Jewish leaders around the world have condemned the Swiss minaret ban and voiced their support for Switzerland’s Muslims. In contrast, the Patriarchate of Moscow expressed support for the Swiss action against the construction of new minarets.
In other news, a Muslim cab driver in Australia has been charged with groping a female passenger who is disabled with cerebral palsy and epilepsy.
Thanks to AA, Barry Rubin, C. Cantoni, Esther, Fausta, Insubria, JD, Nilk, Sean O’Brian, Steen, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
– – – – – – – – –
Croatia: Unemployment Soars to 15.5%
(ANSAmed) — ZAGREB, NOVEMBER 30 — Croatia’s unemployment rate reached 15.5% in October, a 2-year high, according to the data released today by the national statistics office. Last month 1.485.000 people had a job in the country and just over 273.000 were registered as unemployed, 5% more than in the previous month and 20% more than in October 2008. The unemployment rate climbed by 0.8% on the month, and almost 3% on the year. Analysts expect another 50,000 people to lose their job in 2010, raising unemployment rate to 18%. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Boxer: Hackers Should Face Criminal Probe Over ‘Climategate’
Boxer, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said that the recently released e-mails, showing scientists allegedly overstating the case for climate change, should be treated as a crime.
“You call it ‘Climategate’; I call it ‘E-mail-theft-gate,’“ she said during a committee meeting. “Whatever it is, the main issue is, Are we facing global warming or are we not? I’m looking at these e-mails, that, even though they were stolen, are now out in the public.”
[…]
Boxer said her committee may hold hearings into the matter as its top Republican, Sen. James Inhofe (Okla.), has asked for, but that a criminal probe would be part of any such hearings.
“We may well have a hearing on this, we may not. We may have a briefing for senators, we may not,” Boxer said. “Part of our looking at this will be looking at a criminal activity which could have well been coordinated.
“This is a crime,” Boxer said.
[Comments from JD: Lots of comments to this article.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Congressman: Trials Tell Terrorists ‘Bomb US Here’
Opposition to granting masterminds civil rights, civilian hearings growing
Granting a 9/11 mastermind civil rights and a civilian trial in the United States is roughly the equivalent of inviting Islamic terrorists to “attack us here first,” asserts a congressman.
U.S. Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., told WND the decision by the Obama administration to move the prosecution of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad — the confessed organizer behind the nearly 3,000 deaths Sept. 11, 2001 — and several others to civilian court in New York, just a few blocks from where the Twin Towers stood, “is nothing short of an outrage.”
“It is an insult to the 9/11 victims’ families [and] an affront to our military,” Franks said. “Through its decision, this administration is implying that it does not believe the United States’ military is capable of successfully conducting a fair, efficient trial, despite the fat that our military courts routinely handle such proceedings, and have done so for hundreds of years.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Decorated Veteran, 90, Fights to Raise Flag in His Yard
A veteran of three wars who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor is now facing an unlikely enemy — his neighbors.
Col. Van T. Barfoot, 90, has raised the Stars and Stripes every day at sunrise and lowered them every day at sunset since he served in the U.S. Army. But on Tuesday he received a letter from the law firm that represents his homeowners’ association, ordering him to remove the flagpole from his Richmond, Va. yard by 5 p.m. on Friday or face “legal action.”
[…]
In a statement released last night, the association sought to defend its position against a growing chorus of outrage.
“This is not about the American flag. This is about a flagpole,” reads the statement from the association, which insists that Barfoot directly violated its board’s July ruling.
“Col. Barfoot is free to display the American flag in conformity with the neighborhood rules and restrictions. We are hopeful that Col. Barfoot will comply.”
The statement reminded the public that many American flags hang from homes in the Sussex Square community, and that the board members object only to Barfoot’s freestanding flagpole.
But Barfoot says he has always flown the flag from a height: “Where I’ve been, fighting wars … military installations, parades, everything else, the flag is vertical. And I’ve done it that way since I was in the Army,” Barfoot told the paper.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Left Destroys More Than it Creates
Watching the left attempting to undo the greatness of American medicine and dismantle the unprecedentedly powerful American economic engine built almost entirely on non-governmental entrepreneurial effort, I realize once again that the left is far better at destroying than building.
I first realized this as I watched the left — and here I sadly include the whole organized left from liberal to far left — do whatever it could to destroy one of the most wonderful organizations in American life, the Boy Scouts of America. From Democratic city governments to the New York Times and other liberal editorial pages to the most destructive organization on the left, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), there has been the most concerted effort to break the Boy Scouts.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Meet Obama’s Climate ‘Experts’
Socialists, conspiracy theorists, supporters of spreading wealth
Amid an international climate-change scandal involving hacked e-mails just days before a major U.N. climate summit of world leaders, it is instructive to profile top White House officials who are drafting President Obama’s climate policy.
Some of the officials include known supporters of socialism who have advocated using environmental activism to spread America’s wealth.
‘Climate czar’ Carol Browner
Carol Browner’s official title is assistant to the president for energy and climate change. She formerly served as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency administrator during the Clinton administration and was Florida secretary of the environment.
Browner was a member of the Commission for a Sustainable World Society at Socialist International, a group that Discover the Networks reports is the “umbrella for 170 ‘social democratic, socialist and labor parties’ in 55 countries.”
The Washington Times explained Browner’s group called for “global governance” and asserts rich countries must shrink their economies to address climate change.
[Comments from JD: see article for the others.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Progressives’ Convenient Fantasy
America was attacked by radical Islamists on Sept. 11, 2001, yet to progressives, what I would deem prudent comportment in the face of that action is silly and alarmist, or even racist. This despite the fact that radical Islam continues to arm itself and profess its intention to wipe out America and her allies.
My model for prudent comportment reflects a deeper understanding of the Islamic worldview than that of progressives. I have witnessed their actions. I have heard their rhetoric. I have researched their beliefs and their history. Hence, there is every reason for me to believe that Islam poses a threat to America and will continue to do so for quite some time.
While the masses stare glassily past the efforts of eager oligarchs and Marxists to distend government to cyclopean proportions, my tinfoil hat-wearing friends and I manifest a better, and even humbler, understanding of history and human nature. We know that humanity has not evolved into the august creation progressives would have us believe we are, in which our vast wisdom and divine intellect will consistently guide us to morally superior action. We know that civilization can be fragile and that human beings can revert to their primal nature in a New York minute. Just ask anyone who survived that hurricane former President George W. Bush coaxed ashore with his black ops technology to kill black people back in 2005.
Given the cushy perceptual bubble in which so many Americans live, they see no problem with turning over vast swaths of our economy to a demonstrably inept, self-serving bureaucracy, because they believe that its principals truly have our best interests at heart. They see no reason that the means by which Americans might defend themselves against a tyrannical regime ought not be regulated out of existence, because the idea that our government might someday initiate wholesale oppression of Americans is simply preposterous.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Schoolchildren Were on Hit List of Washington State Shooter
Maurice Clemmons threatened to kill more than just cops in the days before he massacred four police officers at a coffee shop.
Schoolchildren and others also were on his list of targets, according to court records filed Wednesday.
A witness told Pierce County sheriff’s detectives that Clemmons told friends and family gathered for Thanksgiving dinner at his aunt’s home in Pacific that he planned to kill “cops, children at a school” and “as many people as he could in an intersection,” according to an affidavit filed by prosecutors.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sprint Fed Customer GPS Data to Cops Over 8 Million Times
A blogger has released audio of Sprint’s Electronic Surveillance Manager describing the carrier’s cooperation with law enforcement. Among the revelations are that Sprint has so far filled over 8 million requests from LEOs for customer GPS data.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Yes, I Do Believe in Conspiracies
I am sometimes accused of believing in and promoting “conspiracy theories.”
To this charge, I must plead guilty.
For a long time, I have warned of a massive conspiracy to persuade the American public, in fact the population of the entire world, that life as we know it is threatened by a phantom crisis. This conspiracy is so massive and bold it seeks literally to usher in a new age of global governance, even though there is no evidence to support the claims behind the imminent threat to the planet.
Nevertheless, most of the news media, most government institutions, most politicians of both parties, nearly all schools and universities — even most corporations — promote this conspiracy.
And, later this month, a United Nations global convention in Copenhagen aims to build upon the work of this conspiracy in the hopes of promoting unaccountable global governance — turning people in formerly free countries like the United States into little more than serfs far removed from their masters.
I speak, of course, of the widespread conspiracy and increasingly obvious fraud known as man-made, catastrophic climate change.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Aryan Supremacy Reigns Supreme in Switzerland
Mustafa Akyol
You must have heard that the open-minded people of Switzerland took to the polls last weekend to ban minarets — in a country where there are only four of them.
These days, the global news is full of stories and commentaries about this apparently democratic, yet shockingly illiberal decision. But if you really want to understand the undercurrents that led the majority of the Swiss society to this unbelievable point, I would suggest watching a 1940 film, “Der Ewige Jude.”
This was an anti-Semitic “documentary” produced by Fritz Hippler, who, under Joseph Goebbels, ran the film department in the Propaganda Ministry of the Third Reich. The 62-minute film, whose title means “The Eternal Jew,” was made to convince its German audience that Jews were dangerous creatures who, simply by their existence, threatened the civilized society of the Aryan peoples.
Aryan aesthetics
Aesthetics was at the basis of the “Der Ewige Jude” argument. The movie presented extended scenes about life in Polish ghettos, focusing on the long hair, beards, skull caps and caftans of Orthodox Jews. Contrasting these Eastern-looking people with the blond, blue-eyed and heavily muscled German athletes, the film argued that there is a fundamental gap of values between the two.
“The Nordic concept of beauty,” it said, “is completely incomprehensible to the Jew.” The latter, according to the script, were “dirty” people who enjoyed living in “bug-infested homes.”
To further emphasize the argument of incivility, the film also focused on the Jewish religious practice of kosher slaughtering, in which animals are bled to death. “Their so-called religion prevents the Jews from eating meat butchered in the ordinary way,” the narrator noted, remarking on how dreadfully different this was from the “well-known German love of animals.”
“Der Ewige Jude” was not speaking without “evidence.” It “proved” all its arguments with carefully selected facts. When it argued, for example, that Jews are compelled by their “so-called religion” to hate and conspire against non-Jews, the film quoted a few passages from the Jewish scriptures that indeed said harsh things about the gentiles.
Finally, the film focused on current events of the era. It told how Jews were multiplying rapidly among the Aryan peoples, polluting their clean living spaces. “They spread from Eastern Europe like an irresistible tide,” it warned, “flooding the towns and nations of Europe.”
That was the year 1940. And we all know what tragically happened in the next five years.
Now, if you want to understand why all this Nazi madness is relevant to today, you just need to replace the word “Jew” in the paragraphs above with the word “Muslim.” You will get a narrative very similar to that told by the nascent anti-Islamic movement in Europe, including the Swiss People’s Party, the main champion of the recent minaret ban.
Of course, this parallelism has its limits. First, I should note that I do not, by any means, foresee a “Muslim Holocaust” coming. Probably no European nation will ever go that insane again, at least in the foreseeable future. Moreover, there are differences between the sources of the anti-Judaism of the early 20th century and the anti-Islamism of today.
The Jews had become the focus of Nazi hatred simply because of the latter’s vicious ideology. In the current hatred against Muslims, though, one has to acknowledge the part played by the reaction to some of the nasty stuff done in the name of Islam: terrorism perpetrated or inspired by Al-Qaeda, violent protests against satirical cartoons, the repression of women in some Muslim communities, etc., etc.
Yet, still, one needs the contribution of racism and xenophobia to move on from these serious problems among Muslims to go against Islam as such, and against all of its believers. The overwhelming majority of Europe’s Muslims are in fact peaceful and law-abiding people who are just trying to make ends meet. Banning the very symbol of their place of worship means telling them: “Hey, in our eyes, you are all dangerous. Your mere existence here is our problem.”
Yet another Semitic people to hate
I know this mindless paranoia well, because we have a similar problem in Turkey with the Turkish racists. They despise the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, for its indeed despicable acts of terrorism. But then they channel their reaction toward all Kurds, not really looking at whether they really support the PKK or not, and moreover, not asking why those who support the PKK do so.
“The problem,” their motto reads, “is simply the Kurds themselves.”
Turkish racism is ugly, to be sure, but so is the Swiss one. The core problem in the latter belief, as I said, renders down to the old idea of Aryan supremacy — the idea that European Nordic people, and their “civilized” way of life, are inherently superior to those of the Eastern Semites, who are “polluting” it.
In other words, anti-Semitism, an aptly coined term, continues. In 1940, the hated Semites were the Orthodox Jews whose darker skins, strange food, “dirty” beards, skull caps and long caftans were enough to make them deplorable to the Nazis.
In 2009, apparently, the hated Semites are now the Orthodox Muslims, whose darker skins, strange food, “dirty” beards, skull caps, long caftans, and, as a novelty, headscarves and chadors, are the problem.
Just too bad to be true.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Austrian Islamic Community Deplores Swiss Anti-Minaret Vote
By Thomas Hochwarter
Austria’s Islamic community has bemoaned the Swiss minaret referendum result this weekend.
In the referendum on Sunday 57 per cent of citizens backed a halt to more minarets being built in the country.
Omar Al-Rawi, the Austrian Islamic Community’s integration consultant, said yesterday (Mon): “With this decision the Swiss failed to make a statement against social exclusion, discrimination and populism.
“Human rights are not separable, and religious freedom rights are a main part of these rights.”
Catholic Church leaders and leaders of the People’s Party (ÖVP), the Social Democrats (SPÖ) and the Greens also criticised the result.
But Austria’s two right-wing parties — the Freedom Party (FPÖ) and the Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ) — praised the result, calling Switzerland a “role model for other European countries”.
There are three minarets in Austria: in Vienna, Bad Vöslau in Lower Austria and Telfs, Vorarlberg. The provinces of Carinthia and Vorarlberg have recently introduced laws which ensure no more minarets can be erected.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Banning Minarets to Save the West
So what’s behind the ban, supported by 57 percent of Swiss voters but condemned as intolerant and hateful by everyone from the Swiss government (officially) to various left-of-center political concerns throughout Europe? The obvious answer is that people in Switzerland, across Europe and notably in France — where stagnating birthrates and a breathtaking influx of Muslim immigrants are swamping these nations with a newly powerful Islamic presence — are terrified. They’re terrified because suddenly their countries are awash in adherents to a religion that glorifies death, subjugates women and threatens with violence anyone who dares to oppose it. Like the fictional towers of the snake cult of Set in “Conan,” the minarets of Islam are rising over the formerly free people of these Western cultures, and these individuals are aghast and afraid of what awaits them.
Citizens of Paris and other French towns saw this firsthand when throngs of violent Muslims burned businesses, schools and vehicles for day after day in 2005. France’s 5-million-strong Muslim population is the largest in Western Europe, and when these immigrants aren’t “feeling excluded” or otherwise expressing a sense of entitlement, they’re lashing out violently at those they believe don’t properly fear their faith. Politically correct news media often refuse to call these outbursts what they are — terrorism by adherents of Islam.
In Great Britain, the subjects of the crown are finding out the hard way that their legacy of civil rights and protections under secular law means little or nothing in the face of marching Islamic oppression. Just this weekend, while the Swiss were voting to ban minarets, The National newspaper reported that a shadow legal system, operating with or without tenuous official sanction, has established no less than 85 Shariah law “courts” in Great Britain. The judgments dispensed by these religious kangaroo courts, accused at the very least of “sometimes giving the Muslims who turn to them illegal advice on matrimonial and divorce issues,” may soon hold the force of U.K. law, as Muslims in the U.K. push for greater official acceptance of their Shariah code.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
EU Plans Police Exchange Scheme
The EU plans student-style exchanges for European police and judges in a new five-year blueprint to improve justice co-operation in the 27-nation bloc.
EU leaders are expected to approve the so-called Stockholm Programme at a summit in Brussels next week.
The funding arrangements and other details are yet to be worked out.
“We need more of a common understanding of other systems,” said Swedish Justice Ministry spokesman Martin Valfridsson, adding that the UK would participate.
He told the BBC that “we can’t achieve it unless there is more contact between law enforcement agencies on a day-to-day basis”.
The plan, spearheaded by Sweden as current holder of the EU presidency, would still respect the independence of judges, he stressed.
“We can’t force judges to go abroad, but we will offer — and the member states would pay.”
Parliament’s new muscle
The blueprint calls on the European Commission to draw up a detailed scheme to make the training and exchanges a reality.
It would build on the justice co-operation that already exists, such as the European Arrest Warrant, which has replaced extradition procedures between EU member states.
The European Parliament is preparing to play a big role in the Stockholm Programme negotiations, because the Lisbon Treaty puts MEPs on an equal footing with EU governments in the area of justice and home affairs.
The latest draft of the programme says: “It is essential to step up training on EU-related issues and make it systematically accessible for all professions involved in… freedom, security and justice.”
“This will include judges, prosecutors, judicial staff, police and customs officers and border guards.”
The plan was criticised by Timothy Kirkhope MEP, leader of the UK Conservatives in Europe.
Speaking on the BBC programme The Record Europe, he said the plan lacked focus, and “the Conservatives have a problem with the whole question of a single area of freedom and justice in Europe”.
“Do we really need a European academy to train our judges?” he asked.
A Dutch liberal MEP, Sophie in t’Veld, said the parliament’s new powers of co-decision under Lisbon would mean “we’ll fight criminals in a much more efficient way”, because justice ministers would no longer be able to ignore MEPs’ views.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
France: Minarets, 46% of Population Wants Ban
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, DECEMBER 3 — A sizeable slice of the French populace, almost 50%, would like to prohibit the construction of minarets on French mosques following the outcome of the referendum in Switzerland, according to an IFOP survey carried out for the French paper Le Figaro. In the survey, 46% of those questioned said that they would be in favour of a ban on minarets, while 40% instead support their construction and 14% declined to express an opinion. As concerns the mosque building, 41% are against it, 19% in favour, 36% would not mind one way or the other and 4% did not express an opinion. In a similar survey published in 2001, only 21% of those questioned were against mosque building. In France a wide-ranging debate arose on the issue after the outcome to the referendum in Switzerland, which voted in favour of banning the construction of new minarets. The survey was carried out between Monday and Tuesday on a sample of 938 people.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: ‘Even Atheists Need to Switch Off on Sundays’
Germany’s highest court has ruled that Sunday should be kept as a day of rest and has overturned a Berlin law easing restrictions on Sunday shopping. Most German newspapers on Wednesday greet the ruling, some for reasons of religion and tradition, others out of a concern for workers’ rights.
Many visitors to Germany can find themselves standing outside a closed department store, perplexed to find that they cannot do a bit of shopping during their weekend trip. This is a result of Germany’s long-held resistance to Sunday shopping even in the face of growing consumerism.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Fini’s Off-Air Comment on Berlusconi — “Confuses Consensus With Immunity”
Private conversation between Senate leader and prosecutor Trifuoggi recorded at Pescara
MILAN — Silvio Berlusconi “confuses popular consensus, which he obviously has and which gives him legitimacy to govern, with a sort of immunity from any other authority of guarantee or control, whether it’s the magistracy, the Court of Auditors, the Court of Cassation, the Head of State or Parliament. Since he was elected by the people…” The quotation comes from off-air remarks by Gianfranco Fini, recorded by Pacotvideo’s Vincenzo Cicconi without Mr Fini’s knowledge and picked up by Repubblica.tv. The leader of the Senate was talking to the Pescara public prosecutor, Nicola Trifuoggi, on the final day of the Premio Borsellino award held in Pescara on 6 November. He had no idea that the microphones on the president’s table were on and recording the private conversation.
“I TOLD HIM IN PRIVATE TO KEEP A LOW PROFILE” — In the course of his conversation with Mr Trifuoggi, Mr Fini said, again with reference to Silvio Berlusconi: “I told him. He’s got leadership mixed up with absolute monarchy. Then I told him in private to remember that they cut off that one’s head. So keep a low profile”, said Mr Fini replying to a remark by Mr Trifuoggi, who had said about Mr Berlusconi: “He was born a couple of thousand years too late. He should have been a Roman emperor”.
SPATUZZA — Mr Fini also discussed with Mr Trifuoggi the latest revelations by the Mafia informer Gaspare Spatuzza. “Corroboration of Spatuzza’s statements could open up scenarios… let’s hope investigators are so scrupulous that… because it’s a nuclear bomb”. Mr Fini says to Mr Trifuoggi: “You will already know but Spatuzza is speaking openly about Mancino, who was minister of the interior… One is deputy chair of the magistracy’s ruling council and the other is the prime minister”. The prosecutor notes that the investigation has to be carried through and Mr Fini replies: “And quite right, too”. But when the footage was made public, Mr Fini telephoned Mr Mancino to clear up the fact that he had confused Mafia informer Spatuzza’s statements with those of Massimo Ciancimino. The Senate leader explained that he had attributed to Spatuzza what Ciancimino, the son of the former mayor of Palermo, had said about alleged negotiations between the government and the Mafia.
IMMORTAL WIT — Mr Fini even joked with Mr Trifuoggi. The opportunity arose during the speech by Aldo Pecora, spokesperson for the anti-Mafia Ammazzateci tutti [Kill Us All] movement: “We are all just passing though. No one is eternal. We don’t live forever”, said Mr Pecora. At which Mr Fini quipped: “If the prime minster hears you, it’ll really set him off”. Mr Fini adds: “A few days ago, I was rereading a book on the Italy of Giolitti. One opposition politician said to Giolitti, who was regarded as the criminals’ minister: “He represents a past state, not the State with a capital ‘S’. Effective, wasn’t it?” The prosecutor replies: “It’s worth digging up again”. Mr Fini concludes: “Actually, I might just do that, quoting the source. Sooner or later I will”.
Translated by Simon Tanner
www.simontanner.com
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Racism Row Erupts at Milan School
Milan, 2 Dec. (AKI) — A racism row has erupted at a high school located in the outskirts of the northern Italian city of Milan. According to the Italian daily La Repubblica, several 13 year-old students refused to sit next to Chinese students because they said they “stink”.
Faculty members at the Trilussa school, in the area of Quarto Oggiaro, have made a decision and ordered students to change their seats every 15 days to overcome the racist attitude.
“To see the classroom divided into ‘neighbourhoods’ was painful. Now the students will have a chance to get to know each other,” said Italian teacher Adele Moroni, who teaches a class that includes nine foreign students, out of a total of 22.
According to the newspaper report, the Italian students reportedly complained that the Chinese “do not pay their taxes”, “they steal our jobs” and are “different than us”.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Moroccan Would-be Convert ‘Hangs Himself’
Civitavecchia, 3 Dec. (AKI) — Prosecutors are probing the death of a 22-year-old Moroccan immigrant who wanted to convert from Islam to Catholicism. Said Bouidra was found hanged in the central Italian port city of Civitavecchia outside Rome late Wednesday.
Bouidra’s family was reported to have bitterly opposed his decision to convert to Catholicism and to had threatened and beaten him.
Earlier on Wednesday he had tried to drown himself in the sea but had been saved by Italian paramilitary ‘Carabinieri’ police and port officials, news reports said.
Prosecutors will investigate why he was allowed to discharge himself from a local psychiatric hospital where he was admitted after he tried to drown himself.
They will also look at claims by Bouidra’s friends that he had told them members of his family had threatened and savagely beaten him over his planned conversion.
“Said was terrified of his father, who under no circumstances wanted a Christian for a son,” said Civitavecchia’s local councillor for social services, Chiara Guidoni.
“To get away from the pressure he was facing, he had talked about going to France to join the Foreign Legion,” she added.
Bouidra was popular figure in Civitavecchia and was known to members of the city council as he had volunteered for Italy’s civil protection agency.
He assisted victims of the devastating 6 April earthquake in the central Abruzzo region.
“He came to the town hall on Monday to ask for help,” opposition councillor Vittorio Petrelli was cited as saying.
Last month Bouidra scaled a lighting post at the nearby coastal town of Santa Marinella’s football stadium and threatened to throw himself off, the local TeleCivitavecchia TV station reported.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
It’s Not Just the Swiss — All Europe is Ready to Revolt
Rod Liddle
A ban on minarets may seem racist to the BBC, says Rod Liddle, but in fact we should applaud any small battle won in the people’s war against the growing ‘Islamification’ of Europe
Here’s a very short and simple pre-Christmas quiz to get you into the swing of Christmas quizzes, as they will soon be taking up almost every page of your morning newspapers. A few years ago, Angus Roxburgh — one of the BBC’s chief Europe correspondents, based in Brussels — wrote a book about the rise of right-wing or libertarian parties on the Continent. He was referring to the success of the late and decidedly liberal Pim Fortuyn in Holland, the strength of the Flemish nationalists Vlaams Blok in Flanders, the Front National in France and so on. Now, all you have to do is answer the following simple question, bearing in mind the requirement for Angus, as an important public service broadcaster, to be neutral and objective in all matters. The question is this: did Angus title his book a) A Cool, Detached and Objective Assessment of the Rise of Right-Wing and Libertarian Parties in Europe, or b) Preachers of Hate?
Aww, you got it straightaway, didn’t you? As a supplementary question I might ask if you think the BBC was at all worried about this and thought it a transgression of its public service remit, but I reckon you’d find that question a doddle too. Move forward seven years or so and we have the BBC’s reaction to the referendum in which 57 per cent of Swiss people voted to ban the building of any more minarets in their country. This was, according to someone called Roger Hardy, the corporation’s ‘Islamic Affairs Analyst’ an example of European ‘Islamophobia’ and sent a signal to Switzerland’s Muslims that they simply were not wanted in the country. Swiss People Racist and Wrong, his neutral and objective article could have been entitled. Rog recently contributed towards a blog in which he denied that the almost complete and utter lack of democracy in Islamic states was anything to do with them being, uh, Islamic states. Just coincidence, then.
If anything, the Swiss vote was a riposte not to Switzerland’s Muslim population (which is a ‘small’ 320,000, according to Rog), but a riposte to Rog himself, or the many berks like him. In the last ten years the people of Europe have begun to revolt against what, at one extreme, they see as the ‘Islamification’ of their countries, or else they hold the more moderate position of being disquieted by the high number of Muslim immigrants they have been forced to receive, most of whom are antithetical to the indigenous way of life and have cultural values that do not accord with the resident majority. That they are told to shut up and stop being racist and Islamophobic by the EU, their own leftish politicians and the likes of Rog and Angus, only tends to inflame the rebellion.
The revolts have differed in their temperament, tenor and choice of target. The earliest and most ferocious occurred in Holland, where the talented and popular filmmaker Theo van Gogh, a descendant of the painter, was shot dead by a Muslim nutter who then attempted to decapitate his victim and affixed a note, containing one of those vainglorious adolescent rants with which you will be familiar from pre-suicide videos, to his chest with a knife. The population, already unhappy, decided it had had quite enough and started voting for Pim Fortuyn en masse and, indeed, for the likes of Geert Wilders. It came as a surprise to commentators over here — and presumably Rog and Angus — that Europe’s most liberal country could be the most antithetical to Islam. A fabulous misapprehension: Holland was the most antithetical to Islam because it was the most liberal. Its people looked at the corpse of van Gogh and saw what Islam could be like. ‘Education by death’ is how one liberal Dutch commentator wryly described it to me.
The protests in Denmark coalesced around those now famous cartoons of Mohammed — the furore over which was reported over here, although only two publications in Britain dared to test the Islamists’ medieval limits of freedom of speech with published cartoons of their own (Gair Rhydd, a student paper from Cardiff, and The Spectator. Private Eye? Nah, not a chance.) In France they moved to ban the burka, a concession to public disquiet and antagonism. In Belgium they began to worry about Eurabia, a crescent of towns and cities from Metz and Lille in the south through Zeebrugge and Antwerp to Rotterdam and Aarhus in the north where the Muslim populations had already reached 30 per cent or above. The irritation and sometimes fury spread: Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain and now Switzerland. Across Europe, opposition to Muslim immigration runs at a steady 60 to 65 per cent; the people of the Continent didn’t want the immigration in the first place, are not happy with the way in which the incomers have failed to integrate and do not want any more, regardless of what Rog, Angus and their political leaders might choose to think or how often they, the general public, might be written off as Islamophobic. In his recent study of Islamic immigration into Europe (Reflections on the Revolution in Europe), Christopher Caldwell wrote: ‘If Europe is getting more immigrants than its voters want, then it is a good indication that its democracy is malfunctioning.’ Precisely.
Banning minarets is, on the face of it, a fabulously inept and crude means of expressing disquiet about a growing alien minority within one’s country, rather like the Malaysian fundamentalist Islamists PAS banning McDonald’s and KFC from the state of Kelantan because they do not much care for America. It does not really get to the heart of the problem, any more than does the suggested banning of the burka in France, or Jack Straw moaning about Muslim women attending his surgery while covered from head to toe in hessian sacking. In all of these cases it is of course symbolic, a crie de cœur — and in the case of the Swiss, the only course of action which was allowed to them under the law. Nobody should be remotely surprised at the result of the poll. The Turkish government has whined about it, as you might expect (but then try building a Christian church anywhere east of Istanbul and see how far you get).
Caldwell’s book ended with a warning that Islamic cultural values might one day come to dominate in Europe, because of the lack of vigour and commitment from our own politicians. Maybe — but at least the public know what is happening and are not too cowed to complain about it.
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Jews Back Muslims on Minaret Ban
Citing religious discrimination, a diverse coalition of Jewish organizations is objecting to Switzerland’s ban of minarets on local mosques.
Swiss voters this week approved by a strong majority a referendum outlawing the construction of minarets. The measure, pushed by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP), was supported by 57 percent of the population.
However, Jewish organizations, realizing that a crackdown on Islam could have repercussions for Jews as well, have come to the defense of Muslim worshipers, arguing that the Swiss’s move was unjustifiable.
Rabbi Pinchas Dunner, executive director of the Conference of European Rabbis, an Orthodox organization, said “a war on religious freedom cannot defeat Islamic extremists. The best weapon against radical Islam is support for moderate elements in the Muslim community and promoting interfaith dialogue.”
In contrast, the Anti-Defamation League tied the move to religious discrimination against Jews.
“This is not the first time a Swiss popular vote has been used to promote religious intolerance,” said the ADL in a press release. “A century ago, a Swiss referendum banned Jewish ritual slaughter, in an attempt to drive out its Jewish population.”
Noting that the “Swiss government opposed the initiative during the campaign and underscored its commitment to religious freedom in a statement after the vote,” the ADL urged Swiss leaders to “be vigilant” in their “defense of religious freedom, even though the SVP is the largest party in the Swiss Parliament and has two of the seven government ministries.”
The American Jewish Committee’s David Harris echoed these statements. “The referendum result amounts to an attack on the fundamental values of mutual respect,” he said.
“While there are certainly understandable concerns in Europe over Islamist extremism, these cannot be legitimately addressed through a blanket assault on Muslim communities and their religious symbols,” he added.
Meanwhile, it appeared that Italy might hold an anti-minaret referendum of its own.
Roberto Caldeoli, leader of Italy’s right-wing Northern League party, said, “Respect for other religions is important, but we must put the brakes on Muslim propaganda, or else we will end up with an Islamic political party.”
French Ambassador Christophe Bigot told The Jerusalem Post that “Muslims, like Catholics, like Jews, should be allowed to worship the way they wish. So why limit construction of mosques?
“What is important in Europe is to work for moderate Islam, for an Islam that is based on education, openness and freedom. The decision of the Swiss state will be to limit the activities of the worshipers.
“I don’t think this is very helpful. This promotes the idea that we have a problem with Muslims. We don’t have problem with Muslims. We have problem with Islamists, and Islamists and Muslims are two radical differences. And this kind of decision blurs the lines.”
Asked if France’s ban on the burka was not the same, Bigot answered, “A minaret is part of the mosque, and the Muslims go to the mosque if they are religious. A very small percentage of women wear the burka. And here we are talking about a very, very isolated minority among Muslims.”
Asked if the burka ban was an infringement of religious freedom, Bigot replied that “religious freedom has to be combined with the duties of every citizen, and among the duties of every citizen — this is the French perception — there is kind of a minimum agreement of shared values, and among them is that every woman has the same rights as every man.
“And, as we know, the burka most times is imposed on women by men. So just from this perspective we don’t think burka is appropriate. This is not a free act, it is an imposed situation placed on them.”
Asked if the minaret ban could spread to other European countries, Bigot said that “the issue is different in France. The discussion we have is how do you finance the construction of mosques, and how do you create a national Islam.
“How much are we able to curb the influence of foreign countries on Islam in France. This we think is a valid debate, because we want a French Islam; we don’t want an Islam that is importing values form parts of the world completely disconnected from European values.”
Hegumen Filaret (Bulekov), a Moscow Patriarchate representative at the Council of Europe, voiced support for Switzerland’s ban.
“Accusing Switzerland that it is somehow discriminating against the Islamic minority would be at least lopsided,” Filaret told Interfax new service.
“The issue of minarets is not an issue of religious freedom, but it is an issue of political presence of people of a certain faith and ethnic background in a country. Taking into account a rapid rate of Islamization, visible signs of Muslims’ presence would have, in particular, a political tint,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
North Korean Designer Jeans Go on Sale in Sweden
North Korea is to make its debut in Western fashion by selling denim jeans in Sweden.
The first pairs of the jeans go on sale in a trendy department store in Stockholm on Friday — with a designer price tag.
The jeans, marketed under the Noko label, will cost 1,500 Swedish kronor ($220; £132) a pair.
But the jeans will only be available in black — because the North Koreans associate blue denim with the US.
Noko Jeans’ founders — three advertising executives in their 20s — say the idea of their project is to increase contact with the isolated communist country.
One of the three, Jakob Ohlsson, explained: “It’s a country that sometimes treats its citizens terribly, but we think our project is a way… to influence things.”
Blue jean taboo
The first of 1,100 individually numbered pairs of Noko jeans will initially be sold in Stockholm’s PUB store and on the internet.
The three entrepreneurs first contacted North Korean officials by email in 2007, but the project ran into a number of difficulties.
North Korea’s biggest garment company turned the idea down, but eventually they struck a deal with the state’s largest mining group, Trade 4, which runs a textile operation on its site.
Mr Ohlsson explained black denim was chosen because North Koreans “usually associate blue jeans with America. That’s why it’s a little taboo”.
But the high ticket price for the jeans is not simply aimed at finding an exclusive niche in the market.
Mr Ohlsson admitted: “The reason they are so expensive is that we didn’t have any experience in fashion, trading, or anything like that
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Poll: Czechs More Positive About US Foreign Policy
Prague, Nov 30 (CTK) — The approach of Czechs to the U.S. and its foreign policy has markedly improved in the past three years, according to a poll the CVVM agency conducted in October and released now.
Twenty-seven percent of those polled expressed a fairly positive assessment of the U.S. foreign policy this October, compared to 18 percent in September 2006.
The number of respondents with clearly negative stand on the U.S. foreign policy has dropped to 15 percent from 25 percent in 2006..
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Poll: 80% of Czechs Praise Cancellation of US Radar Plans
Prague, Nov 30 (CTK) — Four-fifths of Czechs are happy about the United States having scrapped its plan to build a radar base on Czech soil within the missile shield, according to an October poll by CVVM the results of which CTK has at its disposal.
The respondents mainly say the U.S. decision is good for the country’s security and sovereignty.
Some 12 percent of respondents are not happy about the decision.
The poll showed that 48 percent of Czechs are definitely satisfied with the scrapping of the plan, 32 percent are rather satisfied with it.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Rare Menorah Heading From Prague to White House
Prague, Dec 1 (CTK) — A rare Chanukah candlestick holder, a late 19th century masterpiece in possession of the Jewish Museum in Prague has set off from the Czech capital for the U.S. to decorate White House’s premises during a Jewish holiday ceremony on December 16, Jewish Museum director Leo Pavlat told CTK Tuesday.
Mary Thompson-Jones, charge d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Prague, took over the candlestick in the museum this morning. She is going to deliver it to Washington via diplomatic channels.
The menorah was made by Cyrill Schillberger in 1873.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Scottish Fans Urged to Wave Palestinian Flags at Match
Glasgow, 2 Dec. (AKI) — A Scottish trade union asked fans of the Celtic Football Club to wave Palestinian flags during Wednesday’s match with the Israeli football team Hapoel Tel Aviv in the city of Glasgow. British media said that the Scottish Trade Union Congress had asked Celtic supporters to “show solidarity with suffering Palestinians” at the Europa League game.
Celtic — whose fans often wave Irish flags because of their historic ties with Ireland and the Roman Catholic community — urged their supporters to ignore the call.
In a statement, Celtic said it was “extremely concerned” at the request, saying its stadium was “no place for a public demonstration”.
“Against this background, the club is extremely concerned to learn of a call to hold demonstrations surrounding the Celtic vs Hapoel Tel-Aviv UEFA Europa League fixture.
“Our primary concern is that event safety may be compromised by the diversion of police and those involved in public safety duties, away from their main task which is the well-being of all fans attending the match,” said a statement in the Celtic’s website.
“No matter the rights and wrongs of any cause, a crowded football match is not the place for a public demonstration.”
Last week, the deputy secretary general of the union body said that the demonstration was justified.
“This December marks the one year anniversary of the Israeli invasion of Gaza in which 1,400 men, women and children were killed in an act described by the United Nations as ‘indicating serious violations of international human rights’ and ‘amounting to war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity’,” said Dave Moxham in a statement.
The 22-day Israeli military operation in December 2008 and January 2009 was launched with the stated aim of ending Hamas rocket attacks against Israel.
The offensive killed some 1,400 Palestinians and injured more than 5,400 others, according to United Nations and human rights groups. Israel, however, puts the death toll at 1,166.
In addition, more than 50,000 Palestinian homes were destroyed by the Israeli army, as well as 29 mosques, two churches and 200 schools.
Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians hit by cross-border rocket fire were killed in the conflict.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Swiss Rightwing Rejects Parallel Muslim Society
The rightwing Swiss People’s Party is planning further steps against the spread of Islam in Switzerland following voters’ approval of a ban on new minarets.
High on the agenda are tighter legal measures against forced marriages and genital mutilation of women, as well as a ban on wearing the burka in public and special dispensation from swimming lessons for Muslim pupils.
“Voters gave a strong signal to stop the claim to power by political Islam in Switzerland at the expense of our laws and values. Muslims must be spurred to integrate into society,” said Adrian Amstutz, parliamentarian and senior member of the People’s Party.
His group — one of the main parties in parliament — was a leading backer of an initiative to outlaw the construction of minarets, which won over 57 per cent of the vote in a public ballot at the weekend.
He says his party will reinforce its calls in parliament for further measures to contain the creeping Islamicisation of Swiss society.
“Forced marriages, female circumcision, special dispensation from swimming lessons and the burka are top of the list,” Amstutz said, adding that the party was also considering outlawing special Muslim cemeteries.
Party leader Toni Brunner said Muslims who settled in Switzerland had to realise that they could not turn up to work in a head scarf.
“ Muslims must be spurred to integrate into society. “
Adrian Amstutz, People’s Party No parallel societies
The party said the outcome of the minaret ballot showed that Swiss voters did not want parallel societies and special rights.
“Our laws apply to everybody. We have to control immigration. Those who break the law have to leave the country,” a statement said.
The party collected enough signatures for an initiative aimed at expelling foreigners convicted of a crime or of cheating welfare. No date for the nationwide vote has been set.
In October the government announced it was planning to tighten the law to crack down on forced marriages, while the centre-right Christian Democratic Party has been pushing for a ban on wearing the burka — a loose body-covering including a face-veil — in a bid to fight for women’s rights.
Action
Amstutz is convinced the time is right to take action.
“Until now our proposals have been rejected or watered down,” he said. “Maybe it is finally dawning on the government and the other parties that they should do something.”
The party also made clear it would not tolerate any attempt to delay implementation of the minaret ban.
“Those who question whether the text of the initiative can be put into practice show an alarming lack of appreciation for democratic rights.”
The party leadership asked for Switzerland to suspend its membership in an international agreement if the European Court of Human Rights decided against the minaret ban. However, such a step was ruled out by Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey.
A local Muslim association in Switzerland announced on Monday that it would challenge in court a ban on the construction of a new minaret in the town of Langenthal, even if such a move would take years.
Chances are that Sunday’s decision by voters is likely to be overruled by the Strasbourg-based court, according to legal expert Walter Kälin, quoted by the Swiss News Agency.
There are currently four minarets in Switzerland and about 200 mosques and prayer rooms. Further requests to build minarets are pending.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The Court of Human Rights Goes Astray
Published in the Danish morning paper Jyllands-Posten, December 3, 2009. Translated to the English by Bruce Bawer, and republished at rights.no with the permission of the author.
Kai Sørlander, philosopher and author
The Court itself maintains that its decision is based on two articles of the Convention. First, article 2 of the first protocol, which says that if the state assumes certain functions in regard to education and training, it must respect parents’ right to an education for their children that is consistent with their own religious and philosophical convictions. And second, article 9 of the Convention itself, which states that each individual has the right to freedom of religion. The question is whether these articles do, in fact, logically justify the court’s ruling that crucifixes should be prohibited in public schools.
Let us first examine the requirement that the state, in public schools, must respect parents’ right to an education for their children that is consistent with their own religious and philosophical convictions. This must mean that if the parents are Christian, the state has to respect the parents’ right to an education for their children that is consistent with their Christian convictions. And if the parents are atheists, the state must respect the parents’ right to an education for their children that is consistent with their atheistic convictions. And so on, in regard to parents with various other religious and philosophical views.
This article alone does not lead naturally to the conclusion that crucifixions should be prohibited. On the contrary, one may conclude from the article that crucifixes should be permitted, if the state is to respect Christian parents’ right to an education for their children that is consistent with their Christian beliefs. In the same way one may conclude that the crucifixes should be removed, if the state is to respect the right of atheist parents to an education for their children that is consistent with their atheistic convictions. In short, when the court rules that crucifixes should be prohibited, it is not being neutral. It is ruling in favor of atheists and non-Christians. But in doing so, the court is itself violating the requirement that the state should respect parents’ right to an education for their children that is consistent with their own religious and philosophical convictions. For the court’s decision favors parents who are atheists over parents who are Christians. And there is no basis for this preference in the article itself.
If the court claimed that its decision against crucifixes were based solely on article 2 of the first protocol, then, the decision wouldn’t hold water, for the decision in fact violates that article. But the court claimed to have based its decision additionally on article 9 of the convention itself, which states that everyone has the right to religious freedom. When we take this further fact into account, does it strengthen the court’s ruling?
Absolutely not. One cannot say that pupils’ religious freedom is restricted if they are confronted by a crucifix in a classroom. The crucifix notwithstanding, the pupils are able to believe in whatever they — or their parents — wish.
But when the court rules the crucifix illegal, it may be because the court itself is defining the right to religious freedom more broadly. There is indeed reason to believe that the court is interpreting this right in such a way as to imply that there should also be religious equality — that it is operating on the assumption, in other words, that the state can only provide religious freedom if it also ensures religious equality and thus takes an identical and neutral posture toward all religions. Such logic would explain the court’s ruling that the state should not allow public schools to display symbols of any particular religion — because they violate religious equality and thus also religious freedom.
The validity of this argument, however, depends upon whether one can base an argument for religious equality on the right to religious freedom. One cannot. The inference is invalid. A state may very well grant religious freedom while at the same time according a special position to a particular religion. Indeed, the religion itself may serve as a basis for religious freedom. This is the case, for example, in countries like Denmark and Britain, and also in a country like Italy. These are countries whose development into secular democracies has been the consequence, in no small degree, of developments that have taken place in their established churches.
It should be further noted that the court has previously committed an error that resembles its inference of a right to religious equality from the right to religious freedom. It did this when it forbade exclusive contracts on the labor market. At that time, the court based its prohibition of exclusive contracts on the freedom of association (the right to form unions). But that decision was not logically valid, either. There, too, the court exceeded its authority and assumed a legislative role.
In the case of the Italian crucifixes, then, we must conclude that, all things considered, the court’s ruling is not justified by the Convention on Human Rights. The decision does not follow logically from the articles that the court has cited as the basis for it. The court has thus committed an intellectual error in its decision. It has taken upon itself a political power that is not appropriate to a judicial body.
But it is not only the judges on the court who lack the intellectual ability to carry out their roles properly. Article 2 of the first protocol of the Convention on Human Rights is a crushing example of poor political handiwork. The article requires that the state respect parents’ right to a public-school education for their children that is consistent with their own religious and philosophical convictions. But it is impossible for the state to ensure such a thing, if the parents of children in the public schools have irreconcilable religious and philosophical convictions. The people who formulated and adopted this article quite simply failed to understand the essential obligations of a democratic society. It is not obligated to provide pupils in public schools with an education that is consistent with their parents’ various religious and philosophical convictions. On the contrary, it is obligated to ensure that all pupils receive an education that acquaints them with the rights and responsibilities that will be theirs when they grow up into adult citizens of a rational democratic society. This is something else again. And it is something that all parents should agree upon, no matter what their religious or philosophical views may be. If a school fulfills this obligation, then parents are free to share their personal beliefs with their children at home.
Viewed against this background, there is no reason to prohibit the crucifixes in Italian schools. For they are there to serve not only as religious symbols, but also — indeed, primarily — as historical symbols. They testify to Italy’s historic development into a secular democratic society. In any case, such a decision must be a political one, not a judicial one.
This case provides a specific example of how the Court of Human Rights can misconstrue its proper role and assume political powers. It also demonstrates that not every part of the Convention is equally well thought through. But this case is not unique, and it illustrates a deeper political flaw. For a rational democratic society, the task of preserving itself and defending democratic values must above all be a political one. The ideology which demands that a court should be placed on a level above democracy, by contrast, turns such a task into a judicial one. What we are dealing with here, then, is an illusion which threatens democracy and its values. If we wish to rid ourselves of this illusion, we must make use of the democratic decision-making process to put the court in its place.
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Boy, Two, Is Snatched by Social Workers After Mother Refused Doctor’s Advice to Feed Him Junk Food
Like many toddlers, Zak Hessey was a fussy eater who refused his mother’s healthy home cooking.
Concerned about his falling weight, his parents sought the advice of doctors. That simple act triggered a shocking chain of events that led to the youngster being put into foster care for four months.
Paul and Lisa Hessey believe in the long-term benefits of healthy eating and rejected advice to feed their two-year-old son high-calorie snack food such as chocolate, crisps and cakes.
To their horror, social workers put Zak into foster care ‘to assess his needs’ and allegedly threatened the couple with the loss of their parental rights if they fought the decision in court.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Professor in Climate Change Scandal Helps Police With Enquiries While Researchers Call for Him to be Banned
The scientist at the heart of the climate change email scandal was today interviewed by police about the scandal.
Two plain clothes officers arrived in an unmarked car in the afternoon and took Professor Phil Jones to Norfolk Police’s headquarters in nearby Wymondham to give a statement.
Sources said the interview concerned the theft of emails from the university and alleged death threats since the contents of the emails were released, adding he was being treated as a ‘victim of crime’ rather than a suspect in any criminal investigation.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
What Iceland Can Teach the Tories
The Tories haven’t realised it yet, but out at the edge of the Arctic Circle, some hundreds of miles north-northwest of Britain, lies a small, tough nation which could teach them everything they need to know about how to deal with the European Union. The nation is Iceland. Its people may yet shame David Cameron and his Tories. They may show them how one nation can say No to Brussels, and to Lisbon, and mean it.
Just now, the Icelandic government and the Brussels eurocrats are getting ready to start negotiations for the accession of Iceland to the European Union…
[…]
The European Commission knows exactly how strong Icelandic resistance is to the EU, but it is going ahead with preparations for negotiations anyway. It appears that, as with the Irish referendums on Lisbon, ‘No’ is not an answer Brussels is willing to consider. The commission has staff at the EU delegation in Oslo monitoring the debate in Iceland, watching and translating news reports and political commentary, dispatching it all back to Brussels for analysis. Some Icelandic eurosceptics say the commission has observers in Reykjavik, monitoring political activities. Certainly the commission plans to open a full-time delegation there by the end of this month.
Already EU officials such as Commissioner Rehn have been making appearances on Icelandic radio and television, explaining the ‘benefits’ of EU membership. At the same time, some of those who support joining the EU claim those who insist on Icelandic independence are xenophobes. The European Commission has a propaganda budget of over £2bn a year, and the eurocrats know how to use it.
They know how to be underhanded, too. The 2,500 questions which Brussels told the government it must answer were questions on Iceland’s legal system, foreign affairs, politics, and more. The answers the government has just sent back to Brussels run to 8,870 pages in total. But Brussels submitted the questions in English, and the pro-EU government answered in English — publishing none of it in the Icelandic language, so many Icelanders cannot read what their own government has been saying about them. Even English-speaking Icelanders complain the questions were written in near-unreadable ‘bureaucratic’ English. I asked Ragnar Arnalds, a eurosceptic former Finance Minister, if the people were angry about this. ‘We do not use words like “angry” here,’ he said. ‘We say the people “criticise” the decision.’
What really sets the Icelanders against the EU is the question of handing their fishing grounds over to control by the EU. Iceland has an economic zone of 200 nautical miles, making an exclusive maritime territory seven times the size of the country itself. Fish represent one-third of Iceland’s exports. The idea of handing over control of all this to EU sovereignty is something even Stefan Haujur Johannesson, the government’s new chief negotiator on accession, has told me is unthinkable: ‘No other state has a claim on our fishing.’ He is confident that he and his negotiating team can secure an agreement to leave Iceland outside the common fisheries policy.
[…]
But Brussels wants to control more than just the Icelandic fisheries. The EU has aspirations to gain influence across the Arctic region. Already, three EU countries, Finland, Sweden and Denmark sit on the Arctic Council, alongside Russia, the United States, Canada and Iceland. But the EU has no seat. The council is growing in importance because of the possibilities of the polar thaw creating new shipping lanes through Canada in a Northwest Passage.
There is also the question of mineral resources in the Arctic, and the question of defence installations. Iceland has Keflavik airport, which until the Americans pulled out in 2006, was a key Nato airbase. Indeed, immediately after the financial crash last year, the Russian government stepped in with a loan to the Icelandic government of £3.5bn. Observers reckoned that Russia was trying to get friendly enough to negotiate access to Keflavik.
The EU elite would find it intolerable for all this Arctic negotiation to be going on without them. Judging by their past form, if Iceland joined the EU, they would start demanding a seat on the Arctic Council. They would argue that with four EU countries on the council, Brussels should have a voice.
The irony is that the voice that will count in all this is not the voice of Brussels, but the voice of a tiny population of 320,000 people on the distant island of Iceland. At the moment, the voice says ‘No,’ and there is nothing Brussels can do about it. A nation does have the power to say No to Brussels, despite what Mr Cameron says.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Serbia-Israel: Big Ceed Launches First Chain of Retail Parks
(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, NOVEMBER 30 — Israeli group BIG Central European Estates is bringing the retail park concept to Serbia with the first of 10 new schemes now on site at Novi Sad (Vojvodina), the countrys second largest city, reports Emportal. BIG CEE has appointed King Sturge as leasing agent on the 90,000 sq m mixed retail development which is due to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2010. The surveying firm, which has an office in Belgrade, will also advise on the rollout of the concept across Serbia over the next couple of years. Target cities for BIG CEE in the next few years include Belgrade, Sabac and Jagodina where it has already bought land for development, followed by retail parks in Serbias top 10 cities by population. Mark Barnes, Head of European Retail at King Sturge, says, “Retail parks are new to the Serbian retail market and the development of the flagship scheme at Novi Sad will structurally change the overall shopping scene in the country. We predict that edge-of-town retail parks will be one of the most exciting developments in the market for some time to come.” The scheme, called BIG Novi Sad, is located close to Novi Sad city centre and will be anchored by a major supermarket of 4,000 sq m. The 55-unit scheme will have a mix of electrical, home furnishing, DIY, fashion and other retailers. Ivan Todorovic, leasing agent at King Sturges Belgrade office, comments that the first phase of 29,500 sq m of retail space is attracting a lot of interest from both local and international tenants.(ANSAmed)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Morocco: Int’l Flights Boom With EU Deal
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, NOVEMBER 26 — International and low-cost flight are experiencing a boom in Morocco, the first EU partner country in the Mediterranean to have brought in a common air space with the EU-27. The target set by the government in Rabat of 10 million tourists in 2010 with the implementation of the bilateral accord signed with Brussels in 2006 now seems easily achievable. “In 2008 Morocco saw 8 million tourists, and even more in 2009,” said Hamid Zhar, air transport director in Morocco, who drew up an overview of the air space “revolution” his country is trying out while speaking on the fringes of a Brussels meeting for the Euromed Aviation project, which aims to promote a common air space (EMCAA) between the EU and Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, the Palestinian Territories, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey. “Low cost airlines,” said Zhar, “such as Ryanair and Easyjet, have come onto the market with large-scale passenger capacity and frequent flights, which are increasing in number every year.” However, there has also been local investment in the field: in addition to the most well-known international low costs airlines, “Moroccan low cost airlines have also been created”. The liberalisation of the air transport sector and the agreement with the EU have allowed for “an evolution in air traffic in the 2004-2008 period, practically 17% per year. The 2008 economic and financial crisis,” he added, “has had an effect on air traffic but, in contrast to what happened at the global level, Morocco saw an 8.5% increase in international traffic in 2008 and in 2009 we are sure to see an even greater increase.” The EU accord with Morocco has led to significant development in the market and, as a consequence, in the tourism sector, benefitting new destinations. “We have doubled the frequency of international flights,” added Zhar, “at a general level. We began in 2003 with 500 flights and now we have 1100-1200 flights per week. Before the liberalisation there were 20 airlines operating in Morocco while today we have 44”, making for a noteworthy increase in the number of passengers and lines. “We have an international traffic of 10-11 million passengers,” noted the director of air transport in Morocco, “with a total traffic of 13 million, compared with the 5 and a half million in 2003 — a considerable increase.” Before the accord, traffic was concentrated on Casablanca, while the past few years have seen growing increase in other destinations, thereby benefitting local economies. “As was seen in Fez, where there was a 40-60% increase on the year, or in Tangier, Marrakesh, Agadir.” After development in international routes, now the spotlight is on the launch of a new airline, a spin-off of Royal Air Maroc for domestic and regional flights with planes more adapted for short flights and a 72-passenger capacity. Further information on EU-Morocco relations can be found on
2009-11-26 16:39
http://www.ansamed.info/en/news/ME04.XAM16385.htm
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Algeria: New Law Sees 20% Drop in Algiers’ Port Traffic
(ANSAmed) — ALGIERS, NOVEMBER 30 — New regulations which have banned the berthing of ships in Algiers’s ports which are carrying non-containerised foodstuffs, vehicles and other goods. A balance drawn up by the customs service’s National IT and Statistical Centre (CNIS) have shown a drop in trade activity in Algiers’ ports of 20.37%, sinking from around 395 thousand tonnes of goods in October 2008 to 314 thousand in the same month this year. The decrease is even more significant considering the value of goods, which has dropped by over 38% from 615 million dollars in 2008 to 379 million in October 2009. According to the director of CNIS, Hocine Houri, as cited by APS, the new regulations “have brought about guarantees of greater fluidity in port traffic and better capacity control” of the many ports along Algeria’s coast. Since October 1st, ships no longer permitted to enter Algiers’ ports are sent to other ports in the country, such as Djen Djen, Jijel and Annaba (in the east) and Arzew, Oran, Mostaganem, Ghazaouet (in the west). (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Algeria: 2 Islamic Militants Killed in Kabylia
(ANSAmed) — ALGIERS, DECEMBER 3 — Two members of Islamic armed groups were killed yesterday in an Algerian army ambush near Tizi Ouzou, the capital of Kabylia and about 100 km east of Algiers. The two men, report several newspapers today in quoting security sources, were part of the terrorist cell active between Mekla and Ouacifs — one of the zones in the mountains of Kabylia, considered a hideout for groups linked to Al Qaeda for the Islamic Maghreb (formerly known as the Salafite Group for Preaching and Combat). The region just outside Algiers is under constant army garrison. Liberté noted that during the operation two Kalashnikovs had been found. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt-Algeria: 240 Mln in Damages for Egyptian Companies
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, DECEMBER 2 — Damages suffered by Egyptian companies in Algeria during attacks by fan in the hot days of the soccer crisis between the two countries for World Cup qualifying matches amount to 2 billion Egyptian lire, about 243 million euro. The amount is contained in a report for the Egyptian cabinet published by the independent newspaper Al Masri El Yom, while on a diplomatic level relations between the two countries seems to be getting back to normal. According to the report about forth company offices were damaged which froze 90% of the operations. The Algerian energy minister announced, according to the newspaper report, that investment projects between the Algerian Sonatrac and Egyptian companies in Algeria will not be affected by the crisis. Tomorrow, according to another independent newspaper, Al Shourouk, the Algerian oil minister is expected in Cairo to for the ministerial meeting of Opaeb, the Opec of the Arab world, while an Algerian parliamentary delegation will be in Cairo on December 22 and 23 for a meeting of the transitional Arab parliament at the Arab League. Meanwhile Algerian Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci gave clear signs of closer relations in an interview with the Pan Arab newspaper published in London, Asharq Al-Awsat. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Niqab Wearer Takes Top Cleric to Court
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, DECEMBER 2 — A post-graduate student has decided to take the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar, the highest seat of Sunni Islam teaching, to court for barring her from attending classes because she was donning the ‘niqab’ (a full face wear), a Cairo-based laywer announced. According to The Egyptian Gazette, El-Nabawi Ibrahim added that his client Huda Ramzi would sue Sheikh Mohamed Sayyed Tantawi for decreeing that all students, who wear the ‘niqab’, would not be allowed to attend Al-Azhar-run school, college and universities. Ibrahim, who accepted Huda’s case, dismissed Tantawi ban as a violation of constitutional and personal freedoms as well as an attack on religion. Last October Tantawi barred students and teachers from wearing the niqab because, he said, it was a custom which did not have anything to do with religion. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Islam: Minarets; Ulema Council in Morocco Launches Criticism
(ANSAmed) — RABAT, DECEMBER 1 — The Superior Ulema Council in Morocco, led by king Mohammed VI, criticised the ban on building minarets in Switzerland, calling the decision a form of exclusion and extremism. In a statement released by news agency, MAP, the council said that it can only criticise this orientation, whatever its origin may be, which is a form of extremism and exclusion. It expressed astonishment over the decision, which is contrary to the civil image that Muslims have of Switzerland, and hoped that the country finds a way to overturn the ban. Five times per day from minarets, the voice of the muezzin serves as a reminder of values that all of humanity believes in: devotion to God’s oneness, a call to good, and a banishment of selfishness. No one has the right to silence this voice, especially in the present day. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Islam: Minarets; Arab League, A New Referendum
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, DECEMBER 2 — The result of the referendum on minarets in Switzerland has led to a general climate where a lack of tolerance and the refusal to accept differences are evident and which is moving in the direction of civil conflict, said Arab League general secretary Amr Moussa during a meeting today with the Swiss ambassador to Egypt Dominique Wolfger. Moussa underlined the desire of the Arab League to have greater contacts and ease the crisis born out of fear caused by the Swiss referendum. Additionally Moussa appealed for the collection of 100.000 signatures in Switzerland for a new referendum and stressed the need for a legal move against the ban to both the Swiss federal courts and the European Court of Human Rights. Today’s meeting was requested by the representative of the Swiss diplomatic service to explain the situation created by the vote last Sunday. The ambassador said that, despite the fact that the cabinet and the majority of the members of Parliament do not agree with the contents of the popular referendum, the vote obliges the institutions to act on the results. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Libyan Hostages to Face Second Trial This Month
Two Swiss men sentenced to 16 months in jail for violating residency and labour laws in Libya will face trial for illegal economic activities later this month.
An unnamed Libyan foreign ministry official said the two businessmen would face charges of conducting commercial activities in Libya without a licence.
The second trial is scheduled for December 15. The men have one week to appeal the initial judgement.
Monday’s speedy trial was reportedly held with no foreign diplomats or reporters in the court.
Neither of the two defendants was present in court, according to their lawyer. They are both still staying at the Swiss embassy in Tripoli.
Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz said he was surprised at the severity of the first judgement, particularly as the men have already been detained for 16 months in Libya. The decision came a day after Swiss voters approved a ban on the construction of minarets in Switzerland.
Max Göldi and Rachid Ramdani were detained in July 2008 on alleged visa violations days after Swiss police arrested Hannibal Gaddafi, the son of Libya’s leader, and his wife for allegedly beating up their servants in a Geneva hotel.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Swiss Businessmen in Libya Given 16 Months
A Libyan court has sentenced two Swiss businessmen to 16 months in prison for visa irregularities and tax evasion, it has been confirmed by the Swiss government.
Rachid Hamdani and Max Göldi have been held in Libya since July 2008 after the arrest in Geneva of a son of Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi on charges, later dropped, of mistreating two domestic employees
The Swiss foreign ministry confirmed the sentences on Tuesday evening and said the men were tried in absentia and were still in the Swiss embassy in Tripoli.
Foreign ministry spokesman Lars Knuchel told the Swiss News Agency that the two men had been “sentenced on Monday for violating visa laws”.
He added that the foreign ministry was in close contact with the men’s relatives and was coordinating the next steps.
The men are reported to have one week in which to lodge an appeal.
Engineering giant ABB, which employs one of the detained men, said that it had “taken note” of the judgment, but made no further comment.
On Wednesday Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz said in one television interview that he was surprised by the Libyan move, especially because the men had already been detained for 16 months in Libya. In another interview, he added that the decision showed that Libya was turning back into a state governed by the rule of law and it was therefore a step forward.
An anonymous Libyan source told the AFP news agency that the businessmen were also fined 2,000 dinars (SFr1,650) each. They had faced a third charge of failing to respect rules for companies working in Libya.
In addition it was reported that the 16 months the men had already spent in Libyan custody would not count towards their sentence.
Earlier on Tuesday the Libyan official was quoted as saying that the two were present at the one-day trial and were taken immediately to a prison to serve their terms. The discrepancy with the Swiss government’s version of events could not be immediately explained.
Reactions
Libya’s move has provoked cautious reactions within Switzerland as well as speculation about whether the decision had been provoked by the Swiss vote in favour of banning minarets on Sunday.
Geneva-based Hasni Abidi, director of the Study and Research Center for the Arab and Mediterranean World, said he thought there was a clear link between the two events.
But Geri Müller, president of the foreign affairs committee of the House of Representatives, told the Swiss News Agency that Libya had long said it would mount a trial against the two men and for this reason it was difficult to know whether the sentences were a result of the vote, in which around 57 per cent of the population said no to minarets.
He said that it was important not to give up hope over the two businessmen.
Geneva sociologist and Libya expert Jean Ziegler said he thought the conflict was based on Libya wanting ransom money and that a deal would have to be made behind the scenes for the two Swiss to be set free.
The news of the sentencing comes a month after the Swiss government announced it was suspending a treaty aimed at normalising relations with Tripoli.
On November 4 Bern said Libya’s “systematic refusal” to cooperate with Switzerland in the case of the two Swiss prompted that decision. The men have been prevented from leaving the country for more than a year and were moved to an unknown location in Libya in September.
Switzerland described the abduction as a “violation of international law”.
“Relieved”
On November 9 the foreign ministry said Hamdani and Göldi had been returned to the Swiss embassy in Tripoli and were “as well as can be expected under the circumstances”.
The men were returned to the embassy without an explanation.
Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey welcomed their re-emergence, and said she had spoken by telephone to both men, who were “relieved” to have been returned to the embassy. They told her that they had not been mistreated.
On November 12 Libya’s foreign ministry announced that Hamdani and Göldi would be charged and tried “by the end of the year”.
Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaïm said the case of the two Swiss had nothing to do with the arrest of Hannibal Gaddafi and said the pair had entered Libya on tourist visas, now expired, but had been involved in business dealings during their stay.
Libya also criticised “systematic solidarity” for Bern by European countries in imposing Schengen area visa restrictions on Libyans. A spokesman said Libya had protested to European ambassadors and threatened to respond in kind if the measure continued.
Apology
The men’s plight has become the most visible sign of a dispute that stems from the 2008 arrest in Geneva of a son of Moammar Gaddafi, Hannibal, and his pregnant wife. The couple had come to Switzerland for the birth of their child.
Geneva police briefly took them into custody on accusations they had abused their domestic staff while staying at a luxury hotel in the city.
After two nights in detention, they were released on bail and left the country. The staff were later compensated, and the charges were dropped. The bail money was returned.
Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz went to Tripoli in August 2009 and apologised for the arrest, triggering heavy criticism at home for doing so. During his visit he signed an agreement with the Libyan prime minister to normalise relations. However, the deadline for its terms to be met elapsed on October 20.
On Sunday 57.5 per cent of Swiss voters approved a ban on the construction of minarets in Switzerland. Although the Swiss government opposed the initiative, the move has sparked an outcry across the Muslim world.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
European Rabbis Against Swiss Ban on Mosque Minarets
(IsraelNN.com) The head of the Conference of European Rabbis objects to the decision by Swiss citizens to ban minarets on Muslim mosques. “A war on religious freedom cannot defeat Islamic extremism,” he explained.
Rabbi Pinchas Dunner, executive director of the Conference, added that the best weapons against radical Islam are “support for moderates in the Muslim community and promoting dialogue among different faiths.”
Fifty-seven percent of Swiss voters and a majority of the country’s cantons supported Sunday’s referendum proposal. Backers of the ban said the minaret is symbol of fundamental Islam that is encroaching on the life of Europeans.
Italy may follow suit with a referendum of its own, according to Roberto Caldeoli, leader of that country’s conservative Northern League party. “Respect for other religions is important, but we must put the brakes on Muslim propaganda or else we will end up with an Islamic political party,” he said.
Catholic Supports Ban
A prominent Catholic figure from Moscow, where the European rabbis are holding their bi-annual conference, disagreed with the rabbis and supported the ban.
“The issue of minarets is not an issue of religious freedom,” Father Filaret told Interfax, “but an issue of political presence of people of a certain faith and ethnic background in a country. Taking into account a rapid rate of Islamization, visible signs of Muslims’ presence would have, in particular, a political tint.”
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Frattini: No to Unilateral Declaration of Palestine
(ANSAmed) — ROME, DECEMBER 1 — No to the unilateral declaration of the Palestinian State and East Jerusalem as its capital because doing this would mean blocking negotiations. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini has repeated in a meeting with journalists from the foreign press the position of Europe over the delicate Middle Eastern issue. “The birth of a Palestinian State — he explained — must be the outcome of negotiations which at this time need to be relaunched with force”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Gaza: Hamas Announces Death of a Militant
(ANSAmed) — GAZA, DECEMBER 2 — The armed wing of Hamas, the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades, has announced that one of its fighters was killed last night in Rafah (in the southern part of the Gaza Strip) in what it called “a Jihadist mission” (i.e. ‘Holy War’). The victim has been identified as the 37-year-old Yasser Sabri Radi, a resident in the Nusseirat refugee camp near Gaza. Over the night between Monday and Tuesday another militant had been killed, one of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (Fatah). The latter was killed when his vehicle was blown up in the Shati (Gaza) refugee camp. So far no further details have been released on the incident. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Islam: Minarets; Palestinian Sheikh Expects Backlash
(ANSAmed) — RAMALLAH, DECEMBER — Words of loathing have been expressed by Sheikh Hamed Bitawi, president of the West Bank’s Higher Council of Ulema (Islamic scholars), over the outcome of the Swiss referendum prohibiting new minarets from being built. In his eyes, it is an act which “offends a billion and a half Muslims across the entire world”. In a statement cited by the newspaper Al-Byan, Sheik Bitawi said that the ‘Swiss case’ is on a par with the attempt to ban hijab (the Islamic headscarf) in French universities, and that of stopping construction on the Grand Mosque in Germany. He added that “this may lead to explosions of hate and violence among the world’s populations, especially in the Arab and Islamic world where minorities enjoy safety and full religious freedoms.” (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Cyprus-Israel ‘Illegal’ Ferry Connection Plans Launch
(ANSAmed) — NICOSIA, DECEMBER 2 — A new ferry route between Israel and north Cyprus, designed to bring at least 100,000 Israelis to the occupied areas every year, is planning to launch next month, daily Famagusta Gazette online reports. Turkish Cypriot daily Havadis newspaper quotes Cafer Curcafer, a wealthy local businessman and chairman of the Turkish Cypriot Building Contractors’ Union saying the ferry services will run between Haifa and occupied Famagusta. According to Curcafer a vessel named ‘Med Dream’ has just arrived from Spain and has a capacity of 650 people. Curcafer says the ferry services will take place three times a week, with a launch date of the end of January or at the beginning of February. The company hopes to make profits of 300 million dollars per year. Last year the government of the Republic of Cyprus (the only one recognized at international level) failed to halt a service between Syria and Famagusta, which continues to operate twice a week. The Cyprus’ government said that opening such a ferry operation was illegal, as the harbour of Famagusta is a declared “closed access point” to and from the Republic of Cyprus. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Explaining Russian and Chinese Policy: From Communists to Super-Capitalist Merchants
by Barry Rubin
China is very much motivated toward development rather than ideology or geopolitical ambition. It wants to get along with everyone as much as possible and make lots of money. (Quite a change from the days of the Little Red Book and the Cultural Revolution!). So they are ready to sell arms to everyone. They are all over Africa especially doing deals with anyone who can pay.
To get cash, the Chinese will do anything. For example, they have allowed secret flights from North Korea to Iran carrying weapons and nuclear technology. When U.S. forces arrived in Iraq, they found that China had sold Saddam advanced anti-aircraft guns.
They believe they have two big vulnerabilities. One is fear of being isolated, as happened during much of the Cold War. Whenever anyone speaks of sanctions and pressures, the Chinese think: What if this would be used against us some day. So they tend to be against such things everywhere (Yugoslavia, Iran). Since they want to make money selling to these countries that’s another reason to reject sanctions (and cheat when possible on them).
The even bigger vulnerability is China’s vast need for oil and gas. They don’ want to alienate any of the suppliers and they don’t like the idea of a crisis disrupting the supply. So they like trading with Israel because it has useful hi-tech and other such products and with the Arabs to buy oil and gas, and sell items to them.
Finally, they are very much against all the climate control proposals because these would hurt them and slow down their development. (And they can, after all, say: you in the West became rich through pollution and now you want to force us to give up advancing as fast as we can?)
Russia is quite different in political terms but also is desperate for money…
| — Hat tip: Barry Rubin | [Return to headlines] |
I Was Raped Twice in Iraq — US Veteran Speaks Out
US Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Sandra Lee, who was raped twice while serving in Iraq, shared her story in an interview with RT.
According to a new study by the US Department of Defense, one in three women in the military is raped. Veterans for Peace add to those statistics, claiming 75% of raped women in the military fail to report it.
Sandra Lee has decided to break the silence five years after she was assaulted by a fellow soldier. She had been rebuilding schools in the middle of a war zone in Iraq when the incident occurred.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Iran: Torture Call Doctor Died After Eating Drug in Salad, Claims Tehran
A DOCTOR who exposed the torture of jailed protesters in Iran died of poisoning from an overdose of a blood-pressure drug in a salad, prosecutors said yesterday.
The findings have fuelled opposition fears that he was killed for daring to speak out.
Investigators are still trying to determine whether his death was suicide or murder, Tehran’s public prosecutor, Abbas Dowlatabadi, said.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
‘It’s 1938, And Iran is Germany’
Israel’s Patience with Tehran Wearing Thin
By Dieter Bednarz, Erich Follath and Christoph Schult
Iran’s leaders continue to reject compromises over their nuclear program and are rebuffing the IAEA. The West is likely to respond with tighter sanctions, but that is unlikely to satisfy Israel, which has attack plans already drawn up.
Six men are sitting around a table, deciding the future of the world. The men, who represent the US, Russia, China, France, Britain and Iran, are considering questions such as: Is Tehran really building a nuclear bomb? Do sanctions work, and if they do, how should they be intensified? Will bombing the Iranian nuclear facilities end up being the only real solution, and what would be the consequences?
The men are not politicians, but scientists and diplomats involved in a role-playing scenario. They are all Israeli citizens. That doesn’t make the experiment, which took place two weeks ago at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, any less spectacular. The participants in this role-playing exercise, all of whom were very familiar with the issues involved, were capable of taking a completely different approach to what-if scenarios than politicians, because they cannot be held responsible for anything — good or bad — that results from their decisions.
The outcome of the experiment was supposed to be kept secret, but this much was leaked: The participant playing the United States emphasized negotiations and shunned confrontation for a long time, while “Iran” was convinced that it had excellent cards and viewed the risk of truly hard-hitting sanctions as slim. “Israel” initially pushed for international isolation and crippling economic sanctions by the United Nations, but then — as a last resort — threatened to attack.
Plans at the Ready
The results probably pleased Israeli Prime Benjamin Netanyahu, because they reflected the way he thinks. Although the premier is not yet prepared to deploy Israeli fighter jets to conduct targeted air strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the military has plans at the ready.
Netanyahu has said often enough that he will never accept an Iranian nuclear bomb. He doesn’t believe Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he insists that Iran’s nuclear program is intended solely for civilian purposes. But he does take Ahmadinejad — a notorious Holocaust denier — at his word when he repeatedly threatens to wipe out Israel. Netanyahu draws parallels between Europe’s appeasement of Hitler and the current situation. “It’s 1938, and Iran is Germany,” he says. This time, however, says Netanyahu, the Jews will not allow themselves to be the “sacrificial lamb.”
But even politicians who normally take a less extreme view, like Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor, Israel’s minister of intelligence and atomic energy, are now realizing that the situation is coming to a head. A narrow majority of the Israeli population currently favors bombing the Iranian nuclear facilities, while 11 percent would consider leaving Israel if Tehran acquires nuclear weapons.
Meridor says that his counterparts in the US government are reporting a sharp increase in the level of concern among Iran’s moderate Arab neighbors. “Ninety percent of the conversations between the United States and countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia now revolve around Iran, while 10 percent relate to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” he says.
Decisive Stage
This concern is not limited to the region. In Washington and in the European Union — and, more recently, in Moscow —, the focus has shifted dramatically toward Iran. After years of maneuvering and deception, and after a long period of missed opportunities, including on the part of the West, the conflict is moving toward a decisive stage.
In a SPIEGEL interview in mid-November, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that she had no intention of taking the military option “off the table.” Her German counterpart, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, attended a meeting at the Israeli Foreign Ministry last Tuesday, where he was briefed on the latest Israeli intelligence about the Iranian nuclear program. The next day in Vienna, while standing next to Nobel Peace Prize winner and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Mohammed ElBaradei, who is leaving office this week after heading the UN nuclear watchdog agency for 12 years, Westerwelle said that the international community’s “patience with Iran” is “not infinite.”
Tehran played a cat-and-mouse game with the IAEA for a long time. However, as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has both privileges — such as technical assistance in the civilian use of nuclear energy — and clearly defined obligations. The regime has repeatedly failed to live up to these obligations, despite many efforts to build bridges, particularly on the part of ElBaradei. This incurred the wrath of the administration of former US President George W. Bush, who even had ElBaradei’s telephone conversations tapped.
In its most recent internal report, dated Nov. 16, 2009 and marked “for official use only,” the IAEA has adopted an unusually sharp tone. According to the report, the Fordo uranium enrichment facility near the city of Qom in northwestern Iran, which the UN inspectors only discovered in September, was “clearly reportable,” because it had apparently been under construction for much longer than the Iranians had indicated. A possible military nuclear program, which the Iranian leadership has consistently denied, raises “alarming” questions, according to the report, while Tehran continues to refuse to permit unannounced inspections. In summary, the report states: “Iran has not fulfilled its obligations. Its behavior is not conducive to the establishment of trust.”
Part 2: Just a Year Away from the Bomb?
Behind the scenes in Vienna, there are grave concerns over news that Iran could be well on its way to developing a Shahab-3 midrange missile that could be upgraded to carry nuclear weapons and could reach Tel Aviv. Iranian scientists are believed to have successfully simulated the detonation of a nuclear warhead. Detonation is one of the most technologically challenging problems in the construction of this type of nuclear weapon. Experts believe that it could take Iran as little as a year to acquire the expertise and a sufficient quantity of highly enriched uranium to build a real nuclear warhead.
Intelligence reports about a restructuring in the Iranian Defense Ministry are no less alarming. According to those reports, a “Department for Expanded High-Technology Applications” (FEDAT) is now under great pressure from the government in Tehran to push ahead with a military nuclear program. According to an organizational chart of FEDAT that SPIEGEL has obtained, the department is divided into sub-departments for uranium mining, enrichment, metallurgy, neutrons, highly explosive material and fuel supply (“Project 111”). FEDAT is headed by the mysterious Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi, one of the key officials the IAEA wants to interview, although Mahabadi has so far refused to talk to the agency.
Repeated Overtures
US President Barack Obama has made many overtures to Iran. He has admitted to historical mistakes, such as the 1953 CIA-backed coup that toppled liberal Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. In a video message to the Iranian people coinciding with the festival of Nowruz, which marks the beginning of the Iranian new year, Obama spoke of the great civilizing achievements of the Persian nation. He abandoned Washington’s demand that Tehran give up uranium enrichment altogether, which had been a precondition to negotiations under his predecessor, George W. Bush.
And he proposed, together with other permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany, a barter deal that would allow all parties to save face: Iran was to ship a large share of its low-enriched uranium abroad for one year, to Russia or Turkey, and in return would receive nuclear fuel elements processed by France.
The benefit for Tehran was that it would receive, for its research reactor, urgently needed radionuclides that are used in cancer therapy. The benefit for the international community was that it could be sure that the Iranians, during the period covered by the deal, would have no opportunity to pursue their own extensive enrichment activities needed to produce highly enriched uranium, the material used to make bombs.
The Iranians seemed interested at first, but then they began setting conditions. In the end, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki rejected the offer, stating that Tehran would definitely not send fissile material abroad.
Clinging to Last Hopes
In an almost desperate appeal, ElBaradei then addressed the Iranian leadership directly, saying: “You need to engage in creative diplomacy, you need to understand that this is the first time that you will have a genuine commitment from an American president to engage you fully, on the basis of respect, with no conditions.” In his last few days in office, the IAEA chief is clinging to the hope that a final response is still forthcoming.
But Iran currently favors threatening gestures over compromises of any sort. The Iranians were so enraged over a resolution Germany presented to the IAEA board of governors last Thursday, which was supported by Washington, Moscow and Beijing, that they threatened to limit their cooperation with the UN. The resolution, which was accepted the next day by a large majority, is essentially nothing but a demand for assurances from Tehran not to maintain any further undeclared nuclear facilities. In one of the biggest military maneuvers in recent years, the Iranian leadership spent five days parading all of its available military equipment, almost as if it were preparing for the worst.
But the display of Iran’s tanks and fighter jets was not only intended to intimidate the “Zionist aggressor” and its allies. The mullahs also used the maneuver to demonstrate their resolve and capacity to take action on the domestic front, where the regime has been at odds with its detractors for the last six months. Since Iran’s presidential election in June, when the uncompromising Ahmadinejad deprived his reform-oriented challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi of victory through apparent election fraud, the opposition has been unrelenting.
Paying the Price
The regime takes the nightly protest chants of “Allahu akbar” (“God is great”) and “Marg bar Dictator” (“Death to the dictator”) very seriously. In the months of the revolution, in 1978 and 1979, millions of Iranians used the same slogans in protest against then Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his brutal Savak intelligence service.
Dozens of supporters of the “Green Movement” have already paid for their protests with their lives, and at least 4,000 regime critics have been arrested. Although many were released after a few days, reports of torture and rape only increased the population’s loathing of the regime. The elderly Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who challenged the regime’s legitimacy and issued a fatwa declaring nuclear bombs to be “un-Islamic,” is under de facto house arrest once again.
DER SPIEGEL
Graphic: Maximum range of Iranian medium-range missiles
Part 3: ‘The Enemy Is Everywhere’
The leadership has increased the pressure once again in recent weeks. It strengthened the feared Revolutionary Guards, or Pasdaran, considered the regime’s most loyal supporters, by adding two units to “combat the psychological operations of the enemy.” Another new unit was established to monitor opposition Internet sites and combat “insults and the spreading of lies.” These units are under the command of the Tehran public prosecutor’s office, notorious for its show trials. The country is in a “soft war,” said Pasdaran General Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, “and the enemy is everywhere.” One of the targets of the latest government crackdown was Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, whose prize was confiscated by authorities.
Popular rage is not directed only at the “vote thief” in the presidential office. Many believe that Ahmadinejad is merely a puppet of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was previously virtually untouchable. He is the strong man, he appoints the highest-ranking judges, and he is in charge of the intelligence services, the armed forces, the Revolutionary Guards and the hated Basij militias. He determines the basic features of government policy and decides on Iran’s course in the nuclear conflict.
Willing to Compromise?
But to what extent is this leadership now capable of taking action? Will it accommodate the global community in the nuclear conflict, or does the regime see confrontation with the West as its opportunity to survive?
According to conservative sources in Tehran, President Ahmadinejad was recently quite willing to make a compromise. He apparently hoped that he could spruce up his reputation, heavily tarnished as a result of the election disaster, at least internationally. This, say the Tehran sources, explains why Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili signaled a willingness to make concessions at the historic nuclear summit in Geneva in early October, a meeting at which an Iranian official came face-to-face with a senior representative of the “Great Satan” for the first time since the Iranian revolution. But in Khamenei’s eyes, the deal — uranium outsourcing in return for fuel delivery — was a non-starter. Ironically, opposition politician Mousavi agrees with him.
A key reason for the Iranian politicians’ self-confidence is that they do not believe that Israel would truly risk an attack on Iran. US experts also warn against the bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities. David Albright, head of the Washington think tank ISIS, believes that a “surgical strike” against the nuclear facilities would be completely impossible. According to Albright, no one knows how many nuclear sites Iran has, and the centrifuges in existing facilities like Natanz are apparently installed in tunnels so deep underground that even bunker-busting bombs could not destroy everything.
The Israelis, on the other hand, believe that Iran is merely playing for time. The Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, has long had its capacities directed at Iran, and not just since Netanyahu came into office. Israeli envoys quietly visit European companies that export products to Tehran. When agitated German executives insist that their products are intended purely for civilian purposes, the Israelis produce photos showing the European components installed in one of Iran’s nuclear plants.
Chances of Success
“The West approves UN sanctions by day and trades with Tehran by night, and Ahmadinejad takes advantage of this ambivalence,” Israeli Trade Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told SPIEGEL. Ben-Eliezer, a retired general, believes optimistically that Iran can be stopped, but that this would require a total embargo: “Nothing can be allowed in or out.”
With the Iranian economy weakened, the regime under internal pressure after the disputed elections and the Russians distancing themselves from Iran, the chances that sanctions will succeed have never been this good, say some diplomats in Tehran.
“The regime in Iran is not irrational,” says Intelligence Minister Dan Meridor. According to Meridor, only if possessing the bomb jeopardizes the regime’s survival, will Ahmadinejad decide against building the weapon.
Others, however, believe that the timetable of escalation is already as good as fixed, and that the conflict is coming to a head. They believe that tighter sanctions will start in the spring of 2010, followed by air strikes perhaps in the summer of 2010.
Meanwhile, a representative of the Iranian government has already issued precautionary threats: “If the enemy want (sic) to test its bad luck and fire a missile into Iran, before the dust settles, Iran’s ballistic missiles will target the heart of Tel Aviv.”
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Rupert Murdoch Inks Deal With Saudi Prince
Al-Walid once boasted of his influence on Fox News coverage of Muslims
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch, owner of the Fox News Channel, strengthened his strategic partnership with Prince Al-Walid bin Talal, acquiring a stake in the Saudi royal’s Rotana media conglomerate.
[…]
Al-Walid drew international attention in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks when his $10 million gift was rejected by New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: Journalist From Pro-Government Daily Arrested
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, DECEMBER 2 — A Syrian journalist from the government daily newspaper al Thawra has been arrested in Damascus by State Security agents, for reasons that are still unknown. The news was reported today by SKeyes, the Arab center for the defence of media and cultural freedom. Maan Aaqel, 43, from Jabla, a coastal town with an Alawi majority, the religious group that the Assad family which has been in power for almost 40 years is a part of, was arrested on November 22, but the news was confirmed only in the last 24 hours, after it appeared on several sites run by opposers of the Syrian regime. The SKeyes statement reads that Aaqel had already served a jail term of 9 years because he was a member of the Communist League of Action, an illegal organisation in Syria. When he was freed, he started to work at al Thawra and he distinguished himself in several corruption investigations at low local administration level. The winner of a journalism award, Aaqel is also currently carrying out the translation into Arabic of Milan Kundera’s novels. Immediately after his arrest, the editor of al Thawra fired Aaqel, who had confessed, according to SKeyes, to having received at the newspaper offices visits from security agents a year ago in relation to several texts he had written that appeared in a well-known newsletter of opponents and critics of the regime. The Syrian organisation for the defence of human rights (ONDUS) has in turn asked the Syrian authorities to modify the current law on publishing because it allows journalists to be arrested indiscriminately. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: Blast Hits Crowded Damascus Bus
Damasco, 3 Dec. (AKI) — An explosion on a crowded bus in the Syrian capital, Damascus, caused casualties on Thursday, medical officials said. The blast took place near a pilgrimage site for Shia Muslims. A group of Iranian pilgrims was travelling on the bus and unconfirmed reports said up to six people died in the blast, including the bus driver.
Medical sources were quoted as saying the casualties from the blast ran into dozens.
The explosion is believed to have been an attack and it took place near a petrol station and an Iranian hospital in southern Damascus, reports said.
The district is visited by many Iranians and Iraqi Shias, as it is the site of the al-Sayyida Zeinab shrine. It is also home to many Iraqi refugees.
Although such incidents are rare in Syria, there have been bombings there in the past.
In September last year, a car bomb on the outskirts of Damascus killed at least 17 people on a road leading to the al-Sayyida Zeinab shrine.
Officials blamed the Sunni Islamist group Fatah al-Islam for that attack, which was not claimed by any group.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Century-Old Temperature Record Broken in Moscow
It may be the beginning of winter, but Moscow is in the middle of a relative heat wave. December 2, 2009 has turned out to be the warmest December 2 in a century, with thermometers settling at around 8 degrees Celsius.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Russia and the Vatican Establish Full Diplomatic Ties
Russia and the Vatican have agreed to establish full diplomatic relations, the Kremlin has announced.
Until now, Moscow only had an office of representation at the Vatican. The new status means full-fledged embassies will be established in Moscow and Rome.
The announcement comes after President Dmitry Medvedev met Pope Benedict XVI while on a visit to Italy.
The move follows improvements in relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Vatican.
Decades of distrust
“President Medvedev told Pope Benedict at today’s meeting that he signed a decree concerning the establishment of full diplomatic relations with the Vatican,” presidential spokeswoman Natalya Timakova told reporters.
“He asked the foreign ministry to lead discussions to establish the relations and raise the level of representation to apostolic nuncio and embassy,” she added.
Since 1990, the two sides have maintained representation below the rank of ambassador.
The political detente follows decades of distrust between the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches.
The Orthodox Church has long accused the Catholic Church of seeking to convert Russians to Catholicism.
The Vatican says its activities in the country cater largely for traditional Catholic minorities like Poles, Germans and Lithuanians, who have faced discrimination and persecution in the past.
Property disputes between the churches have also put them at odds.
Relations have improved since Metropolitan Kirill took over as the leader of the Orthodox Church after the death of Patriarch Alexiy II in December 2008.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Azerbaijan: A Father Rapes a Teen Who Had Raped His Kid
Five men are being held in Azerbaijan on a charge of rape in connection with an incident in October when 8-year-old kid was sexually assaulted by 17 year-old teen (one of the detained men).
In October, the 17-year-old teen, a resident of a Garadagh district of Azerbaijan’s capital city of Baku, — court doesn’t voice his and other men’s names — raped a 8-year-old boy after luring him into truck. After he left the raped and beaten child, an accidental witness got on the truck and raped the kid threatening to tell everyone all these “shameful facts”.
The kid’s family soon heard about this incident. Kid’s father and 2 uncles started looking for offender teenager. As soon as they found him, kid’s father raped the teen and recorded it on mobile camera. Later they spread this video all around.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
German Troops Mock Afghan Dead
German troops in Afghanistan have caused outrage by wearing T-shirts mocking the civilian victims of an air strike ordered by one of their officers.
Dozens of civilians are believed to have died in the attack on hijacked petrol tankers originally stolen by Taliban forces.
Now German troops are facing courts martial after they were seen wearing specially made T-shirts showing a picture of a burning tanker with a caption underneath saying: “Thou shalt not steal.”
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Italy to Do Its Part in Afghanistan
Frattini hopes other allies will do the same
(ANSA) — Rome, December 2 — Italy agrees with the new American strategy on Afghanistan and is ready to do its part, although it is still too early to say how many more troops it will commit, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said on Wednesday.
United States President Barack Obama announced on Tuesday night that an additional 30,000 American troops would be sent to Afghanistan and that he hoped NATO allies would also commit more forces.
He also said that the allied commitment in Afghanistan was not “open-ended” and that he would begin to withdraw troops starting in mid-2011.
“Italy will make its contribution and we hope the other allies will do as much as we do,” Frattini said.
Up till now “we have seen some uncertainty on France’s part, while Germany has decided to postpone any decision and Britain has made what appears to be a minimum commitment,” he observed. Frattini said he agreed with Obama on the need to disengage from Afghanistan “little by little as that nation shows it can take care of its own security. But this cannot take forever, by 2013 at the latest”.
On Tuesday, Frattini had already all but confirmed Italy was ready to send more troops and said “Afghanistan is a test case of the Atlantic Alliance’s credibility. It is evident that Italy will have to finish the job it began with NATO and contribute even more than it has in the past. This because we are not only a member of the Alliance, as is the United States, but also of her international community”.
“We’re going to do our part but the numbers will depend on their objectives and timeframe,” he added.
In a related development, NATO Secretary General Ander Fogh Rasmussen said on Wednesday that the Atlantic Alliance would send “at least an additional 5,000 troops to Afghanistan”.
He added that he expected some NATO members to announce their troop increases over the next few days while others, like Germany, would wait until the international conference on Afghanistan in London on January 28.
“I am confident that we will have at least an additional 5,000 troops and perhaps several thousand more,” he said.
The NATO chief confirmed that the final goal of the mission was placing security in the hands of the Afghan people “and we will not leave any province or district unless we are convinced local forces can handle things on their own”.
“What is important is that the mission in Afghanistan remains one of the Alliance as a whole,” he added.
Italy currently has some 2,800 troops in Afghanistan, plus some 400 more which were sent to boost security during this year’s elections there. It is believed that Washington has asked that it deploy a further 1,500.
Last week, Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa indicated that the additional troops would be found by downsizing Italy’s presence in missions in Kosovo and Lebanon, thus keeping the total number of forces employed abroad at the same level.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Backs Obama Afghan Plan
Berlusconi says country ready “to do its part”
(ANSA) — Rome, December 2 — Italy “will do its part” in US President Barack Obama’s new strategy for Afghanistan, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi confirmed on Wednesday.
Italy will bolster its role and presence in the allied effort there, the premier explained, “because our own security is at stake in this fight against terrorism”.
“Over these past days we have had close consultations with the US on Afghanistan. And I, personally, discussed it with President Obama last week,” Berlusconi said in a statement issued by his office.
“I agree with the strategy announced last night: a regional approach, in which Pakistan will play a key role; a reinforcement of civilian activities that will protect the progress made in many sectors; and an additional military effort which will make disengagement easier in the future,” the premier said.
“Italy will do its part, well aware that in the conflict in Afghanistan what is at stake is not only the future of the Afghan people, but also the credibility of NATO, the battle against terrorism and, as a result, our own security,” the premier’s statement concluded.
Obama’s new strategy, illustrated Tuesday night,involves boosting US troops in Afghanistan by 30,000 with NATO allies expected to add an additional 5,000-7,000 men.
The president made it clear the new commitment was not “open-ended” and that Afghan forces had to assume a sufficient load of their own security to allow allied disengagement to begin in mid-2011. Foreign Minister Franco Frattini on Wednesday also confirmed Italy’s readiness to send more troops to Afghanistan but said it was too early to put an exact number on the increase.
Well-informed sources say the US wants Rome to send in an additional 1,500 troops to the some 2,800 it already has in Afghanistan.
“Italy will make its contribution and we hope the other allies will do as much as we do…however, we have seen some uncertainty on France’s part, while Germany has decided to postpone any decision and Britain has made what appears to be a minimum commitment,” Frattini said. The Italian foreign minister said he agreed with Obama on the need to disengage from Afghanistan “little by little as that nation shows it can take care of its own security. But this cannot take forever, by 2013 at the latest”.
On Tuesday, Frattini had already all but confirmed Italy would send in more troops and said “Afghanistan is a test case of the Atlantic Alliance’s credibility. It is evident that Italy will have to finish the job it began with NATO and contribute even more than it has in the past”.
Last week, Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa indicated that the additional troops for Afghanistan would be found by downsizing Italy’s presence in missions in Kosovo and Lebanon, thus keeping the total number of forces employed abroad at the same level.
FRATTINI TO CONFER WITH HOLBROOKE AND CLINTON.
In a related development, the special US representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, planned to confer with Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini on the sidelines of a NATO foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Friday.
“For certain I will speak with Frattini. Italy is a great partner and we have a high regard for its contribution” in Afghanistan, he told the press.
During his meeting with Frattini, as well as those with the other European foreign ministers whose countries have troops in Afghanistan, Holbrooke will to be joined by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy to Decide on Afghan Troop Surge
Cabinet meets Thursday night to give US a number on Friday
(ANSA) — Rome, December 3 — The Italian government will decide Thursday evening how many additional troops it will send to Afghanistan in the framework of the surge announced this week by the United States, Premier Silvio Berlusconi said.
The general consensus is that Italy will send an additional 1,000 or at most 1,500 troops to join the contingent of some 2,800 men it already has in Afghanistan. “A decision on the number of troops is on the agenda of this evening’s cabinet meeting and will be made public afterwards by the ministers involved,” Foreign Minister Franco Frattini and Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa, the premier added.
The forces are expected to be found by reducing Italy’s presence in international missions in Bosnia and Lebanon.
Italy’s contribution to the troop surge envisioned in US President Barack Omaba’s new strategy for Afghanistan will be at the center of talks Frattini will have on Friday with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the special US representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke.
The encounter will take place on the sidelines of a meeting in Brussels of NATO foreign ministers.
Speaking to the press on Thursday, Berlusconi reiterated Italy’s support for the new US strategy which he said “foresees an exit strategy which, although it does not begin today, will leave that country in a different condition than it is in now”.
“I have spoken to the (US) president about this and the need to revitalise the (Afghan) economy, which today is concentrated on drug production,” the premier added. Afghanistan, Berlusconi observed, “is a difficult country, as demonstrated by the repeated failures to impose order there.
Not only is its society backwards but, as some have said, it is almost medieval”.
“There have been long discussions among the countries involved in Afghanistan on the need to plant solid roots for democracy there. Some say, and not wrongly, that creating a democracy is a utopia in a country where so many people are illiterate,” he added.
According to the premier, what is needed most, after ensuring security, “is building necessary infrastructures: roads, schools, hospitals and bridges, everything which that nation is lacking”.
MEDVEDEV SAYS RUSSIA “WILL DO ITS PART”.
Berlusconi made his remarks at a joint press conference with visiting Russian President Dmitry Medvedev who reiterated his country’s readiness to help bring order to Afghanistan.
“We feel obliged to help in Afghanistan and are ready to support our partners’ efforts to bring order there. We intend to make a contribution,” Medvedev said, without going into details.
Some observers believe this may include allowing NATO greater transit space over Russian territory and possibly sending in police instructors.
Last June Medvedev took part in a regional summit with Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran and expressed Russia’s intention of playing a greater role in resolving the Afghan conflict.
At the time a spokesman for the president said Russia was ready to “give Afghanistan practical assistance in restoring its economy”.
Medevedev has also repeatedly offered to help Washington stabilize Afghanistan but nit by sending troops to a country where the former Soviet Union was bogged down in a bloody nine-year war during the 1980s. Obama on Tuesday illustrated his new policy for Afghanistan which included a surge of some 30,000 American troops and a “significant” contribution from NATO allies, including Italy.
NATO has already said it expects to raise 5,000 or more fresh troops for Afghanistan.
The additional forces will not only be combat troops but also instructors to train the Afghan army and police force.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The Wrong War
The conservative case for leaving Afghanistan.
President Obama has finally made up his mind on Afghanistan — sort of. The clear decision and explanation that would either give meaning and rationale to our troops’ efforts or lay the foundation for a reasoned withdrawal has been put off, yet again.
It is almost heresy in conservative circles to say that changing circumstances — and not just President Obama’s indecisiveness — make it a good idea to start winding down America’s role in Afghanistan. This is heretical partly because of the noble instinct that if America goes into a war, she should finish it. It is also because the Left incessantly compares Afghanistan to Vietnam; we all realize how shallow this comparison is, so we seek to distance ourselves from the entire line of thought.
But the time has come to study another comparison: Afghanistan and Iraq. Conservatives who pride themselves on a realistic view of national security and military power must realize that while the Iraq War is still vital to national security and susceptible to the successful use of our military, the Afghanistan war is not.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey Will Not Send Combat Troops to Afghanistan, Minister
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, DECEMBER 3 — The US request of extra Turkish troops to combat in Afghanistan has been coolly received in Ankara. US President Barack Obamas call on NATO allies to dispatch more soldiers came only days before Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is set to visit Washington. Turkey has already increased its deployments by sending 958 more soldiers last month, Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul said late yesterday. Noting Turkey’s reluctance to take part in armed clashes with Taliban, Gonul underscored no shift in this policy. We continue our reservations on Turkish troops involvement in military operations and hot clashes in Afghanistan, the minister told reporters although US Ambassador to Ankara James Jeffrey called for more flexibility in terms of job description. Turkey took over the command of International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, in Kabul on October 31. 1750 Turkish soldiers are currently on duty in Afghanistan while four teams of them are engaged in training mission. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
US Hopes Holland Will Stay in Uruzgan: Biden
American vice president Joe Biden phoned Dutch prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende on Wednesday to say ‘he hoped the Netherlands would remain involved in Afghanistan after 2010’, the Volkskrant reports on Thursday.
The paper says the prime minister told Biden the Netherlands is still deciding what to do after the current Dutch mission to Afghanistan finally ends in December next year. The withdrawal of the 2,000 Dutch soldiers and support staff will begin in August.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
US Wants Up to 2,500 More German Troops
The US expects Germany to contribute up to another 2,500 troops to the NATO mission in Afghanistan, daily Bild reported on Wednesday following US President Barack Obama’s major policy speech.
US ambassador calls Germany Washington’s most important ally — National (1 Dec 09)
Such an increase would require parliamentary approval and mean a total contribution of up to 6,000 German troops.
However, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday she would not decide increasing troops until after a January 28 international conference on the situation in Afghanistan.
“After this conference on Afghanistan, Germany will decide whether or not it will make fresh efforts, and if so, what efforts,” Merkel said, adding that security problems in Afghanistan would not be solved by military means alone.
According to daily Leipziger Volkszeitung, Obama wants Germany to add thousand of troops to the war effort and increase their geographical span to include the south and east. Currently German troops are stationed only in the relatively peaceful north of the country. The new troops would reportedly take part in an springtime offensive against insurgents next year.
The government source also told the paper that that Obama expected Bundeswehr soldiers to take part in “strengthening the international combat strength” and not just train Afghan police and military forces as it has in the past.
During his policy speech on Tuesday Obama committed the US to a troop increase of 30,000 in Afghanistan, but said forces would begin pulling out of the country by July 2011.
In November the German government extended its mandate for their unpopular Afghan military mission for one year. Some 4,500 Bundeswehr soldiers are currently serving in Afghanistan in the army’s heaviest fighting since World War II.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Five Sentenced to Death Over Deadly China Riots
A court in China’s Xinjiang region has sentenced five people to death for murder and other crimes over deadly ethnic riots in July, state media said.
Two other people were sentenced to life imprisonment, Xinhua news agency said.
Nine people were executed last month over the riots in which nearly 200 people were killed.
Chinese officials have said most of the victims were members of China’s majority Han ethnic group who were attacked by ethnic Uighurs.
Xinhua’s report named the five sentenced to death as Memeteli Islam, Mamattursun Elmu, Memeteli Abburakm, Kushiman Kurban and Helil Sadir.
Eight other people received jail terms, Xinhua said, including the two sentenced to life in prison.
Struggle to restore order
The five sentenced to death all appear to be Uighurs, judging by their names, correspondents say. The Uighurs are a Turkic minority in China that calls Xinjiang their homeland.
Ethnic tensions exploded on 5 July as Uighurs in Urumqi protested over clashes at a factory in southern China that had left two Uighurs dead.
Shops were smashed and vehicles set alight, with passers-by being set upon by Uighur rioters.
Two days later, groups of Han went looking for revenge as police struggled to restore order.
Officials say 197 people were killed and about 1,700 people injured in the rioting.
A total of 34 people have now been convicted over the rioting, for crimes including murder, arson, property damage and robbery.
Besides Thursday’s five death sentences, three other people have been given the death penalty with a two-year reprieve, a sentence which is usually commuted to life in jail.
The rest have received lesser jail terms.
Five more cases are due to be heard by the Intermediate People’s Court in Urumqi on Friday.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Nuke Supplies Link Pyongyang to Qom
British agents uncover North-Korea-to-Iran pipeline
North Korea has supplied Iran with nuclear components to keep an enriched uranium operation near the holy city of Qom “on target to go online,” intelligence reports confirm, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
The discovery was made by an MI5 unit from the British Security Service’s Watchers Division, which monitors hundreds of targets, including the North Korean embassy in the heart of suburban west London.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The “Third Kim” Frightens the Two Koreas
Sources explain the North Korean leadership: Kim Jong-un is the chosen successor of the Dear Leader. But will be a dictator worse than the father, autocratic and cruel. Denied rumours that had the master of Pyongyang on the brink of death.
Seoul (AsiaNews) — Kim Jong-un, heir to guide North Korea, “will be a far worse dictator than his father. He is much more autocratic and cruel than the ‘Dear Leader’, and we know this well. We fear for the future”. Speaking is a source within the leadership of the country, on condition of anonymity: “His Western education makes him very dangerous: he knows the world outside of Asia, and he does not like.” Meanwhile, in the south rumours of the alleged death of Kim Jong-il, announced yesterday by some media have been denied..
Kim Jong-un is the second son of Ko Yong-hee, the third wife of the “Dear Leader”, who died in 2004. His father chose him several months ago, after at least two years of uncertainty over his succession. The Stalinist regime’s official media have not reported the investiture, but gave ample space to his promotion to the top of the Workers’ Party. His father, before being officially a successor to Kim Il-sung, he held the same role.
According to some analysts, this “dangerous” nature comes from the environment in which it was born and lived. Despite a brief period of study in Switzerland, Kim Jong-un attended his father’s court and had to deal with the brothers, born from the first and second marriage of the “Dear Leader”, who have blocked all the ways to climb power.
The anonymous source said that the father “has appreciated this spirit. Kim Jong-il would have even given his permission to kill any of the other candidates to the throne; the dictator’s younger sister Kyong-hee, her husband Jang Song-taek and the ‘first lady’ Kim Ok “. The most dangerous candidate seems to be Jang: after removal from power, which caused his wife a severe depression, he is now considered the second most powerful man in the scheme.
Currently, uncle and nephew, seem to be working in common accord on the ambitious project to modernize Pyongyang. As Kim Jong-il before them, in fact, the change of dictator sees in turn a division of government contracts. This is to keep the few good entrepreneurs in the country, whose flight would seriously jeopardize the domestic economy. Trying to save what remains of the income of the country, Pyongyang also announced yesterday a “surprise” revaluation of the national currency and the closing of state stores until next week.
The North Korean Foreign Ministry has informed diplomats that 100 old won will be worth one in the new currency. According to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, the purpose of this first revaluation in 17 years “is to reduce inflation and the spread of the black market.” Yan Moon-soo, the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, explained that the regime aims to “stop the hoarding of banknotes stored by the population. Whoever sets aside large amounts of money, legally or illegally, will feel exposed and afraid. There will therefore be less currency in circulation on the market and greater control of the regime on the population”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Vietnam Buddhists Complain of Ongoing Harassment
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Followers of a famed Buddhist monk say they are continuing to suffer police harassment two months after they were forcibly evicted from a monastery in southern Vietnam.
The followers of Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, who has popularized Buddhism in the West and sold millions of books worldwide, say they are being persecuted because their teacher called on Vietnam’s Communist government to end state control of religion and dismantle the country’s religious police.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Jetstar to Consult on Disability Issues
[Comment from Nilk: I wonder what ethnicity the call centre staff member is?]
Jetstar will meet with the federal government after another complaint was levelled against the airline over its mistreatment of disabled passengers.
However, Jetstar officials insist the latest incident, in which a legally blind passenger was refused a booking because of her guide dog, isn’t a sign the discount airline has a pattern of discrimination.
The complaint comes a week after Jetstar launched an investigation into its wheelchair procedures after paralympian Kurt Fearnley blasted the airline for forcing him to check in his personal wheelchair before boarding a plane.
“There is no link whatsoever. There are no systematic issues here,” Jetstar spokesman Simon Westaway told AAP on Thursday.
“This is simply a case of the wrong information being provided by, unfortunately, more than one individual.”
Glen Bracegirdle, 25, of Melbourne was told “No dogs, no dogs, no dogs” by a customer service clerk when he tried to book a flight to Sydney in advance for himself, his legally blind partner, Kathryn Beaton, and her four-year-old guide dog.
He had already travelled on the airline many times with the dog — and two guide dogs are allowed on board each Jetstar flight. This time, call centre staff disagreed until, after repeated calls, one staff member told him they were unsure about rules concerning seeing-eye dogs and offered a $50 voucher.
He booked flights on another airline instead.
Jetstar has since apologised and offered the couple free flights as compensation, pinning the problem on several staff members who gave out the wrong information about the company’s guide dog policies.
“We see the matter as closed. We do regret it,” Mr Westaway said.
Mr Bracegirdle said the apology was “a good result” but he was disappointed he had to lodge a complaint with the Human Rights Commission before the dispute could be settled.
“At this stage, I’m happy with the result,” he told AAP.
“I’m hoping I can let it go now and we can move on. I had hoped I would have heard from Jetstar within a week, so I’m not impressed it had to come to this.”
Upon hearing of the couple’s ordeal, Bill Shorten, parliamentary secretary for disabilities, demanded a meeting with Jetstar’s management.
“I’m furious. I’m sick of hearing about it,” he told AAP.
“Just because you’re blind and have a guide dog doesn’t mean you get to be treated like a second-class citizen.”
Jetstar said it was “keen to meet” with Mr Shorten to discuss the company’s disability policies.
Mr Shorten said he would demand the company hire a set of disability advisers to approve of their practices, and provide more training for customer staff.
Meanwhile, Jetstar still has not announced when its investigation into wheelchair accessibility will be complete.
Mr Westaway said the airline had to study all the airports it used before deciding on how to consistently provide access for wheelchairs.
| — Hat tip: Nilk | [Return to headlines] |
Taxi Driver Abdul Majid Qazizada ‘Groped Disabled Passenger’
A SYDNEY taxi driver repeatedly fondled a female passenger suffering from cerebral palsy — then denigrated her while she gave evidence in court, a magistrate has found.
Abdul Majid Qazizada, 51, of Acacia Gardens, faced Ryde local court today charged with the aggravated indecent assault of the woman on September 10.
In her judgement, magistrate Jennifer Betts told the court Qazizada had “denigrated” the victim and embellished the incident in his evidence before the court.
She found Qazizada guilty of one count of aggravated indecent assault.
The court heard the taxi driver picked the woman up from Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club and drove her home, repeatedly telling her: “You’re a lovely lady”.
As she struggled to exit the cab in the driveway of her home, he touched her breasts several times and again told her she was a “lovely lady”.
The woman immediately went to her neighbours’ home and reported the assault, the court heard.
The court heard the woman, who can not be identified, suffers from cerebral palsy and epilepsy.
She uses a walking frame to travel short distances, a wheelchair for long distances and suffers from weakness to the left side of her body.
Magistrate Betts said that in evidence given to the court, Qazizada said he was a devout Muslim and was observing the religious month of Ramadan at the time of the offence.
“As a practicing Muslim he was in the middle of Ramadan,” Ms Betts said.
“Being a fasting time, ‘men don’t even touch their wives’, were his words.”
Mr Qazizada will face court again on December 9 for sentencing.
| — Hat tip: Nilk | [Return to headlines] |
Dutch Navy Arrests Somali Pirates
The Dutch navy has arrested 13 Somali pirates who attempted to hijack a cargo ship south of Oman.
The EU anti-piracy task force Navfor says the cargo ship — called MV BBC Togo — had barbed wire defences and held off an attack by two fast skiffs.
The Dutch warship Evertsen later found a dhow with two skiffs fitting the description in the area.
A boarding team arrested the pirates, seizing machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, ladders and grappling hooks.
The pirates may be handed over to Kenya or the Seychelles for prosecution, says the Dutch defence ministry.
The attack on the Antigua and Barbuda-flagged cargo ship happened 150 nautical miles (275km) south of Salalah in Oman.
Pirate attacks have been common off the Somali coast and international navies have been deployed to counter them.
Navfor is one of several international naval forces patrolling the seas off Somalia to try to prevent the hijacking of ships using the vital sea routes. Nato and the US also lead task forces.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Somalia: Ministers Killed in Mogadishu Suicide Attack
Mogadishu, 3 Dec. (AKI) — Three Somali government ministers were reportedly among at least seven people killed in a bomb attack in the capital Mogadishu on Thursday. A bomb exploded at the Shamo Hotel where a ceremony was being held for the graduation of 43 students from the Banadir University.
According to reports the three ministers killed in the attack were health minister Qamar Aden Ali, education minister Ahmed Abdulahi Waayeel and Ibrahim Hassan Addow, the minister of higher education.
Sports minister Suleiman Onada was said to be among many injured in the attack.
Two journalists are also reported to be among the dead.
Islamists have been fighting the United Nations-backed government which controls small areas in the country.
The Shamo hotel is favoured by foreigners including aid workers, journalists and diplomats who still visit Mogadishu.
Somalia has not had a functioning national government since 1991.
Islamist insurgents including the Al-Shabab group, which is believed to be linked to Al-Qaeda, fought against the government and Ethiopian forces to regain control of most of southern Somalia by late 2008.
In May 2009, Al-Shabab and another radical militia launched an attack on Mogadishu.
Early reports suggested that the Islamist Young Mujahadeen Movement may have been behind Thursday’s attack.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Somalia Ministers Killed by Hotel Suicide Bomb
A suicide bomber disguised as a woman has killed at least 19 people, including four government ministers, in the Somali capital Mogadishu.
Officials say the attack hit a hotel in the city during a crowded graduation ceremony for medical students from a local university.
Witnesses said the attack appeared to have targeted government officials.
Islamists are fighting the UN-backed government, which only controls small pockets of territory in the country.
Somalia’s President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmad described the attack as a national disaster.
Information Minister Dahir Mohamud Gelle said the male bomber had been dressed in women’s clothing, “complete with a veil and a female’s shoes”.
The BBC’s Mohammed Olad Hassan, who was at the scene, said there was a huge explosion in the hotel’s meeting hall where hundreds of people were gathered for the graduation.
Five government ministers were reported to have been in the hotel at the time.
Health Minister Qamar Aden Ali, Education Minister Ahmed Abdulahi Waayeel, Higher Education Minister Ibrahim Hassan Addow and Sports Minister Saleban Olad Roble were all killed, officials said.
A security official told the AFP news agency most of the dead were believed to be students. At least two journalists were also among the dead.
“A lot of my friends were killed,” medical student Mohamed Abdulqadir told Reuters.
“I was sitting next to a lecturer who also died. He had been speaking to the gathering just a few minutes before the explosion.”
A photographer for AFP described hearing a huge explosion and the room filling with smoke.
“I went to get my camera, and that’s when I saw the bodies of the three ministers,” said Mohamed Dahir.
More than 60 people were injured in the explosion.
The students were graduating from Benadir University, which was set up in 2002 to train doctors to replace those who had fled overseas or been killed in the civil war. They were only the second class to complete their training.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Honduras Congress Will Not Reinstate Zelaya
111 out of the 128 members of the Honduran Congress present voted against reinstating deposed president Mel Zelaya. The vote came after an all-day session where the Congress reviewed several reports from the country’s institutions, including the Supreme Court, the Attorney General, and various members of the political parties, including pro-Zelaya.
Following the vote, the Congress issued an official statement, which La Gringa translated,
“This Congress has fulfilled its responsibility under the Agreement Tegucigalpa / San José in a transparent and democratic manner. We call on all of the international community and regional bodies, including the Organization of American States, to respect our sovereignty. Having elected a new president, all Hondurans have already begun the process of national unity and reconciliation. Those seeking to continue the controversy and to perpetuate the political crisis in our country are obsessed with the past and personal agendas and not the welfare of our country,” added Ramón Velásquez Nazar, Vice President of Congress and member of the Christian Democratic Party of Honduras.
You can read the original in Spanish here…
| — Hat tip: Fausta | [Return to headlines] |
‘Iran Building Terror Network in South America’
The Argentinean prosecutor who ferreted out Iranian links to Argentina’s largest terror attack warned Wednesday of Teheran’s growing terror network in Latin America.
“The Iranians are moving fast,” assessed Alberto Nisman, who has secured Interpol backing for the arrest of several Iranians, including former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, for ordering the July 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community offices in Buenos Aires. “We see a much greater penetration than we did in 1994.”
He said that Iran, particularly through Lebanese proxy Hizbullah, has a growing presence in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, using techniques it honed in Argentina before the country took measures to counter Teheran following the AMIA bombing.
He described sham operations involving taxi drivers, who conducted surveillance without arousing suspicion; fake medical school students, who could stay in the country for many years without raising eyebrows; and business fronts that helped funnel cash to operatives.
Meanwhile, the Iranians cultivated ties at the local mosques to search for people who could be radicalized.
Now, he said, Argentina is considered a “hostile environment” for Iran, but the Iranian terrorist groups are finding fertile ground in other countries.
“The stronger element that happens today is the complicity of the government,” said Nisman, pointing to the networks Iran develops through its embassies. “We know that Chavez allows Hizbullah to come in.”
Nisman, who spoke through a Spanish interpreter at a Foundation for Defense of Democracies event Wednesday, said he regularly shared the information he has gathered on Iranian and Hizbullah activities with other countries in an effort to get them to act.
He described responses of “surprise” at how clear the evidence against Iran is in the AMIA case as well as “interest” in the case and the issue of the terror ties.
But, he stressed, “Much more can be done and hopefully will be done before it’s too late.”
Referring to countries who have not done all they could, particularly in bringing the Iranian perpetrators of the AMIA attack to justice, he continued, “There are too many countries in Europe that continue to turn a blind eye … like [they did] with the Nazis.”
Nisman called on these countries to refuse to welcome Iranian leaders to international forums like the United Nations until they adhere to the Interpol-backed warrants and hand over the men wanted by Argentina.
“Iran will not long be able to resist,” he contended. “It can’t fight against the entire world.”
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Will Spain Make the EU Go Soft on Cuba?
Spain wants to reward Cuba for defying the EU’s wishes.
For the past 13 years the EU’s member states have followed a common policy on Cuba. That is about to change, if Spain has its way. It has made clear it wants to end the EU’s ‘common position’ during its presidency of the EU, enabling member states to pursue bilateral policies within a framework agreement with Cuba, such as the EU has with China.
This should trouble anyone interested in human rights — including EU foreign ministers, who said this June that they remained “seriously concerned about the lack of progress in the situation of human rights in Cuba”.
Firstly, for the past two years Spain has itself pursued an independent, bilateral policy — with no results, other than a few favourable business contracts.
Secondly, without what amounts to a common code of conduct, some other EU countries are likely to do as Spain has done: in breach of previous EU commitments to make political engagement conditional, Spain’s foreign minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, has consistently refused to meet dissidents during visits to Havana for fear of provoking the regime.
Thirdly, to normalise relations now would be to reward Havana for doing exactly the opposite of what the EU demanded this June, “to release unconditionally all political prisoners”. (There are currently some 200.) Since then, the regime has pursued a course toward greater centralisation, militarisation and — as Human Rights Watch documented in a report in November — toward heavier repression (it has, for example, imprisoned more than 40 people merely on suspicion that they are likely to commit a crime).
[…]
A fragmentation of EU policy matters not just to dissidents; it affects ordinary Cubans’ perceptions of Europe. I spent 18 March in Havana watching the Ladies in White, the wives and relatives of jailed dissidents, defy the police and protest quietly on the sixth anniversary of the biggest crackdown of recent years. That same evening, Cubans learnt from their television news that Louis Michel, then the European commissioner for development, was happy with the direction of EU-Cuban relations. During his high-profile visit, the cigar-puffing commissioner refused to meet the Ladies in White, to whom the Parliament had awarded its Sakharov Prize. The Commission’s development department later said it made this “scheduling mistake” because it was unaware of the date’s symbolism. Be that as it may, this episode demonstrated how a desire for engagement that is blind to other considerations can lead to shame. If Spain has its way, we will see more self-interested engagement, with less progress on human rights.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Australia: Oceanic Viking’s Groundhog Day
THE Oceanic Viking has intercepted a boat carrying 53 suspected asylum seekers and four crew about 22 nautical miles north of West Islet in the Ashmore Islands.
It is the 50th asylum seeker vessel to be intercepted in Australian waters this year.
The boat was intercepted at 10.56am (AEDT) on Thursday.
The Oceanic Viking was on its way back from Indonesia following the end to a month-long stand-off between Australian authorities and 78 Sri Lankan asylum seekers aboard the Customs vessel.
It is unclear whether the asylum seekers intercepted on Thursday had been taken aboard the Oceanic Viking.
A statement from Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor said the group was being transferred to Christmas Island where they will undergo security, identity and health checks.
Mr O’Connor said the the government remained vigilant and committed to protecting Australia’s borders.
“Recent meetings with government officials in Indonesia and Malaysia have led to positive steps forward in bilateral and regional cooperation to deter people smuggling,” he said.
Since September 2008, Australian Federal Police have charged 64 people with people smuggling offences.
| — Hat tip: Nilk | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Minister Backs Referendum on Minaret Ban
Rome, 2 Dec. (AKI) — Italy’s interior minister Roberto Maroni on Wednesday said he had “no objections” to a referendum proposing a ban on mosque minarets in the country. “Someone has proposed carrying out a referendum here: I have no objections,” said Maroni.
Maroni is a member of the anti-immigrant Northern League party and junior coalition partner of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government.
“I consider the referendum, a key expression of popular sovereignty, and although it could be done by passing a law, I think this is less important. It is important to recognise what people want,” said Maroni.
Earlier this week a conservative Italian minister also from the Northern League, Roberto Calderoli said the country should hold a vote to reaffirm its Roman Catholic roots.
Italy has approximately 1.2 million muslims, making it the second largest after Catholicism.
Another minister, Roberto Castelli, also from the Northern League suggested adding the Christian cross to Italy’s national flag.
At the weekend a majority of Swiss voters endorsed a ban on minarets in the country.
More than 57 percent of voters, as well as 22 out of Switzerland’s 26 cantons voted in favour of the ban, despite the government’s opposition to such a move, saying it would harm the country’s image.
The Vatican and other international leaders from France, Turkey and Iran, and an independent United Nations expert on religious freedom all condemned the Swiss move
Switzerland’s Muslim population is estimated to be at 400,000 or 5.2 percent of the total population. However, there are only four minarets in the entire country.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Three Men Jailed for Trafficking Into Ireland
THREE MEN have been sentenced in Romania for up to seven years for trafficking 28 people — including one child — into Co Wexford for labour exploitation.
Remus Fusteac (41) was jailed for seven years, while his son Arthur Sergiu (21) and nephew Alexandru Fusteac (20) were both sentenced to five years for trafficking, illegal possession of firearms and organising a criminal syndicate.
The three had previously been deported from Ireland in 2004 after being investigated for money-laundering.
The court in Timisoara in western Romania heard trafficked victims were threatened, beaten and sometimes held at gunpoint between 2006 and 2008.
Some were allegedly employed in low-paid farming and labouring jobs around Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, and forced to repay debts of about €2,500 each.
Romanian authorities say only one-third of their victims agreed to give evidence against the traffickers after gang members threatened their families.
The investigation was started by the Romanian authorities in September 2007. Police from Romania travelled to Ireland in June 2008 and worked closely with the Garda National Immigration Bureau in Dublin to plan a joint effort to disrupt the criminal activity.
Co-ordinated searches and raids were organised throughout July and August of 2008, both in Romania and Ireland, resulting in arrests in both jurisdictions.
“Evidence obtained by garda was made available, on request from the Romanian prosecution, and was exchanged through the mutual assistance channels,” according to a spokesperson for the Romanian embassy.
Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern yesterday congratulated garda for their work and said “tireless efforts” were being made to combat the trafficking of people into and within Ireland.
“The Government is committed to the continued development of an overall strategy to proactively and comprehensively address the issue of human trafficking, utilising all the resources of the State,” Mr Ahern said.
“Our aim is to make Ireland a more hostile environment for those who might consider trafficking people into, out of, and within, the jurisdiction.”
Members of Garda National Immigration Bureau have also praised Romanian authorities for their assistance in investigating the case.
Prosecutors told the court in Romania that those who were trafficked into Ireland were mostly housed in caravans, and that the gang controlled their contact with employers.
One victim told the court: “We only had money for some very basic food. We lived on a diet of potatoes and eggs as we could not afford anything more.
“We lived in constant fear. We were always being threatened. They would tell us that if we did anything wrong or tried to tell anyone, our houses back home would be set on fire and our family and children would be killed.”
Another said: “One time I refused to pay up and one of them put a gun against my head and threatened me. I don’t want to remember any more how they treated us. It was terrifying.
One victim reportedly said: “Remus Fusteac would always tell us there was nothing we could do and that any Romanian who came to work in Ireland had to work for him, that he was all-powerful in Ireland.”
Prosecutor Tamas Schiffbeck said many of the victims have refused to press charges because of continuous pressure and threats from the traffickers.
Some witnesses have received death threats too, he said.
“The people were taken, legally, to Budapest and from there were flown to Ireland.
“Once they arrived, they were given accommodation in old shacks and put to work. The gang extorted most of their wages,” he added.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Two in Three Britons Think UK Has Immigration Problem
The British are the only people in western Europe who want immigration controls at the national rather than the European level, despite having little confidence in the national authorities’ handling of the issue, according to a survey of eight countries.
The poll suggests the British are more anti-immigrant and xenophobic than the rest of western Europe — preferring a Fortress UK policy, blaming immigrants for unemployment, and split over whether to grant them equal social benefits.
One in five Britons, twice the European average, thought immigration was the most important issue facing the country. Only the Italians came close to sharing that view. While scepticism towards the benefits of immigration grew in all European countries, two out of three Britons, more than in all the other countries surveyed, thought immigration was more of a problem than an opportunity.
The survey of immigration trends by the German-Marshal Fund thinktank www.transatlantictrends.org surveyed opinion in six western European countries — Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands — as well as the US and Canada.
While 71% of Germans thought their government was doing a good job managing immigration, the same proportion of Britons believed the government was performing poorly.
Britons were uniquely sceptical over EU responsibility for immigration. A majority (53%) wanted the powers kept at the national level, almost double the European average of 28%. Britons believed the number of immigrants in the country was almost triple the actual level (27% compared with 10%).
In the EU, Britain is not part of the passport-free Schengen zone, retaining national border controls, whereas continental Europeans can travel from Poland to Portugal without passport checks.
Under the Lisbon treaty, which came into force this week, the EU will embark on more common immigration and asylum policies, although Britain has negotiated the right to exclude itself.
“There is considerable support in the continental European countries polled for addressing immigration at the European Union level,” said the survey. “A majority in all European countries except the United Kingdom favoured immigration policy decision-making at the EU level.”
Given the impact of the recession on employment in the west over the last year, the pollsters asked whether the crisis meant that immigrants were taking jobs from the native-born.
“Only in the United Kingdom did the majority (54%) agree with this statement,” the survey found. “In all other countries polled, majorities did not think that immigrants take jobs away from the native-born; 53% of the Americans, 67% of the Canadians, and 67% of the Europeans in the sample either strongly or somewhat disagreed that immigrants cost natives their jobs. Other studies suggest that immigrant workers themselves usually belong to the group of workers hardest hit by economic crises.”
On whether immigrants depressed wage rates, only the British and the Spanish agreed they did.
More Britons than anyone else (47% against a 27% European average) wanted to deny legal immigrants equal social benefits; more Britons than anyone else (44% against an average 24%) favoured reinforcing border controls to combat illegal immigration; and fewer Britons than anyone else (28% against a 43% European average) supported legalising the status of illegal immigrants.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Do Smoking Guns Cause Global Warming, Too?
As we now know (and by “we” I mean “everyone with access to the Internet”), the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit has just been caught ferociously manipulating the data about the Earth’s temperature.
Recently leaked e-mails from the “scientists” at CRU show that, when talking among themselves, they forthrightly admit to using a “trick” to “hide the decline” in the Earth’s temperature since 1960 — as one e-mail says. Still another describes their manipulation of the data thus: “(W)e can have a proper result, but only by including a load of garbage!”
Am I just crazy from the heat or were they trying to deceive us?
Global-warming cheerleaders in the media were quick to defend the scandalous e-mails, explaining that, among scientists, the words “trick,” “hide the decline” and “garbage” do not mean “trick,” “hide the decline” and “garbage.” These words actually mean “onion soup,” “sexual submissive” and “Gary, Ind.”
(Boy, it must be great to be able to redefine words right in the middle of a debate.)
Also, of course, the defenders said that the words needed to be placed “in context” — the words’ check was in the mail, and they’d like to spend more time with their families.
I have placed the words in context, and it turns out what they mean is: gigantic academic fraud.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Former Muslims United Applauds Swiss Referendum Victory Banning Minarets-”The Bayonets of Islam”
Nonie Darwish, executive director and co-founder of Former Muslims United (FMU) applauded the results of a Swiss Republic referendum banning the construction of minarets among the approximately 150 Mosques serving 400,000 Muslims in Switzerland. Minarets are Muslim towers to call the faithful to prayers through loud speakers five times daily. These towers are symbols to both Muslims and non-Muslims of the Islamization of Europe, America and other Western democracies.
Ms. Darwish of FMU said: “the Swiss referendum victory is the equivalent of banning what Turkish PM Erdogan called: ‘the bayonets of Islam.’ Supporters of a ban claim that allowing minarets would represent the growth of an ideology and a legal system — Sharia law — which are incompatible with Swiss democracy. The Swiss Referendum victory drew a red line against Islamization in Europe.”
She also noted that “this referendum victory is a credit to Swiss citizens, especially women voters who viewed construction of Minarets as leading to adoption of other graphic elements of Sharia law including wearing of burkas in public by Muslim women.” Darwish also pointed out that polls taken after the victory in the Swiss Referendum in neighboring Germany indicated that a similar effort there might win a plurality of votes.
Darwish added that “many Muslim groups are denouncing the ban as oppression to freedom of religion. However, such Muslim groups will be more credible if they first denounced the oppression of religious minorities in Muslim countries who make it illegal to practice any religion other than Islam. Muslim groups who claim that they are oppressed in Europe should be the first to stand up and yell “not in the name of my religion” when Churches are burned in Muslim countries. But instead all we hear from Muslim groups is “I am a victim” and “I am offended” while the blood of non-Muslims is being shed in the name of Sharia.
Former Muslims United is a US-based civil rights organization with the goals of seeking the protecting the human and civil rights of Apostates from Islam in accordance with the laws of the United States and its Constitution.
| [Return to headlines] |
Inconvenient Truths, Or Convenient Lies?
The sordid revelations discovered in recently leaked e-mails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit further confirm what many of us have long suspected regarding the global-warming hoax: that elitists are cherry picking data, rigging peer reviews, ignoring pertinent facts and using “tricks.” All of this in an effort toward perpetuating a myth of manmade global warming to sell the world on a Chicken Little “The Sky is Falling” scenario.
Whether it is a CRU scientist acknowledging, “We can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t,” or Phil Jones, head of Hadley CRU, advocating they “hide the decline” of global temperatures, the CRU weather balloon, filled with so much hot air, is out of the bag! This revelation of CRU’s dark underbelly, however, is only the tip of the iceberg in what will very likely go down as the greatest scientific fraud of the 21st century.
After British filmmaker Phelim McAleer asked Al Gore at the Conference for Environmental Journalists what he was going to do to revise his film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” after a British High Court in London found nine significant errors, his microphone was abruptly shut off. (The Huffington Post, Oct. 10, 2009)
Even the notoriously liberal Newsweek pointed out that after one scientist Gore interviewed informed him that significant amounts of CO2 emissions (the great peccadillo at the heart of the manmade global-warming theory) could be soaked up through proper soil management, they said it posed a “dilemma for Gore” and a “political clash.” Why? Because Gore needs the threat of global warming to advance his radical leftist global agenda!
After Gore found out that Timothy LaSalle, CEO of the Rodale Institute, was informing the public that CO2 need not be a problem, stating, “If we feed the biology and manage grasslands appropriately, we could sequester as much carbon as we emit,” Gore’s assistant told LaSalle to dial down his estimate.
All of this begs the question, why “dial down” good news and “hide the decline” of global temperatures? How is it that we are enduring the ninth-coldest year on record, Greenland’s ice mass is “increasing,” and the world’s polar bear population is “growing,” while certain politicians and scientists continue to engage in shameless deceit? The reason so many leftist politicians “hide the decline” is so they can manipulate the fears of the masses and cause them to seek refuge in the arms of Big Brother. Sadly, many scientists cannot resist the temptation to support such scenarios because it insures that they will receive huge financial grants and enjoy elite status in the liberal academic community.
Furthermore, it is no secret that Al Gore and others are exploiting environmental issues to further a global agenda. Al Gore wrote in his book “Earth in the Balance,” “We are close to a time when all of humankind will envision a global agenda that encompasses a kind of Global Marshall Plan to address the causes of poverty and suffering and environmental destruction all over the earth.” Gore shamelessly calls for us to surrender to a “a central organizing principle. …”
Ultimately for elitists, truth is not the issue — control is.Timothy Wirth, who currently heads the United Nations Foundation, said, “We’ve got to ride this global-warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.” (Michael Fumento, “Science Under Siege: Balancing Technology and the Environment” (William Morrow & Company, 1993); p. 362)
The Club of Rome, which consults with the U.N., has searched for appropriate boogie men, in an effort to frighten the masses and herd them into uniting under the watchful eyes of Big Brother: …
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Researcher Reportedly Threatens to Sue NASA Over Climate Data
A U.S. scholar is threatening to sue NASA to compel the release of climate change data, saying he suspects the agency has manipulated research just like a university research center in Britain is accused of doing.
The Washington Times reported Thursday that Christopher Horner, a fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, has given NASA until the end of the year to grant his two-year-old Freedom of Information Act request for research detailing NASA’s climate data and explaining why the agency has altered its own figures.
He’s referring to calculations that first showed 1998, then 1934, then 1998 and 2006 as the hottest years on record.
The threat comes after leaked e-mails from Britain’s University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit showed scientists appearing to manipulate climate data. The director of the unit has stepped down while an investigation is underway.
Horner said he suspects NASA’s information is “highly damaging.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Problem of Islamic Religious Persecution
How is it that only Western nations are accused of “defaming” religion?
By Doug Bandow
America, like so many countries in the West, laments its strained relations with the Islamic world. In June, Pres. Barack Obama traveled to Cairo to speak against the “fear and mistrust” that exist between the West and Islam. Yet Muslim governments demand respect for Islam while refusing to offer similar respect for religious minorities within their own borders.
The recent Swiss vote to ban the construction of minarets in that European nation has become the latest controversy to generate Muslim protests worldwide. However, Islamic governments are in no position to complain about Western intolerance and “Islamophobia.” Most Muslim nations are repressive or offer only limited political freedom. More often than not, Islamic states violate basic human rights; and almost all persecute Christians, Jews, and other religious minorities.
Many authoritarian states — especially Communist or formerly Communist ones — violate religious liberty along with other freedoms in order to maintain political control. But Muslim nations are almost unique in their willingness to persecute religious minorities to promote religious ends, as is evident from the State Department’s latest report on religious liberty abroad.
The State Department refers to “state hostility toward minority or non-approved religious groups,” as if different faiths randomly oppressed different faiths. However, Islam has distinguished itself with the willingness of governments and individuals to harass, attack, jail, and kill members of other religions. Even the most moderate and tolerant Islamic states often fall far short of respecting religious minorities. In Morocco, for instance, the government detained converts from Islam to Christianity, expelled Christian missionaries, and restricted “non-Islamic materials and proselytizing.” Many other Islamic states are far worse, however…
| — Hat tip: AA | [Return to headlines] |
“Jews Back Muslims on Minaret Ban”
If our choice is between saving western civilization and the white race or not offending the Jews, I’ll go with the former.
“Jews back Muslims on minaret ban”.
None so blind as those who cannot see.