It’s well-known that the violent left-wing student protests of the late 1960s were funded and encouraged by the KGB and other East-Bloc intelligence services. What was not so well-known until fairly recently was the enormous extent of communist penetration of Western leftist groups. New revelations — such as the recent confirmation that I.F. Stone was a Soviet agent — keep popping up in the press.

The latest scandal to emerge from the Stasi archives of the DDR concerns the shooting in 1967 of a student demonstrator by a West German policeman. Now, more than forty years later, it turns out that the cop who pulled the trigger was on the Stasi payroll.

Here’s the report from NRC Handelsblad as translated by our Flemish correspondent VH:

The Stasi was behind murder that incited RAF terror

By Joost van der Vaart

Berlin, May 22 — The bullet came from a Stasi spy. The West German policeman who shot the Berlin student Benno Ohnesorg in the 60’s — an event with far-reaching effects in the Federal Republic — had been working for the secret service of the Communist Socialist DDR. [The MSM always writes “Communist”, but that is a deceit. The German Democratic Republic started as the “Sozialistischer Staat der Arbeiter und Bauern”: Socialist State of Workers and Farmers, and was ruled by the “Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands”, SED: the Socialist Unity Party of Germany.]

This is evident from a research by two employees of the Stasi archives, the vast collection of documents of the former “Ministerium für Staatssicherheit der DDR” (East German Ministry for State Security, or Stasi). The service did not only spy on its citizens, but also interfered with the affairs of the neighboring republic, the “class enemy” West Germany.

Benno Ohnesorg was a student who marched in a demonstration on June 2, 1967 in West Berlin against the Shah of Iran. The rally got out of hand and Ohnesorg was shot dead by a civilian police officer, Karl-Heinz Kurras. Ohnesorg’s death led to continuing student protests in West Germany, and was the direct cause for the creation of extremist left-wing terrorist group the Rote Armee Fraktion (RAF). For nearly a quarter of a century the RAF kept the country in the grip of violence.

– – – – – – – – –

Ohnesorg’s death has always been enigmatic. Kurras shot the student at close range, who was hit above his right ear. After the shooting a colleague asked Kurras why he drew his gun. Answer: “He came running towards me.” Years later Kurras said in an interview: “Whoever attacks me like that will be destroyed. That is how you should see it”.

The question now is whether the Stasi had planned a murder of a West Berlin student to socially destabilize the Federal Republic of Germany.

Kurras (81) was registered under the pseudonym “Otto Bohl” as Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter (unofficial employee = spy) on the payroll of the Stasi. He is still alive, but is not yet able to clarify this. For the West German student movement the DDR was not a factor of interest. The protests were directed against the right-wing forces in the world: the government, former Nazis, America. The German journalist and historian Arnulf Baring said this morning: “If it was known then that the Stasi had killed Ohnesorg, the students would have viewed that as a conspiracy; a lie of the right-wing press”.

Tell me again about Europe and her pains,
Who’s tortured by the drought, who by the rains.
Glut me with floods where only the swine can row
Who cuts his throat and let him count his gains.
It seemed the best thing to be up and go.

               — William Empson, from “Aubade”

We’ve come a long way in just a little over two years.

The first Counterjihad Summit was held in Copenhagen back in April 2007, and the European and North American networks have been developing continuously since then. CVF — which has recently been folded into the larger and more comprehensive International Civil Liberties Alliance — followed up with Counterjihad Brussels 2007 and Counterjihad Vienna 2008.

Last weekend a group of like-minded people convened in Copenhagen for Counterjihad 2009. Unlike some of our previous efforts, this was a working meeting, and did not feature a slate of prominent speakers in a conference format. It was designed to strengthen, extend, and deepen the existing networks of anti-jihad activists and bloggers.

The following countries were represented at the summit:

Austria		Hungary		Sweden
Denmark		Norway		Switzerland
Finland		Romania		UK
France		Serbia		USA
Germany

The participants were a mix of writers, bloggers, webmasters, activists, and members of political parties. Among them were:

Aeneas (UK)		Kepiblanc (Denmark)
Armance (Romania)		KGS (Finland)
Conservative Swede (Sweden)		Multikultur (Germany)
Derius (UK)		Radu (France)
ESW (Austria)		Rolf Krake (Denmark)
Gaia (UK)		Serge Trifkovic (Serbia)
Holger Danske (Germany)		Sparks (Hungary)
Jim Lake (UK)		Steen (Denmark)
Kent Ekeroth (Sweden)		Zonka (Denmark)

The meeting was held on Saturday May 16 and Sunday May 17. The sessions on each day were organized as roundtable discussions in a workshop format. Each session had one or two presenters, but the entire process was interactive throughout, with several ICLA leaders acting as moderators of the discussions.

ICLA — like its predecessor CVF — is not itself primarily an action-oriented group. We are network facilitators, and our goal is to bring different groups and sub-networks into contact with one another, enhancing communication and improving the overall coordination of Counterjihad activities.

Day One focused mainly on the network, and was more about process than content. Presenters discussed various aspects of organizing and maintaining Counterjihad networks in Europe and North America, and how different groups interact and respond in their respective societies.

Given the nature of our work, these networks must often be unobtrusive and non-public. Depending on the countries involved, our activities may be subject to harassment from government authorities, quasi-governmental entities such as Antifa, and Muslims. Several sessions dealt with the practicalities of recruiting, operating, and expanding under these circumstances, paying special attention to security issues.

Day Two concentrated on action, which is the end result of all our networking and organizational efforts. Topics included demonstrations, public-awareness actions, legislative initiatives, letter-writing campaigns, and a “housewife’s kit” for ordinary citizens interested in the Counterjihad.

A brief summary of the two days’ sessions is below. More detailed material will be presented in later posts.
– – – – – – – – –

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

Day One: The Network

I opened the proceedings with an introduction to “The Distributed Counterjihad Network”. In the next day or two I’ll post a report adapted from my remarks and the discussion that accompanied it.

The second session was “Among Criminal Muslims”, a report by a Danish psychologist who has extensive personal experience dealing with the most criminal youngsters in Denmark. The majority of these are Muslims, and this has important implications for dealing with problems of integration. He gave an account of his experience, describing how the existing prison system tends to encourage and harden extremism. The discussion focused on the way “natives” are forced to interact with a Muslim population that includes a high proportion of violent criminals.

In the afternoon one of the leaders of ICLA gave an excellent presentation on the current crisis of the EU, especially the financial crisis, and how it will affect the growing resistance to immigration and the Islamization of Europe.

ESW gave a report and slideshow on current conditions in Kosovo, with Serge Trifkovic providing background information and historical details.

Other issues that were covered on Saturday included:

• The coming repression in various European countries, as exemplified by the case of Jussi Halla-aho in Finland
• Security, especially the need for secure communication
• The use of the internet and the building of websites
• Coordination of simultaneous actions across country borders
• The making and distribution of videos, with a special emphasis on translations and subtitling

Day Two: Action

The first session on the second day was chaired by Serge Trifkovic, who brought his extensive knowledge and experience to bear in a discussion about the “Green Corridor” in the Balkans. Kosovo is just one piece of the mosaic that makes up the corridor, which has created a collection of contiguous Muslim entities running all the way from the European portion of Turkey to northwestern Bosnia.

The misguided role of the United States — which seeks to ingratiate itself with Islamic countries by doing good deeds for Muslims — is one of the main issues to consider when analyzing political affairs in the Balkans.

The topic was part of a wider discussion on “Jihadist Geopolitical Designs”.

Legislative initiatives are perhaps the most important field of action. Designing, writing, and proposing laws — even if they fail to pass — focuses the spotlight on sharia and the dangers of Islamization, building public awareness of the problem. Well-informed members of the network become lobbyists against sharia, establishing working relationships with receptive politicians at the local and national level.

Our Austrian correspondent ESW headed two sessions. The first concerned the legendary fifteen demands of the Akademikerbund Manifesto, which was reported in this space last year. The Austrian Counterjihad faces problems regarding the introduction of legislation, and ESW summarized what is being done to work around the problems.

ESW’s second session concerned “Counterjihad for beginners”. As we encounter people who take an interest in resisting Islamization, and basically agree with us, the pertinent question frequently is: “What can I do about it?”. ESW introduced a “housewife’s kit” that lists a wide variety of useful things that can be done easily, on the cheap, and with minimal or absolutely no personal risk.

During the rest of the afternoon several presenters covered various action-related topics, including engaging our opponents in the war of ideas, and the necessity for controversial and provocative tactics. The last several hours were taken up with a general discussion and an exchange of useful practical suggestions.

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

After the sessions on Saturday and Sunday, a number of the participants adjourned to Steen’s salon to continue our discussions over food and adult beverages.

In many ways, this is my favorite part of such meetings: a small gathering in an informal setting where a free range of opinions flows. Some of our best ideas are hatched under these circumstances.

As I sat there listening to the flow of conversation around me, I heard French, German, Romanian, Swedish, Danish, and English being spoken. The Scandinavians conversed among themselves in one or more variants of their own languages, with word changes thrown in to account for differences in vocabulary between Swedish and Danish. But when the conversation encompassed a larger group, English — thank God! — was the common tongue.

This, I thought, is the real Multiculturalism at work.

This was a group of like-minded European volunteers gathering for a common purpose.

Some of the most brilliant minds of the Western world were present in Steen’s flat on those two nights. If the world were organized rationally, these people would hold political office or be helping to form public policy in their respective countries. But, as it is, they have to use pseudonyms, hide their activities, and fly under the radar to avoid persecution for mounting a resistance to the destruction of their countries and their cultures.

Such is the sad level to which Western Civilization has sunk.

Given my imminent unemployment and reduced circumstances, Counterjihad Copenhagen 2009 will likely be my last such event for the foreseeable future. But we’ve come a long way in two years, and the Counterjihad network will function perfectly well in my absence.

Our initial goals have been met: we have formed a well-functioning decentralized network that connects different organizations and individuals together as they work towards a common goal. Information travels quickly and efficiently within this network and its associated organizations, providing an opportunity to plan and coordinate actions in different countries. Translations of relevant material into all major European languages is routine, and ensures that local groups do not remain isolated and atomized.

People know the obstacles and risks that they face when they volunteer for the Counterjihad. They are automatically stigmatized as “racists”, “xenophobes”, “neo-Nazis”, and “Islamophobes”. They risk losing their jobs and their livelihoods, and in some countries they can be prosecuted for their opinions under the laws against racial discrimination.

Yet still they join the resistance. This is a visible sign of the depth of feeling among ordinary people about the deliberate destruction of European culture by the transnational elites.

And even now things are changing: all across Europe the right-wing “xenophobic” parties are rising in the polls and gaining seats in local and national elections. Next month’s European parliamentary election will likely result in the entry of Sverigedemokraterna and Libertas into the EP, as well as more seats for Vlaams Belang, the PVV, Dansk Volkeparti, and other nationalist parties.

Some analysts make the mistake of relying on linear extrapolation to predict the future, but historical processes do not follow linear patterns. Affairs tend to proceed smoothly enough for a time, but all the while tension, resentment, and rage are building. Then comes a relatively small event — Gavrilo Princip pulling the trigger, for example — and the world is irrevocably changed.

We’re heading into one of those discontinuities right now, and sooner than most people think.

But as to risings, I can tell you why.
It is on contradiction that they grow.
It seemed the best thing to be up and go.
Up was the heartening and the strong reply.
The heart of standing is we cannot fly.

In my introduction to the news feed last night, I mentioned that “in a northern Swedish town, a threatening mob of native Swedes frightened Iraqi refugees and induced them to flee the town.”

I admit to a certain ironic hyperbole in my description — just imagine a group of today’s Swedes characterized as a mob! — but the actual story was somewhat less dramatic. Our Swedish correspondent LN wrote me this morning to set the record straight about what happened in Vännäs.

First, here’s the relevant section of the article in The Local:

‘Lynch Mob’ Prompts Refugees to Flee Town in Northern Sweden

Nearly half of the predominantly Iraqi-refugees residing in Vännäs in northern Sweden have decided to permanently move out of the area after being terrorized by what police called “a lynch mob” in early May.

“I thought that Vännäs was the perfect place for us. And there are many, many friendly people here. But we still don’t dare to stay; I’m seriously concerned about my children’s safety,” said father of five Ismail Ramadan to the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper.

Ramadan’s family and several others have decided to abandon plans of starting a life in the small community outside of Umeå less than two weeks after a group of 30 to 50 young people assembled outside the apartment building in which the refugees lived and began shouting threats and throwing stones.

The May 9th incident resulted in several windows and many frightened refugees.

[…]

The weekend of harassment prompted municipality refugee coordinator Ingrid Lindroth to evacuate the refugees to safety.

“I made the decision after speaking with a number of refugees who were extremely scared — simply terrified. It was an easy decision,” she told SvD.

In contrast, here’s the report sent by LN, drawn from several Swedish-language sources:
– – – – – – – – –

This is how the Iraqi refugees described their ordeal:

“I can’t even describe to you how horrible it was. ‘Now it’s over, here they come!’ I thought,” Ramadan told SvD.

“We all cried and screamed. We spent the whole night lying in the hall and held each other tightly.”

This was said by people coming from a war zone with real life threats!

What was the actual result of mob action and “stone-throwing”?

ONE pebble made a hole in ONE window (marked in green in the photo at right).

A few reasons for the anger expressed by “persons of Swedish background”:

• “Reverse racism” at two schools.
• Knife threats at the schools.
• One Swedish girl was pushed, fell, and suffered a fracture of her cranium.
• One rape at the beginning of May by three accused from the “refugee” collective.

There was also a spontaneous “anti”-demonstration: the local communists hired two buses to collect professional demonstrators from the nearest town, Umeå!

Sources:

• frianyheter.wordpress.com
• www.folkbladet.nu
• exilen.eu

Tonight’s big story concerns Muslims in Athens who are rioting because of a rumor that police desecrated a Koran and beat up a Muslim.

In other news, in a northern Swedish town, a threatening mob of native Swedes frightened Iraqi refugees and induced them to flee the town.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Diana West, Gaia, heroyalwhyness, Insubria, Paul Green, TB, Tuan Jim, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
– – – – – – – – –

	Financial Crisis
	Geithner Carries Fat Fiscal Burden But Thin Wallet
	USA
	Bush’s Gitmo Vindication
	Cheney Says Current Policies Put More Americans at Risk
	Desert Storm Vet Protects Female Employees by Shooting and Killing Violent Armed Robber
	Dozens Arrested in Crackdown on Latino Gang Accused of Targeting Blacks
	Eagle-Eyed Sarge Saves Jet From Disaster
	FBI: Texas Drug Cell Trains on Own Ranch
	Obama Declares Gitmo Detainees to be ‘Fetuses’
	Obama in Bush Clothing
	Sleepwalking Into Disaster
	Stop the Government’s Illegalities on Social Security, Medicare
	The Government’s No-Competition Health Care Plan
	Waxman-Markey Cap-and-Trade Bill Stuffed Full of Unpleasant Surprises
	Canada
	Reforming Ontario’s Human Rights System
	Europe and the EU
	Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams: Humiliation of MPs Must Stop
	Denmark: Who is the Home Guard’s Enemy?
	Denmark: Teens Arrested for Shooting
	Denmark: Nightclub Attacker Wanted by Interpol
	Far-Right Campaign Ads Bother Austria
	Finland: Holmlund and Thors Want NGOs to Help Thai Victims of Domestic Violence
	Germany: 2,000 Protesters Expected for Germany’s 60th Birthday
	Germany: How to Become an Accidental Conservative
	Greece: Athens 2nd Day of Clashes Between Muslims and Police
	Greece: Athens: Muslims Protest Koran Destruction
	Greece Braces for Thrace Rap
	Greece: Huge Attica Sex Racket Smashed by Police
	Italy-Israel: Alemanno Picks Up ‘Dan David’ Prize for Rome
	Italy: ‘More Power for Premier’, Berlusconi
	‘Lynch Mob’ Prompts Refugees to Flee Town in Northern Sweden
	Netherlands: Going Dutch? Not So Fast!
	Netherlands: More Cameras to Fight Airport Crime
	New French Law on Internet Piracy Meets Skepticism
	‘Romanians Know Russia Better Than You, So Trust Us’
	Somali Britons With Jihad Training Pose Terrorist Risk to Britain
	Spain: Jews, Muslims and Protestants Want Equal Dignity
	Swedish Court Okays Higher Rent for Refugees
	UK: Arson Attacks on Schools ‘Deeply Worrying’
	UK: Expenses Leak Probe ‘Not In Public Interest’
	UK: How MI5 Blackmails Muslims
	UK: Miliband Urges Coalition of West and Muslim World
	UK: MPs’ Expenses: Politicians Used to be Better, Wiser — and Older
	UK: Mohammed Ali Guilty of Killing of Yasmine and Sabrina Larbi-Cherif
	UK: MPs Who Fought for Secrecy Are Exposed
	UK: Social Worker Cover-Up Shielded Child Sex Offender Who Went on to Rape Foster Parents’ Son, Two
	UK: The Man Who Exposed the MPs’ Expenses System “to Its Rotten Core” Has Been Named After More Than Two Weeks of Revelations About Questionable Claims.
	Balkans
	Karadzic Seeks UN Help in Motion Against Charges
	Kosovo: Serbs March Against Biden in Mitrovica
	Serbia in EU: Frattini, Visas No Longer Needed After 2009
	Serbia: Bosnian Spiritual Leader Sparks Controversy
	North Africa
	Al Jazeera and Qatar: the Muslim Brothers’ Dark Empire?
	Italy-Morocco: Alert Over Drugs and Terrorism, Frattini
	Terrorism: Morocco, Arrest for the Attack in Madrid
	Terrorism: Algeria, 5 Gendarmes Killed in Ambush
	TLC: Egypt Seeking to Shut Down Iran-Based Channel
	Israel and the Palestinians
	Gaza: Hamas Decreases Attacks on Israel on Egyptian Pressure
	Israel Bows to US in Removing Illegal Settlers
	Radio: Iranian Nuclear Arms, 30% Would Leave Israel
	Middle East
	Iraq: an Armed Band Kidnap a Christian Teacher in Kirkuk
	Kirkuk: Young Christian Teacher is Freed Thanks to Help of Muslims
	Ohran Pamuk, the Armenian Genocide and Turkish Nationalism
	Turkey Probing ‘Vilnius Way’ Into the EU
	South Asia
	Diana West: We’re Winning the Wrong War
	Indian Elections: Congress Wins, the Hindu Bjp and Third Front Collapse
	India: Orissa Government Cuts Death Toll From Anti-Christian Pogrom
	Pakistan: Ulemas Against the Taliban, “Full Support” to the Government and Army
	Pakistan: Wages of Incoherence
	Far East
	China: Employees of Internet Giant Baidu Protest. Job Litigation Up 98%
	Koreas: How the Kaesong Complex Made Things Worse in N. Korea
	Philippines: US Marines Make Friends, a Few Enemies in Philippines
	What Obama’s Asian Ambassador Picks Reveal
	Australia — Pacific
	NZ: Indian Women Tell of NZ Abuse
	NZ: Migrants Get Free Courses in Kiwi Slang
	Sub-Saharan Africa
	British and American Fighters Respond to Jihad Call in Somalia
	Hero Cruise Ship Britons Fight Off Armed Somali Pirates With Deckchairs and Tables
	Somalia: Maersk Hijack Thwarted
	UK: Vulnerable Whitechapel Youths Recruited for Jihad in Somalia
	Latin America
	Mexico: Dangerous Prisoners Flee as Guards ‘stand by’
	Immigration
	Italy: Mayor ‘Pays’ Roma-Gypsies to Leave the City
	Switzerland: Love May Lose Out Under Marriage Law
	UK: ‘Approved’ College Sells Diplomas to Help Foreign Students Stay in UK
	Culture Wars
	Abortion: Spain; Zapatero: it is a Woman’s Right
	Spain: Abortion, Gov. Agrees Decriminalisation Draft Law
	General
	WHO Chief: Swine Flu Will Keep Spreading Globally
	WHO to Consider Severity of ‘Sneaky’ Swine Flu

Geithner Carries Fat Fiscal Burden But Thin Wallet

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — What’s in the wallet of Timothy Geithner, whose hands as U.S. Treasury secretary are on some of the fattest government purse strings in the world?

Not much, it appears, beyond a few bank cards, some euros and a worthless Zimbabwean bill.

Geithner, testifying to a congressional panel on Thursday about efforts to tackle the financial crisis, was shown a $50 billion bank note from Zimbabwe that has nearly no value due to hyperinflation in that African country.

Representative John Culberson asked Geithner if he had ever seen such a bill himself, prompting the Treasury secretary to reach into his pocket and produce a Zimbabwean note.

“I often have some foreign currency in my wallet,” Geithner told Reuters during a break. “Want to see?”

Many of the slots in the thin, weathered leather wallet were empty. There were three cards with Visa and MasterCard logos — all inserted upside down so the issuers could not be seen — and a yellowed identification card of some sort.

From inside, Geithner pulled a small pile of receipts and papers, including a New York City transit card, pointing out there were some euros tucked in there too.

Anything else? Not a single U.S. dollar was in sight.

(Reporting by Jim Bourg; Writing by John O’Callaghan; Editing by Dan Grebler)

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

[Return to headlines]

Bush’s Gitmo Vindication

President Obama delivered a major speech yesterday on how he intends to prosecute the war on terror (or whatever it’s now called), and in particular his desire to close the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay. As rhetoric, his remarks were at pains to declare a bold new moral direction. On substance, however, the speech and other events this week look more like a vindication of the past seven years.

The President’s speech came after both houses of Congress had denied his funding requests to shut down Guantanamo and relocate some of the most dangerous prisoners to the U.S. The 90-6 vote in the Senate was especially notable because all but a half-dozen Democrats opposed their own President, on that high-minded principle known as not-in-my-backyard.

So, to the idea that isolated Alcatraz Island could serve as one possible location, California’s Dianne Feinstein says it is a historic landmark and instead suggests a prison in another state. But the most state-of-the-art “supermax” prison in America is in Colorado, and this week that state’s new Democratic Senator, Michael Bennet, vetoed that idea; as it happens, he’s running for election in 2010.

Then there is the voluble Jim Webb, who in January said Mr. Obama had offered a reasonable timeline in ordering Guantanamo closed in a year. But now the Virginia Democrat opposes closing Gitmo anytime soon while observing to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Sunday that “We spend hundreds of millions of dollars building an appropriate facility with all security precautions in Guantanamo to try these cases. There are cases against international law.” That was the Bush Administration’s point all along.

Mr. Obama, for his part, still wants Gitmo closed, and he cited South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham in saying that the idea that the detainees could not be securely held in the U.S. was “not rational.” Apparently also irrational is FBI Director Robert Mueller, who this week told Congress that bringing the detainees even to U.S. prisons raised serious concerns, “from providing financing, radicalizing others, [to] the potential for individuals undertaking attacks in the United States.”

Yet for all of his attacks on the Bush Administration, which he accused of making “decisions based upon fear rather than foresight,” Mr. Obama stuck with his predecessor’s support for military commissions, adding some procedural bells and whistles as political cover to justify his past opposition. For the record: Both the left and right, from the ACLU to Dick Cheney, now agree that the President has all but embraced the Bush policy.

Mr. Obama also pledged to release at least 50 detainees to other countries — about one-tenth the number released under President Bush — and added that the Administration was in “ongoing discussions” to transfer them. Good luck with that: The Europeans who were so robustly against Gitmo in the Bush years have suddenly discovered its detainees are dangerous. Meanwhile, the countries that might take them, such as Yemen, can’t be trusted to prevent them from returning to the battlefield, where they can kill Americans again.

The President will also seek to try some of the detainees in federal courts, citing the recent case of al Qaeda sleeper Ali al-Marri who last month pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and may be sentenced to a mere 15 years, and possibly much less, in a civilian prison. But what the al-Marri prosecution — and the soft plea bargain — really shows is how hard it is to convict terrorists in civilian courts when much of the evidence against them is either classified or wasn’t gathered on the battlefield at the time of capture.

Mr. Obama’s most remarkable Gitmo sleight-of-hand was on the matter of how to handle the hard cases, those who Mr. Obama said “cannot be prosecuted yet who pose a clear danger to the American people.” After acknowledging this was “the toughest issue we will face” and pledging that he would not “release individuals who endanger the American people,” the President proposed . . . well, he didn’t really say what he’d do, except that whatever it is must be “defensible and lawful.” No wonder the ACLU is in a tizzy.

Which brings us back to Guantanamo. The President went out of his way to insist that its existence “likely created more terrorists around the world than it ever detained,” albeit without offering any evidence, and that it “has weakened American security,” again based only on assertion. What is a plain fact is that in the seven-plus years that Gitmo has been in operation the American homeland has not been attacked.

It is also a plain fact — and one the President acknowledged — that many of the detainees previously released, often under intense pressure from Mr. Obama’s anti-antiterror allies, have returned to careers as Taliban commanders and al Qaeda “emirs.” The New York Times reported yesterday on an undisclosed Pentagon report that no fewer than one in seven detainees released from Gitmo have returned to jihad.

Mr. Obama called all of this a “mess” that he had inherited, but in truth the mess is of his own haphazard design. He’s the one who announced the end of Guantanamo without any plan for what to do with, or where to put, KSM and other killers. Now he’s found that his erstwhile allies in Congress and Europe want nothing to do with them. Tell us again why Gitmo should be closed?

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

[Return to headlines]

Cheney Says Current Policies Put More Americans at Risk

Unrepentant and newly unbridled, former vice president Richard B. Cheney has embraced two missions in his political retirement: to forcefully defend the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism policies and to publicly condemn those who would unravel them.

He did both yesterday, using the drama of a televised feud with President Obama to deliver the blistering accusation that more Americans are likely to die because the president has turned away from George W. Bush’s post-Sept. 11, 2001, national security agenda. Cheney seemed eager to fan the flames of the debates raging through Washington.

Spoken in his droll monotone, Cheney’s words were razor-sharp. He accused the president of “contrived indignation and phony moralizing” over the issue of detainee interrogations and called the decision to ban harsh methods “recklessness cloaked in righteousness” that threatens Americans.

Cheney’s speech was on the calendar long before Obama’s, but the former vice president did not back down when the two schedules collided. He called the zeal for prosecutions of those who conducted interrogations “utterly misplaced.” He accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) of treating the CIA with “suspicion, outright hostility and second-guessing.” He said Obama would “regret” bringing detainees into the country.

To those who question what he and Bush did to combat terrorism, Cheney held nothing back, offering a comprehensive — if familiar — justification for the government’s past use of wiretapping, detention and harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects.

“For all the partisan anger that still lingers, our administration will stand up well in history — not despite our actions after 9/11, but because of them,” he told the American Enterprise Institute shortly after Obama’s own national security address at the National Archives.

It has been evident for weeks that the relative seclusion Cheney kept as vice president was ending. In his speech yesterday, Cheney made it clear that he views himself as the principal keeper of the Bush legacy and a key player in making sure Obama does not mischaracterize the past eight years.

Bush confidants said Cheney is not explicitly channeling his former boss. Bush is neither asking him to make the appearances nor discouraging him from doing so, said former Bush press secretary Dana Perino, who remains close to the 43rd president. But Perino applauded Cheney’s decision to offer what she said is a “full accounting” of the Bush presidency.

“Why shouldn’t the vice president defend the Bush administration policies?” Perino said yesterday by e-mail. “I am pretty sure we still have free speech in our country — and he should exercise his right as he sees fit, just as every American should.”

White House officials expressed little concern about Cheney’s speech, saying Obama’s address was not designed to compete with it. Press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama was in his daily economic and national security briefings during Cheney’s talk and did not watch it on television.

But, the officials said, the point-counterpoint argument that unfolded yesterday could help the president make his case, given that poll numbers show Cheney is not popular among the general public.

Cheney’s forceful defense of the past eight years raises questions about how long he intends to fill the role of Obama inquisitor.

Former Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said it is critical to the future of the Republican Party that other defense experts take the mantle from Cheney as soon as possible.

“My guess is he sees this as a substantive duty and intends to be a temporary fixture,” Fleischer said. “The vice president knows he’s not a popular spokesperson. The future of the party rests with [others]. They need time and space to emerge.”

In the meantime, however, Cheney’s 15-page speech will serve as a playbook for anyone seeking to defend the Bush administration. In the second half of what amounted to a debate, Cheney vigorously defended the methods that Obama had just belittled as unwise and ineffective.

In great detail, Cheney recounted the hours and days after the 2001 strikes and said the Bush administration’s actions are the reason the country has not suffered another serious attack.

“They were legal, essential, justified, successful and the right thing to do,” Cheney said of the policies. “. . . They prevented the violent death of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of people.”

Cheney said he wishes Obama success in protecting the country, telling his conservative audience that “though I am not here to speak for George W. Bush, I am certain that no one wishes the current administration more success in defending the country than we do.”

Obama did not mention Cheney in his speech, instead making thinly veiled references to the former vice president’s comments. In his rebuttal, Cheney spoke directly about Obama, urging the president to alter his course on national security.

“You don’t want to call them enemy combatants? Fine,” he said. “Call them what you want — just don’t bring them into the United States.”

He accused Obama of propagating half-truths about the effectiveness of interrogation methods by refusing to declassify memos that Cheney claims would show how much information the government obtained through such tactics.

He said Obama’s release of memos that describe the methods was “flatly contrary” to national security interests. But he said the move should be accompanied by a full release of the other memos.

“For reasons the administration has yet to explain, they believe the public has a right to know the method of the questions, but not the content of the answers,” he said.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

[Return to headlines]

Desert Storm Vet Protects Female Employees by Shooting and Killing Violent Armed Robber

Man has no regrets defending Oklahoma City pharmacy

Jerome Ersland was back at work Thursday filling prescriptions and hoping that by taking the life of a 16-year-old boy two days earlier, he had saved others.

Rubbing an oversized bandage on his left forearm, where he said he was grazed by a robber’s bullet, Ersland related details of what he said was a highly organized hit on the Reliable Discount Pharmacy.

“I just regret anybody would get killed,” Ersland said. “But if I wouldn’t have been here, there would have been three people killed — the other pharmacist and the two techs.”

He also recalls the angry voices of people who gathered outside the pharmacy Tuesday night, shouting that he was a racist who unnecessarily took a life of the Seeworth Academy charter school student, Antwun Parker.

“There were a lot of black people gathered out there yelling and everything at my boss,” Ersland said.

An organized hit

After the pharmacy near SW 59 and Pennsylvania was robbed two years ago, the owner installed new security measures to try to make sure his employees would never again be forced to a back room and pistol-whipped.

“We have a very good security system,” Ersland said, motioning to the magnetic door locks that won’t let anyone in or out of the store without permission. “The door locks, and they (robbers) knew that. They had cased it because they knew exactly what time to hit us when we’d have all of our narcotics out and our money out.”

About 10 minutes before 6 p.m., Ersland said, two robbers wearing ski masks waited for someone to leave the pharmacy and then grabbed the open door and threw down a board to stop the door from closing.

The robbers went in cursing and yelling, ordering employees to give them money and drugs, Ersland said.

Two women who were working behind the counter ran for a back room where they would be safe, but Ersland said he couldn’t run. Ersland said he’s a veteran with disabilities from wounds he received in Operation Desert Storm, wears a cumbersome back brace and just had his latest back surgery six weeks ago.

“All of a sudden, they started shooting,” he said. “They were attempting to kill me, but they didn’t know I had a gun. They said, ‘You’re gonna die.’ That’s when one of them shot at me, and that’s when he got my hand.”

Ersland said he was thrown against a wall, but managed to go for the semiautomatic in his pocket.

“And that’s when I started defending myself,” he said. “The first shot got him in the head, and that slowed him down so I could get my other gun.”

But as one robber hit the floor, Ersland said, a bullet from the other robber whizzed past his ear.

The pharmacist said he then got his second gun from a nearby drawer, a Taurus “Judge.”

After he had the big gun, Ersland said, the second robber ran.

But as he started to chase after the second robber, Ersland said, he looked back to see the 16-year-old he had shot in the head getting up again. Ersland said he then emptied the Kel-Tec .380 into the boy’s chest as he kept going after the second robber.

“I went after the other guy, but he was real fast and I’m crippled,” Ersland said.

Outside the pharmacy, he said he saw what he thought was a third black male in a car with the engine running and reaching for what appeared to be a shotgun.

“I pulled out my ‘Judge’ and pointed it right between his eyes and he floored it,” Ersland said.

[…]

“Fortunately, God made them miss me, except for this minor scratch,” Ersland said.

“I was able to return fire and protect the girls’ lives. God was helping me.”

— Hat tip: Paul Green

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Dozens Arrested in Crackdown on Latino Gang Accused of Targeting Blacks

Federal authorities Thursday accused a south Los Angeles County street gang of a litany of crimes, including the murder of a sheriff’s deputy and racially motivated attacks designed to drive African Americans from their town.

The charges, part of a massive racketeering case dubbed Operation Knock Out, were outlined in several indictments charging 147 members and associates of the Varrio Hawaiian Gardens gang with murder, attempted murder, drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, extortion, kidnapping and witness intimidation.

The gang, also known as VHG, is so pervasive in Hawaiian Gardens that one in 15 people living in the square-mile city just north of Long Beach has ties to it, said Sal Hernandez, the FBI’s top agent in Los Angeles.

“Imagine living in a community where one in every 15 of your neighbors swears allegiance to an organization committed to the spread of violence,” he said. “The good people deserve to live in peace.”

The early morning raids Thursday involved approximately 1,400 local, state and federal law enforcement officers who fanned out across the small, densely populated city and surrounding communities. Seventeen SWAT teams helped make the arrests.

The probe into the gang began in 2005 after Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Jerry Ortiz was fatally shot by a Varrio Hawaiian Gardens gang member he was trying to arrest in connection with the shooting of an African American man. The shooter, a veteran gang member with devil’s horns tattooed on his forehead, has been convicted of murder and sentenced to death.

U.S. Atty. Thomas P. O’Brien, speaking at a news conference at the Lakewood sheriff’s station, where the slain deputy had been assigned, touted the case as the “largest gang takedown in United States history.”

“Today we honor Deputy Ortiz by coming together to crush the outlaw gang that took his life and make a positive difference for the law-abiding people who live in Hawaiian Gardens,” said O’Brien, who stood in front of a memorial to Ortiz and other officers killed in the line of duty as he spoke.

Authorities said the gang was formed in the 1950s or early ‘60s and today has more than 1,000 members spanning several generations, many of them with connections to the Mexican Mafia.

The gang started out with street robberies, drug dealing and turf wars with other gangs, but has since escalated its level of violence, authorities allege.

It is accused of taunting law enforcement with particularly brazen acts, including scrawling “187,” the California Penal Code designation for homicide, on a sheriff’s patrol car in 2006. Authorities interpreted the vandalism as a reference to Ortiz’s killing a year earlier.

Gang members also spray-painted the words “Rest in Piss Ortiz” on a wall, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Michael S. Lowe, the lead prosecutor on the case.

The gang members, with monikers such as Slasher, Shady, Diablo and Menace, boasted about being racist, referring to themselves as “the Hate Gang,” according to a 193-page indictment that outlines the racketeering case.

“VHG gang members have expressed a desire to rid the city of Hawaiian Gardens of all African Americans and have engaged in a systematic effort to achieve that result by perpetrating crimes” against them, the document states.

The indictment details 476 “overt acts” that gang members allegedly committed as part of the racketeering conspiracy since 1992. The crimes include the dealing of methamphetamine, heroin and crack, and the killing of a fellow gang member suspected of cooperating with law enforcement.

The document also details more than a dozen incidents in which African Americans were allegedly beaten, shot at or harassed because of their race.

In one incident, a gang member is accused of using a racial epithet against an African American, yelling at him to “get out of town,” then attacking him with a garden rake. The indictment states that one gang member was heard bragging about the murder of Ortiz, saying it had put the gang “back on the map.”

As a result of the raids Thursday, about 90 suspected gang members and associates were arrested, including some who were not listed in the indictment but taken into custody for other alleged crimes, authorities said.

Thirty-five of those charged were already in custody for other alleged crimes; 49 either remain at large or have yet to be identified.

During the four-year probe, authorities seized 105 guns and more than 30 pounds of methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin. The drugs had an estimated street value “worth well over a million dollars,” said Timothy J. Landrum, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration in Los Angeles.

Dozens of the defendants made their initial appearances in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, where most were ordered held without bail.

Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office, said the number of defendants charged in the case significantly exceeded the 102 defendants charged in a case against the Florencia 13 gang two years ago — a case prosecutors then said was the biggest of its kind in the nation.

Reaction to Thursday’s raids varied.

Hawaiian Gardens Mayor Michael Gomez praised authorities, saying “the city appreciates the help, both in resources and personnel that we have received in today’s anti-gang operation.

“Honest residents should not have to live in fear of lawless thugs who act like its high noon at the OK Corral.”

Barry Bruce, a community activist who took it upon himself to attend the news conference at which the arrests were announced, accused authorities of overstating the gang problem in Hawaiian Gardens and of mistreating residents he said were falsely labeled as gang members.

“There are serious violations of civil rights going on in the community,” Bruce, who runs an urban outreach program called Way Out Ministries, told reporters. “The police are supposed to follow the law.”

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Eagle-Eyed Sarge Saves Jet From Disaster

Here’s a way to get a first-class upgrade: Help the airline crew cope with a dangerous situation — and maybe save the lives of 300 people.

From his window seat aboard a United Airlines jet, keen-eyed Air Force Sgt. Bartek Bachleda saw what the crew couldn’t — a leak, spewing 6,000 pounds of fuel an hour into the atmosphere, that could have endangered the craft on its trans-Pacific flight.

Right after the Tokyo-bound Boeing 747 took off from Chicago on April 18, Bachleda spotted what looked like a fuel leak from the left-wing tank.

About an hour later, once he was certain as to what it was he was seeing, he alerted a flight attendant — who at first brushed off his concerns.

He got her attention by saying, “Ma’am, it’s an emergency.”

“I told her, ‘You need to inform the captain before we go oceanic,’ “ he said in a recounting released by the Air Force.

The captain, meanwhile, was trying to figure out why the jet seemed to be burning through so much fuel, an airline spokesman said.

So he walked out to Bachleda’s seat and looked out the window. He also watched video Bachleda had shot of the leak.

Planes as big as 747s carry tens of thousands of pounds of fuel. Instead of trying to make an emergency landing, the crew decided to head south to San Francisco, where United has a hub.

The passengers’ trip was delayed by only 61/2 hours. Bachleda and a colleague stayed behind to help investigators.

“When we got off the airplane, everyone was thanking us,” he recalled, adding that he flew to Tokyo the next day — seated in the first-class section.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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FBI: Texas Drug Cell Trains on Own Ranch

The FBI is advising law enforcement officers across the country that a Texas cell of Los Zetas — an increasingly powerful arm of the Mexican Gulf Cartel drug trafficking syndicate — has acquired a secluded ranch where it trains its members to “neutralize” competitors in the United States.

In order to ensure its share of the lucrative illegal drug trade, the cartel’s members reportedly are operating north of the border to collect debts and spy on competitors. They have also protected cocaine and heroin shipments that were bound for Houston, where they were repackaged and shipped on to Alabama, Delaware, Georgia and Michigan, according to the FBI.

The information, which was disseminated Monday to state, local and federal agencies, does not provide specifics, such as the location of the ranch, but includes a notation that the information came from reliable FBI contacts.

Trainees are reportedly taught about home invasions, firearms and ways to run vehicles off the road in order to kidnap occupants who owe drug debts.

The Zetas have achieved almost mythical status in Mexico, as the small band of military deserters has become a managing partner for the Gulf Cartel, terrorizing rivals with beheadings, torture and mass killings.

They are said to have a presence in large swaths of Mexico and are often described as being the most ruthless gangsters in Mexico’s underworld.

Not much U.S. bloodshed

The bulletin continues that although the Zetas establishing cells in Texas and other parts of the United States increases the likelihood of clashes with U.S.-based competitors, there hasn’t been much bloodshed on U.S. soil, an indication the gangsters realize violence here would be bad for business.

The cartel also maintains a network of boats and rafts along the Rio Grande to help move drugs and assassins northward into the United States as well as covertly move kidnap victims southward back into Mexico, the bulletin continues.

It notes that the Zetas have learned the kidnapping is a more effective way to collect debts and control territory.

In April, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported that the Zetas had warned their traffickers that if they abandoned loads when confronted by U.S. law enforcement, they would be subject to execution by the cartel.

Lack of hard evidence

Lt. Dan Webb, of the Texas Department of Public Safety’s narcotics division for the Houston regional office, said Zetas do operate in Houston and other parts of Texas, but they try to limit their time on U.S. soil in order to avoid being arrested by authorities who are far less corrupt than in Mexico.

As for whether the organization has a training ranch in Texas, Webb said there have long been rumors, but he is not aware of hard evidence.

“It very well could be true, but as far as us having a location for the ranch, it is all conjecture,” said Webb, who believes it is more likely they train in Mexico than Texas. “If we had any hard evidence, we’d be all over it.”

He said a lot of drug activity by U.S. gangs, such as the Texas Syndicate or the Mexican Mafia, is mistakenly attributed to Zetas.

“We are trying to keep them over in Mexico and discourage them from coming to America in any form or fashion,” he said.

Hidalgo County Sheriff Guadalupe “Lupe” Trevino said drug-trafficking-related violence has been going on along the border for decades and that while he hadn’t seen the FBI bulletin yet, it doesn’t surprise him.

“This is nothing new to us,” he said. “It is new to the rest of the country because of horrific events in the Republic of Mexico,” referring to increased media attention.

“South Texas used to be the back door to the United States,” he added. “Now we are the front door.”

— Hat tip: Paul Green

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Obama Declares Gitmo Detainees to be ‘Fetuses’

[Comment from Tuan Jim: Satire…]

In an effort to shut down the U.S. Naval Detention Center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, thereby restoring America’s moral standing in the world, President Barack Obama today declared some 240 enemy combatants held at Gitmo to be ‘human fetuses’.

In an executive order, the president said, “Since I ordered Gitmo shut down, and people don’t want us to bring the inmates here, the only way to extract them from the facility is to change their legal status to one that offers us more choices.”

While accused terrorists have access to attorneys, and nearly-limitless legal appeals, a fetus has no legal standing, cannot speak for itself, and is subject to the death penalty without regard to guilt or innocence.

Civil rights advocates have pressured Obama to follow through on campaign promises to shutter Gitmo, but even Democrats in Congress have resisted bringing the inmates to U.S. soil for trials and incarceration.

“We can debate whether enemy combatants have access to protections under the U.S. Constitution,” said Obama. “However, no serious person would grant such protection to an embryo or fetus. The loss of 240 fetuses wouldn’t raise an eyebrow in a nation where more than 3,000 of them hit the Dumpster daily.”

The president noted that America’s global reputation has been devastated by U.S. treatment of terror suspects, but that “our treatment of a million fetuses each year earns us nothing but admiration, and requests for clinic-funding from those who aspire to be like us.”

Sources acknowledged continuing White House debate about whether a terrorist who escapes from Gitmo alive can still be treated as a fetus.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Obama in Bush Clothing

“We were able to hold it off with George Bush. The idea that we might find ourselves fighting with the Obama administration over these powers is really stunning.”

— Unnamed and dismayed human rights advocate, on legalizing indefinite detention of alleged terrorists, the New York Times, May 21

If hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue, then the flip-flops on previously denounced anti-terror measures are the homage that Barack Obama pays to George Bush. Within 125 days, Obama has adopted with only minor modifications huge swaths of the entire, allegedly lawless Bush program.

The latest flip-flop is the restoration of military tribunals. During the 2008 campaign, Obama denounced them repeatedly, calling them an “enormous failure.” Obama suspended them upon his swearing-in. Now they’re back.

Of course, Obama will never admit in word what he’s doing in deed. As in his rhetorically brilliant national-security speech yesterday claiming to have undone Bush’s moral travesties, the military commissions flip-flop is accompanied by the usual Obama three-step: (a) excoriate the Bush policy, (b) ostentatiously unveil cosmetic changes, (c) adopt the Bush policy.

Cosmetic changes such as Obama’s declaration that “we will give detainees greater latitude in selecting their own counsel.” Laughable. High-toned liberal law firms are climbing over each other for the frisson of representing these miscreants in court.

What about disallowing evidence received under coercive interrogation? Hardly new, notes former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy. Under the existing rules, military judges have that authority, and they exercised it under the Bush administration to dismiss charges against al-Qaeda operative Mohammed al-Qahtani on precisely those grounds.

On Guantanamo, it’s Obama’s fellow Democrats who have suddenly discovered the wisdom of Bush’s choice. In open rebellion against Obama’s pledge to shut it down, the Senate voted 90 to 6 to reject appropriating a single penny until the president explains where he intends to put the inmates. Sen. James Webb, the de facto Democratic authority on national defense, wants the closing to be put on hold. And on Tuesday, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, no Gitmo inmates on American soil — not even in American jails.

That doesn’t leave a lot of places. The home countries won’t take them. Europe is recalcitrant. Saint Helena needs refurbishing. Elba didn’t work out too well the first time. And Devil’s Island is now a tourist destination. Gitmo is starting to look good again.

Observers of all political stripes are stunned by how much of the Bush national security agenda is being adopted by this new Democratic government. Victor Davis Hanson (National Review) offers a partial list: “The Patriot Act, wiretaps, e-mail intercepts, military tribunals, Predator drone attacks, Iraq (i.e., slowing the withdrawal), Afghanistan (i.e., the surge) — and now Guantanamo.”

Jack Goldsmith (The New Republic) adds: rendition — turning over terrorists seized abroad to foreign countries; state secrets — claiming them in court to quash legal proceedings on rendition and other erstwhile barbarisms; and the denial of habeas corpus — to detainees in Afghanistan’s Bagram prison, indistinguishable logically and morally from Guantanamo.

What does it all mean? Democratic hypocrisy and demagoguery? Sure, but in Washington, opportunism and cynicism are hardly news.

There is something much larger at play — an undeniable, irresistible national interest that, in the end, beyond the cheap politics, asserts itself. The urgencies and necessities of the actual post-9/11 world, as opposed to the fanciful world of the opposition politician, present a rather narrow range of acceptable alternatives.

Among them: reviving the tradition of military tribunals, used historically by George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Winfield Scott, Abraham Lincoln, Arthur MacArthur and Franklin Roosevelt. And inventing Guantanamo — accessible, secure, offshore and nicely symbolic (the tradition of island exile for those outside the pale of civilization is a venerable one) — a quite brilliant choice for the placement of terrorists, some of whom, the Bush administration immediately understood, would have to be detained without trial in a war that could be endless.

The genius of democracy is that the rotation of power forces the opposition to come to its senses when it takes over. When the new guys, brought to power by popular will, then adopt the policies of the old guys, a national consensus is forged and a new legitimacy established.

That’s happening before our eyes. The Bush policies in the war on terror won’t have to await vindication by historians. Obama is doing it day by day. His denials mean nothing. Look at his deeds.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Sleepwalking Into Disaster

As GOP leaders meet in Maryland this week, the Washington conventional wisdom is that it’s the Republican Party that is struggling to stay relevant in the Era of Obama. The Democrats, the insiders tell us, are the ones with the wind — and the American people — at their backs.

The problem with conventional wisdom is that it’s just that — conventional and complacent. When I became Speaker in 1995, only one member of the House had ever served under a Republican Speaker: Democrat Sidney Yates of Illinois. Prior to the 1994 elections, the conventional wisdom was that Sidney would never suffer such an indignity again.

Astute analysts ignore the Washington conventional wisdom and focus on the political winds blowing from the fifty states. And the public opinion currents in America today are becoming eerily similar to those circulating in 1993.

Today, just as then, Washington liberals are getting complacent. They’re ignoring mounting evidence that the American people don’t share their desire for bigger government, higher taxes and a liberal social agenda.

Take, for instance, the political earthquake that shook California this week. On Tuesday, Golden State voters resoundingly rejected five ballot measures that would, among other things, raise taxes, borrow against future lottery receipts and lock revenue surpluses in a Sacramento slush fund-all ostensibly to close California’s gapping $42 billion budget deficit.

Even though supporters of the measures outspent opponents by 10-to-1, the only measure that passed was one that prohibits pay raises for elected officials in times of deficits.

Already the spin has started with the liberal elites attributing the death of these big government ballot measures to their complexity and to low voter turnout, but Democrats would do well to heed the larger message being sent: Even in a blue state such as California, which supported Barack Obama by a whopping 61 percent in last fall’s election, there is no popular appetite for higher taxes and bigger government.

And not just in California, but across the country, opinion is shifting against major parts of the liberal Washington agenda. Recent Gallup polling contains two major public opinion shifts away from liberalism that Americans have yet to see reflected in their leadership in Washington.

First, in April, Gallup found that fewer Americans support gun control than at anytime in the 50-year history of the poll. Only 29% of Americans said possession of hand guns should be made illegal in the United States.

Then, just this month, came a truly shocking finding. The Gallup poll found that, for the first time, a majority of Americans describe themselves as “pro-life.” Asked whether they consider themselves pro-life or pro-choice, 51 percent chose the former, compared to 42 percent for the latter. Just a year ago, 50 percent of Americans called themselves pro-choice and just 44 percent self-identified as pro-life.

Perhaps not surprisingly, these public opinion policy shifts are beginning to be reflected in party affiliation. Although the percentage of Americans calling themselves Republicans today has taken a heavy hit compared to earlier in the decade, the data from the past few months tells a different story.

No, more Americans aren’t identifying as Republicans. But Gallup’s weekly tracking poll shows an increase in Americans identifying as independent. And where are these converts coming from? From Democrats. The same poll shows a slight decline in Americans who call themselves Democrats.

Only time will tell if this small shift in the data will become a major trend. But taken together, the results in California and the latest polling data seem to indicate a real opportunity for a center-right leader with a center-right message.

Americans are increasingly out of synch with the liberal Washington establishment. But what are they getting from their leaders in Washington? Plans to send Guantanamo terrorists to American communities and other far left proposals that will damage our national security. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who made the unfortunate decision to call the CIA liars and criminals, has seen her approval rating plummet from 51 percent in January to 39 percent today.

The feint hissing sound you are beginning to hear is the air slowly leaking out of the Washington conventional wisdom. The question is, anyone in the elites listening?

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Stop the Government’s Illegalities on Social Security, Medicare

Medicare and Social Security trustees on May 12 painted a grim, but not surprising picture of the failing financial health of two entitlement programs. Social Security will be insolvent by 2016, a year earlier than predicted just last year; Medicare by 2017, two years earlier than last year’s forecast.

So why are the Department of Health and Human Services and Social Security Administration fighting tooth and nail to prevent a handful of seniors — including yours truly — from opting out of Medicare Part A, the costly hospital insurance program?

Having some percentage of seniors pay for their own hospitalization coverage would seem like a gift to the cash-strapped Medicare program. From a financial standpoint, the more seniors who choose this option the better.

But the government will have no part of it. Why? Perhaps because doing so could undermine the push for universal health care.

If the government allows us to exercise our legal right to pay privately for medical care, Washington also will have to allow other seniors to decide whether they want Part A coverage or private coverage. And this is the exact opposite of the direction the administration wants to go.

This might not be much of an issue except that Medicare coverage is sure to deteriorate over time as the baby boomers retire and their expectations, old-age infirmities and the burgeoning federal budget deficit collide. Medicare benefits already are limited and are sure to be rationed far more in the future.

There is no law or regulation that says Social Security recipients must receive their health coverage from Medicare. Yet that is the position the government has taken. According to backdoor administrative measures adopted some 16 years ago and only recently coming to light, Medicare-eligible seniors are denied their Social Security benefits if they do not enroll in Medicare Part A.

Without Medicare, many seniors would have no health coverage at all. Others, however, have spent years making plans to provide for their own health care coverage in old age because they realize Medicare services are rationed, inferior to those they could obtain privately, and are administered with little or no concern for privacy.

During my 18-year career in public office I campaigned tirelessly for less government intrusion in the lives of Americans. Telling seniors they must accept Medicare coverage or lose their Social Security benefits is the ultimate intrusion.

That’s why I have joined four other seniors who wish to make their own health choices in a lawsuit challenging the government’s edict.

The government has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, and Judge Rosemary Collyer of the U.S. District Court is hearing arguments on their motion on May 22. The government’s arguments, however, are flimsy.

The best they can do is argue that the plaintiffs lack standing (nonsense) and did not “exhaust their administrative remedies” before going to court (more nonsense). In fact, John Kraus, a co-plaintiff in the lawsuit, asked to withdraw from the hospital insurance program in February 2006. For more than three years, SSA failed to even respond to his request.

There can only be two possible explanations for this: incompetence or arrogance. Take your choice. Neither enhances one’s confidence in government health bureaucrats or strengthens the administration’s case for universal health insurance overseen by Washington.

The current policy not only violates the right of individuals to make their own health choices, but violates Social Security and Medicare law.

If the Social Security Administration wants to defend its decision, it can publish the proposed policy in the Federal Register as required by law, accept comments, hold hearings and issue a formal ruling. But it can’t impose such an arbitrary and harmful policy by fiat. The courts, we are confident, will see to that.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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The Government’s No-Competition Health Care Plan

During the last presidential campaign, at least six national health care reform proposals were discussed and debated. Consensus on the part of the Obama administration and the Congressional leadership has now formed around a single, government sponsored alternative to the private health insurance market.

If enacted, the administration’s plan would represent the largest intrusion of government control into this country’s health care since Medicare and Medicaid-perhaps even larger. It is not an exaggeration to say our entire health care system is at risk with this new plan.

At face value the proposed government plan would function like Medicare and “compete” with private, non-Medicare insurance. It would offer employers and individuals an alternative to obtaining health insurance in the private market.

That seems all well and good. But in reality the government would set its tax subsidized pricing well below private plans and “crowd out” the private insurance carriers. The government would also mandate that the private carriers provide a comparable benefit package, hence eliminating any chance for competition with different product lines.

So what are the actual numbers? The Lewin Group estimates that at Medicare rates, the new government plan would cover 130 million people. Out of that group, 118 million will be forced to join after opting out or losing their private coverage. To put this in perspective, there are currently 170 million people in the United States with private health insurance.

To believe that the government would “compete” with private carriers is naïve. The government would cut rates well below the private market and make its plan look much more attractive until it controlled all health insurance. After all, it is impossible to compete against an entity that can draw on the full tax resources of the United States.

This is exactly what happened with Medicare. In 1964, senior citizens had access to a wide selection of private health insurance policies. Medicare was passed in 1965, and by 1970, no private market existed, except for co-pays and deductibles, for the elderly in the United States.

Why not offer Medicare to everyone in this country? The reason is simple-we can’t afford it. The unfunded liability for Medicare today is at least $45 trillion, and it may be as high as $67 trillion. Eliminating private insurance for non-seniors would double or triple this debt.

Also, Medicare reimburses hospitals at 70% and physicians at 80% of the private insurance rate. By eliminating the private carriers, hospitals and doctors who are now cost-shifting their losses to private insurance plans would be forced to close their doors. Hence just as demand for health care increases from aging Baby Boomers the supply would decrease.

With the government in complete control of our health care system, prices and reimbursements would be fixed and subject to Congressional politics every session, access and benefits would be dictated by bureaucrats, and ultimately rationing would occur, probably, as in Canada, through the use of patient waiting lists. Access to a waiting list is not the same as access to health care.

We are truly at the brink of losing what is left of our choice and having market competition in health care in the United States. The Administration’s public-versus-private “competition” plan is by far the most insidious of all the reform proposals discussed in recent history.

The new plan would appear to offer a reasonable alternative to private health insurance, yet in reality it will destroy the private market and will force all US citizens into a government controlled health care program.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Waxman-Markey Cap-and-Trade Bill Stuffed Full of Unpleasant Surprises

Congress is considering the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade legislation and guess what? It’s stuffed full of unpleasant surprises for the unwary. But thank goodness for the eagle-eyed folks at the American Energy Alliance, who spotted this little gem on page 781 of the mammoth 946-page bill:

“Title IV, Subtitle B, Part 2, Section 426, of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 states: ‘An eligible worker (specifically, workers who lose their jobs as a result of this measure) may receive a climate change adjustment allowance under this subsection for a period of not longer than 156 weeks…80 percent of the monthly premium of any health insurance coverage…up to a maximum payment of $1,500 in relocation allowance…and job search expenses not exceed[ing] $1,500.’“

If cap-and-trade is an energy and global warming bill, why is a three-year package of unemployment benefits, job training and relocation expenses buried deep within its fine print? And why is a federally subsidized “job bank” needed if laid-off workers would quickly be rehired for higher-paying “green” jobs? The fact that generous unemployment benefits are buried in the bill means that “green jobs are bunk,” the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Ben Lieberman told The Examiner.

A Heritage analysis also found that Waxman-Markey is the largest, most intrusive energy tax increase in American history. It would reduce the nation’s GDP by $7.4 trillion, raise electricity rates 90 percent and gasoline prices 74 percent. Apparently, the authors of this legislation were unaware that a recent poll found six out of 10 Americans oppose energy policies that raise their electricity bill by even one cent, much less practically double it. And the final kicker is that the bill’s effect on greenhouse gases emissions would be just barely measurable.

It stands to reason that forcing companies and individuals to switch from using relatively cheap, abundant energy sources like oil, coal and natural gas to more expensive “alternative” sources will be a huge drag on the nation’s economy, especially during a deep recession. There’s no getting around it: Higher energy costs will inevitably lead to higher consumer prices and fewer jobs. And any new “green” jobs created will likely be lower-paid manual labor and service jobs, not higher-paid manufacturing positions. Any way you look at it, throwing millions of Americans out of work is an unacceptably high price to pay for a paltry two-tenths of a degree difference in temperature by the end of the century.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Reforming Ontario’s Human Rights System

Although this newspaper has been a busy critic of increasingly ambitious and arrogant human rights commissions, we are not blind to the electability concerns raised on Wednesday by Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership candidate Christine Elliott. Ms. Elliott attacked rival Tim Hudak for advocating the abolition of the Ontario Human Rights Commission and its Tribunal, leaving little doubt where she stands — in favour of the status quo, and, by extension, in favour of the skein of quasi-judicial absurdities that it produces: cash awards for licensed pot smokers who light up in bars, shakedowns of gym owners trying to figure out how to deal with pre-operative transsexuals and the like.

Whatever criticisms one may have of it, the Ontario system is a Progressive Conservative legacy, presumably enjoys significant support in a politically diverse province and — unlike the Alberta Star Chamber of which Ezra Levant famously ran afoul

— does not feature a code that can be used to penalize particular opinions featured in magazines, newspapers and other printed material. So Ms. Elliott’s position is coherent, and really needs little further exegesis. She appears to regard the OHRC, practically, as a political third rail, and is unlikely to touch it. By the standard she has set, no one should touch it, ever.

If this is what Ontario’s PC members want, they’re entitled to vote for it. But the Progressive Conservative party ought to be a party of ideas, too, and that means sometimes taking the lead in educating the public on policy changes they might initially resist. Ms. Elliott compared the danger from Tim Hudak and Randy Hillier’s ideas on OHRC abolition with John Tory’s calamitous advocacy of full funding for faith-based schools in the 2007 Ontario election. But Mr. Tory got into trouble pitching a hugely expensive idea in the middle of a general election campaign, and was seen, to some degree, to be fixing what wasn’t broken.

A leadership campaign is obviously a much more suitable venue for trial balloons, and is arguably designed entirely to put them in motion. It is not clear what the cost impacts of OHRC abolition, as propounded by Messrs. Hudak and Hillier, would be; and there is certainly an existing base of belief, a large and vocal one, to the effect that the OHRC is malfunctioning. The criticisms aren’t coming out of nowhere.

The problem is that Mr. Hudak’s sudden adoption of language in the Hillier platform does bear all the signs of instantaneous improvisation. And neither man’s proposal — technically, they are almost indistinguishable — is fleshed out carefully enough to be ready for a prime-time electoral challenge to the OHRC. Both say that cases of “real” or “genuine” discrimination should be handled by courts of law, with rules of evidence and due process and cost compensation for the winner. This addresses major criticisms rightly levelled at OHRC procedure, but what constitutes “real” discrimination?

One senses that the roguish libertarian Mr. Hillier and the less radical Mr. Hudak might be using very different definitions of “real,” and it’s clear that neither candidate intends for the Ontario Human Rights Code to be enforced by courts as the Commission enforces them now. Mr. Hudak’s “specially trained” human rights judges would “have a mandate to hear real cases of discrimination or harassment — not politically motivated cases of hurt feelings”; he envisions such cases being handled by a separate branch of the Ontario judiciary, similar to the Domestic Violence and Family Law courts. It seems unwise to be vague about what you want human rights law to look like, but certain about what you want in a large new bureaucracy for handling it. And, honestly, is family law anyone’s natural first choice for a model of efficiency and fairness?

Real courts, with their hard constitutional and procedural rules, might save Ontario money by discouraging nuisance cases, or might cost it more by making the remaining nuisance cases more expensive. It is hard to judge these proposals unless the candidates making them are willing to outline exactly how narrow they want the anti-discrimination law of the future to be.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams: Humiliation of MPs Must Stop

The “systematic humiliation” of MPs is threatening Britain’s democracy, the Archbishop of Canterbury warns today.

Dr Rowan Williams, writing in The Times, says that the issues raised by the expenses scandal are grave and that urgent action is required.

“But many will now be wondering whether the point has not been adequately made,” he says. “The continuing systematic humiliation of politicians itself threatens to carry a heavy price in terms of our ability to salvage some confidence in our democracy.”

Dr Williams says that it would be a tragedy if the expenses saga ended any confidence in the idea that politics and public service could be a calling “worthy of the most generous instincts”.

The warning came as the Conservative MP Andrew MacKay said at a constituency meeting that he would stand for reselection after both he and his wife, the Tory MP Julie Kirkbride, claimed for their homes on expenses.

Nadine Dorries, MP for Mid Bedfordshire, claimed that MPs were victims of a “McCarthy-style witch-hunt”. She said that the drip-drip of leaked claims was creating such an atmosphere of terror that there was a risk of an MP committing suicide.

Hours after Ms Dorries made the remarks, David Cameron ordered a public statement insisting that her comments were her own and did not represent those of the party.

According to one Tory source, party officials have had conversations with Ms Dorries on more than one occasion to rebuke her for her “increasing tendency to make wild and eccentric statements”.

After Ms Dorries drew a comparison between the expenses scandal and the anti-Communist witch-hunts of US senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, a number of other MPs criticised the backbencher.

Stephen Pound, the Labour MP, described Ms Dorries’s comments as “facile” adding: “The idea that anybody is going to play the violin and ask people to contribute to the MPs’ relief fund has absolutely no grasp of reality whatsoever.”

Mr Cameron attacked Ms Dorries’s judgment insisting that: “Of course MPs are concerned about what is happening but, frankly, MPs ought to be concerned about what their constituents think and ought to be worrying about the people who put us where we are.”

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Ms Dorries said: “People are seriously beginning to crack. The last day in Parliament this week was, I would say, completely unbearable.

“I have never been in an atmosphere or environment like it, when people walk around with terror in their eyes and people are genuinely concerned, asking, ‘Have you seen so and so? Are they in their office? They’ve not been seen for days.’

“There’s a really serious concern that this has got to a point now which is almost unbearable for any human being to deal with.”

Ms Dorries’ comments, echoing postings on her weblog, followed an angry outburst earlier in the week in which one MP, forced to stand down over the size of his gardening bills, complained that his critics had merely been jealous of his “very, very large house”.

“I’ve done nothing criminal, that’s the most awful thing,” Totnes MP Anthony Steen, who spent £90,000 his second home, including big sums for lopping trees, said. “And do you know what it’s all about? Jealousy.”

Mr Steen was one of two MPs who confirmed their departure at the next election, the other being Ben Chapman, the Labour MP for Wirral South, who insisted that he had done nothing wrong despite allegations that he over-claimed £15,000 extra for mortgage interest.

Mr Chapman said that he had been given permission by the Commons Fees Office to maintain claims on the mortgage for his second home in London despite his decision to pay off £295,000 of it, which reduced his mortgage bill from £1,900 a month to around £400.

Another Labour MP, Ian Gibson, also offered to stand down if the voters demanded it after claims that he had sold his taxpayer-subsidised second home to his daughter at a knock-down rate. He, too, insisted that he acted within the rules.

In his article for The Times today, Dr Williams says regulation has taken the place of virtue and questions the “no rules were broken” mentality that has underpinned many of the MPs’ and peers’ responses, arguing that this represents a basic problem in contemporary moral thinking.

— Hat tip: Gaia

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Denmark: Who is the Home Guard’s Enemy?

Politicians and military experts question whether the Home Guard’s 50,000 soldiers and 500 million kroner in costs are worth it.

The government’s Defence Commission has determined that there will be no military threat against Denmark in the foreseeable future. As a result politicians and military experts are questioning whether the Home Guard is worth maintaining.

This, not least, following a request by the defence forces during negotiations on a new defence agreement for an extra billion kroner or more in order to carry out tasks such as the war in Afghanistan.

Value

“The problem is that the defence forces want more money but don’t consider where money is used without getting very much value. The Home Guard does not give much value for money in connection with the main tasks facing the military,” says Danish Institute for Military Studies Head Mikkel Vedby Rasmussen.

Although the Home Guard consists of some 50,000 unpaid volunteers, the organisation costs about DKK 500 million to run. The Guard supports the military and takes part in monitoring territorial waters, pollution control and regulating traffic.

Average pay

Most of the Home Guard’s funds are spent on paying some 600 full-time employees at an average wage of DKK 400,000 per year. The Social Democrats now want a report on whether society gets enough value for money.

The head of the Home Guard — Major General Jan S. Norgaard says his force takes on important guard duties, for example in connection with a terrorism threat against Denmark.

“We are called out some 11 times every 24 hours and provide an extensive service that would be very expensive if it had to be provided by fully-paid employees,” says Norgaard.

— Hat tip: TB

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Denmark: Teens Arrested for Shooting

Three teenagers have been detained in connection with a shooting in Hundige overnight.

Three young teenagers aged 15 and 16 have been arrested in connection with a shooting episode in Hundige overnight in which a 22-year-old man was injured.

“We don’t yet know what role they played and have not yet decided whether to present them in a remand hearing,” says Police Investigation Chief Jacob Olsen.

Moped Shots were fired at the 22-year-old man from a moped carrying two people. As such all three detained cannot have been present during the shooting and have been detained as a result of witness descriptions Olsen says.

Argument The incident began when the 22-year-old, in his car with a 19-year—old female passenger, was accosted by two young men on a moped and threatened with a gun. An argument ensued during which the 22-year-old attempted to drive away quickly, but shots were fired at the car, two of which hit the driver in his hand and neck. He is reported to be in a stable condition.

A decision will be taken later Friday as to whether one or more of those detained will be presented in a remand hearing.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Denmark: Nightclub Attacker Wanted by Interpol

Interpol and authorities in the Schengen countries have joined Danish police in the search for a man who assaulted a Norwegian haemophiliac

A man who was instrumental in the death of a patron of city nightclub Rust last week is now being sought internationally, reports public broadcaster DR.

Police reportedly know the identity of the man, who is described as a 28-year-old Danish citizen of Pakistani background.

Last week the suspect threw a glass at the head of 25-year-old Norwegian student Andreas Bull-Gundersen, injuring him in the process.

Gundersen, who was a haemophiliac, attempted to receive treatment at Rigshospitalet but a communication problem between him and staff on duty resulted in his being sent back to the houseboat where he was staying. Gundersen died during the night of a brain haemorrhage.

Both Interpol and countries in the Schengen area have now registered the Dane as a wanted man. Authorities also say the man has a connection to Oslo, but did not specify what that connection was.

‘Norwegian police have confirmed that they know the suspect from earlier incidents,’ said superintendent Ove Dahl of Copenhagen Police.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Far-Right Campaign Ads Bother Austria

note: Israel’s ascension to the EU? huh?!

VIENNA -Austria’s far-right Freedom Party is coming under fire for inflammatory newspaper campaign ads focused on Turkey and Israel ahead of next month’s European elections.

Critics from across the political spectrum, including the chancellor, say the ads are a crass attempt to shore up anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic sentiment.

The ads, the first of which appeared in the mass-circulation Kronen Zeitung, stress that the Freedom Party would veto EU accession of both Turkey and Israel to avoid “getting sucked into the bloody Middle East” crisis.”

The latest ad, which appeared Thursday in the tabloid Oesterreich, even features a small photo of Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and quotes him as saying that Israel’s accession to the EU was an ‘option.’

Israel is not vying for entry in the EU. Even if it applied, its chances would be remote at best as it is not a European state — a basic application requirement under the founding EU treaties. While the Freedom Party has blatantly targeted Muslims and Turkey for some time, the focus on Israel is new.

In an unusually harsh response, Chancellor Werner Faymann, a Social Democrat, called Freedom Party chief Heinz-Christian Strache a “hate preacher” in a newspaper interview this week. “It cannot become a trivial offense in our country to establish oneself using Israel and religious feelings in order to incite hatred and gain a few votes,” Faymann said in a subsequent statement. “I consider this a disgrace for a politician.”

The 27-nation EU opened membership talks with Turkey in 2005, but there has been little progress because of disagreements over issues such as human rights, Cyprus and general opposition from some countries — including Austria.

Strache, who has ambitions to become the mayor of Vienna, has also caused controversy for holding up a cross at a recent demonstration against the expansion of a Muslim center in Vienna.

Analysts say it is still too early to forecast how the Freedom Party will do on June 7, election day. In the last European elections in 2004, the party got roughly 6 percent of the vote and one mandate. In September’s national elections, it took 17.5 percent of the votes and came in third behind the center-left Social Democrats and conservative People’s Party. Christoph Hofinger, co-director of the SORA Institute on Social Research and Analysis, said the Freedom Party would likely see significant gains compared to five years ago.

“They over-stretched it a bit with their aggressive slogans Ğ it’s really, really hard to predict how they’ll do,” Hofinger said.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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Finland: Holmlund and Thors Want NGOs to Help Thai Victims of Domestic Violence

Ministers would consider background checks on husbands

Minister of European and Migration Affairs Astrid Thors (Swedish People’s Party) and Minister of the Interior Anne Holmlund (Nat. Coalition Party) are concerned with reports that Thai women married to Finnish men in Finland are often victims of domestic violence.

Both ministers give cautious support to the idea that the background of a potential Finnish husband should be examined when assessing a residence permit application of a Thai girlfriend or future wife, to see if the man has a history of violent behaviour.

A recent study has shown that a disproportionate number of Thai women married to Finnish men suffer physical and mental abuse.

“It is something that could be considered”, said Thors in an interview with Helsingin Sanomat.

Holmlund was more sceptical. She said that it is important to avoid labelling people.

If it were a standard practice in the Nordic Countries, Holmlund feels that an interview of a prospective husband could be considered in Finland.

“There would have to be some clear evidence, so that we do not start out from the assumption that everyone is necessarily a criminal”, Holmlund said.

Helsingin Sanomat wrote last Sunday that domestic violence is common n Thai-Finnish households. Some of the women live underground, or easily end up as sex workers in “Thai massage parlours”.

The articles led to a brisk online debate. A Finnish man living in Sweden said that before he got a residence permit for his Thai fiancé, he was called into the Swedish Immigration Service for an interview. He was asked if he has been sentenced for a violent crime, or had a restraining order placed on him.

“Wise questions: wife beaters and rapists need not ruin the rosy expectations of love of a hopeful immigrant”, the man wrote.

Thors says that she had always felt that social welfare officials give sufficient help in domestic violence situations.

She says that it is clear that targeted action is needed to help Thai women in particular. As examples she mentions a new telephone hotline, which has been granted funding from the early part of the year as part of an EU-funded project. It is the first project aimed at more efficient integration of Thai women.

Thors emphasises the role of non-governmental organisations in successful integration. “Organisations can succeed in things that officials are not capable of.”

Holmlund agrees with Thors: “This is typically the kind of thing that the third sector is also needed.

Holmlund feels that the police cannot take on the roles linked with immigrant integration. Police know that an older Thai woman who runs a massage parlour can recruit young women to work for her.

Many of them have worked practically without pay, and have ended up selling sex services.

However, Holmlund says that it is more difficult to say if actual pimping is involved.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Germany: 2,000 Protesters Expected for Germany’s 60th Birthday

Around 2,000 leftists are expected to attend an “anti-nationalist” parade in Berlin on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Federal Republic on Saturday, organisers said Friday.

The parade will represent an alliance of around 30 radical leftist groups, and its motto will be “Something better than the nation — against the rule of false freedom.”

“We expect to be able to stage a political demonstration, and we hope the police won’t obstruct us.” a spokeswoman for the organisers said on Friday, calling for a peaceful demonstration.

But she added, “We want participants to express their resentment of the government celebrations.”

In a speech during an official anniversary ceremony on Friday, President Horst Köhler called on Germany to continue the process of re-unification. “Unity is like democracy: it is never finished,” he said. “It is has to be lived, tested, constantly re-examined in our everyday lives.”

Köhler drew attention to the bitterness that many Germans still feel at the disparity in unemployment between the former East and former West of the country. “This compels us to renew our efforts. We must not accept the fact that the division of the nation lives on in the unemployment statistics,” he warned.

The president, who stands for re-election on Saturday, also repeated his call for Germans to use the current financial crisis as an opportunity to create a “new, ecological, industrial revolution.”

On the eve of the presidential election, which will be decided by a secret ballot of 1,224 parliamentarians and other public figures belonging to the Federal Assembly, Köhler received unexpected praise from Left party chief Lothar Bisky.

Bisky, speaking on a radio show on the Südwestrundfunk praised Köhler because, unlike his predecessors, Köhler showed signs of being “truly interested” in the situation in former East Germany. He said it was possible that some members of his party could vote for Köhler over their own candidate, television actor Peter Sodann.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Germany: How to Become an Accidental Conservative

In an excerpt from his new book, SPIEGEL editor Jan Fleischhauer describes his childhood in a typical West German liberal family, with parents who wouldn’t let him eat oranges because they were grown in countries ruled by dictators, and his coming out as a late conservative.

I can say with confidence that I know my way around liberals. I’ve spent half of my life in their company. My parents were on the left, as were my schoolmates and the majority of my teachers, my fellow students at university and, of course, all of my professors. Most of my colleagues are still liberals today.

It isn’t as if I have suffered because of it. I had a very sheltered childhood; it’s just that I was sheltered by liberals. I saw my first Disney film together with my own children. When McDonald’s opened a restaurant in our neighborhood, my father gave me a serious talk about the corruptive influence of American fast-food culture. The enjoyment of my first burger was an act of adolescent rebellion, and to this day, I still feel slightly guilty on my occasional visits to McDonald’s.

I am part of a generation in Germany that knows no other reality than the dominance of the left. Everyone was a liberal where I grew up. This isn’t entirely self-evident, because the neighborhood in which I grew up would generally be described as an exclusive residential area. My parents’ friends — and their friends, of course — all voted for the left-leaning Social Democratic Party (SPD), and later for the Green Party…

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Greece: Athens 2nd Day of Clashes Between Muslims and Police

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, MAY 22 — Today in Athens for the second consecutive day a few hundred Muslim immigrants were involved in clashes with the police, one of whom was accused of stealing a copy of the Koran and beating a Muslim. Over 1,000 people were involved in protests after spontaneous demonstrations yesterday, during which violence took place with bottles and rocks being thrown, causing the police to intervene with tear-gas. Numerous people were taken into custody. The protest, which was announced yesterday, began this afternoon in the centrally-located Omonia Square, with people chanting ‘Allah is Great’ and ‘Stop racism’, while holding copies of the Koran, despite the fact that authorities said yesterday that they would investigate into the accusations against the police officer. During a march towards Parliament, protected by large numbers of police, the protestors damaged automobiles and set garbage bins ablaze while police responded with tear-gas. Forced to pull back, the protestors dispersed and other clashes took place in various parts of the city. Dozens were taken into custody according to the press. Some were bruised or slightly wounded. Yesterday a few hundred Muslims, mainly Pakistani and Afghan citizens, had already protested similarly against the police, resulting in one officer to be slightly injured and several reported bruises. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Greece: Athens: Muslims Protest Koran Destruction

Hundreds of Muslims marched through central Athens on Thursday, damaging shops and cars, to protest what they said was the destruction of a Koran by a Greek policeman.

The president of the Muslim Union of Greece, Naim Elghandour, said that during police checks at a Syrian-owned coffee shop on Wednesday, an officer took a customer’s Koran, tore it up, threw it on the floor and stomped on it.

In response, about 1,000 immigrants, many from Syria, Pakistan and Afghanistan, marched to central Omonia Square, smashing several shop windows and five cars, a police official said.

Police sources said an internal investigation was launched into the Koran incident.

“We were told by police we will be given the name of the policeman who did this so we can press charges,” Elghandour said.

Thousands of immigrants, many from Muslim countries, cross into Greece illegally every year seeking a better life in the West. Trapped in legal limbo, most have no jobs, live in squalid conditions and are often arrested for minor crimes.

On May 9, members of a rightist group attacked immigrants in Athens, sending at least three to hospital. Rights groups accuse predominantly Orthodox Christian Greece of not doing enough to protect immigrants.

— Hat tip: TB

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Greece Braces for Thrace Rap

Greece is likely to face strict criticism regarding its treatment of a Muslim minority in the northern region of Thrace following a scheduled visit next month by Council of Europe officials, diplomatic sources have told Kathimerini.

The delegation is to check whether Greece has honored a decision by the European Court of Human Rights allowing two local groups to define themselves as Turkish. In March last year, the court ruled that Greece had violated European provisions on freedom of association by banning two groups called the Xanthi Turkish Union and the Rhodope Cultural Association of Turkish Women.

A Greek diplomat said a warning or a stiff fine was in store. “We are going to find ourselves in a corner and under a lot of pressure,” he said. Meanwhile, it emerged that Ankara is considering conceding to Greek requests for the reopening of the Halki Orthodox Seminary but only in exchange for the creation of a Turkish university in Thrace, a proposal Greece is certain to refuse.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Greece: Huge Attica Sex Racket Smashed by Police

Police yesterday detained 13 suspected members of a prostitution ring believed to have been one of the largest and best organized ever to operate in Attica, with an annual turnover of some 3.5 million euros and daily takings of up to 12,000 euros.

Police who infiltrated the ring after two officers posed as prospective customers said yesterday that they were seeking another 22 people, including the suspected ring leaders, two Albanian brothers, aged 29 and 34.

According to police, the ring offered the services of 100 foreign women, chiefly Russians, and also employed around 50 drivers to chauffeur them to and from their appointments.

Twelve of the alleged prostitutes were detained for questioning at the central police headquarters on Alexandras Avenue. According to their testimonies, they pocketed just 10 to 15 euros of the 150 charged for each sexual encounter. The women were lured to Greece via a bogus employment agency in Russia, Attica Police Chief Yiannis Dikopoulos said, adding that the sex workers were accommodated in nine apartments in different parts of Attica.

The ring is believed to have laundered its illicit profits using a yacht rental firm that police are looking into. The firm, with the trade name Istioploikoi Dromoi (Sailing Routes), has been renting out six luxury yachts, moored at Alimos Bay, police said.

Officers, who believe that the two Albanian ringleaders may already have fled to their homeland, have contacted their Albanian counterparts for cooperation in tracking the two brothers. Two bank accounts belonging to the suspects and containing some 1.5 million euros have been frozen, police in Athens said.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Italy-Israel: Alemanno Picks Up ‘Dan David’ Prize for Rome

(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, MAY 18 — Last night in Tel Aviv, Rome mayor Gianni Alemanno picked up the Dan David prize, awarded to the capital five years ago but not yet delivered. The prize was given to Alemanno during a gala evening conducted by the president of the state of Israel, Shimon Peres, and the representative of the Quartet on the Middle East, Tony Blair. The prize was awarded in 2004 when the mayor was Walter Veltroni but had never been collected, and includes 300 thousand dollars to be used for the construction of the Urbis Romae archaeological restoration centre in Acre, close to Jerusalem. The minister for Cultural Heritage will also take part in the creation of the centre. The prize was also awarded to an Italian, Paolo De Bernardis, a professor at the University La Sapienza in Rome, in relation to his research in astrophysics. Alemanno spoke about talks he had recently held with the former British prime minister, Tony Blair, on the theme of peace in the region, reporting that “Blair told me that it is very difficult to find a solution, but the hope is there. The meetings he has with Obama will be significant. The city of Rome will try to keep up this cultural operation to maintain a bridge of hope.” The aim of mayor Alemanno’s three-day mission to the Middle East is to create close relations between Rome and Jerusalem. Alemanno explained, “we want to create a sort of bridge between Rome and Jerusalem, a symbolic exchange between these two unique cities in the heart of the Mediterranean.” The first step in the mayor’s travels, which sees him accompanied by a large delegation, was to a dump in Tel Aviv where advanced technology for the treatment of solid urban waste manages to re-utilise more than 75% of refuse while at the same time producing biogas.(ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: ‘More Power for Premier’, Berlusconi

Parliament ‘useless’, PM tells business body

(ANSA) — Rome, May 21 — Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi on Thursday reiterated plans to change the Italian constitution to give more powers to the premier at the expense of parliament.

“You have a government that is for the first time run by an entrepreneur and a team of ministers that resembles a company board in its efficiency, but we have to reckon with a legislature that must be modernised because the premier has virtually no power,” Berlusconi told the annual conference of employers’ federation Confindustria in response to calls to modernise Italy.

“(Confindustria Chairman) Emma (Marcegaglia) has asked us to use our majority to achieve reforms…but we are faced with infinite difficulties because of a bureaucracy that opposes everything,” said Berlusconi, who has in the past complained that he felt “like a driver without a steering wheel”.

“I, who have always considered myself a revolutionary, believe that revolutions are easier than reforms,” he said.

A previous attempt by Berlusconi to increase the premier’s powers, in 2005, was defeated by a referendum the following year.

That reform would have made the premier a directly elected figure with the power to hire and fire ministers, propose that parliament be dissolved and call elections.

With the present system, only parliament can dismiss a minister via a no-confidence vote, while it is up to the president to dissolve parliament and call elections.

In order to achieve the change given parliamentary opposition, the premier said, a bill would have to be presented from outside parliament.

Under Italian law, bills can be proposed not only by MPs but also by groups of 50,000 citizens.

In Berlusconi’s view, this would resolve the problem of parliament having to vote to divest itself of power.

“You can’t expect turkeys to bring forward Christmas,” he said.

Despite holding sweeping majorities in both houses, Berlusconi issued a fresh attack on parliament as “useless”. He also criticised the practice of parliamentary whips telling MPs which way to vote, implying that this potential obstacle to a reform-minded government could be removed if the premier had the power to dismiss parliament.

In a renewed criticism of the postwar constitution, he argued that the premier “has no power because the constitution was written after the Fascist years and so all the power was given to parliament, not the premier”.

Berlusconi’s renewed criticism of parliament prompted a quick response from the largest opposition party, the Democratic Party (PD).

PD Senate whip Anna Finocchiaro pointed out that, “like it or not, (parliament) is the place for legislative decisions” and that even bills proposed by citizens have to meet with parliamentary approval.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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‘Lynch Mob’ Prompts Refugees to Flee Town in Northern Sweden

Nearly half of the predominantly Iraqi-refugees residing in Vännäs in northern Sweden have decided to permanently move out of the area after being terrorized by what police called “a lynch mob” in early May.

“I thought that Vännäs was the perfect place for us. And there are many, many friendly people here. But we still don’t dare to stay; I’m seriously concerned about my children’s safety,” said father of five Ismail Ramadan to the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper.

Ramadan’s family and several others have decided to abandon plans of starting a life in the small community outside of Umeå less than two weeks after a group of 30 to 50 young people assembled outside the apartment building in which the refugees lived and began shouting threats and throwing stones.

The May 9th incident resulted in several windows and many frightened refugees.

“I can’t even describe to you how horrible it was. ‘Now it’s over, here they come!’ I thought,” Ramadan told SvD.

“We all cried and screamed. We spent the whole night lying in the hall and held each other tightly.”

The weekend of harassment prompted municipality refugee coordinator Ingrid Lindroth to evacuate the refugees to safety.

“I made the decision after speaking with a number of refugees who were extremely scared — simply terrified. It was an easy decision,” she told SvD.

But the move was criticized by police, who characterized the decision to evacuate around 40 refugees as “significantly more drastic” than necessary, adding that it complicated the police’s investigation into the incident.

“We don’t believe this is a racially motivated dispute, but rather a disagreement between a number of young people, some of whom live in the refugee building and others from the area,” said local police commander Uno Nilsson to SvD the at the time of the incident.

The day following the attacks, several hundred Vännäs residents gathered to demonstrate in support of the refugees and to denounce what they perceived to be racially motivated attacks.

While the families were welcomed back to Vännäs with flowers after the evacuation, about 30 out of the roughly 70 refugees have ultimately decided to move out of the community of 4,000 residents, much to the dismay of local politicians.

“It’s not confirmed that they will leave yet, but if they do, it is obviously a failure on our part. No one should need to leave Vännäs because they are afraid or worried,” municipal council member Johan Söderling told the newspaper.

Police are also still investigating the matter in hopes of clarifying exactly what took place and who or what may have lay behind the attack.

Prosecutor Lotta Sundström expected it would take at least several more days for her office to make sense of the more than 20 different complaints which have been submitted.

“No one has yet been informed that they are suspected of a crime,” she said to SvD.

— Hat tip: TB

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Netherlands: Going Dutch? Not So Fast!

[Comment from Tuan Jim: Haven’t read original NDTimes article.]

NRC columnist Heleen Mees begs to disagree with Russell Shorto’s raving article in The New York Times about the benefits of living in the Dutch welfare state. Mees, who lives in New York, has recently published a book in which she argues that European welfare states would do well to look to opportunity-based societies like New York for inspiration.

In his elegantly written essay Going Dutch (The New York Times Magazine, April 29), Russell Shorto sounds the praises of the Dutch welfare state. He raves about the ‘kinderbijslag,’ or child benefit, he receives quarterly and the annual check to cover the expenses for his children’s schoolbooks.

Of course Shorto loves the welfare state. The top income-tax rate of 52 percent for all income above 65,000 dollar doesn’t hurt him. As an expatriate Shorto’s income tax is reduced by 30 percent for a period of ten years. Other mortals in the Netherlands, however, face a marginal tax rate of over 55 percent on every euro earned, not to mention the 7 dollar they pay for a gallon of gasoline and the 19 percent value added tax on all goods and services they purchase.

More importantly, the Dutch welfare state isn’t as beneficial to low-skilled immigrants as it is to Russell Shorto. In fact, it has suffocated the large group of non-western immigrants (mostly from Morocco and Turkey) who came to the Netherlands over the past decades to seek their fortune.

Though one would assume that a caring state should be able to ensure a higher quality of life than an “uncaring” state, in actual practice this isn’t the case at all.

Due to the high cost of labour (20-25 dollars per hour at minimum wage level) many low-skilled immigrants can’t find a job and are forced to spend their lives in subsidised isolation. In the Netherlands, immigrants and people of immigrant background in the 15 to 65 age group are four times more likely to live on public assistance than other people in that age group; they are also over-represented in the crime statistics.

In New York it is exactly the other way around. Immigrants commit less crime and are less often unemployed. The gross minimum wage is lower than in the Netherlands at 7.25 dollars, but thanks to the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) people with annual incomes up to 37,000 dollars actually end up with more money after taxes than before.

The EITC is dependent on a person’s salary and family situation and is capped at 4,800 dollars per year. This way the gross cost of labour is kept down and more jobs are created in the bottom segment of the market, both in the public and in the private sector.

Take my building in Brooklyn. The Sweeney Building, an 85 apartments complex, employs six people on a full-time basis and two on a part-time basis. My gym in Chelsea employs one-hundred people full-time and fifty part-time. These jobs simply don’t exist in the Netherlands. Instead there is a labyrinth of benefits whose main use is to camouflage how many people under 65 are living on welfare.

It is this system that allowed Amsterdam mayor Rob Cohen to say at a Henri Polak reading on May 14 that the Netherlands are doing a pretty good job in terms of employment, despite the fact that more than half a million people under 65 are living on some type of state benefit. If the crisis persists, and chances are that it will, this number will likely increase to two million people, or a quarter of the working population.

Neither is the Netherlands the placid, stable country that Shorto makes it out to be. Since the turn of the century the Netherlands has experienced a rise in anti-immigrant sentiments and an unprecedented outburst of political violence.

In May 2002 Pim Fortuyn, a right-wing politician with an anti-immigrant message, was shot and killed. According to opinion polls Fortuyn had stood a chance to become the country’s next prime minister in the national elections that were held a week later.

In November 2004 the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was brutally murdered by Mohammed Bouyeri, a Muslim extremist, after he had released the anti-Islam film Submission in collaboration with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born Islam critic. On Van Gogh’s body a letter was pinned containing a death threat to Hirsi Ali who subsequently had to flee the country.

On April 30 the Dutch traditionally celebrate Queen’s Day. This year the national holiday parade was interrupted as a 38-year-old Dutchman slammed his car into the crowd, killing six bystanders. The bald driver, who died of his injuries a day after the attack, admitted to police that he had been aiming for the royal family.

In recent years queen Beatrix and her family have been actively trying to lessen tensions between the different groups in Dutch society, much so to the disgruntlement of Geert Wilders, the political leader of the right-wing Freedom Party.

Wilders, who has compared the Koran to Mein Kampf, and blamed Islamic texts for inciting the 9/11 attacks, declared last December that the queen could no longer be part of government because she had called for tolerance in her Christmas address to the nation. If elections were held today, according to some polls, Wilders’ Freedom Party would win the most seats in parliament.

Russell Shorto is rather disingenuous in portraying the Dutch welfare state as a fairy tale come true without ever mentioning Fortuyn, Van Gogh (other than the famous painter) or Wilders. Shorto is a sojourner, and he doesn’t need to worry about what lies ahead for the country that I grew up in.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Netherlands: More Cameras to Fight Airport Crime

A body responsible for security at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport says more closed circuit TV surveillance is needed to fight drug smuggling and other crimes. The group, which includes representatives of the airport, of flight operator Air France-KLM, and customs and anti-terror officials says drug gangs are active in the luggage handling area, where cameras are needed most. The platform group wants access to recorded images without the prior consent of the public prosecutor.

The local government of Haarlemmermeer town, where the airport is located, is reserving comment pending a council meeting on Thursday. If the council agrees, extended CCTV surveillance will be introduced within a couple of months

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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New French Law on Internet Piracy Meets Skepticism

PARIS — A thousand French Internet users a day could be taken off-line following approval of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s pet project — an unprecedented law to cut the Internet connections of people who repeatedly pirate music and movies.

As the husband of supermodel-turned-pop star Carla Bruni and friend to some of France’s most powerful media figures, Sarkozy has long basked in his cozy ties with the entertainment industry, which has embraced the measure.

But many in Europe have denounced it, saying government controls needed to enforce the law could open the way for invasive state monitoring that violate privacy. And legal challenges at home could derail it: The opposition is trying to get the law declared unconstitutional.

Predictably, music, film and other industry groups have welcomed the measure. John Kennedy, chairman and CEO of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, said Wednesday that it represents a “sea change.”

Critics, however, worry about civil liberties.

“We should be careful about interfering with the freedom of exchange of information,” said Wolfgang Zankl, professor at the University of Vienna and president of the European Center for E-Commerce. “This is a constitutional right which no one should be barred from.”

Some Internet experts say the law will be technically impossible to apply. It requires Internet subscribers to install special software that would enable authorities to track down and identify those suspected of illegal downloads, but some experts say such programs do not yet exist.

And because it denies accused pirates the chance to defend themselves before their Web connections are severed, legal experts say it will not stand up in court.

The measure’s first short-term test came Tuesday, when the opposition Socialists took their objections before the Constitutional Council, which has a month to issue a ruling. If the council decides the law does not violate the constitution, it could take effect by summer.

It calls for graduated reprisals against alleged offenders. If a suspected pirate fails to heed e-mail warnings and a certified letter, Internet access would be cut for two months to a year — with the subscriber required to keep paying for the service under the contract’s terms.

Christine Albanel, the French culture minister, foresees cutting 1,000 Internet connections a day and sending 13,000 warnings to first- or second-time offenders.

In the United States, the music industry has waged war on content swappers with limited success. A campaign to sue individuals who repeatedly download free songs was dropped last year in favor of an effort to work more closely with Internet service providers to try to block connections of alleged offenders. AT&T, the largest Internet service provider in the U.S., is beginning to send the warnings to its subscribers.

Even before the French legislation was approved this month, it encountered resistance in the European Parliament. Elections for a new parliament take place in June, and the fight for Internet freedom has become a campaign issue in some countries, notably Sweden, which has gained a reputation as a hub for illegal file-sharing.

Support for Sweden’s Pirate Party, which calls for legalization of file-sharing, is growing, and a recent poll shows the party could gain a seat in the European Parliament.

Christian Engstrom, the party’s nominee, said the French law is damaging to the free exchange of information on the Internet. French cooperation with the “greedy copyright industry is not fitting for a Western democracy,” he said.

With the exception of Sweden, where a court sentenced four men last month to one-year jail terms for helping people download copyrighted material, court cases in Europe have failed to dent the practice. A Spanish court this week will hear the latest industry case against suspected file-sharers.

Russia and Ukraine are some of Europe’s biggest offenders in illegal file-sharing. However, they have no intention of passing legislation similar to that in France and are out of the reach of eventual European Union rules.

Last year, the Russian government did shut down one music download site, but it soon resurfaced under a different name.

The French law faces opposition not only from politicians and the public. Internet service providers in Britain consider cutting offenders’ connections a disproportionate, and ultimately impractical, punishment.

“Significant technological advances would be required if these measures are to reach a standard where they would be admissible as evidence in court,” the U.K. Internet Service Providers’ Association said Tuesday.

ISPs in Germany have so far refused to volunteer information about Internet pirates, forcing copyright owners to take them to court to compel them to reveal identities.

In the United States, Internet service companies complain that big users of music and video-swapping sites are clogging their networks, and some have begun to impose caps on Internet usage and charge extra for customers who exceed it.

In France, opponents say the new law misses the point by targeting downloads rather than online “streaming” — an increasingly popular approach where music and videos are played over the Internet, rather than downloaded and saved onto a user’s computer.

The French law creates a government agency to sanction offenders, with the actual monitoring left to industry watchdogs.

“It has been extraordinary to see the change of attitude to this problem, not only among governments but also within our own creative industries,” Kennedy told The Associated Press in an e-mail statement Wednesday. “Barely two years ago Internet piracy was something that seemed to many beyond regulation. Today, the mind-set couldn’t be more different.”

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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‘Romanians Know Russia Better Than You, So Trust Us’

Horia-Roman Patapievici is the president of the Romanian Cultural Institute. He is a physicist, essayist and columnist for leading center-left, intellectual papers in Romania.By Antonie van Campen for NRC International

In the run-up to the European elections, what issues are being debated in your country? Are these national issues or EU-issues?

“The issues debated are almost exclusively national. The political debate in Romania is always self-centred. The most heated debate is focused on the presidential elections, which will probably be held in November of this year, because president Basescu’s positions and comments are at the heart of the political struggle.”

A key issue in European politics is (or should be) market ideology. In your country, is there debate about whether the market ideology of Brussels needs amendments, or instead needs to be defended and even strengthened?

“If by market ideology you understand the idea that the freedom of the market is something desirable and good in itself, then I think that in Romania there is a fairly clear consensus that the social order of private property, or capitalism, should be defended. We know too much about the economic monstrosity of socialism, or a state-controlled economy, to think or act otherwise.

“Whether this implies further deregulation or some kind of softer and much more intelligent further regulation is debatable. I think that in the Romanian debate this distinction is rather poor: right-wing and left-wing parties equally endorse the idea that there should be some kind of regulation; they differ mainly when it comes to tax policies.”

Another key issue is euro-scepticism. Would you say that, in your country, support for the EU has changed? In what way? If so, why? Is there a populist protest against Brussels?

“No, there is neither euro-scepticism in Romania, nor populist protest against Brussels. For Romanians the reintegration of Romania into Europe is a matter of national identity.”

How would voters in your country like the EU to develop itself? Do they support the Lisbon treaty? Would they support a joint foreign policy? A more powerful central bank? What are the limits for further European unification?

“The Lisbon treaty is virtually unknown here. Romanian voters, I think, would support a joint foreign policy if and only if the EU, as a matter of principle, would adopt a position towards Russia that would resembles the Eastern Europeans countries’ view about Russia. ‘We know Russia’s politics better than you, so trust us,’ they would say.

“A more powerful central bank would be acceptable because the monetary policy of the Romanian central bank in the last fifteen years has been beneficial for the Romanians, and they tend to trust the idea of a powerful central bank, provided it is competent and accountable.

“As for the limits for unification, it is hard to say because there has been no public debate and no clear positions were formulated. As a general rule, Romanians endorse a concept of unification which preserves national identity and respects their view about their past, which is an essential part of their current self-proclaimed identity.”

Could you name an anecdote/incident that captures the atmosphere around the European elections in your country?

“During this European elections campaign Romanians do not discuss Europe or European issues: we only debate endlessly about the candidates for the future presidential elections who, with the exception of the current president, never mention European issues either. So we treat the European elections as a pretext for domestic elections. It is not a funny anecdote, but is does capture the moral temper of the day and the misuse of what might have been an excellent occasion to really join Europe institutionally.”

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Somali Britons With Jihad Training Pose Terrorist Risk to Britain

A growing number of young Somali Britons who have received “global jihad” training in Somalia pose a terrorist risk to the United Kingdom.

With al-Qaeda (AQ) in effect ousted from Iraq and constantly attcked by American Predator air attacks in Pakistan, the AQ franchise in East Africa, and notably Somalia, has become a greater focus of attention for the international counter-terrorist agencies.

“Somalia has some of the characteristics of Afghanistan in 2000 and 2001 — a country of ungoverned space which AQ can exploit,” a senior Whitehall official said.

For Britain, the evidence of spreading AQ training camps in Somalia is particularly alarming because of the large Somali community in the UK. About 70,000 live in London, 10,000 in the borough of Tower Hamlets.

Jonathan Evans, the Director-General of MI5, has emphasised that three-quarters of the agency’s international counter-terrorism resources still have to be devoted to Pakistan because of the 400,000 Pakistani-Britons who travel back and forth to Pakistan every year. Most of the terrorist plots uncovered since 9/11 were connected in some way to Pakistan.

Somalia has moved up the agenda and is viewed increasingly as a terrorist haven and growing resource for AQ’s global ambitions.

Although it is believed that the motivation for young Somali Britons may principally be to receive instruction so that they can fight in Afghanistan or join jihad in Somalia, Whitehall officials accept that some might decide to use the expertise they have acquired in the camps to return to Britain and start planning attacks.

Two of the four men who were convicted over the plot to detonate bombs on Tube trains and a bus in London on July 21, 2005 were from Somalia. Ramzi Mohammad had come to the UK from Somalia with his family in 1998, and Yassin Omar had been in the UK since the early 1990s. They and two Ethiopian-born Britons, Muktar Said Ibrahim and Hussein Osman, were found guilty of conspiracy to murder.

MI5 categorises its counter-terrorism coverage by networks rather than individuals. So there is no unit specifically focusing on Somali suspects unless they are involved in a targeted network. The domestic security service has learnt since 2005 that networks are often of mixed ethnic make-up. The East African connection is assessed as a growing threat.

“There is no doubt that there is training activity and terrorist planning in East Africa, particularly in Somalia, which is focused on the UK,” Mr Evans said in a speech two years ago.

Since then there has been evidence that the threat has grown. Whitehall officials said that the number of Somali Britons going to Somalia for training was “not huge” but was increasing. As a consequence, and because the focus on AQ in Iraq has been downgraded, extra resources are being channelled into combating the East Africa/Somalia terrorist connection because of the perceived risk of trained British nationals returning from camps to become attack planners in the UK.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Spain: Jews, Muslims and Protestants Want Equal Dignity

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, MAY 19 — Any future Law on Religious Freedom, one of the Zapatero Government’s top priorities, must extend the treatment reserved for the Catholic church to other religious persuasions. This is the wish of representatives of the Protestant, Muslim and Jewish communities in Spain, who are demanding the ‘neutrality” of the Spanish State. ‘We are asking for equal treatment” said Mansur Escudero, president of the Islamic Junta of Spain in statements to the press, ‘that the government be non-denominational and neutral with regards to religion, that it apply the Constitution and agreements with every acknowledgement which it is currently not doing, not only from the point of view of funding”. The three mono-theistic faiths have come together to complain that State funerals follow exclusively Catholic rites. And they feel discriminated against over funding and education in schools, and also with regard to how willing the Spanish Government is to reform the Law on Religious Freedom which was passed in 1980. Protestants and Muslims are demanding that a special box be included on the income-tax return for their faiths in order to benefit from 0.7% of Irpef (Personal Income Tax), like the box for the Catholic Church and NGOs. Representatives from the Jewish community want a single common box in which tax-payers specify their donations. This request has so far fallen on deaf ears. According to Mensur, talks with the government through meetings with deputy prime minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega and the Ministry for Justice have so far not resulted in written agreements. The President of the Islamic Junta of Spain criticised the failure to apply cooperation agreements made with the State ‘which regulate the setting up of mosques, halal food, religious festivals, the national heritage and the teaching of the Islamic religion. The State should pay teachers of Islam in the same way it pays Catholics”, considering that ‘there are only 30 teachers compared to 100,000 pupils”. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Swedish Court Okays Higher Rent for Refugees

A Swedish court has ruled that a landlord’s decision to charge higher rent to a refugee family does not qualify as discrimination.

For more than three years, refugee Nafisa Khavari has been fighting against paying what she sees as an unjustifiably high rent.

She came to Sweden from Afghanistan with her seven children several years ago, and has been renting an apartment in Hällefors in central Sweden from the Skarets fastigheter property management company, according to the Hem & Hyra magazine.

After signing her rental agreement, Khavari later learned that she was paying thousands of kronor more per month in rent than her ethnically Swedish neighbours and decided to sue the landlord with support from Sweden’s Ombudsman for Ethnic Discrimination (DO).

But the landlord argued the higher rent was justified, explaining that refugees cause damage to apartments in a different way than “taxpayers” do.

“They live differently in the countries they come from. Taxpayers take care of the damage themselves when they move. Refugees don’t have any money. And you can tell them to clean the apartment when they leave, but they never really do anything. I think instead that they ought to appreciate that we take care of the apartment after they move,” said landlord Nils-Olav Skaret to Hem & Hyra.

But DO lawyer Ulrika Dietersson disagreed with Skaret’s reasoning, asserting that the company was guilty of discrimination and of taking advantage of the refugees’ situation to charge a higher rent.

“This has to be seen as a very serious affront to the tenant,” she said in her closing arguments, urging the court to order Skaret to pay Khavari 120,000 kronor in damages.

But the Örebro District Court ruled in favour of the landlord, finding that refugees as a group can’t be considered an ethnic minority.

Rather than take a stand on whether Skaret was right or wrong to charge higher rent, the court instead focused on DO’s way of defining an ethnic minority.

During the trial, the ombudsman argued that the terms “refugee” and “immigrant” are interchangeable with ethnic minority, and that both are subject to discrimination for just that reason.

But the court disagreed, writing that a person can’t be considered as belonging to an ethnic minority simply because he or she is a refugee or immigrant.

The ruling came as an unexpected shock to Khavari .

“It’s unfair, I’m really upset,” she told Hem & Hyra, adding she would join the DO in an appeal, but isn’t sure she’s ready to go through a new trial.

“And even if we appeal, I don’t think that I’ll succeed. Even the court has a discriminatory view toward immigrants.”

— Hat tip: TB

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UK: Arson Attacks on Schools ‘Deeply Worrying’

In the past two years, almost 3,000 arson attacks on schools have been reported to police, according to new figures.

Tories describe the number of cases of arson in schools as “deeply worrying”

In Scotland alone there were 1,252 cases recorded between January 2007 and last December — the highest figure for any country in the UK..

In the same period in England there were 1,249 incidents, in Wales there were 126 and in Northern Ireland there were 75.

It is not know how many of the attacks were carried out by pupils.

The Conservative Party asked every police force in the UK how many times they had been notified, or called out for an arson attack on school property in the last two years.

Shadow schools secretary Michael Gove said the results of the Freedom of Information request are “deeply worrying”.

He said teachers should be given more power to deal with pupils and to stop them bringing anything to school which could be dangerous.

“We would also give headteachers the power to ban any items they think may cause violence or disruption and abolish the current Government guidance which tells teachers not to search children who refuse to be searched,” he said.

But Children’s minister Delyth Morgan said heads have already been given the power to search pupils for weapons.

A bill is also making its way through Parliament which would give them additional rights to search for alcohol, drugs and stolen property.

Ms Morgan said: “We are working with the Arson Prevention Bureau to cut the number of arson attacks on schools and local Fire and Rescue services also run schemes which target vandals or those showing an unhealthy interest in starting fires.

“Any child attempting to commit arson can expect to be arrested and face the full force of the law.”

Teachers who suspect a pupil may be about to commit a crime can and should call the police, Ms Morgan advised.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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UK: Expenses Leak Probe ‘Not In Public Interest’

The leaking of details of MPs’ allowances and expenses to the Daily Telegraph will not be investigated by police.

Senior officers and prosecutors have concluded that a criminal investigation into the matter would not be in the public interest.

The Met Police were called in by the Commons authorities after the newspaper published extensive details of MPs’ claims between 2004 and 2008.

A spokesman for the House had said there were “reasonable grounds to believe a criminal offence may have been committed”.

Speaking about the decision not to investigate the leak, a police spokesman said officers closely examined the likelihood of a successful prosecution.

The spokesman said: “Although the leak of documents is not something that the MPS would condone, we have looked at the likelihood of a successful prosecution and whether a prosecution is appropriate.

“Other considerations were the prospect of obtaining evidence and the best use of resources.

“The assessment was informed by a recent published decision from the Director of Public Prosecutions that was, in part, applicable to this case.

“From this the Metropolitan Police believes the public interest defence would be likely to prove a significant hurdle, in particular the ‘high threshold’ for criminal proceedings in misconduct in public office cases.”

The Daily Telegraph’s ongoing campaign to reveal MPs’ expense claims has led to public outrage, forcing Gordon Brown and his Cabinet on to the defensive.

Officers and prosecutors are still deciding how to tackle the wave of allegations against MPs accused of misusing public money.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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UK: How MI5 Blackmails Muslims

LONDON: Five Muslim community workers have accused MI5 of waging a campaign of blackmail and harassment in an attempt to recruit them as informants.

The men claim they were given a choice of working for the Security Service or face detention and harassment in the UK and overseas.

They have made official complaints to the police, to the body that oversees the work of the Security Service and to their local MP Frank Dobson. Now they have decided to speak publicly about their experiences in the hope that publicity will stop similar tactics being used in the future.

Intelligence gathered by informers is crucial to stopping further terror outrages, but the men’s allegations raise concerns about the coercion of young Muslim men by the Security Service and the damage this does to the gathering of information in the future.

Three of the men say they were detained at foreign airports on the orders of MI5 after leaving Britain on family holidays last year.

After they were sent back to the UK, they were interviewed by MI5 officers who, they say, falsely accused them of links to extremism. On each occasion the agents said they would lift the travel restrictions and threat of detention in return for their cooperation. When the men refused some of them received what they say were intimidating phone calls and threats.

Two other Muslim men say they were approached by MI5 at their homes after police officers posed as postmen. Each of the five men, aged between 19 and 25, was warned that if he did not help the security services he would be considered a terror suspect. A sixth man was held by MI5 for three hours after returning from his honeymoon in Saudi Arabia. He too claims he was threatened with travel restrictions if he tried to leave the UK.

An agent who gave her name as Katherine is alleged to have made direct threats to Adydarus Elmi, a 25-year-old cinema worker from north London. In one telephone call she rang him at 7 a.m. to congratulate him on the birth of his baby girl. His wife was still seven months’ pregnant and the couple had expressly told the hospital that they did not want to know the sex of their child.

Elmi further alleges: “Katherine tried to threaten me by saying, and it still runs through my mind now: ‘Remember, this won’t be the last time we ever meet.’ And then during our last conversation she explained: ‘If you do not want anything to happen to your family you will cooperate.’“

Madhi Hashi, a 19-year-old care worker from Camden, claims he was held for 16 hours in a cell in the Djibouti airport on the orders of MI5. He alleges that when he was returned to the UK on April 9 this year he was met by an MI5 agent who told him his terror suspect status would remain until he agreed to work for the Security Service. He alleges that he was to be given the job of informing on his friends by encouraging them to talk about jihad.

Mohamed Nur, 25, a community youth worker from north London, claims he was threatened by the Security Service after an agent gained access to his home accompanied by a police officer posing as a postman.

“The MI5 agent said, ‘Mohamed if you do not work for us we will tell any foreign country you try to travel to that you are a suspected terrorist.’“

Mohamed Aden, 25, a community youth worker from Camden, was also approached by someone disguised as a postman in August last year. He alleges an agent told him: “We’re going to make your traveling harder for you if you don’t cooperate.”

None of the six men, who work with disadvantaged youths at the Kentish Town Community Organization (KTCO), has ever been arrested for terrorism or a terrorism-related offense.

They have repeatedly complained about their treatment to the police and to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, which oversees the work of the Security Services.

In a letter to Lord Justice Mummery, who heads the tribunal, Sharhabeel Lone, the chairman of the KTCO, said: “The only thing these young people have in common is that they studied Arabic abroad and are of Somali origin. They are not involved in any terrorist activity whatsoever, nor have they ever been, and the security services are well aware of this.”

Sharhabeel added: “These incidents smack of racism, Islamophobia and all that undermines social cohesion. Threatening British citizens, harassing them in their own country, alienating young people who have committed no crime other than practicing a particular faith and being a different color is a recipe for disaster.

“These disgraceful incidents have undermined 10 years of hard work and severely impacted social cohesion in Camden. Targeting young people who are role models for all young people in our country in such a disparaging way demonstrates a total lack of understanding of on-the-ground reality and can only be counterproductive.

“When people are terrorized by the very same body that is meant to protect them, sowing fear, suspicion and division, we are on a slippery slope to an Orwellian society.”

Frank Dobson said: “To identify real suspects from the Muslim communities MI5 must use informers. But it seems that from what I have seen some of their methods may be counterproductive.”

MI5 and the police refused to discuss the men’s complaints with The Independent. But on its website, MI5 says it is untrue that the Security Service harasses Muslims.

The organization says: “We do not investigate any individuals on the grounds of ethnicity or religious beliefs. Countering the threat from international terrorists, including those who claim to be acting for Islam, is the Security Service’s highest priority.

“We know that attacks are being considered and planned for the UK by Al-Qaeda and associated networks. International terrorists in this country threaten us directly through violence and indirectly through supporting violence overseas.”

It adds: “Muslims are often themselves the victims of this violence — the series of terrorist attacks in Casablanca in May 2003 and Riyadh in May and November 2003 illustrate this.

“The service also employs staff of all religions, including Muslims. We are committed to recruiting a diverse range of staff from all backgrounds so that we can benefit from their different perspectives and experience.”

— Hat tip: TB

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UK: Miliband Urges Coalition of West and Muslim World

LONDON (AFP) — Terrorism and past conflicts have “distorted” relations between western and Muslim nations but both sides must work together against global challenges, the foreign secretary said Thursday.

David Miliband admitted that London’s interventions from the Crusades and colonialism to the invasion of Iraq had created distrust in many countries, with the latter war causing “a sense of bitterness, distrust and resentment”.

But he said the challenges of climate change, terrorism and financial crisis required a united effort born of better understanding on both sides, as well as a resolution of conflicts such as in the Middle East.

In a speech to the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, Miliband said a history of relations between Europe and the Islamic world “have been characterised by conquest, conflict and colonialism”.

“More recently, the invasion of Iraq, and its aftermath, aroused a sense of bitterness, distrust and resentment,” he said.

Since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, the focus of the relationship between western and Muslim states had narrowed, he said.

“Terrorism has distorted our views of each other and skewed our engagement with each other.”

But Miliband said global security can no longer be guaranteed by the world’s only superpower, or even grouping of great powers.

“The threats from climate change, terrorism, pandemics and financial crisis are too large and too diffuse… we need the broadest possible coalition of states and political movements”, he said.

While western powers “need to hold fast to our own values”, any coalition would at times have to include “groups whose aims we do not share, whose values we find deplorable, whose methods we think dubious”, Miliband said.

But he stressed forging coalitions required “greater respect” from western nations, in particular, adding: “That means rejecting the lazy stereotypes and moving beyond the binary division between moderates and extremists.”

Distrust over conflicts such as Iraq has also overshadowed efforts to use diplomacy and aid for humanitarian reasons, Miliband said: “We need to recover the original idea (of liberal interventionism) which was and is a noble idea.”

Active diplomacy was most needed in the Middle East, he said, an issue on which “we need — all of us, in our own ways — to act soon, very soon, to prevent a fatal and final blow to the scope for compromise”.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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UK: MPs’ Expenses: Politicians Used to be Better, Wiser — and Older

Only those who have worked outside politics can truly represent the people, says David Young.

It was at my fifth Cabinet meeting that, sitting back and idly glancing around the table, a thought struck me. Of the 21 of us in attendance, 11 had at one time started their own business. In today’s House, it is hard to find Members with much outside experience at all, let alone that of working for themselves.

When Gordon Brown introduced Members’ outside earnings into his review of expenses, he was continuing the process of discouraging MPs from having other interests. Politics is increasingly described as a full-time occupation, even a profession. Today, the traditional route to the House has become school, university political society, think tank and then Member; this achieves an almost total insulation from the life of their constituents.

The hours of the Commons have changed so that, instead of starting after lunch and sitting into the night, they sit in the day, finishing most days at 7pm. Politics has gone from a vocation to just another occupation. How did this come about and why?

More than 100 years ago, Parliament was a part-time affair, sitting from February to mid- August. The vast majority of Members had outside interests, there were no women and they were unpaid. That seemingly amateurish arrangement sufficed for running the largest empire the world has known.

After the First World War, the widening of suffrage allowed the entry of women and Labour replaced the Liberals. At the time of the post-war Labour government of 1945, Parliament was still part-time. Senior silks who were MPs would finish in the courts at 4pm and go down to the House. Many others were leading lights in the City or industry, in management and the unions. The Commons commanded vast experience, much of it disinterested.

When I entered the Lords in 1984, there was also a tremendous array of talent. Of course it was undemocratic, with its majority of hereditary peers, but the Salisbury convention ensured the House would not stand in the way of a manifesto commitment.

Sitting alongside the hereditary members were many of our most successful men and women. The standard of debate was very high. There were occasions when Kenneth Clarke, who was my minister in the Commons, and I had a debate on the same subject at the same time. I would have a speech going into many pages, invariably heard in attentive silence, while Ken would have four or five paragraphs. He had a simple answer to this: “After that, we will have points of order for the rest of the time.”

Of course, the Lords was political, but I remember our Chief Whip complaining to me about one of our captains of industry, who had taken the Conservative whip, being dragged into the chamber against his will for a three-line whip. When the vote came, he voted with the other side and when challenged, said: “I came and listened to the argument, and they were right!”

This spirit went with the Blair reforms of the Lords, replacing most hereditaries with members who carried pagers in order to be able to follow the party line. Probably as a result, we have had cases of questionable behaviour by peers and even an investigation into a member’s expenses.

There have been a number of causes for the deterioration in both Houses. First, at least in the Commons, is the cult of the young. Aspiring candidates in their forties have all too often been quietly told that they are too old; yet this is just the age when experience blended with enthusiasm produces a more balanced judgment. The Labour landslide of 1997 introduced far too many Members into the House with little or no experience of life outside politics, and the next election might do the same again for the Conservatives.

Time spent outside politics is important if it is spent in business, unions, voluntary bodies, or academia. The House must have Members who can relate what they are asked to do to their own experience. If more MPs had worked outside politics, alarm bells would have rung over their expenses scheme. Selection committees should look to a candidate’s experience.

But there is a more subtle reason. Parliament has been inundated with European legislation, which it had to nod through. The Government has treated the House with barely disguised contempt, introducing unnecessary and ineffectual legislation.

We wasted 700 hours on the law restricting hunting with dogs. The Government was dismissive of the reports of the Lords Select Committee on which I served. This meant that Parliament had less and less of anything important to do and, in time, Members degenerated into becoming superior social workers, making the job increasingly unattractive to people of talent.

What should we do? We can’t turn the clock back, but we can encourage new and existing Members to have outside interests and we should reverse the change of hours to enable this to happen. The next government should ration legislation, ensuring that both Houses peruse only important Bills. We should strengthen the Select Committee system to really hold the government to account. Then, and only then, will we get the people that Parliament really deserves.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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UK: Mohammed Ali Guilty of Killing of Yasmine and Sabrina Larbi-Cherif

A man who stabbed to death his girlfriend and her sister was convicted of murder today.

A jury at Birmingham Crown Court took three hours and 20 minutes to convict Mohammed Ali of murdering Yasmine and Sabrina Larbi-Cherif, whose partially clothed bodies were found at their flat last September.

In a two-week trial the jury was told that Ali, 29, from Old Snow Hill, Birmingham, used three knives to stab Yasmine twice and inflict 35 knife wounds on her sister.

Family and friends of Yasmine, 22, and Sabrina, 19, sobbed and hugged in the public gallery as the verdicts were returned.

Ali, who was not in court, will be sentenced at a later date.

David Crigman, QC, for the prosecution, said that Ali stabbed both women in the lounge of their central Birmingham flat before dragging their bodies into a bedroom.

Jurors, who watched CCTV film of Ali leaving the Jupiter Apartments in Ryland Street, Birmingham, after the killings, heard that he twice walked from the lounge of the flat to the kitchen to rearm himself after breaking two of the knives he used.

Mr Crigman said: “He had left behind a scene of carnage.

“He had used violence of the most brutal and depraved kind and he had killed two young girls.”

In his opening speech Mr Crigman said that Ali was arrested in Dover, Kent, two days after being seen leaving the flat.

“In this case, it’s likely that there will be overlapping motives — anger, control, base male brutality and a significant sexual dimension,” he said.

The court heard that the attack on Sabrina had a sadistic element — with 32 of the wounds inflicted with apparent precision rather than in anger.

The sisters were last seen alive at 10pm on September 13, 2008.

Their bodies were found after relatives became concerned. CCTV images seen by the jury show Ali leaving the flat with a carrier bag — thought to contain his bloodstained clothes — at about 1pm on Sunday, September 14.

He was arrested two days later at Dover docks in what the prosecution claimed was an attempt to flee the country.

The killer had denied murder but pleaded guilty to manslaughter at a hearing in March, claiming that he was provoked.

Yasmine, a salsa dancer, moved to the West Midlands to study chemistry at the University of Birmingham.

After failing her exams she left and became a French and Arabic translator and later a sales administrator.

Sabrina moved in with her sister shortly before she was killed. She was due to study French at the same university as her sister.

They shared the flat with a friend, who was on holiday at the time of the killings.

In a text message to Ali a few days before her death, Yasmine, who was a twin, wrote: “Actually let’s call it a day like you mentioned. I am disappointed you think I am a slut.

“I am not willing to have you in my life if you do not respect who I am.”

In February last year Yasmine accused Ali of rape. He was charged with six counts of rape, five of sexual assault and one of causing actual bodily harm, and spent five months on remand in jail.

But Yasmine, who police say felt unable to face a court case, retracted the complaint and Ali was freed.

Detective Chief Inspector Joanne Clews, who led the murder inquiry, said that the rape trial could not go ahead without Yasmine’s evidence.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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UK: MPs Who Fought for Secrecy Are Exposed

Five MPs, including two shadow ministers, who fought to keep their expenses secret have had their claims exposed in the Sunday Telegraph..

The two Labour backbenchers and three Tories backed a 2007 Bill to exempt Parliament from the Freedom of Information Act — a move which would have ensured their expenses remained hidden.

Shadow home office minister David Ruffley is reported to have “flipped” his second home from London to his constituency before claiming back thousands for furniture and fittings, including a £1,674 sofa.

He was said to have been refused the full amount when he claimed for a £2,175 television from Harrods, and also had a £6,765 claim for bedroom furniture and equipment reduced.

David Ruffley MP said: ‘It is completely untrue to state that I have flipped a second home to claim thousands of pounds before selling the property, thus avoiding capital gains tax.

“In my 12 years as an MP I have not sold any property anywhere in the United Kingdom.”

Other MPs are alleged to have bought repeat items in consecutive months.

Labour MP Fraser Kemp has reportedly agreed to repay money to the taxpayer after claiming for two DVD players in one month and 16 sheets in just seven weeks.

Meanwhile Justice Secretary Jack Straw has denied claims from a former sleaze watchdog that he blocked an inquiry into MPs’ expenses two years ago.

Sir Alistair Graham said Gordon Brown and the head of the civil service had agreed his proposal for a root-and-branch review of the system, when he was chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL).

“My understanding — I can’t prove it because I subsequently left — is that the person who stopped that inquiry from going ahead was Jack Straw,” he told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show.

But a spokesman for Mr Straw dismissed the claims.

“It is nonsense to suggest that plans for an inquiry into MPs expenses were blocked.

“The Government has no power to do so. The CSPL is an independent body.”

Ye are a pack of mercenary wretches and like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.

Oliver Cromwell, Boulton & Co.

It came as William Hague confirmed to Sky News’ Sunday Live with Adam Boulton that he will get rid of all his lucrative outside interests by September including directorships and after-dinner speeches.

“I very much defend MPs being able to have some outside interests because I think without that we would eventually have a Parliament of people who are either entirely dependent on the taxpayer…or people who are independently wealthy before they came into politics and I think that is something that has to be avoided,” he said”.

“But for myself I am closing those things down in the next few months.”

Hague On Outside Interests

The latest disclosures in the Sunday Telegraph include:

:: David Maclean, who introduced the 2007 Bill, spent more than £20,000 doing up his farmhouse under the Additional Costs Allowance (ACA) before selling it for £750,000.

It says he was entitled to the money because the property was designated as his “second home”, yet he did not pay capital gains tax on the sale because the taxman accepted it was his main home.

:: Labour MP David Clelland “bought out” his partner’s share of a joint mortgage on a flat in London in a deal which cost the taxpayer thousands of pounds plus legal fees.

:: Fraser Kemp, one of Labour’s key election strategists, made repeat purchases of household items within weeks of each other for his one-bedroom flat in London.

He is said to have told the newspaper: “Bed linen and a second DVD player was an error for which I apologise and will pay back.”

:: Julian Lewis, the shadow defence minister, asked if he could claim £6,000 expenses for a wooden floor with acoustic underlay but was told by officials this “could be seen as extravagant”.

He was permitted to claim £4,870 to upgrade the London flat, as well as £352.20 in legal fees for settling a dispute over unpaid service charges.

Mr Lewis also claimed £119 for a wall-mounted trouser press and £5 for a “sweater tidy”. He has since described the ACA as an “absolutely rotten system”.

:: David Ruffley, the shadow Home Office minister, “flipped” his second home from a London flat to his Bury St Edmunds constituency before spending thousands of pounds on furniture and fittings.

Get involved in the row — send us your views in video & watch what others are saying.

He successfully claimed for a £1,674 sofa — but was refused the full amount when he claimed for a £2,175 Sony widescreen TV from Harrods.

An attempt to claim £6,765 for the purchase of several bedroom items was reduced by £4,748.

The paper says not all of the 98 MPs who supported Mr Maclean’s Bill had questionable expenses. Some submitted low or zero claims including Ann Widdecombe, the Conservative MP.

Since the Telegraph investigation began nine days ago, one minister has stepped down from his post, two Labour MPs have been suspended, and a parliamentary aide to the Conservative leader has also resigned.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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UK: Social Worker Cover-Up Shielded Child Sex Offender Who Went on to Rape Foster Parents’ Son, Two

Social workers put the rights of a teenage sex offender over those of the foster family whose children he went on to abuse, a report has found.

The married couple who welcomed the 19-year-old into their home were not told of his sexual interest in minors.

They only discovered the truth after he raped their two-year-old son and molested their nine-year-old daughter.

Yesterday, social services admitted they had withheld the information because they considered the paedophile to be ‘the one in need of protection’.

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UK: The Man Who Exposed the MPs’ Expenses System “to Its Rotten Core” Has Been Named After More Than Two Weeks of Revelations About Questionable Claims.

Details of MPs’ expenses led to anger over the way Parliament works

Former SAS officer John Wick was identified by The Daily Telegraph as the man behind the disclosures.

He is the head of a corporate intelligence company which contacted newspapers on behalf of the Commons whistleblower who passed over the unedited claims.

Mr Wick, who served in the elite special forces regiment during the 1970s, said he was always aware of the risk of his actions.

But he told the paper he decided to act after the public was frustrated in its attempts to learn about MPs’ expense claims.

Mr Wick said: “We’ve all had concerns about the expenses and how they’ve managed it, purely because of how they’ve handled our requests for information.

“We’ve reached a stage in society where they want to know everything about us — I think we’re entitled to know about them.”

Mr Wick, a Conservative Party supporter, claimed the expenses system had been “exposed to its rotten core” as a result of his actions.

The party was unaware of his role in the expose until now, the Telegraph said.

His identity was revealed as a Conservative MP who resigned as an aide to David Cameron over the scandal was jeered as he attended a public meeting in his constituency.

Former Tory aide under fire

Bracknell MP Andrew Mackay resigned from the post after confirming he had claimed for a second home allowance while his wife, Bromsgrove MP Julie Kirkbride, claimed for another property.

At a meeting of more than 300 of his constituents, he was heckled by some who called for him to resign — but he has still put himself forward for re-selection as a Tory candidate at the next General Election.

The Telegraph continued to reveal details of MPs’ expenses, including those of a multi-millionaire Conservative who claimed for automatic gates at his constitutency home.

Jonathan Djanogly had the large wooden gates — which are opened by an electronic touchpad from a car — installed at his house at a cost of £4,936 including maintenance.

The shadow business minister said they were needed for security reasons after he helped constituents threatened by animal rights activists over their links to the animal-testing company Huntingdon Life Sciences.

He also claimed for a monthly gardening bill of about £400 plus £13,962 for cleaning and £12,951 for gardening at his second home over four years, the Telegraph said.

Mr Djanogly said he had decided to repay £25,000 after talking to the Tory scrutiny panel set up by Mr Cameron to study his MPs’ claims.

He also said he would not be claiming any more expenses until the whole system had been reviewed.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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Karadzic Seeks UN Help in Motion Against Charges

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has asked the United Nations for documents that could underpin a motion calling on the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal to drop all charges against him, according to a letter released Friday by the court.

In the request addressed to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and dated May 11, Karadzic asks for correspondence or statements by U.N. members supporting his claim that American peace envoy Richard Holbrooke was acting with the world body’s authority in 1996 when he allegedly promised Karadzic immunity from prosecution if he relinquished power.

Holbrooke, who is now a special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan for U.S. President Barack Obama, denies making such a deal..

Karadzic’s lawyers plan to file a motion on Monday asking the U.N. tribunal to dismiss the 11-count indictment against him because of the alleged agreement.

It appears unlikely that the motion will derail Karadzic’s trial, which is expected to begin later this year. Dealing with an earlier motion, judges said that the alleged Holbrooke agreement was not binding on the court.

The former Bosnian Serb leader is charged with two counts of genocide as well as crimes against humanity and war crimes for allegedly orchestrating atrocities by Bosnian Serb forces throughout Bosnia’s 1992-95 war, ranging from ethnic cleansing campaigns to the shelling and sniping campaign in Sarajevo and the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica.

A tribunal judge entered not guilty pleas on Karadzic’s behalf after he refused to enter a plea.

Karadzic was arrested on a Belgrade bus in July after more than 12 years on the run. His military commander Gen. Ratko Mladic, remains a fugitive.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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Kosovo: Serbs March Against Biden in Mitrovica

(ANSAmed) — PRISTINA, MAY 21 — A few hundred Serbs staged a protest today against US vice president, Joe Biden, in Kosovska Mitrovica, the city in northern Kosovo that is half Serb and half Albanian. The protesters gathered next to the bridge crossing the Ibar river that divides the Serb half of the city (north of the river) from the Albanian half (south) with banners and posters carrying messages such as “the assassin returns to the crime scene”, “we are not over”, and “Tadic don’t humiliate Serbs”. Boris Tadic is the Serbian president who met Joe Biden in Belgrade yesterday. While in Pristina the US vice president repeated his country’s full support for Kosovo’s sovereignty and independence, which he called “irreversible”. But Serbs still oppose independence and see Kosovo as Serbia’s southern province. The protesters lit candles and laid flowers at the foot of the monument dedicated to the victims of Nato bombardments 10 years ago while police forces strengthened their surveillance. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Serbia in EU: Frattini, Visas No Longer Needed After 2009

(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, MAY 20 — Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said that he believes that it will be possible to end visa requirements for Serbian citizens by the end of 2009. “The time has come to do everything possible to eliminate the barriers that separate the Balkan countries of the EU, and I believe that it is possible to eliminate visa requirements for Serbian citizens by the end of this year,” said Frattini in speaking to Belgrade daily Blic. “Decisive progress,” he added, “is possible.” “Italy,” observed Frattini, “is firmly convinced that the EU enlargement plan must be implemented completely in order to open up the doors to Serbia and other Western Balkan countries, which historically and traditionally are an integral part of Europe, and which have a strong and unshakeable ally in Italy.” (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Serbia: Bosnian Spiritual Leader Sparks Controversy

Belgrade, 20 May (AKI) — The spiritual leader of Bosnia’s Muslim majority on Wednesday sparked controversy by stating that nothing could separate Muslims in Serbia from those in Bosnia. Reiss-ul-Ulema Mustafa Ceric made the comments during a visit to a Muslim community in Serbia’s Muslim-majority Sandzak region bordering Montenegro.

“We are one, and there is no force that could separate us,” Ceric told Muslims in the Sandzak town of Tutin.

“Sarajevo has been and will remain a spiritual centre for all Bosnian Muslims, wherever they live,” he said as he ended a three-day visit on Wednesday.

Sarajevo is the capital of Bosnia, where Muslims make up 40 percent of the population — the largest group in the country.

“We, the Bosniacs (Bosnian Muslims) in the Balkans, demand no more and no less than what others have,” Ceric said.

“We know very well what it is, and they (Serbian leaders) will learn soon what it means.”

Serbia’s 200,000 Muslims are split into two groups. One is led by Muamer Zukorlic, who recognises Ceric’s supreme leadership.

A second group led by Adem Zilkic, believes that Muslims in Serbia should be autonomous from those in Bosnia.

Supporters of the two groups have often clashed in recent years, and several people have been wounded.

Zilkic appealed to Ceric to postpone his visit, warning it could have a “bloody epilogue” but there were no incidents.

Ceric also criticised Bosnian Muslim leaders in Sarajevo for “loving less” their fellow Muslims in Serbia.

Muslims in the former Yugoslavia are of Slavic origin, but were granted Yugoslav nationality by the former strongman Josip Broz Tito in 1963.

But after Bosnia seceded from Yugoslavia in 1992, most Muslims, except Kosovo Albanians, tend to call themselves Bosniacs.

Serbian ambassador to Bosnia, Grujica Spasovic, said Ceric’s concern for other Muslims was legitimate as long as it was related to cultural and religious ties.

But he said Ceric was “interfering in the politics and internal affairs of another country”, meaning Serbia.

Along with several Bosnian Muslim leaders, Ceric has called for Bosnia to be transformed into a unitary state of “Bosniac” people, prompting protests by the country’s two other main groups — Serbs and Croats.

American vice-president Joseph Biden on Tuesday urged Bosnian leaders to unite while pledging support for Bosnia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity enshrined in the US-brokered Dayton peace accord that ended the 1992-1995 civil war.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Al Jazeera and Qatar: the Muslim Brothers’ Dark Empire?

Zvi Mazel

• There has been a significant presence of the Muslim Brothers (also known as the Muslim Brotherhood) in Qatar since the second half of the twentieth century. The first wave came from Egypt in 1954 after Nasser had smashed their organization. The next wave came from Syria in 1982 after Hafez el-Assad bombed their stronghold in Hama. The last group arrived after September 11, 2001 — from Saudi Arabia.
• In 1995, the present Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, deposed his father in a bloodless palace coup. One of his first steps was to establish the Al Jazeera satellite channel in 1996, which is the most viewed station in the Arab world with an estimated audience of some 60 million.
• There was never any doubt about the network’s political orientation. Al Jazeera immediately launched scathing attacks on Israel during the Second Intifada and went on to incendiary broadcasts against the United States at the time of the Afghanistan conflict and over Iraq. It was later revealed to be in contact with bin Laden, and was the medium of choice for the video and audio cassettes of bin Laden and his men.
• During the U.S. war in Iraq, the Americans accused the station of being pro-Saddam, and after the war, of presenting the terrorist groups active in the country in a positive light. One of its reporters stationed in Baghdad always seemed to arrive suspiciously quickly, with his camera, at the site of terror attacks. During the Second Lebanon War in 2006, Al Jazeera behaved as a Hizbullah spokesman. During the Gaza war, a senior Al Jazeera reporter stationed himself at Shifa Hospital, from where he broadcast a stream of carefully selected horror pictures.
• The Egyptian Maamun Fendi wrote in Asharq Alawsat that some 50 percent of the network’s personnel belong to the Muslim Brothers. He believes that Qatar, by embracing the Brothers while hosting American bases, has found the perfect formula against retaliation by Arab leaders and attacks by Islamic extremists. Al Jazeera has become a weapon in the hands of an ambitious emir who may be driven by the Muslim Brothers and who is threatening the stability of the Middle East.
• With the Muslim Brothers increasingly aligned in recent years with Iran, by repeatedly attacking the Sunni Arab regimes and inciting against them, Al Jazeera is serving as an important instrument for Tehran and its effort to undermine their internal stability.

Could Qatar and Al Jazeera’s satellite channel located there be secretly manipulated by the Muslim Brothers? This is a question frequently asked by Arab media trying to puzzle out the high profile adopted by the ruler of the tiny desert country and the nationalistic and radical Islamic content of the channel he owns…

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Italy-Morocco: Alert Over Drugs and Terrorism, Frattini

(ANSAmed) — RABAT, MAY 14 — Today the Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini and the Moroccan Interior Minister Chakib Ben Moussa looked at ways of facing up to extremist terrorism through active cooperation and a common strategy to be adopted between Italy and Morocco. Frattini announced, “there are serious concerns over a possible link between the drugs route and extremist terrorism which can be traced from the western coast towards north African countries, and so we have agreed that our two countries will keep our guards high.” Frattini and the Moroccan Interior Minister also discussed immigration, which is not a subject which leads to serious concern since Rabat maintains tight control and the Moroccan community is well integrated into Italy, where the community of 300,000 people represents Italy’s largest non-European migrant group. Just as in Tunisia, Frattini spoke about legal immigration in Morocco, which should not be overshadowed by the presence of illegal boats of migrants. The minister also underlined the importance of seasonal work, which has been established between Morocco and Spain for some years. Previously the Foreign Minister had laid a wreath at the Mausoleum of Moroccan Sovereigns, an ancient mosque in the centre of Rabat where Mohammed V and Hassan are buried, the grandfather and father of the current sovereign Mohammed VI.(ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Terrorism: Morocco, Arrest for the Attack in Madrid

(ANSAmed) — RABAT, MAY 21 — Moroccan authorities have arrested a 31 year old fundamentalist suspected for having been involved in the attack that took place in Madrid in 2004 which caused 191 deaths, local sources in Rabat reported. The man, Mohammed Bel Hady, was extradited from Syria last week where he moved after leaving Spain. According to Moroccan police, the man rented the apartment in Madrid where three weeks after the attack at the Antocha station seven men blew themselves up. Held in the Salé prison, near Rabat, the man should appear before judges in a month’s time. If he is found guilty he faces a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Terrorism: Algeria, 5 Gendarmes Killed in Ambush

(ANSAmed) — ALGIERS, MAY 21 — Five gendarmes were killed and one injured in an ambush carried out by an armed Islamic group yesterday morning in Algeria in Ouled Antar, in the mountains near Medea 80 kilometres south of the capital. According to reports appearing today in the Algerian press, seven men wearing military uniforms set up a roadblock 4 km from the Ouled Antar town council offices, and when the convoy arrived opened fire on the gendarmes. Among the victims was reportedly also the head of the local brigade of Gendarmerie. Though not yet confirmed by official sources, it is the first attack in this region just outside of Algiers after months of calm. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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TLC: Egypt Seeking to Shut Down Iran-Based Channel

(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, MAY 15 — Airing on Egypt’s Nilesat, an Iran-based TV channel has frequently insulted politicians and the government in this Arab country, which is now seeking to withdraw the broadcast license. The Arabic-speaking al-Alam channel has launched a campaign urging a coup d’etat in Egypt and went as far as mocking President Hosni Mubarak and Attorney General Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud. Samir Sabry, a lawyer, filed a suit at the Administrative Court to get the channel off-air. On its website, alalam.ir, the channel posted an unsourced article claiming that Counselor Mahmoud falsely accused Hezbollah of planning to launch combat operations in Egypt and that the man was trying to influence parliamentary elections in Lebanon. The channel also raised doubts about the integrity of the Egyptian judicial system. Established in 2003, al-Alam addresses the Muslim and Arab worlds and the Middle East.(ANSAmed)

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Gaza: Hamas Decreases Attacks on Israel on Egyptian Pressure

(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, MAY 21 — Palestinian fundamentalists of Hamas have reportedly opposed and prevented various plans to perform terrorist attacks and launch rockets on Israel planned by other radical Islamic groups active in the Gaza Strip in recent weeks, say Israeli sources cited anonymously by Haaretz’s website. The reports credit Hamas leaders, who are reacting to pressure applied by Egypt, which is mediating negotiations with Israel and in inter-Palestinian dialogue. This activity has been demonstrated by the relative peace over the past weeks and an almost completely silent April, which was recently interrupted by the most recent episodes (which were less frequent compared to the past). The sources attributed the attacks to minor groups rebelling against Hamas’ indications. According to the sources, the Hamas government in Gaza, which has been in control since 2007, has asked militant groups to calm down in order to encourage the arrival of international aid and begin reconstruction after the devastation suffered in Israeli military initiative Operation Cast Lead (concluded on January 18 with a death toll of between 1,200 and 1,400). Hamas is mainly committed to pleasing Egypt and to avoid “a further deterioration” in relations with Cairo. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Israel Bows to US in Removing Illegal Settlers

NO SOONER had Benjamin Netanyahu returned from his week in Washington on Thursday than he moved to dismantle an illegal outpost in the West Bank.

“It seems that this was done in order to throw a bone to the United States President,” says Avi Roeh, the chairman of the local settler council. It was only a tiny outpost of seven shacks on a barren hilltop, but at least it was something.

With the US President, Barack Obama, scheduled to unveil his vision for peace in the Middle East in Cairo on June 4, US officials had made it clear to the Israelis that they wanted some quick concessions.

Mr Netanyahu seems to have got the message.

“The Prime Minister sees the unauthorised construction in the West Bank as a problem that has to be dealt with,” his official spokesman, Mark Regev, told the Herald after Mr Netanyahu’s return. “Illegal construction will be taken down.”

Mr Regev added that Mr Netanyahu had instructed his Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, to take the lead on the issue. “He is trying to find a non-violent solution but the bottom line is that illegal construction will be coming down,” he said.

Mr Barak has already identified another 26 outposts that will be dismantled within weeks. For the typically unauthorised clusters of caravans manned by ideologically driven, extremist settlers who believe that every inch of land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River is their Biblical homeland, removing illegal outposts is one thing.

What Mr Obama meant by a freeze on settlement expansion was an end to further construction in the 121 authorised settlements spread across the West Bank that house nearly 300,000 people, plus a further 200,000 people living in East Jerusalem. So if settlements in the West Bank are such a bad idea — as governments outside Israel keep stipulating — why can’t Israel stop building them?

The simple answer is that no Israeli leader has really wanted to take on what is a powerful and emotional political constituency — especially in a country where prime ministers are made and broken by the sectional interests of minor party partners in large coalition governments.

The more complicated answer is that since the Six Day War of 1967, virtually every arm of the state apparatus has been geared towards encouraging settlement — both in terms of economic and political support. Left-wing Israelis such as Laura Wharton, who was elected to the Jerusalem City Council on the Meretz ticket last November, believe the settlements block the establishment of a viable Palestinian state.

“Any country that can grab more land will,” said Ms Wharton. “The Israeli public was eager to enlarge the country after the 1967 war and because the land has a historic connection to the Jewish people, they believe it is justified.”

Right-wingers such as Gil Hoffman, chief political correspondent for The Jerusalem Post, dismiss such claims as the excuse of Palestinians eager to cover up their deeper failures to guarantee Israeli security.

“We withdrew 10,000 settlers from Gaza, we got 6000 rockets in return,” Mr Hoffman said. “We are now expected to get out of the West Bank and invite in Iran, a state that wants to wipe out the Jewish people in a nuclear holocaust?”

Dr Sharon Schwartz is harder to categorise. Born in Chicago’s Hyde Park, the same neighbourhood as Mr Obama, Schwartz studied medicine at Harvard before settling in the northern Israeli city of Haifa.

Like the Hyde Park of her youth, Haifa is a mixed neighbourhood. In this case, the majority population is Jewish, but there is also a significant number of Israeli Arabs.

“I think we need a new paradigm. I don’t see why a Palestinian state means we should have to kick all the Jews out. If the Palestinians are able to prove they can establish a state, why can’t Jews who want to remain there do so and become citizens of that state. I think we can live together.”

A poll commissioned by the OneVoice Movement, which advocates a viable Palestinian state alongside a safe and secure Israel, suggested that Mr Netanyahu would have difficulty balancing the competing demands of Israel’s most important ally, the US, against what the Israeli public wants.

Based on 1200 interviews in Israel and the Palestinian territories, the poll, conducted by the University of Liverpool’s Dr Colin Irwin, found that 100 per cent of Palestinians interviewed said they wanted all the settlers to leave West Bank, 53 per cent of Israelis considered this totally unacceptable.

“In the end, this will be for the people of Israel to decide, no one else really has the power,” Ms Wharton said.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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Radio: Iranian Nuclear Arms, 30% Would Leave Israel

(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, MAY 22 — Some 30% of Israelis would consider abandoning their country if Iran manages to arm itself with nuclear weapons. Military radio announced the result of a poll carried out by the Iranian Studies Centre of the University of Tel Aviv. “If the aim of the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was to create concern in Israel, he has certainly succeeded in doing so,” an expert from the research centre, doctor Uzi Rabi, commented. He believes Israeli fears are exaggerated because “the Iranian leadership is certainly fundamentalist from a religious viewpoint, but quite rational from a political point of view”. The poll also showed that 81% of Israelis are convinced that Iran will succeed in completing its nuclear programme. More than half of people interviewed think that Israel should use force to remove that threat, without waiting for the outcome of the diplomatic efforts which seem destined to fail. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Iraq: an Armed Band Kidnap a Christian Teacher in Kirkuk

He was kidnapped for ransom. Msgr. Louis Sako has intervened for his release seeking the help of Muslim leaders. The bandits want a “very high sum” in exchange for his freedom, which the family — of poor origins — is unable to pay.

Kirkuk (AsiaNews) — This morning at 10 am local time, an armed group broke into a primary school in Kirkuk, dragging away a young Christian teacher. Namir Nadhim Gourguis is 32 years old, is unmarried and from “a family of very humble and poor origins” refer AsiaNews sources in Iraq.

The gang of four people, broke into the primary school in Ruwaidha village —Al Rashad district, 30 km from Kirkuk — and abducted the teacher. They have already demanded a ransom: “a very high sum — underlines the local source — that the family is unable to pay”.

In an effort to save this young man’s life, the Chaldean Archbishop of Kirkuk, Louis Sako, has intervened appealing to the sheiks and imams in the area to help gain his release. The prelate hopes that “these attempts at mediation will lead to he being set free”.

Kirkuk’s Christian community has been the target of these armed criminal gangs who carry out kidnappings for extortion. Only days ago a young man was assassinated on the doorstep of his home; another three people—two women and a man — were shot to death. The criminals see he Christians as an easy target: in fact unlike the Arabs or Kurds they are not protected by the community, relatives or police.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Kirkuk: Young Christian Teacher is Freed Thanks to Help of Muslims

Joint intervention of army and tribal leaders led to the release of Namir Nadhim Gourguis, kidnapped on May 14th last. No ransom was paid. Decisive the mediation between Imam and tribal chiefs. Msgr Sako: “the Christian community of Kirkuk rejoices”.

Kirkuk (AsiaNews) — Namir Nadhim Gourguis, a 32 year-old Christian teacher, has been freed. A joint operation yesterday between the army and Arab forces of the reawakening in Kirkuk, led to the release of the young man who was kidnapped on May 14th by an armed group.

AsiaNews sources in Iraq explain that “mediation with tribal chiefs” and “collaboration provided by the local Imams” proved to be decisive in securing his freedom. The kidnappers “did not receive any ransom”.

The kidnapping took place the morning of May 14th: an armed group of four men broke into the primary school in Ruwaidha village — in the sub district of Al Rashad, circa 30 from Kirkuk — abducting the young man. Local sourced explain that he “is from a simple and poor family background”, that the ransom demanded by the kidnappers was “very high” and the family “was unable to pay it”.

Collaboration between the Christian community, the Arab world and local tribal chiefs was detrimental in securing the Namir release for which the Archbishop of Kirkuk, Msgr. Louis Sako had also immediately intervened. “Today is a day of great celebration for the Christian community — Msgr. Sako tells AsiaNews —After 8 days Namir is free. We thank God: today the Christian community of Kirkuk rejoices”.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Ohran Pamuk, the Armenian Genocide and Turkish Nationalism

The trail against the Turkish writer, guilty of having spoken about the Armenian genocide and the massacre of Kurds, could be reopened. Turkey is sliding towards Islamic fundamentalism and nationalism. Tell-tale signs; its friendship with Syria and Iran.

Ankara (AsiaNews) — The infamous article 301 of Turkey’s Penal Code which severely punishes anyone who dares to “sully Turkey’s national identity” is once again in the news. Over the past few years it has silenced many intellectuals who dared to contest “Turkey’s democratic government”. Once again the writer Orhan Pamuk is being targeted, in a case that has been on the shelf for over three years.

Just as the writer, the first Turk to receive the Noble Prize for Literature (2006), was in Florence to receive a degree honoris causa, rumours began to circulate that he will probably have to appear before Turkey’s courts once more for having “offended the Turkish identity”.

In reality the charge is an old one, even if ever present in public memory.

Born in Istanbul in 1952, in 2005 Pamuk was charged with having declared to the Swiss weekly Das Magazin that “we Turks are responsible for the death of 30 thousand Kurds and a million Armenians and no-one in Turkey dares speak about it, except me”. However he was absolved by an Istanbul court, above all tank to the intervention of the International Community which also urged the partial modification of art. 301. Approved in 2008, the change led to the cancellation of the generic “offense against Turkish identity” and its’ substitution with a more detailed “offense against the State or organs of the Turkish State”.

However on May 4th last, Ankara’s Supreme Court rejected the primary courts ruling and decided to proceed against Pamuk because he holds his country responsible for the Armenian “genocide” — a taboo word for the Turkish nation — during the Ottoman Empire, thus committing a grave crime according to the Turkish Penal Code.

World famous Pamuk is held as one of the most translated contemporary writers, not only into European languages. Since his debut in 1982, he has published nine novels and other writings, which have received awards in Europe and the United States. He elaborated an original form of narrative, at times complex and not always easy to read, through which he explores, from a historic point of view, the problematic issues of art, expression, identity and the relationship between the East and the West. In his homeland and abroad Pamuk has had great literary success. But despite this, he is still opposed by a large part of public opinion in Turkey. An official in Isparta even went to the point of ordering the destruction of his books in libraries and bookshops throughout the province.

Pamuk, invited to the International Book Fair in Turin, decided not to mention any of this. In the past he ad even refused to participate in debates and discussion on the murder of the Armenian journalist and long-time friend Hrant Dink. In Turin, when asked about the case currently going to the courts, he commented: “I don’t think it is a serious matter, even if I don’t really know the details of the latest developments, nothing is official yet, but from what I have understood I could be on trial again. Unfortunately, in my country the justice system is politicised — said Pamuk — and you know that if there is no freedom in a nation then there is no justice. This is why I feel obliged to speak freely”.

For now Turkey’s press prefers to hold its tongue on the issue and only Hurriyet has dared to nod its head at the probable opening of a new trial. No-one is sure of anything and they prefer to keep quiet, given the scandal generated by the first case involving Pamuk and article 301. Many hope that this is not the latest sign of the current government’s increasingly authoritarian and nationalist stance. Many see confirmation of this suspicion in recently improved relations between Syria, Iran, and the Turkish government which has forgotten the principals of secular kemalism and is moving towards an Islamic extremism, in which nationalism and fundamentalism are dangerously united.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Turkey Probing ‘Vilnius Way’ Into the EU

VILNIUS — Visiting Lithuania’s capital Vilnius, members of Turkey’s Young Executives and Businessmen’s Association strengthen links with their counterparts, hoping to raise support for Turkey’s European Union bid. But the country is so badly affected from the global crisis that it is hard to believe Vilnius is selected the ‘European Capital of Culture’ this year

With the policy of “a vote is a vote” when it comes to entering the European Union in mind, members of Turkey’s Young Executives and Businessmen’s Association, or GYÄ°AD, last week organized a trip to Vilnius, the capital of recent EU member Lithuania.

Members of GYİAD, led by Chairwoman Pınar Eczacibaşı, met with many decision-makers in the country, aiming to provide a common platform for businesspeople of both countries.

“Lithuania is one step ahead of Turkey.,”Eczacıbaşı said. “Their businesspeople have been through all the things Turkish businesspeople will encounter when Turkey enters the EU.”

“We have selected Lithuania as our project partner mainly because neither Turkey nor Lithuania knew much about each other,” Kerim Alain Bertrand, the vice chairman of the association, said. “The general focus is on Germany or France. However, if we only contact the countries we already know of, we will miss out on making new friends who can support us on our path to the EU. After all, one vote is one vote.”

Lithuanian people’s support for Turkey’s EUbid stands at just 40 percent. “That is only because they don’t know much about you,” said Nerijus Aleksiejunas, an EU Department Director at the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry.

“We support Turkey’s accession to the EU” said Danas Arlauskas of the Lithuanian Business Employers’ Confederation. “Unity brings peace and we need a peaceful environment to conduct business.”

A visit to Vilnius makes one think that it is EU members who need Turkey more than Turkey needs them. Lithuania, with a population of 3.4 million, has an unemployment rate of 7.9 percent that is projected to jump to 13.5 percent in the first quarter. But the situation provides an opportunity for foreign firms, according to Antanas Miseikis of Lithuania Development Agency. “They have plenty to choose from,” he said.

The services-based economy is dependent on Russia for energy. The weight of Russia is expected to increase further as Lithuania is forced by the EU to demolish its only nuclear power plant by the end of the year.

Lithuania has a robust services industry, but it has not been able to escape the global crisis. The nation’s only airline has bankrupted, meaning that those flying to Vilnius have to transfer at Riga, the Latvian capital. “The trouble is, FlyLAL, the national carrier, was also a sponsor of many events. It was an unfortunate decision on behalf of the Lithuanian government not to bail it out,” said OÄŸuz Ã-zge, Turkey’s ambassador to Lithuania. The loss of sponsorship is another reason why tourists visiting Vilnius would have a hard time understanding that the city is the current “European Capital of Culture.”

“Aleading construction firm also filed for bankruptcy,” said Ã-zge. “Now the market is open to everyone. Turkish construction firm Kayı has a few projects here. But there is plenty room for many others.”

Another Turkish investor is Ä°brahim Tekstil, a firm that produces in Turkey and sells in Lithuania. But to many, Turkey is just a tourism destination, as 80,000 Lithuanians chose to visit the beaches of Antalya and Alanya last year.

It is quite easy for foreign businesspeople to enter the market, Miseikis told members of GYÄ°AD. “All an investor has to provide for the government are some legal papers and a minimum capital of 2,300 euros,” he said. Lithuania lured in a foreign direct investment of 1 billion euros last year, a remarkable feat.

“We will convey the information we have obtained from our bilateral talks to Turkish businessmen,” said Eczacıbaşı.

“We will organize a symposium at Istanbul’s Kadir Has University in June,” she continued. “Our Lithuanian friends will come to Istanbul once again and hopefully create an effective platform for businesspeople from both countries to meet each other. We will also launch a joint project with the Vilnius University. We have invited Povilas Gylys, a former foreign minister, to come and lecture students.”

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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Diana West: We’re Winning the Wrong War

This week’s column examines the mindless logic of pursuing “victory” in Afghanistan through waging what is looking more and more like a “war on civilian casualties.” Our leadership, military and civilian, has decided that eliminating Afghan civilian casualties (bogus or not) is the surefire way to win Afghan hearts and minds. They don’t say “hearts and minds,” of course; they say “trust.” But it’s the same darn, stupid thing. As I wrote in the column, if the Afghans were with us, they’d be, well, with us. But Western and Islamic culture don’t mix — or, at least, they just don’t line up on the same side to fight jihad.

Not that “jihad” is ever mentioned, or, worse, understood. No, our men are out there fighting David Kilcullen’s “accidental guerillas”—”guerillas” “accidentally” created by us, not by a supremacist culture of conquest 13 centuries old and going strong. But even as we direct our military to engage in “accident prevention,” the innate conflicts of jihad culture remain. As a result, we fight a very strange and endless kind of war — a war that may best be understood not as George W. Bush’s idiotically non-named “war on terror,” or Obama’s even more postmodernist “man-caused disaster,” but this: the War on Muslim Alienation. Assuaging Islam is the cause we have undertaken since 9/12 in order to protect ourselves, somewhat, without “alienating” the very politico-religious culture that plans our destruction.

It’s not working — at least, not in our favor.

Now, the column:

“When Does Someone Apologize to Our Military?”

Afghanistan has been dubbed “Obama’s War” but maybe it should be called “the war on civilian casualties.”

You may have thought the United States was at war in Afghanistan to “defeat” the Taliban and win one for our loyal ally in counter-jihad, the Afghan people. But even that pipedream is beside the point. The latest concern-turned-obsession of the United States is eliminating as many as possible, if not all, “civilian casualties.” If we can only do that, according to brain-trust, top-brass, fairy-tale thinking, we will surely win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. If we can’t, Afghan hearts and minds will go to those globally recognized humanitarians, the Taliban.

Indeed, there is something wrong with this picture…

— Hat tip: Diana West

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Indian Elections: Congress Wins, the Hindu Bjp and Third Front Collapse

Rajnath Singh, president of the Bharatiya Janata Party has already admitted defeat. Msgr. Fernandes, secretary general of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India comments on a “welcome result” in favour of “the nation’s secularism”.

Mumbai (AsiaNews) — Congress wins Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The forecast is based on the first tally of electronically counted votes give the United Progressive Alliance (Upa), a coalition group led by Sonia Gandhi e Manmonah Singh, 250 seats. The National Democratic Alliance (Nda), allied to the Hindu party has won 160 while the Third Front is at circa 80.

Rajnath Singh, president of the BJP, has already conceded defeat: “The Bharatiya Janata Party ‘s performance in the results is very unexpected. The success for the National Democratic Alliance that we had hoped for has not materialised. The reasons for this will be discussed later” declared the leader of the nationalist Hindu party already at 11 am this morning local time.

In an interview with AsiaNews, Msgr. Stanislaus Fernandes, secretary general of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India, says that “this is certainly a welcome result for the secular nature of the country”. The bishop believes that the election result indicates that the people of India “want a stable government” and has voted “against fundamentalism and communism”.

Theodore Mascarenhas, Vatican Official of the Pontifical Council for Culture Asia Desk, comments that “the result is an answer of the people of India to the politics of hate in Orissa against the Christians in Karnataka”. For Fr. Mascarenhas “this verdict once again reflects the intelligence of the Indian people who chose inclusiveness against divisiveness”.

In the lead up to the final results expected later today, early analysis of voting has begun. The minimum requirement of 272 seats for a ruling majority in the Lok Sabha seems impossible for any of the parties and it is already clear that the future government will be a coalition. The BJP has already called a meeting of party leaders for this afternoon to analyze their defeat. Congress, who at the outset of the election had already declared its willingness to work with any party except the BJP, is now speaking of openness towards all of the nation’s secular parties.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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India: Orissa Government Cuts Death Toll From Anti-Christian Pogrom

The authorities reject the list of dead submitted by the diocese of Bhubaneshwar. The president of the Global Council of Indian Christians says the government is reducing the number relying “false justifications” in an attempt “to cut compensation to the victims.” In Kandhamal tensions remain high as Hindu extremists try to storm a refugee camp at night.

New Delhi (AsiaNews) — The Orissa State government and the diocese of Bhubanshwar, in the State’s capital, are at loggerheads over the number of people who were killed in last August’s anti-Christian pogroms. State authorities have reported fewer casualties than Mgr Raphael Cheenath, archbishop of Cuttak-Bhubaneshwar.

“The petitioner’s list included the names of RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) activists, Dhanurjaya Pradhani, Ajit Kumar Mallick and Prabhat Panigrahi, allegedly killed by naxalites,” said the authorities for whom 42 people, and not 93, died in the Hindu-led anti-Christian violence.

“In ten cases people are still alive, in 25 cases people have died because of chronic and other medical problems, in 12 cases the reference/history of the persons with reported names could not be traced in villages mentioned against their names, and in two cases the villages mentioned could not be located,” the State government said.

Contacted by AsiaNews, Sajan K George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), slammed the government “for its false justifications”, its failure to assume responsibilities for the refugees and its attempt “to cut compensation to the victims.”

“Saying that people are missing, does not mean that they disappeared in thin air,” said the GCIC president.

What is more, the government is trying to exclude people who died from their wounds months after the violence.

The GCIC has a list of 123 people killed during the anti-Christian violence, which includes everyone who became a victim of the violence perpetrated by the Sangh Parivar, the nationalist umbrella group that includes the RSS.

George does not exclude the possibility that his list might include the names of some Hindu extremists, but rejects out of hand the State’s attempt to impose its shorter list over that provided by the diocese of Bhubaneshwar.

In their latest claim State authorities even contradict what they had reported last year.

In November 2008 during a visit to Kandhamal by a delegation of the Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist (CPI_ML), a State official had estimated the death toll to be around 500 people, saying that he had personally authorised the cremation of at least 200 people (see AsiaNews report).

Fr Dibya Singh, who represents the Church before state authorities, also rejects speculation by the authorities. As far as he is concerned, the state claim that ten people are still alive “is not true.”

“People died either in the relief camps or elsewhere. Two, who were nearly beaten to death, succumbed to their injuries later,” he explained.

In the meantime the situation in Kandhamal remains tense. Last night some Hindu extremists tried to storm a camp in Mondakia where about 1,500 Christian refugees have found shelter but were stopped by police.

Also yesterday Khands (known as Kondhs as well), an aboriginal tribe that represents more than 50 per cent of the population in Kandhamal district, filed a petition in the Supreme Court, accusing the government of Orissa of favouring Christians and expropriating their land to give to refugees for church building.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Pakistan: Ulemas Against the Taliban, “Full Support” to the Government and Army

Islamic leaders reject the “Taliban version of sharia” and invoke “unity” against the fundamentalist’s offensive. Catholic bishops welcome the ulema’s decision, describing it a “positive step”. Summit of 42 political leaders to draw up a common response to the crisis.

Lahore (AsiaNews) —Pakistan’s ulemas have rejected the methods used by the Taliban to apply Islamic law in Swat Valley and fully support the military offensive launched by the government. The Catholic bishops judge the step to be “positive”, while on the ground the battle intensifies to uproot the last outposts of the Islamic extremists.

Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (JUP), an organisation of experts on Islamic law, at the Convention Centre in Islamabad unanimously adopted a nine-point resolution, rejecting the “Taliban’s version of Sharia” and the beheading of innocent people in Malakand. They also give their “full backing” to the ongoing military operation, which they describe as “a war for Pakistan’s integrity and sovereignty’“ against forces which aim to create a “state within a state”. The Ulema also called on the Organisation of Islamic Countries to come forward to help the displaced people of Swat and to forge “unity” in their ranks against the Taliban.

Pakistan’s Catholic bishops “favourably welcome” the decision by the ulemas, defining it a “positive step”. Msgr. Lawrence John Saldanha, Archbishop of Lahore and President of the Catholic Bishops Conference, applauds the military campaign against the “brutal forces” which attack the “nation’s constitution”. The prelate also recalls to mind the drama of the one and a half million refugees who have fled the war, announcing a series of initiatives that the Church has launched to come to their aid. Among these, the purchase — thanks to money collected in the Lenten campaign — of electric fans to alleviate the summer heat within the tents for people living in the camps. The Archbishop further added that National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) has also called a meeting of all major churches (Catholic and Protestants) in Lahore on May 22 to “ponder the currant situation of the country” especially “the extremism and military operation”.

On the ground operations continue with army helicopters and fighter jets bombarding the extremist’s stronghold of Mingora. In Islamabad, an All Party Conference on Swat, has begun, uniting the government and 42 principal political groups. Premier Yousaf Raza Gilani has confirmed that the army will continue its operations to wipe-out the Taliban resistance restore peace and favour the re-integration of the displaced. He has also recognised that the peace accord signed with the extremists — the introduction of Sharia in exchange for a ceasefire- has been a failure and adds that “the Pakistani nuclear arsenal is safe”.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Pakistan: Wages of Incoherence

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has astonished the world with her rare candour. She has described US policy towards Pakistan on the last 30 years as incoherent. She has bemoaned that, after accepting Pakistan’s support in the Afghanistan war in the 1980s, the US imposed all kinds of sanctions on it. True, US policy was incoherent. But Clinton should be cautioned against accepting an incoherent explanation for it and overlooking what led to US sanctions. It would also help if the US came clean on the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) relationship with notorious proliferator A Q Khan.

According to former Dutch prime minister Rudd Lubbers, this relationship dated back to 1975. The CIA had intervened twice with Dutch authorities to let Khan go when he was detained by them. The US’s role in Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation was not exactly a passive one. The Pressler amendment was not meant to discourage Pakistan’s nuclear weapons build-up but to outmanoeuvre the proposed Glenn-Cranston amendment imposing a 20 per cent limit on uranium enrichment. The Reagan administration enabled Pakistan to go up to building a weapon. The tacit agreement was that it would stop short of testing.

The Pakistanis broke that understanding and got their weapon tested by the Chinese at their Lop Nor site on May 26, 1990. This has been disclosed in a book, The Nuclear Express, by two US scientists, Thomas Reed and Danny Stillman, associated with Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos nuclear establishments. In the third week of May 1990, a US delegation headed by Robert Gates, currently defence secretary, rushed to Islamabad presumably to persuade Pakistan not to test. It failed. George Bush Sr was left with no alternative but to invoke the Pressler amendment. Clinton, therefore, need not feel guilty about the sanctions. Rather, it would do her and the world a lot of good if the US came clean on the events of 1990.

That doesn’t mean other aspects of US policy were not incoherent. The US helped promote the worst form of Wahhabi extremism among the mujahideen. It is now paying the price since Wahhabi conditioning spawned al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) learnt the tricks it is displaying vis-a-vis the US from CIA trainers. In the years to follow, the CIA could not correctly assess what its former pupils would be up to. Even after the Taliban’s extremism became known, Bill Clinton’s assistant secretary of state Robin Raphael tried to negotiate with it. Hillary Clinton would dismiss that as part of incoherent policy. But many who were responsible for it are still around her in the present administration.

No doubt Barack Obama’s policy has a certain coherence. It recognises the Taliban/al-Qaeda and their Wahhabi extremism as the enemy and no longer talks about the war on terror overlooking the fact terrorism was a strategy to spread an extremist cult. It also recognises the ISI’s links with some extremist organisations. Clinton has spoken of Pakistan’s government and civil society abdicating their responsibility to fight extremists posing an existential threat to them, and of Pakistan in its present state posing a mortal threat to the US. Yet she now talks approvingly of action against the Taliban by Pakistan’s army and democratically elected government. Has she noticed that Pakistan’s national assembly has not yet been able to pass a resolution by consensus endorsing army operations against the Taliban?

A coherent policy would depend on assessing the nature of the threat Pakistan’s situation poses to US and international security. The threat is not merely the Taliban and al-Qaeda, It is an extremist cult under which hundreds of thousands of children from age seven upwards are being robotised to become suicide bombers and cannon fodder in hundreds of madrassas. This did not happen in Iraq, Iran or Saudi Arabia. Even as the army, government and some sections of civil society in Pakistan have fallen in line with the US demand to fight the Taliban and al-Qaeda, significant sections of the population still view this as an American war. There is no evidence of the beginning of any ideological transformation against Wahhabi extremism.

Policy incoherence arose from the US’s inability to understand that Pakistan was a religious ideological state and had a conflict of interest with the US on that account. While both parties in pursuit of tactical gains tried out an opportunistic alliance, Pakistan emerged the gainer. Nuclear weapons made it immune to international punitive action. Plus it had an expansionist ideological cult from which the US now feels a threat.

While the US is trying to use Pakistan’s army and state apparatus to fight the most organised expression of the extremist cult in the form of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, the ideology pervading the madrassas remains untouched. No doubt a programme for building schools and reforming education exists on paper. If the US is not to make the mistake of leaving Pakistan once the anti-Taliban/al-Qaeda campaigns end, it must recognise that there is a fundamental ideological conflict with the prevalent extremist cult. There has to be a de-jihadisation of Pakistan and Afghanistan, just as once there was de-Nazification in Europe.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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China: Employees of Internet Giant Baidu Protest. Job Litigation Up 98%

Thousands present formal complaints spurred on by wage cuts some as much as 30%. The economic crisis hits the sector, as seen in the drop in internet sales. Blue collar workers first to pay the price: in 2008 job litigation has doubled throughout China.

Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Thousands of employees lodged official complaints at the Labour Office in Shenzhen on May 15th to protest the wage cuts introduced by Baidu, the Chinese giant in the internet search engines sector. The grave global financial crisis is hitting workers hard and in China job litigation has doubled.Baidu is the main search engine in China and has overtaken even Google and Yahoo, who in turn are larger on a global scale. The site is particularly used for online purchasing.Now the company has slashed the basic wage (around 4 thousand Yuan per month, that’s 400 Euro) by 30% for employees who supervise sales and has even reduced their commission.As a sign of protest on May 4th hundreds of employees in Shenzhen staged a stay-home or sit —in at the office. In nearby Guangzhou numerous employees presented complaints to their Labour Office.In the first 4 months of 2009 there company faired better then previously forecast but has registered a drop in advertisements.Meanwhile since the beginning of May the Ministry for Human resources and social security revealed that in litigation over work-related issues totalled 1.2 million cases, with an increase of 98% compared to the 693thousand of 2007. But the real number is far higher given that the total number is 22 thousand collective cases, put forward by workers groups (+71% compared to 2007) which counted alone make up 41% of the complaints. The data is also the direct result of the increasing economic difficulties being faced by businesses, which often close without paying wages or redundancy. There are also numerous cases of injuries sustained at the work place.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Koreas: How the Kaesong Complex Made Things Worse in N. Korea

The Kaesong Industrial Complex was started in 2002 to promote, as the slogan had it, Korean co-prosperity. Once the industrial park is completed in 2010, it was said, it would accommodate over 2,000 South and North Korean and foreign firms to employ 250,000 people and produce US$150 billion a year. Kaesong would become a global free trade city, specializing in manufacturing, finance, commerce and tourism, and become “a breakthrough guaranteeing the South’s long-term growth potential.”

A year short of that deadline, the industrial park now accommodates 104 South Korean businesses who employ some 39,000 North Korean workers. Accumulated production from 2005 to April this year stood at $574 million. The Seoul government, Korea Land Corporation and Korea Telecom spent W360 billion (US$1=W1,248) to build the complex and the firms operating there W370 billion. In addition, the state subsidized construction of a railroad, roads, logistics, development, power supply and communications with W969.8 billion. Hyundai Asan paid W749.2 billion for its right to develop the industrial park and W500 billion in facilities investment. The corporation has also paid North Korea $16 million in rent for 50 years.

The future of the W2.5 trillion complex is now unpredictable after it produced returns of a mere W700 billion. Declaring the contracts null and void, the North said no benefits of the June 15, 2000 Joint Declaration can be given to those who would go back on it. The South’s benefits from the industrial park have been confined to prolonging the lives of some marginal South Korean businesses on the strength of low wages in the North. If they sustain losses due to North Korean decisions, they are entitled to 90 percent of their facilities investment plus up to W5 billion insurance out of the Inter-Korean Cooperation Fund. The joint industrial park, from the perspective of the South Korean economy, is nothing but a burden on the taxpayer.

The North earns a total of some $350 million in wages a year, averaging at $73 per worker. If the money leads to other economic activities through household consumption, the North’s revenue increases proportionately. According to government announcements and other available information, however, North Korean workers get merely $30-35 each, with the official exchange rate of W150 to the dollar applied. Given that a dollar is exchanged for between W2,000 and W3,000 in the black market, only around $2 is paid to each North Korean worker, with the rest collected by the authorities. Thus nothing remains to stimulate the North Korean economy, only more dollars to prop up the regime. In effect, the industrial park delays rather than stimulates reform and opening.

Why has this happened? To begin with, the last administration railroaded through huge investments in the North, emphasizing merely exchanges and cooperation. Had the North been sincere in its reforms, South Korean conglomerates, foreign companies and innovation industries could have moved into the park. But Pyongyang, far from abandoning its closed communist system, has attempted to make the park a pawn in pressuring Seoul. It has shown that politics-driven investment becomes an albatross around the South’s neck.

The South has invested in a country that is totally unprepared to do business with a capitalist country. In the North Korean system, the party adjusts disputes between economic bodies, while civil and commercial laws and contracts mean nothing. Pyongyang’s unilateral cancellation of the Kaesong contracts exposed the North’s ignorance of proper business practices. That will have chased away any remaining potential business partners in the global village.

The North can build a self-growing state like China and Vietnam only if it first learns the cold economic processes of the capitalist world. All late-comer developing countries learn the game principles of the market by being taken advantage of and paying the cost of unequal contracts. A nation needs to increase adaptability to the market and businesses need to acquire management ability through trial and error.

The South, under the last two administrations, fell victim to extortion by the North. In reality, the South spoiled the North and thus held it back in its isolation.

Now the government must show Pyongyang that its methods are unacceptable in the world. Our investments in the North are being held hostage to North Korea’s politics. The aim of Korean co-prosperity can be achieved only through a relationship of pure economic exchanges.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Philippines: US Marines Make Friends, a Few Enemies in Philippines

PIO DURAN, Philippines (AFP) — The remote town of Pio Duran, with its palm- and thatch-roofed homes, had never known a decent road, while a decades-long communist insurgency lurks threateningly in the background.

So it is little surprise that, while they are accused by some of being “occupiers” in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, US Marines have been warmly welcomed in the impoverished and sometimes dangerous central region of Bicol.

“This is Bicol, so (the insurgency) is an ever-present factor,” the local mayor, Roger Arandia, told AFP of the 5,200-member New People’s Army (NPA).

“But everyone needs a road,” he added.

It is by no means on the scale of reconstruction efforts in the Middle East, for example, but the Marines are on a “hearts and minds” mission here that is winning them many friends locally — and inevitably drawing a few enemies too.

As well as roads, they have rebuilt typhoon-damaged schools, treated 22,000 residents with various ailments and even given anti-rabies shots to pets in what is one of the poorest regions in the whole of the Philippines.

“I don’t get into the whys of an insurgency or anything. What I’m here to do is help people,” said Brigadier-General Ronald Bailey, commander of a US Marine expeditionary brigade consisting of around 40 troops.

They are a small part of the more than 6,000 US soldiers involved in military exercises in Bicol, Luzon and Mindanao.

The non-combat segment allows Washington to dispense its largesse to earn goodwill in the former US colony’s poorest areas, which are typically troubled by insurgencies — many of them long-running.

It took about a month to turn a three-kilometre (two-mile) dirt track into a proper road linking Pio Duran to the coastal resort of Donsol, where most visitors to Bicol head, said Marine Staff Sergeant Chad Anderson.

The locals’ response was “outstanding. They appreciated it a lot,” Anderson, from Maine, told AFP.

But the threat from the NPA is never far away. They have warned they are prepared to attack the American forces, although there have been no reported direct assaults yet.

However, they have come close, wounding one local soldier who was part of a Filipino unit guarding the Marines as they built another road.

While the Americans have tried to avoid getting involved with the issue of the communist insurgency and say their role is to improve basic services for the locals, some Filipinos hope they will indirectly also be making it safer.

Building roads “enables the government to bring basic services, so naturally it has an immediate impact on the insurgency,” said Filipino Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro.

He added the rebellion has persisted for so long — 40 years, to be precise — “because we have not been able to address it properly due to lack of manpower.”

Some even hope the US forces could expand their remit to include combat operations against the NPA.

It has some precedent in the Philippines. In the south of the country US Special Forces military advisers are already embedded — albeit in a strictly non-combat role — with Filipino troops battling Islamic militants.

No specific figure has been put on the number of people killed in the four-decade rebellion here, but some military sources say the number runs into many thousands.

US ambassador to the Philippines, Kristie Kenney, would not rule out helping the government in Manila fight the rebels in Bicol in some as yet undefined way.

“Right now we are very happy with where we are in our relationship,” Kenney told AFP.

“But we’re friends and allies, and we’ll listen if the government of the Philippines suggests something new.”

Back on the ground, the US medics and Marine engineers assigned here on their short-term assignment hope the benefits of their work will be felt long after they have gone.

A fierce typhoon in 2006 killed about 1,000 people in the town of Guinobatan, left countless others in need of medical attention that was not available and destroyed the only very ramshackle medical centres.

“Many patients have seen doctors and they say they hold them in high esteem,” said Commander Catherine Yates, a US Navy doctor, as she tended to patients at a makeshift clinic.

“But they can’t afford them. Many people say that,” added Yates.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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What Obama’s Asian Ambassador Picks Reveal

As U.S. President Barack Obama completes his appointment of ambassadors to major countries, stark contrasts are becoming apparent among the officials chosen to represent the United States in Korea, China and Japan.

Obama evidently set the greatest store by the appointment of the ambassador to China. As he appointed Governor Jon Huntsman of Utah on Saturday, Obama said the position “as important as any” ambassadorial post because of the wide range of issues concerning the U.S. and China. Obama said working with China was a prerequisite to dealing effectively with the global challenges of the 21st century.

And he chose a figure with a substantial level of expertise. Huntsman even has a Chinese name, “Hong Bopei,” and is considered pro-Chinese, having adopted a daughter from China. He is naturally favored by Beijing. Huntsman is also a heavyweight in the Republican Party, being mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2012. He is expected to maintain a direct line with Obama when he takes up the job.

In Korea, Kathleen Stephens is a career diplomat already appointed to the job by former president George W. Bush. She has no direct ties to Obama, but her abilities were recognized when she successfully handled Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Seoul just after Clinton took office. Her other strengths are her experience as a Peace Corps volunteer back in the 1970s, when Korea was still a backward country, and her fluency in the language, which have led Koreans to welcome her. But critics point out that she needs more diplomatic skills should a sensitive issue arise comparable to the deaths of the two schoolgirls in a 2002 accident under the wheels of a tracked U.S. military vehicle.

In stark contrast, John Roos, Obama’s pick as ambassador to Japan, is an unexpected choice due to his background as a corporate lawyer specializing in mergers and acquisitions. There are Japanese media reports that say officials in Japan’s Foreign Ministry are dismayed at the appointment. Clinton is believed to have favored Harvard University professor Joseph Nye, who had contributed to strengthening U.S.-Japan relations during his tenure as assistant secretary at the State Department.

But Obama apparently awarded the ambassadorship to Roos for his efforts in raising large sums of money for the presidential election campaign last year. And it seems Obama’s picks for ambassadors to Germany and the U.K. were made along the same considerations.

Louis Susman, who is to go to London, is a 71-year-old former vice president of Citigroup. His skill at hoovering up campaign funds for Obama earned him the nickname the “vacuum cleaner” by the Chicago Tribune. And Phil Murphy, a strong candidate for ambassador to Germany, is a former executive at Goldman Sachs and also played a large role in fundraising for Obama, according to German weekly Der Spiegel.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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NZ: Indian Women Tell of NZ Abuse

An ethnic women’s shelter has found the number of Indian women being subject to dowry abuse has nearly doubled in the past year.

Shakti, which runs four refuges for Asian, African and Middle Eastern women, says an increasing number of callers to its crisis line are from women of Indian origin — and two of every three reports made by these women were linked to dowry abuse.

“There has been a huge increase,” said Shakti spokeswoman Shila Nair. “Last year, the number would probably be just one out of every three.”

“It is also worrying that the intensity of abuse is also getting worse.”

Dowry abuse occurs when the husband or his family continues to press the wife’s family — sometimes with threats of physical violence — for more money or other gains after the marriage.

Although dowry has been illegal in India since 1961, it was still widely practised by many ethnic Indians, Ms Nair said.

It was becoming a widespread problem for Indian women in New Zealand because it had no laws against forced marriages or dowry abuse here.

Shakti receives about 600 calls a month on its crisis line, and a “significant number” were woman of Indian descent.

Dowry abuse cases being referred to Shakti included women who were sexually violated, made to live in slave-like conditions and were threatened with prostitution by their Kiwi-Indian husbands if they could not get more dowry money from India.

Three women spoke to the Herald about their plight, but Ms Nair estimated the number of Indian women affected by dowry abuse numbered in the hundreds.

A 22-year-old said her parents thought they had “struck Lotto” when they were told an Indian engineer in New Zealand was looking for a bride.

But after meeting the man’s demand for a dowry of $30,000 in cash and a house in India, they are on the verge of bankruptcy as her husband continues to demand payments.

“He told them there are other Indian women who are prepared to pay more dowry to marry him, and threatened to dump me on the streets of New Zealand if they don’t pay up.”

Another 24-year-old said she had “lived like a slave girl” since her arranged marriage to a Kiwi-Indian IT technician, who already had a live-in partner when they wed last year.

Her duties included cooking, cleaning and doing the laundry for the couple. “I was shocked, but now I realise that he didn’t want an Indian wife, he wanted an Indian slave,” she said.

“I tried calling the police, but they said it was a domestic issue and he wasn’t breaking any laws.”

Another, 28, whose husband has threatened to leave her and their one-month-old baby for another Indian bride if she couldn’t obtain e more dowry to match the $20,000 the other woman was prepared to pay, says her family is doing all they can to raise the money.

“I come from a good family and divorce is out of the question because it will bring shame to them,” she said.

Ms Nair said Shakti had been campaigning since 2007 for the Government to follow India’s lead in banning the practice of dowry, forced marriage and under-age marriage, but it did not seem to be getting anywhere.

Ethnic Affairs and Women’s Affairs Minister Pansy Wong, said she would discuss with the Minister for Justice whether there was a need for new legislation, but blackmailing was an offence in New Zealand.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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NZ: Migrants Get Free Courses in Kiwi Slang

After being told she was “wicked” by her boss, Singaporean immigrant Teoh Mei Fang was left wondering if she had done something wrong at work.

It was only after her boss, lawyer Marie Dyhrberg, explained that in Kiwi slang it was a compliment and not criticism — that she managed a sigh of relief.

“English is my first language, but Kiwi English is really something else,” said Miss Teoh, who moved to New Zealand last year.

Now, English Language Partners New Zealand — formerly ESOL Home Tutors — has started a programme it hopes will help immigrants to hurdle the slang barrier.

Called English for Employees, the programme teaches that “bring a plate” does not mean an empty one, “choice” means very good and “hunky- dory” means everything’s okay.

English Language Partners spokeswoman Grace Bassett said: “The English that will be taught is centred around the needs of the learner. It will help those who are already in jobs hold a conversation in the tearoom, improve their English skills and make sure they are fitting in.”

The programme is free for permanent residents, citizens and employers who enrol their immigrant employees.

Professor Paul Spoonley, Massey University’s regional director and acting head of language studies, said studies showed “colloquial language is the most important language to learn”.

“Not being able to speak it is one of the major, major barriers to successful integration.”

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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British and American Fighters Respond to Jihad Call in Somalia

Up to a thousand foreign fighters, including Britons, have answered the call to jihad in Somalia and are leading street-fighting Islamist extremists in the war-torn capital Mogadishu, The Times has learnt.

Early yesterday the Western-backed Government launched a counter-offensive after almost a fortnight of attacks by insurgents that have killed at least 200 civilians, wounded hundreds and forced tens of thousands to flee their homes.

The attacks threatened to topple the shaky government of Sheikh Sharif Ahmed only weeks after the international community pledged £135 million to support him.

Senior security officials in the region say that the foreign fighters are behind the recent success of the extremists. More than 290 foreign fighters from Britain, the US, Canada, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia entered Mogadishu in the past two weeks.

An intelligence report seen by The Times, which is due to be presented to the US Congress next week, states: “An estimated ten foreigners have taken the lead to command both Somali and foreign fighters in Mogadishu and other parts of Somalia.”

“I have no doubt that some of the foreign fighters are British as well as North American and Scandinavian,” said Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the top Somali diplomat for the United Nations. One Western diplomat with experience in Somalia said: “These foreigners are the ones with al-Qaeda links. I would be surprised if Britons were not the leading foreign members of al-Shabaab [one of the insurgent groups].”

In March the propaganda unit for the al-Shabaab militia released a video entitled Ambush at Bardale, in which a white American, thought to have a special forces military background, was filmed leading dozens of Somali fighters.

“Mortar by mortar, shell by shell; only gonna stop when I send them to hell,” he rapped over the footage in a clear attempt to glamorise the insurgency and appeal to young disenfranchised Westerners.

A year earlier, al-Shabaab released another propaganda video, this time of a British suicide bomber who addressed the camera in English.

“Al-Shabaab welcomes and calls foreign fighters for jihad,” said Jason Mosley, an Africa analyst at Oxford Analytica. In most cases foreign fighters bring religious fervour helping to radicalise the bulk of disparate al-Shabaab militants, who fight mostly for money or under duress.

A smaller number have military skills, financing and weaponry. “We understand that these fighters are providing training to the extremist insurgents and are helping to mobilise funding and source weapons, the level of which we have never seen before,” Nicolas Bwakira, the head of the African Union (AU) Somalia mission, said.

Intelligence sources said that foreign jihadis from Britain and elsewhere had joined an alliance of al-Shabaab factions and Hizb al-Islam extremists that have coalesced around Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys. The Sheikh, who is wanted as a terrorist by the US, returned from exile in April to take on the fragile Administration of Mr Ahmed. His is the 15th attempt to form a functioning executive since the collapse of the last Government in 1991.

Since then Somalia has known nothing but war and chaos.

Mr Ahmed’s hilltop presidential palace is protected by 4,350 AU peacekeepers with tanks and artillery. The besieged Government controls little more than the hill, the airport, port and a couple of roads in Mogadishu.

The Government’s fighters have a tendency to desert in their hundreds when not paid, often reappearing as hired guns for the insurgents.

Mr Bwakira said that his peacekeepers were facing newer and heavier military equipment, including surface-to-air missiles. They are also falling victim to suicide attacks, which are attributed to foreign influence. In February 11 Burundian peacekeepers were killed by suicide bombers in Mogadishu. “It is an extremely dangerous development for the region,” Mr Bwakira said.

The influx of foreigners has raised fears that Somalia might become an alternative hideout for al-Qaeda extremists from Afghanistan and Pakistan. The al-Qaeda operatives responsible for bombing US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998 and a hotel in Mombasa in 2002 are thought to have found a safe haven in Somalia.

Western intelligence agencies are directing their attention and resources to the region. “If this threat is not contained Somalia could become the Swat Valley of Africa,” said Ted Dagne, a Washington-based Somalia expert, “There is no doubt that the foreign component of al-Shabaab is more extreme than those on the ground,” said Rashid Abdi, a Somalia analyst at the International Crisis Group, who said that the bulk of the militants were hired guns, not idealogues.

“There is a feeling now that al-Shabaab is ruled by foreign fighters; that they are dictating policy and this has all come about in the last couple of months,” Mr Abdi added.

The wave of foreign extremists came after the videotaped call in February by Ayman al-Zawahiri, the deputy of Osama Bin Laden, for the overthrow of the “US-made Government in Mogadishu”.

There are signs that the foreign presence is creating divisions within the ranks of insurgents. On Thursday Sheikh Mukhtar Robow Mansur, the chief spokesman for al-Shabaab, quit and Mr Aweys, who is as extreme a nationalist as he is an Islamist, is known to despise foreigners meddling in Somali affairs.

Despite the help of foreign extremists, the fightback by Mr Ahmed’s forces suggests that predictions of the imminent collapse of his Government may have been premature. “It was an attempt to take power by force,” Mr Ould-Abdallah said “but the coup has failed.”

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Hero Cruise Ship Britons Fight Off Armed Somali Pirates With Deckchairs and Tables

British pensioners on a cruise ship bravely fought off machine gun-armed Somali pirates by hurling deckchairs and tables at them.

The holidaymakers were enjoying a midnight Mozart concert onboard MSC Melody when pirates armed with Kalashnikovs attempted to board it using grappling hooks and ladders.

But passengers forced them back to their boats by throwing chairs and tables over the stern of the ship as Israeli security guards onboard the cruise liner fired warning shots.

The ship was a week into a 22-day cruise in the Indian Ocean, 180 miles north of the Seychelles, when it came under attack from pirates in speedboats.

Maureen Gawthrop, 66, from Barnsley, said: ‘We were enjoying a classical concerto on the pool deck when everyone heard a cracking sound.

‘The applause for the musicians died down suddenly and someone came running in from the open deck and shouted “pirates”.

‘Crew members acted quickly to evacuate passengers into their cabins and told them to lock their doors.

‘We went to our cabin and we could hear bullets whizzing and clanging as they hit the ship.

‘I saw a white speed boat riding alongside on the wake of the ship about 15 yards away. There were eight men dressed in green camouflage who turned and fired at us.

‘We couldn’t believe it was happening, it was unreal.’

Husband Roy, 66, added: ‘We later learned what we witnessed was the aftermath of the incident. The pirates had tried to get on board the ship with short rope ladders and failed.’

Ian Moakes, 62, from Forest Town, Mansfield, said passengers were terrified as the hijackers began shooting at the ship.

He said: ‘We were told to go to our cabins, lock the doors and not to answer the door to anyone and they would let us know what was happening.

‘A lot of the crew were elderly and very frightened because they didn’t know what was going on.

‘I was very frustrated because there was no news coming through and I was stuck in the cabin.’

The ship’s captain ordered security guards to fire two warning shots to scare off the attackers, but many of the passengers did not know the full extent of the attack until 36 hours later.

‘There were a lot of angry people on board as a lot of misinformation was given out.

‘Only when we got off the boat at Aqaba did I realise that it could have been a lot nastier — there were bullet holes in the side of the ship from their Kalashnikov rifles.’

Wife Jessie, 61, said the ordeal had no put her off travelling abroad.

‘It was not until after the incident that I realised how serious it was,’ she said.

‘It ruined our holiday but we will go again — just not to the Indian Ocean, it is far too dangerous.’

Owner of MSC Cruises, Gianluigi Aponte, said the ship’s crew took all necessary precautions to avoid the attack, which happened in April.

He said: ‘We are very proud that our crew proved to be able to promptly tackle the emergency.

‘At the moment of the attack, the ship was 600 nautical miles from Somalian coast, in an area that is not considered dangerous, and 180 nautical miles from Seychelles.

‘All security measures adopted worked perfectly. Captain Ciro Pinto followed all security protocols provided, guiding the ship out of danger with a sequence of evasive manoeuvres.’

Pirate attacks on ships passing through the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean have soared this year, with attacks nearly doubling between January and March.

— Hat tip: Gaia

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Somalia: Maersk Hijack Thwarted

Canadian and Italian helicopters came to the rescue as Somali pirates attempted to hijack a Maersk vessel.

Armed pirates have unsuccessfully atempted to hijack the Maersk Virginia in the Gulf of Aden and were forced to dump their weapons after Canadian and Italian helicopters gave chase.

According to a CBS correspondent on board the Royal Canadian Navy vessel, helicopters were despatched to another vessel, the Lebanese-flagged Maria K, which had transmitted an SOS signal after coming under attack.

Pirates broke off their attack and instead attempted to hijack a Maersk vessel nearby — but with four helicopters hovering over them, the pirates were said to have thrown their weapons overboard and given themselves up.

The Maersk Virginia is from the same fleet as the Maersk Alabama, which was hijacked in April and whose captain Richard Phillips was held hostage for four days.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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UK: Vulnerable Whitechapel Youths Recruited for Jihad in Somalia

In a rundown flat in Whitechapel, East London, the Somali chewed qat as he pondered the issue of radicals within the community. Throwing his arms in the air he declared: “Its true, everyone knows.”

But as for the people co-ordinating? “No one knows.”

The capital’s large Somali community is beset by rumours about the recruitment of vulnerable youth, fuelled by media reports and the internet. However, members said that it was difficult to establish exactly where people were being recruited or who was doing it.

Along an East London strip sometimes known as Somaal town because of its ethnic shops and restaurants, Somalis told The Times that the majority of the community abhorred the radical elements. However, they said that the problems of the community — overcrowded housing, high school dropout rates and unemployment — had led to a proliferation of angry and vulnerable teenagers who could be preyed upon.

Abdi Razzaq, a restaurant owner, said: “I’ve heard that people have gone to join, there are lots of rumours. But there is nothing concrete. It is the influence of the internet and what they call jihad. If anyone goes, their family are traumatised.”

Osman Abdi, 40, said: “It makes me very angry. I’ve got kiddies myself, I don’t want to see people going back and killing people or getting themselves killed.”

Omar Yusuf, a community leader in Camden, North London, said that there were elements of truth to the rumours. “Nobody knows how many [recruiters] there are or the numbers they are attracting. Those kind of people don’t advertise it.

“I’ve never known anyone going. But I’m sure that there are some people.”

Ahmed Mohammed, a qat dealer in East London, said that most Somalis were more worried about a lack of jobs and the problem youths than radicalisation. It was impossible that people were being recruited. “There are plenty of fights to have here. No one needs to go back to Somalia,” he said.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

[Return to headlines]

Mexico: Dangerous Prisoners Flee as Guards ‘stand by’

Dangerous Mexican prisoners have been caught on CCTV casually strolling out of prison while guards appear to turn a blind eye.

Prisoners caught on CCTV walking out of a Mexico prison while guards seem to turn a blind eye.

CCTV pictures show the prisoners shuffling out of the jail

Many of the 53 criminals, who escaped without firing a shot, have been described as by Interpol as “a risk to the safety and security of citizens around the world”.

The security footage shows prisoners gathered in a cell before one covers the camera with a blanket.

Meanwhile, another camera shows what look like police cars racing into the prison shortly before 5am.

Two guards are said to have opened the front gate without asking questions.

Back inside, another shot shows eight men in federal police uniforms rush into the prison brandishing guns.

They move down a corridor and seem to let prisoners take their time to amble past them and out of the building in single file.

After they are gone, other pictures apparently show a guard with his hands bound by plastic luggage ties walking calmly down an empty hall.

Only after the convoy of cars has careered off into the night are guards said to have run towards the gate, some crouching with their guns drawn.

Prisoners Walk Out Of Jail

Reforma newspaper, who first published the footage, said the guards appeared to be overacting for the cameras “in Jim Carrey style”.

About a dozen of the prisoners are drug cartel suspects and several have been jailed for kidnapping, said Ricardo Najera, a spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office.

The inmates stole 23 guns from a prison storage room before escaping, Mr Najera said.

A prisoner holds a blanket to cover a cctv camera before escaping from a jail in Mexico

A prisoner covers CCTV with a blanket

He also revealed that 51 people will face investigations into their possible involvement, including the prison director and all 44 guards on duty at the time.

Najera said the police uniforms worn by the gunmen were either outdated or fakes, and the vehicles they came in were not real police cars.

Investigators, however, have not ruled out the possibility of federal police involvement.

An international security alert for 11 of the prisoners involved in the 2 mins 52 secs prison break on Saturday in Cieneguillas, has been issued.

Mexico has struggled to reduce corruption and ineptitude in its justice system.

Two prison guards are serving up to 19 years for aiding the escape of Mexico’s most-wanted drug lord, alleged Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

He rode out of federal prison in Jalisco state in a laundry cart after bribing guards in 2001.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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Italy: Mayor ‘Pays’ Roma-Gypsies to Leave the City

Pisa, 21 May (AKI) — The mayor of the central Italian city of Pisa, Marco Filippeschi said the city was paying Roma-Gypsies who lived on the outskirts of the city to leave. “We send them back to their home in Romania,” said Filippeschi, quoted by Italian daily ‘Il Giornale’.

Filippeschi, from the centre-left Democratic Party, said he decided to demolish the shanty towns along the Aurelia and behind the hospital of Cisanello.

“The initiative has been coming for a long time. It involves 42 Roma-Gypsies from Romania, European Union citizens, who have voluntarily chosen to take part,” said Filippeschi.

“As a grant to the families, the initiative cost 21,500 euros (or 511,90 per person), or a total of 30,000 including the bus trip escorted by the Red Cross. We cannot say that this is an exhorbitant price.”

The group of Roma-Gypsies were taken to the Romanian city of Craiova, located in southwest Romania.

Filippeschi, when asked whether he was a member of the Northern League party known for its anti-immigrant and anti-Gypsy stance, insisted he was a member of the Democratic Party and this was not a deportation.

“By no means. I am a member of the PD. This was not a deportation, you know?. Everything was done respecting the law, informing the prefecture, police headquarters and the relevant foreign ministries. It is called ‘voluntary repatriation’ anyway.”

The mayor said that the area of Pisa hosts around 1,000 Roma-Gypsies, half of whom live in villages where they pay rent or expenses, and the other half who live as squatters in makeshift huts.

“This winter there was a major flood in one of the camps and now the fire season is about to begin. Many of the illegal immigrants are targeted by the police for crimes such as thefts and receiving stolen goods,” said Filippeschi.

Funds for the repatriation were taken from a European fund for immigration set aside for the region of Tuscany.

Under the agreement with the Roma-Gypsies the administration pays for a ‘soft’ return home, and in return, they commit not to come back to Italy for at least a year.

According to Filippeschi, it would be more costly for the Roma-Gypsies to return because their shacks have already been demolished and the areas already reclaimed.

There are 70,000 Roma-Gypsies in the country who are Italian citizens. Many others come from European Union countries such as Romania and Slovakia while others came from the Balkans.

Romanians are currently the largest immigrant group, and many Roma Gypsies have Romanian nationality.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Switzerland: Love May Lose Out Under Marriage Law

A Geneva politician warns that a motion going through parliament that would make marriage with non-Swiss residents illegal in Switzerland could do more harm than good. The Swiss People’s Party amendment to the Foreign Nationals Law would end the right to marry for asylum seekers and illegal residents in Switzerland. It aims to curb the number of marriages of convenience used by people trying to get around the law to stay in the country.

Having gained the approval of the House of Representatives in March it is due before the Senate “soon”, the Federal Migration Office confirmed.

Antonio Hodgers of the Green Party says it infringes on people’s rights.

“I don’t think you can criminalise marriage. Everyone is free to choose why they want to marry and that’s why it is very delicate when you try to penalise marriages of convenience, you end up criminalising people’s motives for marriage,” he told swissinfo.ch.

“Some marry for love, some marry for money, some marry for family. I don’t think the authorities should judge why people marry. There is only one circumstance with which I agree [with the motion] — people who clearly receive money to get married to someone so it can be used to their advantage, notably for a residence permit.”

Growing awareness Last week, criminal proceedings were launched against eight people in Zurich for entering marriages of convenience to gain a Swiss visa, which cantonal officials say is a growing trend.

Canton Zurich has the highest amount of legal foreigners in Switzerland with registered residence permits. It investigated 3,500 cases of suspected “green card” marriages in 2007, of which 500 registered unions were found to be shams.

“We understand that people want to stay in Switzerland and this is one way of getting around the law. They get married if they cannot stay,” said Bettina Dangel of the Zurich canton migration office.

“We are noticing that this situation is tending to increase. The reason could be on the one hand the growing number of foreign people and on the other a growing awareness among the authorities concerned. This results in more messages that reach us and in us carrying out checks more often.”

She says figures appeared to be in line with those of 2008 and there were an estimated 1,000 cases annually in Switzerland, although “the real figure could be far higher”.

Informing police The probe by the Zurich migration office is one of the first criminal proceedings launched since the introduction of the new Foreign Nationals Law in 2008.

Under the draft amendment to be reviewed by the Senate, before obtaining the go-ahead for marriage, foreign fiance’s would be required to prove they are legally resident in Switzerland and produce a residence permit or visa.

Registrars would be obliged to inform the police about all marriage candidates who are illegal residents. The draft would also give civil registry offices and the authorities access to a central database of information about migrants.

Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said the reform would “harmonise practices between the cantons”.

Vigilant Hodgers warned it would impact not only on foreign nationals but also on Swiss who want to marry a non-Swiss resident.

“We are stopping people from falling in love with whoever they wish. Before you fall in love you have to ask to see their papers to be sure that all will end well. It is not just an attack towards foreigners, it is an attack on the Swiss.”

He adds that he does not expect the Senate to vote differently to the House of Representatives but urges vigilance if the motion is enforced.

“I think it will be the role of the media and associations — from the moment that the law comes into force — to show a little the absurdity of [cases where] people want to marry but cannot if one of them does not have the residence permit.”

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

[Return to headlines]

UK: ‘Approved’ College Sells Diplomas to Help Foreign Students Stay in UK

A college accredited by a government-approved body as a “high-quality institution” has been selling diplomas to enable foreign students to extend their stay in Britain.

An investigation by The Times has revealed that the Pakistani-run college has 1,200 international students on its rolls, despite claiming to have only 150. King’s College of Management, in Manchester, has offered places to a further 1,575 foreigners.

It kept a hidden list of 207 people who were sold diplomas that allowed them to extend their stay in this country. The Times has also obtained a secret video recording, which reveals how the college faked attendance records to fool the immigration authorities.

The revelations follow The Times’s exposure of sham colleges yesterday. Manchester College of Professional Studies, which gave places to eight of the students arrested in April for suspected involvement in an al-Qaeda terror plot, closed last summer.

King’s is not only still in business but has been recognised by a government-approved body, the Accreditation Service for International Colleges, as a “high quality institution”.

Despite this, The Times has discovered that individuals working at the college are under investigation by the UK Border Agency for allegedly “assisting students to gain status by deception”.

King’s has links with another ten colleges in Manchester, Bradford and London that have been investigated by The Times. All were established in the past five years and were run by young Pakistanis who came to this country on student visas.

They exploited a loophole in Britain’s immigration controls to fuel a sharp rise in the number of Pakistanis who have been given leave to study in Britain. Records show that two of the terror suspects enrolled at King’s after leaving Manchester College of Professional Studies.

They were among 1,178 foreign students, most of them Pakistanis, who came to King’s over a 15-month period from October 2007 and were — at least on paper — enrolled at the college to study for a range of certificates and diplomas.

Those still overseas but already offered places at King’s include 906 Pakistanis, 535 Nigerians and applicants from Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan and Algeria. The college, which is based in the centre of Manchester, has a more respectable appearance than Manchester College of Professional Studies. It teaches a limited range of courses to a minority — at most 200 — of the students it enrols.

For many, however, a place at King’s is merely a licence to come to Britain, where they look for full-time work.

The Times has a secret recording, made last week, in which a woman confides that she visited King’s last autumn to seek the college’s help in gaining a student visa for her nephew to enter Britain.

She explains that a man at the college told her that for a payment of £1,000, which was duly made, he would take care of the entire visa application process, which was subsequently successful.

When she took her nephew to enrol at the college last October after his arrival in Britain, she says that the same man told her: “Okay, I’ll get him a national insurance number.

“He can work from now for one year and at the end of the year he’ll get a certificate to say he’s been attending, even though he’s not attending.” Her 18-year-old nephew, she confirmed, did not attend a single lesson in Manchester, yet he is still listed on the college database as an enrolled student.

King’s is owned by Farah Anjum, a Pakistani businesswoman, but its driving force was Tahir Siddique, a 29-year-old Pakistani who came to Britain on a student visa. He was employed at Manchester College of Professional Studies and was involved in many of its visa scams before being recruited to run the new college.

Tahir Siddique left King’s last autumn to run Yorkshire College Manchester, which changed its name to Queens College International recently. The Times has learnt that King’s is currently under investigation by the UK Border Agency, which mounted a raid on its warren of offices and classrooms earlier this year, removing a haul of documents and computers.

The search warrant named Tahir Siddique in connection with an investigation into those who were “assisting students to gain status by deception”. Dr Anjum told The Times yesterday that the college’s enrolment register was not the same as its list of active students.

“When they walk into your college, you enrol them,” she said, claiming that the college had subsequently reported hundreds of its enrolled student to the UK Border Agency for failing to attend lessons. King’s kept all their names on its enrolment register, she explained, in case any of them later came back to resume their studies.

Dr Anjum said that as many as 800 students had been reported for nonattendance. The Times understands that the Home Office only has evidence of 60 King’s College of Management students being reported.

The Home Office confirmed last night that the UK Border Agency is making inquiries into a number of colleges as part of a continuing investigation into the alleged use of deception to facilitate the entry into the UK of foreign nationals. Phil Woolas, the Immigration Minister, said that allegations of dubious practices at colleges “highlights exactly why I have brought forward changes which crackdown on abuse of the student route into the UK.

“The UK Border Agency is systematically vetting colleges to clamp down on abuse of the rules. Before we tightened controls, around 4,000 UK institutions were bringing in international students. This currently stands at around 1,500.

“We will act swiftly where there is credible evidence of organised abuse of the immigration system by any college — whether registered as a sponsor or not.” Opposition MPs and immigration experts yesterday expressed their astonishment that Britain’s recently reformed student visa system remained “riddled with holes”.

Sir Andrew Green, the chairman of Migrationwatch UK, an independent think-tank, and a former British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said: “It is astounding that these scams were allowed to take place under the nose of the Home Office for year after year.

“What we need now is a complete reappraisal of travel to and from Pakistan and Britain, especially as conditions there deteriorate. It is now absolutely clear that greater resources are needed for effective checks on colleges in Britain.

“The minister [Mr Woolas] himself admitted that there are gaping holes in the immigration system, but even he must be astonished at the scale of this chaos.”

Chris Grayling, the Shadow Home Secretary, said: “There are still big questions about the way visas are granted to students from abroad, not just from Pakistan. The system ought to be tightened up considerably, it is riddled with holes. There are still adverts in Pakistan which promote ways for people to travel quickly and easily to the UK.”

The Home Office — specifically the Border Agency — is understood only to investigate individuals who have been named by intelligence agencies. There are no comprehensive audits of students already in the country.

All but two of the ten students arrested last month in Manchester and Liverpool over an alleged al-Qaeda bomb plot were enrolled on the books of one Manchester college.

A UK Border Agency spokesman said: “We are making life tougher than ever for those who try to stay in the UK illegally. The system in place to deal with students coming to the UK from abroad is more robust than ever before. Intelligence-led operations are conducted every day of the week across the country to detect and remove those people who have breached immigration laws. Since 2008 we have been issuing foreign students with ID cards and under e-Borders the majority of the foreign students will be tracked into and out of the country by December 2010.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

[Return to headlines]

Abortion: Spain; Zapatero: it is a Woman’s Right

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, MAY 19 — Premier José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero defended the most controversial aspect of an abortion reform law today, which allows 16-year old minors to voluntarily terminate a pregnancy without parental consent to avoid parents from “interfering” in a decision that must be “free and personal”. “We are not taking away or interfering with a woman’s free and personal decision, who is the individual responsible for her entire life for accepting a pregnancy,” said the Premier, cited by the media in a press conference together with the President of the Dominican Republic, who was on an official visit to Madrid. Zapatero pointed out the similar opinion of “experts” and the fact that the majority of European governments have set the legal age for an abortion at 16. “Let’s heed the advice of the experts, the governments in Europe, and let’s have confidence in our young people, our women,” urged Zapatero, who said that he is sure that adolescents who choose to not inform their parents “will be a minority”. “It is a woman’s right,” insisted the socialist premier, “and as a woman’s right, a woman’s will must prevail. We must respect the personal nature of the decision,” he said. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Spain: Abortion, Gov. Agrees Decriminalisation Draft Law

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, MAY 14 — The government presided over by the Spanish prime minister José Luis Zapatero has today approved the first reading of the draft law on the depenalisation of abortion: the news was announced by the vice-premier Maria Teresa de la Vega following the weekly cabinet meeting. The plan for new legislation, she confirmed, “is in line with the current situation in Spain today” and “protects and guarantees the rights of women who have to face up to what is always a difficult time.” She went on, “from the first to the last paragraph, the document approved by the government aims at “safeguarding a woman’s dignity.” The Equality Minister Bibiana Aido specified that the draft law which will be put under the scrutiny of parliament in Madrid, would allow a women to decide whether to abort or not within the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. From the fourteenth to the twenty-second week, abortion will only be possible in case of “serious physical or psychological risk” to the woman’s health, or due to a malformation of the foetus, ascertained by two different doctors. After the twenty-second week, Aido said, abortion would only be legal if “a life-threatening condition” or a “terminal illness” was observed in the foetus and confirmed by a panel of doctors. The Zapatero government’s abortion reform law has met with strong opposition from the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE) and from pro-life associations. The current law does not decriminalise abortion, but allows it in three circumstances: rape, foetus malformation or psycho-physical risks to the woman’s health. This final clause is the one used to justify 98% of the around 120,000 abortions which take place each year in Spain. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

WHO Chief: Swine Flu Will Keep Spreading Globally

GENEVA — Swine flu is a “sneaky virus” that is likely to keep spreading to new parts of the world and within countries already affected, the head of the World Health Organization said Friday.

At least 42 countries have confirmed cases of the disease, which has sickened 11,168 people and caused 86 deaths, most of them in North America.

“This is a subtle, sneaky virus,” WHO’s Director-General Margaret Chan said at the close of the global body’s annual assembly. “It does not announce its presence or arrival in a new country with a sudden explosion of patients seeking medical care or requiring hospitalization.”

Countries need to increase their laboratory testing capacity to detect and follow the virus, whose march around the world was virtually unstoppable, she said.

“We expect it to continue to spread to new countries and continue to spread within countries already affected,” Chan said.

Discussions about swine flu took up much of the WHO’s five-day meeting in Geneva, which was shortened from two weeks to allow government ministers to spend more time overseeing pandemic preparations at home.

Chan heeded the call of many of WHO’s 193 member states to reconsider the agency’s criteria for raising the pandemic alert to phase 6 — its highest alert level — to avoid unnecessary panic and economic disruption.

The WHO’s alert currently stands at phase 5, meaning a pandemic is “imminent.”

Chan indicated she was going along with the countries which had urged caution in declaring a pandemic, saying that “even the best-laid plans need to be fluid and flexible when a new virus emerges and starts changing the rules.”

With increasing numbers of cases in Japan and Europe, the world is inching closer to meeting WHO’s criteria for a pandemic: ongoing spread in at least two world regions..

Chan conceded that phases 5 and 6 are “virtually identical in terms of the actions they launch.” She said she would consult the WHO’s emergency flu committee before declaring a global outbreak.

Countries taking part in the Geneva meeting agreed Friday to put off efforts to finalize a deal on sharing flu virus samples, instead instructing Chan to find a solution by early next year.

Developing countries lobbied hard to ensure they would benefit from any drugs created using their samples.

Against that, the United States and the European Union called for samples to be shared without restriction, arguing that this was in the best interest of science and global efforts to combat disease.

Both sides agreed Chan should form a task force to investigate unresolved questions, including whether countries should have to share samples and resulting drugs could be patented. They also want the task force to consider whether doses of any new pandemic flu vaccine should be reserved for developing countries, and to report back to members in January with recommendations.

WHO said confirmed cases of the new virus — termed A/H1N1 — increased by 134 since Thursday.

The U.S. has reported the most laboratory-confirmed cases with 5,764 — an increase of 54 cases — followed by Mexico with 3,892. It was unclear, however, if the increases reflected only a higher infection rate, or could also be partly explained by the fact that there has been more avid testing in those countries.

Japan raised its tally by 35 to 294, while in Chile the caseload rose by 19 to 24.

Overall there have been 86 deaths linked to swine flu.

Of those, Mexico have been in 75, nine in the U.S., and one each in Costa Rica and Canada.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

[Return to headlines]

WHO to Consider Severity of ‘Sneaky’ Swine Flu

GENEVA — The World Health Organization said Friday it will change the rules for declaring a swine flu pandemic, a virus the agency’s chief called “sneaky” because of its ability to spread quickly from person to person and potentially mutate into a deadlier form.

Under political pressure from many of its 193 members to consider factors other than just the spread of the disease before announcing a global epidemic, WHO’s flu chief said “course corrections” were being made.

“What we will be looking for is events which signify a really substantial increase in risk of harm to people,” Keiji Fukuda told reporters in Geneva.

So far the virus has been mild, sickening 11,168 people and causing 86 deaths, most of them in Mexico, according to WHO.

But experts worry it could evolve into a more deadly strain or overwhelm countries unprepared for a major flu outbreak.

Many countries fear a pandemic declaration would trigger mass panic, and be economically and politically damaging. For developed countries that already have activated their pandemic preparedness plans, a pandemic declaration would change little in their response strategies.

Earlier this week, Britain and other countries urged WHO to reconsider its pandemic definition.

WHO hastily responded to these concerns, as Fukuda said the agency would revise the conditions needed to move from the current phase 5 to the highest level, phase 6, which makes it a pandemic.

“The countries are telling us now that moving from phase 5 to 6 is not so helpful,” Fukuda said. He said the alert phases were developed before the outbreak hit, and now need to be adjusted to the reality of the situation.

The virus’ lethality could become one of the required criteria before a pandemic is declared, Fukuda said.

Fukuda’s comments echoed those of WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, who told governments she would heed their call to caution in declaring a pandemic.

At the same time, Chan warned against complacency.

“This is a subtle, sneaky virus,” she said at the close of the weeklong meeting. “It does not announce its presence or arrival in a new country with a sudden explosion of patients seeking medical care or requiring hospitalization.”

“We expect it to continue to spread to new countries and continue to spread within countries already affected,” Chan said.

Countries taking part in the Geneva meeting agreed Friday to delay efforts to finalize a deal on sharing flu viruses, instead instructing Chan to find a solution by early next year.

Developing countries lobbied hard to ensure they would benefit from any drugs created using their virus samples.

Against that, the United States and the European Union called for samples to be shared without restriction, arguing that this was in the best interest of science and global efforts to combat disease.

Both sides agreed Chan should form a task force to investigate unresolved questions, including whether countries should have to share samples and resulting drugs could be patented. They also want the task force to consider whether doses of any new pandemic flu vaccine should be reserved for developing countries, and to report back to members in January with recommendations.

WHO said confirmed cases of the new virus — termed A/H1N1 — increased by 134 since Thursday.

The U.S. has reported the most laboratory-confirmed cases with 5,764 — an increase of 54 — followed by Mexico with 3,892.

Japan raised its tally by 35 to 294, while in Chile the caseload rose by 19 to 24.

Overall there have been 86 deaths linked to swine flu.

Of those, Mexico have been in 75, nine in the U.S., and one each in Costa Rica and Canada.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

[Return to headlines]

Our Flemish correspondent VH has translated an article from Politically Incorrect about an Israeli director who was barred from the premiere of her movie at an Edinburgh film festival:

Edinburgh: Israeli filmmaker unwelcome

The young Israeli movie director Tali Shalom Ezer does not get to travel to the Edinburgh International Film Festival in Scotland, even though the Israeli embassy would have covered all her expenses and the film has nothing to do with politics. After “pro-Palestinian activists”, most notably director Ken Loach, felt intimidated by the possible presence of an Israeli woman, the festival leadership cancelled the participation of Tali Shalom Ezer.

Update: The festival director meanwhile has allegedly pledged her participation (because of the stir caused with the media).

“Letters from Rungholt” comments aptly:

– – – – – – – – –

“When the director Ken Loach heard that at the festival he had to share the same air that a young Israeli is breathing, he boiled over and called festival-goers to a boycott. Where you can watch Israeli movies and welcomes Israeli directors, you also might finally discover that Israelis are completely normal people, with dreams, wishes and feelings, and even very creative! But no no, that would undo the struggle of the Palestinian people. Did I fabricate this? Not in the least.”

The 57-minute film “Surrogate” is a love story and would have celebrated its premiere in Edinburgh, but Tali Shalom Ezer will not be there.

Update: Apparently, the film festival got cold feet because of the media attention and will now allow the director to come over. The film will be shown as planned, according to an official statement. To anyone prefers to grill the Palestinian-loving Edinburghers themselves, you can e-mail to the following address: info@edfilmfest.org.uk

Due to the increasing popularity in Europe of national movements such as Vlaams Belang and Pro-Köln, the “N” word is being flung around with wild abandon these days.

The word “Nazi”, that is.

Any organized group that asserts the right of indigenous Europeans to protect and maintain their traditional cultures is automatically labeled “neo-Nazi”, especially by ill-informed people on this side of the Atlantic.

Henrik Ræder Clausen of Europe News sets the record straight about the Nazis in the following guest-essay (originally posted here).

Nazism was a leftist ideology
by Henrik Ræder Clausen

With some annoyance, I recently noticed my local newspaper, Aarhus Stiftstidende, full of articles about Nazism, an ideology I thought we had seen the last of on the 5th of May 1945, when Denmark was liberated after 5 years of German occupation. But it seems we’re not that lucky.

A Nazi group exists in Denmark again, and leftwing extremists like Antifa contribute by putting up swastikas in the streets of Aarhus. While the craft was nicely done, it was swastikas nonetheless, a symbol I do not want in my city under any circumstances.

Then, there seems to be some confusion as to where Nazism belongs in the political spectrum. That is understandable, for probably no political group in Denmark (save the youth branch of Venstre, who recently held a meeting with them) would tolerate their company.

For this reason, it’s important to make clear that Nazism (the full name of the political party was “Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei”, which translates to “National Socialist German Workers Party”), also according to their own understanding, is an extreme leftist ideology. They consider themselves to belong to the tradition of the Jacobins in France, and taking into account the Reign of Terror instigated by them, this is not an unreasonable characterization.
– – – – – – – – –
If one looks at the Nazi political program, and it’s implementation during the 1930’s (before the war), it was distinctly leftist, and radically so. Quoting Bruce Walker in American Thinker:

Vera Micheles Dean in her 1939 book, Europe in Retreat, written before the Second World War began, said that the Nazis had introduced into Germany a form of graduated Bolshevism, focusing first upon Jewish bankers, industrialists and businessmen, but then upon other businesses, noting that the Nazi goal, from which it had not deviated, was to establish an egalitarian society in which everyone is equal and subordinate to the state.

The main Nazi propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, made it clear from the outset that nothing was more despicable to the Nazis than the Bourgeoisie, the Capitalists and Christianity. Any confusion to the contrary may be due to the fact that the German Conservatives, in a vain attempt to ‘influence’ Hitler, decided to eventually work with him once he rose to power. This granted him the legitimacy he so desperately wanted, the power he needed to fulfill his plans, while the utterly frustrated Germans lived to see him wreck total havoc in Germany and Europe at large.

For obvious propagandistic reasons, Stalin and his allies fiercely insisted on using the ‘right-wing’ label on the Nazis. It would certainly not look good to expose the fact that Communism of the Soviet Union seen from an economic point of view (anti-Semitism is a different matter), was merely a more radical variant of the system implemented by Nazi Germany.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, an exhibition in Moscow compared Hitler and Stalin to great effect demonstrated just how similar Communism and Nazism are in their totalitarian insanity. Many an old Russian, who through decades persistently had admired Stalin, left the exhibition in tears, after it had become clear just how similar Communism was to the Nazism it had defeated.

As for Nazism as such, it is a confused and foolish ideology that doesn’t deserve life on earth. It is better to discuss issues of actual relevance.

Bart Debie is well-known to regular readers as a member of Vlaams Belang who was persecuted by the Belgian authorities for “racism”, and lives under house arrest. Bart now acts as an occasional correspondent for Gates of Vienna, and just sent us the following message:

Below you can find a text from my wife, who is a member of Brussels parliament. We think that it is unbelievable that our minister of foreign affairs is proposing to take ex-Guantanamo detainees into Belgium! Our party will protest strongly against this madness.

And here’s Bart’s translation of the letter from Valérie Seyns:

Belgium is not even able to offer shelter to the ex-detainees of Guantanamo!

The Belgian minister of foreign affaires, Karel de Gucht will propose to his American colleague, Hillary Clinton, to offer shelter to the ex-detainees of the American Guantanamo prison on Belgian soil.

The mere idea raises a lot of questions. First of all, it’s my belief that our territory shelters more than it’s share of potential Muslim fundamentalists. Almost every time that Islamic terrorists are caught somewhere in the world, there’s a link with Belgium, the murderers of Massoud, the Madrid-bombers; even the 9/11-terrorists could be linked to Belgium. It seems to me the greatest foolishness to jeopardize the safety of our country even further, especially as it’s solely for the benefit of and in servitude to the American president.

– – – – – – – – –

Secondly, I want to point out that the Belgian government is barely able to do the necessary follow-up on these released Guantanamo detainees. In 2006 we had an international political scandal because the Belgian secret services managed to lose track of the Turkish terrorist Fehriye Erdal. Our minister of foreign affairs seems to have forgotten what happened in the Erdal case. On top of that, our police forces are confronted and challenged every single day with recidivism of our own ex-convicts, which proves the Belgian government isn’t even able to do the necessary follow-up of its own “pilferers”, let alone the American ex-detainees.

Valérie Seyns
Member of Brussels Parliament

From our Flemish correspondent VH comes this report about the recent attack on Geert Wilders at Little Green Footballs:

Here is a Dutch response to the latest Charles Johnson scandal.

He keeps unmasking himself as the sock puppet of European fascists like Antifa and Blokwatch. He demands that Geert Wilders comply with the demands of Master CJ himself, an ignorant uninformed blogger, to join the “cordon sanitaire” against Vlaams Belang.

Geert Wilders did not reply to his pathetic email, and is now cursed and threatened by CJ: “I will no longer support him even to the extent I described in this email”. CJ, who has no idea of what is going on in Europe, writes to Wilders: “I’ve done enough research [sic!] into the group to convince me that their current pose of moderation is a false front.”

Duns Ouray, a noted writer for HetVrijeVolk.com (and who is from the group that worked with Theo van Gogh), responds (in English) at HVV:

The curious case of Charles Johnson

Admittedly, Charles Johnson has earned his stripes as a blogger. But now, he gets a little bit ahead of himself.

Charles Johnson has written Geert Wilders an e-mail, to which Wilders has never responded. This, according to Charles “speaks volumes”. It is evidence that Wilders is becoming “more extreme.”

Charles is right. Anybody not replying to their e-mail is well underway to becoming an extremist. It is a historical fact that genocidists like Hitler, Stalin and Mao never answered a single e-mail. So, there!

In fact, I remember writing Charles an e-mail a couple of years ago. And I believe that he never replied. Which, of course, “speaks volumes”…

– – – – – – – – –

All-knowing Charles Johnson also mentions “that the charge that Wilders is pandering to bigots and haters is true.” Again, I take my hat off to Johnson. From California, Charles has an opinion on the legal and moral merits of this case which is governed by Dutch law.

I’m reminded of the words of the great philosopher Clint Eastwood: “Opinions are like a**holes, everybody has got one.”

VH adds this comment:

The Charles Johnson email reminds me of a letter written by the former PvdA (Socialists) fraction leader and then-mayor of Groningen, Jacques Wallage in 2003. Wallage wrote his letter to the fraction leader of the VVD (center-right liberals) in parliament, Jozias van Aartsen, urging him to remove Ayaan Hirsi Ali from the VVD party and thus from parliament.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali had visited an Islamic school and openly questioned Islam there. Jacques Wallage, who himself is one of the architects of the mass immigration in the Netherlands wrote to Van Aartsen:

How on earth it comes to the mind of a member of parliament to make sneering comments on the god of the Muslims (“where is Allah then, I see him nowhere”) in front of young children, is a mystery to me.

[…]

I urge you to make such efforts that the poisoning of the social debate by Ayaan Hirsi Ali will stop.

[…]

With confidence that you will not let this fester, kind regards,

Jacques Wallage.

Police in France have been on the receiving end of Kalashnikov fire. Police in Greece have been attacked by anarchists again. And a Swedish journalist was injured in a bomb attack.

In other news, in Indian elections the Marxists lost big time in one of their former strongholds, and the Congress Party gained at their expense.

Thanks to Barry Rubin, C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, islam o’phobe, JD, TB, Tuan Jim, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
– – – – – – – – –

	Financial Crisis
	Foreign Investments in China Plummet by 22.5% in April
	The Mighty American Oak, Pruned by an ACORN?
	USA
	Capped, Traded and Scammed by Fake Markets
	Democrats’ Assault on the CIA
	How the GOP Beat Obama on Guantanamo
	Obama Lacks Substance
	Panel Votes for Probe of ‘Extremist’ Report
	Salvaging Social Security
	The Medicare Ponzi Scheme
	Canada
	Canada: ‘Mounting Prejudice’ in Harkat Case: Defence
	Canada: Female Doctors Hurt Productivity: Report
	Canada: Afghan Detainees Have No Charter Rights: Scoc
	Europe and the EU
	Berlusconi in Fresh Justice Row
	Denmark: Record Number of Late Term Abortions
	Dieudonne: Anti-Semitism as Art
	Finland: Male Figure-Skaters Irked by Laura Lepistö’s “Feminine” Barbs
	Finland: Person With Dual Citizenship Can Apparently Vote Twice in Upcoming European Parliament Elections
	France: Illegal Halal Meat Butcher Network Uncovered
	French Police Under Kalashnikov Fire: Early Riot Warning?
	German Muslim Community Split Over Co-Ed Swimming Classes
	Greece: Anarchists Set Sights on Police in Double Raid
	Institutional Decay
	Ireland: Changes to Defamation Bill Made by Minister
	Netherlands: Rotterdam Contract Against Arranged Marriages
	Reflections on the Revolution in Europe
	Sweden: Journalist Injured in Suspected Bomb Attack
	Sweden: ‘Isolationism is Passé — Sweden Needs to Join NATO’: Liberals
	Switzerland: Foreign Worker Numbers May be Cut
	Switzerland: Geneva Insecurity Threatens Cultural Mix
	UK Uses “Orwellian” Tactics on Muslims: Report
	UK: BBC Receives 115 Complaints Over Muslim Head of Religious Programming Aaqil Ahmed
	UK: Muslim Mother Who Sent Her School Age Daughters to Pakistan to Marry Their Cousins is Jailed for 3 Years
	UK: MPs’ Expenses: If Only Westminster Were a Gentlemen’s Club
	UK: Police Chief Ali Dizaei Charged With Perverting Course of Justice
	UK: Women Having Multiple Abortions Reaches Record High
	Balkans
	Croatia: Telekom Spied on Applicant’s Sex Life
	EU-Croatia: Frattini, Slovenia Should be Flexible
	Serbia: Biden Turns New Page in Relations
	Serbia: Presidency Building Drama Ends
	Serbia: Along the Human Walkway
	Mediterranean Union
	France: A Cultural Council for the Mediterranean
	North Africa
	Egypt: Explosions in Military Depot, Zone Closed Off
	Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood Officials Face ‘Terror Camp’ Charges
	Egypt: Death Sentence for Singer’s Murder
	Egypt: Brazilians Arrested for ‘Pro-Israel Propaganda’
	Terrorism: Algeria, 11 Supporters of Al Qaeda Arrested
	Israel and the Palestinians
	Israeli Minister Calls Obama Peace Plan Impossible
	Obama Peace Plan, Draft Raises Controversy in Israel
	Palestinian Policeman Shoots at Israeli Soldiers
	Middle East
	Detailed Analysis of the Obama-Netanyahu Meeting
	Iran Claims Missile Test With Europe in Range
	Iran: Frattini ‘Avoided Trap’
	Iran: Tick, Tick, Tick
	Italy Hails Turkey’s Presence at Eurogendfor
	Turkey: Honour Killings Issue at Pace Conference in Istanbul
	Russia
	Russia: Medvedev Creates History Commission
	Russia Threatens to Bar Europeans Who Deny Red Army ‘Liberated’ Them
	Caucasus
	The Kremlin’s Chechen Franchise
	South Asia
	Bastion of Indian Communism Crumbles
	India: Elections in Kerala: Collapse of the Marxists
	Pakistan: EU Aproves 5.5 Million Euros of Aid for Northwest
	Singapore: Review of Censorship
	Sri Lanka: Peace Through Force in Sri Lanka
	Far East
	8 Rebels Killed in Philippines
	Japan: Obama Supporter Nominated as Envoy to Japan
	Australia — Pacific
	Australia: Nightmare for Business
	New Zealand: Victoria University Students Thrown Out for NZ Flag Burning Protest
	New Zealand: Police Picture of Siege Now Complete
	Immigration
	70% of Britons Want Big Cuts in the Rate of Immigration
	Britain’s Biggest Immigration Wave Ends
	Denmark: PM: No Change to Iraqi Asylum Agreement
	Finland to Start Repatriating Iraqi Asylum Seekers
	Italy: Immigrants — Rotondi: Government is Acting Responsibly
	New Zealand: Kiwi ‘Buddies’ for Asian Migrants
	Switzerland: Bern Awaits More Tamil Refugees From Sri Lanka
	UAE: HRW, Thousands of Workers Exploited
	UK: Home Secretary Announces Gurkhas Can Stay in Britain
	UK: Sham Colleges Open Doors to Pakistani Terror Suspects
	Culture Wars
	Angel or Demon? in the Vatican, Obama is Both

Foreign Investments in China Plummet by 22.5% in April

The biggest drop is in South Korean and US investments, but also from Hong Kong. Cars and medicines buck the trend. The collapse in investments causes the closure of new factories and an increase in unemployment.

Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) — The downward spiral of foreign investments in China has worsened, plummeting 22.5% in April compared to the same month last year.

They “only” dropped by 9.5% in March. In the first 4 months of 2008 there was a comprehensive decrease of 21%. Analysts observe that the April data is unreliable because in April 2008 there was a record in foreign investment. They reveal that China is still an attractive market, especially because there are 1.3 billion consumers and that add that foreign investment in 2008 amounted to 92.4 billion dollars, 23.6% more than 2007. But the prolonged decline in foreign investment, over the past 7 months, is the first since the Asian financial crises in the late ‘90’s.

Above this has been caused by a drop in funding from the United States and South Korea as well as Hong Kong even if the latter is still the biggest source of investment equal to 45%. Instead the auto and pharmaceutical industries are experiencing growth, because of growing internal demand.

This drop in investments has led to the closure of thousands of factories every month, with an increase in unemployment. Since October in Guangdong alone tens of thousands of factories have been closet.

This decline has also affected the specialised jobs market: foreign companies in the past absorbed many diplomats and Chinese graduates, who had chosen their studies with this in mind and now find themselves with no alternative.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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The Mighty American Oak, Pruned by an ACORN?

The mighty American oak may soon be pruned down to size. And the “Association of Community Organizers Now” — or ACORN —could accomplish it all. The shift from the seizure of power by violence taught by Comrade Lenin in The Communist Manifesto to the seizure of power by the corruption of elections and the constitution taught by Fidel Castro and the Sao Paulo Forum won’t be so hard after all.

Founded on the Cloward/Piven Strategy, the goal of ACORN is the destruction of capitalism through the creation of chaos to overwhelm the system. Fresh off the heels of their stunning success in intimidating banks into offering bad loans, and of nearly destroying the welfare system of New York City by flooding the rolls with new recipients, they have moved on to the voting process.

[…]

Well, who would bring them to justice? Local officials seem intent on doing that, but ultimately it is the Justice Department who places pressure on law enforcement to pursue certain crimes. So just where does our new attorney general stand on the issue of election corruption? “I think there is a feeling among Republicans that there is a widespread amount of voter fraud out there. I don’t think the statistics actually would substantiate it,” said Eric Holder in 2004. That’s about the time many of us were first hearing of ACORN and its antics in New Mexico and Wisconsin and Florida: registering felons in prisons, illegal immigrants, and whomever else they could find to pad their roles.

Attorney General Holder knows ACORN well. They are, after all, a sister organization to The American Constitution Society, on whose board he serves along with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Both groups are funded by George Soros, the Hungarian/American leftist bent on the destruction of the American system. One of the stated goals of Soros and the ACS is to deconstruct the American Constitution by 2020.

Potentially protected at Justice by Attorney General Holder, to add insult to injustice, ACORN is further eligible for funding by our tax dollars through the 2009 stimulus bill to the tune of somewhere between three and five billion dollars.

— Hat tip: JD

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Capped, Traded and Scammed by Fake Markets

Not that we needed proof that the ideology of market mechanisms and carbon taxes as a cure to environmental problems is a total sham. We now have enough evidence to convict the perpetrators for first degree economic policy fraud. The evidence mounts around the world, but now mostly in the United States of America, where President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress are on the brink of burying real markets in energy and automobiles under the biggest command-and-control economic experiments since the great totalitarian regimes of the 20th century.

First we have President Obama’s fuel-efficiency standards, in which he dictates that passenger-car fleets must average 35 miles per gallon by 2016, up from 25 today. It’s the auto tech equivalent of flying to the moon. To get there, the government inevitably will have to force automakers, energy suppliers and car buyers to do what they are told. It takes a lot of bureaucratic and political muscle to get people to make things they don’t want to make and buy things they don’t want to buy.

This is not just a matter of corporate CEOs sending directives down to product development: “Get me a 35-mile-a-gallon fleet!” It means massive government subsidies, rebates, mandates, trade protections and prohibitions of all kinds.

The economic shysters who promoted carbon taxes and cap-andtrade emission-control regimes claimed none of this command-and-control chaos would be necessary. If carbon were properly priced, they said, consumption of carbon-producing products would decline accordingly. Carbon emissions would fall, or at least stop rising, and the great theoretical risk of global warming would disappear. And so would the need for massive, inefficient, cumbersome, burdensome and uneconomic regulation of the kind promised Tuesday by President Obama.

Mr. Obama, who is now the de-facto CEO of GM — Government Motors — about to order up what Wall Street Journal columnist Holman Jenkins refers to as Obamamobiles. In the end, the only market mechanism at play will be the rush of consumers trying dodge high costs and the small confines of the new, unwanted models.

But the era of Government Motors is only half the story. The second shaft in the Democrats’ drive to reduce the U. S. economy to a government-controlled regime is now making its way through Congress. Called The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, or the Waxman-Markey bill, the proposed legislation is a counterpart to the Obama auto regulations —only worse.

The Waxman-Markey bill is Exhibit No. 2 in the case proving carbon pricing as an economic policy sham. The central role of the bill is allegedly to provide the framework for a cap-and-trade emissions control system. It is hailed by proponents as a market-based alternative to a carbon tax. In the Waxman-Markey bill, the market scheme soon blows up into a massive regime of regulations, subsidies, agencies, kickbacks, loans, grants, social programs, controls, tariffs, mandates and directives.

At last count, from the version of the bill posted Monday night, the thing was up to 946 pages. It should be a must-read for everybody interested in the future of U. S. and Canadian economic policy.

The cap-and-trade portion has already been destroyed. Originally, industry groups, including electric utilities, were expected to pay for the right to emit carbon as envisaged by proponents of cap-and-trade schemes. But thanks to back-room politicking, 85% of the permits will now be given away to big industrial groups. The remaining 15% will be auctioned off but used to help low and moderate income groups survive the coming industrial dislocation brought on by the legislation. A section of the bill says that, “The purpose of such grants is to increase the flow of capital and benefits to low income communities, minority-owned and woman-owned businesses and entrepreneurs and other projects and activities located in low income communities in order to reduce environmental degradation, foster energy conservation and efficiency and create job and business opportunities for local residents.”

Very little of Waxman-Markey is market oriented. The bulk of it — or as much as I have been able to read so far — places the U. S. Economy under carbon control:

Utility Plan for Infrastructure: Each electric utility shall develop a plan to support the use of plug-in electric drive vehicles, including heavy-duty hybrid electric vehicles. The plan may provide for deployment of electrical recharging stations in public or private locations, including street parking, parking garages, parking lots, homes, gas stations, and highway rest stops. Any such plan may also include (i) battery exchange, fast charging infrastructure and other services …

There are thousands more control schemes set up under the bill, a remaking of the U. S. Energy sector by bureaucrats, politicians, lobbyists, activists and others using the grossest forms of intervention known. Billions will have to be spent on “climate change worker adjustment assistance.”

In addition to facing emissions mandates, manufacturers of vehicles will be forced to retool their plants. The amount of cheap loans —at a 25year term at U. S. T-Bill rates— available will be doubled from $25-billion to $50-billion.

Bureaucrats will monitor industrial activity. A federal agency “shall calculate the average direct greenhouse gas emissions (expressed in tons of carbon dioxide equivalent) per unit of output for all covered entities in each eligible industrial sector.” The emissions will be controlled so as to “limit the average direct greenhouse gas emissions per unit of output … to an amount that is not greater than it was in any previous calcuatlion …”

And on it goes, over 900 pages of law that turn the economy of the United States upside down.

Meanwhile, trade risks loom. The bill hands the president power to impose tariffs on imported goods that do not face carbon tariffs in their home country. U. S. industry wants protection, understandably.

At a meeting of the president’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board yesterday, Politico reports, Caterpillar CEO James Owens said the cap-andtrade system—if implemented by the United States but not by countries around the world — could harm the nation’s economy as companies left for countries where it is less expensive to do business. “Our concern,” Owens said, “is we need to put this in an international context.” Moving “unilaterally” could mean dire consequences for the economy, he said.

The Waxman-Markey bill is a long way from passage, and may not make it through this year. But it stands as Exhibit No. 2 as proof that the ideology of market mechanisms is a destructive and dangerous fraud for which all of us, Americans and Canadians, will pay.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Democrats’ Assault on the CIA

In a little over 100 days, the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress have delivered a series of blows to the pride and morale of the Central Intelligence Agency.

It began with the release of the Justice Department memos — a move opposed by CIA Director Leon Panetta along with four previous directors. Then, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. did not rule out Justice Department cooperation with foreign lawsuits against American intelligence operatives. Then, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the CIA of lying to her in 2002 about waterboarding, which she admitted learning about five months later anyway but did nothing to oppose because her real job was to “change the leadership in Congress and in the White House.”

To stanch the CIA’s bleeding morale, Democrats have tried reassurance. President Obama, speaking at CIA headquarters, took the Fred Rogers approach: “Don’t be discouraged that we have to acknowledge potentially we’ve made some mistakes. That’s how we learn.” Yes, children, hypocritical congressional investigations and foreign kangaroo courts are really our friends. House intelligence committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes sent a sympathy note to Langley: “In recent days, as the public debate regarding CIA’s interrogation practices has raged, you have been very much in my thoughts.” There should be a section at Hallmark for intelligence operatives unfairly accused of war crimes.

The only effective reassurance came from Panetta, who pointed out to Pelosi and others that the CIA actually keeps records of its congressional briefings. “Our contemporaneous records from September 2002,” Panetta wrote, “indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaida, describing ‘the enhanced techniques that had been employed.’ “ A primary advocate of the “truth commission” has apparently misplaced her own supply.

Is there any precedent for a speaker of the House of Representatives seeking political shelter by blaming national security professionals? Or for a commander in chief exposing intelligence methods at the urging of the American Civil Liberties Union? Actually, such treatment has precedents. In 1975, the Church Committee nearly destroyed the human intelligence capabilities of the CIA. In the early 1990s, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan urged closing the agency entirely. The Clinton administration imposed massive budget cuts, leaving behind a demoralized institution.

And now Obama has described the post-Sept. 11 period as “a dark and painful chapter in our history.” In fact, whatever your view of waterboarding, the response of intelligence professionals following Sept. 11 was impressive. Within days, the CIA had linked up with the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan and begun preparations to remove the Taliban. The counterterrorism center run of out CIA headquarters was the war on terror in the months after the attacks, making daily progress in capturing high-value targets. Now the president and his party have done much to tarnish those accomplishments. So much for the thanks of a grateful nation.

Contrast this affront to Obama’s treatment of the military. When Gen. Ray Odierno argued that the release of military abuse photos would put American troops at risk, Obama quickly backed down. By one account, Odierno told the president, “Thanks. That must have been a hard decision.” Obama replied: “No, it wasn’t at all.” Obama has deferred to his military commanders on the timing and strategy of American withdrawals from Iraq. And he has proposed an escalating military commitment in Afghanistan and Pakistan — leading 51 House Democrats last week to vote against a military funding bill.

Defense writer Tom Ricks claims that Obama is being “rolled” by the military. Perhaps it is just an appropriate respect by the commander in chief for the troops at his command.

This obvious difference in treatment between military and intelligence is both paradoxical and hypocritical. Traveling recently in Iraq, Pelosi noted, “If we’re going to have a diminished military presence, we’ll have to have an increased intelligence presence.” This has been the main Democratic argument against the whole idea of the war on terror — that guns and bombs are no substitute for timely information. “This war on terror is far less of a military operation and far more of an intelligence-gathering, law-enforcement operation,” Sen. John Kerry once claimed.

But this object of praise — intelligence-gathering — is again the object of liberal assault. “To put the matter at its simplest,” writes Gabriel Schoenfeld, “American elites have become increasingly discomfited over the last decades by the very existence of a clandestine intelligence service in a democratic society.”

But our democratic society still depends on intelligence officers — just as surely as it depends on our men and women in uniform.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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How the GOP Beat Obama on Guantanamo

It took a while for people to notice, but in the last few months, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has made 16 — yes, 16 — speeches on the Senate floor questioning the wisdom of Barack Obama’s decision to close the U.S. terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. McConnell started January 22, the day the president issued an executive order declaring that Gitmo will be closed within a year. McConnell is still going.

“Sometimes it takes a little bit of repetition for people to get the story,” one Republican Senate aide says. “People weren’t asking these questions back in January.”

Now they are. For the moment at least, Obama has lost the Battle of Guantanamo. What began with pressure from McConnell, whose 40-member Republican caucus in the Senate has no power to enact anything by itself, has ended with the crumbling of majority Democratic support for closing Guantanamo. And that is a major defeat for Obama.

— Hat tip: JD

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Obama Lacks Substance

When Americans elected Barack Obama as president of their country, enthusiasm took over the minds of those who were inspired by the lawyer’s promises of change and a march towards a better world behind the slogan ‘yes we can’.

He looked like the right man at the right time, with the financial crisis battering the United States and Americans’ trust in their homeland at stake.

It seemed the obvious thing to do to allow the charismatic politician to take centre stage. People in the US and all over the world hailed his victory, hoping he would somehow spread justice, peace and fraternity.

This peculiar optimism is explained in part by the desire to throw off the legacy of former president George W. Bush, which was marked by wars and natural disasters.

But it took no more than two-and-a-half months to realise that we had all bought into the biggest con job pulled off in Washington since the American Civil War. By then, it seemed abundantly clear that Obama was drowning in dangerous political blunders resulting from what some describe as an ideological and class revenge on Republicans and conservatives.

Others say that he buried himself in the mire of unrealistic promises made during his campaign.

Many were shocked and outraged upon hearing an American president announce with absolute utopian idealism that he dreams of a nuclear-free world. In the Kremlin, meanwhile, where nobody knows who is really in charge, there were no doubt broad smiles, which grew even broader when Obama signed a declaration with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev committing to talks on reducing their countries’ nuclear arsenals.

Obama waited to make this announcement in Europe, which years ago had witnessed the beginning of the American era and the fall of Communism. It was a controversial speech by Obama at a time when nuclear powers such as China and Russia are questioning America’s leadership, and other extremist ideological regimes with nuclear appetites pose a strategic threat to the geopolitical influence of the US on the Korean Peninsula and in the Middle East.

This American president sent the wrong message at the wrong time to Iran with his unprecedented recorded address to its people and the brief encounter between Richard Holbrooke, his special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki at Pakistan Donors’ Conference in Tokyo. In return for his diplomacy, Obama received only a temporary moratorium on Tehran’s threats to wipe Israel off the map, an even more resolute Iranian stand on carrying out uranium enrichment, and vague hints that the country would contribute to bringing stability to Iraq and Afghanistan.

North Korea, too, made the most of this American administration’s naive diplomacy. Defence Secretary Robert Gates, who seems to be under Obama’s spell, said in an interview recently that there is not much the US can do to prevent Pyongyang from launching a long-range missile capable of reaching American territories — effectively giving the totalitarian regime the green light to proceed.

Washington subsequently found itself in an embarrassing situation with the United Nations Security Council in trying to adopt a resolution condemning the Korean test. In the end, there was only a compromised statement. Ironically, it was Obama himself who accused Bush of isolating and weakening the country in the international arena by clashing with the UN.

It seems then, that we have witnessed no substantial changes in US policies on Iran or North Korea. It is essential for Washington to radically change its position on rogue states before thinking of reaching out to them. Many fear a new epoch of war and crisis if Obama continues to rely on his rising popularity rather than substantial foreign policies. The US president’s gung-ho, ‘yes we can’ approach threatens to open a new Pandora’s box.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Panel Votes for Probe of ‘Extremist’ Report

Bipartisan move calls on Napolitano to yield documents

Democrats joined Republicans on a key House panel Tuesday in voting for a formal inquiry into the development and distribution of a contentious Homeland Security Department report that described military veterans as possible recruits for extremists.

In a rare bipartisan move, the House Homeland Security Committee unanimously approved a resolution of inquiry that calls for Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to turn over all documents used to draft the report “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.”

“When this DHS-produced assessment first surfaced in April, like many Americans, I had issues with its content,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson, Mississippi Democrat and committee chairman.

“Certainly its definition of ‘right-wing extremism,’ which did not clarify that extremist violence was the department’s true focus, raised considerable concern,” Mr. Thompson said. “So did the suggestion that returning war veterans posed a potential threat to the homeland.”

The subpoena measure was originally introduced May 6 by Rep. Peter T. King of New York, the panel’s ranking Republican, along with other party leaders. But the move was criticized then by Mr. Thompson as “another GOP stunt aimed at embarrassing the new administration.”

The full House must approve the subpoena for documents before it becomes binding. The documents must be turned over within 14 legislative days of such a vote.

“This is not a partisan issue, but an American issue,” Mr. King said.

Ms. Napolitano appeared before the committee last week and said the report had been pulled from the agency’s internal Web site.

Mr. Thompson did not say during Tuesday’s hearing why he changed his mind, and a spokesman did not return a call for comment.

“I am interested in getting all of the facts that went into this report,” Mr. Thompson said during the hearing. “I would expect the department to provide without prejudice whatever information is available.”

In an interview after the committee vote, Mr. King called it an “unprecedented display of cooperation on a resolution of inquiry.”

“I assume Bennie wanted to do the right thing, and he realized that we have members across the board who are dissatisfied with the department, and it really created a firestorm in many districts.”

“It is important to find out why it happened and to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Mr. King said.

However, Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., New Jersey Democrat, defended the report and said it “does not target veterans.”

“They are simply listed as targets potentially coming out of war, not unlike Tim McVeigh, who came out of a military situation and became radicalized in the process and killed Americans,” Mr. Pascrell said.

One section of the report, titled “disgruntled military veterans,” said that Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis assesses that “right-wing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat.”

The report also cites McVeigh as an example of such radicalization, which became a lightning rod for criticism from veterans and the American Legion.

In a footnote, the report defined “right-wing extremism” as including hate groups, anti-American groups or groups dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration. It also listed those who oppose gun control as potentially facilitating violence.

Ms. Napolitano initially defended the report after it was reported by The Washington Times on April 14, but later told lawmakers the report was not properly vetted or approved before it was sent to state and local law enforcement officials.

The measure also calls for the department to turn over all written material to reflect when the research and writing began on the report, a written description of clearance procedures and written opinions or guidance from several internal agencies, including the DHS’ Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Salvaging Social Security

In “net present value,” the report says Social Security has promised to pay out $7.7 trillion more in benefits than it will receive in taxes. “Net present value” means Congress would have to invest $7.7 trillion today to have enough money to pay all of Social Security’s promised benefits between 2016 and 2083.

That’s more than twice what the federal government will spend this year on everything it buys. And again, this investment would be on top of the funding Social Security will collect through payroll taxes.

— Hat tip: JD

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The Medicare Ponzi Scheme

…But, in fact, the average Medicare beneficiary today collects two to three times more money than he paid in.

“I would argue that this is not only unfair, it’s downright immoral,” says billionaire Pete Peterson.

Peterson is a rarity: a senior who decided he cannot in good conscience accept Medicare. He and his foundation (www.pgpf.org) worry about the looming fiscal disaster. When Medicare began in 1965, six working-aged people paid for each Medicare recipient. Now the figure is four. It will get worse as baby boomers like me retire.

Medicare is unsustainable.

— Hat tip: JD

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Canada: ‘Mounting Prejudice’ in Harkat Case: Defence

The Federal Court continued yesterday to deal with legal fallout from the government raid on Mohamed Harkat’s home as the terror suspect’s lawyer demanded the return of sensitive documents and a home computer.

That fallout threatens to delay — and seriously complicate — Mr. Harkat’s security certificate case, which is about to enter a critical, public phase.

Mr. Harkat, 40, is accused of being an al-Qaeda sleeper agent.

Judge Mireille Tabib was asked yesterday to examine eight documents on a computer belonging to Mr. Harkat’s wife, Sophie, along with six other items seized by the Canada Border Services Agency last week.

Defence lawyer Matthew Webber argued the material should be immediately returned to the Harkats because it is privileged information, created as part of litigation related to Mr. Harkat’s security certificate case or refugee claim.

“There is mounting prejudice to my client as a result of this search,” he said, arguing that further delays will add to the legal harm.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Canada: Female Doctors Hurt Productivity: Report

The growing ranks of female physicians in Canada will slash medical productivity by the equivalent of at least 1,600 doctors within a decade, concludes a provocative new analysis of data indicating that female MDs work fewer hours on average than their male colleagues.

The paper comes just a year after a blue-chip list of medical educators publicly condemned what they called the scapegoating of women for Canada’s severe doctor shortage.

Dr. Mark Baerlocher, the study’s lead author, acknowledged he is tackling a thorny issue, but stressed he does not favour curbing the number of female physicians. Instead, the study calls for greater increases in medical-school enrolment to offset the phenomenon.

“It’s not meant to be a negative paper in any way,” he said in an interview. “It’s meant to take an objective, hard look at the work-hour differences that most people would agree are very real… You can’t simply ignore it because it’s a sensitive issue.”

The researchers led by Dr. Baerlocher analyzed results from the 2007 National Physician Survey, a canvass of doctors sponsored by major medical associations.

The survey found that women, on average, provided 30 hours a week of direct patient care, compared to 35 from men, a result of female doctors — still burdened disproportionately with child rearing and other domestic tasks — doing less on-call work and being more likely to take leaves.

Those figures were then factored in with population numbers to calculate doctor productivity per capita.

In 2007, women made up 32% of doctors. But with female students accounting for about 60% of medical school classes now, the numbers are expected to even up within a decade. When the male-female balance reaches 50-50, overall productivity will have decreased by the equivalent of 1,588 male doctors or 1,853 female doctors, all else being equal, the study concluded.

The decreased productivity would be felt sooner in specialties already becoming female-dominated, such as pediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology, the researchers say.

The long surgical wait times and lack of family physicians that plague the Canadian health care system are largely blamed on the paucity of doctors. Their ranks — now at 67,000 — would need to jump by another 20,000 to reach the average for Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.

Much of the problem is blamed on a decision by provincial governments in the early 1990s to slash medical-school enrolment, just as the ageing Baby Boom generation was producing more illness. In recent years, enrolment has been increased somewhat again.

Dr. Robert Ouellette, president of the Canadian Medical Association, said medical schools need to train even more doctors than they do now, but he steered clear of suggesting the lifestyles of female doctors are making the shortage more acute. The new generation of physicians — both male and female — tends to work fewer hours generally than older colleagues, he said. And there is evidence that women spend more time with patients, are better communicators and offer more preventive medicine.

“It’s not only the hours that count — it’s the quality of care that’s important also,” Dr. Ouellette said.

After a spate of media coverage of male and female doctors’ different work patterns, the deans of medicine and other senior administrators at the universities of Toronto and Western Ontario wrote an editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal last year that urged “ending the sexist blame game.”

“To disparage in any way the intelligent, dedicated women … who have chosen to devote their lives to medicine is shameful,” they wrote.

Dr. Baerlocher, a radiology resident at the University of Toronto, said he agrees women should not be blamed, but lamented a general reluctance in the medical profession to examine controversial issues, such as gender differences and abortion.

“There are a lot of topics that aren’t adequately studied, because it’s deemed a socially sensitive topic.”

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Canada: Afghan Detainees Have No Charter Rights: Scoc

OTTAWA — The Supreme Court of Canada declined Thursday to be the final referee on whether the Charter of Rights should apply abroad to protect Afghan detainees whom Canadian forces have handed over to Afghan authorities.

Amnesty International Canada and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association have been fighting the matter in court for two years, arguing that the charter obligations of Canadian soldiers should not end at the border and must apply to “government agents acting in foreign countries.”

A three-judge panel, by convention, gave no reasons for refusing to consider the case.

The two groups wanted the Supreme Court to overturn two Federal Court decisions that found the Charter of Rights does not cover Afghan citizens because international law protecting the sovereignty of other counties precludes it.

Amnesty and the B.C. association contend that the charter should prohibit Canadian soldiers from taking part in prisoner transfers when there are grounds to believe the detainees will be tortured by their captors.

The Supreme Court’s decision effectively upholds a December 2008 ruling in the Federal Court of Appeal, which had refused to overturn an earlier Federal Court decision.

The Supreme Court has ruled in the past that the charter does not apply abroad.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Berlusconi in Fresh Justice Row

Premier under fire after Mills ruling

(ANSA) — Rome, May 20 — Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi faced a fresh legal and political storm Wednesday after a ruling that his former corporate lawyer perjured himself to protect his business empire.

Berlusconi, who was removed from the trial under a new immunity law, described Tuesday’s ruling as “simply scandalous” and suggested the judge, Nicoletta Gandus, was politically biased against him.

He said she was an expression of “political hatred and jealousy”.

Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PDL) party claimed Gandus had issued her ruling — an explanation of why in February she handed British lawyer David Mills a four-and-a-half-year sentence for taking a $600,000 bribe — to throw a political “time-bomb’ aimed at denting the premier’s popularity ahead of upcoming local and European Parliament elections.

PDL national coordinator Denis Verdini claimed “sentences against Berlusconi are always already written”. In reply, the Italian magistrates’ association called the invective levelled at Gandus “unacceptable” while the judiciary’s self-governing body said it was likely to take a stance in defence of magistrates and prosecutors.

The premier has repeatedly claimed he is the victim of a witch-hunt by an allegedly leftist judiciary. Berlusconi unsuccessfully tried to have Gandus removed from the trial because of past statements on Internet sites against laws passed by his previous, 2001-2006, government.

Both Berlusconi and Mills on Wednesday reiterated that no money had changed hands and the lawyer, ex-husband of British Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell, said he saw “excellent prospects” of having the verdict overturned on appeal.

Gandus found Mills guilty of telling lies in two corruption trials involving Berlusconi in the late 1990s.

Berlusconi’s political rivals continued to criticise the premier Wednesday with Dario Franceschini of the biggest opposition party, the Democratic Party, claiming Italians were “indignant” at him allegedly dodging judgement.

A member of the small Communist Refoundation party, Vittorio Agnoletto, claimed Berlusconi recalled the late Central African Republic dictator Jean-Bedel Bokassa “because he is a symbol of power that corrupts, gives away diamonds and proclaims itself above the law”.

Former Milan graftbuster Antonio Di Pietro, who heads the second-biggest opposition party, said he would file a no-confidence motion in the premier when Berlusconi makes an announced statement to parliament on the affair.

Other opposition members reiterated calls for the premier to be impeached, unless he resigns.

But Berlusconi’s lawyer Nicolo’ Ghedini said the premier had pressing commitments which would prevent him from reporting to parliament any time soon.

“I don’t know when the premier will be able to come to parliament,” said Ghedini, who is also a PDL MP.

Sources inside the PDL said the premier might wait until after the EP elections to address parliament.

Another member of the PDL, Senator Piero Longo, said opposition claims that the new immunity law — which shields the premier, the president and the two parliamentary speakers from prosecution while in office — were “rubbish”.

When he took office last year, Berlusconi said he would not avail himself of the law.

The premier, who has been in power for almost eight of the last 15 years, has been convicted in several corruption cases but the sentences have always been overturned on appeal or annulled by a new shortened statute of limitations.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Denmark: Record Number of Late Term Abortions

[Comment from Tuan Jim: Any Danish-language press with more details on this? — particularly following the May 12 Local.se article regarding legality of gender-based abortions in Sweden.]

Advances in foetal scanning have led to growing numbers of abortions permitted after the 12th week of pregnancy

The number of abortions performed after the 12th week of pregnancy reached its highest figure ever last year, with 822 women given permission to have the procedure performed, reports Kristeligt Dagblad newspaper.

This figure follows on from the previous record year of 2007 for women who received abortions after the 12th week — the last week of a pregnancy where official permission for an abortion is not required. The number has increased each year since 2004, when foetal scans became a common procedure between the 13th and 19th weeks of the pregnancy. A total of 886 women requested late-term abortions through their regional abortion board last year. Those who are turned down by the board can appeal to the national authority, the Abortion Appeals Board, which then makes the final decision.

Torben Hvid, chairman of the Abortion Appeals Board, says the increased number is due to the foetal scans, which allow parents to see if there are possible deformities or defects with the unborn child. ‘It’s solely the foetal diagnoses that are the cause of the increase,’ said Hvid. ‘There are no increases in any other grounds given by women seeking abortions.’

If there are any visible chromosomal errors shown in the foetal screenings, a woman can petition the regional board for an abortion. But despite the increasing numbers, the Ethics Council does not believe the official 12-week time limit should be changed.

‘Personally, I don’t think it would solve any problems making the deadline 18 weeks, for example,’ said the council’s Lotte Hvas. ‘But we have to have someone who protects the unborn child’s interests. We don’t want to get to the point where we’re aborting every other viably healthy baby.’

Ane Esbensen, secretariat of the Central Handicapped Council, said the increasing number of late-term abortions should be cause for some serious afterthought.

‘It’s important that we ensure a family makes its decision based on the proper grounds and not based on delusions about the difficulties of living with a handicap.’

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Dieudonne: Anti-Semitism as Art

Le Point profiles Dieudonne, who has declared his anti-Semitism as art

Post-colonial comedian Dieudonne caused quite a scandal at the end of last year in France, when he awarded the Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson a prize for political incorrectness. Now Dieudonne has announced that he will be presenting an ‘anti-Zionist’ voting list for the European parliamentary elections in June (more here). Le Point profiles the stand-up comic: “He is playing with the ‘marketing of scandal’, which is something he loves to theorise about and which he compares with the contemporary art strategies… He sees himself as something of a Marizio Cattelan of laughter and refers to that artist’s controversial installations (a child-size statue of Hitler praying, an elephant in Ku Klux Klan costume). It is in this spirit that he nominated Jean-Marie Le Pen to be the godfather of his youngest child.”

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Finland: Male Figure-Skaters Irked by Laura Lepistö’s “Feminine” Barbs

“Just as attitudes were starting to change”

Finland’s male figure-skaters are not best pleased with the remarks by the 2009 European Ladies Figure-Skating Champion Laura Lepistö to the effect that they are rather feminine.

The six-time Finnish men’s national champion Ari-Pekka Nurmenkari, encountered during a session where he was training young ice hockey players on how to use the different figure-skating skates, pulled a copy of the April edition of Cosmopolitan from his bag to show off an interview that Lepistö gave after her recent win.

She described her Finnish male colleagues as very feminine, and “a bit that way”.

In Lepistö’s view, things are quite different elsewhere in Europe, for example in France.

Does it seem that there would still be too much of the attitude going around that men shouldn’t be getting involved in figure-skating?

“Well, it certainly does after Laura’s comments”, replied a narked Nurmenkari.

The way he sees it, the male skaters have for some time now been pleased to note that attitudes are changing at long last. In this context, Lepistö’s surprising branding of the men annoys and puzzles Nurmenkari quite a bit.

“Laura brought quite a lot of anger down on her head with her remarks”, said Nurmenkari, who at 180 cm (5 ft 11 in) is one of the tallest male skaters on the European circuit.

Laura Lepistö herself is completely puzzled. She says the magazine article in the Finnish Cosmopolitan was a misunderstanding and she has not been directing her comments at Finnish skaters.

“I meant that generally — on the world stage — male skaters are a bit more feminine. In Europe the men are in my view all very masculine”, she said in her defence.

“I have been speaking on behalf of the Finnish men, and not against them”, she commented.

The remarks do come at a slightly awkward time, as efforts are being made to encourage more boys to take up the sport, for example by introducing it to junior hockey players.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Finland: Person With Dual Citizenship Can Apparently Vote Twice in Upcoming European Parliament Elections

In Sweden one person entitled to vote receives two voting slips, another none

If one holds the citizenship of two different EU countries, either through birth or naturalisation, can one vote in both countries in the June European Parliament elections?

This question, which one would assume contains a “No” answer, was prompted in Sweden, when the postman dropped voting slips from both Finland and Sweden into the mailbox of a person with a dual citizenship.

On the other hand, just to confuse things, the person’s adult daughter did not get a slip from either country, though she also enjoys dual citizenship status.

“Yes. In principle one can! In the European elections every voter has only one vote. Those with a dual citizenship status, however, are entitled to vote in both countries”, replies Arto Jääskeläinen, Elections Director at the Finnish Ministry of Justice.

It is a question of a loophole in the election system. In practice, voting in two countries by those holding dual citizenship is not monitored in any way.

“The EU Commission is aware of the situation, but it has not wanted to interfere with it.”

From the democracy point of view, the loophole presents an obvious problem: voting is a basic right, but each person should only have one vote. This is stated in the EU decree on voting.

“At the very least this should be discussed within the Commission before the next EU election. The rules of the game should be clear even for those holding dual citizenship”, Jääskeläinen emphasises.

A citizen of another EU country who resides in Finland can only vote here if he or she has been entered in the Finnish voting register. When this is done, the right to vote in another country is revoked by a notification from the Finnish election authorities.

Then how come this other person with dual citizenship living in Sweden did not receive a voting slip from Finland?

A person living abroad is responsible for forwarding his or her address to the Finnish population register.

Around half of the 200,000 Finns living abroad have not done this, which means the slip cannot be forwarded to them. But the right to vote as such is still in force.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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France: Illegal Halal Meat Butcher Network Uncovered

(ANSAmed) — PARIS, MAY 12 — An illegal network of Halal meat providers was found and dismantled in the French region of Toulon today. Several presumably involved persons have been detained for questioning, among them the alleged head of the ring, a 63 year old farmer and breeder. Various food dealers and intermediaries as well as religious Muslims who gave their consent for the sale of the Halal meat are amongst the detainees. The network, according to information from the investigation, had been active since July 2007, its total production equal almost 40 tonnes of meat. The slaughterhouse clients included private buyers, such as Kebab and Halal meat vendors. The unlicensed operation, where investigators found scattered animal remains, was discovered in the neighbourhood of Sollies-Pont, north of Toulon, equipped with refrigerated rooms and containers. The net was discovered during a judicial investigation, “regarding the slaughter of animals in illegal conditions… a general health hazard due to the absence of regulations security and attention by those involved”. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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French Police Under Kalashnikov Fire: Early Riot Warning?

Every time trouble breaks out in a tough French suburb, the dreaded scarecrow of November 2005 rears its ugly head — when the country descended into three weeks of nightly riots in its “banlieues”.

The scarecrow was back this week after police were “ambushed” on Saturday night by assailants in the Cité 4000 — a housing project in the La Courneuve district in Seine-Saint-Denis, north east of Paris — as they transferred two suspects to a hospital in the area.

They came under fire from an assault rifle, but miraculously, nobody was hurt. One suspect escaped but was quickly re-captured.

As it happened on Saturday night, the story was aired all Sunday — an otherwise dead news day — and snowballed. The incident had all the right ingredients for an explosive news story along the lines of “suburbs on verge of explosion”.

Firstly, this estate has huge symbolic importance, as it was here that Nicolas Sarkozy, while he was interior minister, famously promised to rid the place of drug dealers using “Karcher” (an industrial cleaner) after a youth was shot dead in the crossfire of a local feud. Critics say his words fuelled the suburban anger that led to the 2005 riots.

The fact that automatic gun-toting bandits are still there appears to suggest Sarkozy has not kept his bombastic promise; to rub salt in the wound, Michèle Alliot-Marie, the interior minister, described the estate as a “drugs supermarket”. Sarko has kept uncharacteristically quiet this time.

The use of an AK-47, Alliot-Marie said, was as a “worrying development” and the first time such a weapon had been used against police. She made a surprise visit to the estate last night and promised to send machine-gun wielding police reinforcements immediately.

Unions said that a “new line has been crossed”.

This is undoubtedly a worrying development, but should we be talking about (sub)urban unrest and a further deterioration in the tinder box banlieues? That was the initial knee-jerk media reaction.

But Mediapart, a subscription-only web site launched by a former editor of Le Monde, got hold of the police eyewitness report today written shortly after the shooting. A car swerved in front of the police van and a man came out, opened fire, and tried to open the back of the van. He ran off after police returned fire.

We only have the police view, but it does make one thing clear: this was not some random “kill the cops” attack pointing to banlieue meltdown: it suggests that the drug dealers were either being helped to escape or targeted by rivals.

I’m not saying that the situation has improved greatly since 2005, despite Nicolas Sarkozy’s pledge to launch a Marshall Plan for the suburbs. Yes the whole story is depressing and serves as a reminder of the type of violence that undoubtedly exists, but it cannot be taken alone as a sign of more widespread worsening tensions.

So put the scarecrow away…for now.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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German Muslim Community Split Over Co-Ed Swimming Classes

Muslim parents have lost an appeal against their nine year-old daughter having to attend mixed swimming lessons with boys. The girls can protect their modesty, however, with full-length bathing suits.

A court in the western city of Muenster has ruled that Muslim girls at elementary schools in Germany must attend mixed swimming classes with boys, rejecting a request from the parents of a nine-year-old girl for her to be excused from the lessons.

The parents from the industrial city of Gelsenkirchen told the school authorities that they lived strictly to the teachings of the Koran, adding that they found mixed swimming “immoral”.

“Protective” suit

The administrative court said, however, that the girl could protect her modesty by wearing a full-length bathing suit dubbed a “burkini.”

It also dismissed complaints that the the bathing suit hindered swimming because of excessive absorption, endangering their daughter’s life.

German teaching unions and education authorities have adamantly refused to segregate swimming classes in state schools at the request of parents, contending that mixing of sexes is a goal of education.

The tribunal refused Wednesday to issue a temporary injunction and said it would allow no further appeal.

The issue has also divided the Islamic community into conservatives and liberals who say the custom should change in Germany.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Greece: Anarchists Set Sights on Police in Double Raid

An anarchist group claimed responsibility yesterday for placing two crude explosive devices at building sites in Athens and Thessaloniki that are due to house new police stations.

Nobody was hurt in the explosions, which caused a limited amount of damage but signaled an increase in the intensity of the activity of a group calling itself Conspiracy Nuclei of Fire: Athens and Thessaloniki.

An anonymous caller rang Antenna TV yesterday morning to claim the blasts. The group has carried out several attacks in the past, including the torching of an electric railway train in Kifissia, northern Athens, on March 3.

One explosive device went off in the early hours at a building site in Nea Pendeli, northern Athens, where the area’s police station is due to move.

Another homemade bomb went off in the Stavroupoli area of Thessaloniki at another building site where a new police station is to be housed.

Police experts said that both devices had timers and could have caused more serious damage had they been wired correctly.

Officers are linking the latest round of attacks with the arrest of a 32-year-old man in northeastern Greece on Sunday who had breached his bail terms after being arrested in connection to the beating of former General Confederation of Greek Labor (GSEE) chief Christos Polyzogopoulos in 2006.

A 22-year-old student was also arrested in the city early yesterday after being found in possession of cooking gas canisters and a CD containing texts written by the 32-year-old.

Meanwhile, the US State Department yesterday designated Revolutionary Struggle as a foreign terrorist organization.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Institutional Decay

The closest anyone got to it yesterday was Richard H Turner of Chesterfield, Derbyshire, in a letter published by The Daily Telegraph. Referring to the op-ed by Charles Moore last Saturday, Mr Turner agrees that the problem stems from “wholesale losses in the authority of Parliament.”

In particular, Turner argues that the “watering down of draft legislation permits ministers to force through the contentious aspects by statutory instrument and Order in Council,” a reference to the way the government has progressively been able to by-pass Parliament as a legislature, turning the Houses into little more than faded rubber stamps.

Turner puts this loss of authority in the time frame of the last 10 years of “quasi-presidential management under the previous prime minister,” but, of course, the rot started long before that. Blair simply continued and reinforced a trend which had started nearly thirty years before he took office, with the European Communities Act.

It was this Act which enables governments to implement what is now EU law, often encompassing hundreds of pages of provisions which dwarf all but the most ambitious Bills. And so convenient did the government find the process that it has adopted it for most of its legislation, effectively robbing Parliament of its meaning.

It is this loss of authority that lies at the heart of the current crisis. Long before it broke, people already had begun to realise that much of what went on in Westminster was a hollow charade. The “expenses” issue is simply the “rock” on which the crashing waves of public contempt have broken.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Ireland: Changes to Defamation Bill Made by Minister

MINISTER FOR Justice Dermot Ahern has amended his proposals on blasphemous libel in the Defamation Bill to allow for a defence of “genuine literary, artistic, political, scientific or academic value” in the alleged blasphemous material.

“As a republican, my personal position is that church and State should be separate,” he said. “But I do not have the luxury of ignoring our Constitution. So, as Minister for Justice I faced a choice — referendum or reform.”

He said the Bill before the committee introduced no new statutory offence in regard to criminal or defamatory libel. Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan had stated twice in the Seanad, he noted, that an outstanding issue remained to be addressed, in making legislative provision for the offences, including blasphemous libel, contained in Article 40.6.1.i of the Constitution.

He had said that by repealing all the provisions in the 1961 Act, a gap would be created unless some provision was made for the constitutional offences.. Mr Ahern said he had reiterated this point.

“I am, therefore, puzzled as to the hysterical and incorrect reaction whipped up by some media reporters and commentators on this point,” he said, adding that his explanation would disappoint “fantasy conspiracy theorists that have detected dark machinations and bogey men behind this proposal and have attributed to myself the most debased motives”.

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe said this week the plan to introduce a new blasphemy law risked flouting international standards on free speech. Mr Ahern acknowledged yesterday that the all-party Committee on the Constitution, which favoured removing the Article from the Constitution, saw no need for a constitutional amendment in the short term.

“However, I, as the responsible Minister, and we, as legislators, do not have the luxury of pursuing a ‘do nothing’ approach while we wait for an opportune moment to move a constitutional amendment,” he said.

Successive attorneys general had said that he had a constitutional obligation not to leave a legal void, he said. “Until the Constitution is amended, it is necessary that blasphemy remain a crime and that the relevant legislation must make provision for punishment of this crime. There is no alternative to this position.”

He added that he wanted it put on the record that in bringing forward this proposal neither he nor his department consulted with any religious organisations, nor did they seek or receive any representations in that regard.

Fine Gael’s spokesman on justice, Charlie Flanagan, said the amended proposal was “an Irish solution to an Irish problem”, and would ensure that it would be almost impossible to bring any prosecution. He said if the only argument was a constitutional one, an amendment could be proposed before the forthcoming Lisbon referendum.

Earlier, Mr Ahern withdrew an amendment that would have permitted a judge to order costs against a defendant in a libel action, in the light of the manner in which the case was fought, even if money had been lodged in court. This followed requests for its withdrawal from both Opposition deputies and Fianna Fáil backbenchers Seán Connick and Thomas Byrne.

— Hat tip: islam o’phobe

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Netherlands: Rotterdam Contract Against Arranged Marriages

Rotterdam is trying out a new system which should help prevent teenage girls from being pressured into marriage when they go away on holiday to their family’s country of origin.

Before they go away, the girls sign a contract stating that they do not want to marry. Dutch police will be notified immediately if the girls fail to return at the end of the summer. In the past, it has always been the school truancy officers who were notified about such incidents; however they were unable to do much about them. A contract system to prevent forced arranged marriages in the United Kingdom has been successful.

The city of Rotterdam also plans to educate students about arranged marriages and violence committed in the defence of family honour. Students are given extra lessons so that they know what to do if they are confronted by an arranged marriage. Most cases of arranged marriage occur within the Moroccan, Turkish and Pakistani communities.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Reflections on the Revolution in Europe

[…]

As EU population growth grinds to a halt, the continent is still over-represented in global terms as a destination for migrants, many of whom, unlike in the past, come from Africa, the Middle East and Asia. And a lot of them are Muslims. The prospect of demographic apocalypse has always attracted Cassandras; about the only subject that is scarier is Islam. Put the two together, especially after 9/11, and you have a combustible mix.

Caldwell is an American journalist, an editor at The Weekly Standard and a columnist for this newspaper. He knows the banlieues and has talked to more than his fair share of extremists of all persuasions. But Reflections on the Revolution in Europe provides less an analysis than a call to arms to a continent supposedly already capitulating to the new enemy in its midst.

His argument, baldly put, is that Enoch Powell was more right than wrong. Europe is in decline from an “adversary culture”, and Muslim immigration, in particular, poses a mortal threat. He fails, however, to deliver the Burkean tour de force implied by his title.

Throwing off the shackles of political correctness, he plays fast and loose with the data and switches between talk of immigrants, Muslims and “non-natives” as it serves his argument. Europeans, he alleges, are fleeing abroad out of fear of Islam. But the best case of “white flight” he can find is of emigrating Jews and even this is unpersuasive since the number of those leaving for this reason is small and almost certainly exceeded by the reverse flow from Israel and elsewhere. Oddly, Caldwell unselfconsciously invokes the Jews as indigenous Europeans when just two generations ago they were regarded much as he regards Muslims.

Does Islam threaten European traditions of free speech? It is not fear of offending Muslim sensibilities that lies behind recent unprecedented efforts to criminalise scholarly interpretation. As Caldwell admits, Holocaust denial and debates about slavery, the legacy of empire and the Armenian genocide have been far more important catalysts for European legislators than anything to do with Islam. By contrast, the efforts he mentions by anti-racist or Muslim groups to get expressions of prejudice prosecuted have generally ended in judicial or legislative failure.

Nietzsche’s observation that all philosophy is disguised psychology is useful to bear in mind when seeking to understand why commentators such as Caldwell talk about Europe in such alarmist tones. They would say they have to because Europeans have been cowed into submission. Caldwell’s fast-breeding, over-sexualised immigrants have already established what he calls “beachheads” — the idea that the immigrants are the vanguard of a larger invading force — and engineered a reverse “colonisation” of historic cities abandoned by their native inhabitants. Muslim immigration, apparently nothing less than a “project to seize territory”, is well on the way to bringing Europe within the House of Islam. But this sinister fantasy has less to do with reality than with neo-conservative anxieties about the decline of the west.

As a concept the idea of the west has always had its expansively confident side. Yet for decades it also conveyed the fear of its own cultural and racial demise, a fear reflecting Europe’s massively weakened position in the world after 1945 and uncertainty whether the US possessed the self-confidence and political will to step in and take over.

The collapse of the USSR made people wonder what would happen with no shared enemy to keep the transatlantic partnership of the west intact. Then came 9/11 and the sharp divisions over Iraq and the war on terror that split the western alliance in its aftermath. One could trace these divisions back to profound disagreements that emerged between Europeans and Americans about the nature of international institutions, the rule of law and the path to peace in the Middle East. Preferring moral and cultural explanations to political ones, however, neo-cons attribute European dissension to a softening of the continent’s moral fibre, to burgeoning anti-Americanism and, as the ultimate cause of both, to the growing importance of Islam on the continent.

Of course in many ways, Islam ought to attract them — for at least in the stereotypical version presented here, Muslims believe in family, in honour, in fighting for one’s beliefs. Above all, they are united. Caldwell insists that talk of Islam’s diversity is beside the point. Behind the critique, one therefore detects a profound ambivalence: for all their primitivism, Muslims are, in fact, almost what Europeans should aspire to be. The truth, of course, is that generalities of this kind are not much use either in understanding Islam or in finding answers to complex social problems.

No question about it: immigration is one of the key issues facing contemporary Europe. But if you want a good guide to the debate, this is not your book: it is too unhinged, too doggedly provocative, for that. Yet the cultural historian of the future may find it valuable nonetheless, for it reveals the beleaguered cast of mind commonplace among some Americans at the moment when the waning of Washington’s power became evident and a new epoch in world history opened up.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Sweden: Journalist Injured in Suspected Bomb Attack

A journalist employed by Sweden’s TV4 was taken to hospital early Wednesday morning following a powerful explosion at the door of her Stockholm apartment.

Police believe the bombing was a deliberate attack against the journalist, and have launched an investigation into attempted murder, according to several media reports.

“We can confirm that the victim is a TV4-journalist. The person is doing well considering the circumstances, but is naturally quite shocked,” said TV4 spokesperson Gunnar Gidefeldt to the TV4 news website nyhetskanalen.se.

The explosion, which occurred shortly before 4am, blew up the door of the woman’s second storey apartment on Fatburskvarnsgatan on the island of Södermalm.

The blast also caused a fire to break out in the apartment, filling the building’s stairwell with smoke, and forcing the TV4 journalist to escape through a window. No other residents in the building were injured, however.

Gidefeldt told the Aftonbladet newspaper, there were no known threats against the woman.

“No. There is nothing as far as we know, but that is one aspect of the police’s work, so it’s foolish to speculate,” he said.

Police have begun a preliminary investigation into attempted murder, despite lingering uncertainty whether the explosion was directed specifically at the TV4 journalist.

“The explosive was so powerful that we can’t rule out that she could have been injured or killed by it,” said interim police commissioner Anders Bjäregård to nyhetskanalen.se

“We’re going to interview residents in the building as well as look into her background to see if there is any motive behind the act.”

— Hat tip: TB

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Sweden: ‘Isolationism is Passé — Sweden Needs to Join NATO’: Liberals

With neutrality outdated and Sweden unable to effectively defend it’s borders, the country needs to set aside its hang-ups and start thinking seriously about joining NATO, argues Birgitta Ohlsson, foreign policy spokesperson for the Liberal Party.

NATO is an alliance of countries with the common cause of safeguarding democracy as a societal model. Though essentially thought of as a defence alliance, NATO is just as much an ideological alliance committed to securing the survival of our pluralistic and liberal societal systems for future generations. For me, and for the Liberal Party (Folkpartiet), it is more evident than ever before that Sweden should be a member of NATO. Political parties can’t just follow public opinion, they have to influence it too — and isolationism is very passé.

As the world outside moves on, time continues to stand curiously still in Sweden when it comes to the NATO debate. Eastern European and Baltic states have joined NATO: in 2004, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania all became members. Now it’s also full steam ahead for some Balkan countries well on their way to full NATO membership. Albania, once ruled with an iron hand by Enver Hoxha, and Croatia, emerging from its recent wars, have both become members of an alliance made up of thirty member states. The eminently competent prime minister of our neighbouring country Denmark, Anders Fogh Rasmusson, is NATO’s new secretary general.

In Sweden it is politically correct to be anti-American and to have a reflexive dislike of NATO. But with Barack Obama as president, these are hard times for all those who love to hate the United States. And we can never forget that democracy would not have survived beyond 1945 without the US. For Sweden, the transatlantic link is of central importance. All the signs suggest that multilateralism and diplomacy are staging a powerful comeback under Obama. George W Bush’s foreign policy has fuelled anti-Americanism the world over. But the closure of Guantanamo is a symbolic act that marks a shift away from the dark worldview represented by Bush. America should lead through inspiration, not domination.

Obama views NATO as an important link between the US and the rest of the free world. The change in office means the preconditions now exist for the western world to coalesce around the great challenges of our time: the climate, terrorism and the financial crisis, as well as jointly standing up for democratic values. This is more necessary than ever before. For the third successive year global freedom is in regression, according to Freedom House. Just 46 percent of the world’s population lives in democracies. Unless NATO and the US act as guardians and drivers of democracy, there will be nobody to assume that responsibility. The EU is not yet capable, a point that makes the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty crucial from a security policy perspective. The EU needs to be able to act in a unified and effective manner.

Sweden’s neutrality and non-allied status mean the country has to be able to defend its own territory in almost any situation. It is just nonsense to say that our security policy is “fixed in place”, as it was so unfortunately expressed in the latest foreign policy declaration. Both the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces and the Minister of Defence have stated that Sweden would be unable to defend its borders without help were the situation in Europe to drastically deteriorate. Russia is not the Soviet Union, a fact that bears repeating. But were Swedish to join NATO we would not have to worry about Russia’s ongoing rearmament.

Time and time again the government has insisted that Sweden’s security is based on fellowship with other countries — not independence from others as was the case during the Cold War. Our official defence policy even states that Sweden should “take joint responsibility for Europe’s security” and that “a neutrality option is no longer feasible when it comes to conflicts in the surrounding area”. But despite these changes in Sweden’s security policy doctrine, the NATO debate here is barely live; in fact, it is practically mummified.

The EU is not a military alliance and is therefore not an alternative to NATO. The reintegration of the French military into NATO is a clear sign that even the French have given up on the idea of having a competing organization as a counterbalance to the United States. We have to face up to reality. If we really want Sweden to take joint responsibility for Europe’s security then Sweden needs to play an integral role in the context of European and transatlantic defence. A combination of the EU’s civilian skills and NATO’s military acumen represent the future for European — and, by extension, Swedish — security.

It’s disingenuous to have so few Swedes aware of the fact that their country is in practice already part of NATO. Sweden has a lot more soldiers under NATO Command than under the UN flag, and many Swedes are unaware that we have a NATO ambassador with her own secretariat at NATO headquarters in Brussels. Yet we allow Swedish soldiers’ lives and security to be decided at meetings where we have very little say. If we were members we would be able to take responsibility and exert a far greater influence over these operations. As it stands, we have to rely on others to take responsibility. Really Sweden has already taken the step from neutrality to solidarity vis à vis our security policy. All that remains to seal the deal is NATO membership.

Ever since 1994, Sweden has cooperated with NATO through the Partnership for Peace (PfP). Through its participation in PfP, Sweden can contribute to the construction of a more stable and secure Europe — but entirely on our own terms. To me it seems strange that Sweden doesn’t want to attend the NATO birthday party, choosing instead to stand on the outside looking in with dictatorships like Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus, who have just about been allowed to join PfP.

Finland has conducted three inquiries into eventual NATO membership compared to Sweden’s none. We have to come to grips with the NATO issue and put all the facts on the table. Voters should have the chance to take a position on NATO membership and the price of exclusion. We need to start talking about the fact that our dogged refusal to even consider signing up the alliance has a political price. With Obama’s presidency and Anders Fogh Rasmussen as new secretary-general, friends of NATO are beginning to see an opening. We can’t be kept quiet any more. It’s time to wake up from the Sleeping Beauty slumber of the Cold War. Springtime has arrived for a new NATO debate.

So, congratulations on your 60th birthday, dear NATO, and I hope to be able to attend your 70th.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Switzerland: Foreign Worker Numbers May be Cut

The government is set to decide whether to limit the number of foreign workers in Switzerland in response to rising unemployment, an economics ministry official says.

There is a legal basis for making such a decision, Serge Gaillard, head of the labour directorate at the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco), told Sunday’s edition of Le Matin Dimanche newspaper.

The cabinet will decide in the coming weeks whether to restrict the number of employees that firms can recruit from abroad, he said.

Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf is overseeing a dossier being compiled on the issue and a ministry spokesman confirmed the cabinet would be taking a decision in the near future.

The Tages-Anzeiger newspaper reported that the cabinet would discuss the issue on Wednesday.

A clause in Swiss bilateral accords enables the government to limit numbers of work permits for people from 15 European Union member states, as well as Cyprus and Malta.

The measure can be enforced for up to a maximum of two years.

Unemployment in Switzerland is currently at 3.5 per cent, the highest level in three years.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Switzerland: Geneva Insecurity Threatens Cultural Mix

Several hundred violent petty criminals and drug dealers risk damaging the multicultural fabric of Geneva’s central Paquis district and tarnishing the city’s image. Politicians, the police and local residents remain at odds over how to get to grips with the persistent insecurity in the popular lakeside district and in particular, how to deal with repeat offenders.

The Paquis quarter, squeezed between Lake Geneva and the train station, is best known for its colourful blend of cultures, funky restaurants and shops, five-star hotels, relatively cheap accommodation and for being Geneva’s unofficial red-light district.

But over the past two years the area has grown increasingly seedy and dangerous, attracting some 200-plus hardcore petty criminals from North Africa, who prey on tourists and passers-by, and the same number of drug dealers, mostly West Africans, some of whom are from other Swiss cantons.

After months of complaints from residents, the police last week carried out three major operations in the district. In all, 186 people were stopped and questioned and 12 were arrested either for drugs or asylum matters.

Paquis seems to have temporarily rediscovered its calm, but for how long, wonders Alain Bittar, the owner of the Arab bookshop L’Olivier in the rue de Fribourg.

“The operations are a signal to the residents that they have been listened to,” he told swissinfo.ch. “If the canton and city of Geneva, the judicial authorities and the police get together as quickly as possible and come up with a serious adequate response I don’t think the problem will go on much longer.”

Cafe owner Jalel Matri said he was happy to see a greater police presence but he felt local politicians seemed “powerless” and “incapable of finding a long-term solution”.

Bittar said he started lobbying the authorities to do something about the insecurity for one specific reason.

“The bookshop has existed for 30 years and for 29 years I never heard a single racist word. Suddenly owing to a small group of people community tensions started to emerge,” he explained.

Dealers versus petty criminals According to the police, the dealers are mostly asylum seekers from other cantons who travel to Geneva as other cantons have stricter laws.

“They understand very well how the system works. They don’t arrive in Paquis and start selling drugs by chance,” said police spokesman Eric Grandjean.

Bittar makes a clear distinction between dealers and the more menacing petty criminals.

“Some dealers would like to find work. They say hello if you greet them or ignore you if you don’t — they are transparent,” he noted. “But there would be no dealer if there were no buyer. That’s another problem.”

Another local shop owner agreed.

“The dealers don’t pose a particular problem. I ask them to move on from the front of the shop and they are not aggressive,” he explained. “But with the Algerians the problem is different: they are arrogant, aggressive, looking for a fight and often armed with knives.”

They live from pick pocketing, mugging and stealing cars, and they give false identities saying they are Palestinians or Iraqis, for example, added Bittar.

The petty criminals are thought to have sought exile in Switzerland after having been forced out of Italy and France due to tougher security regimes there.

“They all take advantage of the system here, whereby they get stopped, arrested and freed — for most of them it’s impossible to send them back to their country of origin,” said Grandjean.

Underestimation The residents accuse the authorities of having underestimated the situation and of passing the buck.

But Monica Bonfanti, head of the Geneva police, denied being powerless to deal with the troublemakers.

“I am simply one element of a chain,” she told Le Matin newspaper on Thursday. “If I don’t have the legal means to send criminals who are staying here illegally back home, other people are working on it.”

According to the Federal Migration Office, Switzerland has signed some 46 asylum readmission accords with 49 countries and 20 more are in preparation.

These agreements should in theory facilitate the expulsion of the troublemakers. The problem is that in the case of Algeria, the accord entered into effect in 2007 but will only be applicable once an additional protocol is signed — possibly in June 2009. Other African countries are accused of dragging their feet over the negotiation of these kinds of agreements.

Administrative detention But in the absence of a readmission agreement there is another solution, the head of the Federal Migration Office, Edouard Gnesa, told Swiss radio a week ago.

“Under the new foreigners’ law, it is possible to combat these kinds of abuses using administrative detention,” he said.

This is the legal option of imprisoning repeat offenders up to 24 months while preparing their return home. In 2008 2,500 people were held in other cantons before being sent home, but the option is not used very often in Geneva.

“Administrative internment makes no sense,” René Longet, president of the Geneva Social Democratic Party, told Le Temps newspaper. “You lock people up without judgement for 24 months, and then what? You just send them away. It’s like treating people as subhuman and wanting to open a kind of Geneva Guantamano.”

Penal Code Geneva’s Radical Party and Daniel Zappelli, Geneva’s public prosecutor, support the idea of administrative detention. Zappelli also wants to see fundamental changes to Swiss law.

“The current penal code is much too nice for these kind of cases. The system of day fines calculated on the earnings of the person who has committed the crime is completely ineffective,” he told Swiss radio.

While the insecurity question is being kicked around among the authorities, Bittar and other Paquis residents are crossing their fingers that the politicians will eventually join forces to find a long-term solution.

“But it doesn’t fool me; we are in the run-up to the [November cantonal] elections,” he told swissinfo.ch.

“All we want is to feel that in this street we are proper citizens, like those in the banking or residential districts.”

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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UK Uses “Orwellian” Tactics on Muslims: Report

Become informants or go to jail, MI5 tells Muslim men

Five British Muslim men accused the United Kingdom’s security services of “blatant blackmail” and threatening them with jail if they did not agree to work as informants, press reports said Thursday, sparking outrage and concern over Islamophobia.

The community workers said they were given a choice of working for MI5, the U.K.’s counter-intelligence and security agency, or face detention and harassment at home and internationally, Britain’s Independent reported.

“Orwellian society”

The men, three of whom said they were detained at foreign airports on MI5 orders, made official complaints to the police, the body which oversees the work of the security service and their local MP Frank Dobson, the paper said.

“The only thing these young people have in common is that they studied Arabic abroad and are of Somali origin. They are not involved in any terrorist activity whatsoever, nor have they ever been and the security services are well aware of this,” said Sharhabeel Lone, the chairman of Kentish Town Community Organization, where the men work with disadvantaged youth.

“These incidents smack of racism, Islamophobia and all that undermines social cohesion,” the paper quoted Lone as saying. “When people are terrorized by the very same body that is meant to protect them, sowing fear, suspicion and division, we are on a slippery slope to an Orwellian society.”

Meanwhile MP Dobson seemed less sympathetic and expalained: “To identify real suspects from the Muslim communities MI5 must use informers. But it seems that from what I have seen some of their methods may be counter-productive.”…

— Hat tip: TB

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UK: BBC Receives 115 Complaints Over Muslim Head of Religious Programming Aaqil Ahmed

The BBC has received 115 complaints for appointing Muslim programme-maker Aaqil Ahmed as head of BBC religion and ethics.

Aaqil Ahmed, who is currently commissioning editor for religion and multicultural programmes at Channel 4, was confirmed for the role on Monday.

Ahmed’s appointment is only the second time that a non-Christian has been made head of religion.

The first was Alan Bookbinder, an agnostic, who was appointed in 2001.

The BBC confirmed that the “vast majority” of the complaints were about Ahmed not being a Christian.

A spokesman said: “The BBC’s commitment to religious broadcasting, and to Christian broadcasting as the dominant part of that, is entirely secure.

“Aaqil Ahmed was appointed as Head of Religion and Ethics because he was the best candidate for the role.

“Aaqil has 10 years’ experience in religious broadcasting — both at the BBC and as the religion commissioner at Channel 4 — and was responsible for commissioning programmes such as ‘Christianity: A History’, ‘The Qu’ran’ and the BAFTA-winning ‘Saving Africa’s Witch Children’.

“It is BBC policy, consistent with UK law, to recruit on the basis of experience and suitability for a role, not on the basis of faith. As the majority faith in the UK, Christians are and will remain the key audience for the BBC’s religious television output.”

His appointment has raised fears at the top levels of the Church of England, which has expressed its concerns over the BBC’s treatment of religion and warned that it must not ignore its Christian audience.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, last month was reported to have told the director general, Mark Thompson, that the “Christian voice” was being sidelined.

Christina Rees, a member of the Archbishops’ Council, has warned: “ The vast majority of the population identifies itself as Christian and as the established Church in England we would be negligent not to take an active concern in the changes happening with the BBC’s religion and ethics department.”

— Hat tip: TB

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UK: Muslim Mother Who Sent Her School Age Daughters to Pakistan to Marry Their Cousins is Jailed for 3 Years

A Muslim mother who forced her two daughters to marry their cousins in Pakistan has been jailed for three years and ordered to sign the Sex Offenders’ Register. She told her elder daughter that if she didn’t have sex with her new husband, she would tie her to the bed, blindfold and strip her, a court heard. The woman, from south Manchester, also said she would be there to make sure the marriage was consummated. She cannot be named to protect the teenage victims. She was convicted of inciting or causing a child to engage in sexual activity; two charges of arranging or facilitating the commission of a child sex offence; and two of intending to pervert the course of justice. She had denied all charges. Judge Clement Goldstone QC ordered that she sign the Sex Offenders’ Register for life and told her: ‘You have absolutely no idea of the enormity of what you have done or its effect upon your daughters.

‘Forced marriage is cruel — it deprives children, your children, of their basic human rights. It must, and will, be distinguished by the courts from arranged marriage, which is conventional in many religions and societies.’

She was found guilty in April and sentenced at Manchester Crown Court yesterday. Bunty Batra, defending, said it was a ‘highly unusual case’. The mother took her daughters to Pakistan in 2007 for a family wedding, the court heard. But within a month, both were engaged to their first cousins. Judge Goldstone said: ‘Everyone is entitled to his or her beliefs… but those who choose to live in this country and who — like you — are British subjects, must not abandon our laws in pursuit of those beliefs and that culture.

‘They will, if they breach the law, be punished in accordance with it.’

Both victims returned to Britain by September 2007. They later told their teachers, who called police.

One daughter told police: ‘Even though she has been mean, I forgive her.’

The other said: ‘At the end of the day, I love her. No one can be like my mum.’

Judge Goldstone added: ‘The forcing of a child into marriage, against his or her will, will not be tolerated. Where a forced marriage leading to consummation is accompanied by threats of violence and is tantamount to cruelty, the punishment will be more severe.’

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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UK: MPs’ Expenses: If Only Westminster Were a Gentlemen’s Club

Andrew Roberts says MPs could learn a lot from the behaviour of London’s clubmen.

‘Westminster cannot operate like some gentlemen’s club,” the Prime Minister has said, echoing remarks of various other MPs — Tories, as well as Labour — that Parliament needs to reform itself or it will continue to be an archaic, inward-looking, inefficient institution such as they infer are the gentlemen’s clubs of London.

What infernal cheek! How dare the denizens of Westminster, mired in this cesspit of scandal of their own making, look three-quarters of a mile westwards and try to equate London clubmen with their repulsive practices. If one is looking for sleaze and corruption in today’s society, where do you look for it: Westminster, or St James’s? If club members were caught doing half of what it turns out MPs have been up to, they would immediately be forced to resign their memberships and never show their faces again.

London clubs are superbly well-run, often by people who have expertise in the worlds of estate management and business, and are far better at self-regulation than Parliament. The food is far better at clubs like Boodle’s or Brooks’s than at the Palace of Westminster, and club members don’t try to sting the taxpayer for lunches and dinners. In Anthony Lejeune’s fine book, The Gentlemen’s Clubs of London, one reads of institutions defined by their charm, eccentricity, elegance and tradition, not adjectives that anyone would ascribe to the MPs who have so far been implicated in the expenses scandal.

Gordon Brown, who is not a member of any of them, ought to look at the gentlemen’s clubs of London for inspiration on how to run the economy. I have just been sent the annual report and accounts of one of the oldest and grandest St James’s Street clubs for the year ended December 31, 2008, and they show a healthy operating surplus, a strong balance sheet (£3.2 million in the black), a well-funded staff pension scheme and benevolent fund, and a contingency reserve of nearly £500,000. Contrast that to Alistair Darling’s latest Budget.

The House of Commons has been called “the best club in London”, but only by people who aren’t members of any others. For it lacks the key ingredient that makes up a really good club: the blackball. Absolutely anybody can become a Member of Parliament who has the qualifications of a thrusting temperament, opinionated nature, desire to boss us about, need to show off and, very often, a gnawing inferiority complex and mother fixation. Who would want to belong to a club full of people like that? And that was before we discovered they also had their fingers in the till.

Neither, since the abolition of the hereditary element of the House of Lords, is that as attractive a club as it once was. The long years of New Labour creating vast numbers of peers has inevitably taken its toll on the quality of the people there, and, unlike clubs, no one is forced to resign through bankruptcy or imprisonment. The recent cash-for-questions scandals have debased what was once the most noble institution in the land, after the monarchy.

If you want to witness vicious, noisy, self-interested, boorish and, we now discover, corrupt behaviour in London society, where would one go? To the sepulchral Athenaeum, courtly Brooks’s, elegant White’s, beautiful Garrick, noble Pratt’s, witty Beefsteak or palatial Reform? Or to the chamber of the Commons on any day the House is sitting?

It is all very well for MPs to make themselves despised by the nation for the way so very many of them have cheated us, but they should not try to drag down honourable clubland with them. If, completely to invert the Prime Minister’s statement, Westminster did operate “like some gentlemen’s club”, all of this foul morass would have been avoided. The gentlemen’s club is a political idea whose time has come.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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UK: Police Chief Ali Dizaei Charged With Perverting Course of Justice

The president of the National Black Police Association was charged today with misconduct in a public office and perverting the course of justice.

Commander Ali Dizaei of the Metropolitan Police faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment if he is tried and found guilty of the offences.

The charges were authorised following an investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission into a disturbance at a London restaurant in July last year.

“These charges relate to an incident in which Mr Dizaei, in his capacity as a police officer, arrested a man on allegations including assault,” Gaon Hart, a senior lawyer at the Crown Prosecution Service, said.

“A decision not to charge that individual was made by the CPS in August 2008.

“Following an investigation by the IPCC, a file was submitted to me in November 2008. I asked the IPCC to undertake further enquiries and I received the results of those inquiries this month.”

It is understood that Dr Dizaei’s defence team will be Imran Khan, the solicitor who represented the family of Stephen Lawrence, and Michael Mansfield, QC, who will come out of retirement to take the case.

Dr Dizaei, an Iranian-born officer who joined the police in 1986, has been suspended from duty for eight months while investigations were ongoing.

He was critical of the Metropolitan Police when Sir Ian Blair was commissioner.

Last year he sided with Tarique Ghaffur, a former assistant commissioner, who accused Sir Ian and the Met of race discrimination.

Mr Ghaffur eventually retired after receiving a substantial out-of-court settlement and dropping the racism allegations.

Dr Dizaei, one of the most senior ethnic minority officers in the police service, has protested his innocence.

Alfred John, chairman of the Metropolitan Black Police Association, said that the decision to charge Dr Dizaei was “outrageous” and the result of personal vendettas.

He said: “The National Black Police Association and the Metropolitan Black Police Association fully support Commander Dizaei during the course of this prosecution.”

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Authority said: “The MPA has been informed by the CPS of its decision to proceed with charges against Commander Ali Dizaei.

“Commander Dizaei remains a serving police officer for whom the MPA has a duty of care. We require the Metropolitan Police to ensure that all necessary support is in place.

“The professional standards cases sub-committee will continue with its statutory duty to review regularly the decision previously taken to suspend Commander Dizaei.”

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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UK: Women Having Multiple Abortions Reaches Record High

Repeat abortions have reached a record high, figures released today reveal.

One third of women who had an abortion last year were on their second, third or even eighth termination, new figures show.

The statistics will fuel the debate over whether some women are using abortion as a form of contraception.

In total, there were 64,715 repeat abortions in 2008, 33 per cent of the total and up from 64,230 the year before.

A breakdown of the data showed 11,354 women had their third abortion and 2,780 their fourth. The figures showed 46 women had had eight or more terminations.

Last year the Commons voted to keep the upper time limit on abortion to 24 weeks. But in the intense debate that preceded the vote, many MPs voiced their concern that the number of repeat abortions was on the increase and said it was too easy to obtain a termination.

The ProLife Alliance, the main umbrella group that is seeking a change in the law to reduce the number of abortions, said the figures confirmed their worst predictions.

“Back in 1967 we said that the Abortion Act would eventually lead to women using it as a form of contraception, and here we are with the data showing that is exactly what is happening,” a spokeswoman said.

Overall, the number of abortions fell to 195,296, down 1.6 per cent from 2007. It was the first fall in the total for six years.

Among teenagers the number of repeat abortions fell slightly to 1,452 from 1,522.

The Government seized on the fall in the overall numbers and on figures showing that more abortions are now taking place earlier in the pregnancy.

“More abortions are now happening at under 10 weeks gestation. This is a key priority for us — to reduce the time women have to wait at what is already a very difficult time,” said Dawn Primarolo, the health minister.

Liz Davies, spokeswoman for Marie Stopes International, which carries out abortions, said the reduction in teenage abortions was particularly welcome.

“We are pleased that those teenagers who have aspirations other than motherhood appear to be protecting themselves against unintended pregnancy,” she said.

The under-16 abortion rate was 4.2 per 1,000 and the under-18 rate was 18.9 per 1,000 women, both lower than in 2007.

The vast majority o abortions — 90 per cent — were carried out at under 13 weeks gestation and three quarters at under 10 weeks Almost 2,000 were conducted because the child would be born handicapped.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Croatia: Telekom Spied on Applicant’s Sex Life

The Deutsche Telekom spying scandal has been found to extend to the sex lives of job applicants abroad, financial daily Handelsblatt reported on Wednesday.

According to a 2004 document obtained by the paper, entitled “Company Security Personnel Screening,” the company hired private German investigators to spy on a female manager for a Croatian telecommunications company.

The document reveals intimate personal details, including how many lovers she had and her “select association with older men.”

“In her personal life she could be described as a female carnivore with an extremely elevated need for sex,” the document continues, adding that the woman’s sister is an “active agent of free love.”

The woman was apparently applying for a high-level management position at Deutsche Telekom’s Croatian subsidiary.

The document also reveals that the company also used the German intelligence service as a source in their analysis of the employee.

Deutsche Telekom assured Handelsblatt that they generally do not analyse the personal activities of job applicants. But at the end of 2004, the company’s human resources department used personnel screenings with private details as an example for possible future security measures.

“The suggestion to make these kind of screenings standard practice was rejected by human resources,” the company said.

Deutsche Telekom has already been the focus of a spying scandal since last spring, when the company confirmed bank records of more than 100,000 workers had been trawled for possible instances of corruption.

The operation was intended to track down the sources of leaks to the media, the company said.

Investigators say they have found evidence that the company took telephone records of supervisory board members as well as the workers’ council, journalists and other such as Frank Bsirske, head of the Verdi trade union.

— Hat tip: islam o’phobe

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EU-Croatia: Frattini, Slovenia Should be Flexible

(ANSAmed) — GORIZIA, MAY 15 — Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini has said that he hoped “Slovenia is flexible, in the European spirit” in its sea-borders debate with Croatia. Frattini was speaking in Gorizia today on relations between the two countries and, in particular, on the difficulties that Ljubljana is making in the Croatian government’s quest for EU membership. “There is a European Commission proposal which I think deserves to be accepted. It is a proposal which goes halfway on the rightful concerns of Slovenia over access to the Adriatic, but at the same time on Croatia’s worries over seeing 12 chapters blocked by what is just a bilateral issue”. “Europe is united”, explained Frattini, “in encouraging both parties. We support Slovenia which is a European country but we also support Croatia’s just aspiration to finally gain membership of the European Union in 2010”. Frattini then noted that “there has already been” an Italian proposal on the matter. “We have already contributed to the adjustment and fine-tuning of the tests,” he added, “but we preferred to work with the European Commission, although I am in almost daily contact with both parties.” (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Serbia: Biden Turns New Page in Relations

Belgrade, 20 May (AKI) — United States vice-president Joe Biden has assured Serbia that the two countries can start a new era in relations, regardless of differences over Kosovo. During his visit to Serbia on Wednesday, Biden and Serbian president Boris Tadic said they had “agreed to disagree” over the status of Kosovo, which declared independence last year.

“I came to Serbia with a message that the US wants to promote cooperation with Serbia, with the region, and to help Serbia to become a factor of stability in the region,” Biden told journalists after an hour of talks with Tadic.

He said the US backed Serbia’s plans to join the European Union.

Biden is the most senior US official to visit Serbia since president Jimmy Carter’s visit in 1983. He arrived there from the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, where he began a three-day visit to the region on Tuesday.

Tadic said the two states could progress “on the basis of dialogue rooted in mutual respect”.

Relations between the US and Serbia have been at a very low ebb since the 1990s Balkan wars that followed the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. The US remains deeply unpopular among some Serbs

The US led a Nato bombing campaign to expel Serb forces from Kosovo in 1999 and relations with Serbia worsened after Washington, along with sixty other countries, recognised Kosovo independence.

Biden said the differences over Kosovo remained, with each side sticking to its earlier position: the US backs independence while Serbia wants to keep Kosovo within its borders.

“I guess we could say we agreed that we don’t agree over Kosovo,” Biden said. But he added there are many areas of mutual interest in which the two countries could promote cooperation.

Tadic said opportunities for such cooperation lay in bilateral economic, trade, scientific and educational ties.

“We don’t expect that Serbia will soon accept Kosovo independence,’ Biden said. But he pointed out that the US expected Serbia to cooperate with the European Union, whose mission is stationed in Kosovo, to improve lives of Serbs and Albanians there.

Biden said recognition of Kosovo wasn’t a precondition for US support to Serbia to become a member of the EU and said the US will insist on the greatest possible protection of minority Serbs in Kosovo.

Despite differences over Kosovo, Tadic said Belgrade wanted “the best partnership relations with America”.

“Vice-president Biden and I have agreed that now is the occasion to establish a completely new level of communication between our two countries,” Tadic said.

Biden was scheduled to meet with Serbia’s prime minister Mirko Cvetkovic, defence minister Dragan Sutanovac and army chief Gen. Miloje Miletic, before flying to Pristina on Thursday, on the last leg of his Balkan tour.

Biden, as former president of the US senate foreign relations committee, has been known for years as an advocate of Kosovo’s independence and the NATO bombings of Serbia in 1999. His visit was accompanied by a security lockdown in Belgrade, whose main streets were completely closed to traffic.

Biden’s visit has triggered protests by some ultranationalist and opposition politicians and activists who described him as an “enemy of Serbia”.

MPs from the hardline nationalist Serbian Radical Party held up banners in parliament saying: “Biden, you Nazi scum, go home.”

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Serbia: Presidency Building Drama Ends

BELGRADE — A man who entered the Serbian Presidency building in Belgrade armed with two hand grenades has been disarmed, B92 has learned.

Police officers have also arrested the man, identified as Dragan Mariæ, and taken him out of the building.

President Boris Tadiæ was not inside at the time Mariæ went in, but Beta news agency says that he was seen entering by the main door at around 14:30 CET. Tadiæ has in the meantime praised “police and army” for their handling of the situation.

In an email sent to “11,000 addresses”, including numerous Serbian and European institutions and media this morning, Mariæ reportedly asked to sign a “fair settlement with the government, or else activate the bombs by 16:00 CET”.

Beta reports that Mariæ is a Valjevo native who in 2004 embarked on an 80-day hunger strike over a court case involving his private company and national carrier Jat Airways.

Also in 2004, he filed a lawsuit against the state of Serbia with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, unhappy with the Commercial Court’s verdict in the case.

New Serbia (NS) MP Aleksandra Jankoviæ said earlier today that an unknown man gave her an envelope Thursday morning which contained a letter saying that Mariæ’s move was “forced by the regime, which is threatening to liquidate his family and take away his child”.

Serbian police (MUP) formed a negotiating team in the hope of resolving the situation peacefully. Mariæ was inside the building, at the back door entrance, for over fiive hours.

A spokeswoman for the Presidency said earlier that the man was “in the 1.5 sq meter space that is not secured, where citizens come to file their complaints”.

Our reporters said that many uniformed and plainclothes police were inside the Presidency, as well as MUP’s riot police officers, ambulances and firefighters outside the building.

Defense Minister Dragan (c)utanovac and several VS officers also arrived at the scene. Numerous journalists and cameramen crowded the space in front of the building…

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Serbia: Along the Human Walkway

In case he would like to use one of them, the City of Belgrade deployed its 4,500 uniformed policemen to close down the streets for Joe Biden.

I think, as a courtesy, this may have been somewhat over the top, but I am not a diplomat, I suppose.

Contrary to what you are already setting your surmisers to surmise, this is NOT going to be a litany of complaints about the fact that our already traffic-impaired City on the Danube has literally been closed down today, forcing people to either a) take extraordinary measures to come to work or b) stay home in their pyjamas and watch Oprah. In fact, it is quite the opposite.

This morning, from around ten until around eleven, I walked the 25-minute distance to my office. We all knew that there would be traffic problems today, and some of us prepared for it. I left my home with a backpack full of electronics, a new shirt, music, and a full measure of determination.

What I saw along the Human Walkway which was New Belgrade was as much of a slice of life in the White City as I should ever have hoped to see. People were swarming along the sidewalks while the busses stagnated along the roads in long lines. No cars moved.

Some were wearing jogging suits, carrying briefcases. Some were in business suits carrying Ipod cases. Some seemed to have been waiting all of their lives for this day and looked happy, laughing their way through the streams of humanity. Others (many others) grumbling, spoke loudly into mobile phones, gesticulating widely for the benefit of passers-by who should take note of their Indignation. At least one of these gesticulations resulted in a hand-to-face injury.

No, it was not me.

I observed people carrying fishing poles on the way to the river. I watched normally office bound fashion victims making their way gingerly along the street in high heels. Bank managers and kiosk owners walked side by side. I passed my neighborhood barber and the Governor of the National Bank. Even he, I thought. Even he.

I composed a few letters on the way:

Dear Joe,

Do you really think that these security precautions upsetting our city streets have made people want to shoot you LESS or more?

Love,

Belgrade

A lot of backpacks (including mine) were in evidence. Some people pulled rolling suitcases along, mistakenly having taken a lot of papers home last night to work on them. One man was wearing a tie and jacket and shorts. My hope is that he plans to change in the office. Large groups of people milled about the bus stations, waiting for the hubbub to pass. Hubbub is the technical term for Vice-President of the United States.

We looked at each other, watching for signs of how to respond emotionally to this Crisis. There were a prodigious amount of us who sneered openly. Some carried the sad faces of resignation, ready to get back to the office or kafana and shake their heads because they KNEW it would be this way. Some of us were just blank-faced and sweating with the unaccustomed practice of placing our feet one in front of the other as a means of transportation.

Dear Joe,

Did you ever stop to think that the police are doing this NOT to protect you from us, but to protect US from you? After all, your predecessor Dick Cheney made it legal for vice presidents to shoot people in the face…

Kind regards,

Belgrade

I began to wonder, as you do as you walk along, what was happening in the rest of the city. If all the cops are guarding the streets for the vice-presidential feet (or wheels), should we not be planning to loot the city blind? I then formulated a business plan for placing ice-cream and coffee concessions on each street corner where pedestrians were detained for extended periods in case the motorcade should motor by. As we waited on the corner of Proleterske Solidarnosti and Bulevar Zorana Djindjica, across from Société Générale, I wondered about the guy next to me who was CLEARLY late for work and was about to tell his boss that he was stood for an hour on the other side of the street, detained by the police. I could see the wheels spinning as he embellished and polished the excuses one by one.

Joe Biden has given us the chance to see each other at our best and worst, on public display, along our cracked and unmaintained sidewalks. He has afforded us an opportunity to break with dull routines and replace them with grueling activity instead. We should thank you, Joe.

Dear Joe,

Thanks for the visit. We really appreciate it. But next time, send a postcard.

XXOO

Everyone

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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France: A Cultural Council for the Mediterranean

(ANSAmed) — PARIS, MAY 14 — Today the Mediterranean Union (UPM) established the Cultural Council, which aims to “foster political and private initiatives for the development of the cultural dimension of French Mediterranean policy, particularly within the UPM.” The Council was presented today in Paris by the French Prime Minister Francois Fillon, who described it as a “political adventure”, stressing that “culture should be at the centre of the Mediterranean project because that is the only way that we can put an end to prejudices and become the springboard for a Mediterranean consciousness.” The council is presided over by the former Secretary of State, Renauld Muselier, who was born in Marseilles in 1959, “a man of incontestable Mediterranean origins,” Fillon stressed. The council has over twenty members, all of whom come from different backgrounds, from the director and producer Luc Besson, to the President of France Television Patrick de Carolis, from the President of the Institute of the Arab World in Paris, Dominque Baudis, to the businessman Francois Pinault, the founder of the PPR group. André Azoulay, the president of the Euro-Mediterranean Foundation, Anna Lindh, the advisor to the King of Morocco, Ismael Serageldin, the former vice-president of the World Bank, who is currently responsible for the Library of Alexandria, and Rodi Kratsa, the vice-president of the European Parliament, are also members of the strategic committee. The council, amongst other things, will deal with “mobilising all the forces in the Mediterranean” towards the “Marseilles Provence 2013” plan (the southern city was in fact nominated European Capital of Culture for 2013). Muselier also pointed to a “Mediterranean Academy of cinema and the donation of several thousand works from the French National Library to the Library of Alexandria.” Muselier concluded that “this council will be a kind of experimental French template, an incubator for plans and a confederation of ideas at the service of a common ambition, the success of the UPM.”(ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Egypt: Explosions in Military Depot, Zone Closed Off

(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, MAY 18 — Whilst military sources have yet to provide an official report, local witnesses have said that explosions at a military depot in Egypt may have lead to the death of five soldiers, as previously announced, as well as injury to ten others. Certain sources are also suggesting that many soldiers may have died — including a high-level official — in the series of explosions which followed an initial large-scale blast. The Egyptian armed forces have closed-off the entire area surrounding the military depot close to Ismailia, north-east of Cairo, and roads leading into the area were sealed off. For the moment, no information is pointing to possible acts of sabotage or terrorist attacks and official sources have yet to make a statement. Inhabitants of the area not far from the Suez Canal have been reported as suggesting that yesterday’s intense heat of over 40 degrees could have been partly responsible for the explosions at the weapons stores. The Ismailia depot is the military’s largest in north-eastern Egypt.(ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood Officials Face ‘Terror Camp’ Charges

Cairo, 18 May (AKI) — Thirteen officials from Egypt’s banned opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, have been formally charged with terrorism and money laundering in Cairo. According to the Arab daily, al-Hayat, the leaders have been accused of running “secret training camps called ‘jihadist camps’ where they trained groups of students in armed combat”.

The most important member of the group, Osama Nasr, has been accused of “having supported an illegal group that uses terrorism to achieve its aims and publishes brochures and and books to spread its ideological message, recycling money obtained from terrorism”.

Prosecutors claim that the accused hid their training camps behind the guise of so called “sports camps” and young recruits were taught how to use arms before being sent to “war zones” to show their solidarity for besieged Gazans their and opposition to Israel’s recent military offensive.

The leaders were arrested last week in Cairo and the Mediterranean city of Alexandria in the north.

The were reportedly detained for 15 days on charges of “belonging to a banned group, calling for demonstrations and possessing documents seeking to spread the (Brotherhood) ideology”.

The organisation’s number two, Mohammed Habib, accused the government in a statement of seeking to “prevent the brotherhood from having a role in Egyptian political life.”

The organisation, founded in 1928, was officially banned in 1954. Using sympathisers running as independents, the group won one-fifth of seats in the 2005 parliamentary elections.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Egypt: Death Sentences for Suzanne Tamim Murderers

An Egyptian billionaire and former top political figure has been sentenced to death in Cairo for the 2008 murder of Lebanese pop star Suzanne Tamim.

Hisham Talaat Moustafa was found guilty of paying $2m to an ex-policeman to kill the singer. The killer Muhsin Sukkari was also sentenced to hang.

Ms Tamim reportedly broke off a secret love affair with Moustafa months before she was stabbed to death in Dubai.

The tale of sex, politics, money and show business gripped the Arab world.

The courtroom descended into chaos after the judge read out a short statement and ordered the sentences referred to the religious authorities for confirmation — as is normal in Egypt. The defendants looked shocked at the verdict and relatives of Hisham Talaat Moustafa jostled with reporters to prevent them photographing his reaction.

Female relatives burst into tears and one of them fainted in the pandemonium.

Lawyer Samir Shishtawi called the verdict “severe”, adding: “I want to assure Talaat Moustafa’s family that this verdict will be overturned by the appeals court”.

Newly married

The indictment had accused the security guard who worked at a hotel owned by Moustafa of killing Suzanne Tamim, 30, with a knife at her luxury Dubai apartment last July.

Clothes found at the apartment carried his DNA, and he was identified after being caught on film by a security camera.

Telephone conversations between Sukkari and Moustafa also formed part of the prosecution’s case.

The indictment had accused Moustafa, former head of the Talaat Moustafa Group property empire, of participating in the murder through “incitement, agreement and assistance”.

The court heard that he had ordered the killing after twice-married Ms Tamim ended their relationship in favour of an Iraqi kick-boxing champion, Riyad al-Azzawi, whom she had met in London.

Sukkari then followed Suzanne Tamim to the United Arab Emirates and staked out her flat. He gained entry by saying he worked for the building owner and killed her as she opened her front door.

Elite

As well as serving in the upper house of the Egyptian parliament, Hisham Talaat Moustafa is known to have been close to President Hosni Mubarak’s politically powerful son Gamal.

He sat on the ruling National Democratic Party’s policy committee.

Members of the Egyptian elite are often viewed in the country as being above the law, and there was massive public interest in the case.

The Dubai authorities applied such pressure on the Egyptians to bring the case to trial that he was eventually stripped of his parliamentary immunity.

But reporting of the case was banned in Egypt after the opening statements — a ruling which brought sharp criticism from the opposition.

Reporters from Tamim’s home area in the Lebanese capital Beirut said her family was “grateful for the verdict”.

Suzanne Tamim had risen to stardom throughout the Middle East as the winner of a pop idol contest in Lebanon in 1996.

But her career was marred by reports of a troubled private life.

— Hat tip: TB

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Egypt: Death Sentence for Singer’s Murder

Cairo, 21 May (AKI) — An Egyptian business tycoon and a former police officer have been sentenced to death for the murder of Lebanese pop singer Suzanne Tamim. The singer was found dead in a luxury apartment in the emirate of Dubai in July 2008 and the case shocked the Arab world.

Hisham Talaat Moustafa, the former chairman of Egypt’s top real-estate developer Talaat Moustafa Group, and former police officer Mohsen al-Sukkari will be hanged for ordering and carrying out the murder of Tamim.

Talaat Moustafa, who is alleged to have had an affair with Tamim, is reported to have ended the relationship with her months before the murder.

He was accused of paying Sukkari two million dollars to stab Tamim to death.

“Until now I still believe that Talaat Moustafa is innocent,” said lawyer Samir al-Shishtawi, quoted by Arab TV network al-Arabiya. “The evidence we have is strong and the ruling of the court is severe.”

“We are going to take the case to the appeals court and we are confident the ruling will be overturned,” he said.

The indictment had accused the security guard who worked at a hotel owned by Moustafa of killing 30-year-old Tamim, 30, with a knife at her luxury Dubai apartment last July.

Clothes found at the apartment carried his DNA, and he was identified after being caught on film by a security camera.

Talaat Moustafa’s two daughters burst into tears after the ruling, while his sister fainted.

Tamim became well-known in the Middle East after winning a popular TV talent show called Studio El Fan in Lebanon in 1996.

But her career was marred by reports of a troubled private life.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Egypt: Brazilians Arrested for ‘Pro-Israel Propaganda’

Cairo, 21 May (AKI) — A group of 24 Brazilian tourists were arrested in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, because they were allegedly carrying leaflets featuring Israel’s right-wing party Yisrael Beiteinu promoting immigration to Israel.

Yisrael Beiteinu or Israel is our Home, is the party of Israel’s hardline foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman.

“The leaflets are in Portuguese and call on Brazilians to immigrate to Israel,” said an Egyptian source, quoted by Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth.

The Brazilians, who arrived in Cairo on an Alitalia flight from the Italian capital Rome, were stopped by local security forces, said Arab media, based on a report by Egyptian daily al-Shorouk.

Before becoming Israel’s foreign minister Lieberman called on Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to “go to hell” if he did not want to visit Israel, and once advocated bombing the Aswan dam in Egypt.

Lieberman’s party favours redrawing Israel’s borders, removing non-Jewish Israelis and annexing occupied territory settled by Jews.

Lieberman, who emigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union in 1978, is also a strong supporter of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Terrorism: Algeria, 11 Supporters of Al Qaeda Arrested

(ANSAmed) — ALGIERS, MAY 12 — The court of Ain EL-Melh, close to M’sila, in Algeria — 400 km south-east of the capital — has issued warrants for the arrest of 9 alleged members of a terrorist organisation. Two additional suspects have been put under judicial supervision. The information was issued by the Algerian Press Service (APS), which said the detainees are members of a nomadic group which “has housed members of the Salafite Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), al Qaeda for the Islamic Maghreb,ed.) and providing them with information regarding the movements of national security forces”. The nomads were said to have confessed to “knowing the routes used by terrorists” to move toward the country’s northern regions. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Israeli Minister Calls Obama Peace Plan Impossible

(ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM, MAY 20 — Israel was not consulted in advance about the Middle East peace plan attributed by the press to US President Barack Obama, said government sources to Israeli military radio, according to whom the plan is “unprecedented” and “worrying”. “This is a well-packaged plan, but has no substance,” observed Israeli Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau (Likud). “There is no possibility for the plan to be completed.” Landau cast doubt on whether a future Palestinian state will be demilitarised: “We saw, after our withdrawal from Gaza, how Hamas created a militia and armed itself. The same would occur in the West Bank if we withdraw. The future Palestinian state would, in reality, enter into Iran’s sphere of influence.” Israeli former Defence Minister Amir Peretz (Labour) initially made positive comments, saying that Israel must back Obama’s plans and put Palestinian leadership to the test. Israeli daily Israel ha-Yom, which is close to Likud, took a more skeptical tone, saying that already in early June, Iran will register two substantial successes, with a probable victory of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the completion of a second year of Hamas government in Gaza. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Obama Peace Plan, Draft Raises Controversy in Israel

(by Aldo Baquis) (ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, 20 MAG — US President Barack Obama “has developed a regional peace plan that he will illustrate on June 4 in Cairo”. This is the front page of Tel Aviv’s tabloids. It may be that Obama has yet to define the details of any plan, but the Israeli papers are already offering news and details. These reports alarmed Israel’s leaders who see their worst fears come to life: that Benyamin Netanyahu’s government and the US Democratic Administration are about to enter a troubled, if not stormy, period. In a strange coincidence, Yediot Ahronot, Maariv and Israel ha-Yom — a free of charge pro-Likud paper — today printed information that was first released at the beginning of May by London-based Arab newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi which made reference to an initiative drafted by President Obama with King Abdullah II of Jordan, along the lines of Saudi one in 2002. The basic idea is for the Arab world to effectively support peace talks between Israel and Palestine through a gradual normalisation of relations with the Jewish State by, for example, opening financial, trade and tourism offices. The aim is to set up an independent, democratic, geographically homogeneous and demilitarised State of Palestine next to Israel in the next four years. Palestinian refugees would be offered the choice between gaining citizenship in their countries of residence or making a home within the boundaries of the future Palestinian State, i.e. in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. The old city of Jerusalem, which is home to major holy places for the three monotheistic religions, would fall under the authority of the United Nations, with parallel negotiations between Israel on one side and Lebanon and Syria on the other. Interviewed by a military radio station, the deputy minister of Foreign Affairs Dany Ayalon confirmed that, to the best of his knowledge, Obama is effectively looking into a regional approach to solve the conflict that is also based on a gradual rapprochement between Israel and moderate Arab countries. Ayron made it clear that Israel has drawn “red lines” that will never be crossed and one of these is Jerusalem, where it intends to hold on to sovereignty, especially over “the Temple Mount and the Holy Basin”, in other words the biblical-archaeological area that lies at its feet. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Palestinian Policeman Shoots at Israeli Soldiers

(ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM, MAY 21 — Two Israeli soldiers and a Palestinian policeman have been injured in a shootout in the West Bank, according to reports from the Israeli army. The shooting began when the Palestinian policeman opened fire on an Israeli military patrol carrying out a raid in Qalqilya, north of Jerusalem near the line separating Israel and the occupied territories. In a series of raids carried out in the West Bank, Israeli soldiers have arrested 26 Palestinians suspected of involvement in hostile acts against Israel. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Detailed Analysis of the Obama-Netanyahu Meeting

by Barry Rubin

This article includes Part 1, an analysis of Obama’s statement, followed by Part 2, an analysis of Netanyahu’s statement.

Part 1

So what did President Barack Obama say after the meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and what does it mean?

First, Obama went to great lengths to stress his belief in the special relationship between the two countries, knowing his fealty to it has been (understandably and rightfully) challenged. He consciously escalated it by calling it an “extraordinary relationship” adding “historical ties, emotional ties,” “only true democracy of the Middle East,” “a source of admiration and inspiration for the American people.” He then went on to say Israel’s security “is paramount” in his policy.

No signal to Arab regimes or Iran here of eroding support. This is the part they will look at and he knew it. This is not mere boiler plate. By setting the bar so high he is saying that the relationship is central and important, one not to be lightly undermined. That doesn’t mean he won’t do anything in that direction but it is publicly limiting himself from making any fundamental shift.

Of course, he and his administration can, and will, justify things they do as being for Israel’s own good. But again, opening with this statement is important and very purposeful…

— Hat tip: Barry Rubin

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Iran Claims Missile Test With Europe in Range

EUOBSERVER/BRUSSELS — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed to have sucessfully tested another ballistic missile capable of reaching Europe.

Speaking in the northern Iranian city of Semnan, where the Sajil-2 missile was allegedly test-fired, Mr Ahmadinejad said the blast was a success and “met the predetermined target.”

If its alleged range of almost 2,000 kilometers is true, the missile could reach Athens, southern Italy and the Black Sea coast of new EU members Romania and Bulgaria.

A similar test was carried out in November, while in February Iran launched a domestically-made satellite that prompted France and Great Britain to express their concerns over the missile capabilities of the Islamic state.

Israel, also a nuclear power, said Wednesday’s test should be more of a concern to Europe, since previous missiles tested by Iran could already reach the Jewish state.

With presidential elections scheduled for 12 June, the test could also be read as part of Mr Ahmadinejad’s re-election campaign, as three other contenders have been approved by Iran’s electoral council.

Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini had to cancel at the very last minute a trip to Tehran when he found out that Iranian authorities had organised his meeting with reformist ex-president Mohammed Khatami in Semnan, where the missile was tested, not in the capital as initially agreed.

Iran made the venue switch from Tehran to the Semnan missile site a condition for the visit, the Italian foreign ministry said.

Mr Frattini’s visit would have given Mr Ahmadinejad an electoral boost, as it would have been most senior visit from a European country since he came to power four years ago.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, visited Iran a year ago but EU governments said they would avoid individual visits because of Tehran’s refusal to halt its nuclear programme.

Mr Frattini intended to ask Tehran to send a high-level delegation to an international conference in Italy next month on stabilising Afghanistan and Pakistan, diplomatic sources told Italian news agency Ansa.

— Hat tip: islam o’phobe

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Iran: Frattini ‘Avoided Trap’

Launch site meet would have been humiliating, Resistance says

(ANSA) — Rome, May 20 — Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini avoided a diplomatic trap by cancelling Wednesday’s scheduled trip to Iran because a key meeting venue was switched to the country’s top missile launch site, the Iranian Resistance in Italy claimed.

“(Frattini) dodged at the last minute a trap that would have humiliated Italy,” said Mahmoud Hakamian of the National Council of Iranian Resistance in Italy.

Hakamian claimed the alleged trap, which would have “forced (Frattini) to take part in the anti-Israel missile test celebrations,” showed “the arrogance of power that has spun out of control”.

He said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who wanted to greet Frattini at the Semnan site near the Afghan border hours after the successful testing of a new missile, was “a ruthless dictator who has now shown his true face to the Italian people”.

“He wants war, first with Israel and then with the West,” the Resistance spokesman said.

Hakamian also claimed he had heard from unidentified sources in Tehran that Iran would have a nuclear bomb “within three years”.

Frattini’s decision to cancel the visit was hailed by a member of his People of Freedom party, Benedetto Della Vedova, as “showing Italy’s opposition to (Ahmadinejad’s) aggressive and provocative policy”.

The small opposition Radical Party also praised the decision and said Iran posed a threat “not only to world peace and security but also, for decades, to its own people”.

Mario Barbi of the largest opposition party, the Democratic Party, said: “the reasons voiced by the foreign ministry for the sudden cancellation of the foreign minister’s long-awaited visit to Tehran are not very convincing”.

“We expect Frattini to explain what happened, above all with reference to the agenda of meetings, and conferring about the mission with (our) allies,” he said.

Barbi voiced the hope that the incident would not jeopardise Iran’s participation at a Group of Eight foreign ministers’ meeting in Italy in June on stabilising Afghanistan and Pakistan.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Iran: Tick, Tick, Tick

Yet another iteration of the negotiations track that has yielded nothing.

Who said “Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon, I believe, is unacceptable and we have to mount an international effort to prevent that from happening”? It wasn’t Benjamin Netanyahu. No, Pres. Barack Obama said that at his first press conference after winning the 2008 election.

The clock is ticking ominously on that front. “We feel a sense of urgency,” an Israeli spokesman said as Prime Minister Netanyahu prepared for his first meeting with Obama since both were elected. All Israelis feel that sense of urgency because they have watched, frustrated, as the Bush administration signed on to a lengthy series of negotiations with Iran headed by the Europeans. With U.S. approval, the Europeans offered a smorgasbord of incentives for Iran to give up its nuclear program. They were met with meetings and more meetings. Iran agreed to nothing except more meetings in an attempt to run out the clock. Tick. Tick. Tick.

— Hat tip: JD

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Italy Hails Turkey’s Presence at Eurogendfor

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, MAY 14 — Italy has praised Turkey’s presence in the European Gendarmerie Force (EUROGENDFOR/EGF), an initiative comprising six European Union member states: France, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania and Spain, while applauding Turkey’s role in strengthening European security. In a written statement, the Italian Embassy in Ankara expressed pleasure over the fact that Turkey for the first time participated in an executive committee meeting of the EGF which was held in Paris yesterday. “Italy has always pointed out the importance of having Turkey included in the EGF. The aforementioned development is once more proving the importance of the role played by Turkey in strengthening the European security system,” the statement said. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Turkey: Honour Killings Issue at Pace Conference in Istanbul

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, MAY 13 — Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men of the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe (PACE) will discuss the issue of “honour killings” during a meeting to be held in Istanbul tomorrow, Anatolia news agency reports. During the meeting, a report prepared on the issue by British parliamentarian, John Austin, will be discussed in a detailed way. Another report on “sexual violence against women”, prepared by Belgian parliamentarian, Miet Smet, will be on the agenda of the gathering as well. PACE’s Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men will hold another meeting on “violence against women” on Friday with the participation of Turkish State Minister, Selma Aliye Kavaf. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Russia: Medvedev Creates History Commission

MOSCOW-President Dmitry Medvedev has created a special commission to counter what he says are increasingly aggressive attempts to rewrite history to Russia’s disadvantage. Supporters said the commission is needed to tackle anti-Russian propaganda in the former Soviet Union, an area Moscow regards as its backyard, but liberal historians called the initiative a return to Soviet-era controls.

In a signal that the Kremlin is continuing its assertive foreign policy despite Russia’s weakening economy, Mr. Medvedev, in a decree made public Tuesday, ordered the commission to investigate and counter falsified versions of history that damage Russia’s “international prestige.”

Mr. Medvedev empowered the commission-comprising senior military, government and intelligence officials-to launch inquiries, unearth historical documents, and call government and expert witnesses, as well as formulate possible policy responses for the president to consider.

The ruling United Russia party also has proposed a draft law that would mandate jail terms of three to five years for anyone in the former Soviet Union convicted of rehabilitating Nazism. Analysts say they expect it to become law, though it will only be enforceable in Russia.

First under Mr. Putin, who is now prime minister, and now under Mr. Medvedev, the Kremlin has sought to boost patriotic sentiment and its own popularity by tapping nostalgia for Soviet wartime achievements.

But while the Kremlin encourages Russians to celebrate the Soviet Union’s role in defeating Nazism, politicians in several former Soviet republics denounce the Red Army as occupiers who brought their countries decades of totalitarianism.

Russia in turn has accused those countries, including Estonia and Latvia, of rehabilitating Nazism, highlighting, for example, that some Estonians and Latvians fought alongside the Nazis.

In Ukraine, attempts to classify a Stalin-era famine as ethnically targeted genocide have angered Russia. The Kremlin says ethnic Russians too died of hunger during the same period in other parts of the U.S.S.R., and that the Ukrainian initiative is a ploy to stir anti-Russian sentiment.

Polish attempts to delve into a massacre of Polish officers at the hands of Soviet secret police during World War II have also rankled. Russian authorities have refused to disclose information about the killings from their archives or to initiate a new investigation.

Estonia’s decision to relocate a monument to the Red Army away from the center of its capital, Tallinn, is another source of tension. The Kremlin also has accused Ukraine, Latvia and Estonia of honoring those who fought alongside the Nazis by allowing them to hold public commemorations.

Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin lawmaker and member of the new commission, said the new body wouldn’t throw people in jail or blacklist historians whose analyses it disagrees with. Its priority, he said, was to challenge what he said were distorted interpretations of the Soviet Union’s role in World War II. “There’s an information war going on,” he said. “This is about defining who the Russians were historically.”

The new commission will ensure the Russian view prevails, said Mr. Markov.

He said grants would be given to pro-Russian historians in other countries to ensure their voices were heard. “We have to choose which history textbooks are telling the truth and which are lying,” he said.

Inside Russia, the Kremlin has already mandated certain textbooks for all Russian schoolchildren. Critics say the new books go easy on Stalin and justify Mr. Putin’s political model of “sovereign democracy.”

Liberal historians said the commission initiative undermines Kremlin claims that Mr. Medvedev is less hard-line than his predecessor, Vladimir Putin.

“One year ago Mr. Medvedev said he preferred freedom to non-freedom,” said Alexander Cherkasov of human-rights group Memorial. “Initiatives of this sort have never led to greater freedom.” Mr. Cherkasov compared the commission to Soviet-era bodies that had tried to establish a monopoly on various scientific and ideological truths.

Earlier this month, shortly before Russia marked the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany with a military parade on Red Square, Mr. Medvedev said attempts to falsify history had become intolerable.

“Such attempts are becoming more hostile, more evil, and more aggressive,” he said in his online video blog. “We must fight for the historical truth.”

Historian and author Orlando Figes, a professor at the University of London, says the new commission is part of a clampdown on historical scholarship.

“They’re idiots if they think they can change the discussion of Soviet history internationally,” Prof. Figes said. “But they can make it hard for Russian historians to teach and publish. It’s like we’re back to the old days.”

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Russia Threatens to Bar Europeans Who Deny Red Army ‘Liberated’ Them

Eastern Europeans who believe their countries were occupied by the Soviet Union after the Second World War could soon be barred from Russia under new proposals given official weight by the Kremlin.

Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, created a commission of 28 legislators and senior intelligence officers which will identify foreign “revisionists” who “disparage the international prestige of the Russian Federation”.

The move, condemned as “Orwellian” by its critics, comes shortly before the Russian parliament is expected to pass controversial legislation outlawing the “rehabilitation of Nazism”.

The bill has attracted criticism because of its definition of Nazi rehabilitation, with those who “belittle” the Soviet Union’s role in the war or criticise it in any way being regarded as equally culpable as those who glorify Hitler.

Those found to contravene the new law, which Russia insists is little different from Germany’s Holocaust-denial legislation, face up to five years in prison.

Foreign countries whose officials who the commission rules to be guilty of the new crimes will face sanction as well. The bill gives Russia the authority to expel ambassadors or sever diplomatic relations with offending nations and to impose full transport and communications blockades on them.

The legislation is thought to be primarily aimed at states like Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, which maintain they were occupied rather than liberated by the Soviet Union. Sergei Shoigu, a senior cabinet minister who initiated the legislation, has already said it could be used to ban senior Estonian officials.

A Russian MP yesterday said that the Baltic states deserved “to suffer punishment” for holding such views.

The new law could also be used to bar Western historians who accuse the Red Army of carrying out atrocities during its advance on Berlin or point out that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were once allies under the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.

Seen as a way of teaching recalcitrant former Soviet states respect, the legislation has won almost universal backing in the Russian parliament.

But opposition politicians, who have no representation in parliament, have attacked the bill, saying it effectively reintroduces state ideology for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union.

“The creation of this commission allows the state to impose its own idea of political will and ideology,” said Vladimir Ryzhkov, a former Duma deputy who was forced out of parliament in 2007 by a law banning independent MPs.

“The former KGB will once again decide what is anti-Soviet and what is not.”

Mr Ryzhkov said that the new legislation was also part of a continuing rehabilitation of Stalin as it will effectively outlaw criticism of many of the former Soviet dictator’s policies.

An officially sanctioned history text book, introduced into schools two years ago, presented Stalin as a great leader while glossing over his repression of millions of Soviet citizens.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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The Kremlin’s Chechen Franchise

By Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, BBC News, Grozny

Grozny. It is not a name that conjures up thoughts of anything good. In Russian the word means “terrible”. And for most of the last 15 years that is what life there has been.

So what I am about to say may come as a bit of a surprise.

Grozny is no longer terrible. It is not war-torn, it is not shattered, it is not even mildly depressing. Today Grozny is, on the surface, one of the most pleasant provincial cities in Russia.

The transformation from “most destroyed city on earth” to a city of tree-lined avenues, well groomed parks and pearly white apartment buildings, is nothing short of astonishing.

And then there is the new mosque. It dominates the city centre, a huge marble pile, with a soaring minaret at each corner. It is an almost exact copy of the great Blue Mosque in Istanbul, and can fit 10,000 worshippers.

So what does all this show? Have Chechens really laid down their arms and accepted Russian sovereignty?

Well no, not quite.

Kremlin franchise

Standing across the road from the great mosque last week, I watched the following peculiar spectacle.

On top of a reviewing stand, a corpulent Russian general stood shoulder to shoulder with a former Chechen rebel.

The two of them watched proudly as hundreds of former rebel fighters marched past in crisp Russian uniforms, carrying shiny Russian assault rifles.

Moscow has effectively franchised its war in Chechnya.

The former rebel is Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov. The former fighters, his private army.

Ramzan Kadyrov is just 32 years old. He has the physique of a wrestler and a reputation for violence.

Moscow’s policy in Chechnya revolves around this young man. It supplies him with lots of money and Mr Kadyrov makes sure Chechnya is no longer a “problem” for Moscow.

Both sides are getting most of what they want. Moscow gets to keep Chechnya inside the Russian Federation. Mr Kadyrov gets bankrolled by the Kremlin and runs Chechnya as a personal fiefdom.

The result for ordinary Chechens is less certain. Most are simply relieved the war is over.

Dirty war

But apart from the construction industry, the Chechen economy is still in ruins.

Unemployment runs at 75% and the only skill most young Chechen men have is how to shoot a gun. We found labourers from Azerbaijan working on construction sites in Grozny. The waiter in our hotel restaurant was from Tajikistan. This is not a recipe for success.

And then there is the dirty war.

You will search long and hard in Grozny to find anyone with a bad word to say against Ramzan Kadyrov. Much of the regard for him is genuine. The attitude of many of the Chechens I spoke to is “he may be a bastard, but he’s our bastard”.

But there is also no doubt that people fear Mr Kadyrov.

The militias he controls have a well-deserved reputation for brutality. Human rights workers in Grozny told me the militias’ main method of fighting the remnants of the Islamic insurgency is to abduct suspects and torture them until they confess.

In Grozny I met one family whose three sons were abducted from their home last December. The next day they were called to a police station to identify the bodies.

Two of the men had been shot, the other strangled. The family said the bodies had been dressed in combat fatigues to make them look like rebels.

We also discovered evidence that the Chechen government is retaliating against the families of rebels by burning their houses.

In a village in Vedeno district I was shown a house completely gutted by fire. Relatives told me how militiamen had come in the middle of the night, forced the family out of the house and then thrown in petrol bombs. The militiamen told them it was punishment for their son “going to the forest”.

Villagers laughed at the idea the burnings might discourage other young men from going to the forest to join the rebels. “It will just make the young men more angry,” they said.

The government in Grozny claims there are only a few hundred rebels still holding out in the mountains and that they are no longer any real threat to Moscow’s control.

But if the men in the Kremlin think they can now sleep easy, assured that Chechnya is secure, they may want to think about this.

In quiet conversations, the Chechen men told me they do not forgive Russia for what it has done to them, they hate the Russian military with a deep loathing, and above all there will be no forgiveness for Vladimir Putin, the man who ordered the assault that killed so many of their kin.

— Hat tip: TB

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Bastion of Indian Communism Crumbles

For decades it was a fortress for the Left, but now Indian voters have radically reshaped the politics of West Bengal. The BBC’s Subhir Bhaumik, in Calcutta, considers where it all went wrong for a once untouchable political force.

Anti-incumbency has finally caught up with the ruling Left coalition in the Indian state of West Bengal, which has been in power for 32 years.

On Saturday, the coalition could only manage to win 15 of the state’s 42 parliament seats.

The opposition alliance of Trinamul Congress and Congress swept the thickly-populated state, where the Leftists had pioneered land reforms and institutionalised local self-government to build up what appeared, until not so long ago, an unbeatable political support base with the rural poor at its core.

The fiercely anti-Left Trinamuls won 19, the Congress won five and a smaller socialist ally won one seat.

Early signals

Many, like political analyst Ranabir Sammadar of the Calcutta Research Group, had seen this coming.

“The signs of erosion in the Left support base was becoming evident over the last three years. First, there was widespread rioting against the public distribution shops manned by Leftist cronies throughout rural Bengal,” he said.

“Then there was the huge unrest against the Left’s efforts to take over fertile croplands for setting up industry. Finally, when the Left lost nearly 30% of seats in last year’s village council elections, it was clear that the slide had started.”

But analysts are stunned by the speed with which this happened.

“Only three years ago, the Left won a resounding victory in the state assembly polls and looked unbeatable,” says Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhuri, Bengal’s leading psephologist.

“And now they have lost more than 53% of their parliament seats. Though detailed statistics are not available, a four-to-five per cent swing would be needed to make this [happen].”

Mr Chaudhuri says the Left failed to retain its support base among the rural poor who felt threatened by the government’s cropland takeover plans , while it failed to gain support from the urban voters for its plans to rapidly industrialise the state.

— Hat tip: islam o’phobe

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India: Elections in Kerala: Collapse of the Marxists

Congress wins in a stronghold of the left. Fr. Paul Thelakat, spokesman for the Syro-Malabar Church: it’s a vote against those seeking to divide society along class lines. Bjp and Marxists represent the same fundamentalist ideology “contrary to a secular democracy”.

Mumbai (AsiaNews) — The two communist strongholds of Kerala and West Bengal have collapsed. Both states are governed by left wing parties, but have registered a strong preference for Congress.

In Kerala the Communist Marxist Party (Cmp) passes from its triumph off five years ago to total defeat. In 2004, led by the Left Democratic Front (Lft), the Marxist party had won 19 of 20 available seats, today it has been left with four. The fragmentation of the LFT has had a devastating effect on the result of the vote as well as the contradictory stance of CMP leaders. The collapse of the Marxists appears all the more significant in relation to the fact that in 2006 it had won the State Assembly beating the local alliance of United Democratic Front (Udf) led by Congress.

Kerala has the largest Christians community, even thug a minority in respect to the total population, almost 20% out of a total 31 million. Fr. Paul Thelakat, director of the newspaper Satyadeepam, and spokesperson for the Syro-Malabar Church says the vote is a rejection of CPM politics.

Speaking to AsiaNews, Fr. Thelakat says they are also paying for their opposition to the Church, deemed “too confrontational”. The priest explains that not only do CPM leaders object to the self-financed education programs operated by the Church, “but also in areas of religion where the leaders began to use abusive language and to tarnish Church’s reputation wherever they got a chance to do it.”.

Fr. Thelakat confirms that the State is influenced by strong ideological currents that aim to divide the people. On the one hand are the Marxists who “have been trying to divide the people in the name of class, rich and the poor with a class war based on economic divide. This class war separating the rich and the poor with religion always at the side of rich and branded as opium of the people “. On the other the Hindu nationalists of the Bjp who “divide people on the line of religion and caste”.

For Fr. Thelakat “Both sides represent some sort of fundamentalists and are as Karl Popper called them enemies of an open society”. (NC)

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Pakistan: EU Aproves 5.5 Million Euros of Aid for Northwest

Brussels, 14 May (AKI) — The European Commission has approved 5.5 million euros of emergency aid for over half a million people displaced by ongoing fighting between security forces and militants in the troubled Swat valley and in neighbouring areas of North West Frontier Province.

The European Commission said it feared the numbers of homeless people fleeing the conflict could increase in the next few days.

“As a result of the intensified fighting in Swat and other parts of the country, Pakistan is facing not only a security threat but also a humanitarian threat,” the EU’s humanitarian aid commissioner Louis Michel said in a statement.

“Hundreds of thousands of civilians are fleeing the combat zones and they need urgent assistance. Pakistani authorities are doing their utmost but their relief capacities are now overstretched.

If necessary, the European Commission is ready to increase its assistance from 5.5 million euros, Michel said.

The funds will mainly be directed towards basic humanitarian needs such as shelter, food, domestic items such as clothes and cooking equipment and medical support, the statement added.

In some areas hit by the conflict, the EU said it will also help to provide clean drinking water and sanitation.

The Pakistani military said up to 15,000 troops are fighting an estimated 4,000 well-armed militants in the region who are seeking to implement Islamic law there under a February accord with the NWFP government.

The government estimates more than 750 militants and 33 troops have been killed in its operations in Lower Dir, Buner and Swat. There is no independent confirmation of the figures and no word on civilian casualties.

The Red Cross is working closely with the Pakistan Red Crescent Society to provide shelter, food, water, sanitation and health care for displaced people in the Malakand and Swabi districts of NWFP.

The Red Cross said it had entered NWFP’s Buner district and delivered medicines and surgical materials to the main hospital there. It is also assisting people left behind in Swat and Lower Dir districts.

The World Health Organization warned that the displaced faced serious risks of disease outbreaks and malnutrition.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said on Thursday Pakistan needed massive international help for the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by fighting in the Swat valley and surrounding area to avert a tragedy.

The United States has donated 4.9 million dollars for basic supplies such as tents, blankets and cooking kits while Britain had donated 10 million pounds (15.2 million dollars).

Pakistan’s prime minister Yousaf Raza Gillani has announced the government would soon organise a conference of aid donors to raise funds.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Singapore: Review of Censorship

SINGAPORE will reconvene a committee this year to review its censorship of media and the arts. The move is aimed at giving citizens more choices without compromising social fundamentals. This independent Censorship Review Committee (CRC) will study content regulations in broadcast media, films, videos, publications, audio materials, the arts and new media to see if they need updating.

The last time such a review took place was in 2003, said the Ministry Information, Communications and the Arts (Mica) in a statement on Thursday, elaborating on its addendum to the President’s address in Parliament on Monday.

Previous CRC reviews were held every 10 years.

This time, the committee will be reconvened earlier to help Mica and the Media Development Authority keep pace with the rapidly-changing media environment and societal changes.

Issues that have been raised by industry players include fine-tuning of film and video classifications, video distribution and rules on entertainment and lifestyle publications.

The CRC will also look at what the convergence of multiple media platforms means for content regulations.

Its chairman and members will be announced soon.

Mica has also said it will continue to invest in the arts and creative industries despite the economic downturn.

It plans to open a new library in Clementi and relocate the Orchard library to the new Specialist Shopping Centre. The old library at Orchard moved out of Ngee Ann City in end-2007.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Sri Lanka: Peace Through Force in Sri Lanka

If the international community had gotten its way, the war in Sri Lanka would now be in abeyance. A ceasefire would have been declared, the shooting might have stopped and the beginnings of a humanitarian rescue operation would have been put in place to deal with the refugees created by the fighting.

Instead, the Sri Lankan government ignored pressure to halt its offensive, standing by its decision to end the rebellion launched more than 30 years ago by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam(LTTE).

It appears to have accomplished that task. With the death of LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, the driving force behind the calamitous civil war has been eliminated and the fighting abilities of the Tiger army decimated. The Tigers no longer control any territory and the bulk of their leadership has been captured, killed or neutralized.

Tragic though the humanitarian consequences of Colombo’s policy have been, the chances for peace appear better now than they would have under a ceasefire. While much work remains if the government’s military victory is to lead to reconciliation between Sri Lanka’s Tamils and the majority Sinhalese, at least now the way is clear to attempt it.

Although Tamils in Canada and many other countries maintain that the LTTE was founded to protect their rights and oppose the oppression and inequality they suffered at the hands of the Sinhalese-dominated government, the Tigers regularly set new standards for brutality. The group killed opponents, assaulted critics and was recognized as a terrorist organization in more than 30 countries. As the Sri Lankan army closed in on them, the Tigers used their own people as human shields to ward off the inevitable.

Prabhakaran was not interested in a negotiated peace. Numerous high-level attempts at compromise had been made, but all fell apart. Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s vow to finish off the Tiger army came only after peace talks had failed and it became evident the Tigers would not quit fighting until they had either achieved their goal of an independent Tamil homeland or been comprehensively defeated on the battlefield.

That conclusion was no doubt behind Mr. Rajapaksa’s refusal to be pressured into a ceasefire, despite international revulsion at the tactics employed by both sides. The consequence of that determination has been a nightmare for tens of thousands of civilians forced to flee their homes for an uncertain future in refugee camps. Nonetheless, perhaps another truce would only have delayed the inevitable, and extended the suffering by allowing the Tigers a chance to re-arm.

It is imperative now that the Sri Lankan government follow through on its victory with a campaign of reconciliation. The sense of inequality that gave strength to the terrorists remains and could give rise to further violence if not extinguished. That can only be prevented by recognizing the validity of Tamil grievances and working assiduously to eradicate those grievances.

Thousands of Sri Lankans of all stripes have given their lives, not to bring about a victory of arms, but to achieve peace through equality. Bringing that about would allow the government in Colombo to legitimately claim the title of peacemaker.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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8 Rebels Killed in Philippines

MANILA — AT LEAST eight communist insurgents were killed in fighting with government troops in the southern Philippines on Thursday, the military said. Troops raided a small camp of the New People’s Army (NPA) rebels near the town of Rosario in Agusan del Sur province, triggering heavy clashes that led to the casualties, said Lieutenant Colonel Dennis Godfrey Gammad, the local army commander.

‘At least eight were killed. There are no casualties on the government side,’ Lt-Col Gammad said.

‘Fighting is still ongoing,’ he said. He added that troops also captured automatic rifles and documents left by the fleeing rebels.

The NPA is the armed unit of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), which has been carrying out a Maoist rebellion since 1969. — AFP

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Japan: Obama Supporter Nominated as Envoy to Japan

John Roos, a lawyer without diplomatic experience, has been nominated as the next U.S. ambassador to Japan. The campaign supporter of U.S. President Barack Obama was picked over Joseph Nye, a Harvard University professor who was believed the likelier candidate.

A graduate of Stanford University Law School, Roos has chiefly handled mergers and acquisitions of IT businesses in Silicon Valley. He still is the head of a law firm and has no political or diplomatic experience. Nor does he seem to have any previous relationship with Japan, the Asahi Shimbun reports.

But Roos has had a close relationship with Obama since he threw a fund-raising party at his home in February 2007 before Obama joined the Democratic Party’s presidential race. The New York Times last August called him one of the biggest fundraisers for the Obama camp.

Tokyo had welcomed rumors of Nye’s appointment as a token that the Obama administration values ties with Japan but has made no comment on news of Roos’ nomination.

Earlier, Obama nominated Utah Governor Jon Huntsman (49), a China expert seen as one of the Republican Party’s next presidential hopefuls, as the next ambassador to China. “Given the breadth of issues at stake in our relationship with China, this ambassadorship is as important as any in the world,” Obama said.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Australia: Nightmare for Business

AN alarming realisation is firming in the minds of close observers of the Rudd Government. Increasing signs suggest that this is not a Hawke-Keating style of Labor government: careful, consultative and sensibly managerialist. Instead, what is emerging is the Whitlam model that relishes revolutionary changes and grand gestures, wreaking vast upheavals in the name of ideology or class war without sufficient thought or care for the consequences.

Just about every week, we see more of this style from the Rudd Government. Its $43 billion national broadband proposal was uncovered to great fanfare, but with no business case or indeed any prior feasibility analysis. Then came laws touted as instilling a responsible lending revolution but which will dry up the flow of credit when the Government is desperately trying to stimulate the economy.

More ill-conceived policy emerged last week when the Rudd Government proposed a taxation regime for employee share schemes that betrayed a deep ignorance of the way these schemes work. The new measure has already led companies to suspend their schemes and unless changed will ultimately kill share schemes stone dead, not wring tax from them.

Possibly worst of all is a little-noticed, but revolutionary, measure sneaked out by Chris Bowen, the Minister for Competition and Consumer Affairs, in the pre-budget week and given an 11-day period for consultation.

The new national unfair contract terms legislation will, at a stroke of the legislative pen, render the vast majority of Australian contracts uncertain. Uniformity is a fine idea except when it means uniformly bad laws. Overnight no business or consumer will know whether the contracts they have entered, or seek to enter, will be enforceable. Any term — apart from the price and main subject matter of the contract — in a standard contract may be declared void by a judge who thinks it unfair.

The certainty of contract so fundamental to Western commerce — and prosperity — will no longer apply in Australia. We will substitute rule by judges for the rule of law, at least in contracts. No standard contract, though freely entered into by willing parties, is final. If one party decides the contract no longer suits him, he can take it to a court and roll the dice to see if a judge will back him out of that contract.

Not content to follow the Victorian model enacted in 2003, which only covers consumer contracts, Bowen’s draft is far more Whitlamesque in its sweep. Bowen’s draft applies to all standard-form contracts between any parties of any kind. The legislation would be problematic even if it only applied to contracts entered into by consumers. However, applying the new laws to all standard-form contracts between businesses is radical lunacy of a kind that even Gough would worry about.

Every contract is presumed to be a standard contract unless the party who wants to enforce it can prove otherwise. And any inequality of bargaining power or evidence the contract was presented on a “take it or leave it” basis — as so many contracts are — will invariably allow a court to treat it as a standard contract, open to potential judicial interference.

A judge can strike down any term in a standard contract apart from the “upfront price” or the main subject matter of the contract. That leaves nearly all contractual terms open to uncertainty. It means that when a person signs a contract with an Australian party, they effectively sign up to whatever an unknown judge at an unknown future time decides the contract should be.

Standard contracts are the lifeblood of businesses, small and large. These businesses use standard forms so they can have uniform, predictable risk allocation and thereby price their offerings sensibly. They save time in negotiations and make it easier to train staff. They promote efficiency and reduce prices to consumers. Whole industries standardise their contracts so consumers are offered a common product and can easily do comparisons.

It is obvious Bowen sorely lacks any kind of experience in, or appreciation of, business and does not understand how business is conducted. Clearly he does not understand the stifling and costly consequences of his proposed laws. His demonisation of standard contracts betrays his ignorance.

Indeed, Bowen ought to get out more and see how litigants will use laws like these. Borrowers (even large corporate borrowers) will now routinely be able to defer or avoid repayments of their loans by complaining about terms in a loan contract. It will become standard for anyone who does not like how a contract has turned out, or who has financial problems, to buy time or seek “go away” money instead of honouring their contract.

The international consequences don’t bear thinking about either. Microsoft, Dell and all other foreign providers of services in Australia will be told that their Australian lawyers can no longer give the usual opinion that their contracts are enforceable in accordance with their terms. Standard-form global agreements in the financial services sector — such as foreign exchange, swap and derivative agreements — are now only as good as the judge who hears your case.

Foreigners will learn fast about “maverick judge” risk in Australia. And more likely they will ask, why should we subject our standard terms of trade to the whims of some hometown judge if our Australian counterparty gets into trouble and wants to renege on its contract? Australia may well become an international contractual pariah. Regrettably, the legal profession — normally so vocal on matters legal — is silent on this issue. No surprise. These laws may be disastrous for Australia but they offer lawyers newfound riches.

What is almost as troubling as this draft legislation and the legal profession’s silence is the process Minister Bowen has adopted. This draft legislation was slipped in before the budget with only 11 days for consultation. And Bowen’s previous attitude suggests he won’t be listening anyway. His insistence last week that he would stand by his employee share scheme tax changes — even after it was pointed out that it would kill off employee share ownership by requiring employees to pay tax on shares that may never vest — was stiff-necked and haughty. Likewise, his stubborn rejection of criticism on issues such as creeping acquisitions and the new cartel laws points to that most lethal cocktail of characteristics: equal parts of incompetence and arrogance.

Murmurs that some senior Labor ministers feel unable to rein in Bowen’s obvious blunders because he is Kevin Rudd’s protected golden-haired boy are even more troubling. One can only hope that wiser and more experienced Labor minds will give the inexperienced Labor pup a clip over the ear, if only for the sake of sanctity of contract in Australia.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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New Zealand: Victoria University Students Thrown Out for NZ Flag Burning Protest

Victoria University in Wellington has temporarily banned three students for burning an New Zealand flag on campus.

The students burnt the flag outside a campus bar on May 6 as part of an Anzac Day anti-war protest.

The university has disenrolled flag burners Joel Cosgrove and Alistair Reith, and Ian Anderson, who filmed the protest, until the end of the first trimester on June 7 on the grounds they breached health and safety standards.

It also issued a written warning to Marika Pratley, who was there at the time, and banned all four from the Mount Street bar.

“These students have shown a disregard for the safety of others and of university property,” dean of humanities and social sciences Professor Deborah Willis said.

The students had set the New Zealand flag alight using an accelerant without warning anyone around them or having any means to put out the fire.

The students said the 20-second flag burning happened outside in the rain and was not a danger to anyone.

They had been passing their courses and not being able to complete the trimester would cost them about $2000 in fees, Mr Reith told Radio New Zealand.

The students planned to boycott the ban and continue to attend classes.

Prof Willis said the university had a statutory duty to provide a safe environment for all its students and employees.

“We view these students’ conduct very seriously.”

The decision on penalty had been made after they failed to attend a disciplinary meeting to discuss their conduct, she said.

The students could appeal the decision and would be able to re-enrol for the second trimester starting on July 13.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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New Zealand: Police Picture of Siege Now Complete

Police recovered 127 spent cartridges scattered around the house and yard. They had been fired from every room.

A fear of prison and losing his house, with paranoid delusions that police were spying on him, drove Jan Molenaar to open fire on officers, the police investigation has found.

Police yesterday finished the scene examination of the bullet-ridden Chaucer Rd house where the 51-year-old killed himself after a 48-hour armed siege that left one policeman dead and two others and a civilian critically injured.

Detective Superintendent Rod Drew said no one else would be charged in relation to the attack and the picture of what had happened was now complete.

“The picture is one of a preconceived attack by the gunman alone.”

Molenaar had been growing and dealing cannabis for more than 10 years, Mr Drew said.

“When the cannabis cultivation and dealing were discovered by the police officers that morning, he feared confiscation of his house and imprisonment.

“He therefore determined to ‘go out fighting’ rather than permit that possibility.”

It appeared this and his erroneous belief that police had been spying on him had created a situation in his mind that did not exist and led to the sudden and unprovoked attack, Mr Drew said.

There was no evidence anyone else was involved, but people had known Molenaar had illegal firearms and he had discussed with friends what he would do if police caught him.

“Tragically, they did not pass that information on. If they had, perhaps this tragedy might have been avoided.”

None of these people was criminally liable, Mr Drew said.

Police found 127 spent cartridges scattered around the Chaucer Rd house and yard.

They had been fired from every room, but mostly from the entrance-way, lounge and the master bedroom where Molenaar had barricaded himself. He had knocked holes through the walls of the master bedroom so he could fire into other rooms from his stronghold, Mr Drew said.

Police also found about 2000 live rounds, 10 fully loaded spare magazines and improvised explosive devices.

Three of the weapons had been stolen in burglaries in Feilding, Napier and Taihape between 2003 and 2008 and police would continue to investigate the origins of the others, Mr Drew said.

Molenaar’s partner, Delwyn Keefe, 43, returned to the Chaucer Rd home on Wednesday.

She was upset when she arrived there about 2pm, and told media to get off the property, Hawke’s Bay Today reported. Friends and family supported her as she entered the house and they brought food, cleaning products and blankets.

A relative of Molenaar told the newspaper that tradespeople had offered to help restore the house and a friend of the couple had offered to paint the interior.

The family planned to conduct a cleansing ceremony. “It’s about getting back to reality, back to life and trying to deal with the pain,” the relative said.

The siege started on May 7 after police went to Molenaar’s house to serve a cannabis search warrant.

Molenaar shot and killed Senior Constable Len Snee and injured Senior Constables Grant Diver and Bruce Miller.

He also shot Leonard Holmwood, a friend and neighbour.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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70% of Britons Want Big Cuts in the Rate of Immigration

Seven out of ten adults want a massive cut in immigration, a poll has revealed.

The YouGov survey found that just one person in 20 supports the current record levels, which have boosted Britain’s population by 300,000 a year over the past five years.

The findings suggest immigration could become a significant election issue and sparked warnings that voters could turn to extremist parties if mainstream politicians fail to acknowledge their concerns.

The poll, commissioned by MigrationWatch for the Cross Party Group on Balanced Migration, was published on the eve of the release of immigration figures today.

It found that 79 per cent of people were concerned or very concerned about immigration. Seventy per cent of the 2,072 respondents favoured cutting levels by 80 per cent or more.

Of those, 17 per cent said net immigration should be brought below 50,000 a year — a level last seen in the early 1990s.

Another 39 per cent favoured a policy of zero net immigration, with the numbers settling in the UK matching the numbers emigrating. Sixteen per cent said the number of immigrants should be lower than those leaving.

Just over half of more affluent voters — ABC1s — wanted either zero or negative net immigration, while 63 per cent of 18 to 34-year-olds favoured a figure below 50,000.

Home Office ministers say their new points-based immigration system represents a tough crackdown.

But critics say it will have little effect, especially as Britain has no control over the numbers arriving from EU states, including eastern Europe.

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Britain’s Biggest Immigration Wave Ends

[Comment from Tuan Jim: Great comments at the bottom of this article.]

The biggest wave of immigration in British history appears to be at an end, according to official figures published yesterday.

Since 2004 almost a million eastern Europeans have arrived in the country since Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia joined the EU.

But the latest figures show that the number of migrants returning home to eastern Europe almost doubled last year. At the same time, the number of east Europeans registering for work in the UK continued to fall with the recession and lack of jobs taking hold.

The figures from the Office for National Statistics confirm a trend that became evident almost 12 months ago as a result of other EU states easing restrictions on migrants right to work.

The number of east European migrants given the right to work under the official government registration scheme fell to 133,000 in the year to the end of March — a 36 per cent drop on the year ending in March 2008.

Long term emigration from the country also increased last year. Provisional figures on people emigrating for more than a year show that the number of non-UK citizens leaving the country increased by 30 per cent in the year to the end of September 2008. Overall net immigration was down to 147,000 — down from highs of over 200,000 in 2005.

The figures also show a jump in asylum applications which rose by 27 per cent in the first three months of the year to 8,380 compared with the same period in 2008.

The Government is also still struggling to increase the removals of illegal immigrants and asylum-seekers from the country.

In the first quarter of this year the number removed or leaving voluntarily was six per cent fewer than in the same period last year. There was also a fall of seven per cent in the number of failed asylum seekers removed from the country.

A spokesman for the Institure for Public Policy Research said: “After years of rising net migration into the UK, the trend is going into reverse.

“It’s striking that the great influx of Eastern Europeans of the last five years is tailing off dramatically.”

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Denmark: PM: No Change to Iraqi Asylum Agreement

Prime Minister Rasmussen has said now that a repatriation agreement is in place with rejected Iraqi asylum seekers will be sent home

Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen has addressed the issue of the Iraqi refugees denied asylum who are currently holed up in a Copenhagen church as they face forced repatriation to Iraq.

Following the announcement by church authorities that they would allow the 50 or so Iraqis to stay in Brorsons Church in the Nørrebro district until at least August, the prime minister waded into the ongoing debate.

‘The authorities will respond to the rejected asylum seekers in exactly the same way as if they were somewhere other than in a church,’ said Rasmussen during his weekly press conference yesterday. Rasmussen said that as a result of the repatriation agreement reached with the Iraqi government, the way has been cleared to send home 282 failed asylum applicants, whose cases have been settled by the Refugee Appeals Board.

Birthe Rønn Hornbech, the immigration minister, continued to remain firm on the issue and said yesterday that the police can go into the church if necessary to remove the Iraqis, but she hoped it would not come to that.

Chief Superintendent Per Larsen of the Copenhagen Police told public broadcaster DR that they were not thrilled or used to the idea of having to carry out policing within a church, but would do so if they had to.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Finland to Start Repatriating Iraqi Asylum Seekers

All but four provinces in Iraq considered safe

Finland is planning to start sending Iraqi asylum seekers back to their home country. According to the Finnish Immigration Service, the security situation in Iraq has improved significantly.

Last year 1,255 Iraqis sought asylum in Finland, which is more than from any other country. With very few exceptions, Finland has not expelled Iraqis.

Iraqis in exile have started going back home. The Finnish Immigration Service notes that acts of terror by the Iraqi al-Qaeda and other extremist groups can no longer be seen to pose a threat to the government, and that the capabilities of the country’s security forces are growing stronger all the time.

Under the new policy put in place by the Immigration Service, those from the south of Iraq and the capital Baghdad are no longer seen to be in need of special protection simply by virtue of their area of origin. Their asylum requests will be rejected, and they will be sent back to Iraq, unless they can demonstrate some other grounds for a residence permit.

The security situation of the autonomous Kurdish area in the north of Iraq has remained stable, and asylum seekers from there can also be sent back, under the new Finnish policy.

However, the situation in four provinces of Central Iraq, Nineve, Salah al-Din, Kirkuk, and Dijala remains unstable, preventing a secure return home for asylum seekers from those areas.

The Immigration Service is continuing to grant residence permits to asylum seekers from those areas, according to instructions from the UNHCR.

The Immigration Service plans to use a language analysis on asylum seekers claiming to be from the four provinces as a way to help determine if these provinces really are their place of origin.

So far this year nearly 700 asylum seekers have arrived in Finland from Iraq.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Italy: Immigrants — Rotondi: Government is Acting Responsibly

(AGI) — Rome, 11 May. — “This government aims to increase security and create a new immigration policy, taking a consistent and responsible approach,” said a statement by Gianfranco Rotondi, the Minister for Government Policy, “To Europe,” he added, “We want to say that solidarity means allowing those who really need to be here and those who have the right to be here into Italy, rather than adding to the ranks of the criminal organisations and increasing the number of poor people.”

— Hat tip: Insubria

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New Zealand: Kiwi ‘Buddies’ for Asian Migrants

Auckland City Council will be getting into social networking when it launches a pilot project tomorrow to “buddy up” Chinese-speaking immigrants with Kiwis living in the central city area.

The project, Come Over to Our Place, aims to overcome shyness and the fear of the unknown — identified as barriers that are preventing people from meeting those from different cultural backgrounds in a study by the Office of Ethnic Affairs.

“New migrants often have good connections with their own ethnic or cultural communities, but it can be challenging to create these within the broader community,” said Nandita Mathur, the city council’s community services manager.

“There are often cultural and linguistic barriers for many New Zealanders both from migrant communities and more established groups who want to mix socially with people from different cultural backgrounds.

“Successful settlement into New Zealand society is a two-way process with benefits for both migrant communities and for those who already live here,” Mrs Mathur said.

According to the 2006 Census, 24.4 per cent of people living in Auckland City are Asian and 9.8 per cent speak Chinese.

Chinese are the largest Asian ethnic group with 98,390 people identifying themselves as belonging, and the combined total of speakers of Chinese languages makes it the most common language spoken after English.

The project will pair people up for a range of social activities, such as Chinese cooking classes and creative sessions at Artstation.

Participants will spend about three hours every week with their buddy learning about each other’s culture for a seven-week period.

“Many people living in large cities experience a sense of isolation and marginalisation,” Mrs Mathur said. “This experience can be acute for migrants. This project aims to provide an accessible way for the everyday person to extend the hand of friendship and enjoy the many gifts that come with cross-cultural sharing.”

Participants will share their experiences through photographs, pictures and, possibly, each other’s languages at the end of the project.

An Asia New Zealand Foundation study last year found that the number of New Zealanders who had personal involvement with people from Asia was increasing, but those who had “hardly any” contact with Asians felt significantly cooler towards them.

The study, New Zealanders’ Perceptions of Asia, found almost six in 10 (58 per cent) said they had “a lot” or “a fair amount” of personal involvement with Asians, up from the 2007 result of 48 per cent.

Primary points of contact include shopping, business, friends, the neighbourhood or community and schools and education.

“Generally, results over time indicate that personal involvement with Asian people has been steadily increasing since 1998.”

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Switzerland: Bern Awaits More Tamil Refugees From Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka has announced an end to its decades-long conflict, yet Swiss officials are expecting the number of asylum seekers from Sri Lanka to increase this year. The country has long been a destination for Tamil refugees and many of the Swiss Tamil community have relatives in the north of Sri Lanka. But concerns have been raised that people will not be able to flee.

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared his country “liberated” from the Tamil Tigers on Tuesday, after a 26-year-long conflict between the government and the rebel group.

The announcement came one day after the military said that it had killed Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. Around 70,000 people are thought to have died during the violence, which saw rebels fighting for an independent homeland in the north.

In a statement the Swiss government said that it welcomed the end of the armed conflict in northern Sri Lanka and called on the parties to engage in political dialogue.

It added the Sri Lankan government should allow humanitarian aid through to the population.

The conflict has already had an effect on asylum requests from Sri Lanka. Requests to Switzerland last year rose to 1,282, compared with 636 in 2007, according to the Federal Migration Office.

Spokesman Jonas Montani said that the trend should continue, but that the number of refugees was not “skyrocketing”.

Each application would be considered carefully. “We are not sending anybody back into a conflict zone,” he said.

A report by the Federal Police Office on Tuesday observed that a worsening of the conflicts in Sri Lanka, as well as Turkey and Iraq had increased the danger of extremist violence in Switzerland.

No peace yet For its part, the non-governmental Swiss Refugee Council said that although the violence had ended in Sri Lanka, peace was still far away. It said that more than 180,000 people had fled their homes in the north.

“Our main concern is that a kind of revenge could happen. Refugees are now in camps, which are more prisons than camps and they will be screened to look for Tamil Tiger officials,” the refugee council’s Rainer Mattern told swissinfo.ch.

Most people are not able to leave the north. “But I think in other parts of Sri Lanka the search for Tamil Tigers will go on and I could imagine that people who are able to flee will leave and come to Switzerland and other countries,” he said.

The Refugee Council is calling on the Swiss authorities to wait with their decisions on new applicants and to stop forcible returns, while the situation is so severe and unclear. “People who are at risk should be protected,” Mattern said.

Tamil community concerns Among the Swiss Tamil community itself concern is running high.

“Tamils in Switzerland are worried about relatives living there, and already have relatives who have been killed,” community leader Anton Ponrajah told swissinfo.ch.

Ponrajah, the administrative director of the Centre for Just Peace and Democracy in Lucerne, said that the situation in the north of Sri Lanka was “desperate”.

But he was sceptical about the Sri Lankan president’s speech in which he made overtures towards the Tamil minority for a peaceful future.

“We as Tamils living in Switzerland will never believe that this government will deliver any political package,” said Ponrajah.

Lathan Suntharalingam, a Lucerne local politician of Tamil origin, said he was disappointed that the international community had not intervened in a conflict in which the Geneva Conventions had been broken by both sides and so many civilians affected.

Requests for help He said that he had received a lot of phone calls from the Tamil community asking for help.

Tamils have been coming to Switzerland since 1970s. They are known to be hardworking and integrated into the labour market, but many have lowly jobs. There is still a strong community feeling.

Suntharalingam said that new Tamil refugees would probably be in a state of shock after losing their political voice with the death of the Tamil leader, whose group they felt had mostly represented them for a long time.

But he said that they would quickly adapt to life in Switzerland and on a political level, would look to the international community.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

[Return to headlines]

UAE: HRW, Thousands of Workers Exploited

(ANSAmed) — ROME, MAY 19 — Thousands of foreign workers are victims of abuse in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), reported the international organisation for the defence of human rights, Human Rights Watch, in a report issued today in Abu Dhabi. Beginning with the Saadiyat, an island just off of Abu Dhabi, case, which should soon become an international tourist destination and host, among other institutions, branches of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums, the HRW report , entitled “The island of happiness” from the name chosen by the government for the project, documents a series of abuses which were reportedly carried out at the expense of foreign workers. HRW highlighted that, even if in recent years the local government has acted to improve living conditions and ensure timely payment of salaries, exploiting workers remains commonplace. Problems include overly long shifts and extreme climactic conditions, low pay, excessive obligations to the employer, confiscation of passports, crowded housing and inadequate or inexistent health care. The international institutions that are planning to open establishments on the island should obtain soon, HWR advised, stronger guarantees on the respect of fundamental workers rights from the construction companies involved in their projects. “These international institutions must show that they will not tolerate the exploitation of the immigrant workforce and that they will not benefit from it”, Sarah Leah Whitson, director of Human Rights Watch in the Middle East and North Africa, said. Among the various institutions contacted by HRW, the organisation reported, only the French institution (responsible for the opening of the Abu Dhabi branch of the Louvre in 2013) acted to independently monitor the respect of workers who are employed on the projects’ rights. The government of Abu Dhabi hopes to transform the island of Saadiyat into an elite tourist destination with four museums and a theatre and dance centre designed by the world’s must famous architectural firms, as well as a New York University campus, golf courses and luxury homes and hotels. (ANSAmed).

2009-05-19 13:55

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

UK: Home Secretary Announces Gurkhas Can Stay in Britain

All Gurkha veterans who served in the British Army before 1997 will be allowed to settle in Britain, Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, said today.

The announcement was the culmination of a long and hard fought campaign by the veterans, which saw the Government suffer a major defeat in the Commons last month.

Joanna Lumley, the actress who has championed the cause of the Gurkha soldiers, paid tribute to Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, who she said was a “brave man who has made today a brave decision on behalf of the bravest of the brave”.

She choked back tears as she spoke, adding: “A great injustice has been righted. The Gurkhas are coming home.”

She then joined hundreds of former Gurkhas and supporters in screaming their famous battle cry “Ayo Gurkhali”, meaning “the Gurkhas are coming”.

Earlier in the Commons, Ms Smith had announced changes which will allow retired servicemen with four years’ service to move to this country.

She said: “Generations of Gurkhas have served the United Kingdom with great courage, sacrifice and distinction and they continue to make a vital and valued contribution to our operations around the world.

“We respect the will of the House of Commons on this issue and that is why I have now announced a new policy, the basis of which we have worked on with the Home Affairs Select Committee and Gurkha representatives.

“This means we can now welcome any Gurkha who has served for four years or more to settle in the UK.”

The campaign stemmed from a decision in October 2004, when the UK decided that current serving Gurkha soldiers would have the right to stay in the UK after four years service in the Army. But the rule would not apply to veterans who served before July 1997 when their base moved from Hong Kong to Kent.

The Gurkhas demanded all retired soldiers be given equal treatment. They were furious that thousands who left the service before 1997 were refused settlement rights.

The Government’s new stance was praised by opponents.

Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg, whose Commons motion led directly to the u-turn today, said: “I am absolutely thrilled that the Gurkhas have finally been given justice.

“This is a great victory for the Gurkhas and for everyone who has campaigned on their behalf.

“Gordon Brown has finally woken up to the principle that people across Britain understand instinctively: if someone is prepared to die for this country, they must be allowed to live in it.

“Tragically this decision will come too late for many of those brave Gurkhas who have been waiting so long to see justice done.

“Gordon Brown’s claim of a ‘moral compass’ rings hollow when, on every issue from Gurkhas to expenses, he has to be dragged every inch of the way towards doing the right thing.”

Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said: “This has been a great victory for Joanna Lumley and her well-run campaign that has publicly embarrassed Ministers and has reminded us all of the role that the Gurkhas have played in helping defend this country over the centuries.

“First and foremost this case was about basic decency. People from around the world have come to live in this country in the past decade.

“There was never a justification to deny that right to a group of people who have long lived in the nation’s affections, and who have risked and often given their lives for its protection.

“It is just a shame that the Government had to be dragged kicking and screaming through the courts and then through the crowds of Gurkhas outside parliament before it finally did the right thing.”

Campaigners for the veterans had already been celebrating after sources close to the Prime Minister signalled they would all be given the right to live in Britain.

Mr Brown previously told the House of Commons he had a “great deal of sympathy and support” for the Gurkhas, saying: “I believe it is possible for us to honour our commitment to the Gurkhas and to do so in a way that protects the public finances.”

The Government suffered a major defeat on the issue in the Commons last month after being accused of a “betrayal” after revised rules pronounced that, of the pre-1997 Gurkhas, only officers and those injured in battle or given medals will be allowed to stay.

Following the Commons drubbing, the Prime Minister agreed to meet Ms Lumley to discuss the issue.

She then cornered Immigration Minister Phil Woolas in a TV studio after a group of veterans were sent letters telling them their applications had been rejected.

Earlier this week, Home Office and Ministry of Defence officials met Gurkha groups at talks hosted by the Home Affairs Committee.

Afterwards the committee wrote to the Prime Minister asking for all Gurkhas to be given citizenship rights.

Labour MP Martin Salter, who sits on the committee and chaired a group of MPs calling for Gurkha rights, said: “This has been a long and brilliantly fought campaign both inside and outside parliament.

“It has encapsulated the British sense of fair play and forced the Government to look again at a policy that was blatantly discriminatory.”

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

[Return to headlines]

UK: Sham Colleges Open Doors to Pakistani Terror Suspects

Thousands of young Pakistanis exploited a hole in Britain’s immigration defences to enrol as students at a network of sham colleges, The Times can reveal.

The gateway, opened by fraudsters who have earned millions from the scam, has allowed in hundreds of men from a region of Pakistan that is the militant heartland of al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taleban.

Eight of the terror suspects arrested last month in Manchester and Liverpool were on the books of one college.It had three small classrooms and three teachers for the 1,797 students on its books. Another college claimed to have 150 students but secretly enrolled 1,178 and offered places to a further 1,575 overseas applicants, 906 of them in Pakistan.

The investigation has also revealed:

• those running the scam charged at least £1,000 for admission places and fake diplomas. They created their own university to issue bogus degrees;
• they also charged £2,500 for false attendance records, diplomas and degrees that were used to extend the students’ stay in Britain;
• one wealthy associate, Mir Ahmad, linked to two murders in Pakistan, was arrested yesterday after The Times gave the Home Office a dossier implicating two of the colleges.

The Times has uncovered close ties between 11 colleges in London, Manchester and Bradford, all formed in the past five years and controlled by three young Pakistani businessmen.

Each of the three men entered the country on a student visa. One has fled to Pakistan after earning an estimated £6 million from the scam. Fayaz Ali Khan and another man are in the UK.

All but two of the ten students arrested last month over an alleged al-Qaeda bomb plot were enrolled over an 11-month period at Manchester College of Professional Studies. Two Liverpool universities admitted last night that they had given places to four of them, who had used a diploma from the college when they applied.

The massive fraud has fuelled a surge in student arrivals from Pakistan, which the Prime Minister has identified as the birthplace of two thirds of terrorist plots in the UK.Between 2002 and 2007, the number of Pakistani nationals with permission to enter or remain in the UK as students jumped from 7,975 to 26,935.

Manchester College of Professional Studies, set up in 2006, sold places to more than 1,000 students, including hundreds of men from North West Frontier Province, where a battle is raging between Taleban fighters and the Pakistani Army. Others came from mountainous tribal areas near the Afghan border, described by President Obama as “the most dangerous place in the world”.

The college was removed from an official government register of education providers last summer but those who ran it have set up other colleges.

Tougher rules on the admission of international students, introduced last month by the UK Border Agency, aim to weed out bogus colleges and close the immigration loophole. The Times has evidence, however, that those involved in some abuses are already seeking to exploit the new system.

Phil Woolas, the Immigration Minister, said last night: “The information provided by The Times has been passed on to the UK Border Agency, which is investigating.”

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

[Return to headlines]

Angel or Demon? in the Vatican, Obama is Both

“L’Osservatore Romano” praises him. Two prominent scholars of the pontifical academy of social sciences rail against him. The complete text of the accusation, signed by Michel Schooyans in conjunction with the archbishop of Dijon, Roland Minnerath

by Sandro Magister

ROME, May 8, 2009 — At the end of April, “L’Osservatore Romano” surprised everyone a little with the admiration it expressed for Barack Obama after his first hundred days as president of the United States. It was wide-ranging admiration: not only for his strategy in international politics, but also on ethical questions “that are very pressing for the Catholic bishops.”

The amazement arose from the contrast between the Olympic calm of the Vatican newspaper — according to which Obama’s first hundred days not only “did not shake the world,” but even gave encouraging signs “in support of motherhood” — and the outspoken criticism of Obama on the part of a growing number of American faithful and bishops, led by Cardinal Francis E. George, archbishop of Chicago and president of the United States episcopal conference.

The criticisms concern the measures that have been taken or announced by the new president in regard to unborn life, as well as the decision of the Catholic university of Notre Dame to give Obama a degree “honoris causa”on May 17: many view this honor as unjustifiable, given the new president’s pro-abortion positions.

An important part in the latest controversy was played by Mary Ann Glendon, a very prominent Catholic scholar and a professor of law at Harvard University — where her students included Obama himself — and the United States ambassador to the Holy See during the last part of the Bush administration. Glendon, who is staunchly “pro-life,” refused to receive an award from Notre Dame University on the same day on which Obama will be given his honorary degree. And she explained her refusal in a letter to the president of Notre Dame, Fr. John I. Jenkins, in which she says she is “dismayed” by the Catholic institution’s decision to honor someone who acts “in defiance of our fundamental moral principles.”…

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

As most readers know, Dymphna got bored while I was away and decided to entertain herself by pitching headlong down the front stairs.

Strangely enough, even though she landed on the same arm that sustained the rotator cuff tear two years ago, she didn’t reactivate that particular injury. Instead she managed to create an entirely new damage zone in her ribcage.

For a while she thought she was going to be all right, but then she made the mistake of resuming her exercises, which brought on agonizing pain in the injured area.

We spent a while at the clinic this afternoon having her checked out. The doctor concluded that she has most likely bruised the ribs rather than broken them, and also hurt the adjacent muscles. The new meds have revived her a bit, and she’s starting to crack jokes instead of her ribs.

She said: “Tell them I told the doc I didn’t need X-rays, I needed an IQ test for starting back on my exercises so soon after the injury.”

And: “Tell them that doubling the drugs has made me even more random, but that it has the blessing of making me not care.”

So that’s why posting has been light. The rest of my reports on Copenhagen will be delayed until at least tomorrow.

[Post ends here]

Fjordman just sent us the following compilation on Kosovo.

No going back for Kosovo, says US

US Vice-President Joe Biden has told Kosovo’s parliament its independence is “absolutely irreversible” and the only viable option for regional stability. “The success of an independent Kosovo is a priority for our administration,” Mr Biden said in a speech that received several standing ovations from MPs. Earlier, he received an enthusiastic welcome from crowds of ethnic Albanians in the capital, Pristina. However, the Serb minority said it was planning to hold anti-US protests. The US played a leading role in the Nato bombing campaign which expelled Serbian forces from Kosovo a decade ago.

Comment from Fjordman:

Mr. Biden and American authorities should read the work of the brilliant Serb American author Serge Trifkovic, for instance his book Defeating Jihad. They could also read my essay Why We Should Oppose an Independent Kosovo or the essay Fourteen Centuries of War Against European Civilization, which is included in my book Defeating Eurabia. Some other alternative views:
– – – – – – – – –
Serbia, Israel, and the Muslim Challenge, by Raphael Israeli

Palestine and Kosovo must be seen in the context of the third invasion of Islam into Europe. The first invasion in the 8th century had taken Europe by assault from the southwest, colonized the Iberian Peninsula and attempted to take over Gallic France until it was arrested by Charles Martel in 732. The Spanish reconquista which took centuries to reclaim that land, was not completed before the end of the 15th century, at the very same time that the second invasion of the Ottomans, this time from the south-east, swept through the Balkans and eventually made headway to the gates of Vienna. But that invasion, too, was finally repulsed. The retrieval of the lands once ruled by Islam (Andalusia, Palestine, the Balkans and Kashmir) is a matter of the highest priority from the Islamic point of view. Attacking India or the European Union by Islam outright is too risky. Therefore attention is centered on the easier targets of Palestine and the Balkans, with Andalusia, Sicily and Kashmir in the second stage. For the rest of Europe a new tactic of soft invasion, by immigration and demographic explosion, has already yielded impressive results: within one generation, 30 million Muslims have taken a foothold in Europe. The active help the disciples of the Prophet receive from the West in the Balkans is an Allah-sent bonus that they had never dreamt of. The declaration Kosovo’s ‘independence’ in early 2008, which was recognized by the United States and most West Europeans, has been the most dramatic manifestation of this Western capitulation in the face of Islamic aggression in the heart of Europe.

Here is a quote from Professor Raphael Israeli’s well-researched book The Islamic Challenge in Europe:

After the fall of Communism in Albania, the new regime recognized, in 1991, the self-declared Republic of Kosovo, and its head, Ibrahim Rugova, opened an office in Tirana. The disintegration of Yugoslavia by necessity revived the old dreams of the Greater Albania, which now eyed not only Kosovo, but also parts of Macedonia, Greece, Serbia and Montenegro where an Albanian population had settled over the years. The rising of Muslim consciousness in the Balkans, after the Bosnian precedent, and the spreading of the Izetbegovic doctrine, now acts as a catalyst to draw together, under the combined banners of Greater Albania and Islam, all the Albanian populations of that region. In 1992 Albania joined the Conference of Islamic Countries, and it has been working to attract support by other Islamic countries to the Greater Albania plan, actually presenting itself as “the shield of Islam” in the Balkans. It has been noted that while the Albanian demographic explosion in Kosovo, which has allowed them to predominate and demand secession, has not taken place in Albania itself, perhaps an indication, as in Palestine and Bosnia, that the ‘battle of the womb’ heralded by nationalists and Muslim fundamentalists, is not merely a natural growth but may be also politically motivated.

We’ve posted many times in this space about Jamaat ul-Fuqra, the terrorist organization that is headed by a sheikh in Pakistan and has rural compounds all over the United States. JuF recruits most of its members while they are in prison, and sends them out to live in its compounds upon their release.

A similar process seems to have been at work in yesterday’s Bronx terror-bombing plot. The would-be terrorists were allegedly converted to Islam in prison, and decided to become free-lance mujahideen when they got out. According to The New York Daily News:

FBI Arrest Four in Alleged Plot to Bomb Bronx Synagogues, Shoot Down Plane

The FBI and NYPD busted a four-man homegrown terror cell Wednesday night that was plotting to blow up two Bronx synagogues while simultaneously shooting a plane out of the sky, sources told the Daily News.

The idea was to create a “fireball that would make the country gasp,” one law enforcement said.

Little did they know the plastic explosives packed into their car bombs and the plane-downing Stinger missile in their backseat were all phony — supplied by undercover agents posing as Pakistani militants linked to Al Qaeda.

[…]

The suspects — three U.S.-born citizens and one Haitian immigrant — at least three of whom were said to be jailhouse converts to Islam, were angry about the deaths of Muslims in Afghanistan, sources told The News.

“They wanted to make a statement,” a law enforcement source said. “They were filled with rage and wanted to take it out on what they considered the source of all problems in America — the Jews.”

So American Jews were responsible for the death of Muslims in Afghanistan? What planet does this guy live on?

American Jews are over-represented in various “peace” organizations, and voted overwhelmingly for political candidates who opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, especially Barack Hussein Obama. Liberal American Jews should be counted as Islam’s best friends. But no, somehow they are responsible for everything bad that happens to Muslims.

The article continues:
– – – – – – – – –

The group’s alleged ringleader, James Cromitie, according to the complaint, discussed targets with an undercover agent. “The best target [the World Trade Center] was hit already,” he allegedly told the agent. Later, he rejoiced in a terrorist attack on a synagogue.

“I hate those motherf——-s, those f—-ing Jewish bastards…. I would like to get [destroy] a synagogue.”

The men allegedly parked car bombs wired to cell phones outside the Riverdale Temple and nearby Riverdale Jewish Center. They were also heading to Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, Orange County, when the law swooped in on them.

Sources said their plan was to shoot down a cargo plane headed to Iraq or Afghanistan with a surface-to-air guided missile while simultaneously calling the cell phones and blowing up the Riverdale synagogues.

Sources said the four men were arrested after a year-long investigation that began when an informant connected to a mosque in Newburgh said he knew men who wanted to buy explosives.

FBI agents supplied them with what they billed as C-4 plastic explosives and a Stinger missile.

The weaponry was all phony.

Here’s the obligatory disclaimer that the incident was connected in any way to terrorism, this time coming from the mouth of Sen. Chuck Schumer:

“If there can be any good news from this terror scare it’s that this group was relatively unsophisticated, penetrated early, and not connected to another terrorist group,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

I beg to disagree with Sen. Schumer. This incident was very much connected with “another terrorist group”: the group comprising millions of people who read and believe in the Koran, the Ahadith, and the Sunna.

These jailbirds converted to Islam, and suddenly they were anxious to obtain high explosives and advanced weaponry so that they could kill Jews and American soldiers. That’s the connection.

They went looking for a terrorist group. We’re all lucky that they were too dumb to detect the fact that they were being set up by the FBI, but they were still domestic terrorists who had already joined the world’s largest terrorist group — Islam.

Needless to say, CAIR’s greatest concern is that this incident might once again give Americans the wrong idea about Islam. According to The New York Times:

Also on Thursday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil liberties organization for Muslim Americans, urged the public not to link the case with mainstream Islam.

But even CAIR had to acknowledge that a version of Islam was involved in this conspiracy. And I’ve got some news for them: this is mainstream Islam.

When any fervent believer consults his Koran and discusses his obligations with devout fellow Muslims, violent jihad is the inevitable result.

He doesn’t have to join Al Qaeda to realize his destiny.

Hat tip: REP.

I didn’t try to go back and reclaim material from the tips that came while I was gone. There’s just too much material. But everything that came in today was put to use.

Notice all the stories about Joe Biden’s visit to the Balkans. If I have time, I’ll blog about it tomorrow.

Thanks to AG, Babs, C. Cantoni, heroyalwhyness, Insubria, JD, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
– – – – – – – – –

	USA
	Swine Flu Martial Law Bill Clears Massachusetts Senate
	Europe and the EU
	Eurabia Has a Capital: Rotterdam
	Italy: Milan Judge Says CIA Trial Continues
	Skelton: Stop Bilderberg’s Nightmare Future at All Costs
	Spain: Police Arrest 17 Al-Qaeda Suspects in North
	UK Labour Party Faithful Want Brown to Quit -Poll
	UK: 1300 Girls Harmed by HPV Vaccine
	UK: MI5 ‘Overstretched’ Before 2005 Bombings
	Balkans
	Balkans: US, Biden on Mission for Dialogue With Belgrade
	Biden Warns Bosnians About ‘Old Patterns’
	Vice President Biden Offers Serbia ‘New’ Relations
	VP Biden Slams Bosnian Leaders Over Tensions
	North Africa
	Cinema: Egypt, History of Muslim Brotherhood Becomes TV Show
	Egypt: Court’s Approval Revokes Israeli Spouse Citizenships
	Israel and the Palestinians
	Audio: MP3 Interview With Aaron Klein — Part 1
	Audio: MP3 Interview With Aaron Klein — Part 2
	First Details of Obama Peace Plan in Israeli Press
	Obama’s Peace Plan ‘Misleading’, Says Hamas Spokesman
	Middle East
	Frattini to Press Iran on Afpak
	Obama’s Stance on Two-State Solution Heartens EU
	Russia-Syria: MiG Supply Cancelled for Political Reasons
	Russia
	Big Names and Bucks Back Nuclear ‘Bank’
	Russian Commission to Guard Against False History
	South Asia
	Another Blow to Indonesia Aviation
	Pakistan: Clinton Says Policy in Last 30 Years ‘Incoherent’
	Pakistan: Army and Taliban Battle it Out in “The Most Dangerous Nation in the World”
	Swat Valley: Two Million Refugees on the Run, as Caritas Pakistan Provides Assistance
	Australia — Pacific
	Doctor Uses Household Drill to Bore Into Boy’s Skull to Save His Life After Accident Swelled Brain
	Sudanese Youths in Court Over Cop Attack at Rugby Union Club
	Immigration
	Italy Hands Over 3 Patrol Boats to Libya
	General
	Soy Protein Used in “Natural” Foods Bathed in Toxic Solvent Hexane
	UK: MI5 Had 7/7 Ringleader on ‘Radar’ 12 Times… But MPs’ Report Still Fails to Point the Finger

Swine Flu Martial Law Bill Clears Massachusetts Senate

It took corporate media swine flu hysteria to ram through a martial law bill in Massachusetts. S18 gives the Governor the power to authorize the deployment and use of force to distribute supplies and materials and local authorities will be allowed to enter private residences for investigation and to quarantine individuals.

[Return to headlines]

Eurabia Has a Capital: Rotterdam

Here entire neighborhoods look like the Middle East, women walk around veiled, the mayor is a Muslim, sharia law is applied in the courts and the theaters. An extensive report from the most Islamized city in Europe

by Sandro Magister

ROME, May 19, 2009 — One of the most indisputable results of Benedict XVI’s trip to the Holy Land was the improvement in relations with Islam. The three days he spent in Jordan, and then, in Jerusalem, the visit to the Dome of the Mosque, spread an image among the Muslim general public — to an extent never before seen — of a pope as a friend, surrounded by Islamic leaders happy to welcome him and work together with him for the good of the human family.

But just as indisputable is the distance between this image and the harsh reality of the facts. Not only in countries under Muslim regimes, but also where the followers of Mohammed are in the minority, for example in Europe.

In 2002, the scholar Bat Ye’or, a British citizen born in Egypt and a specialist in the history of the Christian and Jewish minorities in Muslim countries — called the “dhimmi” — coined the term “Eurabia” to describe the fate toward which Europe is moving. It is a fate of submission to Islam, of “dhimmitude.”

Oriana Fallaci used the word “Eurabia” in her writings, and gave it worldwide resonance. On August 1, 2005, Benedict XVI received Fallaci in a private audience at Castel Gandolfo. She rejected dialogue with Islam; he was in favor of it, and still is. But they agreed — as Fallaci later said — in identifying the “self-hatred” that Europe demonstrates, its spiritual vacuum, its loss of identity, precisely when the immigrants of Islamic faith are increasing within it.

Holland is an extraordinary test case. It is the country in which individual license is the most extensive — to the point of permitting euthanasia on children — in which the Christian identity is most faded, in which the Moslem presence is growing most boldly.

Here, multiculturalism is the rule. But the exceptions are dramatic: from the killing of the anti-Islamist political leader Pim Fortuyn to the persecution of the Somali dissident Ayaan Hirsi Ali to the murder of the director Theo Van Gogh, condemned to death for his film “Submission,” a denunciation of the crimes of Muslim theocracy. Fortuyn’s successor, Geert Wilders, has lived under 24-hour police protection for six years.

There is one city in Holland where this new reality can be seen with the naked eye, more than anywhere else. Here, entire neighborhoods look as if they have been lifted from the Middle East, here stand the largest mosques in Europe, here parts of sharia law are applied in the courts and theaters, here many of the women go around veiled, here the mayor is a Muslim, the son of an imam.

This city is Rotterdam, Holland’s second largest city by population, and the largest port in Europe by cargo volume.

The following is a report on Rotterdam published in the Italian newspaper “il Foglio” on May 14, 2009, the second in a major seven-part survey on Holland.

The author, Giulio Meotti, also writes for the “Wall Street Journal.” Next September, his book-length survey on Israel will be published.

The photo above is entitled “Muslim women in Rotterdam.” It is from an exhibition in 2008 by the Dutch photographers Ari Versluis and Ellie Uyttenbroek.

In the casbah of Rotterdam

by Giulio Meotti

In Feyenoord, veiled women can be seen everywhere, darting like a flash through the streets of the neighborhood. They avoid any sort of contact, even eye contact, especially with men. Feyenoord is the size of a city, and there are seventy nationalities coexisting there. It is an area that lives on subsidies and residential construction, and it is here that it is most obvious that Holland — with all of its rules against discrimination and all of its moral indignation — is a completely segregated society. Rotterdam is new, having been bombed twice by the Luftwaffe during the second world war. Like Amsterdam, it is below sea level, but unlike the capital it does not enjoy an image of reckless abandon. In Rotterdam, it is the Arab shops selling halal food that dominate the cityscape, not the neon lights of the prostitutes. Everywhere are casbah-cafes, travel agencies offering flights to Rabat and Casablanca, posters expressing solidarity with Hamas, or offering affordable Dutch language lessons.

It is the second-largest city in the country, a poor city, but also the economic engine with its huge port, the most important in Europe. Most of the population are immigrants, and the city has the tallest and most imposing mosque in Europe. Sixty percent of the foreigners who arrive in Holland come here to live. The most striking thing when one arrives in the city by train are the enormous and fascinating mosques framed by the vibrant green, luxuriant, wooded, watery countryside, like an alien presence compared to the rest. They call it “Eurabia.” The Turkish Mevlana mosque is imposing. It has the tallest minarets in Europe, even higher than the stadium of the Feyenoord soccer team.

Many of the neighborhoods in Rotterdam are captive to the darkest, most violent form of Islamism. Pim Fortuyn’s house stands out like a pearl in a sea of chador and niqab. It is at number 11 Burgerplein, behind the train station. Every now and then someone comes to put flowers in front of the home of the professor who was murdered in Amsterdam on May 6, 2002. Someone else leaves a card: “In Holland everything is tolerated, except for the truth.” A millionaire named Chris Tummesen bought Pim Fortuyn’s house so that it would remain intact. The evening before his murder Pim was nervous, and had said on television that a climate of demonization had been created against him and his ideas. And his fears came true, when he was shot in the head five times by Volkert van der Graaf, a militant of the animal rights left, scrawny, head shaved, eyes dark, dressed like an environmental purist in a handmade shirt, sandals, and goat’s wool socks, a strict vegetarian, “a guy impatient to change the world,” his friends say.

Not long ago in downtown Rotterdam, funerary photos of Geert Wilders were placed under a tree, with a candle to commemorate his upcoming death. Today Wilders is the most popular politician in the city. He is the heir of Fortuyn, the homosexual, Catholic, ex-Markist professor who had formed his own party to save the country from Islamization. At his funeral, only the absence of Queen Beatrice kept the farewell to the “divine Pim” from becoming a funeral fit for a king. Before his death they made a monster of him (one Dutch minister called him an “untermensch,” an inferior man in Nazi parlance), afterward they idolized him. The prostitutes of Amsterdam left a wreath of flowers in his honor beneath the National Monument in Dam Square, a memorial to the victims of World War II.

Three months ago, “The Economist,” a weekly publication far from Wilders’ anti-Islamic ideas, spoke of Rotterdam as a “Eurabian nightmare.” For most of the Dutch who live there, Islamism is now a threat greater than the Delta Plan, the complicated system of dikes that prevents flooding from the sea, like the flood in 1953 that killed two thousand people. The picturesque town of Schiedam, part of the greater Rotterdam area, has always been a jewel in the Dutch imagination. Then the fairy tale glow faded, when in the newspapers three years ago it became the city of Farid A., the Islamist who made death threats against Wilders and Somali dissident Ayaan Hirsi Ali. For six years, Wilders has lived under 24-hour police protection.

Muslim lawyers in Rotterdam also want to change the rules of the courtroom, asking to be allowed to remain seated when the judge enters. They recognize Allah alone. The lawyer Mohammed Enait recently refused to stand when the magistrates enter the courtroom, saying that “Islam teaches that all men are equal.” The court of Rotterdam has recognized Enait’s right to remain seated: “There is no legal obligation requiring Muslim lawyers to stand in front of the court, insofar as this action is in contrast with the dictates of the Islamic faith.” Enait, the head of the legal office Jairam Advocaten, has explained that “he considers all men equal, and does not acknowledge any form of deference toward anyone.” All men, but not all women. Enait is well known for his refusal to shake hands with women, and has repeatedly said he would prefer them to wear the burqa. And there are many burqas on the streets of Rotterdam.

The fact that Eurabia has arrived in Rotterdam has been demonstrated by an episode in April at the Zuidplein Theatre, one of the most prestigious in the city, a modernist theater proud of “representing the cultural diversity of Rotterdam.” It is located in the southern part of the city, and receives funding from the municipality, headed by a Muslim, the son of the imam Ahmed Aboutaleb. Three weeks ago, the Zuidplein Theatre allowed an entire balcony to be reserved for women only, in the name of sharia. This is not happening in Pakistan or in Saudi Arabia, but in the city from which the Founding Fathers set out for the United States. It was from here that the Puritans disembarked in the Speedwell, which they later exchanged for the Mayflower. This is where the American adventure began. Today, it has legalized sharia.

For a performance by the Muslim Salaheddine Benchikhi, the Zuidplein Theatre agreed to his request to have the first five rows set aside for women only. Salaheddine, an editorialist for the website Morokko.nl, is known for his opposition to the integration of Muslims. The city council has approved this: “According to our Western values, the freedom to live one’s own life by virtue of one’s convictions is a precious possession.” A spokesman for the theater has also defended the director: “It is hard to get Muslims to come to the theater, so we are willing to adapt.”

Another man who has been willing to adapt is the director Gerrit Timmers. His words are fairly symptomatic of what Wilders calls “self-Islamization.” The first case of self-censorship took place in Rotterdam, in December of 2000. Timmers, the director of the theater group Onafhankelijk Toneel, wanted to stage a performance about the life of Mohammed’s wife Aisha. The play was boycotted by the Muslim actors in the company when it became evident that it would be a target for the Islamists. “We are enthusiastic about the play, but fear reigns,” the actors told him. The composer, Najib Cherradi, said that he would withdraw “for the good of my daughter.” The newspaper “Handelsblad” gave the story the title “Tehran on the Meuse,” the name of the gentle river that passes through Rotterdam. “I had already done three works about the Moroccans, so I wanted to have Muslim actors and singers,” Timmers tells us. “Then they told me that it was a dangerous issue, and they could not participate, because they had received death threats. In Rabat, an article came out saying we would end up like Salman Rushdie. For me, it was more important to continue the dialogue with the Moroccans, rather than provoke them. For this reason, I see no problem if the Muslims want to separate the men from the women in a theater.”

Let’s meet the director who has brought sharia to the Dutch theaters, Salaheddine Benchikhi. He is young, modern, confident, and speaks perfect English. “I defend the decision to separate the men from the women, because here there is freedom of expression and organization. If people can’t sit where they want to, that is discrimination. There are two million Muslims in Holland, and they want our tradition to become public, everything is evolving. Mayor Aboutaleb has supported me.”

One year ago, the city was buzzing when the newspapers published a letter by Bouchra Ismaili, a Rotterdam city councilman: “Listen up, crazy freaks, we’re here to stay. You’re the foreigners here, with Allah on my side I’m not afraid of anything. Take my advice: convert to Islam, and you will find peace.” Just a walk through the streets of the city, and you know right away that in many neighborhoods you are no longer in Holland. It is right out of the Middle East. In some schools, there is a “room of silence” where Muslim students, who are in the majority, can pray five times a day, with a poster of Mecca, the Qur’an, and a ritual washing before the prayers. Another Muslim city councilman, Brahim Bourzik, wants signs placed in various parts of the city showing the direction to Mecca.

Sylvain Ephimenco is a Franco-Dutch journalist who has been living in Rotterdam for twelve years. For twenty years, he was the “Libération” correspondent in Holland, and is proud of his leftist credentials. “Even though I don’t believe in that anymore,” he says, welcoming us to his home overlooking one of Rotterdam’s little canals. Not far from here is the al Nasr mosque of the imam Khalil al Moumni, who when gay marriage was legalized described homosexuals as “sick people worse than pigs.” From the outside, it can be seen that the mosque is more than twenty years old, having been built by the first Moroccan immigrants. Moumni has written a pamphlet that is circulating around the Dutch mosques, “The path of the Muslim,” in which he explains that the heads of homosexuals should be cut off and “hung from the highest building in the city.” Next to the al Nasr mosque, we sit down at a cafe for men only. In front of us is a halal Islamic slaughterhouse. Ephimenco is the author of three essays on Holland and Islam, and today is a famous columnist for the leftist Christian newspaper “Trouw.” He has the best perspective for understanding a city that, perhaps even more than Amsterdam, embodies the tragedy of Holland.

“It is not at all true that Wilders gets his votes from the fringes, everyone knows that, even though they don’t say it,” he tells us. “Today educated people vote for Wilders, although at first it was the lower class Dutch, the tattoo crowd. Many academics and people on the left vote for him. The problem is all of these Islamic headscarves. There’s a supermarket behind my house. When I arrived, there wasn’t a single headscarf. Now it’s all Muslim women with the chador at the register. Wilders is not Haider. His positions are on the right, but also on the left, he’s a typical Dutchman. Here there are even hours at the swimming pool set aside for Muslim women. This is the origin of the vote for Wilders. Islamization, this foolishness with the theater, has to be stopped. In Utrecht, there is a mosque where they provide separate city services for men and women. The Dutch are afraid. Wilders is against the Frankenstein of multiculturalism. I, who used to be on the left but am no longer anything, I say we’ve reached the limit. I feel the ideals of the Enlightenment have been betrayed with this voluntary apartheid, in my heart I feel the death of the ideals of the equality of men and women, and freedom of expression. Here the left is conformist, and the right has the better answer to insane multiculturalism.”

One of the professors at Erasmus University in Rotterdam is Tariq Ramadan, the famous Swiss Islamic scholar who is also a special adviser for the city. Some of Ramadan’s statements against homosexuality were uncovered by Holland’s most famous gay magazine, “Gay Krant,” directed by a talkative journalist named Henk Krol. On a videocassette, Ramadan calls homosexuality “a disease, a disorder, an imbalance.” On the tape, Ramadan also has comments on women, “they should keep their eyes on the ground when they’re on the street.” Wilders’ party asked for the city council to be disbanded, and for the Islamic scholar from Geneva to be sent packing, but instead he was renewed in his post for two more years. This was happening while across the sea, the Obama administration was confirming the ban on Ramadan entering United States territory. The tapes in Krol’s possession include one in which Ramadan tells women: “Allah has an important rule: if you try to attract attention through the use of perfume, or your appearance or gestures, you do not have the correct spiritual orientation.”

“When Pim Fortuyn was killed, it was a shock for everyone, because a man was murdered for what he said,” Krol tells us. “That was no longer my country. I’m still thinking about leaving Holland, but where can I go? Here we have been criticized by everyone, by the Catholic Church and by the Protestants. But when we criticized Islam, they answered us: you are creating new enemies!” According to Ephimenco, the street is the secret of Wilders’ success: “In Rotterdam, there are three enormous mosques, one of them is the largest in Europe. There are more and more Islamic headscarves, and an Islamist impulse coming from the mosques. I know many people who have left the city center to go to the rich, white suburbs. My neighborhood is poor and black. It is a question of identity, on the streets Dutch is not spoken anymore, but Arabic and Turkish.”

Let’s meet the man who inherited Fortuyn’s column in the newspaper “Elsevier.” His name is Bart Jan Spruyt, a robust young Protestant intellectual, founder of the Edmund Burke Society, but above all the author of Wilders’ “Declaration of independence,” and his coworker from the beginning. “Here an immigrant no longer has to struggle, study, work, he can live at the expense of the state,” Spruyt tells us. “We have ended up creating a parallel society. The Muslims are in the majority in many neighborhoods, and are asking for sharia. This isn’t Holland anymore. Our use of freedom has turned back against us, it is a process of self-Islamization.”

Spruyt was one of Fortuyn’s close friends. “Pim said what the people had known for decades.” He attacked the establishment and the journalists. It was a great relief for the people when he went into politics, they called him the ‘white knight’. The last time I spoke with him, one week before he was killed, he told me he had a mission. His killing was not the act of a lone madman. In February of 2001, Pim announced that he wanted to change the first article of the Dutch constitution, on discrimination, because in his view it kills freedom of expression, and he was right. The following day in the Dutch churches, which are mostly empty and used for public meetings, the diary of Anne Frank was read as a warning against Fortuyn. Pim was truly Catholic, more than we think, in his books he spoke out against modern society without fathers, without values, empty, nihilist.”

Chris Ripke is a well-known artist in the city. His studio is near a mosque in Insuindestraat. Shocked in 2004 by the murder of director Theo Van Gogh by an Dutch Islamist, Chris decided to paint an angel on wall of his studio and the biblical commandment “Gij zult niet doden,” thou shalt not kill. His neighbors at the mosque found the words “offensive,” and called the mayor of Rotterdam at the time, the liberal Ivo Opstelten. The mayor ordered the police to erase the painting, because it was “racist.” Wim Nottroth, a television journalist, camped out on the spot in protest. The police arrested him, and his film was destroyed. Ephimenco did the same in his own window: “I put up a big white sheet with the biblical commandment. Photographers came, and the radio. If you can no longer write ‘do not kill’ in this country, then you are saying that we are all in prison. It is like apartheid, whites living with whites and blacks with blacks. There is a great chill. Islamism wants to change the structure of the country.” For Ephimenco, part of the problem is the de-Christianization of society. “When I arrived here, during the 1960’s, religion was dying, a unique event in Europe, a collective de-Christianization. Then the Muslims brought religion back to the center of social life. Aided by the anti-Christian elite.”

Let’s go for a stroll through the Islamized neighborhoods. In Oude Westen there are only Arabs, women clothed from head to foot, ethnic foods shops, Islamic restaurants, and shopping centers with Arabic music. “Ten years ago, you didn’t see all these headscarves,” Ephimenco says. Behind his house, in a flourishing middle class area with two-story houses, there is an Islamized neighborhood. There are Muslim signs everywhere. “Look at all of those Turkish flags, over there is an important church, but it’s empty, no one goes there anymore.” In the middle of one square stands a mosque with Arabic writing outside. “That used to be a church.” Not far from here is the most beautiful monument in Rotterdam. It is a small granite statue of Pim Fortuyn. Beneath the gleaming bronze head, the mouth saying his last words on behalf of freedom of speech, there is written in Latin: “Loquendi libertatem custodiamus,” let us safeguard the right to speak. Every day, someone places flowers there.

— Hat tip: Babs

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Italy: Milan Judge Says CIA Trial Continues

MILAN — The trial of 26 Americans and seven Italians accused of orchestrating a CIA-led kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric will proceed despite an Italian Supreme Court ruling that barred key evidence as classifed, a judge ruled Wednesday.

The two-year trial is the first by any government over the CIA’s so-called extraordinary rendition program of transferring suspects overseas for interrogation. Human rights advocates charge that renditions were the agency’s way to outsource torture of prisoners to countries where it is permitted.

Successive Italian governments have denied any involvement in the Feb. 17, 2003 abduction of Egyptian cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, from a Milan street. Prosecutors say Nasr was transported in a van to a joint U.S..-Italian base in northern Italy, flown to a U.S. air base in Germany and onward to Egypt where he said he was tortured. He has since been released without charge.

Judge Oscar Magi rejected defense motions aimed at stopping the trial, and said it will proceed next week with the classified evidence expunged from the proceedings as ruled by Italy’s Supreme Court.

Defense lawyers predicted speedy proceedings as the ruling Wednesday also disallowed most of their witnesses — including Premier Silvio Berlusconi and his predecessor Romano Prodi — because their testimony would inevitably touch on classified data. The prosecution has closed its case.

Prosecutor Armando Spataro welcomed the decision to continue the trial, though he disagreed in principle with the high court’s decision to remove evidence. The prosecution has argued that it did not violate any state secrets in gathering evidence, and that any evidence relating to a criminal act cannot be considered classified.

“We need to verify if the obstacles that the Supreme Court placed can be overcome to arrive at the truth,” Spataro said, adding that certain evidence will have to be “surgically removed.”

Spataro said, for example, that the ruling will allow the inclusion of most of a statement by Luciano Pironi, a carabinieri officer who acknowledged participating in the kidnapping. The ruling strikes Pironi’s tesimony any reference to how the CIA and Italian intelligence operated, but leaves untouched his statment that the CIA Milan station chief Bob Seldon Lady asked him to join the operation, Spataro said..

Defense lawyers were mixed in their reaction. Luigi Panella, a lawyer for the former deputy chief of Italian military intelligence Marco Mancini said the exclusion of the evidence dealt a fatal blow to the prosecution’s case.

But the lawyer for Mancini’s former boss, Nicolo Pollari, said the ruling made it impossible to prove his client’s innocence.

Pollari’s defense wanted to call Berlusconi, Prodi and other top officials “demonstrate incontrovertibly that Pollari had nothing to do with the presumed kidnapping,” lawyer Nicola Madia said.

“The trial is a dead end,” Madia said. “It will continue only as a formality.”

Spataro said that it was already established earlier in the case that diplomatic immunity does not apply because the potential penalty of up to eight years in jail exceeds the five-year maximum on invoking diplomatic privileges in Italy.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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Skelton: Stop Bilderberg’s Nightmare Future at All Costs

London Guardian journalist Charlie Skelton, who began his coverage of the 2009 Bilderberg conference in a jovial and mocking manner, is now warning that the horrendous treatment dished out to him by both police and undercover spies is just a taste of what we can expect in our daily lives if we allow Bilderberg’s agenda, and specifically ID cards and implantable microchips, to be implemented.

Initially setting out to cover the event in a satirical way, Skelton left Greece yesterday chilled to the bone about how he had been harassed, detained and stalked for days on end by authorities merely for taking photographs of the hotel where Bilderberg members were staying.

“My experience over the last several days in Greece has granted me a single, diamond-hard opinion,” writes Skelton, “That we must fight, fight, fight, now — right now, this second, with every cubic inch of our souls — to stop identity cards.”

Skelton adds that the ID card turns the citizen into a suspect and would be “the end of everything,” noting that plans are also afoot to replace the ID card with an implantable microchip for greater efficiency and tracking of the population, a subject that was up for discussion at last year’s Bilderberg Group conference.

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Spain: Police Arrest 17 Al-Qaeda Suspects in North

Bilbao, 20 May (AKI) — Spain’s police on Wednesday have arrested at least 17 suspects alleged to be members of an Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb cell in the northern city of Bilbao. The arrests were followed by raids in various neighbourhoods throughout the city.

The arrested — mostly Moroccan and Algerian nationals — are alleged to have financed Al-Qaeda by falsifying credit cards, as well as through drug trafficking and theft, Spanish media reported. A minor was also arrested in the raids.

The anti-terrorism operation was ordered by judge Eloy Velasco of the National Court of Spain, a senior court which hears cases related to terrorism and organised crime.

The arrests and raids took place early on Wednesday and continued throughout the morning.

The Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb evolved from the Salafite Group for Preaching and Combat, initially formed to create an Islamic state in Algeria, but is now believed to have more widespread goals.

Spain suffered a major Al-Qaeda-inspired terror attack in the capital Madrid in 2004, when a total of 191 people were killed and 2,000 were injured when 10 rucksack bombs exploded in four crowded commuter trains.

Twenty-one people, including a number of North Africans, were sentenced to over 40,000 years in jail for their roles in the attack.

It was carried out by a loosely knit group of Al-Qaeda-inspired Muslim militants and occurred three days before the country’s general election.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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UK Labour Party Faithful Want Brown to Quit -Poll

LONDON (Reuters) — Prime Minister Gordon Brown should step down as leader of Britain’s ruling Labour Party before the next election, according to a majority of party members and supporters questioned in a poll published on Tuesday.

Six out of 10 of those polled by the independent Labour website LabourList.org said the party must have a new leader before the next parliamentary election, due by June 2010.

Support for Brown has crumbled in a growing scandal over expenses claimed by members of parliament for everything from bath plugs and pornographic films to nappies and horse manure.

For the poll, LabourList questioned 1,060 people between Monday and Friday last week.

Alex Smith, editor of LabourList, said it was a further sign of “grassroots dissatisfaction” with Brown, a former finance minister who replaced Tony Blair in June 2007.

“Brown will need to show clear and decisive action if he is to win back support,” Smith said in a statement.

Health Secretary Alan Johnson, a former trade union leader, is the favorite to replace Brown, according to the poll. He was the top choice for 38 percent of those questioned, with deputy party leader Harriet Harman and Foreign Secretary David Miliband tied in second place on 10 percent.

Critics have accused Brown of showing a lack of authority over the expenses furor and allowing his rival David Cameron, leader of the opposition Conservatives, to set the agenda on restoring public confidence in the system.

However, both parties have lost support in the past month. A poll for the Daily Telegraph newspaper showed support for the Conservatives had fallen six points to 39 percent, with Labour down four on 23.

Support for the smaller parties, such as the anti-European Union UK Independence Party and far-right British National Party, rose by nine points compared with the previous month.

Political analysts will be watching to see if those increases are translated into votes at local and European elections in Britain on June 4.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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UK: 1300 Girls Harmed by HPV Vaccine

1300 Girls Harmed by HPV Vaccines in UK; Bizarre Side Effects Like Paralysis and Epilepsy

The MHRA reports show a total of 2,891 adverse events reported in 1,340 girls. The majority were minor and short-lived problems, such as swelling, rashes, pain or mild allergies to the vaccine. A number of cases were more severe, however, including 20 cases of blurred vision, four cases of convulsions, one case of seizures and one epileptic fit. Five cases of partial paralysis were reported, including Bell’s palsy (face), Guillain-Barre syndrome (legs), hyopaesthesia (loss of sense of touch) and hemiparesis (severe weakening or paralysis of half the body).

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UK: MI5 ‘Overstretched’ Before 2005 Bombings

LONDON (AFP) — Security services lacked the resources to carry out extra checks on the man who would go on to lead the 2005 suicide bombings of London’s transport system, an official report said Tuesday.

But lawmakers on the Intelligence and Security Committee cleared the domestic security service, MI5, and Special Branch police officers of failing to link Mohammed Sidique Khan to the plot that left 52 people dead.

The report, which was heavily censored for security reasons, said lawmakers “cannot criticise” decisions made by investigators despite the fact Khan came to their attention several times.

Lawmakers said it had been correct for officers not to dig further into his background despite observing him meeting extremist plotters because there was no evidence at that stage that he posed a threat to national security.

The report reveals that a police surveillance unit filmed Khan in 2001 as part of an operation to track suspected extremists.

However, he was not identified from the images and his significance was only realised after the suicide bombings.

But the report said it was “astounding” that MI5 could only provide “reasonable” surveillance coverage of about one in 20 terror suspects in 2004 and it disclosed that 54 “essential” targets went completely unobserved.

Committee chairman Kim Howells said MI5 could not be blamed for not stopping the attacks, and following people like Khan who had no previous convictions for extremism could have diverted resources from other key inquiries.

However, campaigner Rachel North repeated her call for a full public inquiry into the bombings, saying Tuesday’s report “didn’t deliver” what survivors and relatives of those who died were looking for.

“Watching the faces of some of the families this morning, watching the ISC press conference and reading the report, and finding so little had changed over such a long period of time, was indeed heartbreaking,” she said.

“It does look a lot like MI5 ran rings around the MPs.”

Khan and three other British Muslim suicide bombers blew up three underground trains and a bus in central London on July 7, 2005.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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Balkans: US, Biden on Mission for Dialogue With Belgrade

(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, MAY 18 — US Vice-President Joe Biden will begin a visit to the Western Balkans tomorrow with the principal objective of restarting relations with Serbia after a long period of ice-cold diplomacy and tension provoked by NATO’s bombings ten years ago as well as by Washington’s entusiastic support for Kosovo’s independence, proclaimed in February last year. Biden, who will be the White House’s first high-level official to visit Belgrade since President Jimmy Carter in June of 1980, will make clear the Obama administration’s desire to reaffirm the US commitment in the Balkans to Serb leaders. The US was highly active in the region in the 90s to put an end to the bloody conflict that led to the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia. Biden, who was chosen by Obama due to his foreign policy experience, will make his first stop tomorrow in Sarajevo where he will be accompanied by the EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana. In the Bosnian capital the American Vice-President will meet with the leaders of the two entities that make up Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as leaders from the Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation. On Wednesday, Biden will go to Belgrade for a delicate meeting with Serbian President Boris Tadic and Premier Mirko Cvetkovic. His trip to the Balkans will end on Thursday in Pristina, where Biden is expected to have a triumphant reception. The city is already celebrating the arrival of their American guest today, since he is considered “a great friend and supporter” of Kosovo’s independence and freedom. For days the media and diplomats in Belgrade have stressed the significance that Biden’s visit may have in thawing relations between Serbia and the United States, even if Biden’s arrival is not looked upon positively by ultra-nationalist Serbs who accuse him of having supported NATO’s bombing of Serbia in 1999 and favouring Kosovo’s independence. Andreja Mladenovic of Vojislav Kostunica’s Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), said that Joe Biden should take advantage of the visit to Belgrade to apologise to Serbia and the Serbs. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Biden Warns Bosnians About ‘Old Patterns’

SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina — Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. issued a strong rebuke on Tuesday to lawmakers here in the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina to fight back against signs of a renewal of the kind of nationalism and ethnic divisions that led to civil war here in the 1990s.

Mr. Biden warned against “the sharp and dangerous rise in nationalist rhetoric” in recent years, calling it “tempting to fall back on old patterns and ancient animosities.” It was an unusually sharply worded address for a high-ranking foreign official before another country’s legislature.

“Forgive me for saying this in your Parliament, but this must stop,” Mr. Biden said, in a country where talk of secession and even of war threaten a fragile, ethnically divided country.

Mr. Biden met with top Bosnian leaders on Tuesday, on the first day of a trip through the Balkans that is intended to draw attention to the unfinished business in the region and the Obama administration’s commitment to helping the countries move beyond their recent history of violence and into the European mainstream.

The Balkans all but fell off the American agenda after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and the ensuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. “We are back,” Mr. Biden said. “We will stand with you.”

By sending the vice president, Mr. Obama dispatched not only the second highest elected official in the United States, but also a leading foreign policy expert from his service in the Senate.

Mr. Biden has also been engaged on the Balkan issue since the early 1990s, when he was an outspoken advocate of the Bosnian cause. During his speech, Mr. Biden recalled his trip to the country in 1993, and how, flying in at the time, his plane was fired upon, and bombed-out homes with snipers inside could be seen.

Yet that very engagement on Bosnia’s behalf could make his job more difficult when he travels to Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, on Wednesday. Belgrade still shows the scars of attacks by United States warplanes in the bombing campaign during the Kosovo war in 1999, and where the American Embassy there was set on fire last year by demonstrators outraged over Kosovo’s declaration of independence.

Kosovo, a year-old country, will be the final stop in the vice president’s visit to the region.

“The United States wants to build a new, healthy relationship with Serbia,” Mr. Biden said. But Mr. Biden called Kosovo’s independence “irreversible.”

It is Bosnia, however, where 100,000 people, a majority of them Muslims, were killed in three and a half years of fighting, that is once again the most vexing Balkan nation for American policy makers and their allies in Europe. The cease-fire known as the Dayton Accords, brokered by the United States in 1995, may have ended the bloodshed, but it did not create a cohesive state for the future.

Instead, the agreement left behind a country divided into a Muslim-Croat Federation and a Serb Republic. Bosnian Serb leaders have at times threatened to secede. A force of some 2,000 European Union peacekeepers still provides security.

The visit is Mr. Biden’s third to Europe since the January inauguration. “This early emphasis on Europe is no accident,” Mr. Biden said. “We’ve chosen to spotlight the importance that the United States of America places on our European partners and to hopefully energize those partnerships to address the challenges we all face together.”

And, at a time when the administration is trying to win over Muslims alienated by the military action in Afghanistan and Iraq, the trip also serves to remind the world of the conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo, where NATO intervened on behalf of Muslim populations with neither oil nor nuclear weapons programs.

“After years of, not neglect, but maybe disregard, it seems to me a good sign that there is such high-level involvement,” said Cornelius Adebahr, an expert on the Balkans at the German Council on Foreign Relations, though he added that it also demonstrated “the dimension of the problems that need to be dealt with.”

In his speech to lawmakers here in Sarajevo, Mr. Biden held out Albania and Croatia, which both joined NATO this year, as examples of the opportunities available to countries in the region. “The door is open for the countries of this region for the first time in history to be an integral part of a whole and free Europe,” Mr. Biden said. “And the United States will help you walk through that door.”

— Hat tip: AG

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Vice President Biden Offers Serbia ‘New’ Relations

BELGRADE, Serbia — Vice President Joe Biden offered Serbia “a strong, new relationship” with the U.S. on Wednesday, along with help in its European Union membership bid, despite deep differences over independence for Kosovo.

Biden said after his talks with Serbia’s pro-Western president Boris Tadic that the U.S. wants to see the Balkan country take its place in Europe “as a strong, successful democratic state” playing a constructive role in the still-volatile region.

Biden arrived from Bosnia, the first stop in a three-day tour of the Balkans meant to demonstrate renewed U.S. interest in the region where bloody ethnic wars were fought in the 1990s, which the West accused Serbia of fomenting..

“I came to Serbia on behalf of the Obama-Biden administration with a clear message: the United States wants to, likes to, deepen its relations with Serbia,” Biden said.

“Serbia is central to the southeast European future,” he said. “The region cannot fully succeed without Serbia playing a constructively leading role.”

Tadic said Biden’s visit “could set the stage for the formulation of a new American policy toward Serbia and the Balkans.”

Unprecedented security measures were in place in the Serbian capital for the visit by the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit since former President Jimmy Carter was here in 1980.

Police banned all anti-American protests planned by nationalists during the visit. In February 2008, angry protesters set fire to the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade to protest U.S. support for Kosovo’s statehood.

However, a few hundred Radical Party supporters staged a small protest in a Belgrade suburb, and their lawmakers carried anti-Biden leaflets during a parliament session Wednesday.

Many here still view America as anti-Serb. The mistrust stems from the 1999 U.S.-led NATO bombing of Serbia that ended the country’s rule in Kosovo, the southern province that declared independence last year with Washington’s backing.

Nationalist parties have opposed Biden’s visit, saying it amounts to a “humiliation” of the country. They accuse Biden of being the chief advocate of the 1999 bombing over Kosovo.

Biden said in Sarajevo Wednesday that he was a strong critic of late Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who was accused of triggering the Balkan conflict.

Biden conceded that Serbia and the U.S. disagree on Kosovo, the predominantly ethnic Albanian-populated region considered by Serbs the medieval cradle of their statehood and religion.

Kosovo’s declaration of independence has received strong backing from the United States and major European Union nations and 59 countries have so far recognized Kosovo’s statehood.

“The United States does not, and I emphasize, does not expect Serbia to recognize the independence of Kosovo,” Biden said. “It is not a precondition for our relationship, or our support for Serbia becoming a part of the European Union.”

He said, “In return, we expect Serbia to cooperate with the European Union and other key international actors” in Kosovo “and look for pragmatic solutions that would improve lives of all the people in Kosovo, both Serbs and Albanians, and avoid making them the victims of political disagreement.”

Tadic reiterated that Serbia would never recognize Kosovo’s statehood and that it would try to retain it by peaceful, diplomatic means. Serbia has the backing of Russia in the U.N. Security Council.

On Thursday, Biden’s last stop on his Balkan tour will be Kosovo, which he said is expected to remain committed to protecting all communities, including the minority Serbs.

In Bosnia on Wednesday, Biden sharply rebuked Bosnia’s leaders and warned that continued ethnic divisions threatened to return the country to the chaos of the wars of the 1990s.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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VP Biden Slams Bosnian Leaders Over Tensions

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Vice President Joe Biden sharply rebuked Bosnia’s leaders Tuesday and warned that continued ethnic divisions threatened to return the country to the chaos of the bloody Balkans conflicts of the 1990s.

Biden told lawmakers that the US was worried about the direction that Bosnia was taking which he said threatened to keep it as one of the poorest nations in Europe — or plunge it back into violence.

The ethnic rivals that make up the leadership of Bosnia have squabbled for years since the 1995 peace agreement that ended three years of war amid the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. The feuding has halted prospects of joining the European Union.

Biden criticized what he said was years of nationalist rhetoric that had split communities and blocked reforms demanded by the EU as part of its membership process.

“God, when will you tire of that rhetoric?” Biden said in a speech to Bosnia’s parliament.

“This must stop,” he said. “Let me be clear: Your only real path to a secure and prosperous future is to join Europe,” Biden said, adding that “right now, you’re off that path.”

He urged Bosnia’s leaders to work together across ethnic and party lines — or face economic hardship or even “descend into ethnic chaos that defined the country for the better part of a decade.”

“The choice is yours,” Biden said. “If you make the right choice, we will stand with you.”

Biden landed in Sarajevo on Tuesday, making the first stop in a three-day tour of the Balkans meant to demonstrate renewed interest in the region.

He met with Bosnia’s three-person presidency, talked with the governing coalition and spoke — separately — with Bosnia’s staunchest rivals, Bosniak leader Haris Silajdzic and Milorad Dodik, head of the country’s Serbs.

Bosniaks are eager for the U.S. to get involved more deeply in Bosnia. But Serbs want Washington to back off.

The US-brokered peace agreement at Dayton, Ohio, in 1995 preserved the country’s international borders but divided it into two ministates — one for Bosnia’s Christian Orthodox Serbs, the other to be shared by Muslim Bosniaks and Catholic Croats.

The two ministates are linked by some common institutions.

The agreement stopped the fighting but failed to create a functioning country.

For years, Bosnia’s path toward European Union membership has been blocked, primarily by quarrels among Serbs, Bosniaks and Croats over how to enter the 27-nation organization — as a unified country or one that is ethnically divided, as is currently the case.

Serbs say Bosnia can enter only as a loose federation of two or three ethnically based ministates. But Bosniaks and Croats are pushing for unification.

For years, the EU dangled the carrot of EU membership in return for reforms but Bosnian Serbs rejected the proposals.

Biden said the U.S. was back to help. “The door is open for the countries of this region for the first time in history to be an integral part of a free Europe,” Biden said. “The U.S. will help you walk through that door.”

To underline the close cooperation between the U.S. and the European Union, Biden is traveling through the region with Javier Solana, the EU’s foreign policy chief.

Across Bosnia’s Serb region, several hundred protesters lit candles Tuesday to show their dissatisfaction with U.S. plans to get more involved in the country’s affairs.

“Joe Biden arrived to tear apart Serbia and the Republika Srpska,” said Bogdan Subotic, a former Bosnian Serb general, using the official name of Bosnia’s Serb Republic. Subotic was protesting in Banja Luka, the country’s second-largest city.

On Wednesday, Biden will fly to Serbia, where he said he will tell Serbian President Boris Tadic that the United States wants to build a “new, positive relationship with Serbia” and to see Serbia take its place in Europe.

But many people in the country still view America as anti-Serb. The mistrust stems from the 1999 U.S.-led NATO bombing of Serbia that ended the country’s rule in Kosovo.

“This independence, while young, is irreversible,” Biden said, adding that the U.S. does not expect Serbia to recognize Kosovo’s independence any time soon.

However, it does expect Serbia to cooperate with the EU and look for pragmatic solutions that would better the lives of both Albanians and Serbs living there.

Nationalist parties in Serbia have opposed Biden’s visit, saying it amounts to a “humiliation” of the country. His last stop will be Kosovo, which he said is expected to remain committed to protecting all communities, including the Serbs.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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Cinema: Egypt, History of Muslim Brotherhood Becomes TV Show

(ANSAmed) — CANNES, MAY 20 — The history of the Muslim Brotherhood, from its creation until the present day, is to be turned into a television series. The programmes are to be written by the screenwriter of Palazzo Yacoubian (out now in Cairo), Waheed Hamed, and directed by Adel Adeeb, who is also the patron of the show’s production company, Good News Group — one of the most audacious in Egyptian cinema. At the Cannes Film Festival, Adeeb announced that filming would begin in Egypt in a little over a month and that this ‘delicate and ambitious and project” will last longer than the two months usually set aside for Egyptian series which are often put together in parallel. “We are working on the casting, and we are looking for actors from across the Arab world. There are more than 700 parts to decide and we are looking for new faces”, said the producer-director, also noting the important task that pre-production is facing in recreating a Cairo which no longer exists. The Brotherhood, which is not recognised (but in tolerated) in Egypt, was founded in 1929 by Ismailia da Hassan el Banna and is known for its fundamentalist stances, frequently being accused of nurturing Islamic terrorism. In Cannes, Good News held a private screening to present Ibrahim Labyad — the final film of Marwan Hamad which takes place in the capital’s shantytowns and shows the darkest side of Egyptian society. “It is a violent, provocative film which shows what really goes on in modern Egypt”, explained Emad Adeeb, President of Good News, whilst the Arab critical press has been left unconvinced by the film’s protest motives, saying that the film is in fact mostly aimed at making money. Ibrahim Labyad will soon come out on general release in Cairo and Adeeb hopes that in Cannes the film has attracted the attention of selectors for the Venice and Toronto film festivals. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Egypt: Court’s Approval Revokes Israeli Spouse Citizenships

(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, MAY 20 — Egypt’s State Council has requested that Egyptian men married to Israeli women have their citizenship revoked, as requested in an appeal by fundamentalist lawyer Nabih el Wahsh, reported the local press today. Legal sources say that this type of marriage, often performed in order to obtain Israeli residency and work, could threaten national security. “Children with Israeli mothers,” explained Cairo English language daily The Egyptian Gazette, “have Israeli citizenship and serve in the Israeli military. However, these children, with Egyptian fathers, are still Egyptians.” “This is an historic sentence,” said El Wahsh, “and I hope that it is immediately applied. This marriage violates the Egyptian Constitution, especially in light of Israel’s aggression against Arabs and Sharia (Koranic Law).” The lawyer urged the Interior Minister to make a quick decision to “avoid young Egyptians from committing this crime.” On more than on occasion, El Wahsh has filed charges against alleged offences against Egypt and Islam. He did so against writer and psychiatrist Nawal El Sadawi, unsuccessfully attempting to have a court declare her apostate. The lawyer also wanted to force her husband to divorce her for writings and statements considered offensive to religion. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Audio: MP3 Interview With Aaron Klein — Part 1

John Batchelor interviews Aaron Klein on the dangers facing Israel and the West.

— Hat tip: JD

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Audio: MP3 Interview With Aaron Klein — Part 2

John Batchelor interviews Aaron Klein on the dangers facing Israel and the West.

— Hat tip: JD

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First Details of Obama Peace Plan in Israeli Press

(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, MAY 20 — US President Barack Obama is readying himself to present his own peace initiative for the Middle East on June 4 in Cairo, which has been worked out with King Abdullah of Jordan based on the Saudi peace initiative of 2002. Israeli press today published the first details of the proposed initiative, also quoting information from the al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper, which so far has not yet been confirmed. Apparently, the plan provides for the constitution of an independent, democratic and demilitarised Palestinian State, which will have territorial continuity between the West Bank and Gaza (due to border changes) and will have East Jerusalem as its capital. It is thought that the plan also includes the idea that the United Nations flag would fly in the Old City of Jerusalem — where holy sites for the three monotheistic religions are concentrated. The Arab world will be expected to proceed with the normalisation of diplomatic relations with Israel, whilst Israel would have to open ‘offices of interest’ and later diplomatic quarters in every Arab capital, where Israeli tourists would have total freedom to travel. The plan also provides for parallel peace negotiations between Israel on one side and Lebanon and Syria on the other. Lastly, Palestinian refugees would be offered the choice of whether to remain in the country they currently reside in and receive citizenship, or to return to the new Palestinian state. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Obama’s Peace Plan ‘Misleading’, Says Hamas Spokesman

Gaza City, 19 May (AKI) — US president Barack Obama’s proposals for a new regional peace initiative are “misleading”, according to a key spokesman for the Islamist Hamas movement, Fawzi Barhoum. Obama on Monday met Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is in Washington on his first official visit.

“Obama’s statements and messages of hope are meant to mislead global public opinion regarding the continued existence and conduct of the racist and extremist Zionist entity,” said Fawzi Barhoum, quoted by Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth.

Obama has foreshadowed a new initiative to be announced during his visit to the Egyptian capital Cairo in June.

Barhoum said Netanyahu neglected to mention the rights of the Palestinian people but emphasized the demand to have Hamas recognise Israel as a Jewish state. He said Obama failed to pressure Netanyahu on this issue.

During talks with Obama, Netanyahu also stopped short of mentioning support for the establishment of a Palestinian state, and instead said he would begin negotiations with the Palestinians “immediately”.

“Therefore, the stance of the American president does not bode a better future for our people. What we have seen is a continued development of the Zionist-American relationship at the expense of our people and our rights,” said Barhoum.

He also called on the West Bank-ruling Palestinian Authority not to renew negotiations with “the Zionist enemy.”

Barhoum concluded by saying that “any return to the negotiating table presents a grave danger to the Palestinian people and its interest, and could enable the racist Jewish state to continue hurting our people.”

However, a presidential aide to Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, led by the more secular Fatah movement, said Obama’s words were “encouraging”, while Netanyahu’s were “disappointing”.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Frattini to Press Iran on Afpak

Visit to spotlight need for regional stabilisation

(ANSA) — Rome, May 19 — Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini plans to impress on Iranian authorities the importance of stabilising Afghanistan and Pakistan (AfPak) when he visits Tehran Wednesday.

Frattini said he would be looking for “a concrete commitment” on cross-border issues when he talks to Iranian counterpart Manoucher Mottaki.

He recalled that Italy, which holds the rotating presidency of the Group of Eight, has invited Iran to take part in a G8 ministerial conference on the region in Trieste, June 25-27, which will see the participation of other countries in the area.

Italy hopes Iran will be ready to cooperate in regulating border issues, combating drug trafficking and reconstructing Afghanistan.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Mehdi Akhoundzadeh said earlier this year that Tehran was ready to help the international community in the reconstruction of Afghanistan and in projects to combat drug trafficking.

On Tuesday Frattini also said that during his visit to Tehran he would reiterate to Iranian authorities Italy’s positions on Iran’s nuclear programme and a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian problem.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Obama’s Stance on Two-State Solution Heartens EU

BRUSSELS — The European Union on Tuesday welcomed President Barack Obama’s appeal to Israel to commit to a two-state solution — Jewish and Palestinian nations living side by side — calling it the “way forward” to peace in the Middle East.

A day after Obama met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the EU presidency was clearly heartened by the American president’s insistence that Israel abide by peace commitments it has made in the past.

Obama told Netanyahu in Washington to respect Israel’s past commitment to an independent Palestinian state. He spoke of “a historic opportunity to get a serious movement on this issue. That means that all the parties involved have to take seriously obligations that they have previously agreed to.”

That language from Obama is what the 27-nation EU wanted to hear.

Officials of the bloc have been insisting for weeks on the need for a two-state solution, to the chagrin of Israel. With Obama now taking the same line, the EU foreign ministers will reconfirm their view at their meeting in June.

“The two-state solution will remain the basis of the policy of the EU” toward Israel, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kohout, whose country holds the EU presidency, told The Associated Press.

The notion of Israel living next to a Palestinian state was a centerpiece of a conference in Annapolis, Maryland, in November, 2007. It came about with broad international support, including from Saudi Arabia and Syria.

Kohout said Obama’s reiteration of the two-state solution means that it remains very much “the general feeling of the international community. That is the way forward.”

The EU’s relationship with Israel has been in turmoil in recent months.

In December, the EU agreed in principle to a broad “upgrade” of relations with Israel in political, economic and trade terms.

But the war in Gaza changed all that, especially because of Israel’s ‘no’ to repeated EU demands for free access to the area for humanitarian deliveries. Upgrading relations with Israel is now such a divisive issue in the EU that talk of it has been suspended altogether.

Additionally, Washington’s new outreach to Iran and the emergence of a more hawkish government in Jerusalem have became significant new realities.

In recent weeks, senior Israeli officials have fanned out across Europe to spread the word that Iran’s nuclear ambitions must take precedence over talk about a two-state solution — a point Netanyahu stressed in his talks with Obama.

The Israeli view is that the international community must deal with Tehran first, saying it poses a threat not just to the Jewish state but also to Arab nations in the region.

That view is not finding much support in Europe.

A senior EU diplomat said Israel’s assessment of Iran was right but its solution was wrong

While all Mideast governments agree Iran is a potential threat to peace, it must “not be used as an excuse not to talk about a two-state solution,” said the official who asked not to be named because of the sensitive nature of the issue.

If there is a two-state solution, the official added, Arab nations will likely sign peace with Israel. “That will not only have a positive impact on stability in the region but also be a signal to Iran (which now) only has an interest in creating instability in the Middle East.”

Before Obama urged Israel to commit to a two-state solution, EU relations with Israel nosedived and Jerusalem warned that the Europeans risked forfeiting their role as Mideast peace broker unless they eased up on their criticism of Jerusalem.

The EU is one of four members of the so-called Quartet — the international body charged with promoting an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. The other members are the U.S., Russia and the United Nations.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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Russia-Syria: MiG Supply Cancelled for Political Reasons

(ANSAmed) — MOSCOW, MAY 20 — Russian state import-export monopoly Rosoboronexport’s plan to supply Syria with eight MiG-31 aircrafts has been cancelled, wrote Russian daily Kommersant. The cancellation of the contract is reportedly due to political reasons, and more specifically due to pressure from Israel. However, economic reasons cannot be excluded, since the order for eight MiG-31s signed in 2007 is valued at between 450 and 500 million dollars. Damascus already owes Moscow 3.6 billion dollars after 70% of its debt to Russia was forgiven in 2005. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Big Names and Bucks Back Nuclear ‘Bank’

VIENNA — Buffett’s bankroll, Obama’s clout and the partnership of a savvy ex-Soviet strongman may turn the steppes of central Asia into a nuclear mecca, a go-to place for “safe” uranium fuel in an increasingly nervous atomic age.

The $150 million idea, with seed money from U.S. billionaire Warren Buffett, must still navigate the tricky maze of global nuclear politics, along with a parallel Russian plan. But the notion of such fuel banks is moving higher on the world’s agenda as a way to keep ultimate weapons out of many more hands.

Decisions may come as early as next month here in Vienna.

The half-century-old vision, to establish international control over the technology fueling atom bombs, was resurrected in 2003, when Iran alarmed many by announcing it would develop fuel installations — for nuclear power, it insisted. Mohamed ElBaradei, U.N. nuclear chief, then said the time had come to “multinationalize” the technology, to stop its spread to individual countries.

Last month, the new U.S. president gave the idea its biggest boost.

In a historic speech to tens of thousands in Prague, the Czech capital, Barack Obama detailed an aggressive plan for arms control, including setting up an international fuel bank, “so that countries can access peaceful power without increasing the risks of proliferation.”

That’s the fear: The centrifuges that enrich uranium with its fissionable isotope U-235, to produce power-plant fuel, can be left spinning to enrich it much more, producing fissile, highly enriched uranium for nuclear bombs.

Only a dozen nations have enrichment plants, but ElBaradei’s Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) foresees nuclear-power use almost doubling in the next 20 years. More and more governments may want the fuel-making capability.

“The real risk is that highly enriched uranium could be acquired by, say, terrorist groups,” Russian government adviser Alexander Konovalov told a conference in Rome on nuclear dangers. “All they need is 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of enriched uranium. All the rest (to make a bomb) can be found on the Internet.”

The IAEA’s 35-nation board of governors is expected to address the issue at its June meeting. A raft of proposals has surfaced, including a German idea to build an IAEA enrichment plant on “internationalized” soil somewhere, to sell fuel to countries committed to nuclear nonproliferation.

“Assurance” is the byword — a desire to assure future Irans there won’t be politically motivated cutoffs of nuclear fuel supplies, and so they needn’t build, at huge cost, their own enrichment plants.

Only one proposal has upfront money behind it, however — the idea advanced by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a Washington-based organization founded by philanthropist Ted Turner and former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn.

Calling it an “investment in a safer world,” investor and NTI adviser Buffett, considered America’s richest man, pledged $50 million to such a bank, provided governments put up an additional $100 million. That threshold was passed in March, most of the money coming from the U.S. and the European Union.

The $150 million would buy enough low-enriched uranium to fuel a 1,000-megawatt power plant, jump-starting a constantly replenished fuel stockpile that would be owned and sold by the IAEA at market prices and on a nondiscriminatory basis.

On April 6, the day after Obama’s address, another piece of that picture fell into place nearly 3,000 miles (5,000 kilometers) from Prague, when another president spoke in Astana, capital of the ex-Soviet republic of Kazakhstan.

“If a nuclear fuel bank for nuclear energy was created, then Kazakhstan would consider hosting it,” Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev announced to reporters.

The ex-communist Nazarbayev, a canny political survivor from Soviet times who has led Kazakhstan for two decades, is eager to develop his nuclear industry, based on Soviet-era facilities and Kazakhstan’s large uranium deposits. Nazarbayev regularly reminds the world that he gave up leftover Soviet nuclear weapons in 1995.

“It has a lot of qualifications,” Nunn said of Kazakhstan. “It would be highly symbolic to put the fuel bank in a country that got rid of nuclear weapons.”

The NTI co-chairman told The Associated Press he first approached the Kazakh leader about hosting a fuel bank “a couple of years ago.” By this May 5, Nazarbayev’s foreign minister was in Washington discussing the plan with Gen. James Jones, Obama’s national security adviser.

Most intriguing, perhaps, was the fact that Nazarbayev’s announcement came with Iran’s visiting president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, standing at his side.. The Iranian called the fuel bank “a very good proposal.” In fact, Tehran has suggested that an international consortium might also enrich uranium on Iranian soil.

Iran isn’t likely to give up its controversial fuel facilities, which some fear could lead to an Iranian bomb. But Nunn said a Kazakh or other multinational fuel bank, by involving Iran in an enterprise with international oversight, “could be a very useful tool, not the whole answer but part of an answer” to what he called “the Iranian challenge.”

First, however, the tool must win IAEA approval — something far from guaranteed, say sources familiar with the debate within the agency board.

Countries as diverse as Italy, Egypt and South Africa, none of which enrich uranium, have balked at the notion of an international stockpile — not in itself, but because such a framework would raise suspicions about any country that then chooses to enrich on its own, even if that remains legal under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Many who object to the treaty’s “have and have-not” regime on nuclear weapons, which legitimizes only five nations as nuclear powers, don’t want to see the same evolve on energy technology.

“We cannot have divides where some own nuclear technology and others not,” Egyptian diplomat and nonproliferation expert Mohamad Shaker complained at the Rome conference. “Have-nots” must have an equal role in any technology consortiums, he said.

The NTI proposal may be put on hold until September while IAEA governors next month consider a Russian plan that is more developed and less ambitious, since it doesn’t put the IAEA into the fuel sales business.

Instead, the Russians would maintain their own fuel stockpile at a Siberian enrichment plant, which they would make available via the IAEA, “depoliticizing” sales by leaving it to the U.N. agency to certify buyers.

The agency’s ElBaradei, meanwhile, views these as early steps in a longer process that eventually would bring all new enrichment facilities under some multinational control, and then internationalize older, existing plants, including those of the U.S. and other nuclear powers.

“It’s a bold agenda,” he told a nuclear industry meeting in March. “It’s going to take some time, but I think we need to start.”

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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Russian Commission to Guard Against False History

MOSCOW — Russia announced Tuesday it has created a commission to fight what President Dmitry Medvedev says are efforts to hurt his country by falsifying history — part of a campaign to promote the Kremlin’s views and silence those who question them.

Bitter disputes over events of the past century — including a World War II-era massacre of Polish officers, a Stalin-era famine in Ukraine and the relocation of the graves of Soviet soldiers in the Baltics — have damaged Russia’s relations with former Soviet and Eastern bloc neighbors.

Russian leaders tend to cast the Soviet Union as a force for good that defeated Nazi Germany and liberated Eastern Europe. Critics say such arguments gloss over the decades of postwar Soviet dominance seen by many in the region as a hostile occupation, and some say Russia must do more to acknowledge Soviet-era crimes.

Medvedev earlier this month warned against questioning the primacy of the Soviet Union’s role in the World War II, in which at least 27 million Soviet citizens were killed. The costly victory over fascism is a source of immense pride for Russians, and is central to Moscow’s vision of 20th Century European history.

“We will never forget that our country, the Soviet Union, made the decisive contribution to the outcome of the second world war, that it was precisely our people who destroyed Nazism, determined the fate of the whole world,” Medvedev said May 8, on the eve of celebrations commemorating the Allied victory in Europe.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s party is drafting legislation to make it a crime to belittle the Soviet contribution to what Russians call the Great Patriotic War. The bill, yet to be submitted to parliament, equates criticizing the Soviets’ role with rehabilitating Nazism, and makes it punishable by up to three years in prison.

The new 28-member commission, created by a presidential decree, will investigate “the falsification of historical facts and events aimed to disparage the international prestige of the Russian Federation,” according to an addendum to the decree signed Friday and announced Tuesday.

The decree said it would also recommend measures to counter alleged falsifications, but Medvedev’s press service declined to comment what those measures might entail.

The commission will be headed by Medvedev’s chief of staff, Sergei Naryshkin, and include foreign and domestic intelligence officials as well lawmakers, historians and officials from government ministries.

Some analysts said Russia was trying to prevent any effort to equate the actions of the Soviet regime with the crimes of the Nazis.

“Something had to be done about it, because the arbitrariness and falsifications have become intolerable, contradicting not only science but common sense,” said Makhmut Gareyev, president of Russia’s Academy of Military Sciences and former deputy chief of the Soviet general staff.

Liberal Kremlin critics said, however, that Medvedev’s commission amounted to an effort to airbrush Soviet history. Author Yulia Latynina said it plays into the hands of “mastodons in epaulets” — ultraconservatives among Russia’s historians and politicians.

“The whole idea was copied from Orwell’s ‘1984’ and from the famous phrase about Russia as a country with unpredictable past,” she told The Associated Press. “This commission will finally turn Medvedev into a laughing stock.”

For years, Russia has fought efforts by former Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact allies, many now in NATO and the European Union, to remove or relocate WWII monuments and Soviet grave sites.

Russia’s leaders have accused the Soviet republics of Ukraine, Latvia and Estonia of honoring those who fought alongside the Nazis by allowing them to hold commemorations.

Moscow has mounted a campaign against Ukrainian claims that a 1930s famine that killed millions was an act of genocide engineered by the Soviets.

It also denies that the 1940 killing by Soviet agents of some 20,000 Polish officials, intellectuals and priests near the western Russian town of Katyn constituted genocide.

Historian Heorhiy Kasyanov from Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences accused the Kremlin of trying to whitewash Soviet history in order to justify the rollback of democratic rights in Russia.

“It’s part of the Russian Federation’s policy to create an ideological foundation for what is happening in Russia right now,” he said in Kiev.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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Another Blow to Indonesia Aviation

A C-130 Hercules aircraft crashed and exploded in East Java yesterday, killing at least 98 people, injuring 15, and sparking soul-searching in Indonesia about the degraded state of its military.

It was the second fatal military aviation accident in six weeks. In April, 24 special forces trainees and crew were killed when a Fokker 27 ploughed into a hangar and exploded.

Only 10 days ago, another Hercules transport plane crash-landed in West Papua, destroying its landing gear and injuring one soldier.

The Hercules was ferrying troops and their families, including 10 children, when it clipped homes and smashed into the ground close to its destination, the Iswahyudi military air base. Conditions were calm. The plane exploded into a fireball after crashing, with footage taken soon after the accident showing only the inverted, torn-off tail as flames engulfed the aircraft.

At least 97 people died in the accident, according to an air force spokesman, Bambang Sulistyo. There were 98 passengers and 13 crew on the aircraft but at least two of those killed were on the ground.

The Vice-President, Jusuf Kalla, who is running for president against the incumbent, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, blamed the accident on the depletion in military funding. “It’s because we don’t allocate sufficient budget for our military equipment,” he said.

President Yudhoyono, a former general, has cut the defence budget but insisted yesterday that only spending on new equipment was affected, not money for aircraft maintenance.

However, Dudi Sudibyo, an aviation expert and editor of Angkasa magazine, said maintenance and pilot training alike were affected by the “limited budget” for the military.

“There will be more accidents if they don’t do something. They need to increase funding for the air force, and quickly,” he said.

The finances of the armed forces have also taken a hit from Dr Yudhoyono’s crackdown on military businesses. Much of the proceeds of such activities have lined the pockets of generals and senior officers but also supplemented government funds and helped pay for military salaries and other expenses.

Mr Sudibyo said the repeated accidents were sapping the morale of Indonesian troops.

“They are flying unsafe planes from one tip of the country to the other … they rely on these planes to move troops, provide disaster relief and humanitarian aid.”

Indonesia’s deep-seated aviation problems extend to the civilian industry.

The country’s flagship aviation company, Garuda, has been banned from flying to Europe since the crash in Yogyakarta in 2007 that killed 21 people, including five Australians.

This year there have been fatal crashes, engine failures and haphazard landings involving civilian aircraft. Indonesia, an archipelago with poor roads, relies heavily on air transport.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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Pakistan: Clinton Says Policy in Last 30 Years ‘Incoherent’

Washington, 20 May (AKI/DAWN) — The United States secretary of state Hillary Clinton acknowledged that Washington had not been consistent in its dealings with Islamabad.

Talking to the media at the Foreign Press Centre in the White House on Monday, Hillary Clinton said “It is fair to say that our policy towards Pakistan over the last 30 years has been incoherent. I don’t know any other word”.

About the military operation underway in Pakistan to root out Taliban militants, Hillary Clinton said the US was working with Pakistan to determine and disrupt the route for supplying weapons to the militant group.

“Yes, we know that the extremists are being supplied,” she said when asked why the US was unable to disrupt the Taliban supply route.

The secretary recalled that in the 1980s, the US partnered with Pakistan to help train the Mujahideen.

“Their security service and the military were encouraged to go after the Soviets in Afghanistan and when they withdrew in 1989, we said thank you very much”.

Clinton said while it was fair to apportion responsibility to Pakistan, but the US also shared the responsibility for what happened during and after the Afghan war.

“What President Obama is doing is qualitatively different from anything done before. We support the elected government … it is a relationship very clear, honest to each other.”

Clinton also said the US was assisting the new government in Islamabad to be “as successful as possible in delivering, we believe the future of Pakistan is extremely important for the US … the advance of extremism is a threat to our security”.

She underscored America’s strong support for the effort by the Pakistan army for defeating the terrorists.

Clinton said the Al-Qaeda and their allies were intent upon harming not only US friends and allies in Pakistan and Afghanistan but also in the US homeland and to American citizens.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

[Return to headlines]

Pakistan: Army and Taliban Battle it Out in “The Most Dangerous Nation in the World”

Commandos assault Piochar where 4 thousand militants are entrenched. Ten dead, among them a six year old girl, in a suicide attack. Rocket attacks on girl’s schools and the sanctuary of a Pashtun poet. A Canadian Minister describes Pakistan and its nuclear arsenal “the most dangerous nation in the world”.

Islamabad (AsiaNews) — The Pakistani army has begun closing in on the Taliban in the Swat Valley: Army helicopters dropped commandos into the remote Piochar area in the upper reaches of the valley. Officials identified it as the rear-base of an estimated 4,000 Taliban militants entrenched in Swat’s main towns. It is seen as possible hiding place of Swat Taliban chief Maulana Fazlullah. A military spokesman declined to give details of the Piochar assault, but a senior government official expressed optimism that the battle for Swat might prove short.

Despite the military crackdown Taliban attacks continue: yesterday a suicide car bomber killed 10 people in an attack on a checkpoint in Darra Adam Khel. A six-year-old girl was among those killed. Seven people were injured. May 10th last the shrine of renowned Pashto poet Ameer Hamza Shinwari, a girls’ college and a girls’ school were attacked. President Asif Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani condemned the attacks; Interior Minister Rehman Malik adds the security forces have killed 700 Taliban in four days of military operations. Twenty security personnel have also been killed, and nineteen others injured.

But government data on the numbers killed are countered by independent sources; all journalists have abandoned the area for security reasons. Yesterday the very last TV reporter, Shireenzada, abandoned the area, saying “working as a journalist is extremely difficult in the present situation”. Twenty-two journalists were registered with the Swat Press Club until the military action against the Taliban began on May 7. Now there are none. Swat Press Club President Salahuddin Khan confirmed “thousands of residents were still stranded” and could face shortages of food and drinking water in absence of electricity; the wounded and sick could not go to hospitals because of the curfew.

The escalation in conflict between the army and Taliban is also concerning the international community. Canada’s Defence Minister Peter MacKay defined nuclear-armed Pakistan as ‘the most dangerous country in the world”. Mackay said the Taliban’s recruiting and rearming in Pakistan is also harming NATO efforts to rout insurgents in neighbouring Afghanistan, where Canada has deployed some 2,800 troops. “As long as insurgency is allowed to foster and to incubate inside Pakistan — he said — the problem remains very real, very difficult”.

On the humanitarian side the drama of displaced people unfolds: North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) Information Minister Iftikhar Hussain, counts 700,000 displaced from Swat, Buner and Shangla. The local government is seeking at least 90 billion Rupees in aid (equal to 800 thousand euros); The United States said that it would provide 4.9 million dollars for families displaced by the current anti-Taliban offensive. Today the UN High Commissioner for Refugees began airlifting 120 tonnes of humanitarian aid and camp materials.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

[Return to headlines]

Swat Valley: Two Million Refugees on the Run, as Caritas Pakistan Provides Assistance

The Catholic NGO is providing essential items, planning a sustained effort with the assistance of international partners. Bishop Coutts stresses the need for caution to avoid offending the sensibilities of people of various religions but slams the victimisation of minorities. Christian families are forced out of refugee camps.

Faisalabad (AsiaNews) — Caritas Pakistan, with the help of various international partners, is providing mattresses, fans, field tents and mobile clinics for the two million refugees who, according to the latest United Nations figures, have fled the fighting between Pakistani military and the Taliban in the Swat Valley

Mgr Joseph Coutts, bishop of Faisalabad and national director of Caritas Pakistan, talks about the work performed by Catholic volunteers, stressing the caution they must display because the area in which they operate is not secure and because they must show extreme discretion given the sensitivities of the various people from different faiths.

“Our mission,” said the prelate, “is to provide, aid, love and assistance to all those in need, as Jesus Christ taught.”

About 300 mattresses and 25 fans were brought to refugee camps in Mardan North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), home to people who fled mountain areas. As temperatures rise (up to 50 degrees C) the emergency situation is getting worse.

Outside the city of Mardan the government has set up two large relief camps, Sheikh Shahzad and Sheikh Yaseen, holding about 20,000 people, a number that is increasing every day.

“With the support of its international partners Caritas Pakistan is sending 2,000 tents to these camps in Mardan to increase capacity. Each tent is enough for a small family. Our international partners will also arrange mobile clinics for these internally displaced people,” the prelate said. .

Problems in the affected area are not recent but date back to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. As Afghan refugees poured across the border the Taliban come to the NWFP. Local Taliban groups emerged in the area, and eventually took it over, creating an emergency situation that deteriorated as soon as the Taliban began enforcing Sharia. After that then open warfare broke out with the Pakistani military.

Religious minorities are among the most vulnerable groups because in addition to the war they have experienced harassment and abuse.

Recently Sikhs have been forced to pay the Jizya, a poll tax imposed on non-Muslims for the benefit of Muslims. In other instances Christian families have been forced out of refugee camps because Muslims did not want them around.

For this reason Caritas Pakistan is acting with extreme caution.

In the meantime, fighting continues between the army and Taliban in various parts of the Malakand division.

In Islamabad the Pakistani cabinet met under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani; on the agenda: the law and order situation in tribal areas, the ongoing military operations in Swat and Malakand, and what steps to take in favour refugees.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

[Return to headlines]

Doctor Uses Household Drill to Bore Into Boy’s Skull to Save His Life After Accident Swelled Brain

A doctor in a small Australian town has saved a young boy’s life by using a household electric drill to bore into the youngster’s skull to relieve pressure from his brain.

Medical experts agree that if Dr Rob Carson had not carried out the bizarre emergency operation, 12-year-old Nicholas Rossi would have died within a short time.

‘There were only minutes to spare,’ Dr Carson revealed.

[Return to headlines]

Sudanese Youths in Court Over Cop Attack at Rugby Union Club

FOUR Sudanese nationals seriously injured two senior off-duty police officers at a Brisbane football club after having first threatened to rape their wives and children, a jury has been told.

A Brisbane District Court jury was told the four also allegedly assaulted the manager of the Southern Districts Rugby Union Club at Annerley about 12.30am on November 24, 2007.

Magid Santino Agwaig, 25, Marier Majur Amour, 22, and brothers Doctor Martin and Hakuma Martin Mirich-Teny, 21 and 25, all yesterday pleaded not guilty to two counts each of grievous bodily harm and one of common assault.

Prosecutor Catherine Birkett said off-duty officers Senior-Sergeant David Ewgarde and Inspector Stephen Munro, who is also the football club’s president, were at a Christmas party on the evening of November 23.

Ms Birkett said the officers and manager Donald Godfrey had been standing on the clubhouse veranda when they heard loud banging sounds nearby.

The court was told Godfrey and Munro went to investigate and found a group of men kicking metal signs.

Ms Birkett said Godfrey and Munro asked the group to desist and move on, but were then subjected to a string of loud expletives and racial slurs.

The jury said members of the group made comments such as “you white pieces of s***”, “get back on the boat” and “go back to England”.

Ms Birkett said one comment heard was: “We are going to rape your children.”

She said when Godfrey tried to entice them to leave he had liquid, possibly cheap wine, thrown in his eye and was then repeatedly hit. The jury was told both Ewgarde and Munro were then assaulted by one or more of the group.

Ms Birkett said Munro later required surgery for several fractures to his eye-socket, while Ewgarde required dental treatment to remove teeth smashed in the alleged attack.

Munro testified he was “king-hit” when he tried to move the youths off the club’s grounds.

“The next thing (I know) I am king-hit straight into my right eye,” he said.

Munro said he later required 13 stitches for three lacerations around his left eye and required surgery to correct his eye-socket fractures.

The trial before Judge Michael Forde is unfinished.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

[Return to headlines]

Italy Hands Over 3 Patrol Boats to Libya

(ANSAmed) — GAETA (LATINA), MAY 14 — Italy has given three patrol boats to the Libyan authorities to be used by Tripoli in carrying out patrols to fight illegal immigration. The ceremony, which took place at Gaeta, was attended by Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, Libyan Ambassador Gaddur and Italian Financial Police Chief Cosimo D’Arrigo. Forty-one Libyan servicemen have been trained to use the boats over the last two weeks. Three more patrol boats are set to be transferred to the Libyan authorities at a later date. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Soy Protein Used in “Natural” Foods Bathed in Toxic Solvent Hexane

These laboratory results appear to indicate that consumers who purchase common soy products might be exposing themselves (and their children) to residues of the toxic chemical HEXANE — a neurotoxic substance produced as a byproduct of gasoline refining.

[Return to headlines]

UK: MI5 Had 7/7 Ringleader on ‘Radar’ 12 Times… But MPs’ Report Still Fails to Point the Finger

MI5 was cleared of failing to prevent the July 7 bombings yesterday, despite 12 contacts with the ringleader dating back more than ten years.

The long-awaited — and heavily-censored — report of a committee of MPs exposed an ‘astounding’ lack of manpower, shoddy record keeping and poor communications between the security service and police before the attacks.

Yet the Intelligence and Security Committee said it ‘cannot criticise’ the judgments the agencies made, based on what they knew at the time.

[Return to headlines]

I have so much material on my trip to Scandinavia that it will have to be broken up into several reports. The lengthy descriptive accounts will come later; tonight’s post will feature a travelogue with selected photos.

I arrived in Denmark a couple of days early. It gave me a chance to overcome my jet lag, and I took the opportunity to see the sights of Copenhagen. I’ll only use a few photos here; the rest will have to wait for another time.

Acting like a tourist for a change, I took a sightseeing boat tour of the harbor and the canals.

One of the more memorable sights was the royal yacht, which was being outfitted for the summer season. Queen Margrethe and her family use it to stay in contact with their subjects by visiting various ports and islands around the kingdom.

A pair of workman were cleaning, repairing, or painting the bow of the ship. One of them was straddling the bowsprit from above, and the other was clinging to it from below, supported only by a rope below him.

It was not a warm day, and I wouldn’t have had his job for anything.

On Friday, some of the meeting’s participants arrived early and took the train to Malmö to see what all the fuss was about. With the help of our Swedish contacts, we embarked on a safari that included the most important sights of the city.

One of the first things I noticed was a campaign sign featuring Mona Sahlin:

Ms. Sahlin is well-known to regular Gates of Vienna readers as a hijab-wearing Certified F**ker, not to mention one of Sweden’s most ardent spokescreatures for Multiculturalism. She is also a leader of the Social Democrats, and may become the next prime minister of Sweden if the SocDems regain power next year.

We passed through some normal-looking suburban areas before taking the turn for Rosengård.

Rosengård is a large district with a number of neighborhoods and housing projects, some of which are notorious for their riotous and incendiary “youths”.

Youths were much in evidence, but since we toured the area during the daytime, they were restrained in their behavior. Life in Rosengård is relatively sedate until the sun goes down and the night is illuminated by the golden glow of gently burning tires and dumpsters.

Among the other famous sights of Rosengård are the “suicide balconies” of the apartment buildings. Festooned with satellite dishes, they are the scenes of recurrent tragedies: from the balcony railings young girls frequently and mysteriously fall or hurl themselves, often to their deaths.

From there we paid a visit Rosengård Centrum, a shopping center on an overpass that straddles a major traffic artery:
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Adjacent to the Rosengård Centrum parking lot is a take-away restaurant, specializing in falafel, pizza, kebab, and other traditional Swedish delicacies.

Rosengård Centrum itself is a very culturally-enriched commercial establishment, but it is not uniform in its enrichment.

The northern section (“City Gross”) is a large store in which “persons of Swedish background” work and shop in addition to a modest number of Muslims. But the southern half (“Lidl”) is almost totally halal, a souk transplanted to Skåne from North Africa or the Arabian Peninsula.

Inside the southern entrance the discriminating shopper will find a selection of Arab shops, restaurants, and other businesses.

A clothing store makes an offer to bargain-hungry customers: “Buy a Hijab and Get a Free Present”.

The advertising signs on the window of one establishment are entirely in Arabic.

The signs outside a hairdressing salon are also in Arabic. Notice that the smartly-coiffed models in the pictures on the window show only women in hijab, with the advertised hairstyles covered up by veils. How can a discerning customer be certain of what hair-do she will get?

Just beyond Rosengård Centrum is the Herrgården housing estate, which consists of several high-rise buildings and a number of garden apartments along Ramels Väg.

Visitors to Herrgården are greeted by a sign with the name of the estate presented in mock-Arabic script.

Just think of the implications: the municipal authorities of Malmö paid a professional agency to design and construct a sign which says, in effect, “This neighborhood is for Muslims ONLY.”

(Thanks to Aeneas for these two photos)

Herrgården is the site of the infamous nightly arson attacks, in which “youths” set fire to dumpsters, tires, and the occasional rental trailer from the nearby Shell station.

We drove up and parked by the Shell station, which stands at the junction of Ramels Väg and the main road. A large police presence was there, with several parked police cars and a number of officers just standing around their vehicles — presumably waiting for sundown and the nightly inferno.

The fire-damaged dumpsters are across the road from the gas station:

In the middle of the street are scars from the tire fires. We could see puddles of melted metal (possibly aluminum from the trailers) left over from the burning of other objects.

The place was quiet and calm, although groups of men in cars pulled up and kept an eye on us as we wandered around.

After we left Herrgården we went to look at the famous Jihad Driving School:

To be completely accurate, the “Jihad” in “Jihadskörkorts” is the genitive (possessive) case, and presumably refers to the name of the proprietor. That is, it says “Jihad’s Driving School”.

But it’s still amusing.

Next we paid a visit to Malmö Mosque, which was all but deserted:

The mosque is far away from the Muslim housing estates in Rosengård. According to our Swedish guide, most of Rosengård’s Muslims worship at the “basement mosques”, and not the fancy one with the minarets paid for by Saudi money.

But there it stands, anyway: an assertion of political supremacy, claiming for the Ummah with its dome and minarets the sacred territory of Rosengård.

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After we left the mosque in Malmö, we drove a few miles up the road to visit the ancient and beautiful city of Lund, where the lilacs behind the cathedral were in full bloom:

Our guide led us on a tour of the old town and the University, and we finished up by having a very haram dinner at an old restaurant just south of the Cathedral.

It was quite late by the time our group straggled back to the railway station in Malmö and took the return train to Copenhagen, where the hardiest among us gathered in the bar at the hotel for a nightcap.

Next: The Counterjihad Workshops