, after four years of investigations and hearing, her case will be heard in a Lebanese court against the defendants, the doctor who carried out the abortion and the owner of the employment agency. According to an alarming report from the international organisation Human Rights Watch (HRW) in Lebanon in one year alone at least 95 foreign housemaids died: 40 killed themselves, others threw themselves over the balconies in an attempt to escape from the houses where there were kept as slaves and only 12 died of natural causes. In the recent months, there have been some small signs of progress in protecting foreigners like the drawing up of a single contract that would guarantee the worker heath care, days off and a minimum wage. “However, an overall law is lacking and there is no authority that oversees that the contract is respected,” said Zakur. “We Lebanese are a hospitable people”, he says, trying to partly justify the conduct of his compatriots, while his African maid Antoniette peals an apple for the lawyer. “I treat Antoniette like a daughter and I certainly don’t let her go out alone! You never know, with all the scoundrels around”, he quips. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Samba Spurned in Lebanese Muslim Town
“We fear that once they start dancing nude in the streets, there will be trouble,” Yassin added. “Our society will not accept such a parade.
“The city of Tyre is a city of resistance and its history is that of a conservative Muslim city.”
The Brazilian troupe has been performing throughout Lebanon since September 23 as part of a festival and planned a final performance in Tyre on Thursday evening.
Roberto Medeiros, ministerial adviser and cultural attaché at the Brazilian embassy in Beirut, told AFP that measures had been taken to respect the sensitivities of the mainly Muslim population in Tyre, including having the dancers cover their bodies rather than perform in skimpy clothes.
“We met with the local authorities and informed them that the dancers would dress respectfully with all their bodies covered,” Medeiros said.
Yassin, however, said he had been shown photographs of the costumes and still deemed them inappropriate.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: The Road to Racism From Xenophobia
The results of a public poll for the Turkish Jewish community has once again revealed the bitter facts: People in Turkey hate others and fear others.
The study, conducted by the Frekans Research Company, was announced in a scientific panel. That, to me, is a signal of a great deal of change in the Jewish community in Turkey. To date, Jews have preferred not be a part of society and not to be involved in debates. But apparently, they now want to be visible in such a vital issue.
The discrimination that minorities in general and approximately 20,000 Jewish in particular are subjected to has become at times extreme ill-treatment, such as anti-Semitism.
Xenophobia exists in Turkey, and everyone knows this. Various studies before showed the existence of such fears that even turn into hatred.
I hope that the Jewish community, from now on, continues with campaigns in order to raise awareness about racism and discrimination because we desperately need this.
Yes, we need it, but I think what we should do first is stop denying the existence of racism, which is almost in our genes.
Let me share you two recent examples:
A test was distributed to the students of a history department of a university. They were asked to replace the word “Turkish” with “British” and the word “Muslim” with “Christian” in numerous sentences of history textbooks. The students objected to the sentences that were read to them and said, “History cannot be taught this way. This is racism.” But then, only a few insisted that it was racism after they were told about the method. I read the story in Milliyet daily recently.
In the second example, the president of the Turkish Football Federation held a press conference with the heads of the Bursaspor and Diyarbakirspor clubs after a hot game in which fans in the bleachers shouted, “The PKK is out.” The Diyarbakirspor head rightfully said: “This is racism. This is to associate all people in Diyarbakir with terror. This is a way of discrimination.” The Bursaspor club head agreed with his counterpart but could not say, “I will do anything to prevent similar racist slogans.” The Turkish Football Federation, acting as if it were an individual act, is unaware of how serious the situation is and has not yet announced any punishment. The very same federation is a member of the Union of European Football Federation, or UEFA, with a main slogan, “Stop racism in football.” But I think the soccer federation in Turkey wants to consider this “a few simple incidents and there is no racist in Turkey.”
Yes, the denial has reached a critical stage. During the Israeli assault on Gaza last year, all of our cities were ornamented with billboards criticizing Israel. The slogan was, “This cannot be your religion.” Remember, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had also criticized Israel by reading several excerpts from the Torah. But was Israel’s act such a crusade that we had to send such a message to make them feel bad about themselves or feel that they were in danger?
Since we do not want to ponder about racism, we easily go overboard with subtle but crucial limits.
Let me conclude this piece with an example of my own: Hürriyet daily’s Mehmet Yilmaz paid attention to my remarks that journalists should avoid racist statements. He said in his piece the other day that he totally agrees with me. Yilmaz criticized an old article afterwards. Although he is right, I didn’t know what to say as I saw the very same attitude he adopted in one of his articles.
* Mr. Ismet Berkan is the editor-in-chief of the daily Radikal in which this piece appeared Wednesday. It was translated into English by the Daily News staff.
| — Hat tip: TV | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: 11 Million People Survive on Social Aid, Survey
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, SEPTEMBER 28 — Eleven out of 70 million Turkish people lead their lives on social aid, Today’s Zaman reports adding that Turkey, a role model for the world in the field of social aid, is one of the countries that faces few social problems despite the ongoing global crisis. This is mostly attributed to the efficient system of social justice and solidarity as well as social aid delivered by the state, foundations and local administrations. A recent study by the Social Security Agency concludes that 11 million people survive via social aid in Turkey. The General Directorate of Foundations delivers aid to 150,000 people whereas local municipalities provide monetary grants to 500,000 people in need. This constitutes 8% of the total number of people relying on state aid. According to the estimates, non-profit organizations provide aid to 250,000 people: public social aid amounts to $5 billion every year. The Social Security Agency, which currently works to integrate the institutions and has studied social aid, has finalized its preparations for a bill envisaging the merger of these institutions. According to the study by the agency, 2,112,000 households relied on social aid provided by the General Directorate of Social Aid and Solidarity in 2008 whereas 150,000 were supported by the General Directorate of Foundations in the same period. A total of 1.3 million poor people, whose monthly income falls under TL 87 (40 euro), benefit from various programs run by the agency. The number of people relying on social aid for survival is on the rise in Turkey due to deteriorating financial conditions. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Pipelines Alone Won’t Reduce EU Dependancy on Russia, Says US
EUOBSERVER / BUCHAREST — Washington continues to support the EU-backed Nabucco gas pipeline, but this project is “only a piece of the puzzle” when it comes to reducing Europe’s reliance on Russian gas, US special envoy for Eurasian energy Richard Morningstar has said.
“We support Nabucco. We support the Southern Corridor. It’s an important part of the puzzle, but it’s only one piece,” Mr Morningstar told EUobserver on Wednesday (30 September) in an interview on the margins of a Black Sea energy forum organised in Bucharest by the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank.
Alternative technologies and energy efficiency were also important in Europe’s bid to reduce its reliance on Russian gas, he said.
“More interconnections between the countries in Europe, more storage facilities, terminals for liquified natural gas (LNG) — all will help reduce dependence on a sole supplier.”
But at the same time, Russia will be a “major player over the coming years. That’s a reality,” he noted, while making clear that the US energy policy in the Caucasus and Central Asia was not ‘anti-Russia.’
“We want to engage with Russia and we’re hoping there will be ways to co-operate, that we don’t look at things as a zero-sum game. Zero-sum games are expensive and [unappealing] in today’s financial world.”
In the Obama administration’s view, there is “no contradiction at all” in backing Europe’s energy diversification while also engaging with Moscow as broadly as possible on the energy front.
A bi-national commission chaired by US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov is in the making, with energy being dealt with in a special working group of that body. Its task is to look at ways American and European companies can develop projects in Russia for instance to bring the Soviet-era infrastructure back into shape.
But these investments have to be carried out “in a predictable and transparent business environment,” Mr Morningstar said, in reference to a long history of Western companies being forced to sell their assets to Russian state firms.
Asked if the US was pressing Moscow to ratify the Energy Charter, a legally binding document protecting foreign investments in Russia, the US diplomat said his country was itself not a member of this agreement, but it “certainly certainly supports all of the principles which the Energy Charter represents.”
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Bangladesh: Christian Convert From Islam and Family Threatened With Death
After Friday prayers a group of zealots attacked the house of William Gomes, a young Muslim who converted to Christianity and human rights activist. The police takes no steps to ensure his protection.
Dhaka (AsiaNews) — William Gomes, a Catholic convert from Islam, is in mortal danger. For the past several days he has been the target of Muslim extremists who want to kill him because of his new faith. On 25 September he had to flee his home to escape from a group of Islamic militants who wanted to kill him and his family (wife and child), setting fire to their house. After Friday prayers at a mosque nearby, a group of fanatics had asked the leaders of their mosque to decide on the fate of the young man and the penalty to be inflicted on him.
A freelance journalist and human rights activist, married to a Catholic and father of a child, Gomes had recently received threats, but on September 25, his accusers passed from words to deeds. Led by Nazmi Mohammed Uddin Titu, a local leader of the Chatra League movement of young Muslims, a group marched on the house of the young man accused of apostasy.
The human rights activist sought police protection, but officers of the Police Commission in Jatrabri limited themselves to filing his complaint. Gomes said that the officer on duty guaranteed police intervention only after the fact happened saying he was not surprised at the anger of Muslims over his conversion.
Already September 23 there had been warning signs. Mohammed Mijan Bandari, the local leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), had assaulted Gomes’ cousin, Mohammed Farouk, who with his wife went to visit his relative and family. The human rights activist intervened in defence of his cousin, with the help of his mother and father, only to receive death threats from Bandari and the Islamist group of a hundred people. The crowd only dispersed after the arrival of the police to calm tensions.
The human rights activist, whose reports have been published by AsiaNews, has received the solidarity of Buni Yani, his Muslim friend and professor of the faculty of science and politics at the Muhammadiyah University in Jakarta. Yani has appealed to the authorities of Bangladesh to ensure the safety of Gomes and his family.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Dying for Islam
Look folks, freedom of religion is a Christian ideal. Although not specifically stated in our Constitution, the First Amendment piggy-backs upon the Jeffersonian statement that our rights are “endowed by our Creator.” It is the respect for the rights of the individual that is so critical to a democracy. Islam believes in no such rights. Only in a Christian nation is true freedom possible.
Perhaps we should ask ourselves what “victory” in Afghanistan would look like. Well, let’s look at Iraq. Here is the proposed Constitution of Iraq after an American “victory.” Article 2 states “First: Islam is the official religion of the State and it is a fundamental source of legislation: No law that contradicts the established provisions of Islam may be established. You need read no further because every other provision yields to the first. “No law that contradicts the established provisions of Islam may be established…
Iraq will be an Islamic democracy, which is an oxymoron. Democratic government is illegal in Islam. How many Christian American boys died to establish an Islamic government in Iraq?
Now we are told that 40,000 additional troops are needed for the “war on terror” in Afghanistan. There is no freedom of religion in Afghanistan, no rights of the individual, no rights for women, and Islam is the establish religion. The President must be a Muslim. Peace in Afghanistan will result in the continued establishment of an Islamic Republic ruled by a nation of Islamic Clerics (Judges). In Muslim majority nations, such as Saudi Arabia, non-Muslims are regarded as Dhimmis, second-class people whose testimony in court does not count as much as that of a Muslim and who must pay extra taxes. Forget equal treatment under the law, and don’t even ask how they treat Dhimmi women.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: Body of Alleged Terror Mastermind to be Buried in Malaysia
Jakarta, 1 October (AKI/The Jakarta Post) — The wife of dead terror suspect Noordin Mohammed Top departed from Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur for Indonesia on Thursday to bring back her husband’s body currently being stored in the Indonesian Police Hospital.
Top was the man wanted for July’s Jakarta hotel bombings which killed nine people.
Top’s wife, Siti Rahma was accompanied by her elder brother, Yahya, and several Malaysian Police officers. However, she did not give any comments to Indonesian media waiting for her at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
Noordin will be buried in Pontian, Johor Baru, Malaysia.
Malaysian-born Noordin, a former member of the Islamist Jemaah Islamiyah, is believed to have played a key role in the 2002 Bali bombings, (photo) Indonesia’s worst terror attack, which killed 202 people, and the 2005 Bali bombing which claimed 20 lives.
Noordin, one of Asia’s most wanted men, was suspected of planning the attacks on the Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott hotels (photo) in Jakarta in July.
Nine people were killed and 53 others were wounded in the attacks.
Meanwhile, residents of Mijen village in Kudus located in Central Java have prohibited cleric Abu Bakar Ba’asyir from leading the funeral of terrorist Bagus Budi Pranoto alias Urwah.
“We welcome the cleric attending the funeral but not leading it,” village head Sujono said Wednesday.
Head of Kudus Police Adj. Snr. Comr. Bayu Wisnumurti said his office would deploy several officers to ensure the funeral proceeded smoothly.
Urwah’s father, Ismanto, said the family had yet to decide when it would hold the funeral, pending completion of the identification process by the police.
Urwah was killed along Noordin Top two weeks ago in Mojosongo, Surakarta also located in Central Java during a raid by Indonesia’s counterterrorism squad.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Militant Group is Intact After Mumbai Siege
KARACHI, Pakistan — Ten months after the devastating attacks in Mumbai by Pakistan-based militants, the group behind the assault remains largely intact and determined to strike India again, according to current and former members of the group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and intelligence officials.
Despite pledges from Pakistan to dismantle militant groups operating on its soil, and the arrest of a handful of operatives, Lashkar has persisted, even flourished, since 10 recruits killed 163 people in a rampage through Mumbai, India’s financial capital, last November.
Indian and Pakistani dossiers on the Mumbai investigations, copies of which were obtained by The New York Times, offer a detailed picture of the operations of a Lashkar network that spans Pakistan. It included four houses and two training camps here in this sprawling southern port city that were used to prepare the attacks.
Among the organizers, the Pakistani document says, was Hammad Amin Sadiq, a homeopathic pharmacist, who arranged bank accounts and secured supplies. He and six others begin their formal trial on Saturday in Pakistan, though Indian authorities say the prosecution stops well short of top Lashkar leaders.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Commander in Afghanistan Talked With Obama Only Once
The military general credited with capturing Saddam Hussein and killing the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, says he has spoken with President Obama only once since taking command in Afghanistan.
“I’ve talked to the president, since I’ve been here, once on a VTC ,” Gen. Stanley McChrystal told CBS reporter David Martin in a television interview that aired Sunday.
“You’ve talked to him once in 70 days?” Mr. Martin followed up.
“That is correct,” the general replied.
This revelation comes amid the explosive publication of a classified report written by the general that said the war in Afghanistan “will likely result in failure” if more troops are not added next year. Yet, the debate over health care reform continues to dominate Washington’s political discussions.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Zardari and Berlusconi Sign Military Pact
Rome, 30 Sept. (AKI) — Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari on Wednesday signed a joint intelligence-military agreement in Rome. They also signed an economic memorandum of understanding. Zardari was in the Italian capital to discuss economic, religious and military issues.
The memorandum “foresees an exchange of information and documents on intelligence, the facilitation of trade between both countries” and also covers bilateral military relations.
The military-intelligence agreement was signed by Zardari and Italy’s defence minister Ignazio La Russa after the meeting with Berlusconi. The agreement did not mention the import and export of arms.
Berlusconi told journalists he wanted to boost cooperation between both countries in the tourism industry.
“We spoke about the possibility of letting those Italians that travel the world and are interested in Pakistan’s artistic treasures, know more about it,” said Berlusconi, adding that he would visit Pakistan “soon” with a group of businessmen.
“We are in favour of (Pakistan) signing a free trade agreement with the European Union,” Berlusconi added.
The two leaders met at Berlusconi’s office in Palazzo Chigi and discussed the conflict in neighbouring Afghanistan as well as the issue of religious minorities in Pakistan, including Christians, Zardari said.
“We are confronting the problem of religious minorities in Pakistan. We support all religious minorities in our country. They have the same rights, whether it is their religious practices or political rights,” said Zardari.
“We also spoke about some episodes of religious intolerance in Pakistan and I found president Zardari to be very attentive,” said Berlusconi.
“I guarantee absolute support so that the difficult job of consolidating democracy in Pakistan can be achieved with great success,” said Berlusconi.
Zardari also praised Berlusconi for what he called his “personality, that has brought a great change in Italian politics.”
Zardari is on a three day visit to Rome and met Italian president Giorgio Napolitano and foreign minister Franco Frattini on Tuesday. He was due to meet Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
China Marks 60 Years of Communist Rule With a Mighty Show of Its Military Power
China celebrated its wealth and rising might with a show of goose-stepping troops, gaudy floats and nuclear-capable missiles in Beijing today, 60 years after Mao Zedong proclaimed its embrace of communism.
Tiananmen Square became a high-tech stage to celebrate the birth of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949, with the Communist Party leadership and guests watching the meticulously disciplined show of national confidence.
Celebrations began in the morning with troops firing cannons and raising the red national flag while President Hu Jintao, solemnly-faced and wearing a slate grey ‘Mao’ suit, looked on from the Gate of Heavenly Peace over the Square.
Hu descended to the street and inspected rows of troops, riding past them in a black limousine and bellowing repeatedly: ‘Hello comrades, hard-working comrades!’
‘From here it was that Chairman Mao solemnly announced the founding of the People’s Republic of China, and from then the Chinese people stood up,’ Hu told the guests and troops.
‘Today a socialist China embracing modernisation, embracing the world and embracing the future stands lofty and firm.’
[Comments: Lots of “Party Approved” pictures.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Japan Abandons America
For over 50 years, one party ruled Japan virtually uninterrupted. During that time, Japan remained a loyal ally and supporter of U.S. policy. This month, a historic event took place.
Japan has new leadership. In a landslide victory, a new party has done the seemingly impossible. A new freshman class of leaders now governs the Land of the Rising Sun. The effects are already rippling across the Pacific toward America.
Yukio Hatoyama is Japan’s new leader. He officially took office last Wednesday, and he is already threatening to split with the United States.
Hatoyama blames America for the global economic crisis and says that the U.S. is responsible for “the destruction of human dignity.” He campaigned on protecting traditional Japanese economic activities and reducing U.S.-led globalization.
During the run-up to the election, Hatoyama’s finance minister told the bbc he was worried about the future value of the dollar, and that if his party were elected in the upcoming national elections, it would refuse to purchase any more U.S. treasuries unless they were denominated in Japanese yen.
Japan is the world’s second-largest economy. It is also America’s second-most-important creditor. The U.S. government owes Japan over $724 billion! The only nation America owes more money to is China ($800 billion). The U.S. also imports $140 billion worth of goods from Japan each year.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Marching to World Domination: China Celebrates 60 Years of Communism With a Display of Military Might That Should Worry the West
The regime has come an enormously long way in six decades, from a society of peasant collective farms, hidden from the world behind a veil of secrecy, to the world’s fastest-growing economy, an industrial and military superpower-in-waiting.
But beneath today’s orgy of celebrations that marks the anniversary lurks a disturbing reality. Mao’s successors may have embraced cut-throat capitalism to a degree that makes even Western economists blanch. But the arrangements for the parade are a reminder that China remains a deeply authoritarian society.
[…]
When the Communists seized control in 1949, China was a poverty-stricken basket case, ravaged by famine, ethnic tension and feuding between rival warlords.
And in the years that followed, Mao’s policies of forced industrialisation and collective farming, as well as his murderous purges of the middle classes, accounted for millions of deaths.
One scholarly estimate suggests that in 40 years, almost 80 million Chinese were slaughtered or died as a result of government policy — making the regime the biggest killer in history.
But now, of course, all that is conveniently forgotten. And British politicians are more likely to pay tribute to China’s economic renaissance than to draw attention to the undemocratic brutality of its Communist regime.
[…]
Yet there is a dark side to China’s revival — a disturbing instinct for sabre-rattling and neo-imperialism that arguably poses the biggest threat to world peace since the Cold War.
What we often forget about China is that it is not an ordinary nation-state like any other. It is a rigid, highly militarised and intensely nationalistic empire, in which 1.2 billion Han Chinese dominate dozens of other ethnic groups, by force if necessary.
[…]
Meanwhile, China itself is well on the way to becoming one of the world’s dominant military powers. Already, its standing army alone has more than 2.25 million men.
And for the past 20 years, the Chinese have been modernising at a staggering rate — ploughing the fruits of their industrial revolution not into welfare programmes, health care or the environmental protection their people so badly need, but into guns, guns and more guns.
It is no accident that the centrepiece of the 60th anniversary celebrations in Beijing is a massive military parade.
[Comments: Lots more “Party Approved” pictures.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Friendship With India Alarms China
Move viewed as challenging strategic power balance
China is becoming increasingly concerned over what it views as a possible alliance between the United States and India that effectively would give India added influence in a region that China has regarded as being in its own sphere of influence, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
As a consequence, security analysts believe China is starting to view India as a potentially serious threat because of a developing U.S. focus on India’s big power status.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Christmas Island: ‘We Are Second-Class to Asylum Seekers’
Community leaders on Christmas Island say they are being treated like second-class citizens in comparison to asylum seekers arriving in Australian waters by boat.
Islanders blame the $400 million immigration detention centre at North West Point — where all sea arrivals are taken for health and security checks — for many of the problems facing the remote Australian territory.
Inflated food prices, a lack of accommodation for tourists, a shortage of rental cars and even crumbling roads are all due to the immigration detention centre’s growing hunger for resources, they say.
Almost 1,500 people on 29 unauthorised vessels have been picked up on their way to Australia this year.
There are currently 890 asylum seekers and 16 crew members being held on Christmas Island, which is 2,600km northwest of Perth and just 500km south of Jakarta.
Some 726 are behind barbed wire in the detention centre itself. Another 145 are in the unfenced Phosphate Hill and construction camp facilities while 35 are living in the community.
They’re generally processed and flown to the mainland within three months.
This week, Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce visited the island and declared the asylum seekers “seem very happy here — which is a concern”.
Many had arrived with multi-vitamin tablets, an indication, Senator Joyce declared, that they were economic migrants rather than genuine refugees.
Immigration department figures suggest otherwise: 641 people sent to Christmas Island have been found to be genuine refugees this year, while just 29 have been returned home. The rest are still being processed.
The island has a 1,500-strong permanent population, including large ethnic Chinese and Malay communities. Many are sympathetic to Senator Joyce’s view.
Local Islamic Council president Zainal Abdul Majid says the federal government uses taxpayers’ money to look after the detainees while the islanders are neglected.
“They are being very well looked after, whereas the local community has got nothing out of the detention centre,” Majid said.
“We feel as if we are second-class and not being looked after as well.”
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Somali Islamists Clash Over Port
Two Islamist groups who were previously working together in Somalia have become embroiled in a fierce fight for control of the southern port of Kismayo.
At least 12 people have been killed and hundreds have fled their homes.
Al-Shabab is reported to have gained the upper hand over Hizbul-Islam, some of whose fighters have left the town.
The two groups have been national allies against the weak, UN-backed government, but tension has been building in Kismayo in recent weeks.
The Islamist pair together control most southern and central areas of the country.
‘Brothers’
The BBC’s Mohammed Olad Hassan in the capital, Mogadishu, says fighting started at dawn with sporadic gunfire.
But residents told him it quickly escalated with fighters on the streets of the town using light and heavy machine-guns as well as rocket-propelled grenades.
Some of those he spoke to had already fled their homes and he could hear loud explosions in the background.
“We were attacked by our brothers with no reason,” local Hizbul-Islam spokesman Sheikh Ismail Haji Adow said, according to the AFP news agency.
“They [al-Shabab] launched their offensive on several fronts very early this morning.”
Our reporter says the Islamist groups have been in an uneasy alliance to run the town for almost a year.
But last week al-Shabab named a new administration which excluded Hizbul-Islam.
The tension escalated through the media, with both sides advising their fighters on Wednesday to ready themselves for possible conflict.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Venezuela-Libya: Chavez & Gaddafi, We Must Redefine Terrorism
(ANSAmed) — PORLAMAR (VENEZUELA), SEPTEMBER 29 — The Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, and the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, yesterday evening signed a joint declaration on terrorism, in which they request a new definition. According to a Venezuelan government website, the document rejects “the attempt to link people’s legitimate struggle for freedom and self-determination with terrorism.” In the agreement the two leaders reaffirmed their willingness to fight terrorism in all its forms, including state terrorism, and asked for the reform of the UN to put an end to the “hegemony of the Security Council.” Venezuela and Libya are “united in a common destiny, in the same battle against a common enemy.” The president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, was speaking at a ceremony in which he awarded the highest Venezuelan honour to the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi. “We are writing new pages in history,” Chavez added. “We are changing history. We are tackling imperialism, bourgeoisie, underdevelopment and colonialism.” Chavez made Gaddafi the knight of the Order of the Libertador, the highest honour in Venezuela, and gave him a replica of the sword used by the national hero, Simon Bolivar. Gaddafi in turn gave Chavez a decorated saddle and harnesses in silver, described by Gaddafi as “symbols of the fight against the Italian invasion.”(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Zelaya’s Chief Propagandist Endorses Hitler and the Holocaust
David Romero Ellner, who heads up Honduras’ Radio Globo
Not long after ousted wannabe Marxist dictator Manuel Zelaya issued a bizarre rant about Israelis attacking him with high frequency radiation and toxic gases, his chief propagandist, David Romero Ellner, who heads up Honduras’ Radio Globo went on the air to suggest that Hitler had been right and that it was unfortunate that he had not gotten the chance to finish off the Holocaust.David Romero Ellner and Radio Globo are significant because the media aims to make them into the newest martyrs of the Honduran government’s “crackdown” on civil rights. Reuters and other media outlets are already carrying touching narratives of the police raid on Radio Globo and David Romero Ellner continuing to carry on broadcasting over the web.More…
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Italy: Immigrants ‘Targeted’ By Police in Milan
Milan, 30 Sept. (AKI) — Immigrants in the northern Italian city of Milan are being targeted on public transport by police who are demanding their documents, a report by an Italian daily said on Wednesday. A report published by Italian daily La Repubblica said that the special police force — established in the year 2000 for the safety of passengers in buses and trams — is now focusing on activities to “stop and identify” immigrants.
“Guys, go find that one that’s hidden behind the bushes and you will make me happy,” a police superintendent is reported to have told officers.
He was referring to a 20 year-old young man from North Africa who freed himself from the officer and began running towards the bushes.
Transport officials travel on buses and trams asking travellers for their tickets, however, now one person is reportedly in charge of checking immigrants for their documents.
If the immigrant does not have his or her documents, he or she will be taken off the bus and placed in a “jail bus”, which looks exactly like a normal public transport bus but with metal grates so the migrants cannot escape.
They are then taken to the police station to be identified and may be expelled from the country.
“This is a service which is carried out solely by this special taskforce and does not take away police officers from carrying out traffic-related duties,” said Milan’s deputy mayor Riccardo de Corato, quoted by La Repubblica.
La Repubblica claimed that only three of the ten migrants stopped by officials are in Italy legally.
The other seven are issued an expulsion order and one of them is arrested for not having left Italy after the order had been previously issued.
In July, Italy’s upper house of parliament on Thursday voted into law a controversial security bill making illegal immigration a punishable offence.
The measures, especially the criminalisation of would-be immigrants, have drawn criticism from rights groups including Amnesty international, as well as Italy’s centre-left opposition and the Catholic Church.
Italy’s prime minister Silvio Berlusconi won elections in April 2008 on an anti-crime platform, vowing to curb illegal immigration which, according to surveys, many Italian associate with a growing security problem in their towns and cities.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy to Press New EC on Immigration, Maroni
(ANSAmed) — ROME, SEPTEMBER 30 — Italy will press the next European Commission to take a tougher stance on immigration, Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said Wednesday. “So far, the European Union has done little about immigration and it needs to do more,” Maroni said during an Italian television interview. “But I’m optimistic. Soon, a new European Commission will be appointed and with pressure from Italy, the EU will realize that there is an immigration problem in the Mediterranean”. The present European executive’s mandate expires at the end of October. Earlier this month, incumbent President José Manuel Barroso won a second term to lead the new commission, which will be appointed in November. The EC’s concern over Italy’s new push-back immigration policy, adopted in May, has been a source of tension in recent months with Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right government. The policy, under which migrants intercepted at sea are forcibly escorted back to Libya, has also drawn criticism from human rights groups, the Catholic Church and Italy’s centre-left opposition. On Tuesday, Maroni said that as a result of the policy immigrant arrivals on Italian shores had fallen from 18,000 in the first nine months of 2008 to 1,800 by September this year. “In May, I was criticised because the immigrants continued to arrive and they said, ‘shame on you for not doing enough to stop them,’“ said Maroni. “Now that the number of illegal immigrants arriving has fallen by 90%, they say ‘shame on you for stopping them’“. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Maroni: We Will Put Pressure on New EU Commission
(ANSAmed) — ROME, SEPTEMBER 30 — “Until now the European Union has done little or nothing and has to do more” on illegal immigration “but I am optimistic: the new European Commission will be nominated soon and I think that with Italy’s pressure on the EU they will discover that the issue of immigration in the Mediterranean exists”, stated Interior Minister Roberto Maroni in an interview on the television programme Mattino 5. In response to criticism over the government strategy, the minister observed that “whatever we do there is someone who says that it is not right. In May they were criticising me because landings continued; now that the landings have decreased by 90% the same people are saying ‘shame, the government no longer allows illegal immigrants to arrive’. I think that it is a political dispute that has very little to do with reality”. It is, he added “criticism based on ideological prejudice that have nothing to do with us”. Maroni then informed that “many countries have become aware of the success of the agreement that we made with Libya and are asking us to make similar cooperation agreements”.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
A Paedophile Photograph… Polanski… Why on Earth Does the Arts World Think it is Immune From Morality?
There will be outraged cries of censorship after the removal of a photograph of the actress Brooke Shields, taken when she was an aspiring child actress of ten, from an exhibition at the Tate Modern museum in London hours before it was due to begin.
Police advised the gallery at the 11th hour that the picture could break obscenity laws.
The young Brooke Shields is portrayed standing naked in a bathtub, looking directly at the viewer, with a heavily made-up face and an oiled torso.
It is amazing that the Tate should have ever contemplated showing such a repulsive, and deeply shocking, picture.
Thank God the Metropolitan police, at least, appear to have some sense.
We can be sure, though, that there will be an outcry amongst supposedly enlightened people, who will claim that a great work of art has been traduced.
Meanwhile in New York, Paris and London members of the ‘artistic community’ are decrying the arrest in Switzerland of the film director Roman Polanski for a crime committed 32 years ago.
Polanski drugged, and then sodomised, a 13-year-old girl, who appears subsequently to have forgiven him.
As Polanski’s brutal seduction of a young girl is overridden, even negated, by his supposed status as a great artist, so the provocatively sexual picture of a minor will doubtless be celebrated, even more enthusiastically now that it has been removed, on the bogus grounds that it constitutes art.
It is as though art and artists occupy a different moral sphere to the rest of us.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Child Sacrifice in America
Sing along with this German version of “Silent Night”:
Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht,
Alles schlaft, einsam wacht
Adolf Hitler fur Deustchlands Geschick
Fuhrt uns zur Grosse, zur Ruhm und zum Gluck,
Gibt uns Deutschen die Macht.
The English translation is, “Silent night, holy night, all is calm, wakeful is only Adolf Hitler, watching over Germany’s destiny, leads us to greatness, to fame and to happiness, gives power to us, to Germany,” from the book “Fighting Songs and Warring Words: Popular Lyrics of Two World Wars,” by Brian Murdoch.
That adaptation of Silent Night was brought out in 1934 as a tool to teach Germany’s youth to idolize Hitler.
Now consider this song.
Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world.
Red and yellow, black and white,
They are precious in His sight,
Jesus loves the little children of the world.
Then notice how it was altered and performed in an American public elementary school, with these words.
Barack Hussein Obama.
He said red, yellow, black or white all are equal in his sight.
Barack Hussein Obama.
That Obama hymn was taught to a second-grade class in New Jersey and performed last February. The video of it did not receive widespread attention until the recent Obama public school speech, when it received national notoriety. The teacher, now retired, who led the class in that hymn put pictures of Obama on the classroom walls and openly praised him to her class. Pictures and praises of Obama were also in the school halls and the school yearbook. When parents of the children in the video and the school questioned the principle of the school about the incident, she defended the performance and said she would allow it again.
[…]
Who has the greater crime here? Is it the liberals, who unabashedly take children of conservative parents and train them in left-wing socialism? I think not. They are being true to their hearts, their convictions, their fuhrer.
The greater crime is by all those conservatives who make noise, then do nothing. Most conservatives complain and continue on as they were. Somehow they think that by their complaining they have done something, while they actually do nothing. They keep sending their kids to the public schools for more indoctrination, committing ideological suicide.
What can be done? Simple: Take the fuel from their fire. Take your kids out of their schools, while you still can.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama’s ‘Gay’ Appointee: I’d Handle Student Differently
But Office of Safe Schools chief declines to express ‘regret’
The homosexual activist picked by the Obama administration to oversee the Office of Safe Schools in the U.S. Department of Education now claims he should have handled a situation while he was a teacher involving a sexually active student “differently,” but the statement from Kevin Jennings fails to express “regret.”
“A teacher was told by a 15-year-old high school sophomore that he was having homosexual sex with an ‘older man.’ At the very least, statutory rape occurred. Fox News reported that the teacher violated a state law requiring that he report the abuse. That former teacher, Kevin Jennings, is President Obama’s ‘safe school czar.’ … Clearly, the process for vetting White House employees has broken down,” the Times editorial board said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Tate Modern Removes Nude Picture of 10-Year-Old Brooke Shields After Police Pornography Probe
A provocative nude picture of a 10-year-old Brooke Shields has been removed from a major exhibition following a police pornography probe.
The picture of the American actress was due to go on show today at the Tate Modern, but bosses closed off its room after meeting officers from the Obscene Publications Unit.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Origami Master Sipho Mabona and the Art of Creating a Paper Praying Mantis
These are the incredible folded fauna and intricate insects made from paper that look just like the real thing.
The amazing paper pieces of art — each from a single sheet of paper — are the work of 29-year-old origami expert Sipho Mabona.
He started making paper planes when he was just five-years-old but his passion for paper meant he ran out of designs for the planes by the time he was 15.
The artist then turned his eye to other inspirations for his next artwork taking tips from nature and the environment.
His amazing insects, birds and folded fish are so detailed they are almost capable of fooling the naked eye into thinking they are real.
His incredibly intricate designs sell for more than £1,500 and are exhibited in galleries in Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Spain and France.
And he is now set to bring his art to the UK next year.
Each piece can take up to 20 hours to fold and take more than six months to design.
[Comments: The Origami article shows several pictures of his amazing creations, including a Nativity scene.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
What does libanese mahoundians have in common with their indonesian ilk? They don’t like “such pornographic performances”, thinking about clerics wanting to ban Beyoncé from performing in their country. It’s tragic that they can’t chill down and appreciate art and music. What is even more tragic is that we westerners will experience the same restrictions in our lifetime.
French Government Drops Support for Director Roman Polanski as He Faces Extradition to the U.S. Over Child Sex Charge
… Despite the latest setback, Polanski is being supported by at least 110 film industry figures who have signed a petition calling for his release.
It now includes Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, David Lynch, and Monica Bellucci. [emphasis added]
Fancy that! Woody Allen coming (as it were), to the defense of another film director who also had sex with a much younger girl.
“Polanski is being supported by at least 110 film industry figures who have signed a petition calling for his release” and who have no moral bearings.
A former CIA official calls Obama a perpetual adolescent…I wonder how many people in the up-and-coming (my) generation will be stuck in this mind-set as well. I’m not very optimistic that it will turn out well.
Aside from The Fearless Vampire Killers and The Ninth Gate I’m not an avid fan of his works. Those two movies are great though. Sharon Tate was a great beauty. It is impossible to see the film without thinking what would happen to her just a couple of years later.