The popular tradition among Muslims — could it be called an urban legend? — is that a shahid (martyr) who dies waging jihad is granted seventy-two virgins in Paradise. Not only may he have his way with the young heavenly beauties, but every day Allah magically restores their virginity so that he can start all over again. There’s no need to respect them in the morning.

However, this deal is for men only. The tradition does not promise that a woman who dies in the way of Allah will be granted even one gorgeous hunk of her very own when she attains Paradise.

So what’s in it for Muslim women? What reward in paradise awaits the devoted Muslima if she dies for her faith?

That very question was posed in the “Ask the Scholar” feature at Islam Online. In the chapter “What Is for Women?”, a Muslim woman asks:

My question is, how is it possible that Allah Almighty will grant the fulfillment of the desires of the male but not of the female — that is, to not share her husband with multiple women?

[…]

Instead of her desire/wish being fulfilled, she will be brainwashed, but on the other hand men won’t have to give up anything.

[…]

A male martyr will receive 70 wives, but if a female servant of Allah dies for Jihad, she will still be required to share her husband with other wives.

[…]

I personally feel like crying …

Dr. Sano Koutoub Moustapha, professor of Fiqh at the Islamic University in Malaysia, was forced to disappoint the unfortunate woman in his reply:
– – – – – – – – –

… [T]he issue of polygamy, be it in this life or the hereafter, it should not be classified as a privilege but rather a solution [to avoid the haram] as you correctly mentioned in your arguments.

In other words, Islam does not open the door of polygamy for all men as it does not open it to women at all. As you may know well that each ruling or law has an exception and the exception is not the principle, therefore, we can not judge a law through its exceptions.

In this regard, I shall remind you that rewarding a mujahid with many wives doesn’t mean betraying the female mujahid.

[…]

This means that those women who don’t want their husbands to have more [wives] could be granted this wish and desire. At the same time if the husbands of those women want to have more than them Allah is great and can satisfy each of them in the way He, the Almighty, wants.

[…]

Therefore, a woman should not be frustrated for a privilege of polygamy offered to men. This is not, for sure, at the expense of woman. Heaven is meant for both men and women, both of them are equally entitled to get what they wish for.

But to prevent the Muslim woman from becoming an apostate on the spot instead of a useful mujahid, Prof. Moustapha continues:

Having said that, I shall inform you that the existing setup of humans in terms of desire, would be changed on the Day of Judgment.

In other words: there is nothing in it for women in the Islamic paradise (Jannah).

Hat tip: VH, who also supplied some of the commentary.

There was a flurry of stories in the UK last week about Pope Benedict’s surprise announcement, but little attention was paid here:

From the Telegraph:

Pope Benedict XVI has paved the way for thousands of Anglicans who are disillusioned by the church’s stance on female clergy and homosexuality to convert to Roman Catholicism.

[…]

The unprecedented move, triggered by pleas from disaffected Anglo-Catholics and announced at joint press conferences in London and Rome, allows those tempted to desert Canterbury to become fully incorporated into the Roman Catholic Church instead of forming small breakaway churches, while retaining parts of their Anglican heritage that do not clash with Catholic doctrine.

The Apostolic Constitution approved by the Pope creates a new structure, which will allow Roman Catholic provinces such as England and Wales to have their own “Personal Ordinariate” for ex-Anglicans.

Parishes and individuals can go over to Rome en masse and join the Ordinariate. Although Catholic priests must be celibate, married former Anglican clergy who convert under the Apostolic Constitution could be ordained as Catholic priests although they would not be allowed to become bishops.

[…]

As many as 50 Anglican bishops worldwide are expected to convert under the new procedure and Cardinal Levada said the number of ordinary worshippers who had asked for such a provision was “in the hundreds”.

I think that’s a severe underestimate. Look at this story from October 22nd:
– – – – – – – – –

Some 400,000 Anglicans in a breakaway movement called the Traditional Anglican Communion could be the first to convert after they and other groups, unhappy with the Anglican Communion’s increasingly liberal stance on female clergy and homosexuality, petitioned the Pope for reconciliation with Rome.

The clergy alone may number in the thousands. It’s hard to say how many of the laity will be drawn to Rome; in England especially there is strong anti-Catholic sentiment.

Damian Thompson thinks the timing of this move has to do with the beatification process for England’s most famous modern theologian:

Was Pope Benedict XVI inspired by Cardinal John Henry Newman, whom it is hoped he will beatify in England next year, when he suddenly threw open the gates of Rome to disaffected Anglicans on Tuesday morning?

The official website for Newman’s Cause hinted as much when it greeted the announcement with a reminder of Newman’s support for a proposal to establish an Anglican Uniate Church for converts, similar to that provided for Byzantine-rite Catholics. The plan was conceived by Ambrose Phillips de Lisle and Newman rightly guessed that it would be unworkable. But if it could be made to work, he said, he was all in favour. As he wrote to de Lisle in 1876:

“Nothing will rejoice me more than to find that the Holy See considers it safe and promising to sanction some such plan as the Pamphlet suggests. I give my best prayers, such as they are, that some means of drawing to us so many good people, who are now shivering at our gates, may be discovered.”

In the American press, only Francis X. Rocca, the main American interpreter for things Roman Catholic, had a report up at the Wall Street Journal when the news first broke. In some ways, his essay is the most interesting; he looks at the wider ramifications of Benedict’s move:

The Vatican’s announcement this week that it will allow former Anglicans who join the Catholic Church to retain a collective identity, using many of their traditional prayers and hymns in their own specially designed dioceses, is an event with profound implications for both Anglican and Catholic life.

The decision, made to accommodate Anglicans upset with their church’s growing acceptance of homosexuality and of women clergy, is likely to transform ecumenical relations between the churches. It will also heighten the internal Catholic debate over the requirement of priestly celibacy (which is to be routinely waived for married Anglican clergy who convert under the new rules, extending an exception made on a limited basis till now).

Perhaps the most striking effect of the Vatican’s move is the likelihood that, within the next few years, Catholic priests around the world will be celebrating Mass in a form that draws largely from the Book of Common Prayer. This resonant text, in its many versions, has informed Anglican worship since shortly after King Henry VIII led the Church of England away from Rome nearly five centuries ago.

Startling as that may sound, the Vatican’s adoption of a liturgy with Protestant origins is merely the latest-and hardly the most exotic-addition to the Catholic church’s liturgical smorgasbord. The range of worship forms has grown ever wider in recent years as the global church has become ever more diverse.

Rocca gives a world tour on liturgical practices within Roman Catholicism. The whole essay is worth reading. He says:

Though even most Catholics are not aware of it, many sanctioned modes of worship have co-existed within the church over its 2,000-year history. The Ambrosian Rite, celebrated only in certain parts of northern Italy, with its own special prayers, vestments and type of chant, is one of the most ancient, dating back at least to the fourth century. Not to speak of the many Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with Rome, which share a rich liturgical heritage with Eastern Orthodoxy. The Charismatic movement, of course, with its speaking in tongues and emphasis on “gifts of the Spirit,” harks all the way back to the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of Paul.

Today, the New York Times is finally paying attention to this startling news with an opinion piece by Ross Douthat, who calls the announcement “a bombshell”:

…the pope is going back to basics – touting the particular witness of Catholicism even when he’s addressing universal subjects, and seeking converts more than common ground.

[…]

But in making the opening to Anglicanism, Benedict also may have a deeper conflict in mind – not the parochial Western struggle between conservative and liberal believers, but Christianity’s global encounter with a resurgent Islam.

Here Catholicism and Anglicanism share two fronts. In Europe, both are weakened players, caught between a secular majority and an expanding Muslim population. In Africa, increasingly the real heart of the Anglican Communion, both are facing an entrenched Islamic presence across a fault line running from Nigeria to Sudan.

Where the European encounter is concerned, Pope Benedict has opted for public confrontation. In a controversial 2006 address in Regensburg, Germany, he explicitly challenged Islam’s compatibility with the Western way of reason – and sparked, as if in vindication of his point, a wave of Muslim riots around the world.

By contrast, the Church of England’s leadership has opted for conciliation (some would say appeasement), with the Archbishop of Canterbury going so far as to speculate about the inevitability of some kind of sharia law in Britain.

The appeasement/conciliation of the Archbishop of Canterbury has infuriated many Anglicans. Benedict’s sudden welcoming of the disaffected faithful gives them an exit out of a situation that has often seemed suicidal in its political correctness.

Of all that I’ve read about this startling news, nothing has come close to Richard Fernandez’ analysis at the Belmont Club:

The Roman Catholic Church is living through an extraordinary historical moment. It is facing two religious competitors. From one side, there is the religion which pretends to be a political movement – socialism/communism. From the other flank there is the political movement which pretends to be a religion – Islam. Both religions have massive amounts of money, heavy weaponry and great cultural power. Pope Benedict has probably looked at the ancient but fragile ramparts of Rome and realized that unless something turns up, they may not hold. Indeed, any normal assessment of forces would conclude that Benedict’s Church is doomed. The future looks like a face-off between socialist secularism and unbending Islam. How can Christianity even hope to keep the field? The full power of political correctness are marshaled on the one hand, and the multitudinous throngs of the Jihad are arrayed on the other. Never mind Canterbury’s end. What odds would you give Rome? An observer would give none, but for this cryptic prophecy in Matthew 16:18.

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

As usual, Richard has the most cogent, thoughtful reasoning. I recommend his whole essay.

I can’t remember now if he covers China’s new-found enthusiasm for Catholicism, but this factor is of particular importance in any calculation about the anti-Islamic pushback around the world. China’s culture and philosophy could manage to tame and modify Catholicism to meet its needs. Islam, on the other hand, would seem an implacable enemy to Chinese culture. That battle – China versus Islam – could be the bloodiest border of them of all.

However, the Sino-Islam conflict is far in the future. At the moment on the main stage is the drama in England. Henry VIII must be rolling in his grave, and Cardinal Newman must be dancing in his. The rest of us are scratching our heads, wondering if Benedict has done an end run around an increasingly homosexual clergy by admitting married priests in via the side door.

The calls for a married priesthood will begin in earnest now, and in justice those calls must be heeded. This is something Benedict obviously knows already; he doesn’t need anyone to tell him the obvious.

I await his response with great interest.

Most people are familiar with the system of sharia courts which has been established in Britain. Similar systems have been proposed in the USA, Canada, and Australia, as well as other European countries. According to the orthodox multicultural rationale behind such courts, they will act as arbitration boards similar to those used by Orthodox Jews, will be used for civil cases only, and will never be allowed to supersede the secular law of the land.

On closer examination, all of three the above assumptions turn out to be false.

Unlike sharia courts, Orthodox Jewish courts recognize the supremacy of the laws of the nations in which they function. Islam never recognizes any law superseding Islamic law. According to its core texts, such recognition is not possible.

The last two assumptions are belied by events in Vollsmose, a culturally enriched suburb of Odense in Denmark. Imams in Vollsmose sit in judgment on criminal cases, and thereby keep them out of the Danish court system.

This is occurring in Denmark which, unlike many other European countries, has resisted most of the demands made by Muslims, including those for sharia courts. The situation in Vollsmose demonstrates that a parallel judicial system — both civil and criminal — inevitably arises in Muslim enclaves, even in the absence of official state recognition.

This article from the Danish Radio website is not current, but it is quite relevant to what is happening today all over Europe. Many thanks to Reinhard of ICLA for translating it:

Imams mete out punishment in Vollsmose

In Vollsmose most reports to the police are withdrawn and instead end with local imams, who mete out an appropriate punishment.

Police believe the parallel judiciary system undermines their work — and lets criminals escape punishment under Danish law, writes Dagbladet Information.

Police in Vollsmose experience that up to 90 percent of all reports are withdrawn after a few days because the imams and other powerful men in the area resolve the cases on their own.

Parallel judicial societies

– – – – – – – – –

“Today there are criminals who are never punished according to Danish law,” says Torben Aagaard, who serves in the Odense district.

He explains that there is a parallel judiciary system, which makes it very difficult for the police to do their work:

“Of course there are many out there who live under Danish law, but as long as they do not dare stand up against the others, it is hard to do anything,” says Torben Aagaard.

Imams have power

He believes that money is being used, threats, and sometimes violence to resolve conflicts within the Muslim communities.

According to imam Abu Bashar, the imams resolve many kinds of conflicts:

“Both neighbor disputes, problems between men and women, and other conflicts. People respect what the imam says, but they do not like the police,” says the local imam, who is often called upon when a conflict occurs in the area.

He would not comment on the issue of violence, but says it is a part of the culture to listen to the imam, and that is why the imam has such power — even more than the police in some contexts.

Fjordman’s latest essay, the first part of “A History of Geology and Planetary Science”, has been published at the Brussels Journal. Some excerpts are below:

The German scholar Georgius Agricola (1494-1555) was a pioneer in mineralogy. He got a degree from the University of Leipzig and studied medicine in Italy. On his return to Saxony in 1526 he developed a life-long interest in mining and spent some time in Bohemia, the richest metal mining district in Europe. His work De Re Metallica, published posthumously in 1556, was a comprehensive summary of all aspects of mining and metal production then known. His work was highly regarded by contemporaries and has stood the test of time well.

Nicolas Steno, or Niels Stensen (1638-1686) from Copenhagen, Denmark, studied medicine and moved to Italy in 1665. In 1666, two fishermen caught a huge shark which Steno dissected. While examining its teeth he was struck by their resemblance to stony objects that were found in certain rocks. He argued that these objects had come from once-living sharks and come to be buried in mud or sand that was now dry land. His English contemporaries Robert Hooke and John Ray, too, argued that fossils were the geologically preserved remains of once-living organisms. Steno is also famous for his law of superposition. In 1669 he concluded that layers of rock (strata) are arranged in a time sequence with the oldest on the bottom and the youngest on the top, unless later processes have disturbed this arrangement.

The French naturalist Jean-Étienne Guettard (1715-1786) was the first person to recognize the volcanic nature of the Auvergne region in central France. In addition, he prepared early geological maps and identified heat as the causative factor of change in the Earth’s landforms. Nicolas Desmarest (1725-1815) in the 1760s studied the Auvergne region and found large basalt deposits and traces of flows of lava (magma, molten rock) from nearby now-extinct volcanoes. The German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt carried our major studies of volcanoes in the first part of the nineteenth century.

The word “geology” as a term for the study of the Earth was popularized in the late eighteenth century by the Swiss (Genevan) naturalists Horace-Bénédict de Saussure (1740-1799), the aristocrat and scholar who is famous for his voyages in the Alps and often considered the founder of alpinism, and Jean-André Deluc (1727-1817). Deluc was the son of a clockmaker and spent years climbing the Alps with his brother. He made accurate instruments to measure the height of mountains and in 1773 sought a place in England. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in London on the strength of his barometry and instrumentation skills.

– – – – – – – – –

The German scholar Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749-1817) studied law at the University of Leipzig and later got a teaching appointment at the Mining Academy of Freiberg in Saxony, where he stayed for many years. As a talented mineralogist he worked up simple descriptive standards of classification and discovered eight new minerals, but mineralogy gradually diminished from the overarching category for the study of the Earth to a mere subdiscipline. While sometimes wrong, Werner was an influential geologist and the first to work out a comprehensive theory for the history of the Earth’s formation. He believed that all rock was once sediment or precipitate in a universal ocean, a view which became known as Neptunism.

James Hutton (1726-1797) was the leading representative of the rival Plutonist theory. He was born and educated in Edinburgh, Scotland, during what has become known as the Scottish Enlightenment. He was a Newtonian in natural philosophy and counted among his friends the chemist Joseph Black, the economist Adam Smith and the inventor James Watt. Hutton proposed the uniformitarian view of geological history where all strata could be accounted for in terms of geological forces operating over very long periods of time, such as the slow erosion of rocks. His ideas were popularized by John Playfair (1748-1819) of the University of Edinburgh and picked up by the young Scottish geologist Charles Lyell (1797-1875).

Charles Lyell became fascinated with geology and took several field trips to Continental Europe. Sicily with the active stratovolcano Mount Etna in particular impressed him. As a member of the Geological Society he took part in lively debates and supported the uniformitarian theory. Contrary to catastrophism it indicated the past to have been an uninterrupted period of erosion, sediment deposition, volcanic action, earthquakes etc. These gradual processes, still going on today, could account for great changes when given enough time, which meant that the Earth had to be many millions of years old. Lyell’s Principles of Geology, first published in 1830, was very successful and accessible to a wider audience, something which Hutton’s work never had been. It went through many editions and brought the author a considerable income, which he used to travel and expand his ideas. Lyell greatly influenced a number of men of science, including the young Charles Darwin. Modern geology can be said to have been born with Charles Lyell’s extension of James Hutton’s theories.

The principles of stratigraphy, the study of the Earth’s strata or layers of sedimentary rock, had been created by Nicolas Steno in the seventeenth century and were rapidly extended between 1810 and 1840. Over the next century, geologists filled in the details of the stratigraphic column with ever-greater precision. By the turn of the nineteenth century, it was generally accepted among Western European scholars that fossils could be used to identify and correlate strata. The great naturalist Georges Cuvier (1769-1832), widely considered the founder of paleontology, together with fellow French scholar Alexandre Brongniart (1770-1847) produced a pioneering geological map of the Paris region in 1812. Brongniart had studied chemistry under the brilliant chemist Antoine Lavoisier. The fruitful collaboration between these two men established a scientific approach to stratigraphy and demonstrated that particular geological strata could be recognized by the fossils found within them.

The English surveyor, canal engineer and geologist William Smith (1769-1839) came from a family of small farmers. He received little formal education, but from an early age took an interest in exploring fossils. Based on stratigraphic investigations from canals and quarries he produced a complete geologic map of England and Wales in 1815, the first nationwide geological map. Partly due to his humble origins and limited education his great contributions were overlooked at first by the scientific community, and Smith suffered from severe financial difficulties. Not until the later part of his life was his careful work fully appreciated.

Although the marriage between geology and mining took a long time to yield practical results, the frequent claims that dynamic Britain during the Industrial Revolution was exhausting its coal supplies turned out to be false alarms. State-sponsored geological surveys were undertaken throughout Europe and North America after the mid-nineteenth century. This research would greatly benefit the mining industry as well as the emerging petroleum industry. Many geologists in the twentieth century found work in the oil industry, which joined geological surveys and mining as the main sources of non-academic employment.

Roderick Murchison (1792-1871) was born into a wealthy Scottish Highland family. He spent years in the army and became a very active member of the Geological Society of London, collaborating with Charles Lyell and the Englishman Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873). Murchison’s great work The Silurian System in 1839 established the Silurian geological time period of the Paleozoic Era, followed a year later by the Devonian while collaborating with Sedgwick. Murchison’s travels through Russia and Scandinavia after 1840 resulted in the establishment of the Permian period, which ended 250 million years ago with the greatest mass extinction of life on Earth, which wiped out perhaps 90% of all then-existing species.

Adam Sedgwick taught geology at the University of Cambridge, where Charles Darwin was one of his students. He proposed the Cambrian period, the first part of the Paleozoic, lasting from roughly 540 million to 490 million years ago. Judging from the fossil record this was an age of rapid development of complex life-forms which is called the Cambrian explosion.

Gideon Mantell (1790-1852) was an influential English paleontologist. In 1822 his wife noticed an object which he recognized as a fossil tooth but was unable to match to any known creature. The respected scholar Georges Cuvier in Paris in an uncharacteristic error suggested that the remains were from a rhinoceros. In London, Mantell was shown the skeleton of an iguana with teeth almost identical to the ancient teeth that he had just found, though much smaller. Mantell realized that he had discovered the remains of an extinct giant reptile which he called Iguanodon, making it one of the first dinosaurs to be formally named. Also in England, Mary Anning (1799-1847) was an early fossil collector who produced many remarkable finds. Perhaps the most important one was her discovery of the first plesiosaur.

The English paleontologist Richard Owen (1804-1892) coined the term “dinosaur” in 1842. The name means “terrible lizard” and is not very scientifically accurate, but it stuck. Owen was a quarrelsome man who claimed the discovery of the Iguanodon for himself when it had been done by Gideon Mantell, yet according to Bill Bryson in A Short History of Nearly Everything, he also contributed to the development of modern museums: “Owen’s plan was to welcome everyone, even to the point of encouraging working men to visit in the evening, and to devote most of the museum’s space to public displays. He even proposed, very radically, to put informative labels on each display so that people could appreciate what they were viewing. In this, somewhat unexpectedly, he was opposed by T. H. Huxley, who believed that museums should be primarily research institutions. By making the Natural History Museum an institution for everyone, Owen transformed our expectations of what museums are for.”

The Scottish geologist James Hall (1761-1832), a friend of James Hutton, founded experimental geology by artificially producing various rock types in the laboratory. He carried out dangerous experiments with limestone heated under pressure and lived to report that it did indeed consolidate under sufficient pressure. In the twentieth century Pentti Eskola (1883-1964), a professor of geology and mineralogy in Helsinki, Finland, applied chemical methods to the study of minerals and metamorphic facies (groups of mineral compositions in metamorphic rocks), thereby laying the foundations of studies in metamorphic petrology.

There are three main rock types: Igneous rocks are formed from the solidification of molten rock (magma). Intrusive igneous rocks such as diorite, gabbro and granite solidify below the Earth’s surface while extrusive igneous rocks such as basalt, obsidian and pumice solidify on or above the surface. Sedimentary rocks are formed by the accumulation of sediments. Some such as conglomerate and sandstone are formed from mechanical weathering debris. Organic sedimentary rocks such as coal form from the accumulation of plant or animal debris. Metamorphic rocks have been modified by heat, pressure and chemical processes, usually while buried deep below Earth’s surface. This has altered the mineralogy, texture and chemical composition of the rocks. Examples of this would be marble produced from the metamorphism of limestone or quartzite from the metamorphism of sandstone with quartz.

The nebular hypothesis was first proposed in 1734 by the Swedish philosopher and theologian Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), who was born in Stockholm and studied at Uppsala University. He wrote on mathematics, chemistry, physics, mineralogy and astronomy and made a sketch of a glider-type aircraft. The German Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant developed this theory further in 1755, and the French astronomer Pierre-Simon Laplace also advanced a nebular hypothesis in 1796. Laplace suggested that our Solar System was created from the cooling and condensation of a large and hot rotating “nebula,” a gassy cloud of particles and dust. This idea strongly influenced scientists in the nineteenth century, and central elements of it have survived to this day. For a long time, geologists preferred the hypothesis that the Earth had cooled and contracted. The work on rates of cooling made by the brilliant French mathematical physicist Joseph Fourier seemed to support this model.

Read the rest at the Brussels Journal.

T. Boone Pickens notes that despite its six-year military commitment on behalf of Iraq, the United States is not gaining access to the country’s oil fields. He says that once our military withdrawal is complete, all the business will go to China and other countries.

In other news, Americans are losing their faith in climate change. In the latest survey, only 57% of the respondents believe that the globe is warming up, down from 77% two years ago.

Thanks to AG, Barry Rubin, Dazed & Confused, Furor Teutonicus, Insubria, JD, JP, KGS, Michael Freund, Zenster, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
– – – – – – – – –

	Financial Crisis
	Bernanke Not Obama to Make “Trillion Dollar Decision”
	USA
	AARP’s Tradition of Betrayal
	Berit Kjos: The Ominous “Success” Of Re-Education
	Doctors May ‘Fire’ Parents Who Don’t Vaccinate Children
	Heavily Armed Law Enforcement Teams Will Scatter Across the Bay Area This Weekend
	How They Are Turning Off the Lights in America
	More Republican Deception
	Now Mayor Daley is Floating a Water Sale?
	Number of Americans Who Believe in Climate Change Drops, Survey Shows
	Obama Offers Millions in Muslim Technology Fund
	Things to Watch for During a “Declared National Emergency”
	Europe and the EU
	Fishing: EU: Med Countries Against Red Tuna Ban
	Italy-Jordan: Milan Forum Opens Door for New Cooperation
	Railways: High-Speed; Scajola, TGV Must Not Stop at Nice
	Slovenia: Government Wants to Introduce Property Tax
	Sweden: Nurses Got Sick From the “Swine Flu” Vaccine in Sweden * Update — 1 Suspected Death
	Sweden: Fourth Person Dies From Swine Flu Jab
	UK: Albanian Wanted for Murder in 1996 Found Living in North East With Wife and Two Children
	UK: Diwali Wars: As Election Fight Looms, Politicians and the Palace Vie to Host Parties for Hindu Festival of Lights
	UK: Grandmother Who Objected to Gay March is Accused of Hate Crime
	UK: Islamists Who Want to Destroy the State Get £100,000 Funding
	UK: Leading Bishops ‘Ready to Quit Church of England and Join the Pope’
	UK: Secret Court Seizes £3.2bn From Elderly… And Even Forces Furious Families to Pay to Access Own Bank Account
	UK: The BNP Can be Dismissed — But Their Constituency Can Not
	UK: The Gang Shootings That Put Police With Machine Guns on London’s Streets
	UK: The Snooper’s Census: 2011 Survey Will Ask for the Name, Sex and Birth Date of All Our ‘Overnight Visitors’
	Balkans
	Energy: USA Company to Modernized Serbian Refinery
	North Africa
	Algeria: Risk of Arms Arriving From Darfur
	Algeria: Algerian Nationality to 47,000 Foreigners Since 1970
	Egypt Muslims Stone Coptic Churches in Sectarian Clash
	Fisheries: Tunisia Bets on Aquaculture and Bluefin Tuna
	Israel and the Palestinians
	3 Policemen Lightly Wounded as Temple Mount Clashes Resume
	Pro-Settlement Troops: Protest Causes Stir
	Rabbis Against Top Model Rafaeli’s Risqué Poster
	Middle East
	Energy: S.Craxi, Photovoltaic Centre in Sothern Jordan
	Iranian Negotiations: Ploy of the Week or Deal of the Century?
	Italy-Syria: Marrazzo, Syrian Tourism Week in Rome
	Lebanon: Crackdown Against ‘Criminal’ Motorbikes
	Michael Freund: Arab States Meet to Reinvigorate Israel Boycott
	Nuclear Energy: King of Jordan, Uranium Supply to Italy
	Smoking: Lebanon Among Highest Number of Smokers
	T. Boone Pickens on Iraq: ‘We Leave There With the Chinese Getting the Oil’
	Immigration
	‘Dishonest’ Blair and Straw Accused Over Secret Plan for Multicultural UK
	Libya: IOM Conference on Human Trafficking
	Culture Wars
	Oh, Danny Boy! Gay Tourism to Ireland Booming
	Spain: Left Wants to Legalise Abortion Up to 22 Weeks
	General
	Steam Secret of Natural Fission

Bernanke Not Obama to Make “Trillion Dollar Decision”

The biggest decision of the economic recovery will be made in the next six months, and Barack Obama will have almost nothing to do with it.

Forget the debate over TARP, and never mind the questions about a second stimulus. This decision is about when to pull out $1 trillion that’s propping up the U.S. banking system. And it will be Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his Fed colleagues who make the call.

That’s hard enough for a White House that knows its political fortunes rise and fall with the economy.

What’s worse is that Bernanke and Obama — like many presidents and Fed chairmen past — won’t necessarily have the same goals for this trillion-dollar decision.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

AARP’s Tradition of Betrayal

Nonprofit in name only, “AARP is the equivalent of a Fortune 500 company, employing a staff of 2,419 employees, (incurring) $1.16 billion in operating expenses and overseeing annual revenues (well above) $1 billion,” around 60% of which comes from so-called Medigap supplemental insurance sales.

According to Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), “Some of these products are total rip offs,” so bad, in fact, that AARP was forced to withdraw its Essential Health Insurance Plan and Essential Plus Health Insurance Plan, developed by United Health Group and sold to 44,000 of its members.

PNHP calls AARP “part of the problem and not part of the solution. It is nothing but an insurance (and financial) broker disguised as an advocacy group — and they will never take on the health insurance industry. (It) represent(s) the insurance industry (and its own self-interest) rather than (its members and) the public welfare in discussions about health reform.”

As a result, it’s largely profit-driven offering 17 types of insurance reaping hundreds of millions annually in royalties. Millions more from selling drugs; other products and services including mutual funds; plus federal subsidies exceeding $80 million annually; and annual membership dues of $16 per year, $43 for three years, or $63 for five x 40 million members.

It’s also active on Capitol Hill with a 50-person staff and a 2008 $28 million lobbying budget, much like major corporations and for the same purpose — profits at the expense of member interests, unaware how they’re ill-served by an organization claiming to be their advocate.

[Return to headlines]

Berit Kjos: The Ominous “Success” Of Re-Education

“The purpose of education and the schools is to change the thoughts, feelings and actions of students.”[1]

“As the home and church decline in influence… schools must begin to provide adequately for the emotional and moral development of children. …The school… must assume a direct responsibility for the attitudes and values of child development. The child advocate, psychologist, social technician, and medical technician should all reach aggressively into the community, send workers out to children’s homes…”[2] “Joint Commission on Mental Health of Children”

“A proposal for new social studies curriculum in Texas public schools removes a mention of Christmas in a sixth-grade lesson, replacing it with a Hindu religious festival…”[3]

“…the breakdown of traditional families, far from being a ‘crisis,’ is actually a. … triumph for human rights against ‘patriarchy.’“[4] UN Population Fund leader

The traditional Christian family has been a continual obstacle to the globalist vision of solidarity. And for over sixty years, the United Nations and its mental health gurus have fought hard to eradicate those old “poisonous certainties” that stood in their way. They seem to be gaining ground!

Since Hitler outlawed homeschooling about 70 years ago, German parents have faced the harshest battles. Now other nations are catching up. Notice the government attitudes in the following examples:…

[…]

The Marxist change agents behind this transformation are too numerous to list, but behavioral psychologist Kurt Lewin gives us a simple formula. Linked to infamous psychological research institutes in London (Tavistock) and Germany (Frankfurt Institute), Lewin moved to America when Hitler began his reign. His influence spread through MIT and other universities, then paved the way for “sensitivity training” and the formation of National Training Laboratories that would prepare transformational tactics and textbooks for public schools.

Lewin outlined his program with a 3-step formula:

1- UNFREEZING minds 2- MOVING the students to the new level 3- FREEZING group minds on the new level.[9]

For the students, the transition back to reality — to home, family and normal life — was painful. For some it was lethal. “When I came back home, I sort of wrote a suicide note to myself,” confessed LeAndrew Crawford. “Not actually wanting to kill myself, but wanting to kill the reality of what society had been teaching me for so long… I was totally down, because my family just didn’t feel like my family… I didn’t want to be back.”[7]

Brandon Hawk did kill himself within a year. Hearing about his death, other concerned parents contacted Brandon’s parents.

[…]

Another mother testified that, “My son came back from [Clinton’s] Governor’s School and his favorite line was ‘There are no absolutes; there are no absolutes.”[7]

It didn’t take long to change the students’ minds and hearts, did it? Yet few teachers or parents are aware of this subversive agenda.

— Hat tip: JD

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Doctors May ‘Fire’ Parents Who Don’t Vaccinate Children

When Cathlene Echan walked into her pediatrician’s office two weeks after giving birth, she was nervous about discussing her recent decision not to vaccinate her second baby.

But Echan, of Orange County, Calif., did not expect to be asked to leave.

“The doctor said it was too much of a liability to have us as patients,” said Echan, a 28-year-old stay at home mom. Echan’s oldest child, Josiah, now 5, had just been diagnosed with autism around the same time her second son Torren, now 2, was born.

Echan said she did research and read articles online about autism, she talked with other parents and then came to the pediatrician’s office with doubts about vaccines.

“I hadn’t come to a conclusion at that point when I saw the doctor, but I was so nervous because they’re brothers, and I thought there could be a predisposition for it,” said Echan. “As a mom, I can’t knowingly do something to my second child when I believe it played a role in causing my older child’s neurological disorder.

— Hat tip: JD

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Heavily Armed Law Enforcement Teams Will Scatter Across the Bay Area This Weekend

Armed officers in full battle gear will be scattered throughout the Bay Area this weekend, rescuing hostages, fighting bank robbers and quelling terrorism at the Oakland Airport, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, the NASA Ames Research Center and 22 other high profile sites.

There will be the sound of gunfire and blasts — all part of Urban Shield, one of the biggest domestic terrorism drills in the country. The $1 million, two-day event begins Saturday and will test the training of 27 crack teams from throughout the state, elsewhere in the country and the world.

For the first time in the three-year history of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department-sponsored exercise, there will be a foreign team of officers taking part and international observers. An eight-member team representing the French National Police’s Research, Assistance, Intervention, and Dissuasion unit will compete.

The exercise is a non-stop, 48-hour event meant to test a team’s endurance and equipment in high stress situations such as shootouts, nuclear facility threats and airline hijackings. Each team is graded on their performances and at the end of the weekend, the top three teams are recognized.

Amaury de Hauteclocque, chief of the French RAID team, said although there are opportunities in Europe to cross train with other countries’ forces, there is nothing like Urban Shield, with 25 realistic scenarios at on-site locations.

“There are situations in the States we don’t have in France, like a mass murder in a university,” Hauteclocque said. “Fortunately we don’t have them in France at this time, but we don’t have a reason not to expect this to happen.”

— Hat tip: JD

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How They Are Turning Off the Lights in America

On October 31,2009, the once largest aluminum plant in the world will shut down. With it goes another American industry and more American jobs. The Columbia Falls Aluminum Company in Montana will shut down its aluminum production because it cannot purchase the necessary electrical power to continue its operations.

How did this happen in America? America was once the envy of the world in its industrial capability. America’s industrial capacity built America into the most productive nation the world had ever known. Its standard of living rose to levels never before accomplished. Its currency became valuable and powerful, allowing Americans to purchase imported goods at relatively cheap prices.

America grew because of innovation and hard work by the pioneers of the industrial revolution, and because America has vast natural resources. A great economy, as America once was, is founded on the ability to produce electrical energy at low cost. This ability has been extinguished. Why?

Columbia Falls Aluminum negotiated a contract with Bonneville Power Administration in 2006 for Bonneville to supply electrical power until September 30, 2011. But, responding to lawsuits, the 9th US Circuit Court ruled the contract was invalid because it was incompatible with the Northwest Power Act. Therefore, the combination of the Northwest Power Act and a US Circuit Court were the final villains that caused the shutdown of Columbia Falls Aluminum.

But the real reasons are much more complicated. Why was it not possible for Columbia Falls Aluminum to find sources of electricity other than Bonneville?

We need to look no further than the many environmental groups like the Sierra Club and to America’s elected officials who turned their backs on American citizens and in essence themselves, for they too are citizens of this country. These officials bought into the green agenda promoted by the heavily funded environmental groups. Caving to pressure, they passed laws and the environmental groups filed lawsuits that began turning off the lights in America. The dominos started to fall.

— Hat tip: JD

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More Republican Deception

As my husband is fond of saying, we have Socialist Party A and Socialist Party B, there is little difference. It seems quite obvious to even the least politically involved that both parties are melding into one and both are far too liberal for the conservative, small government voters who favor our founding fathers’ beliefs and desires for America. In 1965, I remember a close friend telling me that the Soviet Union and America would meld into one combining both communism and capitalism. I’ve thought of that statement many times over the years.

Countless phone calls from the Republican National Committee, the College Republican National Committee, and every other form of Republican National group out there has phoned me for a donation. If that isn’t enough, the RNC and various other Republican groups continue to send me snail mail which includes two and three page questionnaires and surveys, and at the end of same, an area to mark for the amount of your donation. With the disgust I’ve felt for so long regarding the Republican choices for office, I mostly pitched these costly forms in the trash. However, after the 2008 election, I decided to change my strategy.

[…]

The former head of the Aspen Institute, new age environmentalist Maurice Strong, has membership in the following organizations, but this does not include the entire list:

* Senior Advisor to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan

* Senior Advisor to World Bank President James Wolfensohn

* Chairman of the Earth Council

* Chairman of the World Resources Institute

* Co-Chairman of the Council of the World Economic Forum

* member of Toyota’s International Advisory Board

He is also a long time member of the Futurist Society (which Newt Gingrich also belongs to as well as Newt’s long time friends Alvin and Heidi Toffler). (See Toffler’s book, THE THIRD WAVE) To digress, remember Newt recently came out for the republican nominee in New York’s 23rd congressional district, Dede Scozzafava, who represents the Democratic party with her entire platform but is running on the Republican ticket against a constitutionalist running on the conservative party by the name of Doug Hoffman.

The following is from the website, THE ASPEN INSTITUTE AND THE CLUB OF ROME

“The Aspen Institute was founded in 1949, by Aldous Huxley, and John Maynard Hutchins, in commemoration of the 200th birthday of German philosopher and author of Faust, and a member of the Illuminati, Goethe. Robert O. Anderson also contributed significant funds to a project initiated by the Rockefeller family, together with Aurelio Peccei and Alexander King, at the Rockefeller’s estate at Bellagio, Italy, called the Club of Rome.

In 1972, this Club of Rome, and the US Association of the Club of Rome, gave widespread publicity to their publication of the notorious “Limits to Growth.” Supported by research done at MIT, this report concluded that industrialization had to be halted to save the planet from ecological catastrophe.

These organizations were exploiting the panic induced, when Paul Ehrlich, a biologist at Stanford, and admirer of Bertrand Russell, in 1968, wrote his Malthusian projections in a best-selling book called The Population Bomb. “

Quite obviously, our Republican party has joined with the enemy. Weak kneed, spineless men like former Tennessee Senator Dr. Bill Frist, Senators from Maine, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins, Minority leader Boehner and Newt Gingrich who is backing Dede Scozzafava, and countless others too numerous to name, who do not represent conservative Republicans or ideals, do not deserve to have our cash to continue their happy allegiance with the Marxist ideologues of the left.

[…]

When you receive phone calls and snail mail from the RNC, I urge you to tell them you feel highly qualified to do your own research on where you’ll send your monies, and that they are wasting their time calling you for cash that they’ll distribute to the likes of Scozzafava (500,000 from the RNC), Snowe, Collins and others who are simply Republicans in name only.

— Hat tip: JD

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Now Mayor Daley is Floating a Water Sale?

To save his bloated city budget Mayor Daley sold the Chicago Skyway toll road. Then he sold the city parking meters. And now? Now Daley wants to sell the city water system in order to keep paying all his broken nosed pals their monthly stipend.

CBS Channel 2 is reporting that that Chicago is considering leasing its water system.

Apparently there is a local precedent for this idea already in the Will County city of Homer Glen that leased its city water services to a German-owned company.

— Hat tip: JD

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Number of Americans Who Believe in Climate Change Drops, Survey Shows

Only 57% of Americans feel that the planet’s atmosphere is warming, a fall from 77% two years ago

The number of Americans who believe in global warming has plummeted, falling 20% in two years, a survey said today.

Only 57% of Americans believe there is solid scientific evidence that the Earth’s atmosphere is warming, said the poll of 1,500 people by the Pew Research Centre for the People & the Press.

That is a fall of 77% from 2007. The number of people who believe that human activity is causing global warming also fell to just 36%.

The public uncertainty about the evidence behind global warming comes as the Senate prepares to begin debate next week on climate change legislation. Yesterday, 18 scientific organisations wrote Congress to reaffirm the consensus behind global warming.

Michael Dimock, the associate director of the Pew Centre, said the economic crisis and the struggles over healthcare reform had squeezed out climate change and the environment as issues of concern. “The public is just not as focused on global warming and environmental [issues] as they have been in the past.”

But James Hoggan, a PR executive and author of Climate Cover-Up, blamed an intense lobbying campaign against global warming legislation now before the Senate. “I would say a big part of this problem is this campaign to mislead Americans about climate science,” he said. “This is a very sophisticated group of people who know how to create doubt and confusion and they have done a very good job of it.”

The decline was sharpest among independent voters and Republicans. Republicans in Congress have almost uniformly lined up against climate change legislation. There were also regional differences, with people in the mid-west and Rocky mountain states less inclined to see climate change as a serious problem.

But the perceived lack of concrete evidence for global warming did not necessarily hurt the prospects of voting on climate change legislation, Dimock said. Half of Americans polled remain in favour of putting limits and carbon emissions and making companies pay for their emissions — the basics of the cap and trade bill now before the Senate.

A majority, 56%, also want America to join other countries in a global agreement on climate change.

— Hat tip: AG

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Obama Offers Millions in Muslim Technology Fund

The White House said the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) had issued a call for proposals for the fund, which will provide financing of between 25 and 150 million dollars for selected projects and funds.

The Global Technology and Innovation Fund will “catalyze and facilitate private sector investments” throughout Asia, the Middle East and Africa, the White House said in a statement.

[…]

In his speech to the Muslim world in Cairo last June, Obama argued that “education and innovation will be the currency of the 21st century” and that under-investment was rife in many Muslim nations.

As well as the fund, Obama also said he will host a summit on entrepreneurship this year to deepen ties between business leaders in the United States and Muslim communities around the world.

— Hat tip: JD

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Things to Watch for During a “Declared National Emergency”

As I predicted—though I was unsure whether it would be the H1N1 virus or the collapse of the dollar—the Communist Puppet would use something to cement his total control over every aspect of our lives.

From the day he took office, Obama and his puppet masters have been building a shadow Government with all power vested in them. The Czars he has appointed, who were not vetted and approved by Congress nor elected, now have the authority to control every aspect of American commerce.

I challenge you to look at the Executive Orders that have been signed over the last 30 years and are still in place. Also carefully read the provisions of the Violent Crime Control Act. They are listed here America In Peril and I include a partial list below…

— Hat tip: JD

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Fishing: EU: Med Countries Against Red Tuna Ban

(by Chiara Spegni) (ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, SEPTEMBER 23 — The difficult issue being faced in Brussels on red tuna fishing is still unresolved. The proposal to include this fish in the list of species at risk of extinction, and ban its commerce, promoted by the Principality of Montecarlo and supported by the European Commission, was not backed by the 27 member states, currently divided on the issue. Those against are the Mediterranean countries of Italy, France, Spain, Greece, and Malta while Cyprus abstained and Portugal declared itself in favour with the other EU countries. The position was taken despite the provisional character of an eventual support for the Montecarlo initiative that is awaiting upcoming data on the scientific situation of the resources, expected at the meeting in November, of the International Committee for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT), the international organisation that decides on management practices for red tuna stock. But the five Mediterranean countries are biding their time, agreeing on the position taken by shipping companies and European fishing cooperatives Europeche and Cogeca who believe the ban on red tuna would be “a radical measure, out of proportion and not founded on scientific facts”. The Commission expressed “deep concern on the state of the stock of this type of fish, which is rapidly decreasing after years of excessive fishing”. The European Environment commissioner, Stavros Dimas, expressed his disappointment and the European commissioner for Fishing, Joe Borg, said that now the responsibility lies with ICCAT. Environmentalist, with the WWF and Greenpeace at the head, were disappointed, having fought for years to conserve the species and against illegal fishing which greatly depleted red tuna stock. “A position with such a reduced view and without ambitions on the part of the EU and Mediterranean member states against marina protection, is disappointing”, commented Aaron McLoughlin, head of the WWF European marine programme. In Italy the WWF tried to influence the government with an ad hoc campaign showing a tuna being caught with sushi chopsticks. “The blind attitude of the Mediterranean governments will lead to the extinction of red tuna and will leave fishermen with nothing to fish in a few years time”, said Greenpeace Brussels activist Saskia Richartz. The ball now passed to ICCAT to save the species. Scheduled to meeting in November to consider the updated scientific data and the initiative that have already been adopted including the reorganization plan stated by the EU in 2006 which committed Italy to reduce tuna fishing boats from 49 to 22 by 2012. In any case there is still time to support the proposal made by the Principality of Montecarlo which will be discussed at the CITES meeting in March 2010. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy-Jordan: Milan Forum Opens Door for New Cooperation

(ANSAmed) — MILAN, OCTOBER 22 — King Abdullah II of Jordan ended his state visit to Italy in Milan. From the heart of the Italian economy, the Italian stock exchange, during the Italy-Jordan Economic Forum he spoke of the opportunities for collaboration with his country beginning from nuclear energy. Jordan, in fact, possesses 3% of the world’s uranium and intends to exploit it. He already has a national plan in mind with the construction of two or three plants and for this reason has closed agreements with France, South Korea and Germany. With the French company Areva, for example, there was the agreement signed in mid September for the construction of a reactor with surrounding facilities for desalination and the extraction of minerals. The amount of uranium to be extracted will be quantified “half way through next year and when we know how much”, the king explained, “this could allow us to be partners with both the Italian government and Italian companies”, seen that Italy is setting the stones for its own nuclear programme. The energy which he is talking about is not only however atomic, but includes natural gas (which Jordan would like to begin exporting) and also renewables. The deputy foreign minister, Stefania Craxi, reminded that Jordan is building what will be one of the largest photovoltaic facilities in the world in the southern part of the country and that with the 10 memorandums signed today at the Italy-Jordan Forum, one involved Italy directly in the project. The national transport plan that will be launched next year and that plans for connections to Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, is another of the opportunities that King Abdullah II offered to Italian companies “specialised on the global level”, he stressed, “in the sector”. “I am very satisfied by the visit to Milan”, the king concluded, “where there are many new business opportunities”. Regarding the signed memorandums, they involve the sectors of investment, tourism, furnishings, renewable energy (more specifically Solar), ICT, training and economic and industrial cooperation, from food to the diagnostic and health sectors. At the centre of the meeting there was also the constitution of a committee of Italian-Jordanian business and the opening in Italy of a Jordan Investment Board office, an agency which promotes investment from the Kingdom of Jordan. “Jordan”, the Italian Minister of Economic Development, Claudio Scajola, stressed, “is a strategic country for our economic policy, always focusing on developments in the Middle East and its players”. The about 2,000 face-to-face encounters between representatives of 70 Jordanian companies and 275 Italian companies which took place in the afternoon demonstrate it. Abdullah spoke to a full house with his wife Rania in a beautiful red dress seate in the front row, next to Stefania Craxi and the mayor of Milan Letizia Moratti, who had a private meeting with her and the king. For the sovereign this was the first visit to the city, while the Queen received honorary citizenship. The Queen also took advantage of the meeting of 40 Italian and Jordanian entrepreneurs, the Minister of Economic Development, Claudio Scajola, King Abdullah, the mayor, the president of Lombardy, Roberto Formigoni and the president of Promos (the company of the Chamber of Commerce which organised the Forum) for a walk and a cappuccino in Via Dante. (ANSAmed)

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Railways: High-Speed; Scajola, TGV Must Not Stop at Nice

(ANSAmed) — VENTIMIGLIA (IMPERIA), OCTOBER 20 — ‘The TGV (high-speed train) must not stop at Nice, it must pass through Italy. We must integrate the high-speed train with the new railway; we are close, but in the railway sector the node connecting France and Italy has perhaps lagged behind”. Minister Scajola tackled the theme of rail transport during a meeting yesterday evening in Montecarlo with ministers from Monaco. ‘France invested a lot in the high-speed network compared to Italy before. At the end of December one will be able to travel at high speed from Turin to Salerno, and it takes 2 hours 50 minutes to go from Milan to Rome. A second track is being laid along Liguria Ponente. In a year and a half the new track between San Lorenzo and Finale Ligure will be opened, things are moving forward. The problem will be overcoming the bottleneck in Montecarlo. So we must find a solution, combining our energies, as a cross-border territory. This has also been a topic for discussion amongst the ministers of Monaco”.(ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Slovenia: Government Wants to Introduce Property Tax

(ANSAmed) — LJUBLJANA, OCTOBER 23 — The Slovenian government wants to start taxing property as of 2011. The Italian Trade Commission (ICE) office in Ljubljana points out that so far, based on the Yugoslavian law from the ‘80s, tax has only been levied on the use of buildings, building sites, private terrains and buildings with a surface of more than 160 square metres. Under the new law, which is expected to come into force in 2011, all property will be taxed based on their value, at the rate of 0.1% on 80% of the property’s value. First homes, with a surface up to 150 square metres, is not considered to be luxury and will therefore be taxed at the minimum rate. The tax could also be reduced according to the number of people living in the building. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Sweden: Nurses Got Sick From the “Swine Flu” Vaccine in Sweden * Update — 1 Suspected Death

Yesterday 30 people had been reporting to the authorities in Sweden that they experienced such severe side effects that they felt the need to contact a hospital. Today the number is 140. The swedish newspaper Expressen is the only one in Sweden reporting on these cases and as usual this is most likely only the tip of a rather large iceberg. UPDATE: According to Dagens Nyheter, the number of reported side effects are now a few hours later 190. 1 person dies after the injection but “no direct relation with the injection has been established”. The biggest medical scandal in the history of Sweden has just started.

[…]

A nurse who took the shot on wednesday last week is still feeling sick. She got high fever and shivers from the swine flu shot. “-I was shaking in my whole body. It was so sever that I could not even hold a glass of water in my hand.”, Lotta Lindström says.

“- I am now thinking about what it is I have been injected with. I really was affected. It feels really unpleasant.”

Maria Strindlund is not so sure she made the right choice to tae the shot. She also got a severe fever and shivering reaction. “- Since I work as a nurse, I decided it was the best thing to do.”, she says. At first she felt nothing from the vaccinaton, but a few hours later the side effects kicked in. “- I got a extreme pain in my arm. I could no longer lift it.” The came the fever and the shivering. “ _ I was lying in bed shivering and was feeling very cold and stood in a hot shower to get warm.” She says many colleguse who also took the vaccine have had similar reactons. She has been taking many vaccines in the past without any reactions whatsoever.

— Hat tip: JD

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Sweden: Fourth Person Dies From Swine Flu Jab

The news that a fourth person has died after taking the “swine flu” jab in Sweden is focussing attention on the failure of the Swedish Medical Products Agency (MPA) to halt the “swine flu” programme even as reports of serious side effects flood in.

— Hat tip: JD

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UK: Albanian Wanted for Murder in 1996 Found Living in North East With Wife and Two Children

One of Europe’s most wanted men has been discovered living in a quiet village in north east England.

To his neighbours, Sokol Sinani appeared like any other ordinary married father bringing up his two children in a quiet cul-de-sac in Ryton, near Gateshead.

But the 37-year-old Albanian was hiding a deadly secret.

For the past 15 years he has been on the run from police after committing a brutal murder in his home country.

Following Sinani’s arrest, villagers spoke of their amazement after learning that one of Interpol’s most wanted men had been living among them.

One said: ‘I’m not sure where he comes from — we didn’t even know his name. They never speak to anyone.’

Although his photograph was circulated to police forces across Europe, officers failed to track him down because he used the alias Ismail Sinani.

Instead of being brought to justice, the fugitive was allowed to live freely with his wife, his mother-in-law and two children in a semidetached council house for the past five years.

— Hat tip: JD

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UK: Diwali Wars: As Election Fight Looms, Politicians and the Palace Vie to Host Parties for Hindu Festival of Lights

It is a sparkling religious festival that is celebrated widely in the Indian community — but one that normally passes virtually unrecognised at Westminster.

However, this year politicians have been falling over themselves to host parties for Diwali, the five-day ‘festival of lights’ marked earlier this month by 1.5million of the UK’s Hindus, Sikhs and Jains.

Gordon Brown and David Cameron held personal Diwali parties for the first time, and separate events were hosted by the Queen and MPs.

During the celebrations, small clay lamps filled with oil are lit to signify ‘victory over the evil within’ and sweets are shared between guests.

The outbreak of ‘Diwali wars’ — as it was dubbed by one MP — left some guests confused about which events to attend, while others, such as the controversial millionaire Lord Paul, happily accepted multiple invitations.

Sceptical community leaders said they were delighted by the sudden upsurge of interest in their traditions — but hoped it would continue after next year’s General Election.

David Cameron was first out of the Diwali blocks, hosting an event for 600 people at Tory headquarters on Monday October 12. The £10,000 party was funded by Dolar Popat, the care home mogul whose wealth is estimated at more than £40million.

‘It was completely chaotic,’ said one guest. ‘Cameron clearly hadn’t held one of these parties before, and some guests were left grumbling that he hadn’t shaken their hands.’

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Grandmother Who Objected to Gay March is Accused of Hate Crime

After witnessing a gay pride march, committed Christian Pauline Howe wrote to the council to complain that the event had been allowed to go ahead.

But instead of a simple acknowledgement, she received a letter warning her she might be guilty of a hate crime and that the matter had been passed to police.

Two officers later turned up at the frightened grandmother’s home and lectured her about her choice of words before telling her she would not be prosecuted.

Mrs Howe, 67, whose husband Peter is understood to be a Baptist minister, yesterday spoke of her shock at the visit and accused police of ‘ wasting resources’ on her case rather than fighting crime.

‘I’ve never been in any kind of trouble before so I was stunned to have two police officers knocking at my door,’ she said.

‘Their presence in my home made me feel threatened. It was a very unpleasant experience.

‘The officers told me that my letter was thought to be an intention of hate but I was expressing views as a Christian.’

[Comments from JD: Americans can expect the same treatment once Obama signs the hate bill.]

— Hat tip: JD

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UK: Islamists Who Want to Destroy the State Get £100,000 Funding

Members of a group regarded as an ‘organisation of concern’ by the Home Office has secured large government grants for schools , reports Andrew Gilligan.

Leading members of a group that wants to bring down the British state and replace it with a dictatorship under Islamic law have secured more than £100,000 of taxpayers’ money for a chain of schools.

Accounts filed at the Charity Commission show that the Government paid a total of £113,411 last year to a foundation run by senior members and activists of Hizb ut-Tahrir — a notorious Islamic extremist group that ministers promised to ban.

The public money helped run a nursery school and two Islamic primary schools where children are taught key elements of Hizb’s ideology from the age of five.

Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary, last night described the disclosure as “astonishing and outrageous” and accused the Government of “sleeping on the job”.

Hizb regards integration as “dangerous” and says that British Muslims should “fight assimilation” into British society. It wants to create a global Islamic superstate, or “caliphate”, initially in Muslim-majority countries and then across the rest of the world.

It says that “those [Muslims] who believe in democracy are Kafir”, or apostates. It orders all Muslims to keep apart from non-believers and boycott “corrupt” British elections and political processes. It has a tiny following and its views are rejected by most British Muslims.

Hizb, which operates worldwide, insists it is non-violent and condemned the London bombings.

However its website previously displayed a leaflet urging Muslims to “kill [Jews] wherever you find them” and at a rally in London earlier this year, Imran Waheed, its chief media adviser in Britain, said that there could be “no peace” with Israel, calling on Muslims to “fight” a “jihad… in the way of Allah” against it.

Its anti-Semitism has resulted in the group being banned in Germany and on some British university campuses.

After the bombings in London on July 7, 2005, Tony Blair, who was then prime minister, also promised to ban Hizb, describing it as “fanatical”.

A ban has not been introduced but the Tories have pledged to outlaw the group and the Home Office continues to regard it as an “organisation of concern”.

The three schools — in Tottenham, north London, and Slough, Berks — are run by the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation, a registered charity. The foundation’s lead trustee is Yusra Hamilton, a leading Hizb activist who is married to Taji Mustafa, the group’s chief spokesman in Britain.

At least three of the four trustees are Hizb members or activists, including Farah Ahmed, the head teacher of the Slough school, who has written in a Hizb journal condemning the “corrupt Western concepts of materialism and freedom”.

On their website, the schools say their “ultimate goal” and “foremost work” is the creation of an “Islamic personality” in children The creation of an “Islamic personality” is a key tenet of Hizb’s ideology.

The schools’ history curriculum states that children are taught that “there must be one ruler of the khilafah [caliphate]”. The schools’ website says that “in the glorious history of Islam… the Sharia was the norm”.

Children learn Arabic from the age of three. A spokesman for the foundation insisted that it was not a Hizb ut-Tahrir operation but involved “Muslim women from a wide variety of backgrounds”.

The spokesman claimed that Mrs Hamilton resigned two years ago. However, Charity Commission records, accessed yesterday show that she remains the lead trustee.

In January 2009, Mrs Hamilton was described by Ofsted, the schools inspectorate, as the “proprietor” of the Shakhsiyah Foundation’s Slough school. The Foundation’s annual report of December 2008 shows her as a trustee.

Mrs Hamilton is listed on the electoral roll as residing just around the corner from the Foundation’s Tottenham school, with Mr Mustafa under his real name, Urutajirinere Fombo.

Contacted by telephone, he confirmed his identity as Mr Mustafa and said that Hizb did not “run” the foundation, but added: “We would certainly approve of those in the Muslim community who seek to establish good Islamic schools.”

The Shakhsiyah Foundation spokesman said the government money, from Whitehall’s “Free Entitlement” and “Pathfinder” programmes, had been claimed by parents on behalf of the school.

However, a spokesman for Haringey council, which administered the grant, said this was incorrect and that the foundation had applied for the money.

The Tottenham school’s landlord, a moderate Muslim organisation, said it had serious reservations about its tenant. “They have a contract with us,” said Serkan Yumakci, a spokesman for the landlord.

“But if we had known then what we know now, things would be very different.” Mr Yumakci said that Mr Mustafa had previously been a frequent visitor to the school but had now been asked not to come by the landlord.

A report out next week by the Centre for Social Cohesion, a think-tank, says that Hizb is creating a number of similar “front organisations” to win public money and enlist support from mainstream politicians.

“Hizb is a fringe group but it is being given a public platform, legitimacy and funding by the very institutions it wishes to destroy,” said Houriya Ahmed, one of the authors of the report. “Just as everyone sees the BNP for what they really are, it’s time for us all to recognise how dangerous and divisive this group is.”

Outside a Victorian Gothic priory in Tottenham, which houses two of the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation’s schools, boys spilt out at home-time in their royal blue uniform sweatshirts.

Even the smallest girl wore the hijab. Most parents said they liked the school, but not all were aware of its links with Hizb. “We don’t really know about it,” said one father.

Others, however, were more political. “Hizb ut-Tahrir is not an extremist group,” said one mother, Khadija. “They’re people who want to stop the US domination of the Middle East.” Was it a good school? “It’s a lovely school,” she said.

“Because they love Islam.” When the school realised there was a journalist outside, a teacher came to tell the parents not to talk to us. Some, however, ignored their orders.

“To be honest with you, I don’t prefer this school,” said one father. “They don’t teach good English. Personally, I would say it’s not good for integration.”

“It is a good school,” his daughter, aged about six, interrupted. Asked what she was taught, she replied: “Arabic.”

Elsewhere in north London, a new organisation called MCRCIA, Muslim Community Representatives in Camden and Islington Association, has organised or participated in a number of community events in the two boroughs.

Its website includes endorsements from a local Labour councillor and a representative of the area’s police and community consultative group.

However, the symbol MCRCIA chooses on its blog is the logo for a Hizb ut-Tahrir campaign, Stand for Islam. A spokesman for MCRCIA said it had “links” with Hizb, but it was not a “front organisation” and its members were not in Hizb.

The CSC report said that a number of other front organisations have been created in Tower Hamlets, several of them meeting in council-controlled buildings and community centres.

Hannah Stuart, another CSC researcher, described the proliferation of such groups as “genuinely worrying,” adding: “Young people who get involved with Hizb ut-Tahrir’s fronts are tricked into believing its radical agenda represents true Islam.”

Hizb has sometimes been accused of being a “conveyor-belt to terrorism”, a charge it vehemently denies.

The Shakhsiyah school in Slough has been praised in a “light-touch inspection” by Ofsted, which said it “provides a good quality of education and meets its aims effectively” and that “pupils develop knowledge and understanding of British institutions and traditions”.

However, there is no Ofsted report on the Tottenham school.

A Department for Children, Schools and Families spokesman said: “We give that money to local authorities and they are responsible for ensuring that providers are appropriate.”

— Hat tip: Dazed & Confused

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UK: Leading Bishops ‘Ready to Quit Church of England and Join the Pope’

Two senior figures from the Church of England have said they may choose to be re-ordained as Catholic priests in a move that could prompt a mass exodus of clergy.

The Bishop of Chichester, the Rt Rev John Hind and the former Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, said they would consider converting to the Roman Catholic Church following the Pope’s offer to disaffected Anglicans.

Bishop Hind said he would be ‘happy’ to accept the olive branch extended by Rome because issues such as the consecration of women bishops and acceptance of gay clergy had created an unbridgeable division in the Anglican church.

[…]

Under the terms of the offer the Pope would let converting clergy maintain certain parts of their Protestant heritage, making it one of the most important developments since the Reformation.

In a further blow to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s hopes of preventing a haemorrhaging of clergy, the Bishop of Fulham, the Rt Rev John Broadhurst, claimed that ‘the Anglican experiment is over’.

He said: ‘Anglicanism has become a joke because it has singularly failed to deal with any of its contentious issues.

‘There is widespread dissent across the [Anglican] Communion.

‘We are divided in major ways on major issues and the Communion has unravelled.’

— Hat tip: JD

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UK: Secret Court Seizes £3.2bn From Elderly… And Even Forces Furious Families to Pay to Access Own Bank Account

A secret court is seizing the assets of thousands of elderly and mentally impaired people and turning control of their lives over to the State — against the wishes of their relatives.

The draconian measures are being imposed by the little-known Court of Protection, set up two years ago to act in the interests of people suffering from Alzheimer’s or other mental incapacity.

The court hears about 23,000 cases a year — always in private — involving people deemed unable to take their own decisions. Using far-reaching powers, the court has so far taken control of more than £3.2billion of assets.

The cases involve civil servants from the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG), which last year took £23million in fees directly from the bank accounts of those struck down by mental illness, involved in accidents or suffering from dementia.

The officials are legally required to act in cases where people do not have a ‘living will’, or lasting power of attorney, which hands control of their assets over to family or friends.

But the system elicited an extraordinary 3,000 complaints in its first 18 months of operation. Among them were allegations that officials failed to consult relatives, imposed huge fees and even ‘raided’ elderly people’s homes searching for documents.

Carers trying to cope with a mentally impaired loved one, forced to apply for a court order to access money, said they felt the system put them under suspicion as it assumed at the outset that they were out to defraud their relatives.

Opposition politicians said the system, set up by Justice Secretary Jack Straw, needed to be overhauled to take account of the fact that most people were ‘honourable and decent’ and had their loved ones’ best interests at heart.

The Government now says everyone should establish a lasting power of attorney to state who should look after their affairs should they become incapacitated — although most people will be utterly unaware of this advice.

Only 60,000 people in Britain have registered these ‘living wills’ with the authorities, and the problems begin when someone is suddenly, unexpectedly mentally impaired.

Without this document, relatives must apply to the courts and the anonymous OPG, part of the Ministry of Justice based in an office block in Birmingham, is required to look into the background of carers to decide if they are fit to run the ill or elderly person’s affairs.

More…

The organisation has 300 staff, costs £26.5million a year to run and is headed by £80,000-a-year career civil servant Martin John, a former head of asylum and immigration policy in Whitehall. It prepares reports for the Court of Protection, based in a tower block in Archway, North London.

In many cases relatives have to complete a 50-page form giving huge amounts of personal information about themselves, their family, their own finances and their relationship with the person they wish to help care for.

The majority of applications are decided on the basis of paper evidence without holding a hearing. But applications relating to personal welfare, or large gifts or settlements, may be contentious and require the court to hold a hearing to decide the case.

These hearings, before a senior judge, examine evidence and witnesses, who can be compelled to appear. The court has the same powers as the High Court, but is closed to all but the parties involved in the case and their lawyers. The Press and public are banned.

The presiding judge then decides whether a family member can become a ‘deputy’ acting for their mentally impaired loved one. If no one is available, or if the judge decides a family member is not suitable, the court can appoint a local authority or in some cases a solicitor to carry out the task..

The OPG then charges an annual fee of up to £800 to supervise the activities of the deputy, whether they are a family member or a professional appointee.

The court takes over control of people’s finances, which means deputies — whether a relative or not — must get authorisation to pay expenses such as rent and household bills on their behalf.

Only if a relative is given power of attorney before a person is mentally incapacitated will they be able to avoid applying to the court and the OPG for the right to control their assets later.

Any cash controlled by the court is held in the name of the Accountant General of the Supreme Court and administered by the Court Funds Office. In some cases money is voluntarily lodged with the court.

The current Court of Protection replaced a previous body with the same name which had more restricted powers and was overseen by the High Court. The new body can rule on property and financial affairs and decisions relating to health and personal welfare, without referring it to a higher court.

But relatives caught up in the system say they are suddenly confronted by a legal and bureaucratic minefield.

Children’s author Heather Bateman was forced to get permission from the court to use family funds after an accident left her journalist husband Michael in a coma.

In a moving account of her family’s ordeal in Saga magazine, she wrote: ‘Michael and I were two independent working people. We had been married for 28 years. We had written our wills, both our names were on the deeds of the house we shared in London and the Norfolk cottage we had renovated over the years.

‘We had separate bank accounts and most of the bills were paid from Michael’s account. Now, to continue living in the way we always had done, I needed to access the money in his account.

‘The Court of Protection brought me almost as much anger, grief and frustration into my life as the accident itself. [It is] an alien, intrusive, time-consuming and costly institution, which was completely out of tune with what we were going through. It ruled my waking moments and my many sleepless nights.’

Mrs Bateman even had to apply to the court for permission to pay the couple’s daughter’s university fees.

She added: ‘I could write as many cheques as necessary up to £500. But if I needed to access more I had to get permission from the court.’

Sunita Obhrai’s mother Pushpa has lived in council-run sheltered housing for 15 years. About two years ago, the 76-year-old widow started to become forgetful and once left the oven on, and the fire brigade had to be called.

Miss Obhrai claims that without her knowledge the local authority, Buckinghamshire County Council, were appointed to run her mother’s affairs.

She said: ‘They took over running my mother’s bank account and charged her over £1,000 a year in fees, and all they were doing was ensuring her rent and utility bills were paid by direct debit.

‘She is given just £20 a week pocket money. Council officials even came and searched her flat while she was asleep in her bedroom. They told me they had to retrieve documents so they could do their job. But someone should have been with my mother. It is unbelievable that they can behave in this way.’

Early this year Miss Obhrai applied to the court to take over from the local authority and oversee her mother’s finances herself. But the court rejected her appeal.

She said: ‘Many of our other relatives and friends wrote to the court backing me, but the court ignored them. I have never done anything to harm my mother, nor would I, but the council claims I am not a fit person to look after my mother’s affairs and there is little I can do to defend myself.’

The council said it could not discuss the case in detail, but did not deny that officials had let themselves into the elderly woman’s home uninvited and unaccompanied by a family member. A spokeswoman said: ‘The court has already deemed our action appropriate.’

An internet support group, Court of Protection Problems, reveals other struggles with the system.

One recent posting by ‘gillm1’, whose mother suffers dementia, said: ‘They are causing me so much stress and worry and I feel I am being treated like a criminal. Their letters are bullying and threatening and they completely ignore everything I say.

‘I have grown to hate them! They took years to process my application and I object strongly to the extortionate fees they are demanding.’

Another writes: ‘They have upped my supervision level without taking any notice of my appeal — therefore costing my mum yet another £800 per year. It’s nothing short of robbery.

‘All I want is to be left alone to pay my mum’s bills and to safeguard as much of her money as I can, but these people are constantly demanding high fees for their “services” which, as far as I can see, consist of harassing people and little else!’

‘Everybody is often assumed to be predatory,’ said ‘robb5’. They ‘are treated as guilty until proven innocent. Repeatedly I’ve felt like I’m forever on trial, we’ve had to undergo financial and psychological strip-searches without the first bit of evidence to suspect anything.’

Shadow Justice Minister Henry Bellingham said: ‘It appears the system is set up with the assumption that people’s close relatives do not have their loved one’s best interests at heart.

‘We are looking at this to see if it would be more efficient and a good deal fairer for the system to assume that most people are honourable and decent and then to deal with those few people who abuse their loved ones’ trust.’

A spokeswoman for the Department of Justice said the courts and officials involved faced a delicate balancing act.

She said: ‘Decisions are entirely a matter for the courts, based on the individual circumstances. It is a careful balancing act between protecting vulnerable people who have lost mental capacity and recognising their views and the perspectives of those close to them.

‘The next of kin is not necessarily the most appropriate person to act in such circumstances. The OPG recommends that every adult considers making a lasting power of attorney. This enables people to choose someone they know and trust to make decisions about their property and affairs or their personal welfare, should they become unable to make decisions for themselves.’

Neil Hunt, of the Alzheimer’s Society, said: ‘It is important that people make plans for their future. But the disturbing truth is that making plans for the future is often the last thing on our minds.

‘Everyone should make a lasting power of attorney to ensure their wishes and rights are protected.’

The first Court of Protection was set up by Labour’s 2005 Mental Incapacity Act, which for the first time formalised the arrangements for dealing with the assets and care of people suffering from dementia and other similar illnesses.

Before this it was left to families and social services to make arrangements — but it was argued this ad hoc system was open to abuse by both family members and by officials.

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UK: The BNP Can be Dismissed — But Their Constituency Can Not

The Government’s inability to explain itself on immigration was apparent when Jack Straw was asked about the subject. His answer was so convoluted that he himself appeared to lose the thread half-way through. It is tempting to say, as a member of the audience did, that the rise of the BNP is a direct result of Labour’s immigration policy. Certainly, the spikes in immigration have strained services and depressed wages. But immigration alone is not the issue that is driving support for the BNP. Those in the frontline of the political fight against it on both the Left and the Right say that identity is as important as immigration, if not more so. The sense that communities are changing beyond recognition, that no one is standing up for what Griffin calls “the indigenous people”, is what really offers the BNP an opening.

Sitting in affluent London — one of the most successful multi-ethnic, multi-faith cities in the world — it is tempting to dismiss these concerns as small-minded. But to do so would be to play right into Griffin’s hands. Immigration without integration is unsustainable and a recipe for the balkanisation of society. There is nothing racist about believing that immigrants should learn English, that everyone who has a vote should know how that right was won, and that sealed ghettoes are unhealthy. But identity politics and multi-culturalism have so distorted our thinking that the Government is, as Andrew Gilligan reveals in this newspaper today, handing out grants to an organisation run by members of Hizb ut Tahrir, a group that wants to replace our parliamentary democracy with a theocratic dictatorship.

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: The Gang Shootings That Put Police With Machine Guns on London’s Streets

Spate of tit-for-tat murders between Turkish drugs gangs is behind Met’s decision to deploy armed patrols

It began with a scuffle in a snooker hall. By all accounts, the altercation at the Manor Club in Haringey, north London, last January was over nothing in particular, a respect issue between two “mid-level” members of two of the capital’s most violent Turkish gangs.

Losing respect in gangland Britain these days is, say police, sufficient to ignite long-running feuds. When you lose face in a stand-off between the Bombacilar and the Tottenham Boys, north London’s most prominent and feared Turkish crews, the fallout can be fatal.

In the following weeks tensions grew, finally erupting on 22 March as Holloway shopkeeper Ahmet Paytak, 50, locked up his grocery store after another slow Sunday. A motorbike, an unusual red and black Benelli TNT, mounted the pavement outside. Its pillion passenger took aim; the assassin couldn’t miss. Paytak was murdered in the doorway of Euro Wine and Food at 10.40pm. Moments later his 21-year-old son was shot in the leg as he turned to face the killer. The gunman has never been found, despite a £20,000 reward and the almost immediate realisation that the wrong man had been killed. Paytak was innocent, a “case of mistaken identity”, according to murder squad officers.

But the blunder failed to stem the bloodshed. Quite the opposite. Shootings between the Bombacilar and the Tottenham Boys increased. “The levels of violence have been shocking, and the number of shootings there, in London terms, is very high,” said Metropolitan police commander Steve Kavanagh.

Three weeks ago the feud’s most audacious killing took place. Oktay Erbasli, a prominent member of the Tottenham Boys, was waiting at traffic lights at a busy junction in his Range Rover when a motorcycle pulled alongside. A hitman linked to the Bombacilar gang opened fire, killing the 23-year-old, but missing his five-year-old stepson seated beside him. Within the tit-for-tat mentality of gangland retribution, reprisals are inevitable. In Erbasli’s case it came within 72 hours: Cem Duzgun, 21, had been playing snooker in a Clapton social club with friends when two hooded men approached at 10.50pm and opened fire with a semi-automatic weapon.

For Scotland Yard’s senior command, Duzgun’s death was the final straw. Something had to give, something drastic was required to tackle the vortex of violence. The decision was taken; for the first time, officers armed with Heckler & Koch semi-automatic sub-machine guns would be deployed on routine patrol on London’s streets. They could also have fast motorbikes at their disposal. History may well interpret Duzgun’s killing as the catalyst for the UK’s first step towards an armed police service.

But the news last week attracted the inevitable backlash, with critics accusing the Met of a disproportionate, knee-jerk response that challenged the long-held British tradition of policing by consent and not force.

Yet the details behind the agreement to routinely deploy C019, the Met’s specialist firearms unit, on selected London streets reveals a narrative that offers a disturbing insight into how violent, anarchic gangs are able to terrorise and oppress entire communities. The decision, ratified in a recent meeting between Met borough commanders and CO19 senior officers, had followed months of anxious reports from community leaders that their areas were under siege and concerns among senior officers that they risked losing control.

In particular, the criminal landscape within a narrow two-mile band of north London, between the Green Lanes area of Haringey and Clapton to the east, had reached a critical stage. A ferocious turf war between Bombacilar and the Tottenham Boys was spiralling out of control; in the period immediately before Duzgun’s death the gangs were involved in a major shooting every week.

Endemic extortion, intimidation and thuggish protection rackets were increasingly administered to Haringey’s large Turkish and Kurdish communities as the turf war took hold. Gang members appeared to be acting with impunity, bragging to local Turkish newspapers that they were only dealing a bit of cannabis and harming no one. But underworld sources revealed the gangs had ready access to an arsenal of firearms. And neither side was shy about using them. Intelligence indicated it was only a matter of time before more innocent bystanders were killed.

Kavanagh, the officer in charge of policing the area, said: “We have had a mother evacuated when they burnt out a store, murders, innocent people being shot and good honest shopkeepers bullied and extorted.”

He said the wives of extorted shopkeepers and the girlfriends of gangsters had, for months, pleaded with him to do something; anything to break the cycle of violence. Skirmishes between the Bombacilar and Tottenham Boys have seen 11 major shootings since August, all confined to the slender north London corridor.

Police raids seized three loaded pistols, a sawn-off shotgun and a converted firearm connected to the Bombacilar and Tottenham Boys. Intelligence indicated that some of the weapons originated from eastern Europe, and although the area was “not flooded with firearms” it was the gangs’ willingness to shoot first, think later, that worried Kavanagh.

Suleyman Ergun, formerly one of Britain’s most prominent Turkish criminals, who at the age of 21 became the world’s third-biggest heroin dealer before being jailed for 14 years, told the Observer how easy it was for gangs to obtain guns. He said the majority of firearms arrived from Germany and Belgium, and there were even AK-47s (Kalashnikovs) from Afghanistan, the traditional source of heroin for Turkish traffickers.

“Firearms are still coming over with the heroin to north London, it’s what we used to do as well,” said Ergun. He added that the current price for an unused pistol in north London was £800-£900, while a brand-new submachine gun would cost £1,000-£1,500. Replica guns such as the Olympic BBM 9mm revolver could also be bought for £85 on the high street and converted by criminals to fire live ammunition.

What added to the decision to use armed patrols was the intelligence that both Turkish groups had forged alliances with some of London’s most notorious black gangs, all of whom held a long-standing reputation for violence and the casual use of firearms.

Kavanagh believes that the unprecedented union suggests that the long-standing black gangs of Hackney had joined forces with the Turkish crews to widen their drugs markets and broaden their influence. “The expansion is to do with drugs and violence and kudos and what opportunities they have to support each other. Those bonds are quite chaotic relationships, but involve well-known Hackney gangs, the usual suspects,” he said.

So far detectives have been able to link three murders since March to the mounting friction between the Bombacilar and Tottenham Boys, but the involvement of the black crews, the Yardies and crack dealers, usually investigated under Operation Trident, meant that the threat and killing potential of the Turkish gangs had intensified.

Senior officers were aware the decision to send routine armed patrols on to British streets would lead to accusations of heavy-handed American-style policing, but they also knew that what was happening in one small area had increased gun crime in London by 17% and the city was being blighted.

As commanders weighed up the advantages against the chorus of opprobrium such a move would inevitably attract, the decision was made to ask one of Scotland Yard’s most experienced homicide detectives to establish whether more murders were linked to the arrival of the “super-gangs”.

Detective Superintendent John Sweeney of the Yard’s specialist crime directorate, known for leading the Met’s review into the death of cricket coach Bob Woolmer, is examining whether other shootings in the capital can be linked to the Bombacilar and Tottenham Boys.

Kavanagh is no stranger to the lethal potential of north London’s gunmen and the Turkish gangs’ propensity for violence. He was the senior investigating officer in the 2002 murder of Alisan Dogan, 43, a cleaner who was caught in the crossfire and died from stab wounds when dozens of criminals staged a running battle in the busy shopping street of Green Lanes. The incident — which left four men with gunshot wounds — is thought to be connected to Turkish organised crime involving the Bombacilars.

One theory behind the surge in shootings points to the power vacuum left in the wake of Ergun’s imprisonment and, three years ago, the jailing of Abdullah Baybasin, who was one of the country’s most feared criminals and who ruled his £10bn heroin empire with violence and intimidation. The Turkish 48-year-old, who lived in north London, commanded a gang of foot soldiers who racketeered, imported drugs and instilled fear into London’s Turkish and Kurdish communities. His jailing for 22 years destabilised the gangs’ natural order, creating a power struggle now filled by the dozens of young men affiliated to the Bombacilar and Tottenham Boys.

Ergun and Kavanagh agree that the structure of the new hierarchy lacks the organisation and disciplined heroin dealing of Baybasin’s network and, instead, is characterised by more chaotic, gung-ho individuals preoccupied with issues of respect as much as earning riches. Ergun said: “They’re only little kids who don’t respect anyone. In my opinion they are just idiots who think that selling a bit of brown [heroin] and having a gun means you’re a gangster.”

Yet Ergun and Kavanagh disagree on one facet — drugs. The police commander believes that the supply of heroin has been replaced by cannabis dealing and extortion rackets against Turkish and Kurdish businesses.

Ergun believes that the trade in heroin, traditionally controlled in London by Turkish organised criminals, remains as rife as ever. He said: “You’ve got the Kurds bringing it over, 10, 15, 20 kilos at a time, and these youngsters are buying it off them and selling it on the street, and that’s where the war is coming from.

“It’s just a price war or the usual stepping on one another’s toes, poaching one another’s customers. That’s where all this

ing mix-up is.”

In Helmand province, where British troops continue their fight against the Taliban, the latest bulletins indicate that large quantities of heroin are still leaving the area and passing through Turkish suppliers and into north London.

Steve Coates, deputy director of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) and an expert on the heroin trade for the past 20 years, confirmed that the Turkish gangs still “dominated” the heroin trade in the UK, controlling at least 50% of the country’s supply.

He said the latest intelligence had pinpointed key figures in Turkey as well as the traditional Turkish crime gangs of north London, though he would not name the Bombacilar and the Tottenham Boys.

As Soca attempts to squeeze the heroin supply to the capital’s Turkish gangs, Met officers in the Green Lanes area and Tottenham will supplement their armed patrols with visits to vulnerable shopkeepers, analysis of car numberplates and a fresh round of meetings with representatives of the Turkish and Kurdish communities.

So far, the “proactive” CO19 patrols are credited with instigating an instant drop-off in activity from the Bombacilar and Tottenham Boys. “We have got them reeling because we are showing that the levels of violence are not being tolerated,” said Kavanagh.

The Met’s hierarchy is watching the trials closely. Gun-related crime in London has risen year-on-year, with the number of gun crimes in September alone up from 230 last year to 300 this year, a 30% rise. It is hoped that the trials in Green Lanes, Tottenham and south of the river in Brixton, where street shootings have also spiked, will quash the trend.

But the Yard’s commanders equally know that any fatal error, any accidental shooting from a firearms unit which is still tarnished with the death of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell tube station in 2005, means that the experiment will be over.

— Hat tip: Furor Teutonicus

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UK: The Snooper’s Census: 2011 Survey Will Ask for the Name, Sex and Birth Date of All Our ‘Overnight Visitors’

Ministers are being accused of planning to snoop into citizens’ private lives in the most intrusive national census ever carried out.

The 2011 survey will demand to know how many bedrooms there are in homes and detailed information about any ‘overnight visitors’.

Other new questions include how well respondents can speak English, what kind of central heating they have installed, whether they have a second home, how they define their national identity and whether they are in civil partnerships.

The Conservatives said the attempt to find out sleeping arrangements was particularly objectionable.

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Energy: USA Company to Modernized Serbian Refinery

(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, OCTOBER 20 — The Serbian Oil Industry (NIS) has signed a contract with the USA company CB&I Lummus on the construction of a hydrocracking and hydroprocessing complex in Oil Refinery Pancevo, reports BETA news agency. The contract stipulates that CB&I Lummus is to provide engineering services, equipment delivery, monitoring and construction of the complex, and the total value of the contract exceeds USD 70 million, NIS announced. The construction of the hydrocracking and hydroprocessing complex will enable the Serbian company to increase its range of products, as well as the quality of its finished products, and to become a competitive player on the European market. It is planned that the construction, which should bring Serbia one of the most contemporary refinery complexes in Eastern Europe, will be completed in the third quarter of 2012. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Algeria: Risk of Arms Arriving From Darfur

(ANSAmed) — ALGIERS, OCTOBER 21 — Border controls in sub-Saharan Africa are practically inexistent, and it is impossible to stop arms trafficking between countries in the region, especially to Algeria. The charge is made in a report presented to army commanders from the countries in the Sahel region and reported in today’s edition of Algerian paper El Khabar, which cites reliable sources. The newspaper underlines Algeria’s concerns over a possible arrival of weapons from Darfur intented for armed groups linked with Al Qaeda for the Islamic Maghreb. “Algeria has called on the countries of the Sahel region to reinforce controls over arms trafficking in the region over fears about the arrival of sophisticated weapons from Darfur, which will end up via Chad and Niger in the hands of terrorists”, writes the paper. Algerian security forces also reveal in the report that border guards at the southern border of Algeria are involved in trafficking, accusing them of helping fighters from the north African wing of Al Qaeda between 2002 and 2005. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Algeria: Algerian Nationality to 47,000 Foreigners Since 1970

(ANSAmed) — ALGIERS, OCTOBER 21 — 47,000 foreigners have asked for and obtained the Algerian nationality since 1970. Most of them, explained the newspaper El Khabar, quoting a supervisor from the Justice Ministry, were from the ‘70s and ‘80s when Algeria wanted to benefit from the experience of foreign managers, while others were French people who after Algerian independence chose to remain in the country. The French are in fact the largest portion of foreigners to have obtained Algerian nationality, followed by Palestinians, Syrians, Egyptians, Iraqis and Tunisians. In 2008 nationality was granted to 683 people.(ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Egypt Muslims Stone Coptic Churches in Sectarian Clash

CAIRO — Muslims students stoned Coptic Christian churches and homes in a southern Egyptian village on Saturday after four Muslims suspected of killing a Copt were kept in custody, police said.

The unrest began when the prosecutor extended the detention of the Muslims in the village of Dairut who are suspected of killing an elderly Copt in his home last week, a police official said.

— Hat tip: JD

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Fisheries: Tunisia Bets on Aquaculture and Bluefin Tuna

(ANSAmed) — ROME, OCTOBER 20 — Northern bluefin tuna is saving Tunisian aquaculture, respecting international quotas which were also signed by the North African country, said Mostafa Ben Dag, director of the Tunisian Technical Centre for Aquaculture. The director will participate in ‘Acquacoltura Med’ (Aquaculture Med) to be held at Veronafiere on October 22 and 23. Tunisia has put its money on aquaculture, a growing high-potential activity, and is interested in learning new techniques of farming fish, in line with strict health regulations. “Italy is one of the main countries we export to” the director explained, “and Italy has high demands for its market”. Promotion of the activity started in 2006-2007, particularly to satisfy the domestic market which takes up 70% of production and to slow the progressive exhaustion of marine resources. “The are still mackerels and sardines in the sea” Ben Dag explained, “but it is become increasingly difficult to find sea bream, dentex, bass and gilthead”. Aquaculture in the North African country includes the farming of bluefin tuna, but also bass and gilthead. The fish is farmed in cages with an average density of 15 kg of fish per cubic metre, all food is supplied. In the north of Tunisia mussels and some oysters are farmed as well, more than 300 tonnes. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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3 Policemen Lightly Wounded as Temple Mount Clashes Resume

Three policemen were lightly wounded late Sunday morning as security forces stormed the Temple Mount for the second in just a few hours after dozens of young Muslims began throwing rocks.

The security forces hurled stun grenades to quell the rioters.

Two of the policemen wounded by the rock-throwers were treated at the scene, while the third was evacuated to the capital’s Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital.

It came just as police officers were talking to the Waqf in order to get dozens of young Muslim protesters involved in earlier violence to come out of the Aksa Mosque where they had holed themselves up and descend from the mount. Police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said that the officers had promised not to arrest them.

Rosenfeld stressed that at no time during the morning disturbances did police enter the Aksa mosque, but in the latest outbreak of violence, Muslim worshipers claimed they saw security forces inside the premises.

Police said that the earlier disturbances began when officers were accompanying a group of tourists up to the mount, and several Muslim youngsters were caught on video camera preparing to cause trouble, including pouring oil onto the ground to hinder the access of security forces and the visitors.

— Hat tip: JD

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Pro-Settlement Troops: Protest Causes Stir

(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, OCTOBER 23 — An act of insubordination organised by some Israeli troops in support of the settlement movement during yesterday’s official ceremony at Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall has caused quite a stir. At the moment the commander of their brigade started his speech, several soldiers lined up on the square held up a large banner on which was written: “Shimshon (the name of their unit, editor’s note) will not clear out Homesh”. That particular settlement (in the northern part of the West Bank) was cleared out in 2005 on orders of the Israeli premier at the time, Ariel Sharon, as part of the policy of separation from the Palestinians. But since then groups of settlers have been trying to return to the ruins of Homesh. The blatant protest of the pro-settlement troops is getting broad attention in the press today and it has been condemned by military leaders. At the same time it seems to have stirred up certain sentiments that have been felt in some army units for a long time, making the future mass evacuation of settlements even more problematic, if the government should decide to give the order. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Rabbis Against Top Model Rafaeli’s Risqué Poster

(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, OCTOBER 22 — The Jewish ultra-orthodox community is angry with Bar Rafaeli, the Israeli supermodel also known as the former girlfriend of Leonardo Di Caprio, who was recently criticised by an Israeli colleague for avoiding military service. The latest advertising campaign of Fox, a well-known clothing brand in the country of which Bar is testimonial, is too ‘risque” for the orthodox Jews. “Certain images” fulminated rabbi Mordechai Bloi, spiritual guide of an Israeli orthodox community and promoter of the Guardians of Sainthood and Education group, in an interview with the Jerusalem Post, “poison the environment”. Religious Jews have threatened to boycott the brand. A threat to be taken seriously by Fox, which sells many of its clothes to “haredim” (religious) families with their many children, drawn to the Fox megastores in Jerusalem and other locations due to the low prices. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Energy: S.Craxi, Photovoltaic Centre in Sothern Jordan

(ANSAmed) — MILAN, OCTOBER 22 — In southern Jordan one of the largest photovoltaic centres in the world will be built, including the contribution from Italy. The deputy foreign minister, Stefania Craxi, explained the project during the Italy-Jordan economic forum which took place in Milan. The Shams Màan project “will create in the southern part of the country”, she emphasised, “one of the largest photovoltaic facilities in the world with an initial capacity of 100 megawatts”. 10 memorandums were signed today for the project at the forum for the development of economic relations between the two countries. It is not because solar energy is the only sector in which Italy can collaborate with Amman. “Our economic presence in Jordan”, she explained, “is characterised mostly by trade” and little is focused on production. Therefore “we need to pass from the export of products to the sharing of experiences, and this is possible”. Italy must not however be the only one to look to the Middle East, according to the deputy minister, but all of Europe. “If the European Union doesn’t look to its south and remains closed in trap”, she concluded, “it will not benefit from the challenges, not only of the United States, but of “China, India and Brazil”. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Iranian Negotiations: Ploy of the Week or Deal of the Century?

by Barry Rubin

There are widespread reports about an imminent deal with Iran regarding its nuclear program. Here’s how the New York Times optimistically presents the proposal:

“Iranian negotiators have agreed to a draft deal that would delay the country’s ability to build a nuclear weapon for about a year, buying more time for President Obama to search for a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear standoff.”

(To be fair, even this somewhat cautious note may be much less ecstatic than what we’ll be hearing if the deal goes through.)

What is the proposed bargain? It is based on an offer the Iranian government made in 2007 and reintroduced last June. In practice, the result would be that Iran enriches unlimited amounts of uranium to a level near that needed for weapons, a large amount of this would be shipped off to France and/or Russia where it would be converted into something useful for medical purposes alone. Thus, it could be said that Iran having nuclear weapons has been either stopped or delayed considerably, though in fact it would only be delayed (if at all) not very long.

If the deal is made—and don’t take for granted it will be as the Iranian regime can think of plenty of delaying tactics, demands for modifications, real or imaginary internal conflicts blocking acceptance, etc.—there will be general rejoicing and the idea of further sanctions will be put on a back shelf to gather dust.

Indeed, it could effectively be argued, that existing sanctions could be removed. This does not seem likely at present—it would require a UN resolution undoing existing sanctions—but such a thing could arise in the future. And of course various countries in Europe could interpret the restrictions more loosely to allow deals that would not have gone through otherwise.

In other words, Iran could go on sponsoring terrorism (in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, against Israel, and in other places) and calling for Israel’s destruction while being treated as a regular member of the international community. It would only be a matter of a week or two before media outlets start writing that this proves President Barack Obama did deserve the Nobel Peace Prize…

— Hat tip: Barry Rubin

[Return to headlines]

Italy-Syria: Marrazzo, Syrian Tourism Week in Rome

(ANSAmed) — DAMASCUS, OCTOBER 22 — Rome will hold its first week of Syrian tourism next February, as announced by Region of Lazio president Piero Marrazzo, quoted today by SANA, the official Syrian press agency, who is visiting Damascus for a number of meetings on bilateral cooperation between Italy and Syria. During the event any tourist visiting Rome be invited to discover architectural relics of the Roman era in Syria through a series of meetings, exhibits, and the distribution of information. Marrazzo guaranteed that Lazio will supply “all the assistance necessary to promote travel in Syria in full cooperation with Syrian ministry of Tourism, and also proposed to increase the number of flights from Rome to Damascus to support the flow of tourists. In the context of cultural and economic exchanges between Italy and Syria, a number of Italian experts will travel to Damascus to hold training courses for the tourist sector. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Lebanon: Crackdown Against ‘Criminal’ Motorbikes

(by Ziad Talhouk) (ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, OCTOBER 21 — Used by criminals, as well as ‘bullies’ on the motorway to show their stuff or disrupt the public quiet at night in many cities, motorcycles and scooters are officially in the sights of Lebanese police, who since the beginning of the year have confiscated 13,000 of them. Recently the offensive against the two-wheelers has taken off yet again, after the murder of a young man in a Christian neighbourhood of Beirut during a parade of numerous motorcyclists who arrived from a Hezbollah stronghold, a southern suburb of the city. It was an event which caused the Interior Minister, Ziad Barud, to prohibit the use of motorcycles and scooters from 6:30 in the afternoon to 5:00 in the morning. Doctors, journalists and other professionals are exempt from the measure as long as they obtain a “special permit”, even if it is still unclear who releases them. In the meantime, the police have set up dozens of road blocks and filled entire lorries with confiscated motorbikes, the riders left to their feet to beg and complain in vain. According to what is reported in the newspaper an Nahar, a special police unit was charged with the task of “exclusively” applying the ban on traffic in the southern suburbs of Beirut, “in coordination with the parties concerned”, or Hezbollah, which has its own ‘Indibat’ (Discipline) units, a force which substitutes the city police in the area and widely uses motorcycles. Criminality and hooliganism are not the only motives for the hostility of a good portion of the population towards the motorcyclists. They are also associated with “lethal chaos” and “nuisances”. At the funeral of a young man who was killed in a motorcycle accident last week, the parliamentary representative Akram Shehayeb described the two-wheelers as “moving coffins”. “This is the 600th young man killed this year on our roads, due to”, he stated, “the disobedience of traffic ordinances”. According to the youth association for social awareness (Yasa), who is particularly occupied with road safety, a large portion of the 500,000 motorcycles and scooters that circulate in Lebanon are not registered and cause an average of 130 deaths every year. But it is a phenomenon with a difficult solution. The roads are full of powerful cylindered motorbikes that accelerate noisily, or old scooters driven by kids without helmets who play games in traffic under the indifferent eyes of police, many of whom use rusty scooters to return home when they finish work. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Michael Freund: Arab States Meet to Reinvigorate Israel Boycott

Representatives of 16 Arab states convened in Damascus last week for a conference aimed at strengthening the decades-old Arab economic and trade boycott of Israel.

The annual event brought together regional Arab League boycott liaison officers from participating Arab countries, as well as representatives of the Palestinians and the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

Although the Arab League has its headquarters in Cairo, the organization’s Office for the Boycott of Israel has been based in the Syrian capital since its establishment in 1951.

Speakers at the conference stressed the importance of enforcing the embargo on Israel as a means of applying pressure to the Jewish state.

Arab League Assistant Secretary General for Palestine Affairs Mohammed Subaih said the boycott is necessary “to confront Israel’s aggression and crimes” and he thanked the conference’s Syrian hosts for their support.

Muhammad al- Tayyeb Busala’a, who serves as commissioner general of the Arab League’s Central Bureau for the Boycott of Israel, denounced what he termed “the persistent Zionist aggression” and said that the Jewish state should be held accountable for its “war crimes”.

In recent years, enforcement of the boycott has waned. Some Arab League members, such as Egypt and Jordan, ceased applying it after signing peace treaties with Israel, while others, such as Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia, do not enforce it.

Other Arab states, such as Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, continue to bar entry to goods made in Israel or those containing Israeli-made components.

— Hat tip: Michael Freund

[Return to headlines]

Nuclear Energy: King of Jordan, Uranium Supply to Italy

(ANSAmed) — MILAN, OCTOBER 22 — Jordan has presented itself as possible nuclear energy partner of Italy, especially regarding uranium. King Abdullah II stressed this idea in today’s Business forum between Italy and Jordan in the Milan Stock Exchange. The king, accompanied by his wife, Queen Rania, who wore a glittering red dress, pointed out that 3% of the world’s uranium can be found in Jordan. “Halfway next year we will quantify how much we have” he explained, “and that will allow us to become a possible partner of the Italian government and Italian companies”. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Smoking: Lebanon Among Highest Number of Smokers

(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, OCTOBER 20 — The expression is no longer ‘smoking like a Turk”, but ‘like a Lebanese”: with over 65% of men and 54% of women smoking cigarettes or the more traditional narghile (water pipe), Lebanon has one of the highest levels of smokers in Asia Minor, the Middle East and north Africa. A report by Credit Libanese, one of Beirut’s leading banks, says that one of the factors encouraging young people to take up the smoking habit is the particularly low cost of cigarettes: a packet of twenty in Lebanon costs as little as 35 Euro cents. Smoking has already been banned in public places in Turkey, and will also be banned in Syria within six months, and in Gulf countries there are high fines for selling cigarettes to under-20s, but a lack of laws against the consumption and sale of tobacco puts Lebanon in last place for countries in the region trying to combat the smoking habit. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

T. Boone Pickens on Iraq: ‘We Leave There With the Chinese Getting the Oil’

WASHINGTON — A leading energy developer said the United States has been excluded from Iraq’s revived energy market.

T. Boone Pickens told Congress that U.S. companies were losing opportunities in the Iraqi crude oil and natural gas sectors to competitors from China and Europe.

The senior executive said the United States could lose all influence in the Iraqi oil sector after the military withdrawal in 2011.

“They’re opening them [oil fields] up to other companies all over the world,” Pickens told the Congressional Natural Gas Caucus on Oct. 21.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

‘Dishonest’ Blair and Straw Accused Over Secret Plan for Multicultural UK

Jack Straw and Tony Blair ‘dishonestly’ concealed a plan to allow in more immigrants and make Britain more multi-cultural because they feared a public backlash if it was made public, it has been claimed.

The allegation was made after a former Labour adviser said the Government opened up UK borders partly to humiliate Right-wing opponents of immigration.

Andrew Neather, who worked for Mr Straw when he was Home Secretary, and as a speech writer for Mr Blair, claimed a secret Government report in 2000 called for mass immigration to change Britain’s cultural make-up forever.

It also emerged that:

Home Office Minister Barbara Roche, who pioneered the open-door policy, wanted to restore her Labour reputation after being attacked by Left-wingers for condemning begging by immigrants as ‘vile’.

Civil servant Jonathan Portes, who wrote the immigration report, was a speechwriter for Gordon Brown and is now a senior aide to Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell.

Labour chiefs decided to brand Tory leaders William Hague and Michael Howard as racists to deter them from criticising the covert initiative.

Mr Neather said there was a ‘driving political purpose’ behind Labour’s decision to allow in hundreds of thousands of migrants to plug gaps in the labour market.

He said the stance was foreshadowed by a report by Mr Blair’s Performance and Innovation Unit (PIU) think-tank, which said the nation would benefit from more migrants.

Mr Neather claimed that earlier, unpublished versions of the report made clear that one aim was to make Britain more multi-cultural for political reasons.

‘I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended — even if this wasn’t its main purpose — to rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date,’ he said.

The report, entitled Research, Development And Statistics Occasional Paper No67 — Migration: An Economic And Social Analysis, was published in January 2001 by the Home Office, then run by Mr Straw.

Most of its key statistics came from a PIU team led by Mr Portes. The report paints a rosy picture of mass immigration, stating: ‘There is little evidence that native workers are harmed by migration. The broader fiscal impact is likely to be positive because a greater proportion of migrants are of working age and migrants have higher average wages than natives.’

It goes on: ‘Most British regard immigration as having a positive effect on British culture.’

Mr Portes remains an enthusiastic advocate of the benefits of immigration. He wrote a report for the Department of Work and Pensions last year rejecting claims that Eastern European workers had stolen the jobs of British counterparts, arguing Britons lacked the skills and motivation.

A former Government adviser told The Mail on Sunday: ‘If the Government had been prepared to have an open debate about immigration, we would not have had the problems we have seen with the BNP. But it did not want immigration policy discussed.

‘It is not a very honest Government. They knew immigration was a hot issue and they did not want to get into a fight on it.’

The source said Labour deliberately targeted William Hague and Michael Howard when they called for tougher immigration controls.

Mr Hague was accused of ‘playing the race card’ in 2001 when he said Mr Blair was turning Britain into a ‘foreign land’. Michael Howard was called a ‘racist’ in 2004 after he went to BNP stronghold Burnley, in Lancashire, to denounce Labour’s stance on asylum seekers.

A Labour insider suggested Mrs Roche relaxed immigration controls partly in response to the outcry she faced after criticising begging Romanian mothers.

‘She was called a scumbag,’ said the source. ‘She wanted to show she was a genuine liberal.’

— Hat tip: KGS

[Return to headlines]

Libya: IOM Conference on Human Trafficking

(ANSAmed) — TRIPOLI, OCTOBER 22 — This morning’s meeting in Tripoli organised by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), in collaboration with the US State Department, the Libyan Justice Ministry and with participation of the Italian anti-mafia department, focused on the fight against human trafficking. Sixty Libyan judges and attorneys involved in the Ethjic project, initiated by the IOM last year to improve the capacity of the Libyan justice system to deal with human trafficking and funded by the GTIP Fund of the US State Department, have presented their recommendations to the Libyan Justice Minister, Mustafa Mohamed Abdel Jalil, on ways to improve the Libyan approach to the problem. “The new relation between Libya and the USA also includes the fight against terrorism and human trafficking, the modern form of slavery” said American ambassador Gene Cretz, the first US ambassador to Libya after 36 years. “Last July’s training of the Libyan judges at the Italian anti-mafia department” said Giusto Sciacchitano of the department, today in Libya to participate in the final conference of the Ethjic project, “has been a great success. Now these judges want to propose new instruments and revise their legislation on the fight against human trafficking”. According to Sciacchitano “fighting human trafficking also means fighting drugs for Italy, since the two phenomena often go together”. According to Teresa Albano, IOM expert on human trafficking, and Carmela Godeau, deputy director of the IOM for the Mediterranean area, “the project has been useful to better understand the problem and to give the Libyans new instruments to reconsider some legal aspects of the trade, and for us to understand that closer cooperation between countries in the security sector is necessary”. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Oh, Danny Boy! Gay Tourism to Ireland Booming

Did you know that Dublin has more gay men and women per capita than San Francisco? Or that in recent years Ireland’s become a go-to destination for gay and lesbian travelers? Recent banner attractions for the GLTB visitor have included the Bingham Cup — sometimes referred to as the gay Rugby World Cup — which was held in Dublin in 2008.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Spain: Left Wants to Legalise Abortion Up to 22 Weeks

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, OCTOBER 23 — The far-left in Spain has upped the ante in the approval of an abortion reform law launched by Zapatero’s government and under the examination of Congress, where its five votes will play a determining role. MPs from Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya and Izquierda Unida announed that, in the partial amendments to the text of the reform to the current law from 1985, they will ask for abortions to be made legal in the 22nd week of pregnancy, an increase from the current reform proposed by the government allowing them until the 14th week. The latter period is indicated in the reform law as the limit for a voluntary interruption of a pregnancy only in case of serious malformations to the fetus or danger to the physical or mental health of the mother. ERC and LU will not vote for the reform if the right for a 16-year-old to have an abortion without their parent’s consent is taken away, which is the most controversial point in the draft law. On October 17, a few hundred-thousand people demonstrated in Madrid against abortion in a rally called by the pro-life and Catholic movements. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Steam Secret of Natural Fission

by Stuart Nathan

The world’s only known natural nuclear reactor, which decommissioned itself over two billion years ago, could provide insights into how modern nuclear plants can operate more safely. The world’s only known natural nuclear reactor, which decommissioned itself over two billion years ago, could provide insights into how modern nuclear plants can operate more safely.

The site, in Gabon, West Africa, ran for 150million years without blowing up, and storing its own waste in a safe manner.The reactor was a natural deposit of uranium.

Today, and for the last two billion years, natural uranium will not undergo nuclear reactions, because it contains too little of the fissionable isotope, uranium-235 (U235).But in the distant past, U235 was more abundant, comprising 3% of the total amount — the approximate concentration of enriched uranium used in nuclear fuel today.

The Gabon deposit also contained, by a quirk of geology, a mixture of minerals which acted as a neutron moderator, slowing the neutron flux enough to allow the fission process to take place.In a nuclear reactor, it takes large numbers of specialists and serious application of high technology to prevent reactions from running away.

‘The big question we addressed was: when the uranium reached criticality, why didn’t it blow up?’ says Alexander Meschik of Washington University in St Louis, Missouri.The answer, it appears, is that the site functioned like a geyser.

The energy generated by the nuclear reaction boiled the groundwater around the deposit. Water is a natural neutron moderator, so as it was converted into steam, it stopped absorbing neutrons and shut down the chain reaction.

As the rocks cooled down, the steam condensed, and the presence of water once again slowed the neutrons down and restarted the chain reaction. Meschik calculates that the reactor operated for about half an hour at a time, then shut down for two and a half hours.

Meschik deduced this by analysing the other neutron moderator in the deposit, a ‘mineral assembly’ containing lanthanum, cerium, strontium and calcium and known as alumophosphate. This also acted as a waste storage medium, the researchers found; it absorbed the isotopes of xenon which were formed by the fission of the U235.

Xenon is extremely rare on Earth and is a characteristic marker of a fission process. It occurs in nine isotopes, and it was the analysis of the relative abundances of these which gave the researchers the clue to the way the reactor operated.

The find could provide insight into how to operate industrial reactors more safely. ‘This is very impressive, to think that this natural system not only went critical, it also safely stored the waste,’ Meschik says. ‘Just using the fact that the water boiled at the reactor site might give contemporary nuclear reactor researchers ideas on how to operate more safely and efficiently.

— Hat tip: Zenster

[Return to headlines]

Our Flemish correspondent VH has prepared a report on death threats against Vlaams Belang leader Filip Dewinter that were posted on a Muslim forum in the Netherlands. The thread in question began in February of this year, but additional posts were added as recently as a few days ago.

VH notes:

Geert Wilders is also threatened in #9, though in a bit more cryptic fashion, and not as directly as Filip Dewinter is threatened.

Apart from this, it is remarkable that the converts like “sister” Amira [Elske] and Zainab nut also the “sister” Al-Imane are getting confused about the true Islam. And a few “outsiders” registered and jumped in to defend Dewinter and Wilders. I have not yet been able to read further, but it would be interesting to see if they become apostates in the end.

First, from Elsevier:

Filip Dewinter threatened on Dutch Muslim Site

By Arne Hankel

The Belgian politician Filip Dewinter of the right-wing^[1] party Vlaams Belang has asked the Netherlands to take steps against the Muslim ansaar.nl website. On the site he is threatened with death. This is what the Flemish newspaper De Morgen reported this Tuesday.

Head cut off

On the website there is a call for the head of the Vlaams Belang-leader to be cut off^[2] and “death to the kafir”. Also it says in Arabic that Dewinter must show remorse or else will have to pay for it with his life.

It is not the first time that Dewinter has been a target of threats because of his opinions. Last weekend the secretariat of his party received a letter with white powder. Research has yet to reveal whether the substance is harmful.

Continuing with paragraphs from the Flemish newspaper De Morgen:

Dewinter has now sent a letter to the Dutch Minister of Justice, Hirsch Ballin. In it he asked the Dutch government to take action against the website. “I suppose these are as criminal the Netherlands as they are in Belgium,” The spokesman of Dewinter said, “We take this seriously. Unfortunately, in your country there already have been victims of Muslim terror. Therefore, these kind of expressions should be addressed as soon as possible.”

The Ministry of Justice yesterday already made known to take the matter seriously and will respond to the letter of Dewinter as soon as possible. It is not the first time that Dewinter is a target of threats due to his views and frank opinions. Only last weekend the secretariat of his party [Vlaams Belang, Flemish Interest] received a letter with white powder. Research has yet to reveal whether the substance is harmful.

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Notes:

[1]		“Extreme right-wing” in the Elsevier article is translated here as “right-wing”.
[2]		“Death to the opponents of Islam DEATH TO Dewinter!!!!! May Allah make him meet a horrible death!!!! Allah akbar allah akbar Inchaallah he will be beheaded!!!!!! Let me ya rab [“oh, Lord”, Lebanese expression — translator] be a martyr!!!!” [posted by Al Mutakabir, Soldier of Allah: comment #8] “May Allah curse Dewinter and Geert Wilders death inshaallah to the opponents of Islam” [posted by Brother, Super Ansaar member: comment #9] “Hope I will meet Dewinter personally myself. No words but deeds, that is how I see it.” [Abu Bakr-Ardi Allah, comment #10] “The bastards. Dewinter has a big mouth, if he ever has the courage to come to us alone, behind the PC or desk, is it simple, and Muslims this Muslims that, Dewinter you know if you come alone, we beat you into the hospital dirty jew.” [moslim1979, comment #18] “We declare him war!! Such people like him must like in the medieval times cut off the head after such a statement was made. [mad.gif]” [Mc Rico — DHC, comment #22]

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The details of the relevant comments at Ansaar Community are below:
– – – – – – – – –

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Ansaar Community — Islam Virtual Community
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Islamitische Thuiszorg De Handdruk | dan helpt thuiszorg De Handdruk u graag verder [advertising]
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Dewinter declares war on Islam

[February 28, 2009]

#1- Amira — elske (Vicinity of Brussels, age 29, “Sister”)
Dewinter declares war on Islam

07:44 Update “If Muhammad were alive today, I would call him a terrorist.” Vlaams Belang leader Filip Dewinter-started its campaign for the Flemish Parliamentary elections. He does that with his book “Inch’Allah?”. This according to Dewinter, provides understanding of the true nature of Islam.

According to Dewinter, the Islamization of Europe is “a time bomb”. “My message: with the massive immigration and Islamization we bring in the Trojan Horse.”

“Insidious poison”

“It is an insidious poison, and nothing less but the third Islamic invasion in the history of Europe. For Islam strives for world domination and a moderate European Islam is an illusion.” Dewinter also says that he knows that the majority of Muslims do not belong to the radical tendencies. “But unfortunately those have nothing to say, because the majority of the mosques are in the hands of radicals.”

“Superiority”

He paints a black future picture of an Islamized Europe, and referred to the Battle of Poitiers and the Battle of Vienna in order to clarify how to turn around “this third Islamic invasion”. “We need to stop the multi-culture and dare to convey the superiority of our civilization. Europe is a continent of churches and cathedrals, not of mosques and minarets.”

Gva.be — Dewinter declares war on Islam [February 28, 2009]

[Comments: February 28, 2009]

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#3 Amira — elske (Vicinity of Brussels, age 29, “Sister”)

I rather hope that Allah will lead him to Islam and opens his eyes to see the truth about Islam.

[motto] The woman was created from the rib of man. Not from the head, to be higher. Not from his feet to be trampled. But from his rib to be equal. Beside the arm to be protected. And beside the heart to be loved.
“17 months 2 weeks 2 days since Shahada” [i.e. a convert — transaltor]

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#4 Zainab — Moderator (the Netherlands, age 16, “Sister”)

Quote: Amira — elske: I rather hope that Allah will lead him to Islam and opens his eyes to see the truth about Islam.

Yes okay, you are right about that [smile.gif]

[motto] Zainab Umm Rukhsaar, Da3watu Salafiyya, Qoraan wa Sunnah bi fahm Salaf!!!, Oum an Nawawy* [heartpump.gif]

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#5 Momo (“Brother”)

He just wants attention like that faggot wilders.

Last changed by Momo on March 1, 2009.

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#6 Amira — elske (Vicinity of Brussels, age 29, “Sister”)

Can you try not to use this terrible disease is as a term of abuse?

[motto] The woman was created from the rib of man … [etc.]

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#7 Deen_Al_Islaam (Belgium, near Antwerp, age16. “Sister”)

[eek.gif] Astagfiroellah.
May Allah Subhannahoe wa’tala, give him his deserved punishments.

[motto] [hijab.gif] Proud ²be a Moslima [peaceux5.gif]

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#8 Al Mutakabir — Soldier of Allah (Europe, age 31, “Brother”)

Death to the opponents of Islam DEATH TO Dewinter!!!!! May Allah make him meet a horrible death!!!! Allah akbar allah akbar Inchaallah he will be beheaded!!!!!! Let me ya rab [“oh, Lord”, Lebanese expression — translator] be a martyr!!!!”

[motto, in Arabic] “They follow nothing but conjecture and conjecture is no substitute for the right thing”
[motto] Surely they follow only their suppositions and suppositions cannot match the truth.

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#9 Brother- Super Ansaar member (age 27, “Brother”)

May Allah curse Dewinter and Geert Wilders death inshaallah to the opponents of Islam [peaceux5.gif]

[motto] When I met the Christians, I started to love Islam,
When I got to know Islam, I have experienced how it feels to be discriminated against. When I experienced how it feels to be discriminated against, I learned to know my friends.
[banner: As-Shahab ]

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[March 1, 2009]
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#10 Abu Bakr- Ardi Allah (Palestine, age 27, “Brother”)

Quote: Deen_Al_Islaam — May Allah Subhannahoe wa’tala, give him his deserved punishments. Proud ²be a Moslima

Amin
Hope I will meet Dewinter personally myself. No words but deeds, that is how I see it.

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#11 Abdelouahed (“Brother”)

I recently heard him say that he is at peace with the new type of young Muslims who thus are born Muslims but do little with their religion.

This proves once again how weak we Muslims are in Europe, and how we give strength and inspiration to such people.

[motto] The Prophet [forums.ansaar.nl/images/smilies/saws.gif] has said: ‘The world is a prison for the believer, and a paradise for the unbeliever. (Sah’ih’ Moeslim)

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#12 Amira — elske (Vicinity of Brussels, age 29, “Sister”)

I don’t understand you, did Muhammad peace be upon him deal with people like that who were anti-Islamic? No, not at all, he remained calm and tried to convince people in a peaceful way. Only when he was physically attacked did he sometimes counterattack.

I only hope that ever one day Mr. Dewinter will learn what Islam really is, and he no longer relies on Muslims who practice incorrectly.

[motto] The woman was created from the rib of man … [etc]

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#13 i love islam (“Sister”)

[love.gif]

Quote: Brother May Allah curse Dewinter and Geert Wilders death inshaallah to the opponents of Islam

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#14 Zainab – Moderator (the Nederlands, age 16, “Sister”)

Quote: I don’t understand you, did Muhammad peace be upon him deal with people like that who were anti-Islamic? No, not at all, he remained calm and tried to convince people in a peaceful way. Only when he was physically attacked did he sometimes counterattack.
I only hope that ever one day Mr. Dewinter will learn what Islam really is, and he no longer relies on Muslims who practice incorrectly.

You are right in that sister, but look how he talks about our Prophet SAW, that just goes too far!

[motto] Zainab Umm Rukhsaar, Da3watu Salafiyya, Qoraan wa Sunnah bi fahm Salaf!!!, Oum an Nawawy [heartpump.gif]

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#15 Amira — elske (Vicinity of Brussels, age 29, “Sister”)

Yes, you’re right in that
But you know, the Prophet let himself be spat upon and jeered at.
If we place ourselves in the position of our prophet, how would he then respond, would he want him dead or he would quietly explain what Islam means, and would he still wish the best and by kindness in deeds show how a Muslim is supposed to behave well

[motto] The woman was created from the rib of man … [etc]

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Page 2
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#16 Ala_Eddine — Al Hurriya Li Falastine ! (Rotterdam and Berkane, age 15, “Brother”)

Astaghfirollah. May Allan punish him.
I just see on the TV News that the PVV is the highest in the polls !!

[motto] Be patient, surely the promise of Allah is true: and let those who have no certainty not make you waver. (30:60)

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Tuesday, October 20, 2009
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#17 Vlaming (member since October 20, 2009, “Brother”)

@ Al Mutakabir: You are a disgrace to your people. Do you really think Allah lets extremists like you come to paradise? I can still say as much here, but you’re just not worth it! Ultimately, we are all humans of flesh and blood and you are no more than a fly on a pile of dung.

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#18 moslim1979 (“Brother”) [Flemish accent in writing]

The bastards. Dewinter has a big mouth, if he ever has the courage to come to us alone, behind the PC or desk, is it simple, and Muslims this Muslims that, Dewinter you know if you come alone, we beat you into the hospital dirty jew.

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#19 orthodox_pride (member since October 20, 2009, “Brother”)

I’m just a big fan of WILDERS and DEWINTER, and you Muslims just have to learn to adjust yourself if you’re living in a NON Islamic country, FITNA speaks for itself, Wilders and Dewinter are right when they curse Islam and you Muslims wish for days that god curses them, I mean, wake up, where do you get that nonsense from, these are children’s stories. I would say, just get off your lazy ass and find a decent job to participate in society rather than spend the whole day on the internet writing such nonsense… (ps I’m at work and I have a break [biggrin.gif]

Muslims are just a sect that floats in your low-developed heads and on any criticism muslims answer with stupid things like murders and slaughter, and then you all find it strange that people call you terrorists, try to use your head for once and fight to that way of criticism when Islam is as peace-making as you say.

WILDERS FOR PRESIDENT!!

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#20 Al-Imane- 3ibadoe Allah (swt) (Utrecht- darulKoefr, “Sister”)

Indeed, there are terrible things being said about the best creature [saws.gif], and indeed we must stand up for him, more than we would defend our parents.

But know! Our beloved Prophet [saws.gif] has experienced these terrible things HIMSELF, and even 10 times as bad!

And he, the best creation among all creations, the most beloved person, the creature that is ever mentioned after the name of Allaah, did he let himself be guided by his desires?? Did he let hmslef be guided by his feelings for revenge??? Did he immediately began to wish people to hell??? Was he [saws.gif] not the first to visit his ill Jewish neighbor, even though he had always done him [saws.gif] terrible things?

Galaas, let ansaar.nl, and thus also Islam, not be set in a bad light stand by such comments.

I ask the moderator to thus remove them..

Itaqi Allah ya dunya ahlu…

Initially, I say all this to myself…

[motto] Keyboard-Jihadist, Please no pm’s of brothers!!!!, last changed by Al-Imane: Today at 15:56.

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#21 Al-Imane- 3ibadoe Allah (swt) (Utrecht- darulKoefr, “Sister”)

Quote: orthodox_pride — I’m just a big fan of WILDERS and DEWINTER, … [biggrin.gif]

And you for sure need to adapt when you are in an Islamic forum, do not be a hypocrite with your statements…

[motto] Keyboard-Jihadist, Please no pm’s of brothers!!!!

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#22 Mc Rico — DHC (Stad achter de Duinen [The Hague], age 27, “Brother”)

We declare him war!! Such people like him must like in the medieval times cut off the head after such a statement was made. [mad.gif]

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#23 UHF (member since October 20, 2009, “Brother”)

@Al Mutakabir
It is unfortunate that because of your over reacting and preaching violence Muslims get such a bad name. You are 31 years old and let yourself fully know in this way.
Many words, little content, a well known Dutch proverb.
Like barking dogs do not bite.
Greetings from NL.

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#24 moslimaaa- Allah Oe Akbar!! (Tijdelijke verblijfplaats, genaamd: Dunya, “Sister”)

Quote: […] WILDERS FOR PRESIDENT!!!!

You go but enjoy your break and a cup of coffee, at least that is more useful than when you run out and stop here with nonsense.

[motto] To the uinveiled woman, You look at me, And you are happy you are not me, And you feel free, its really a pity you don’t know reality.

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#25 Al Mutakabir- Soldier of Allah (Europe, age 31, “Brother”)

Quote: UHF— @Al Mutakabir, It is unfortunate that because of your over reacting and preaching violence … [etc]

You for sure do not want to find out how hard I bite [smile.gif]

So Philip Dewinter may say that the Imam in Belgium is Allah’s pimp??? And if we Muslims say something about that it is right away extremist??? Think well fellow [smile.gif] the only thing I fear is Allah the Almighty

[motto, in Arabic] “They follow nothing but conjecture and conjecture is no substitute for the right thing”
[motto] Surely they follow only their suppositions and suppositions cannot match the truth.

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#26 UHF (member since October 20, 2009, “Brother”)

Philip Winter may say what he wants, he does not talk about the use of violence. at least that is what I understand from his words. You do so. And thus are you punishable in this country according to Dutch law. Not him.

If anyone lets P. Winter talk and no one responds, then he will not even be noticed. He attempted to provoke a reaction like yours, and even succeeds.
And then he says, you see!

Legally it is not possible to send away Muslims from a country. At most somewhat limit a future immigration flow.
So you do not need to feel threatened and resort to violence.

Why not ignore these people and continue with your life.
For there you affect the mist with.

——————————————–

#27 UHF (member since October 20, 2009, “Brother”)

Of course some of you may say and find something about it… but you go further than that.
You though, may also find his mother a bitch;-)

——————————————–

#28 noor23 (“Sister”)

salaam if someone in the time of the Prophet PBUH insulted him, they did not count with that with words but with deeds. It was the swords and nothing else for so much love they had for him. Now they tell us ignore this, be a devout Muslim, yeah right. There once was a blind man who loved his wife very much, his wife took good care of him BUT the only thing he was very cross about was that she always gave negative comments about the Prophet PBUH. the blind man disapproved this act and warned her never to do it again. The woman did not want to listen and that is why he murdered her.

——————————————–

The following Channel 4 “Dispatches” documentary (broken up into five parts for YouTube) takes a look at the growing phenomenon of gang rape among underclass youth in Britain. Black teenagers are grotesquely over-represented among the perpetrators of these crimes.

But the victims of these rapes are also overwhelmingly black, as is the reporter who presents their stories. Thus — unless it constitutes racism simply to reveal such unpleasant facts — the makers of this documentary can hardly be described as racists.

The reporter, Sorious Samura, is a relatively recent arrival from Senegal, and did not grow up in the behavioral sink of the suburban housing estates where most of this documentary was filmed. He is patient and calm throughout, but his moral outrage at what these kids are doing shows through repeatedly — he finds it difficult to comprehend how boys could turn into violent predators at such a young age.

WARNING: These videos are disturbing. The language is not explicit, and no violence is depicted, but the actions that are described and discussed in them may upset sensitive viewers:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Parts 3 through 5 are below the jump.
– – – – – – – – –
Part 3:

Part 4:

Part 5:

Hat tip: The Observer.

Readers who live in or near Washington D.C. may want to take a couple of days off work this week to attend the International Legal Conference on Freedom of Speech and Religion.

Regular readers will recognize the names of many of the speakers and participants, and there will be special addresses by Rep. Louie Gohmert, Rep. Tom Rooney, and Sen. Jim DeMint.

The conference will focus on the threat to free speech coming from the OIC via the UN and the EU, as well as on growing de facto censorship by Western governments in the interests of political correctness.

International Legal Conference on Freedom of Speech and Religion

October 27 and 28, 2009

Congressional Auditorium
U.S. Capitol Visitors Center
Washington, D.C.

Presented by:		The International Free Press Society The Liberty Legal Project International The Center for Security Policy
Co-sponsored by:		The Horowitz Freedom Center The Florida Security Council The O’Leary Report

The conference is free of charge to the public. To register, go here.

The jurisdictions to be surveyed include the U.S., Canada, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Sharia-compliant nations. The conference will also analyze international norms under existing conventions, as may be appropriate.

Program Chair:		Ann Fishman
Moderators:		Ann Fishman Frank Gaffney Lars Hedegaard
Special Appearances By:		U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) U.S. Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX) U.S. Representative Tom Rooney (R-FL) U.K. Lord Pearson of Rannoch EU Member of Parliament Morten Messerschmidt

Conference Agenda:

DAY ONE

9:00 a.m. to 9:15 a.m. Opening Statements

Lars Hedegaard — International Free Press Society, President

Ann Fishman — Liberty Legal Project International, Founder and Director

9:15 a.m. to 10:15 a.m. Comparative Survey of the Substantive Law Establishing Free Speech
– – – – – – – – –

A.		Express guarantees in National Constitutions and Basic Laws, International Conventions and Supranational Conventions
B.		Citizen versus Press; Press/Reporters Privilege
C.		Insult Laws and Media Crime Laws
D.		Survey of Freedom of Press Around the World
E.		Hate Speech Laws

David Harris — Canada
Dr. Karin Karlekar — Freedom of Press Around the World
Morten Messerschmidt — EU Conventions
Ellis Washington — US
Elizabeth Samson — International Conventions

10:15 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. Technology, Speech and the New Media Outlet: Bloggers

A.		Is E Speech Free Speech? Survey of Freedom on the Net
B.		Bloggers Rights
C.		Now that e companies are insulated from liability, governments can outsource data mining to Social Networking Sites: Facebook and the White House, Facebook and the Florida Bar — Would this even be permitted under EU Directives
D.		China and Cisco and Sun Microsystems and the Great Firewall of China and Policenet
E.		US Bloggers shut down or filtered for “controversial opinions”
F.		What is the impact of the proposed Cyber Security Act of 2009?

Bob Corn-Revere — US
Pamela Geller — US
Dr. Karin Karlekar — Survey of Freedom on the Net
David Sobel — E-Speech

11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Limitations on Free Speech

A.		Speech versus Conduct
B.		Advocacy versus Imminent Incitement of Lawlessness & Violence
C.		Advocacy of Terrorism & Sedition; Speech and National Security Issues

David Harris — Canada
Morten Messerschmidt — EU
Robert Muise — US
Diana West — US
David Yerushalmi — US

12:30 to 1:30 p.m. Luncheon in the Atrium
Sponsored by the Horowitz Freedom Center

1:30 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. Censorship of the Media via the Fairness Doctrine

A.		Fair Debate or Free Speech Battle?
B.		The Fairness Doctrine: Resurrected via the Durban Amendment or Buried by the Broadcaster Freedom Amendment

Bob Corn-Revere — US
Joyce Kaufman — US

2:00 to 2:30 p.m. Special Address by U.S. Senator Jim DeMint

2:45 to 3:00 p.m. Special Address by EU MP Morten Messerschmidt

3:00 to 3:30 p.m. Special Address by Congressman Louie Gohmert

4:00 to 4:30 p.m. Special Address by U.K. Member of Parliament
Lord Malcolm Pearson, “The Geert Wilders Case From the Inside”

4:30 to 4:55 p.m. Special Video Presentation by Dr. Michael Savage

5:00 to 5:30 p.m. Special Address by Ellis Washington
”Censorship by Banishment: The Michael Savage Case”

DAY TWO

9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Comparative Survey of Freedom of Religion under the law

What is a Religion?

A.		U.S. Constitution First Amendment: Free Exercise Clause & Establishment Clause
B.		Free Exercise Clause: Beliefs versus Practices
C.		Religions that Demand Action
D.		Establishment Clause: Separation, neutrality and accommodation
E.		Religion in a.   Public places b.   Public schools c.   The Workplace

Horatio Mihet — US
William Wagner — US
Andrea Williams — UK
Elizabeth Samson — International

10:45 a.m. to 11:50 a.m. Limitations on Freedom of Religion

A.		The Intersection of Religion and Another Person’s Right to Disbelieve and Criticize
B.		Blasphemy Laws: Does the Almighty really need police protection? Do they force nonbelievers to honor what they don’t believe in?
C.		Establishment versus Accommodation of Religion
D.		Different standards for Christianity and Islam? i.   Sharia compliant financing ii.   Sharia compliant family law iii.   Islamic prayers in public schools iv.   Halal food services in public institutions v.   Segregated gyms and swimming pools vi.   Rifqa Bary Case vii.   Christian homeschooled Amanda forced into public school by New Hampshire judge viii.   Santa Rosa County Consent Order banning prayer

Pamela Geller — US
Robert Muise — US
Horatio Mihet — US
Andrea Williams — UK
David Yerushalmi — US

Noon to 1:00 p.m. Lunch in the Atrium
Sponsored by The O’Leary Report

1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) & Libel

Tourism

Libel Tourism: Is Libel Tourism Destroying the First Amendment by Proxy?

Cases

A.		Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld
B.		Paul Sharkey
C.		Dr. Paul Williams
D.		Ezra Levant

SLAPP Suits

A.		State law legal actions for defamation, interference with advantageous relationship, interference with contract, etc. aimed to chill free speech and public debate
B.		Is Event Cancellation the Latest Form of Censorship in cases of controversial or unpopular speakers? What is the remedy?
C.		Anti-SLAPP legislation
D.		Cases: Joe Kaufman, Ezra Levant, FSC vs. Marriott

Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld — US
Brooke Goldstein — US & International
David Harris — Canada
Adam Hasner — US/Florida
Dr. Paul Williams

3:00 p.m. to 3:20 p.m. Special Address by Congressman Tom Rooney

3:30 p.m. to 3:50 p.m. Special Address by Diana West on Academic Censorship

4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Special Panel

A.		Is criticism of religion ever permissible?
B.		Is religion entirely insulated from public or political debate?
C.		Is the Bible Hate Speech?
D.		What is the status of Criticism of Islam as defamation (OIC resolutions) and racism (Durban resolutions)
E.		Children’s’ Rights of Freedom of Speech and Religion

Brooke Goldstein — US & International
Robert Muise — US
Sam Solomon — Shari’a
William Wagner — US
David Yerushalmi — US

5:00 p.m. Closing Statement

Bjorn Larsen — International Free Press Society/Canada, President

***UPDATE***

Thanks to reader Malcolm, for his suggestion that we look at Michael Fumento on the subject of swine flu:

Yes, I am writing on Obama’s swine flu “emergency”

And yes, it’s a bunch of hog droppings.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Swine flu Piglet ‘pandemic’…

Just eight weeks ago headlines screamed: “Swine Flu May Cause 90,000 U.S. Deaths.” They came from a so-called “plausible scenario” in a report from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, which was actually a range of 30,000 to 90,000. And they expected it to peak . . . right now.

The President’s Council is led by Obama’s controversial “science czar” John Holdren, – who co-authored one book with Population Bomb guru Paul Ehrlich advocating U.S. “de-development” and another suggesting compulsory measures to reduce the population. The Council’s conclusion this time was as bogus as Holdren-Ehrlich conclusions back then. Read why…

[go to Fumento’s website to follow his most interesting links in this post]

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

The Pandemic Is Political

As evidence continues to mount that swine flu is more of a piglet than a raging razorback, why isn’t curiosity mounting as to why the World Health Organization declared it a pandemic? And definitions aside, why does the agency continue to insist we’re going to get hammered?

As I write in my new article, it just might be related to a speech the WHO chief gave last months in which she said “ministers of health” should take advantage of the “devastating impact” swine flu will have on poorer nations to tell “heads of state and ministers of finance, tourism and trade” that:

The belief that “living conditions and health status of the poor would somehow automatically improve as countries modernized, liberalized their trade and improved their economies” is false. Wealth doesn’t equal health.

“Changes in the functioning of the global economy” are needed to “distribute wealth on the basis of” values “like community, solidarity, equity and social justice.”

“The international policies and systems that govern financial markets, economies, commerce, trade and foreign affairs have not operated with fairness as an explicit policy objective.”

There’s a lot of WHO dirty underwear revealed in this piece. Wear a clothespin while you read it.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Flu Watch IV – What swine flu ISN’T doing this week

Total deaths since Aug. 30 from “Influenza and Pneumonia-Associated” illness are 2,029 reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Web site FluView. But only 292 of those have been laboratory-confirmed as flu of any type. (And yes, people die of pneumonia from many causes other than flu.) By comparison, the CDC estimates about 260 Americans die each day from “regular” flu during each season.

And the Swine Flu Count Website shows about as many swine flu deaths worldwide in the last six months as the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates die every six days from seasonal flu. The FluTracker Web site provides a running tally of new worldwide cases and deaths, telling us they are no more frequent than a month ago.

So there we have another pandemic skeptic. What do you want to bet he doesn’t believe in global warming either? I swan, these skeptics who veer from the party line are going to get in the way of The Message. The Bare Knuckles Boys will be paying a visit to Mr. Fumento very soon.

Memeorandum is usually a good place to check for American news. There isn’t any foreign news but it’s still a good aggregator for what’s up in the MSM and the blogs.

That’s why I was surprised yesterday that there was no mention of the health “emergency” manufactured by the White House and dutifully spread by the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Well, the stories are up there now – here’s a new WaPo version, and here’s one from CNN.

Meanwhile the Times is starting up a new meme: the flu is spreading in 46 states and there’s not enough vaccine to go around:

The declaration came as thousands of people lined up in cities across the country to receive vaccinations, and as federal officials acknowledged that their ambitious vaccination program has gotten off to a slow start.

What’s is entirely missing is the most important story: the report from CBS. They spent three months researching this without any cooperation from the Center for Disease Control. If you read that news article you know that most of the illnesses being diagnosed as “swine flu” are mislabeled. See the chart in my previous post.

As I said, Memeorandum aggregates American news and blogs. It doesn’t travel far afield for stories. Thus, this problem with the vaccine in Sweden has gone unreported:

Sweden: Nurses got sick from the “swine flu” vaccine in Sweden * UPDATE – 1 suspected death

Yesterday 30 people reported to the authorities in Sweden that they experienced such severe side effects that they felt the need to contact a hospital. Today the number is 140. The Swedish newspaper Expressen is the only one in Sweden reporting on these cases and as usual this is most likely only the tip of a rather large iceberg.

UPDATE: According to Dagens Nyheter, the number of reported side effects are now a few hours later 190. 1 person died after the injection but “no direct relation with the injection has been established”. The biggest medical scandal in the history of Sweden has just started.

And it appears to be getting worse:
– – – – – – – – –
Sweden: Fourth Person Dies From Swine Flu Jab

The news that a fourth person has died after taking the “swine flu” jab in Sweden is focusing attention on the failure of the Swedish Medical Products Agency (MPA) to halt the “swine flu” programme even as reports of serious side effects flood in.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Commenter u.l. dipped into the memory hole to bring back this bit of incompetent bureaucratic mess-up during the SARS “emergency”:

To understand the hysteria surrounding swine flu it is helpful to have a look at Margaret Chan, presently chief of the WHO. After all, it was the WHO that got the hysteria going and declared this outbreak a ‘pandemic’.

Mrs. Chan is a disgraced former Hong Kong Director of Health. Locally she is remembered for the mishandling of the infamous SARS outbreak in 2003. She is a bureaucrat who can act according to the rulebook only, incapable of independent thought or action. During the SARS crisis she went from denial to misinformation to blind actionism. The local health department under her leadership was for some time even unable to provide proper protective clothing and facemasks to hospital staff, and money was raised in the community to buy these things privately.

Now, Hong Kong is not exactly a poor place, in fact it is one of the richest cities in the world with a huge budget surplus. So money was not the problem but incompetent bureaucrats were.

After the crisis Mrs. Chan was fired (or perhaps resigned to save face – can’t remember) and dumped at the UN. What better place is there to get rid of an incompetent official?

She has since risen to WHO chief and obviously had a plan of action drawn up should a pandemic strike. The glee with which the WHO jumped at every single bird flu case in the past few years shows that they couldn’t wait to put their plan into practice. As they focused on bird flu and SE Asia, the new virus quite predictably arose from another strain and location.

It does not matter that swine flu, for all we know, has no different effects from the seasonal flu which appears in a different variety every year anyway. Margaret Chan had to be seen as taking action this time, meaningful or not, and swiftly declared a ‘pandemic’. In Hong Kong this caused overreaction and some chaos and dismay with the closure of primary schools in June.

This is the WHO side of the story as I see it. Of course, one should not let a crisis go to waste (especially an engineered one), so the situation is used to advance whatever agendas governments, the UN, companies and so on, may have.

They are determined we’re going to have a plague come hell or high water. So what if they’re dying in Sweden from the vaccine. Never mind. Just get your shots.

Hat tip: JD

It seems that despite the official media disapproval of BNP leader Nick Griffin, his appearance on the BBC’s “Question Time” on Thursday night did his party some good. The latest polls suggest that 20%-25% of the British public would now be willing to vote for the BNP.

In other news, a Chinese ship hijacked by pirates is now anchored off the coast of Somalia. If the Chinese take action against the pirates, it will be the first time in hundreds of years that the country’s naval forces have engaged in combat outside of China’s territorial waters.

Thanks to AD, C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, JP, Nilk, Sean O’Brian, TB, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
– – – – – – – – –

	USA
	1st Amendment in the Age of Obama
	All Trains Run Through Obama
	Coming in December: World Government
	FCC Not Only Agency Seeking Media Regulation
	Insider Reveals Secrets of North America Plot
	Obama’s Maoist Media Controller
	President Obama Declares H1N1 Flu a National Emergency
	Report Identifies Top Thieves of U.S. Secrets
	Swine Flu Cases “Overstated”
	Europe and the EU
	Former Prisoner to Re-Enact Stasi Jail Time
	Italy-Albania: Frattini, Support to Tirana to Join EU
	Italy-Albania: Frattini, Nearing End of Visa Requirement
	Italy: Lawyer Rejects Turncoat’s Claims Linking Berlusconi to Mafia
	Serbia-France: Ruzica Djindjic, Veran Matic Awarded
	Showing Just 73 Highways at One Inch Per Mile, England’s First Road Atlas Printed in 1675
	Sweden: Writer Guillou Admits KGB Connection
	UK: One in Five ‘Would Consider Voting BNP’ After Nick Griffin Question Time Appearance
	UK: Our Smug Leaders Have Done Nothing to See Off the BNP
	UK: Police Told to Avoid Saying ‘Evenin’ All’
	UK: Poll Boost for BNP After TV First
	UK: Soldier Blasts Leaders Over Trust
	UK: White House Volunteer ‘Misled’ About Talk Show
	‘What Do the Sweden Democrats Want to Do With Us Muslims?’
	Balkans
	Albania-Bosnia: Rehn, Strict Rules on Abolition of Visas
	Serbia-EU: Rehn, Accord’s Freeing in Hands of ICTY
	War Crimes: Seven Croatians Arrested for Killing Serbs
	North Africa
	Syria: 6 Countries Not in Boycott Israel Conference
	Terrorism: Morocco Taking Part in Active Endeavour
	Turkey to Build Algeria 3rd Biggest Mosque of the World
	Israel and the Palestinians
	Shalit: Hamas Encouraged by Druse Prisoners Release
	Unprecedented IDF Mutiny at Kotel
	Middle East
	Italy-Cyprus: Kyprianou, We Want a European Turkey
	Obama Offers Millions in Muslim Technology Fund
	Signing of the Association Agreement on Human Rights Between Syria and Europe Delayed
	Syria-EU: Association Agreement; Assad, We Want to Reflect
	Turkey: Ankara Censors Controversial TV Series
	Yemen: Clashes Between Inhabitants and Saudi Forces at Border
	Russia
	Energy: Putin Speaks of Projects With Berlusconi & Erdogan
	South Asia
	Bangladesh Islamist Group Banned
	Dutch Defence Minister: “NATO Warning us on Departure From Uruzgan”
	In Southern India, Hindu Radicals Declare War on Muslims Over Love Jihad
	Indonesia: Islamic Groups Fine With Cabinet Exclusion
	Australia — Pacific
	Australia: HSC Religious Question Unfair, Students Say
	Man Jailed Over Racist Attack on Indian Student
	Sub-Saharan Africa
	Chinese Ship Seized by Pirates Reaches Somali Coast
	Immigration
	An Insightful Twist on the Alien Invasion
	Don’t Listen to the Whingers — London Needs Immigrants
	UK: Labour Let in Migrants ‘To Engineer Multicultural UK’
	UK: Labour ‘Encouraged Mass Immigration’
	UK: Labour Immigration Plot
	Culture Wars
	Tom Tancredo: Hate-Crimes Law: Another Attack on Free Speech
	General
	Why Muslims Are Not the New Jews

1st Amendment in the Age of Obama

The opening five words of the First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law,” represents the central tenets of what the Bill of Rights stands for: limits on government power to limit or compel religious beliefs, the right to hold political opinions and express them, protections for a free press, the right to assemble peaceably, and the right to petition the government, through protest or the ballot, for a redress of political grievances.

Let’s take a look at how the First Amendment is viciously and relentlessly attacked in the Age of Obama:

* Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

All Trains Run Through Obama

This week Obama began throwing around his weight around more than usual. In the USSR all the trains ran through Moscow in order to centralize control of the country. In the US today, Obama is pushing to make sure that all the trains run through him.

First Obama’s minions began pushing the rest of the media to denounce and distance themselves from FOX. This of course is only the latest in the Obama Administration’s long addiction to public Stalinist purges and denunciations, but this time it was launched against an entire network.

And second the Obama Administration now appears to be targeting state Democrats who don’t “coordinate” with the White House. The Washington Post spins it as the White House distancing itself from a supposedly losing candidate in the Virginia Governor’s race, but the practical upshot of it is that it’s a warning shot that blames losing candidates for not relying enough on Obama, sending the message that the failure to “coordinate” your campaign with the White House will be a death blow to your candidacy.

Senior administration officials have expressed frustration with how Democrat R. Creigh Deeds has handled his campaign for governor, refusing early offers of strategic advice and failing to reach out to several key constituencies that helped Obama win Virginia in 2008, they say.

Translation, he failed to pay off ACORN, SEIU and whatever other munchkins and 527’s the Obama Administration has its deals with.

[Return to headlines]

Coming in December: World Government

It is impossible to overstate the importance of the climate-change treaty now being negotiated for adoption at the Copenhagen, Denmark, U.N. meeting in December. The Kyoto Protocol was bad enough. It required the United States to reduce its carbon emissions 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. When fully implemented, the Kyoto target was supposed to reduce global carbon emissions by 5.2 percent. Thanks to George W. Bush, the U.S. did not participate in the Kyoto accord.

[…]

This treaty will create an international bureaucracy with the authority to regulate energy use. This entity would, in fact, be a political institution with the power to govern. In other words, the treaty will create a world government to administer global governance.

Lord Christopher Monckton created a tidal wave across the Internet with excerpts from his Oct. 14 presentation to the Minnesota Free Market Institute. He, too, has read the negotiating text and says without hesitation that this treaty will create a world government. He goes further, much further, to explain that while this treaty will have no impact on global climate, it will have a great impact on the global economy.

The purpose of the treaty is, and has been since the very beginning of negotiations in the early 1990s, to transfer the wealth from developed nations to the developing nations — under the supervision of the United Nations. Treaty negotiations justify this action because developed nations have spewed more carbon into the atmosphere than the developing nations. Therefore, according to U.N. reasoning, it is the developed nations that caused the global warming, so the developing nations are entitled to compensation.

Go figure. Or better yet, go wade through the negotiating text, but only if you have a strong stomach. It will make a non-Marxist throw-up.

— Hat tip: JD

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FCC Not Only Agency Seeking Media Regulation

Obama chief Sunstein drew up ‘New Deal Fairness Doctrine’

The Federal Communications Commission’s unanimous support yesterday for a rule that would open the door to government regulation of the Internet has raised the concern of free speech advocates, but there are other members of the Obama administration who support similar measures.

The president’s newly confirmed regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein, drew up a “First Amendment New Deal,” a new “fairness doctrine” that would include the establishment of a panel of “nonpartisan experts” to ensure “diversity of view” on the airwaves.

— Hat tip: JD

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Insider Reveals Secrets of North America Plot

No ‘conspiracy theory,’ scheme hatched by CFR was sold to Bush, now Obama

NEW YORK — The integration of the United States with Canada and Mexico, long deemed by many as little more than a fanciful “conspiracy theory,” was actually an idea promoted by the Council on Foreign Relations and sold to President Bush as a means of increasing commerce and business interests throughout North America, according to a top Canadian businessman.

Thomas d’Aquino, CEO and president of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives — the Canadian counterpart to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — confirmed in an interview recently published in Canada the accuracy of what WND first reported over three years ago: namely, that the Council on Foreign Relations was the prime mover in establishing the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, or SPP.

[…]

According to d’Aquino, President Obama wants to continue North American integration under the renamed North American Leaders Summit, provided the North American Competitiveness Council can be recast to include more environmentalists and union leaders.

— Hat tip: JD

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Obama’s Maoist Media Controller

What does it say about Barack Obama and his devout supporters that his White House communications director is a big fan of Mao Zedong?

I know. I know. She said her two favorite philosophers were Mao and Mother Teresa. How’s that for moral and intellectual disconnect?

Did you ever think you would hear those two names mentioned in the same breath?

Were there two people in the history of the world more opposite that Mother Teresa and Mao?

One devoted herself to saving lives. The other devoted himself to taking them.

One’s worldview was shaped for her reverence for God. The other’s was shaped by his denial, even hatred, of God.

Welcome to the strange world of Anita Dunn, Obama’s self-proclaimed media controller.

— Hat tip: JD

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President Obama Declares H1N1 Flu a National Emergency

President Obama Saturday declared the H1N1 flu a national emergency, clearing the way for legal waivers to allow hospitals and doctors offices to better handle a surge of new patients.

The proclamation will grant Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius the power to authorize the waivers as individual medical facilities request them, officials said.

It says that Obama does “hereby find and proclaim that, given that the rapid increase in illness across the Nation may overburden health care resources and that the temporary waiver of certain standard Federal requirements may be warranted in order to enable U.S. health care facilities to implement emergency operations plans, the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic in the United States constitutes a national emergency.”

White House officials downplayed the dramatic-sounding language, saying the president’s action was not prompted by a new assessment of the dangers posed to the public by the flu.

Instead, officials said the action provides greater flexibility for hospitals which may suddenly find themselves confronted with a surge of new patients as the virus sweeps through their communities.

“The H1N1 is moving rapidly, as expected. By the time regions or healthcare systems recognize they are becoming overburdened, they need to implement disaster plans quickly,” White House spokesman Reid Cherlin said Saturday.

The waivers authorized by the president’s actions still require individual requests by the hospitals, Cherlin said.

“Adding a potential delay while waiting for a National Emergency Declaration is not in the best interest of the public, particularly if this step can be done proactively as we are doing here,” he said.

If granted a waiver, hospitals would be freed from some regulations that guide their behavior during normal day-to-day operations. Cherlin provided the following example:

“Requirements under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act would prohibit hospitals from certain rapid triage or sorting activities and prevent the establishment of off-site, alternate care facilities that could off-load emergency department demand,” he said.

Public health experts praised the move, saying it was an important precautionary step that could help hospitals and other first responders care for large numbers of sick people as the outbreak continues.

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Report Identifies Top Thieves of U.S. Secrets

Judicial Watch said Justice Department docs cite Iran, China

Counterespionage agents for the United States government are reporting that the nations cited most often as stealing — or trying to steal — U.S. military equipment and technology are China and Iran.

The report comes from Judicial Watch, the Washington public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption.

[…]

Judicial Watch said the report, labeled “For Official Use Only,” reported Iran was cited for 31 cases between Sept. 29, 2001, just after the 9/11 terror attacks, and May 16, 2008.

China was cited for 20 cases.

Among the situations that were documented:…

— Hat tip: JD

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Swine Flu Cases “Overstated”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states on their main flu Web site http://www.cdc.gov/flu/ that flu activity is increasing in the United States, with most states reporting “widespread influenza activity.”

The CDC goes on to say, and I quote:

“So far, most flu is 2009 H1N1 flu (sometimes called “swine flu”).”

But wait stop the presses.

A three-month-long investigation by CBS News, released earlier this week that included state-by-state test results, revealed some very different facts. The CBS study found that H1N1 flu cases are NOT as prevalent as feared. A CBS article even states:

“If you’ve been diagnosed “probable” or “presumed” 2009 H1N1 or “swine flu” in recent months, you may be surprised to know this: odds are you didn’t have H1N1 flu. In fact, you probably didn’t have flu at all.”

Obviously CBS News and the CDC are completely contradicting each other. So who is right?

Well, CBS reports that in late July 2009 the CDC advised states to STOP testing for H1N1 flu, and they also stopped counting individual cases.

Their rationale for this, according to CBS News, was that it was a waste of resources to test for H1N1 flu because it was already confirmed as an epidemic.

So just like that virtually every person who visited their physician with flu-like symptoms since late July was assumed to have H1N1, with no testing necessary because, after all, there’s an epidemic.

It’s interesting to note that at the same time as the CDC decided the H1N1 epidemic warranted no further testing for cases due to its epidemic status, Finnish health authorities actually downgraded the threat of swine flu.

In late July the health ministry and the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) in Finland actually removed swine flu from a list of diseases considered dangerous to the public because the majority of cases recovered without medication or hospital care!

And, as the CDC continues to use fear to motivate and control Americans with their worst-case swine flu scenarios, they say nothing of the experience of those in the southern hemisphere, which just finished their flu season and found it was not as bad as expected.

CBS News Finds H1N1 Tests “Overwhelmingly Negative”

Before beginning their investigation, CBS News asked the CDC for state-by-state test results prior to their halting of testing and tracking. The CDC did not initially respond so CBS went to all 50 states directly, asking for their statistics on state lab-confirmed H1N1 prior to the halt of individual testing and counting in July.

What did they find? CBS reported:

“The results reveal a pattern that surprised a number of health care professionals we consulted. The vast majority of cases were negative for H1N1 as well as seasonal flu, despite the fact that many states were specifically testing patients deemed to be most likely to have H1N1 flu, based on symptoms and risk factors, such as travel to Mexico.”

As you can see from this CBS News graphic, not only are most cases of suspected flu-like illnesses not H1N1, they’re not even the flu but more likely some type of cold or upper respiratory infection!

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Former Prisoner to Re-Enact Stasi Jail Time

A former prisoner of East Germany’s fearsome secret police will return to one of its jail cells in a reenactment of the communist regime’s oppression 20 years after the Berlin Wall fell.

The 65-year-old Carl-Wolfgang Holzapfel will be locked in a cell of the former Hohenschönhausen prison in Berlin for seven days under the same conditions he once endured, wearing prison garb with no right to lie in his bed during the day.

Holzapfel will stay in the cell from October 29 to November 5, an organisation dedicated to the memory of the Stasi police abuses said Friday.

Holzapfel is chairman of the organisation, called ‘17th June 1953’, and another group representing the victims of Stalinism. He was a passionate activist who demonstrated against the imprisonment of political prisoners throughout the communist regime’s tenure.

In August 1989 Holzapfel staged one of his last demonstrations against the Berlin Wall itself by lying across the border at Checkpoint Charlie.

The Hohenschönhausen reenactment, dubbed “Happening,” will be broadcast live on the internet, his organisation said in a statement.

Holzapfel, a West Berliner, was arrested in East Germany for political activism in 1965 and sentenced to eight years in prison. West Germany had to pay to secure his release, a common practice at the time. The prison is now a museum.

Germany is holding a slew of events to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall, which took place on November 9, 1989.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Italy-Albania: Frattini, Support to Tirana to Join EU

(ANSAmed) — ROME, OCTOBER 21 — “Italy has confirmed its full commitment to supporting Albania’s European prospect” said Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini after a meeting this morning at the Italian Foreign Ministry with his Albanian counterpart Ilir Meta. Frattini said that the two have discussed the recent request to become member of the European Union made by Tirana. “I have confirmed” Frattini underlined “that I will again raise the issue of a rapid transmission of the accession request to the European Commission, during the next meeting of Foreign EU Ministers in Luxemburg (October 26).” The Italian foreign minister said that he hopes that “will lead to the recognition of Albania as a candidate country”. “I know very well” he added “that some member States are reluctant, but I do hope that the majority of EU member States will follow my opinion.” (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy-Albania: Frattini, Nearing End of Visa Requirement

(ANSAmed) — ROME, OCTOBER 21 — “Albania is getting close to having carried out all the technical requisites for setting up a visa-liberalisation regime”. Italy’s foreign minister, Franco Frattini, has been speaking in a press conference at the country’s foreign ministry following a meeting with his Albanian counterpart, Ilir Meta. According to Mr Frattini, Tirana “has made enormous progress on document security, on biometric passports and on border control”. After attaining a freeing of visa controls for Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro at the end of this year, the Frattini’s hope is that Albania will soon be able to follow suit. Happy with the stance taken by Italy, Meta pointed out how Albanian citizens “are the most isolated in Europe”. Now, he said, we are making “significant progress and are confident that in a few weeks wéll have all the necessary measures in place”.(ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Lawyer Rejects Turncoat’s Claims Linking Berlusconi to Mafia

Rome, 23 October (AKI) — Prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s lawyer has strongly rejected on Friday, claims by mafia turncoat Gaspare Spatuzza who quoted a former mafia boss as saying he had links to the premier.

“The statements given by Spatuzza about prime minister Berlusconi are baseless and can be in no way verified,” said the premier’s lawyer and MP for the ruling People of Freedom party (PdL) Niccolo Ghedini on Friday.

He was referring to claims by Spatuzza that jailed Sicilian mafia boss Giuseppe Graviano told him in 1994 that Berlusconi was helping the mafia. Spatuzza said Graviano disclosed the information to him during a conversation in a bar Graviano owned in the upscale Via Veneto district of the Italian capital Rome.

“I met Giuseppe Graviano inside a bar in Via Veneto. Graviano was very happy and said that we had obtained everything and that these people were not like those four bastard Socialists,” Spatuzza said without elaborating.

“The person from whom we obtained everything was Berlusconi and also one of our countrymen, Dell’Utri,” said Spatuzza, Graviano’s assistant.

He was referring to PdL Senator Marcello Dell’Utri who has been convicted of a series of crimes including mafia association. He has been sentenced to over 10 years in jail since 1999 but has never served time in prison.

Spatuzza made the remarks to prosecutors during questioning on 6 October. A transcription of Spatuzza’s interrogation was made public on Friday at an appeals court in the southern Italian city of Palermo.

“I did not know Berlusconi, and I asked if it was the guy from Canale 5 (TV Channel 5) and Graviano told me that indeed it was. About the guy from our town, I was only told his surname, Dell’Utri, not his first name,” said Spatuzza.

“Graviano told me that thanks to the seriousness of these people we had obtained what we wanted. “We have the country in the palm of our hand,” he said.

Dell’Utri has dismissed Spatuzza’s allegations as “nonsense”.

“These claims are nonsense, which fortunately, still make me laugh. It is all melodrama which amuses me,” Dell’Utri said on Friday from Palermo, where he is appealing the charges of Mafia association.

Further defending the premier, Ghedini also said Italy’s judicial authorities have already “widely investigated the absurd accusations in the past…about Berlusconi and has completely ruled out any link with the mafia, a phenomenon that all governments headed by the honourable Berlusconi have always strongly opposed.”

The statements by mafia turncoat Spatuzza were made public by the substitute attorney general of Palermo, Antonino Gatto.

Gatto also revealed the Sicilian mafia (also known in Italian as ‘Cosa Nostra’) had planned a major attack against Italy’s paramilitary police or Carabinieri.

“In 1993 there was a planned attack in Rome by Cosa Nostra, against the police,” he said.

“Gaspare Spatuzza and Cosimo Lo Nigro met Giuseppe Graviano…Some time afterwards, Giuseppe Graviano met the hired gunmen and planned a devastating attack against the police,” Gatto continued.

Lo Nigro is a suspected Sicilian mafia member who is serving a life sentence for mafia attacks in Rome, Florence and Milan in 1993.

“They were talking about at least 100 dead policemen. They were waiting for the ‘go ahead’ from Graviano,” Gatto added.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Serbia-France: Ruzica Djindjic, Veran Matic Awarded

(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, OCTOBER 22 — Today in Franch Embassy in Belgrade in the presence of great number of people from political, public and cultural life in Serbia, Ruzica Djindjic (wife of assassinated Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic) and radio B92 Director and Editor in Chief Veran Matic received the French Legion of Honor Medals, reports Tanjug news agency. When presenting medals on the behalf of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, French Ambassador to Serbia Jean Francois Terral stated that in this manner, France would like to show recognition to the fighters for democratic values and tolerance. Terral once again reiterated the whole-hearted and full support of Paris to the Serbia’s EU path. Serbian President Boris Tadic, who attended the ceremony, stated that the Legion of Honour Medal identifies the Serbian citizens who were prominent in the establishing of democratic standards in Serbia and who contributed to the promotion of the France-Serbia eternal friendship. Tadic recalled that Serbia is the only country that has the Monument of Gratitude to France.(ANSAmed)

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Showing Just 73 Highways at One Inch Per Mile, England’s First Road Atlas Printed in 1675

The atlas depicts 7,500 miles of road and shows how their condition was so poor, it would have taken more than two weeks to travel from Newcastle to London.

Britannia Volume The First Or An Illustration Of The Kingdom Of England And Dominion Of Wales is expected to fetch up to £9,000 at auction next Thursday.

Experts hailed the 17th-century work by John Ogilby, which contains 100 double pages of routes split into parallel vertical strips, a ‘landmark’ in road-mapping.

Charles Ashton, an auctioneer at Cheffins Fine Art, Cambridge, said: ‘What’s unusual about this book is that it is complete.

‘This is one of the original printing batch from 1675 and there are probably about 100 out there across the world — mostly in university and library collections.

‘From the outside it looks like nothing — the plain board cover is quite beaten up and unornamented, not elaborate at all — you would never guess how special this book is.

‘But once you open it, its full glory is revealed. It doesn’t look much like a modern road map.

‘It set a new standard for map making in England as the first attempt at a serious road map in England.’

The road map, which has been in the same family for generations, was the first time in England an atlas was prepared on a uniform scale, at one inch to a mile, based on the statute of 1,760 yards to the mile.

Ogilby claimed that 26,600 miles of roads were surveyed in the course of preparing the atlas, but only about 7,500 were actually depicted in print.

Oxford University’s Dr George Garnett said: ‘The roads would have been pools of mud. The stone that Romans used to build roads had been removed for building houses.

‘It meant people travelled little unless they had to. Newcastle to London could take weeks.’

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Sweden: Writer Guillou Admits KGB Connection

Prominent Swedish author and journalist Jan Guillou had liaisons spanning five years with the Soviet intelligence service in the 1960s. Guillou maintains he was trying to reveal how the KGB was operating in Sweden.

The revelations have been disclosed by the newspaper Expressen after it obtained documents from Swedish intelligence agency Säpo on Guillou’s relations with the KGB.

The documents centre around Russian agent Jevgenij Ivanovitj Gergel, the KGB’s man in Stockholm at the end of the 1960s.

A witness statement from one of Guillou’s journalist colleagues at the time raised the alarm over relations between the two. It also refers to an assignment to steal an internal telephone directory from the American Embassy in Stockholm.

Guillou confirmed that he first met Gergel at a reception held at the Soviet Embassy in Stockholm in 1967.

“We never did anything other than talk politics,” he told the newspaper.

Guillou adds that his connection never led to any journalistic revelations and he denies spying for the Soviets.

He concedes, however, that he undertook paid assignments but claims the purpose was of a professional nature, to investigate how the KGB was working in Sweden at the time.

“It was just a few non-events and it is not a crime to meet foreign intelligence services,” he added.

Guillou had contact with the KGB until 1972 when he began publishing articles that revealed the existence of Informationsbyrån, a secret Swedish military intelligence agency that spied on Swedish citizens for political purposes. He was later jailed for espionage.

Säpo’s investigation of Guillou’s KGB relations never led to any indictments writes Expressen.

— Hat tip: TB

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UK: One in Five ‘Would Consider Voting BNP’ After Nick Griffin Question Time Appearance

More than a fifth of the public would consider voting for the British National Party, according to the first opinion poll taken since the appearance of its leader, Nick Griffin, on Question Time.

Support for the party has increased in the last month, a survey for The Daily Telegraph indicated.

The findings will lead to accusations that the BBC’s decision to invite the far-Right MEP on to its flagship current affairs programme may have backfired by giving him a national platform.

The YouGov poll was taken hours after Mr Griffin’s appearance on Thursday, before which anti-fascist protesters rioted outside BBC Television Centre in London.

The survey found that 22 per cent of voters would “seriously consider” voting for the BNP in a future local, general or European election. This included four per cent who said they would “definitely” consider voting for the party, three per cent who would “probably” consider it, and 15 per cent who said they were “possible” BNP voters.

Two-thirds said they would not consider voting for the party “under any circumstances” with the rest unsure.

Mr Griffin’s performance, during which he was challenged about his views on the Holocaust, immigration, Islam and homosexuality, has divided the political establishment. Some senior figures criticised the BBC for inviting him on to the programme.

David Lammy, the Higher Education Minister and one of the first black men to serve in a British government, gave warning of a potential rise in racist and anti-Semitic attacks, saying he was “very worried about the days which will follow”.

More than half of those questioned said they agreed with the BNP, or thought that it “had a point” in wishing to “speak up for the interests of the indigenous, white British people … which successive governments have done far too little to protect.”

This included 43 per cent who said that, while they shared some of its concerns, they had “no sympathy for the party itself”.

Twelve per cent said they completely agreed with the BNP, while 38 per cent said they “disagree totally with the BNP’s political outlook”.

YouGov found that overall voter support for the party had risen from two to three per cent since last month.

The party claimed that 3,000 people had registered to sign up as members since Mr Griffin’s Question Time appearance. The BBC is likely to face further questions if Mr Griffin’s appearance results in a rise in racial assaults.

France’s far-Right leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, praised the corporation for inviting the BNP to appear and predicted the party would enjoy a surge as a result.

In a vindication of the BBC’s stance, however, the poll showed that nearly three quarters of the public supported the decision to invite Mr Griffin to appear, compared with 63 per cent when the same question was asked last week.

Labour encouraged mass immigration to help socially engineer a “multicultural” country and to try to “rub the Right’s nose in diversity”, according to Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair.

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UK: Our Smug Leaders Have Done Nothing to See Off the BNP

In the modern Anglican Baptism service, the congregation is warned to avoid “the glamour of evil”. No danger of that with Nick Griffin, is there? On Question Time on Thursday night, he resembled a disgruntled commuter on a late-night train from Liverpool Street — the sort who engages you in conversation with superficial, beery geniality and then inflicts his unpleasant opinions without a break until debouching at Romford. Not a bat-squeak of Nuremburg Rally glamour — only the drone of banality.

Yet the appearance of Mr Griffin on the programme produced the greatest coalition of the British establishment since the Yes campaign in the European referendum of 1975. The sledgehammer portentously cracked the nut.

Three state-funded politicians of the three main parties denounced the dismal Griffin. The state-funded millionaire, David Dimbleby, forsaking all chairmanly impartiality, even told the wretched man not to smile. The audience, much younger and more “ethnic” than the actual composition of the population, cheered each sally against him. Bonnie Greer, an American, spoke of the “good sense of the British people” in rejecting the BNP. But if Mr Griffin had not been so charmless, I think I would have felt another traditional British quality — sympathy for the underdog.

The message coming out of the programme, reinforced by the BBC’s self-congratulatory coverage, was: “Free speech triumphed. Vile Griffin was allowed his say, but we saw him off. Aren’t we all marvellous?”

No, we aren’t marvellous. We are smug. We are missing two important points.

The first is that we are slipshod in our definition of extremism. The BNP certainly is extreme, because hate is intrinsic to its message. But our Government has active links with people who are more extreme. There are Islamist groups which support Hamas suicide bombings, the killing of homosexuals (Mr Griffin merely finds it “creepy” when they kiss in public) and the killing of British troops in Afghanistan. These groups engage with the state, and even get taxpayers’ money. The Government justifies this with the weird theory that it is only the hard men who can hold back the even harder men from violence. So the hard men get the leverage.

In Northern Ireland, Labour has set up a system which permits and pays Martin McGuinness to be Deputy First Minister. Mr McGuinness was for many years Chief of Staff of the IRA, planning its terrorist operations. He has dropped this occupation, but never renounced it. He has proved the favourite terrorist argument — well-calculated murder wins you power. When Martin goes on Question Time these days, there is no Griffin-style bashing, just the solemn nodding of panel heads when he explains how to bring peace to our troubled world.

On Thursday night, Jack Straw fiercely engaged Nick Griffin on the subject of Holocaust denial. But when he was Foreign Secretary, Mr Straw led the attempt to appease President Ahmadinejad of Iran, who denies the Holocaust on the global stage and is trying to build a nuclear bomb to wipe out Israel.

When establishment figures say that the attitudes of the BNP help prepare the ground for violence, they are right. But they do not apply this logic to their engagement with Islamism — the only form of extremism which nowadays kills large numbers of our fellow citizens.

As for the BBC, it devotes hours of broadcasting to straining after links with racists among the Tories’ eurosceptic allies at the European Parliament. Yet it approvingly (I heard it on Today yesterday) reports Hamas without ever mentioning the anti-semitic libels which are in that organisation’s founding Charter.

— Hat tip: Sean O’Brian

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UK: Police Told to Avoid Saying ‘Evenin’ All’

Police have been urged to avoid using greetings such as “evening” and “afternoon”, because the words are “somewhat subjective” and could cause confusion among those from different cultural backgrounds.

The official guidance means the salutation “evenin’ all”, which marked the start of each episode of Dixon of Dock Green, could be under threat.

The instructions form part of lengthy guidelines issued by police forces and fire services across the UK on what language their staff should use. Critics have accused the guides of “lacking common sense”.

Other words now discouraged include, “businessman”, “housewives” and “child”, which the organisations argue have negative connotations and could cause offence.

Confusingly, staff are also barred from using the word “homosexual”, for which they are instructed to use the term “gay”, while they are warned against using the phrase “straight”, and told to say “heterosexual”.

The instructions have emerged in response to a Freedom of Information request to police forces and fire services about the guidance they give their staff on their use of language. One force urging caution over the use of “evening”, is Warwickshire Police.

Under a section entitled “Communication, Some Do’s & Don’ts”, in its “Policing Our Communities” handbook, it gives advice to officers on communicating with people from different ethnic groups. It states: “Don’t assume those words for the time of day, such as afternoon or evening have the same meaning.”

A spokesman added: “Terms such as ‘afternoon’ and ‘evening’ are somewhat subjective in meaning and can vary according to a person’s culture or nationality. In many cultures the term evening is linked to time of day when people have their main meal of the day.

“In some countries including the UK, the evening meal time is traditionally thought of as being around 5-7pm but this might be different say for a family say from America who might have their main meal earlier and thus for them ‘evening ‘ may be an earlier time.

“The point is there is an element of subjectivity leading to a variation between cultures that we need to be aware of — taking steps as far as possible to ensure our communication is effective in serving the public.”

A number of organisations, among them Essex Police and Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service, now instruct staff to avoid the phrases “child, youth or youngster”.

The 52-page guide used by both organisations states that such phrases could have “connotations of inexperience, impetuosity, and unreliability or even dishonesty”. It also states that addressing someone as “boy” or “girl” “may cause offence”. Instead, officers and firemen are instructed to use the phrase “young people”.

The same guide also warns against the phrases “manning the phones”, “layman’s terms” and “the tax man”, for “making women invisible”.

The Metropolitan Police warns its staff about “common errors” to watch out for in their language. It says “homosexual” should be avoided and “gay” used, but that “straight” should not be used and “heterosexual” should. “Homosexual” should only be used in connection with legislation, according to the force.

London Fire Brigade instructs its staff not to use the terms “businessmen” or “housewives”, because it says they “reinforce outdated stereotypes”.

For the same reason, it tells workers not to call themselves “firemen” — they are “firefighters”. Other organisations have discouraged using the terms “postmen” and “binmen”.

Marie Clair, spokeswoman for the Plain English Campaign, said: “I have never heard of anyone being confused as to what part of the day it is. When the police need absolute accuracy over when something happened, then I am sure they use the exact time. There comes a point when common sense must prevail.”

She also criticised the decision to avoid phrases like “child” and “youth”. “Do you call a two-year-old a young person? Surely we can get greater accuracy in the language we already use, which is non-offensive,” she added.

— Hat tip: Vlad Tepes

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UK: Poll Boost for BNP After TV First

Nearly a quarter of adults would consider voting for the far-right British National Party, a poll out today suggests, after its leader made a controversial appearance on a BBC show.

The YouGov survey for The Daily Telegraph newspaper, conducted after BNP chairman Nick Griffin made his debut Thursday on Question Time, BBC television’s top political panel show, found that 22% of voters would ‘seriously consider’ voting BNP.

The debate over whether Mr Griffin should have been allowed on the programme — plus the fall-out from the show — has triggered heated debate in the UK and dominated newspaper headlines.

Many critics of Mr Griffin’s appearance feared that giving him such a platform would hand a boost to the far right.

The poll found 4% said they would ‘definitely’ consider voting for the BNP, a further 3% who would ‘probably’ consider it, plus 1% who said they were ‘possible’ BNP voters.

More than half of those surveyed agreed with the BNP or thought the party ‘had a point’ in wishing to ‘speak up for the interests of the indigenous, white British people… which successive governments have done far too little to protect’.

This included 43% who agreed that they had ‘no sympathy for the party itself’, though they shared some of its concerns.

Some 12% said they completely agreed with the BNP, against 38% who said they disagreed totally with the party’s politics.

The BNP claimed on its website that 9,000 people had either signed up as ‘registered potential members or on our mailing lists’ since the show aired.

Cabinet minister Peter Hain, a veteran anti-apartheid campaigner who fought unsuccessfully to try to stop Mr Griffin’s appearance, said: ‘This is exactly what I feared and warned about.

‘The BBC has handed the BNP the gift of the century on a plate and now we see the consequences. I’m very angry about this.’

The BBC invited him on after his party won nearly a million votes — and a 6.2% share — in the European Parliament elections in June, which saw Mr Griffin and a colleague voted in.

The British Broadcasting Corporation has defended the decision, saying it was duty bound to be impartial.

The BBC said it had received more than 350 complaints about the show, most of which alleged bias against the BNP.

Nearly eight million people watched the show — triple the regular audience.

— Hat tip: Sean O’Brian

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UK: Soldier Blasts Leaders Over Trust

A serving soldier has accused politicians of abusing the trust of the Army and serving soldiers.

Lance Corporal Joe Glenton, who is facing a court martial for refusing to return to Afghanistan, made his comments before an anti-war demonstration in central London.

L/Cpl Glenton is leading former colleagues, military families and anti-war protesters in the march, calling for British troops to be brought home.

He told protesters at Speakers Corner in Hyde Park that he found it distressing to disobey orders but felt that he had been left with no choice.

He released a statement before the rally which read: “It is distressing to disobey orders but when Britain follows America in continuing to wage war against one of the world’s poorest countries I feel I have no choice.

“Politicians have abused the trust of the army and the soldiers who serve, that’s why I am compelled and proud to march with the Stop The War Coalition today.”

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: White House Volunteer ‘Misled’ About Talk Show

Panel had members of anti-Western group under U.S. scrutiny

A Muslim member of President Obama’s faith council says she was misled about the nature of a British TV talk show on which she was recently interviewed. It was hosted by a representative of Hizb ut-Tahrir, which the State Department has condemned for an anti-Semitic, anti-Western ideology that officials said might indirectly generate support for terrorism.

Dalia Mogahed, senior analyst for the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, did a phone interview on the Oct. 8 show. It was hosted by a member of the group, Ibtihal Bsis Ismail, and featured as another guest the group’s women’s media representative, Nazreen Nawaz.

Mogahed said Friday that she did not know about the affiliation of Nawaz until Nawaz was introduced on air, and only learned later about Ismail’s association with Hizb ut-Tahrir (Party of Emancipation).

She said that she would not have agreed to the interview had she known of their affiliation beforehand and that she believed that Ismail “misled us” to score propaganda points for an ideological movement.

“I don’t regret anything I said,” she said. “My regret is that I went on the show.”

Mogahed is one of 25 faith representatives who sit on a volunteer council that advises the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships on policy issues.

Mogahed said she thought that Gallup’s public relations department booked her appearance on the show to discuss her data on Muslim women. Mogahed has directed several studies of Muslims, including an analysis of the attitudes of Muslim women in 2005, and she is the co-author of the 2009 book “Who Speaks for Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think.”

— Hat tip: JP

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‘What Do the Sweden Democrats Want to Do With Us Muslims?’

Anna Waara, chairperson of Swedish Muslims for Peace and Justice, calls for politicians and the media to reject in the strongest possible terms the views expressed in an opinion piece by Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Åkesson, in which he refers to Muslims as the greatest threat to Sweden since World War II.

through the open use of the same kind of rhetoric used to denigrate Jews in the 1940s. The party feels comfortable propagating pure lies in an opinion piece that’s out there for all to see; their calculation is that this won’t be a problem, since they assume that antipathy toward Muslims will predominate in the public debate.

When it comes to the view of Muslims in today’s society, the apparent dehumanization and total lack of nuance lead to a situation in which Muslims are viewed as an inordinately terrifying phenomenon. This is driven home by the fact that the Sweden Democrats’ frontal attack is met by a deafening silence from the country’s otherwise so vociferous leader writers.

The Sweden Democrats have a right to express themselves, and should preserve that right, but in a democratic society there is nothing forcing people to listen. Freedom of expression is an important foundation, which enables people to take a stance on the kind of society they want Sweden to become.

What’s surprising is that the media establishment has received the Sweden Democrats’ views with a sense of calm. The party’s message contains errors that are misleading or, in some cases, consist of pure propaganda. Despite this, a lot of what they say is permitted to pass without critical examination, vocal protests, or sober counter-argumentation. This offers a snapshot of the current societal climate with regard to Muslims and Islam.

What the Sweden Democrats portray is an enemy within, in a society they wish to divide into “us against them”. Such views have never led to a healthy, peaceful society, and Åkesson’s propaganda represents a direct threat to the 200-year tradition of peace we have here in Sweden.

It would be particularly troubling if the established parties were to replicate the Sweden Democrats’ rhetoric, providing succour to this sort of propaganda. We have seen it before in Europe — in Srebrenica for example, where 7,000 to 8,000 Muslims were murdered simply because of their identity. This happened just fifty years after the Holocaust: the kind of outrage that was never supposed to happen again.

There’s a risk that Islamophobia and intolerance will become established and accepted in Sweden. Is that really the kind of society we want to live in?

A major Gallup poll thought to represent the opinions of 90 percent of the world’s Muslims has shown that 93 percent are against acts of violence. None of the 7 percent who did not respond that they were opposed to violence cited religious reasons. They made reference instead to political reasons, such as achieving freedom from oppression. This is the same freedom considered so fundamental to Western values.

The study also supports the view that young Muslims, contrary to what Åkesson might claim, do not want extremism, fanaticism or violence; instead they strive for freedom, rights and democratization. The survey also showed that Muslims view Islam as a religion that confers on them a sense of meaning, direction, purpose and hope.

Swedish Muslims for Peace and Justice (Svenska Muslimer för Fred och Rättvisa) is Sweden’s first Muslim peace organization. Our aim is to be one of the foremost organizations promoting peace and security in Sweden and Europe, based on justice, Islamic principles, and human rights. With this in mind, we have previously invited the Sweden Democrats to debate with us; we have engaged in a dialogue with them because we believe in talking to those with dissenting opinions. We believe in a society characterized by diversity, which is why we find the Sweden’s Democrats’ rhetoric so frightening.

The party openly displays its defiance towards Swedish values such as respect and tolerance. It is extremely important going forward that the established parties do not slip under the net and co-opt the views the Sweden Democrats are trying to propagate, rather than countering them. The Sweden Democrats want to create the kind of society that can not be achieved by peaceful means in light of the prevailing conditions in multicultural Sweden. It is with this in mind that their election promise to do all they can to create a uniform Sweden raises so many critical issues. Just what do the Sweden Democrats want to do with us Muslims?

The question brought to a head by Åkesson and the Sweden Democrats is that of the kind of society we want to live in. I am certain that I don’t want to live in a society pervaded by opinions that are laced with hatred, ignorance and intolerance, and in which not all individuals are permitted to feel safe — regardless of who the messenger might be. What kind of society do the Sweden Democrats want to live in?

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Albania-Bosnia: Rehn, Strict Rules on Abolition of Visas

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, OCTOBER 22 — “We must be responsible and guarantee a credible and rigorous selection process, also because that is the only way to convince the EU interior ministers of the reliability and security” of the countries for which the liberalisation of visas in the Schengen area has been proposed. European Commissioner for Enlargement Olli Rehn said this to explain the exclusion of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania from the list of countries for which visas will no longer be needed as of January 2010, in the context of a conference organised in Brussels by the European Policy Center. According to the Commission, these two countries are not ready yet, unlike Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, “which have done their homework”. “When Bosnia and Albania will comply with the required criteria, we will present a proposal for these countries as well” said Rehn, “but we will not punish countries which have done a good job”. Regarding Bosnia, “now we are concerned how the current political deadlock created by the country’s leaders will be broken” the commissioner added, “and how the country will become a credible candidate to join the EU and NATO”, which it is not at the moment. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Serbia-EU: Rehn, Accord’s Freeing in Hands of ICTY

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, OCTOBER 22 — The road to Serbia’s integration into the EU will depend on the ad interim accord being re-activated and this “is in the hands of the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, (ICTY), Serge Brammertz”. The statement has come from the European Commissioner for Enlargement, Olli Rehn, speaking at conference organised in Brussels by the European Policy Centre. Having suggested the freeing of the EU-Serbia accord, “our credibility, mine and that of the Union,” said Rehn, “ has suffered by not being able to advance” on Belgrade’s rapprochement process. “In fact, the Chief Prosecutor for the ICTY is the person in the key position: I am confident that Serbia is truly cooperating with the ICTY and I trust that Brammertz will pronounce the “magic words”: full cooperation”, which is a necessary condition for freeing the EU-Serbia accord. (ANSAmed)

— Hat tip: Insubria

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War Crimes: Seven Croatians Arrested for Killing Serbs

(ANSAmed) — ZAGREB, OCTOBER 20 — Seven Croatians, all former or current members of the Zagreb army, were arrested yesterday by the Croatian police over suspected war crimes in 1995 in Bosnia-Herzegovina against Serbian prisoners, writes the Croatian press today, quoting the public prosecutor in Zagreb, without giving details of the identities of the suspects until the end of the investigation. According to the press, the seven Croatians are suspected of shooting five Serbian prisoners of war in the east of Bosnia-Herzegovina in the summer of 1995. During this period the Croatian armed forces were operating in Bosnia against the Bosnian Serb army based on an agreement with the central government in Sarajevo, made up of a majority of supporters of the Muslim community. One of the key conditions for Croatia’s entry into the European Union is the willingness and commitment by the Croatian justice system to put its own officials and military on trial over accusations of war crimes. (ANSAmed)

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Syria: 6 Countries Not in Boycott Israel Conference

(ANSAmed) — DAMASCUS, OCTOBER 23 — Six Arab countries have decided not to participate in a meeting in Syria on a boycott against Israel. This year Egypt and Jordan, which have diplomatic relations with Israel, as well as Oman, Mauritania, the Comoros and Bahrain were not present at the 83rd “Boycott Israel Conference”. The meeting, in which strategies to isolate Israel through an economic boycott are discusses, has united members of the Arab League and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference for decades. With time however and with the normalisation of relations between Israel and some of the participating states, the meeting has lost some of its supporters. Pepsi Cola, Caterpillar and Procter and Gamble are some of the ‘haram’ companies, companies Arab entrepreneurs should not do business with because of their ties with Israel. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Terrorism: Morocco Taking Part in Active Endeavour

(ANSAmed) — NAPLES, OCTOBER 23 — Morocco has signed an agreement to contribute to the NATO operation which aims to prevent terrorist attacks in the Mediterranean. The agreement was signed in Naples by Division Admiral Mohammed Berrada Gouzi, inspector of the Royal Marine of Morocco, and Squad Admiral Maurizio Gemignani, commander of the anti-terrorism operation Active Endeavour. Over 100,000 mercantile vessels have been contacted in the eight years since the operation began. According to a statement, the accord “constitutes an important step forward in the cooperation between NATO and Morocco and established the modalities in which Morocco will contribute to the operation, from information exchange to the deployment of naval and air systems.” (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Turkey to Build Algeria 3rd Biggest Mosque of the World

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, OCTOBER 22 — Turkish government will extend necessary support to Turkish companies to undertake construction of third biggest mosque of the world in Algeria, Anatolia agency reported quoting the Turkish Minister for Foreign Trade, Zafer Caglayan. The minister said that German companies were preparing architectural project of the third biggest mosque of the world in Algeria, adding that 40,00 people would be able to perform prayer in the mosque worth of $5 billion. Caglayan said a bidding for construction of the mosque would take place in the coming days, noting that “I think Turkish companies will construct the mosque in the best way”. Referring to drilling works of Petroleum Corporation’s (TPAO) in Algeria, Caglayan said a bidding would take place in Algeria on 20 December to explore oil in the North region of the country. “Chance of TPAO is high in this tender”, he added. Caglayan said Algeria met 12% of Turkey’s natural gas need, indicating that Algerian Energy Minister expressed readiness to give more gas to Turkey in case it is needed. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Shalit: Hamas Encouraged by Druse Prisoners Release

(ANSAmed) — GAZA, OCTOBER 23 — German mediation efforts are moving forward at “a fast pace” for a prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas, which since 2006 has been holding Corporal Ghilad Shalit prisoner in Gaza, reported Osama Mezeini, a Hamas leader in Gaza in charge of coordinating the indirect negotiations with Israel. Mezeini told the Palestinian press agency MAAN that Hamas had been encouraged by the recent release of two Druze prisoners by Israel. He said that the latter had happened on the explicit request by Hamas, after a few weeks ago Israel received a few minutes of footage showing Shalit for the first time in the secret place where he is being held. Mezeini was referring to the release on October 15 of the Druse Issam al-Luli and Bashar al-Moqt, both residents in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Both had been sentenced to 27 years in jail for armed activities against Israel and were to have been released in four years. In Israel, their early release was called a “goodwill gesture”. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Unprecedented IDF Mutiny at Kotel

(IsraelNN.com) An unprecedented mutiny took place at the swearing-in ceremony of Shimshon Battalion soldiers at the Kotel Thursday evening. Immediately after being sworn in, some of the soldiers raised large signs which said “Shimshon Battalion does not carry out evictions at Homesh.”

Parents of soldiers also raised similar signs at the same moment.

[Video shows soldiers shouting out vow of allegiance and unfurling sign, subsequent talk with commanders. / Arutz Sheva.]

The anger and frustration within the ranks of the Shimshon soldiers and their families reached a boiling point after the battalion carried out numerous evictions at Homesh — a Shomron (Samaria) community that was razed in the “Disengagement”.

Just as the Kfir Regiment Commander began his speech at the ceremony, soldiers from the battalion and raised two large signs against the evictions. Similar signs were raised by the soldiers’ relatives in the audience. The “Disengagement” carried out in 2005 by the government of now-comatose Ariel Sharon included the destruction of all Jewish communities in Gaza. It was carried out in the hope of bringing about peace with the Arabs. However, no peace has materialized, and Jewish activists have been persistent in their attempts to return to Homesh. The military, on its side, has been evicting these Jews from the ruins time and time again — sometimes in a violent manner, and often on the Jewish Sabbath.

IDF officials warned Friday that the soldiers could face expulsion from Shimshon for their actions. “This was a shameful and anomalous breach of IDF discipline,” a spokesman said. “Kfir Regiment Commander Colonel Oren Abman will consider terminating their service in the regiment.”

— Hat tip: AD

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Italy-Cyprus: Kyprianou, We Want a European Turkey

(ANSAmed) — ROME, OCTOBER 22 — “Cyprus agrees that Turkey should become part of the European Union, but what we require is a European Turkey, not simply a Turkey inside Europe”. The Foreign Minister of the Republic of Cyprus, Markos Kyprianou, was speaking at the Foreign Ministry after his meeting with his Italian counterpart Franco Frattini. He defined their meeting: “a good opportunity for discussing bilateral and European issues, especially the question of enlargement, ahead of the discussion scheduled for December’s European Council which will look at Turkey more specifically. It is an issue of great moment for us”. According to the Cypriot minister, Turkey “has to fulfil all of the conditions and undertakings, as have all candidate countries. These conditions have been imposed on all EU member countries. Unfortunately, however, Turkey has yet to fulfil its undertakings — especially those regarding Cyprus — which were defined by the Council of Europe at the end of 2005. Many years have passed and if there isn’t an improvement, a sign of progress, by December, we do not think that this matter should be tackled as if it were an ordinary item of business”. Kyprianou went on to reaffirm how “he have good collaboration with Italy, in other matters too, such as over the Mediterranean and on immigration. There is a convergence of opinions and in policy coordination on these issues”. The Cypriot minister thinks that “over recent years, the Council of Europe has acknowledged that Turkey has not met its obligations and has simply appealed to them to do so. The latest report by the European Commission also goes into detail on all of Turkey’s obligations and recognises that Turkey has not fulfilled them. It is high time, after all these years, we think, that Turkey should answer for its refusal to comply. This is a political decision, not a technical question which can be addressed in the course of time. This is a political issue to be tackled regarding Turkey and therefore there should be consequences”. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Obama Offers Millions in Muslim Technology Fund

The White House said the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) had issued a call for proposals for the fund, which will provide financing of between 25 and 150 million dollars for selected projects and funds.

The Global Technology and Innovation Fund will “catalyze and facilitate private sector investments” throughout Asia, the Middle East and Africa, the White House said in a statement.

Eligible projects would advance economic opportunity and create jobs in areas like technology, education, telecoms, media, business services and clean technology, the White House said.

OPIC said sample projects could help foster the development of new computer technology or telecommunications businesses, or widen access to broadband Internet services.

Proposals must be submitted by the end of November, and managers of funds that make a final short list will make presentations in Washington in January.

Final selections will be announced next June.

In his speech to the Muslim world in Cairo last June, Obama argued that “education and innovation will be the currency of the 21st century” and that under-investment was rife in many Muslim nations.

As well as the fund, Obama also said he will host a summit on entrepreneurship this year to deepen ties between business leaders in the United States and Muslim communities around the world.

In his speech on June 4, Obama vowed to forge a “new beginning” for Islam and America, promising to purge years of “suspicion and discord.”

In what may be one of the defining moments of his presidency, Obama laid out a new blueprint for U.S. Middle East policy, pledged to end mistrust, forge a state for Palestinians and defuse a nuclear showdown with Iran.

— Hat tip: TB

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Signing of the Association Agreement on Human Rights Between Syria and Europe Delayed

President Assad talks of “technical issues”, but diplomatic sources in Brussels say that the origin of the delay is a clause wanted by the EU which gives them the opportunity to suspend deals in cases of proven human rights violations .

Beirut (AsiaNews) — Syria wants to “revise” the association agreement with the European Union. For a “technical issue”, according to President Bashar al-Assad; according to diplomatic sources in Brussels over a clause on the observance of human rights that the Europe wants included.

“I have always supported cooperation with the European Union — the Syrian president said yesterday on state television — it is a priority. But first we must cooperate more effectively with Europe, before signing this Association agreement there is a technical issue”.

Rumours in Brussels report the question is quite different. Days ago there was talk of the 26 of this month as the date of the signing of the agreement, then of a referral. At its origin, according to European diplomatic sources, there is a request made by the Dutch in particular and endorsed by the Swedish who hold EU Presidency, to introduce a clause in the treaty that provides for the EU’s right to suspend it in the case of proven rights violations. Over the very same question of respect for human rights, however, a draft agreement between Syria and Europe, drawn up in 2004, was never signed.

This time, already in the middle of October, the Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, had raised the possibility of a postponement, saying that “if the government finish the exam during the Swedish presidency we will sign the agreement, otherwise we will do so with the Spanish” presidency which begins early next year.

Assad’s intervention puts an end to the question, for the time being. It should be noted that the Syrian president has referred to what he himself would have said during conversations with Tarja Halonen, President of Finland, on a visit to Damascus (see photo). But in the lavish reports on the Mrs. Halonen’s visit made by the Syrian official news sources — especially dedicated to what was said by Assad — the issue was not discussed. The only reference was contained in the news on the meeting between foreign ministers of both countries, from which we learn that the Finnish Minister Alexander Stubb, “expressed strong support for signing the Association Agreement between Syria and EU.” An that was all. (PD)

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Syria-EU: Association Agreement; Assad, We Want to Reflect

(ANSAmed) — DAMASCUS, OCTOBER 22 — After four years of stalling due to the political opposition of some countries of the European Union, “technical” reasons are now reportedly the basis for the Syrian request to postpone in extremis the signing of the association agreement with the EU, scheduled for Luxembourg on Monday. The agreement, in exchange for easier trade, asks Damascus to commit itself to human rights inside its borders. Speaking to journalists in a live press conference on State television, the Syrian president Bashar al Assad said today that Damascus intends “to reconsider the agreement with Europe”. In the conference held at the end of the meeting with Finnish president Tarja Halonen, on visit to Damascus today, Assad affirmed having “always supported the partnership with the European Union” and that it is “a priority”. For the leader in Damascus however “there is the need to cooperate effectively with Europe before the agreement is signed. It is only a technical question”. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Turkey: Ankara Censors Controversial TV Series

(by Furio Morroni) (ANSAmed) — ANKARA, OCTOBER 22 — Relations between Israel and Turkey must be recovered at any cost, which have continued down a bumpy path since last January 29, when at the Davos Forum, Turkish Premier Tayyip Erdogan controversially abandoned for not having been able to reply to Israeli president Shimon Peres. It is for this reason that Turkish public television (TRT) has decided to cut various scenes from a controversial show which it had put on the air in recent days increasing the tension that had already existed between Ankara and Tel Aviv, in which Israeli soldiers are seen shooting at Palestinian children. The first episode of the show, called ‘Separation: Palestine in Love and War’, was put on the air October 13 and infuriated officials from the Jewish country, according to whom the show “instilled hate towards Israel”. In particular in that episode Israeli soldiers were seen killing a newborn, a little girl and an old man, all Palestinians. In Davos, the motive behind Erdogans “scene” was the issue of the Israeli military operation “Cast Lead” against the fundamentalist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Turkey, which has had a strategic alliance with Israel and good relations with all Arab countries and the non-Arab Iran, is a lay nation of Islamic majority and apparently took a position contrary to Israel following the attack against the Gaza Strip. The last official agreement for military cooperation between the two countries was in February 1996 but strategic collaboration relations between the two countries date back to the ‘50s. It was during the Cold War and in Washington Turkey was considered a strategic platform against the USSR and to keep the US’s interests in the Middle East under control. It was therefore through the benevolence of Washington that Israel and Turkey in 1958 signed a secret military pact, just weeks after the republican coup that brought Abdel Karim Kassem to power in Baghdad. This agreement was the culmination of already good relations between the two countries and represented the creation of the “peripheral strategy” wanted by Israeli Premier David Ben Gurion. The Israel-Turkey pact was signed on August 29 and 30 1958 in Ankara by Ben Gurion and his Turkish colleague Adnan Menderes. To keep the meeting a secret, the aircraft in which the Israeli Premier travelled landed at the airport in Ankara simulating technical problems and the waiters that served lunch to the two leaders were officials from the Turkish Foreign Ministry. It was during the same period that Ankara and Tel Aviv formalised the cooperation that had already existed between the two countries secret agents. In spite of this, Turkey’s Premier Erdogan, as local analysts agree, created the incident in Davos to gain the support of more Islam supporting voters in light of the imminent administrative elections on March 19 which were won by a margin of 39%. Then, at the beginning of October, the diplomatic crisis exploded caused by the unilateral cancellation by Ankara of combined military manoeuvres in which the Israeli Air Force was also to participate. The manoeuvres, according to Israel, were cancelled by Ankara as a sign of disapproval for the attacks against the Gaza Strip. But, as a spokesman for the Turkish government, Cemil Cicek, reported, the decision to cancel the participation of Israel was made by the Turkish Chief of Staff on the proposal of leaders from the air force for the lack of delivery of 7 of 10 Heron spy planes (drones without pilots) commissioned in 2005 by Turkey to the Israeli aerospace industry with a contract worth 180 million dollars. The show however id also causing tension between Turkey and Iran. It is not regarding ideological motives, but more simply the fact that the production of the series has not paid the hotel bill in Iran where the actors and film crews stayed yet. For this reason the Foreign Minister in Tehran sent written notice to that of Ankara. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Yemen: Clashes Between Inhabitants and Saudi Forces at Border

(ANSAmed) — SANAA, OCTOBER 22 — Yemeni Shiite rebels reported the death and wounding of various people, Saudis and Yemenis, during clashes between the inhabitants of northern Yemen and Riyadh’s regular army, which, according to rebels, is attempting to construct a wall at the border between the two countries in Yemeni territory. “Saudi forces opened fire, after a clash with the local population on the construction on the part of the Saudi’s of a wall on Yemeni territory”, reads a document published on the internet site of the rebel group. “The residents of the area refuse any kind of fence that would have a negative economic impact for them and separate them from their brothers living on the other side”. The rebels often accuse Saudi Arabia of supporting the Yemeni army offensive against the Shiite rebels, but Sanaa denies Saudi involvement. At the origin of the discrimination against the Shiite minority in Yemen is reportedly an alliance between president Ali Abdullah Saleh and Saudi Arabia, the bordering Sunni power. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Energy: Putin Speaks of Projects With Berlusconi & Erdogan

(ANSAmed) — MOSCOW, OCTOBER 22 — Russian premier Vladimir Putin and his Italian visitor Silvio Berlusconi have spoken today via online conference with the Turkish premier, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Among the subjects were the Gazprom-Eni South Stream pipeline project and the Italo-Russian and Turkish Samsun-Ceyhan oil pipeline project, due to connect the Turkish Black Sea coast with its Mediterranean coast. Speaking on Russia’s second state tv channel, where he appears seated alongside Berlusconi in front of a green marble fireplace, Putin told his viewers: “I have informed premier Erdogan of the initial negotiations held with Kazakhstan” (whose President Nursultan Nazarbaiev is in Turkey today). “Our Kazakh colleagues have expressed their willingness to fill this pipeline with their oil,” he said with reference to the Samsum-Ceyhan pipeline. A joint declaration for its construction has been signed in Milan during the past few days. “This project is therefore becoming a great international project and it will make its contribution to strengthening Europe’s energy security,” Putin went on. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Bangladesh Islamist Group Banned

The Islamist organisation, Hizb-ut Tahrir has been banned in Bangladesh, the home ministry has announced.

Home Secretary Abdus Sobhan Sikdar said the government feared Hizb-ut Tahrir posed a threat to peaceful life.

It is the first time that an Islamist group which has not been implicated in any terrorist acts been outlawed.

The group has condemned the ban and pledged that it will not be silenced by a government it said was guilty of a “pro-imperialist stance”.

Officials say that Hizb ut-Tahrir has been banned in at least 20 countries and topped a government list of about 10 groups suspected of plotting subversive acts in Bangladesh.

Mutiny

“The government has decided to ban Hizb-ut Tahrir because they are against the interest of law and pose a threat to public security,” Mr Sikdar said.

Hizb-ut Tahrir has been active in Bangladesh for the past eight years.

Nearly 40 members of the organisation were arrested earlier in the year after they were alleged to have distributed leaflets in support of a mutiny by border guards in which over 50 army officers were killed.

Mr Sikdar said that intelligence agencies had been monitoring the activities of 12 organisations.

Out of those, four were banned earlier — they were suspected of involvement in what the government calls “terrorist” and “anti-state” activities.

The head of Hizb-ut Tahrir in Bangladesh, Professor Mohiuddin Ahmed, denied his organisation was involved in terrorist activities.

He said the group believed that terrorism and other violent acts were totally contrary to the teachings of Islam.

Professor Ahmed said that such action by the government had failed to silence his organisation in the past and would not succeed in the present.

— Hat tip: Sean O’Brian

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Dutch Defence Minister: “NATO Warning us on Departure From Uruzgan”

BRATISLAVA, 24/10/09 — NATO partners would regard a departure of the Netherlands from the Afghan province of Uruzgan as a “remarkable unilateral move”.” So said Defence Minister Eimert van Middelkoop Friday in an interview with NRC Handelsblad newspaper.

Two weeks ago, the Lower House adopted a motion in which the government was urged to ensure that all troops were out of Uruzgan after December 2010. Van Middelkoop says however that what the government will decide is still open. The cabinet does not legally require a parliamentary majority for a longer stay in Uruzgan.

The Netherlands is under “subtle pressure” within NATO due to the House motion, said the defence minister in the interview during the two-day informal NATO meeting in Slovakia. He noted that his colleagues from other NATO countries would view a possible withdrawal by the Netherlands from Uruzgan as a “remarkable Alleingang (unilateral move) that raises questions on the developments in the alliance.”

The House motion was put forward by the government parties Labour (PvdA) and small Christian party ChristenUnie, and supported by all opposition parties except centre-left D66 and the smallest Christian party SGP. The Christian democrats (CDA), the biggest government party, was ‘not amused’ by the broadly supported motion.

Van Middelkoop himself is a member of ChristenUnie, but made no effort Friday to give the impression that he supports his MPs. “The motion is there, it is the cabinet’s move. It is now open. Then it becomes important what NATO thinks (…).”

The Dutch armed forces, if they were to withdraw, would “switch from over-performing to underperforming,” added the minister, while “in NATO we actually encourage one another to perform.” He also remarked that “the Netherlands is very good at this sort of mission.”

Van Middelkoop terms the pressure of his colleagues currently still “subtle” because people know that the Dutch government still has time. He expects the pressure to increase in December, at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers. Then the second round of the Afghan presidential elections will be over and US President Barack Obama will have made a decision on the possible deployment of more troops in Afghanistan.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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In Southern India, Hindu Radicals Declare War on Muslims Over Love Jihad

Sri Rama Sene leader Pramod Mutalik announces campaign against movement that entices young women into marriage to force them to convert to Islam. He demands that for every Hindu girl forced to convert to Islam, five Muslim girls be converted into Hinduism.

Bangalore (AsiaNews) — Karnataka’s radical Hindu movement Sri Rama Sene (the Army of god Rama) has declared war on the ‘love jihad’, an alleged network of Muslim men bent on enticing non Muslim women to marry Muslim men and then forcing them to convert to Islam. The announcement was made by Sri Rama Sene’s founder Pramod Mutalik, a figure in this southern Indian State well known for its intransigence towards secularism and non-traditional religions.

“I have asked the activists of the Sena to ensure that five Muslim girls are converted into Hinduism” for every “Hindu girl who is converted to Islam by the ‘Love Jihad”, Mutalik said.

The call to arms came at a press conference on Wednesday. It coincided with a statement by the State High Court expressing concern over attempts by the ‘Love Jihad’ to infiltrate the state’s colleges and university.

Similarly, Home Minister V S Acharya instructed police to launch an investigation into the matter in response to a habeas corpus petition by C. Selvaraj of Chamarajnagar district, in which he demanded that his daughter Siljaraj, who has been missing since August, be found. He claims she was the victim of the’Love Jihad’ after he found out that she had eloped with a young Muslim man from Kerala and been subjected to religious indoctrination. Similar cases have been reported in Kerala (see “Love Jihad: luring girls online and forcing them to convert to Islam,” in AsiaNews, 5 October 2009).

As part of his crusade, Mutailik and his organisation have launched an information campaign with literature for young people in Karnataka to alert them of the danger and urge them to make public any case that comes to their attention.

During the press conference, the founder of the “Army of god Rama” said that many of the tricked women are pushed towards anti-Hindu Islamic extremism. (NC)

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Indonesia: Islamic Groups Fine With Cabinet Exclusion

Jakarta, 23 October (AKI/Jakarta Post) — Indonesia’s two biggest Muslim organisations, Nahdhatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, say they are not disappointed by their exclusion from the new cabinet.

Muhammadiyah Youth chairman Muhammad Izzul Muslimin told Indonesian daily The Jakarta Post it made sense for president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to exclude NU and Muhammadiyah despite both organisations having large numbers of politically active members.

“Yudhoyono might not have felt the need to include mass organisations in his cabinet because his party won by a landslide in the elections and now he has a strong and big coalition,” he said.

“I think Yudhoyono might have felt he had all the support he needed.”

Yudhoyono did not ask either NU or Muhammadiyah to nominate any of their members for his cabinet.

Several cabinet members, however, are affiliated to the two organisations.

Ministers loosely affiliated to NU include National Education Minister Muhammad Nuh and Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali, while Justice and Human Rights Minister Patrialis Akbar was a senior Muhammadiyah official.

In 2004, Yudhoyono appointed Muhammadiyah’s Siti Fadilah Supari as health minister and NU’s Maftuh Basyuni as religious affairs minister.

“Back then the Democratic Party was still a small party and their coalition wasn’t as strong as today,” Izzul said.

He ruled out Muhammadiyah’s exclusion from the new cabinet because of its support of then vice president Jusuf Kalla’s presidential bid.

“The chairmen of both NU and Muhammadiyah might have seemed to be leaning toward Kalla, but neither ever formally announced their support of his bid,” Izzul said.

“So maybe this is just about the organisations’ stances.”

NU deputy chairman Masdar Farid Mas’udi was reluctant to comment on the matter, saying he considered Yudhoyono a regular “NU person”.

“We’re glad the President has put his trust in many of our members in the effort to make the nation more prosperous,” he said.

He added he expected they would all work hard to fulfill the president’s campaign promises and give their best to improve the people’s welfare.

“We as a community organization can only support them so that their programes are a success over the next five years,” Masdar said.

He added that he hoped the new ministers would involve mass organisations such as NU in implementing their programmes, especially in education, the environment and social issues, pointing out such organisations could put the government directly in touch with voters.

Asked for his opinion on the president’s performance in his first term, Masdar said it could only be appraised from Yudhoyono’s being re-elected.

“The fact he was re-elected shows people have appraised him positively,” he said.

“Whatever, let’s just move forward and hope they can all work harder and we in the meantime will support their efforts.”

Meanwhile, Al Khairaat, a Muslim organization focusing on education, based in Palu, Central Sulawesi, has two of its members in the new cabinet.

Social services Minister Salim Segaf Al Jufri is the grandson of Al Khairaat’s founder, while maritime affairs and fisheries minister Fadel Muhammad is the Al Khairaat Foundation chairman.

The overwhelming majority of Indonesia’s population of 240 million people are Muslim.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Australia: HSC Religious Question Unfair, Students Say

DISTRAUGHT HSC candidates have accused the Board of Studies of setting an unfair exam by including questions about subject matter not included in the syllabus.

Students who sat one of the Studies of Religion papers yesterday said they were shocked to find the exam asked them to provide answers they had not covered during the year in class.

Teachers also complained that part of the paper sat by almost 14,000 candidates across NSW on Thursday afternoon was unfair.

The Daily Telegraph’s website was deluged with complaints by angry Year 12 students but the Board of Studies denied the exam was unfair or contained misleading material.

A school master said: “Our students found section one and section two of today’s Studies of Religion HSC very fair but were upset with section three . . . as were the teachers.”

Question four on Islam, worth 20 marks, gave candidates a quotation referring to the Qur’an and the prophet Muhammad. Then it asked candidates: “With reference to the quotation, analyse the role played by the revelation through the Prophet in the life of Muslims.”

One student identified only as Clare said: “When we reached section three I think most students in the state had a communal heart attack as we discovered obscure and obtuse questions which were from absolutely no part of the otherwise very straightforward syllabus.

“I just lost 20 marks from a paper I studied very hard for.”

As a number of schools called for an explanation, Newington College student Nick Grogin said he was stunned by one question.

“I had never seen anything like that in the syllabus,” he said. “Nothing about it related to what I had studied and been taught.”

Board of Studies chief executive Carol Taylor said she was aware of students’ concerns.

“I’d like to reassure them that the question was based on the syllabus and that it was looking for their knowledge of their mandatory depth study of a religion,” she said.

“The quotations used in the questions seem to have thrown some students — they were intended as a prompt or stepping stone into their answer and they will not be expected to have studied the quotations themselves.”

— Hat tip: Nilk

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Man Jailed Over Racist Attack on Indian Student

A gang of racist youths nearly killed a man during an armed rampage in an Indian grocery store in Melbourne’s west for the “sheer thrill” of the attack, a judge said today.

Drunk and carrying wooden planks ripped up from a nearby bus stop seat, the seven youths raided the Impex shop in Sunshine yelling “are you Indian?” as they randomly struck their victims on December 1 last year, the County Court heard today.

Indian student Sukhraj Singh, 28, was in a coma for 15 days and will suffer the effects of a severe acquired brain injury for the rest of his life after being beaten during the assault.

Eight men were punched and hit with the weapons and most suffered minor injuries but Mr Singh was beaten unconscious and spent months in hospital and rehabilitation after being struck three times to the head and body.

In sentencing one of the attackers, Zakarie Hussein, 21, of Braybrook, Judge Pamela Jenkins said today the group had deliberately targeted victims of Indian ethnicity in the “unprovoked rampage”.

The youths had been drinking beer in a park for about four hours before they went to the store in City Place just after 6.30pm where two of the teens began a racist argument with two customers, the court heard.

About five minutes later, the pair returned with their friends, most armed with wooden bars and one with a fluorescent light tube, and began smashing up the store and indiscriminately striking customers and staff as they yelled “are you Indian?” and “bloody Indians, f—- off”.

The shop’s cash register was stolen and the loot divided up among the offenders. Hussein received about $15.

In a victim impact statement tendered to the court, Mr Singh said metal plates had been inserted into his face, he had shed up to 15 kilograms and been left with lumps and scars on his head from the assault. “I am lucky to be alive, all my friends and family thought I was going to die,” Mr Singh said in the statement.

He said he suffered from dizzy spells and had undergone counselling after being plagued by nightmares and flashbacks.

— Hat tip: Sean O’Brian

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Chinese Ship Seized by Pirates Reaches Somali Coast

Questions remain as to whether China’s Navy will attack to free the hostages. If that happens, it would be China’s first naval battle in centuries. Ship seizure sparks a patriotic wave online.

Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) — The De Xin Hai, a Chinese bulk carrier, was seized by Somali pirates and is now anchored off the coast of Somalia. EU Navfor, the European Union anti-piracy force, confirmed yesterday the ship had arrived off the coast of Somalia and was near Hobyo. It was captured on 19 October in the Indian Ocean between the Seychelles and Maldives.

It is still not clear what Chinese authorities will do to free the 25 crewmembers on board, but they vowed “all-out efforts” to rescue ship and crew without endangering their lives.

The De Xin Hai carried coal, heading to India from South Africa when it was hijacked.

Until recently, piracy was centred mainly in the Gulf of Aden region. This is the first time a vessel was captured so far from the Somali coastline.

In addition to the De Xin Hai, pirates also hijacked a Panamanian-flagged carrier, bringing the total number of international vessels in their hands to seven.

Usually, such situations have been solved by the payment of ransom money; it is not clear whether China will do the same.

Three Chinese Navy ships are in the Indian Ocean, and are now sailing towards the Somali coast. They will join ships from NATO, the European Union, the United States, Japan, South Korea and Russia that have been deployed in the area in an attempt to secure merchant shipping.

In China, the hijack saga off Somalia has stoked the fires of nationalism online, with patriotic internet users calling for a showdown between the three Chinese navy ships and the pirates.

“Our government’s authority would be undermined if we surrender to pirates, and this would be a disaster for the leaders and the general public,” someone wrote online.

“China is a major world country and also a permanent member of the UN Security Council, so giving in to terrorism and piracy would make us the laughing stock of the world,” said another.

Various experts believe that China’s Navy is eager for a showdown. For months, the Chinese military have been showing off their modern weaponry and professionalism, displayed in great pomp and ceremony during 1 October celebrations.

If China does take on the pirates, it would be the first time in centuries that Chinese naval forces are involved in combat outside the country’s territorial waters.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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An Insightful Twist on the Alien Invasion

As I was preparing this week’s column, I read this from my own e-mails. And it’s so good, I just want to share it with you.

[…]

Dear Mr. President:

I’m planning to move my family and extended family into Mexico for my health, and I would like to ask you to assist me. We’re planning to simply walk across the border from the U.S. into Mexico, and we’ll need your help to make a few arrangements.

We plan to skip all the legal stuff like visas, passports, immigration quotas and laws. I’m sure you handle those things the same way you do here. So, would you mind telling your buddy, President Calderon, that I’m on my way over?

Please let him know that I will be expecting the following:

1. Free medical care for my entire family.

2. English-speaking government bureaucrats for all services I might need, whether I use them or not.

3. Please print all Mexican government forms in English.

4. I want my grandkids to be taught Spanish by English-speaking (bilingual) teachers.

5. Tell their schools they need to include classes on American culture and history.

6. I want my grandkids to see the American flag on one of the flagpoles at their school…

— Hat tip: JD

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Don’t Listen to the Whingers — London Needs Immigrants

Amid the sound and fury over Nick Griffin, there’s a sad but unnoticed fact: it has taken this fiasco to make politicians talk about the impact of immigration.

Yesterday MPs Frank Field and Nicholas Soames called for a 75 per cent cut in immigration and accused the Government of “clamping down” on any debate.

What’s missing is not only a sense of the benefits of immigration but also of where it came from.

It didn’t just happen: the deliberate policy of ministers from late 2000 until at least February last year, when the Government introduced a points-based system, was to open up the UK to mass migration.

Even now, most graduates with good English and a salary of £40,000 or the local equivalent abroad are more or less guaranteed enough points to settle here.

The results in London, and especially for middle-class Londoners, have been highly positive. It’s not simply a question of foreign nannies, cleaners and gardeners — although frankly it’s hard to see how the capital could function without them.

Their place certainly wouldn’t be taken by unemployed BNP voters from Barking or Burnley — fascist au pair, anyone? Immigrants are everywhere and in all sorts of jobs, many of them skilled.

My family’s east European former nannies, for example, are model migrants, going on to be a social worker and an accountant. They have integrated into London society.

But this wave of immigration has enriched us much more than that. A large part of London’s attraction is its cosmopolitan nature.

It is so much more international now than, say, 15 years ago, and so much more heterogeneous than most of the provinces, that it’s pretty much unimaginable for us to go back either to the past or the sticks.

Field and Soames complain about schools where English is not the first language for many pupils.

But in my children’s south London primary school, the international influence is primarily the large numbers of (mostly middle-class) bilingual children, usually with one parent married to a Brit.

My children have half- or wholly Spanish, Italian, Swiss, Austrian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Congolese, Chinese and Turkish classmates.

London’s role as a magnet for immigration busted wide open the stale 1990s cliche’s about multiculturalism: it’s a question of genuine diversity now, not just tacking a few Afro-Caribbean and Bengali events on to a white British mainstream. It’s one of the reasons Paris now tends to look parochial to us.

So why is it that ministers have been so very bad at communicating this? I wonder because I wrote the landmark speech given by then immigration minister Barbara Roche in September 2000, calling for a loosening of controls. It marked a major shift from the policy of previous governments: from 1971 onwards, only foreigners joining relatives already in the UK had been permitted to settle here.

That speech was based largely on a report by the Performance and Innovation Unit, Tony Blair’s Cabinet Office think-tank.

The PIU’s reports were legendarily tedious within Whitehall but their big immigration report was surrounded by an unusual air of both anticipation and secrecy.

Drafts were handed out in summer 2000 only with extreme reluctance: there was a paranoia about it reaching the media.

Eventually published in January 2001, the innocuously labelled “RDS Occasional Paper no. 67”, “Migration: an economic and social analysis” focused heavily on the labour market case.

But the earlier drafts I saw also included a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural.

I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended — even if this wasn’t its main purpose — to rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date. That seemed to me to be a manoeuvre too far.

Ministers were very nervous about the whole thing. For despite Roche’s keenness to make her big speech and to be upfront, there was a reluctance elsewhere in government to discuss what increased immigration would mean, above all for Labour’s core white working-class vote.

This shone through even in the published report: the “social outcomes” it talks about are solely those for immigrants.

And this first-term immigration policy got no mention among the platitudes on the subject in Labour’s 1997 manifesto, headed Faster, Firmer, Fairer.

The results were dramatic. In 1995, 55,000 foreigners were granted the right to settle in the UK. By 2005 that had risen to 179,000; last year, with immigration falling thanks to the recession, it was 148,000.

In addition, hundreds of thousands of migrants have come from the new EU member states since 2004, most requiring neither visas nor permission to work or settle. The UK welcomed an estimated net 1.5 million immigrants in the decade to 2008.

Part by accident, part by design, the Government had created its longed-for immigration boom.

But ministers wouldn’t talk about it. In part they probably realised the conservatism of their core voters: while ministers might have been passionately in favour of a more diverse society, it wasn’t necessarily a debate they wanted to have in working men’s clubs in Sheffield or Sunderland.

In part, too, it would have been just too metropolitan an argument to make in such places: London was the real model. Roche was unusual in that she was a London MP, herself of east European Jewish stock.

But Labour ministers elsewhere tend studiously to avoid ever mentioning London. Meanwhile, the capital’s capacity to absorb new immigrants depends in large part on its economic vitality and variety. There’s not a lot of that in, say, south Yorkshire. And so ministers lost their nerve.

I hope it’s not too late now, post-Question Time, for London to make the case for migration.

Of course we’re too small a country to afford an open door — but, by the same token, if the immigrants dry up, this city and this country will become a much poorer and less interesting place. Why is it so hard for Gordon Brown to say that?

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Labour Let in Migrants ‘To Engineer Multicultural UK’

Huge increases in immigration over the past decade were a deliberate attempt to engineer a more multicultural Britain, a former Government adviser said yesterday.

Andrew Neather, a speechwriter who worked in Downing Street for Tony Blair and in the Home Office for Jack Straw and David Blunkett, said Labour’s relaxation of controls was a plan to ‘open up the UK to mass migration’.

As well as bringing in hundreds of thousands to plug labour market gaps, there was also a ‘driving political purpose’ behind immigration policy, he claimed.

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Labour ‘Encouraged Mass Immigration’

Labour ministers deliberately encouraged mass immigration to diversify Britain over the past decade, a former Downing Street adviser has claimed.

Andrew Neather said the mass influx of migrant workers seen in recent years was not the result of a mistake or miscalculation but rather a policy the party preferred not to reveal to its core voters.

He said the strategy was intended to fill gaps in the labour market and make the UK more multicultural, at the same time as scoring political points against the Opposition.

Mr Neather worked as a speechwriter for Tony Blair and in the Home Office for Jack Straw and David Blunkett.

“Mass migration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural,” he wrote in in the London Evening Standard.

“I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended — even if it wasn’t its main purpose — to rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date.”

On the BBC’s Question Time programme, Jack Straw faced questions about whether the policy has played a part in the rise in popularity of the BNP.

Mr Neather dismisses that argument, saying the policy has “enriched” the UK and made London a more attractive and diverse city.

Critics have been quick to accuse the government of creating an “immigration conspiracy” and introduced mass immigration to Britain for “cynical” political reasons.

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of think tank Migrationwatch UK, said: “Many have long suspected that mass immigration under Labour was not a cock-up but also a conspiracy, they were right.”

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said: “If this is true it is deeply shocking that the Government can have taken such significant decisions without public debate and public consultation.

“The essence of good decision-making in a democracy seems to have been ignored.

“Legal migration has undoubtedly brought great benefits to this country by attracting skills and talents from all over the world, but the shambolic control of our borders over the last 10 years has left a legacy of illegal migration which creates social tensions.”

— Hat tip: JP

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UK: Labour Immigration Plot

A FORMER Government speechwriter revealed yesterday that Labour deliberately set out to encourage mass migration into Britain.

Andrew Neather, who worked in Downing Street for Tony Blair and in the Home Office for Jack Straw and David Blunkett, said huge increases in immigration over the last decade were partly encouraged by ministers hoping to socially engineer a more multicultural Britain.

The “deliberate policy”, from late 2000 until “at least February last year”, sought to lure in more migrants, he wrote in an article published yesterday. Ministers hoped to radically change the country and “rub the Right’s nose in diversity”..

Mr Neather defended the policy, saying mass immigration has “enriched” Britain, but acknowledged that ministers made no mention of the policy for fear of alienating Labour voters..

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch said: “Many have long suspected that mass immigration under Labour was not just a cock up but also a conspiracy. This Government has admitted three million immigrants for cynical political reasons.”

MPs Frank Field and Nicholas Soames, joint chairmen of the cross-party Group for Balanced Migration, said: “It is the first beam of truth that has officially been shone on the immigration issue in Britain.”

Lib Dem Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne said: “The shambolic control of our borders over the last 10 years has left a legacy which creates social tensions.”

— Hat tip: JP

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Tom Tancredo: Hate-Crimes Law: Another Attack on Free Speech

The Senate has now passed the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act to add homosexuals and “transgendered” to the list of the officially designated victim groups. The House already approved the bill, and President Obama plans on signing it.

I am against the idea of hate crimes to begin with. When it comes to murderers and rapists, I’m an egalitarian. No matter what race, religion, creed, or sexual preference of the perpetrator, I think we should throw the book at them.

But we already have laws against violent crime. The only purpose of hate-crime legislation is to stifle politically incorrect speech. The left repeatedly claims that there is absolutely no way that these laws will be used to criminalize speech. Yet at the same time, they are claiming that conservatism fuels hate crimes.

[…]

Hate-crime statistics are compiled from the FBI’s “Hate Crime Incident Report,” which lists 21 different “bias motivations” such as anti-black, anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and anti-Hispanic.

Oddly, under the current hate-crimes rules, the only category for criminals are Native American, White, Black, Asian and multiracial. So if a bunch of MS-13 gang members attack an African American, it’s listed as “White on Black.” If Arab Muslims spray paint a synagogue, it is “White on Jewish.” But if a white attacks a Hispanic or Arab, it’s listed as “White on Hispanic” or “White on Arab.”

A recent case in New York City shows both how illogical the FBI’s categories are and how the left uses hate crimes to promote their agenda.

— Hat tip: JD

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Why Muslims Are Not the New Jews

Easy parallels between today’s terrorists and yesterday’s immigrants distort history

Are Muslims — as is sometimes stated — the “new Jews”? In his hybrid documentary, The Enemy Within, broadcast last week on Channel 4, Joseph Bullman draws exact parallels between the historical experiences of the two communities. The comparison is superficially attractive and the JC’s own Jonathan Freedland was seduced by it in his column of September 18.

The programme’s narrator informs us that, in the 1890s, Britain was undergoing an influx of “foreign asylum seekers” including “anarchists — a group of fundamentalists being expelled from their own countries in Eastern Europe”. Bullman thus blurs the immigration of Russian Jews fleeing poverty and oppression in the Tsarist Empire with the movement of political émigre’s to safe havens such as Victorian London. The confusion is deliberately increased by use of the word “fundamentalist”. Yet the Jewish immigrants were neither fundamentalist in a religious sense nor, for the most part, anarchistic.

True, there were anarchists and revolutionary socialists among them. But how Jewish were they? Jewish anarchists were anti-religious. On Yom Kippur, they held a feast outside the Great Synagogue: hardly a sign of fundamentalism. Unlike today’s terrorists who act in the name of Islam, Jewish revolutionaries were driven by a secular ideology..

Moreover, Jews were fleeing a tyrannical regime and a large part of British society, especially the Liberals, sympathised with their fight against Tsarist autocracy. Contrast that to the situation today. Whatever their personal beliefs, British Muslims are popularly aligned with Islamic countries that threaten British interests, like Iran, or where British troops are battling Jihadist militants. Whereas many British Muslims with family roots in Pakistan return regularly, Russian Jews gladly cut their ties with the “old country”. .

Bullman argues that foreign anarchists found a welcome among disenfranchised British workers who were on the brink of revolution. Few historians of Victorian Britain would recognise this picture.

And what of the Jews? According to Bullman, “in the Jewish neighbourhoods, revolutionary sentiment [was] on the rise”. In one passage echoing right wing anti-Jewish propaganda, Bullman’s narrator pronounces that the “Anarchist movement was dominated by Jews”. This would have come as news to Prince Peter Kropotkin, Mikhail Bakunin, and Enrico Malatesta. It would have bemused Rudolf Rocker, the German who led London’s East End Jewish radicals for 20 years.

The British press certainly did conflate the revolutionary movement with the Jews, but this was a fantasy. If Bullman is trying to persuade us that the linking of Muslims with terrorism today is equally fanciful, sadly his own witnesses proclaim the opposite. Imtiaz and Hanif Qadir and Omer Butt all testify to the widespread radicalisation of young Muslims.

This is not to deny that Jews were involved in violent criminal acts for political ends. In January 1909, two Jewish Bolsheviks raided a payroll van in Tottenham, killing two people and wounding 20 others, including seven policemen. The fugitives were eventually killed in a shoot-out.

In December 1910, police interrupted a group of Jewish revolutionaries breaking into a jewellery shop in Houndsditch. An exchange of gunfire left three policemen dead and two wounded. The gang was later traced to Sidney Street, in Stepney. When the fugitives fired at police officers sent to arrest them, the Home Secretary, Winston Churchill, authorised the use of troops. Two Jews died in the assault on their hideout.

This mayhem in London’s Jewish district empowered the bigots who denounced “alien” immigration and reinforced the canard that Jews were revolutionaries. But Jewish anarchists were mostly pacific. The worst violence was committed by Marxist revolutionaries and they were not trying to overthrow the British government, as Bullman alleges, but seeking to fund the cause in Russia.

British Jews denounced the radicals; there was no hint of sympathy or justification for their acts. The Jewish immigrants were no less hostile. Jews in Whitechapel used their votes to elect a succession of impeccably respectable Liberal Jewish MPs to represent them. Unlike today’s voters for Respect, they eschewed religious fundamentalism and political dissidence.

If anything, Jewish radicalism, and the response to it, proves the very opposite of what Bullman intends to show us about Islamic extremism. Despite superficial similarities between the Jewish experience and the position of Muslims now, it is only possible to create a parallel by distorting history.

David Cesarani teaches the new MA in Public History at Royal Holloway that explores the use and misuse of the past.

— Hat tip: JP

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My first reaction when I saw this story was: “This has got to be a hoax.”

But it doesn’t seem to be.

In most European countries a citizen has very little right to privacy, even in his own home. If you live in the Netherlands, however, a thief may claim a right to privacy — in your home.

Here’s the story from De Telegraaf, as translated by our expatriate Dutch correspondent H. Numan (follow the link for the video):

‘Camera in a private residence violates privacy of intruder’

EMMEN — Police in Drenthe province placed video images of an intruder on the Internet. Doing that damages the privacy of an intruder, is the opinion of the Lawbreakers Association [yes, it really exists — translator]. The Association filed a complaint with the National Ombudsman.

The images show the suspect searching the living room of an 88-year-old woman in Emmen. The cameras were put in place by the woman’s family, because it isn’t the first time this suspect broke in to her house. The family handed the tapes in to the police.

– – – – – – – – –

According to the Association, suspects are allowed to be videotaped in shops. “But this goes too far in private residences,” according to a spokesman. “Going to the National Ombudsman is a kind of legal trial to see how far people are allowed to go.”

To make such a video public requires permission of the District Attorney. That was granted in this particular case.

The police in Drenthe respond that they acted within the law, and the importance of the investigation has priority with regard to making this video public. No tips concerning the identity of the burglar have been received as yet.

H. Numan remarks: “I think a country like this really deserves sharia law.”

There 1,107 comments on the article in De Telegraaf as of post time, and I’ll bet a lot of them are pungent.

If you read Dutch and want to translate some of them for our comments, that’s fine, but please use asterisks or euphemisms when appropriate. The Dutch are not known for restraining their scatological impulses when their ire is aroused.

In light of the parlous state of social and political affairs in today’s Sweden, our Swedish correspondent LN has undertaken a survey of family life in his country, concentrating on the childrearing practices that have evolved over the last two or three generations.

In compiling his analysis, LN has condensed and summarized material from the linked articles in addition to providing direct translations.

How to capture one’s full humanity
or
Why do Swedes behave like Swedes?

by LN

An important seminar was held this summer on Skansen in Stockholm on the theme: Future psychic health — for today’s children and youth. Among those participating were internationally well-known experts in the compass of the topic.

The fact that quite new thinking is needed to make it easier for young people to grow was established. So many of today’s societal problems can be traced to ignorance of human emotional needs and a neglect of the tremendous momentum that exists in young people, if only they are allowed to blossom outside and beyond the controlling and limiting templates.

Children and adolescents need their parents and the adult generation more than they need their friends and buddies of the same age. Emotional muteness and mental health problems may be rooted in their poor relations with their parents. Too much child care can induce aggressive and destructive behavior in later schooling.

Swedish experts — and thereby the Swedish research in this area — are deplorably locked into the Swedish self-opinionated political system and find it difficult to receive input from other sources. Pretty presumptuous, one must say.

Dr. Gordon Neufeld is a clinical psychologist from Canada with a reputation for penetrating to the heart of complex parenting issues, and the author of the internationally recognized book Hold On to Your Kids — why parents need to matter more than peers. Dr. Neufeld’s message was that the younger generation’s lack of adult contacts in the Western world is one of the most disturbing and misunderstood trends of our time — peers replacing parents in the lives of our children. Dr. Neufeld has dubbed this phenomenon peer orientation [jämnårigorientering], which refers to the tendency of children and youth to look to their peers for direction: for a sense of right and wrong, for values, identity and codes of behaviour.

But peer orientation undermines family cohesion, poisons the school atmosphere, and fosters an aggressively hostile and sexualized youth culture. It provides a powerful explanation for conformism, aggression, schoolyard bullying, and youth violence; its effects are painfully evident in the context of teenage gangs and criminal activity. It is an escalating trend that has never been adequately described or contested until Hold On to Your Kids. Once understood, it becomes self-evident — as perhaps do the solutions.

“The Heart of the Matter — The role of emotion and attachment in learning and behaviour”

Professor Jay Belsky is an internationally recognized expert in the field of child development and family studies. His areas of special expertise include the effects of day care, parent-child relations during the infancy and early childhood years, the transition to parenthood, the etiology of child maltreatment, and the evolutionary basis of parent and child functioning.

Dr. Belsky’s research is marked by a focus upon fathers as well as mothers, marriages as well as parent-child relations, and naturalistic home observations of family interaction patterns.

Dr. Belsky has carried out several longitudinal studies focused upon the early years of the family life cycle, concentrating first on the first year of life and especially the interrelation of marriage, parenting and infant development, as well as the effects of day care and origins of attachment security, before moving on to carry out work on the so-called “terrible twos”, the second and third years of life.

Many hours in pre-school, regardless of quality, results in increased behavioral problems. Nor can pre-school compensate for the weak mothering of young children. A one-or two-year-old child with a less responsive mother develops better in the mother’s care than in many hours (10 hours/week) at pre-school. Children with a less responsive parent (mother) seem to need more time with the mother, said Belsky. Nor is there any evidence that preschool would improve the child’s social development. Answering a direct question, Belsky said that it is most important for a child’s development that it’s mother may choose the form of care that she instinctively feels the child needs — home, relative, neighbor, child-minder or nursery institution. The Mother’s choice here is therefore central, according to Belsky.

Articles by Jay Belsky (pdf files):
– – – – – – – – –

• Effects Of Child Care On Child Development: Give Parents Real Choice
• Are There Long-Term Effects of Early Child Care?
• Child-Care Effect Sizes for the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development
• Does Amount of Time Spent in Child Care Predict Socioemotional Adjustment During the Transition to Kindergarten?

DAGIS

In Sweden, pre-school activity and care of schoolchildren embraces children from 1-12 years. Pre-schools, kindergartens, formerly called daghem [“day-home”] are now called DAGIS. The German word kindergarten [children’s garden] is also available in English, and comes from the activities launched in 1837 by the German Friedrich Fröbel. Children’s Garden activities came to America in 1838 and to Sweden in1896.

Kindergarten’s main task was to teach the child to interact in groups and to become able to act independently. Child-care [barnomsorg] in Sweden is a collective term for the care and upbringing of children. In a more specific sense it refers to the temporary care of a child by other than the child’s guardian.

Until 1996, child-care was submitted to social politics and the Ministry of Social Affairs was responsible for it, but then it was moved to the Ministry of Education.

1935:		Alva Myrdal’s book “City Kids” was published.
1943:		As the result of a Government Report, state subsidies to kindergartens were decided.
1972:		The Kindergarten [barnstugeutredningen] investigation was completed.

Is Sweden still living in the past? Specifically, at the time when the Social Democrat Alva Myrdal and her husband Gunnar Myrdal, Joachim Israel and his former wife Miriam Israel, Olof Palme, and others — all impressed by the Frankfurt School and neo-Marxist sociology — decided how the future welfare state should be shaped. Female fosterers, pedagogues, in large nursery homes should in place of parents educate young children to become new, ideal citizens.

Children were to be reared by society to become good socialists in Alva Myrdal’s spirit.

In large parts of the world it is natural — or at least it was — that young mothers work less than men or not at all. Career women and mothers with small children gave notice and abandoned their top skilled jobs to become “stay at home” mothers. In countries where motherliness and motherhood is a large and accepted part of life, women could leave work to become full-time mothers without losing prestige or merit.

But not in Sweden. Taxes are now so high that today it is generally required that both parents work and pay taxes to the yawning chasm that the state has become. It is just as in the EU — you pay 50 billions to the European Union and get 20 billions back plus all the excellent but in most cases unnecessary services that the EU offers.

During the past decade alarming reports have been pouring in about women’s illnesses.

The doubling of absenteeism due to sickness in Sweden depends largely on the fact that the world’s most equal, healthiest, and most long-lived women are on the sick-list.

The sick women show diffuse symptoms of diffuse diseases such as burnout, fatigue, and anxiety. The number of early retirements has increased and is approaching ten percent of the working population. Approximately two thirds of all early retirees are women. At the beginning of the 21st century, Sweden has once again got a lot at-home mothers, home-mothers of the state. And this is quite all right because these at-home moms of the new era are supported by the state and not by their husbands, if they have any.

In 2008, the author and social commentator Dilsa Demirbag-Sten wrote in Dagens Nyheter: “The children are in the kindergarten and the adults are making careers. Many children are now in the kindergarten longer than their parents are at work — are full-time working parents the best thing for the children?”

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Karin Yngman is an author and a pre-school teacher of long experience who has a lot to say on these matters. Recently the following article by her was published on the open blog Emils Tankar:

Feminism makes traditional fathers of the mothers

by Karin Yngman

The State as deputy parent is worthless. The Swedish pre-school may be the world’s best or the world’s worst; it is not the State’s mission to have full control over our childrearing.

The entire public sector is in reality a political construction that is outside the market based on supply and demand, which would emerge if politics did not exist. The doctors would collect their fees from those who needed a doctor, the teachers would receive compensation from those who wanted to buy teaching. Anyone who was unable to look after their children would buy the service of someone who was able to offer that service.

Now we have decided that politics is a means to offset excessive gaps opening up between people when rules adjusted to the true conditions on the market are allowed to reign. As the State has the right to levy taxes, we can through politics equalize the ugliest — and for a civilized society the most unworthy — abuses which would otherwise occur. So far, so good.

But where does the tax money go? A not insignificant part is used to relieve parents from the right and duty to be parents. The state has gradually laid hands upon the children as state property (to become productive cogs in growth), and this has been possible partly through the compulsory schooling, partly by the bit-by-bit disconnection of parents from the expenses that health care, education, and social training incur. They may be involved and have to pay through their income taxes, but have no direct influence over how money is spent. Parents must approve the state and its methods of raising the children in place of their own care and efforts.

In return, the parents do not have to see the actual cost in hard cash of their children. Thus a hostage situation has been created. The state is not interested in taking in quotations from the children’s own parents. The parents are not desired as performers. Of all the full investments to carry and bear children, a few hours of cuddling time (alternatively, scolding time) remain outside of office hours. The real fostering and education is taken care of by someone else designated by the state.

Play with the idea that we have come a step further in the hostage drama. Rather than giving parents and children one year’s respite paid by the parental insurance, the child is immediately grabbed from the maternity ward. Purely economic, this surely would be a gold mine. The Parental Insurance is ‘swinishly expensive’, and the ‘labour demand’* ought to call for a more rational way to deal with the child problem…

Why do our stomachs turn upside down when thinking of day care centers for newborns [spädisskola] but not when thinking about the pre-school for one- and two-year-olds, who are as much in need of close contact with Mom or Dad? Is this because of the brainwashing: “We have the best pre-schools in the whooole wooorld!”?

Is it because we have been deprived of every shred of pride in being first of all a mother? In Sweden, mothers are rather more like good fathers who spend some time with the children after the day’s work is completed. As if that were enough!

A whole country full of traditional fathers…

And this they call feminism.

Rather it is the most vulgar form you can imagine of a man’s society.

Where are the ideologists? Shame on all of you who call yourselves (social) liberals! You should dig up your ideological compasses and try to get back on track again. Refresh your knowledge of the important ties and pedagogy, so that you end up in the present. Draw political conclusions from knowledge and ideological honesty and recognize the parental right!

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* “labour demand” or “labour line” = arbetslinje: the established principle in Swedish politics, expressing the idea that those fit for work have actively to seek paid employment — or, if in need of possible social service benefits, have to attend any approved training or activation course to get the welfare. Note: the “labor demand” does not apply to so-called refugees or other migrants.

In the daily paper Barometern in Kalmar, Karin Yngman has an important reminder 7/23:

Support home-schooling

Home-schooling for philosophical or religious reasons may be banned in Sweden. This completely amazing part of the proposed new Education Act seems to slip through without comments from the media. A teaching method that is experiencing rapid growth in other parts of the world and displays fabulously good results in countries where it is developed (mainly in the Anglo-Saxon world) will practically be prohibited in future Sweden.

Home-schooling was forbidden in Nürnberg, September 1935, by the Nazis — the ban is still valid — and now seventy-five years later Sweden will follow in the German footsteps.

We Swedes are verily living in the wisest and best of all possible worlds.

I wrote earlier today about the blatant move among Sweden’s political elites to establish a cordon sanitaire around Sverigedemokraterna and thus prevent the party from ever exercising any effective political power.

With the exception of the Danish People’s Party, the same process can be seen working against anti-immigration parties across the entire Western world. In Belgium and the Netherlands the major parties openly oppose any possibility of a coalition with Vlaams Belang and the PVV respectively. In the United States the same fate awaits Sarah Palin if she ever seriously attempts to usurp power from the castrated country-club weaklings who are in charge of the Republican Party.

And in Britain the cordon has closed tightly around Nick Griffin and the BNP. “Red Ken” Livingstone, the former mayor of London, spoke for the consensus of the ruling class in yesterday’s Guardian:

The BBC’s gift to the BNP

Nick Griffin on primetime TV is a political advance for the BNP and a great disservice to Britain’s anti-racist, democratic majority

The defence for inviting the BNP is to “defeat their arguments” and “expose their real politics”. But fascist political parties advance if they enter the mainstream of political life. The far right takes every inch.

This is a joke. The “far right” — meaning those who desire that ethnic autochthons should retain control of the politics and culture within their own countries — have scarcely gained a millimeter. The lockstep media wall guarantees that they will remain shut out of power until the entire liberal edifice collapses.

One the comments below the Red Ken’s op-ed drew the attention of a reader. He says:

The comments below the article show that the author’s views belong to the minority. One of the best: “The more I think about it, the more I find it morally acceptable, if not desirable, to maintain native cultures at the cost of a diverse life in Britain. Europe is on our doorstep and the world is getting smaller. It must surely be better to maintain individual cultures and go see them where one can, than melt them down into one non-cohesive mess.”

This point of view should be abbreviated into a slogan: ‘Save our Native Culture’ and exported throughout the USA and Europe.

The entire comment in question:
– – – – – – – – –

The constant retort that immigration has benefited our own British culture is nonsense. For a start, there is no such thing as British culture. There are English, Northern Irish, Welsh and Scottish cultures. A culture is a reflection of the ethnic group through various manifestations of its achievements: language, the arts, religion or customs for example. Every ethnic group has a right to express and maintain its own culture. That is the basis of the doctrine of multi-culturalism. From the point that Britain began to change into a multi-cultural state the indigenous culture, although still dominant by numbers, began to change by the very fact that when such a multitude of cultures are forced to co-exist each must mitigate itself. Cultures cannot remain mutually exclusive when they are forced to co-exist, there are going to be overlaps and newly created common grounds in the hope that a decent quality of life is maintained for both. This is inevitable and it would be folly to try and deny that. Indeed we can’t or we wouldn’t have equalities ministers and social cohesion quangos and so on. This perhaps goes someway to explaining why the Labour government and Conservative opposition appear so out of touch — they simply label it as “diversity” and call it “good”. Maintaining the fact that a culture can only be defined by individual groups it’s clear that multi-culturalism cannot therefore add a thing to the native cultures of Britain, it can only change life in Britain by adding to the range of experiences available. Life in Britain is what Mr Livingstone is attempting to defend, this new and multi-cultural, diverse Britain. There are of course advantages to this. Different food, different experiences for example. But there are of course disadvantages, lack of social cohesion, loss of native identity and transformation of the country as a whole. Mr Griffin and the British National Party are trying to defend the native cultures as opposed to Mr Livingstone’s life in Britain. This begs the question, which is it right to defend? I’m left wondering that if the native cultures of these Isles are not protected within these very isles, then where else can they possibly hope to exist? What happens once they are mitigated out of recognition in this “melting pot” island and consigned to the history books? On the other hand, defending life in Britain means defending large numbers of different peoples right to their right to maintain their own culture in the place they were born. If Mr Griffin had been able to articulate this accurately (which he possibly might have been able to) then who knows, the night might have been more of a success. However, he didn’t and Ken Livingston is doing exactly as described above and whitewashing over the negative social effects of what this country is going through. People are going to recognise that and by the time Mr Griffin is on question time again, Red Ken and his ilk might have poured enough fuel on the fire to ignite a backlash. Despite his fumblings, Griffin did make a point and I’ve tried to describe it here. The more I think about it, the more I find it morally acceptable, if not desirable, to maintain native cultures at the cost of a diverse life in Britain. Europe is on our doorstep and the world is getting smaller. It must surely be better to maintain individual cultures and go see them where one can, than melt them down into one non-cohesive mess.

***UPDATE***

From Drudge, here’s a report on the outbreak of a disease that ought to concern any parent whose children are not up-to-date on their mumps vaccines:

New York City’s Health and Mental Hygiene Department is warning doctors about a mumps outbreak in Brooklyn.

The cases started turning up in late August.

The outbreak began among children from Borough Park who attended summer camp in Upstate New York. Now, a similar outbreak is being reported in New Jersey.

So far, 57 confirmed or probable cases have been identified in New York. Cases of mumps have continued to occur in Borough Park since the start of the school year.

The victims have ranged in age from 1 to 42 years of age. Most of the cases are among children ages 10-15 years old.

Mumps is an illness characterized by acute swelling of the salivary gland lasting two or more days. The illness can cause deafness and encephalitis.

[and sterility in adult males – D]

Children who are not fully vaccinated against mumps are the highest risk of infection.

Some worriers out there have been predicting that President Obama would use his executive powers to shove policy his way. In the past, I dismissed that as overheated rhetoric, but now it’s beginning to appear that the paranoids got it right.

First, some context:

CBS News Exclusive: Study Of State Results Finds H1N1 Not As Prevalent As Feared

Last week, CBS News finished researching the swine flu “epidemic” and concluded:

If you’ve been diagnosed “probable” or “presumed” 2009 H1N1 or “swine flu” in recent months, you may be surprised to know this: odds are you didn’t have H1N1 flu.

In fact, you probably didn’t have flu at all. That’s according to state-by-state test results obtained in a three-month-long CBS News investigation.

The ramifications of this finding are important. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Britain’s National Health Service, once you have H1N1 flu, you’re immune from future outbreaks of the same virus. Those who think they’ve had H1N1 flu — but haven’t — might mistakenly presume they’re immune. As a result, they might skip taking a vaccine that could help them, and expose themselves to others with H1N1 flu under the mistaken belief they won’t catch it. Parents might not keep sick children home from school, mistakenly believing they’ve already had H1N1 flu.

Then CBS asks why the uncertainty about who does and who does not have swine flu:

In late July, the CDC abruptly advised states to stop testing for H1N1 flu, and stopped counting individual cases. The rationale given for the CDC guidance to forego testing and tracking individual cases was: why waste resources testing for H1N1 flu when the government has already confirmed there’s an epidemic?

Some public health officials privately disagreed with the decision to stop testing and counting, telling CBS News that continued tracking of this new and possibly changing virus was important because H1N1 has a different epidemiology, affects younger people more than seasonal flu and has been shown to have a higher case fatality rate than other flu virus strains.

CBS News learned that the decision to stop counting H1N1 flu cases was made so hastily that states weren’t given the opportunity to provide input…

Obviously, the CDC was acting hastily, so CBS News went into fight-the-bureacracy-mode:

When CDC did not provide us with the material, we filed a Freedom of Information request with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). More than two months later, the request has not been fulfilled. We also asked CDC for state-by-state test results prior to halting of testing and tracking, but CDC was again, initially, unresponsive.

“Unresponsive”? Quelle surprise! CBS, not being a bureaucracy, went directly to the states themselves:

While we waited for CDC to provide the data, which it eventually did, we asked all 50 states for their statistics on state lab-confirmed H1N1 prior to the halt of individual testing and counting in July. The results reveal a pattern that surprised a number of health care professionals we consulted. The vast majority of cases were negative for H1N1 as well as seasonal flu, despite the fact that many states were specifically testing patients deemed to be most likely to have H1N1 flu, based on symptoms and risk factors, such as travel to Mexico.

The website has a nice little graphic showing the results of testing. Here they are in tabular form:

State		Cases		Pct H1N1
FL		8853		17%
CA		13704		2%
AK		722		1%
GA		3117		2%

The CBS report goes on to fisk a sloppy story concerning a “flu outbreak” at Georgetown University. I urge you to read the particulars.

The research for this investigation took three months and uncovered some curious information:
– – – – – – – – –

CDC continues to monitor flu in general and H1N1 through “sentinels,” which basically act as spot-checks to detect trends around the nation. But at least one state, California, has found value in tracking H1N1 flu in greater detail.

“What we are doing is much more detailed and expensive than what CDC wants,” said Dr. Bela Matyas, California’s Acting Chief of Emergency Preparedness and Response. “We’re gathering data better to answer how severe is the illness. With CDC’s fallback position, there are so many uncertainties with who’s being counted, it’s hard to know how much we’re seeing is due to H1N1 flu rather than a mix of influenza diseases generally. We can tell that apart but they can’t.” [my emphasis – D]

After our conversation with Dr. Matyas, public affairs officials with the California Department of Public Health emphasized to CBS News that they support CDC policy to stop counting individual cases, maintaining that the state has the resources to gather more specific testing data than the CDC.

In other words, don’t rely on the national figures, do a reality check with your state health department. They’ll supply the truth while continuing to mouth platitudes about the CDC’s less-than-optimal approach.

And how’s this for medical advice?

Because of the uncertainties, the CDC advises even those who were told they had H1N1 to get vaccinated unless they had lab confirmation. “Persons who are uncertain about how they were diagnosed should get the 2009 H1N1 vaccine.”

CBS mentions the downside to getting the vaccine “anyway”:

…the CDC recommendation for those who had “probable” or “presumed” H1N1 flu to go ahead and get vaccinated anyway means the relatively small proportion of those who actually did have H1N1 flu will be getting the vaccine unnecessarily. This exposes them to rare but significant side effects, such as paralysis from Guillain-Barre syndrome.

It also uses up vaccine, which is said to be in short supply. The CDC was hoping to have shipped 40 million doses by the end of October, but only about 30 million doses will be available this month.

And guess what? The CDC didn’t respond to questions from CBS. The report was done without their cooperation. Imagine that.

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Our President is not letting reality interfere with his actions, either. From the New York Times and Washington Post come these stories. First, the Times:

President Barack Obama declared the swine flu outbreak a national emergency, giving his health chief the power to let hospitals move emergency rooms offsite to speed treatment and protect noninfected patients.

The declaration, signed Friday night and announced Saturday, comes with the disease more prevalent than ever in the country and production delays undercutting the government’s initial, optimistic estimates that as many as 120 million doses of the vaccine could be available by mid-October.

This is par for the course for the Obama administration: sign those executive orders on Friday night, when the media is off-duty for the weekend.

Less scrutiny that way. When the press reports back for work on Monday morning, the “news” is old by media standards.

Health authorities say more than 1,000 people in the United States, including almost 100 children, have died from the flu, known as H1N1, and 46 states have widespread flu activity. So far only 11 million doses have gone out to health departments, doctor’s offices and other providers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials.

Administration officials said the declaration was a pre-emptive move designed to make decisions easier when they need to be made. Officials said the move was not in response to any single development.

Health and Human Services chief Kathleen Sebelius now has authority to bypass federal rules when opening alternative care sites, such as offsite hospital centers at schools or community centers if hospitals seek permission.

Notice the lack of specificity here. Which forty-six (or fifty-seven, whatever) states are reporting “widespread flu activity” and, given the information we have from CBS, how much of that “flu activity” has actually been tested for swine flu and found to be positive?

Also notice the term “pre-emptive” because that’s the one you’re supposed to get used to and this fake emergency is as good a way as any to get you used to these pre-emptive “emergency” orders.

WaPo has slightly different wording, using direct quotes:

…Obama does “hereby find and proclaim that, given that the rapid increase in illness across the Nation may overburden health care resources and that the temporary waiver of certain standard Federal requirements may be warranted in order to enable U.S. health care facilities to implement emergency operations plans, the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic in the United States constitutes a national emergency.”

White House officials downplayed the dramatic-sounding language, saying the president’s action was not prompted by a new assessment of the dangers posed to the public by the flu.

Instead, officials said the action provides greater flexibility for hospitals which may suddenly find themselves confronted with a surge of new patients as the virus sweeps through their communities.

“The H1N1 is moving rapidly, as expected. By the time regions or healthcare systems recognize they are becoming overburdened, they need to implement disaster plans quickly,” White House spokesman Reid Cherlin said Saturday.

This is such a crock. Obama has to look like he’s doing something other than his usual “jack” and “squat” so he signs weekend emergency orders that aren’t really emergencies. They’re simply getting Americans used to “emergency-oh-my-gosh-orders” that will severely curb our freedoms. This one is a test, it is only a test…

The Times and WaPo ought to be ashamed for not giving some context on this piece of “news” emanating from the White House. For example, they could have compared those one hundred children’s deaths from the H1N1 virus with the two thousand kids who die in car accidents each year.

This “emergency” order, signed under the radar on a weekend is a good example of a probe, pure and simple. We’re being set up, folks.

Maybe it’s time to pay more attention to the paranoid gallery?