We have so many news tipsters now that some sets of two-letter initials are being repeated.

If you are sending us tips, and want us to use a unique nickname for you rather than initials, please send it with the next tip.

Thanks to Barry Rubin, CB, Gaia, IH, islam o’phobe, JD, KGS, Nilk, TB, The Frozen North, TSJ, TV, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
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	USA
	100 Days in Office, Coronated Messiah
	Terrorists on Tour
	Europe and the EU
	Al-Qaeda Group in Threat to Kill British Hostage Unless Abu Qatada Freed
	Berliners Vote on Religious Education
	EU Judges Want Sharia Law Applied in British Courts
	Flemish Jews Irked by State-Funded ‘Anti-Israel’ Samson Opera
	‘Nazi’ Cattle Being Bred in UK
	UK: Police Spy on Activist Groups
	UK: Terror Preacher Abu Hamza Gets Round Hunger Strike With Crisps
	Israel and the Palestinians
	Dissolving in the Two-State Solution
	Caucasus
	Russian Death Squads ‘Pulverise’ Chechens
	South Asia
	Pakistani Taliban Shave Men Listening to Music
	Taliban Gunmen Shooting Couple Dead for Adultery Caught on Camera
	Australia — Pacific
	Police Top Brass’ Secret Plan to Reduce Area Commands
	Young Father Stabbed and Beaten to Death With a Baseball Bat in Sydney’s South-West
	Sub-Saharan Africa
	Israeli Guards Drive Off Somali Pirates
	Italy Ship Thwarts Pirate Attack
	Latin America
	Ahmadinejad to Visit Latin America Next Month
	Immigration
	Third Refugee Boat in Fortnight Intercepted
	UK: Field Hits Out Over Immigration Levels
	Culture Wars
	Germany: Public Resistance Against Homosexualization of Society
	General
	Conficker Virus Begins to Attack PCs

100 Days in Office, Coronated Messiah

Arms outstretched, he wears crown of thorns on his brow

On his 100th day in office, President Obama will be “crowned” in messianic imagery at New York City’s Union Square.

Artist Michael D’Antuono’s painting “The Truth” — featuring Obama with his arms outstretched and wearing a crown of thorns upon his head — will be unveiled on April 29 at the Square’s South Plaza.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Terrorists on Tour

Bill Ayers’ terrorist associate Mark Rudd said on Wednesday that News Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch paid him $50,000 ($25,000 in advance and $25,000 on completion) to write his memoir about his days as a member of the Weather Underground. But “Fifteen percent went to my agent and the rest went up my nose for coke.”

[…]

In his talk, Rudd made it clear that his communist ideology had not changed and reiterated his support for Communist Vietnam and Communist Cuba.

[…]

During a previous appearance in Berkeley, California, at a left-wing bookstore, Rudd had declared that the election of Barack Obama was a major “advance” and provides an “opening” for the far-left to continue making gains. Rudd serves on the board, with Ayers and his wife, fellow terrorist Bernardine Dohrn, of the “Movement for a Democratic Society,” which hopes to resurrect a “new SDS” on the college campuses. The SDS was the predecessor of the Weathermen and the Weather Underground.

[…]

Because of the presence at Cal State East Bay of about 10 critics of Rudd, including this columnist, who passed out fliers about his involvement in a group that killed at least four police officers, university officials ordered seven members of the campus police to stand by. Two police were actually in the room, which was in the university library, and others were posted outside. But they never had to intervene. In fact, the police seemed disgusted they had to be there to protect someone who had specialized in calling police “pigs” and whose organization bombed police stations and killed police officers.

— Hat tip: JD

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Al-Qaeda Group in Threat to Kill British Hostage Unless Abu Qatada Freed

Al-Qaeda in North Africa has threated to kill a British hostage unless the UK government releases Abu Qatada, a radical Muslim preacher in custody in a British jail.

The terror group said in a statement posted on an Islamist Web site today that it will execute the tourist, who has been held by the group since late January, if Abu Qatada is not freed within 20 days.

Abu Qatada, a Palestinian-Jordanian, was jailed in Britain in 2002 accused of links with militant groups but was released in 2005. He was re-arrested and is pending deportation to Jordan where he was sentenced to life in prison in absentia.

Four tourists, including two Swiss, a German woman and a British man, were kidnapped by gunmen on January 22 in Niger, their tour operator said. It is understood that they was seized near the border between Niger and Mali while they were returning from a music festival in the Sahara desert.

Al-Qaeda in North Africa grew out of an earlier Islamist organisation based in Algeria called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat.

It has been praised by Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s deputy, but appears to operate independent of bin Laden’s control.

— Hat tip: TB

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Berliners Vote on Religious Education

Berliners voted Sunday in a referendum on religious education in schools that goes to the heart of how Germany’s sizeable Muslim minority is integrated into modern society, reports AFP’s Simon Sturdee.

Germany’s biggest city, described by one sociologist as “the world capital of atheism,” got a wake-up call in 2005 with an “honour killing” of a woman from the country’s Turkish community by her brother.

Shocked by how such a crime could occur in the capital of a country that aspires to be a modern, multicultural success story, its left-wing city hall decided that schoolchildren needed a lesson in ethics.

The idea was to foster common values in schools in a city where over 40 percent of children come from immigrant families, most of them Muslims, and nip dangerous radicalism in the bud.

Germany, which opposed the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq but has around 3,700 troops in Afghanistan under NATO command, has managed to escape terror attacks by Islamic radicals but authorities say there is still a serious threat.

Following the honour killing of Hatun Surucu, the city introduced ethics classes in 2006-7 that all secondary school students — from whatever background — in Berlin have to attend.

But now, many people are angry and that rage led to 265,000 people signing a petition which forced Sunday’s referendum organised by a group called Pro Reli.

The group wants children to be able to opt out of ethics and take religion classes instead.

This is the case in most of the rest of Germany. Pro Reli — “Reli” being the nickname among German kids for religion classes — says that the whole idea behind the compulsory ethics classes is wrong-headed.

Learning more about Islam, not less — and openly, not behind closed doors — will help stop young Muslims turning into radicals, Pro Reli claims.

Leaders from other religious groups say children must be steeped in teachings from their own faith in order to understand the beliefs of others.

Supporters of the compulsory ethics classes counter that allowing children to choose between either ethics or religion lessons would split classes up and mean less integration, not more.

And they say that hot-button issues such as abortion, women’s rights and sexuality should be aired in a secular forum where all sides can be considered.

“Particularly when it comes to fostering values, children should not be separated on religious grounds and classes split,” according to a leaflet from the city’s ruling Social Democrats.

This “would be bad for integration in Berlin and bad for the education of our children,” it says.

The campaign has seen billboards plastered up all over Berlin — many of which have been vandalised — and it has drawn in celebrities from the worlds of politics, sport and entertainment on both sides of a lively and sometimes heated debate.

According to a recent survey, a wafer-thin majority — 51 percent — of people support a “yes” vote in Pro Reli’s favour, but high turnout is key for the result to carry.

Polls were due to close at 6:00 pm (1600 GMT) with preliminary results expected around two hours later.

— Hat tip: TB

[Return to headlines]

EU Judges Want Sharia Law Applied in British Courts

Judges could be forced to bow to Sharia law in some divorce cases heard in Britain.

An EU plan calls for family courts across Europe to hear cases using the laws of whichever country the couple involved have close links to.

That could mean a court in England handling a case within the French legal framework, or even applying the laws of Saudi Arabia to a husband and wife living in Britain.

The Centre for Social Justice think tank today attacked the so-called Rome III reform as ludicrous.

It warned it would slow down cases, increase costs and lead to unjust results.

However, in a report it says existing arrangements are ‘anti-family’.

Currently, a couple from different EU states can have their divorce heard in the first country where one of them files divorce papers.

Because different states offer varying financial advantages to spouses in terms of division of wealth, the resulting ‘race to court’ in the best jurisdiction discourages couples from trying to save their marriage, it says.

The report calls for a simpler solution, with each country applying its own laws and cases being heard in the country where the couple have the closest connection.

At least nine EU states — not including the UK — are said to want to push ahead with the Rome III plan.

— Hat tip: CB

[Return to headlines]

Flemish Jews Irked by State-Funded ‘Anti-Israel’ Samson Opera

By Cnaan Liphshiz, Haarez Correspondent

Prominent figures from the Jewish community in Belgium and Israel have harshly criticized the Flemish Opera for staging what they regard as an anti-Israeli, political event disguised as a première. The contested show was created by two Israelis.

The production of Samson and Delilah is scheduled to premiere Tuesday, along with a political debate. The community has condemned the opera — directed by Omri Nitzan and Amir Nizar Zuabi — for dressing the Philistine conquerors in Western clothing while Hebrew fighters like Samson wear Arab clothes.

Samson, who lived in the 11th century BCE, was a partisan living under occupation of the Philistines — a powerful and technologically-advanced people of European roots. The bible says he died in Philistine hands while killing many of his captors.

Zuabi and Nitzan’s reverse-role adaptation of his love story with a Philistine woman leads Samson to become “history’s first shaheed” (or martyr, in the Islamic tradition), the say. “Samson is a shaheed, and Delilah is his lover from the enemy camp,” the directors explained.

“This isn’t the first time public Flemish culture institutions stage unabashedly anti-Israel events,” David Lowy, founder of the JOBI group for Belgian youth in Israel, told Haaretz. “Israel is misunderstood in Belgium and distorting bible stories will only compound this. The analogy’s ludicrous and state-funded bodies mustn’t help it.”

Guido Joris from the Dutch-language Jewish-affairs newspaper Joods Actueel condemned the event’s political character, and a planned screening of a film calling Israel’s 2002 military operation in the West Bank a “blood bath” at the event.

The paper also criticized the involvement of a state-funded institution in the show. “I imagine we are in store for Israeli flags burned, as we’ve seen in the past in Belgium,” Joris said.

Nitzan insists that the opera’s political messages are not an attempt to jump on Europe’s pro-Palestinian bandwagon. A spokesperson from Flanders Opera said his institution isn’t anti-Israeli and that the criticism is “premature,” adding: “We may argue about the Mideast conflict, but there will be no flag burning.”

— Hat tip: TV

[Return to headlines]

‘Nazi’ Cattle Being Bred in UK

[Video]

A Devon farmer has succeeded in introducing a breed of cattle that has not been seen in the UK for over 4,000 years.

During the Second World War, the Heck cow was a symbol of Nazi ambitions to rule the world.

— Hat tip: TSJ

[Return to headlines]

UK: Police Spy on Activist Groups

POLICE are using a network of hundreds of paid informants to feed them information about protest groups, according to secret recordings made by a potential recruit.

A member of the climate-change protest group, Plane Stupid, has released a series of recorded discussions with officers apparently offering her money to spy on fellow activists.

Matilda Gifford, 24, says she was approached by Strathclyde Police last month after being released on bail following a demonstration at Aberdeen airport.

In a series of discussions with police, recorded by Miss Gifford, an officer attempting to recruit her is quoted as saying “UK plc can afford more than 20 quid”.

The tax-free cash would be in exchange for information on individuals within the climate-change protest group and would not be paid into her bank account for fear of leaving an audit trail.

She was also told that her continued involvement with Plane Stupid could lead to her having difficulties finding employment in the future if she ended up with a criminal record.

In one section of the recording a police officer states hundreds of informants are on police books giving them information on a spectrum of organisations ranging from terror cells to environmental activists.

The officer is quoted as saying: “We work with hundreds of people, believe me, ranging from terrorist organisations right through to whatever. To the others as we like to call them. Environmentalists.

“We have people who give us information on environmentalism, leftwing extremism, rightwing — you name it, we have the whole spectrum of reporting.”

Strathclyde Police stated the force “had a responsibility to gather intelligence” after admitting officers had had meetings with Plane Stupid activists.

The Assistant Chief Constable of Strathcylde Police, George Hamilton, said: “Officers from Strathclyde Police have been in contact with a number of protesters who were involved with the Plane Stupid protests including Aberdeen airport.”

He added that the purpose of the meetings was to make sure future protests were carried out within the law and respected the rights of all concerned.

Plane Stupid, a direct action group fighting against airport expansion since 2005, maintains the attempted police infiltration of the group was an attempt to curtail people’s right to protest.

Lawyers for Plane Stupid have been able to identify the officers invovled.

A statement from Plane Stupid reads: “Our civil liberties were invaded and our right to peaceful protest called into question simply to defend the interests of big business.”

The group’s first protest was to release a barrage of rape alarms attached to helium balloons disrupting an international aviation conference being held in London.

In a statement in its website Plane Stupid states it welcomed any actions in its name “provided they are non-violent and accountable and help further the struggle against airport expansion and greenhouse gas emissions from aviation.”

— Hat tip: Gaia

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UK: Terror Preacher Abu Hamza Gets Round Hunger Strike With Crisps

HOOK-HANDED cleric Abu Hamza is cheating his way through a prison “hunger strike” by gorging on crisps.

The terrorist and his al-Qaeda followers in the High Security Unit in Belmarsh have refused to eat prison food all week.

They took objection to a strip search on an inmate and have refused cooked food from kitchen staff since.

But the protesters have been eating food from the prison shop and scoffing snacks during meetings with solicitors.

Hamza was spotted eating crisps and chocolate in his cell after calling on the Muslims Boys Gang to go on a hunger strike.

The weak-willed backlash came after a Muslim prisoner objected to a strip search along with two other inmates. All three lashed out and were placed in the segregation unit.

The officer who tried to search them received death threats and was moved to a new job.

A source said: “It is almost funny. They have been refusing food from the hot plate, but are still snacking on everything else.

“Hamza has been sneaking crisps and chocolate into his cell.” A Ministry of Justice spokes man said: “Prisoners in Belmarsh are not on hunger strike.”

— Hat tip: TB

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Dissolving in the Two-State Solution

by Barry Rubin

Ring! Ring! The Israeli prime minister’s alarm clock went off. He quickly sat up in bed and immediately shouted out: “Yes! I’m for a two-state solution!”

At breakfast, lunch, and dinner, during his talks and all his meetings, in greeting his staff as he walked down the corridor to the office, endless he repeated that phrase.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what the world seems to want from Israeli policy.

But the fact is that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted the two-state solution back in 1997 when he took over in the midst of the Oslo agreement peace process and committed himself to all preceding agreements.

This is not the real issue. The real issue is this: much of the world wants Israel to agree in advance to give the Palestinian Authority (PA) what they think it wants without any concessions or demonstration of serious intent on its part.

The first problem is that the demand is totally one-sided. Does the PA truly accept a two-state solution? That isn’t what it tells its own people in officials’ speeches, documents of the ruling Fatah group, schools, the sermons of PA-appointed clerics, and the PA-controlled media.

The second problem is that PA compliance with its earlier commitments is pretty miserable, though this is a point that almost always goes unmentioned in Western diplomatic declarations and media.

More often than not the PA’s performance could be called one of anti-confidence-building measures. In other words, what it does makes Israel and Israelis less certain that it is ever going to make a stable and lasting peace.

The third problem is that this leaves no room for asking the question: what does Israel want in exchange for accepting a Palestinian state, leaving West Bank territory, or even agreeing to a Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem.

How about recognizing Israel as a Jewish state since, after all, the PA Constitution defines its country-to-be as an Arab Muslim state and the PA makes clear that all Jews who have come to live there since 1967 must leave. These stances don’t bother me in principle only the hypocrisy of doing one thing and demanding Israel do another.

How about agreeing-which any nationalist movement should be eager to do-that all Palestinian refugees be resettled in the state of Palestine.

How about accepting that a two-state solution would permanently end the conflict?

How about stopping daily incitement to kill Israelis and destroy Israel in PA institutions?

How about being open to border modifications or security guarantees like not bringing foreign troops onto Palestinian soil?…

— Hat tip: Barry Rubin

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Russian Death Squads ‘Pulverise’ Chechens

Elite commandos have broken their silence to reveal how they torture, execute and then blow captives to atoms to obliterate the grisly evidence

THE hunt for a nest of female suicide bombers in Chechnya led an elite group of Russian special forces commandos to a small village deep in the countryside. There they surrounded a modest house just before dawn to be sure of catching their quarry unawares.

When the order came to storm the single-storey property, dozens of heavily armed men in masks and camouflage uniforms — unmarked to conceal their identity — had no difficulty in overwhelming the three women inside. Their captives were driven to a military base.

The soldiers were responding to a tip-off that the eldest of the three, who was in her forties, had been indoctrinating women to sacrifice themselves in Chechnya’s ferocious war between Islamic militants and the Russians. The others captured with her were her latest recruits. One was barely 15.

“At first the older one denied everything,” said a senior special forces officer last week. “Then we roughed her up and gave her electric shocks. She provided us with good information. Once we were done with her we shot her in the head.

“We disposed of her body in a field. We placed an artillery shell between her legs and one over her chest, added several 200-gram TNT blocks and blew her to smithereens. The trick is to make sure absolutely nothing is left. No body, no proof, no problem.” The technique was known as pulverisation.

The young recruits were taken away by another unit for further interrogation before they, too, were executed.

The account is one of a series given to The Sunday Times by two special forces officers who fought the militants in Chechnya over a period of 10 years. Their testimony, the first of its kind to a foreign journalist, provides startling insights into the operation of secret Russian death squads during one of the most brutal conflicts since the second world war.

The men, decorated veterans of more than 40 tours of duty in Chechnya, said not only suspected rebels but also people close to them were systematically tracked, abducted, tortured and killed. Intelligence was often extracted by breaking their limbs with a hammer, administering electric shocks and forcing men to perform sexual acts on each other. The bodies were either buried in unmarked pits or pulverised.

Far from being the work of a few ruthless mavericks, such methods were widely used among special forces, the men said. They were backed by their superiors on the understanding that operations were to be carried out covertly and that any officers who were caught risked prosecution: the Russian government publicly condemns torture and extrajudicial killings and denies that its army committed war crimes in Chechnya.

In practice, said Andrei and Vladimir, the second officer, the Kremlin turned a blind eye. “Anyone in power who took the slightest interest in the war knows this was going on,” Andrei said. “Our only aim was to wipe out the terrorists.”

[Return to headlines]

Pakistani Taliban Shave Men Listening to Music

Taliban posters order women not to go shopping

Taliban fighters in Pakistan’s northwest Buner district shaved the heads and moustaches of four Pakistani men as punishment for listening to music , one of the victims said late on Saturday.

“I was with three other friends in my car, listening to music when armed Taliban stopped us and, after smashing cassettes and the cassette player, they shaved half our heads and moustaches,” a young man from Buner told AFP by telephone, requesting not to be identified.

“The Taliban also beat us and asked us not to listen to music ever again,” said the terrified man. Local police said they had no information about the incident.

The victim said neither he nor his friends lodged a complaint with police, as this would have been “useless.”

“It might have annoyed the Taliban further and I fear for my life,” the man said.

Buner has been subject to huge U.S. concern after hundreds of Taliban fighters advanced into the area from the neighboring Swat, where the hardliners fought a brutal, nearly two-year insurgency to enforce Islamic law.

Although Taliban and local officials said the fighters retreated from Buner by Saturday, local members of the movement remain. Residents said many fighters were still present in the hilly outskirts of the district.

Women ordered not to go shopping

Residents in Mingora, the main town in Swat, said Taliban posters had been put up in streets and markets ordering women not to go shopping. The posters had appeared after the Taliban’s controversial agreement with the government to enforce Islamic law in the region.

“We will take action against women who go out shopping in the markets and any shopkeeper seen dealing with women shoppers will be dealt with severely,” read the poster from the Swat branch of Tehreek-e-Taliban.

“The peace agreement does not mean that obscenity should be re-born,” it added.

Hardline Islamists in the extremist Taliban consider it “obscene” for women to leave their homes, and ban females from venturing out in public without an immediate male relative—namely a father, brother, son or husband.

For years, Swat was a popular ski resort frequented by Westerners but the Pakistani government effectively lost control of the mountainous district after the violent Taliban campaign to enforce Sharia law.

— Hat tip: TB

[Return to headlines]

Taliban Gunmen Shooting Couple Dead for Adultery Caught on Camera

Taliban gunmen have been filmed executing a surprised couple whom they repeatedly shot for the alleged crime of adultery.

Their deaths were squalid, riddled with bullets in a field near their home by Taliban gunmen as the execution was captured on a mobile telephone.

In footage which is being watched with horror by Pakistanis, the couple try to flee when they realise what is about to happen. But a gunman casually shoots the man and then the woman in the back with a burst of gunfire, leaving them bleeding in the dirt.

Moments later, when others in the execution party shout out that they are still alive, he returns to coldly finish them with a few more rounds.

Their “crime” was an alleged affair in their remote mountain village controlled by militants in an area that was only recently under the government’s sway. It was the kind of barbarity that has become increasingly familiar across Pakistan as the Taliban tide has spread.

But this time, with black-turbaned gunmen almost at the gates of Islamabad, the rare footage has shown urban Pakistanis what could now await them.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, has warned that Islamic extremists could take over the nation.

In the past few days the footage has circulated among Pakistanis who usually show little interest in the rough ways of the distant frontier regions.

They have now started to wake up to the fear that al-Qaeda-linked rebels from the frontier could take over their nation.

The killings happened in Hangu district, in North West Frontier Province, about two hours drive from the regional capital Peshawar. The punishment was administered by a local group of the Pakistani Taliban, the Islamic militia which has swept across the NWFP towards the capital Islamabad.

Last week, the Taliban had reached within 60 miles of Islamabad, in Buner district. Their takeover sparked panic in the West, which was already appalled by a peace deal that the government had signed this month with Taliban in adjacent the Swat valley.

In an extraordinary move, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, called on the people of Pakistan to defy their government, saying they “need to speak out forcefully against a policy that is ceding more and more territory to the insurgents”.

The Taliban had agreed a withdrawal, in the last couple of days, to their stronghold of Swat. That will scarcely make the government and elite in the capital Islamabad feel much safer, as Swat is only 100 miles from them.

“The Taliban are steady and confident, the government is weak and faltering,” said Pervez Hoodbhoy, a professor at Islamabad’s Quaid-e-Azam University and one of Pakistan’s leading intellectuals.

“A Taliban victory will enslave our women, destroy Pakistan’s rich historical and cultural heritage, make education and science impossible, and make the lives of its citizens impossibly difficult. Some are already contemplating an exodus.”

Pakistan today stands on a knife-edge, threatened with anarchy. The desperate deal signed with the Taliban in Swat looks set to fall apart. The result will almost certainly be violence. An army convoy heading into Swat on Saturday morning was stopped by the Taliban and forced to turn back, in a naked display of their power.

They seem to have been only emboldened by the peace agreement. Many believe that a bloody military operation now looks inevitable,

For those in areas falling under Taliban control, their harsh rule is terrifying.

An SOS text message sent out on Friday by a terrified local resident, in an area of Swat called Bahrain, says that the Taliban have established total control. Asking not be named for fear of reprisal, he said that they have set up check posts at the entrance to Bahrain, from where they kidnap those they want, including young women.

“They’ve even warned the local schools to close the girl classes or face dire consequences. Yet the government says its writ is in Swat.”

Another Swat resident said: “Every day I see armed Taliban move around freely. At the time of prayer, if they see anyone in his shop or walking about, they whip him with a stick.”

The Pakistani Taliban, a copy of the Afghan extremist movement, have long controlled the tribal area along the Afghan border, which is a sanctuary for militants, including al-Qaeda. But it is their march into the heart of the country that has horrified ordinary Pakistanis, and the wider world. And the threat comes not just from the Taliban to the west. Islamic extremists, who are not part of the Taliban, are already entrenched in Islamabad and across the Punjab, the most populous province, seemingly ready to surface when their moment comes.

Islamabad’s defences are being hurriedly fortified, with paramilitary troops stationed on the Margalla Hills, which overlook the city from the West. In the capital, there are thousands of followers of the radical Red Mosque, where there are now open calls for Islamic revolution at the weekly Friday prayers.

“The Taliban will not stop at Swat. They will come towards Islamabad,” said Hasan Askari Rizvi, a military analyst based in Lahore. “If the army is to take action against them, it is going to be a really bloody battle. And then civil government will be knocked out.”

“Extremist groups based in Islamabad will move from within and they (Taliban) will build pressure from outside.”

The footage Pakistanis have been watching shows them what they could expect.

A local journalist was invited to witness the execution, who filmed it with his mobile phone for a Pakistani channel, Dawn News. The Sunday Telegraph is showing the footage in the West for the first time.

There were no names for the two victims.

“Using the media is part of their (the Taliban’s) psychological warfare,” said Imtiaz Gul, chairman of Centre for Research and Security Studies, an independent think tank in Islamabad. “This way, they inject fear into the minds of people who might oppose them, keeping the majority silent.”

After the couple were shot, the family were told to take their bodies away for burial. The punishment was administered by a local group of the Pakistani Taliban linked to warlord Baitullah Mehsud.

— Hat tip: Gaia

[Return to headlines]

Police Top Brass’ Secret Plan to Reduce Area Commands

HE police force has revealed a secret proposal to amalgamate commands, six months after it denied those plans were afoot.

The number of commands will be cut from 80 to 70 — all believed to be in Sydney — but the force has refused to reveal further details.

Commissioner Andrew Scipione said no stations would close but that it would “reduce management numbers”, “increase flexibility” and “put more police on the street”.

His spokesman would not answer further questions as to which commands would be amalgamated or when the process would start.

Former police commissioner Peter Ryan tried to amalgamate the commands in 1999 but came under heavy criticism with the plan aborted by then police minister Michael Costa in 2001.

The force revealed the latest attempt last week during pay negotiations with the NSW Police Association.

See what police on the beat were offered and why they

— Hat tip: Nilk

[Return to headlines]

Young Father Stabbed and Beaten to Death With a Baseball Bat in Sydney’s South-West

A YOUNG father was stabbed and savagely beaten to death with a baseball bat by a mob of up to 15 people who turned on him in Sydney’s south-west yesterday.

Wayne Boyce, 23, from Bonnyrigg, was set upon in Trevanna St, Busby, just after 3am.

The father of two infant boys had driven to the address after a friend, known as Joel, called him for help when the angry group turned up at his house, The Sunday Telegraph reports.

Neighbours said they awoke to the sound of smashed windows, as members of the group shouted for Joel to “come outside”.

A car parked in the driveway was also badly damaged by the men, who had allegedly come after Joel for reasons which are still unclear.

It is understood he had called Mr Boyce, a long-time friend, who at first dismissed the problem, saying he should just tell the men to “go away”. Eventually the dangerous situation became clear and Mr Boyce rushed over from his home in Bonnyrigg.

His brother-in-law, Mohammed, said the moment Mr Boyce arrived at the Busby address and got out of his car, the group turned its anger onto him.

He attempted to escape, but was stabbed in his lower back and fell to the floor where his killers continued to bash him with bats and metal poles.

Paramedics were called and attempted to revive him at the scene, but he died a short time later from his injuries at Liverpool Hospital.

Police yesterday formed Strike Force Harney to help track down his killers, who had fled the scene, and forensic officers and local detectives later secured evidence.

Authorities said the trouble had occurred as a result of an altercation between “two groups of men” outside the home.

Friends and family gathered at the home of Mr Boyce’s parents, just metres away from where the attack occurred, to offer support.

His girlfriend, Casey Tyrell, 19, was too distraught to speak yesterday, but her mother described him as a beautiful soul who should not have died in such a senseless way.

“Wayne loved my daughter and my daughter loved him,” Sharon Tyrell said.

“She loved him so much.”

She said it was incomprehensible why he had to die.

“It was just a fight — they didn’t have to bloody stab him,” she said.

Police continue to appeal for witnesses to come forward with information or call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

— Hat tip: Nilk

[Return to headlines]

Israeli Guards Drive Off Somali Pirates

Israeli private security guards exchanged fire with pirates who attacked an Italian cruise ship with 1,500 people on board far off the coast of Somalia, and drove them away, the ship’s commander said Sunday.

Cmdr. Ciro Pinto told Italian state radio that six men in a small white boat approached the Msc Melody and opened fire Saturday night, but retreated after the Israeli security officers aboard the cruise ship returned fire.

“It felt like we were in war,” Pinto said.

None of the roughly 1,000 passengers and 500 crew members were hurt, Melody owner Msc Cruises said in a statement issued by its German branch.

Domenico Pellegrino, head of the Italian cruise line, said Msc hired the Israelis because they were the best trained security agents, the ANSA news agency reported.

— Hat tip: KGS

[Return to headlines]

Italy Ship Thwarts Pirate Attack

A captain of an Italian cruise ship has given the BBC a dramatic account of how his crew fended off a pirate attack near the coast of Somalia.

Capt Ciro Pinto said six pirates in a speedboat approached his Melody ship and opened fire, but then fled after security men fired in the air.

He said his crew also sprayed water on the gunmen when they tried to climb aboard using a ladder.

No-one was hurt in Saturday’s incident. Some 1,500 people were on the vessel.

Somali pirates have also seized an empty Yemeni oil tanker and clashed with coast guards on Sunday, a Yemeni official said.

Two pirates were killed in the action as the Yemeni coast guard tried to free the vessel, a Yemeni government official was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying.

The official said three pirates and two Yemeni coast guards were also wounded in the exchange.

See map of how piracy is affecting the region and countries around the world

Last year, pirates attacked more than 100 ships in the region, demanding huge ransom for their release. Their attacks have intensified recently.

‘Throwing chairs’

Capt Pinto told the BBC that the pirates tried to hijack his ship late on Saturday, about 290km (180 miles) north of Victoria in the Seychelles.

“One white small boat with six people on board approached the port [left] side of the ship and started shooting..”

The captain said the pirates fired some 200 rounds of shots on the vessel.

His said “our security started shooting in the air… and also we started spraying some water” to beat off the attackers.

Capt Pinto said the pirates were forced to give up after about five minutes of shooting and a high-speed chase.

Samantha Hendey from Durban, South Africa, told the BBC that her sister Tabitha Nicholson was on board the ship during the attack and the situation was “pretty dramatic”.

“She said that there were lots of passengers on deck watching it unfold and they even took action themselves by throwing chairs overboard, trying to hit the pirates,” Samantha said.

“She said there were lots of bullet holes in the ship but that they were not serious enough to force it to return to port.”

The head of the Italy’s MSC Cruises, which owns the Meloday, credited the captain for his “cool-headed” handling of the incident, Italy’s Ansa news agency reported.

The ship was on a cruise from South Africa to Italy. It was now headed as scheduled for the Jordanian port of Aqaba.

Somali pirates have hijacked about a dozen ships since the start of April, despite the presence of around 20 foreign naval vessels in the area.

International warships have been patrolling the waters off Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden in recent months as part of an effort to counter piracy.

They have freed a number of ships, but attacks have continued.

Somalia has been without an effective administration since 1991, fuelling the lawlessness which has allowed piracy to thrive.

Shipping companies last year handed over about $80m (£54m) in ransom payments to the gangs.

— Hat tip: islam o’phobe

[Return to headlines]

Ahmadinejad to Visit Latin America Next Month

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is slated to go on a three-nation tour of Latin America early May.

Sources said that the Iranian president will likely have a short stop in Syria on his way to Latin America.

Sources also named Brazil as among the Latino nations to be visited by President Ahmadinejad.

Iran and Brazil recently agreed to boost mutual cooperation in building power plants and developing oil and gas fields.

The agreement was made in meetings between Iranian Deputy Oil Minister Hamid Chitchian and Deputy Energy Minister Hossein Noqrekaar Shirazi and Brazilian deputy mine and energy minister.

At the meetings, the two sides agreed that Iranian companies introduce their plans for building power plants in Brazil, given the existing potentials in the Latin country for exploiting water and thermal resources.

It was also agreed that the Brazilian companies expand their investments in gas, oil and petrochemical fields in northern and southern Iran, and Iranian companies, in turn, run activity in Brazil’s oil fields.

The issue is to go under further discussions during an upcoming trip to Brazil by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad next month.

— Hat tip: IH

[Return to headlines]

Third Refugee Boat in Fortnight Intercepted

Another boat load of asylum seekers has been intercepted off the Australian north-west coastline, in the same region a vessel exploded less than two weeks ago, killing five refugees. The vessel, carrying more than 50 passengers and two crew, was intercepted yesterday 90 nautical miles south-west of Ashmore Reef, about 900km from Darwin, by a Royal Australian Navy patrol boat.

It is the eighth boat of asylum seekers to approach Australian waters this year and the 15th boat to be intercepted since last August when Labor made changes to Australia’s immigration policy, including the scrapping of temporary protection visas.

Minister for Home Affairs Bob Debus said in a statement the boat was in international waters and the group voluntarily transferred from their boat to the HMAS Albany.

It is believed the boat was travelling from Indonesia and the passengers were most likely Afghans.

It is also understood the vessel was not being tracked by Australian authorities, although its sighting was confirmed by a Customs and Border Protection Command Dash 8 aircraft following an alert by an oil rig tender vessel. Within an hour of receiving the alert, the navy had made contact with the boat, Mr Debus said. The interception demonstrated the effectiveness of Border Protection Commands surveillance, he said. The interception came as another boatload of asylum seekers was transferred to Christmas Island.

— Hat tip: islam o’phobe

[Return to headlines]

UK: Field Hits Out Over Immigration Levels

THE United Kingdom will have to build one house every six minutes, day and night, seven days a week for the next 20 years to meet the current scale of immigration, Labour MP and former minister Frank Field warned yesterday.

He said immigration would account for 70% of population growth in the next 20 years — that is seven million, or seven times the population of Birmingham. In 2007, immigrants were arriving at the rate of almost one every minute.

Field, MP for Birkenhead, issued his stark warning in an article in parliament’s The House Magazine.

He recalled that he and Tory MP Nicholas Soames had established a cross-party group on balanced migration, designed to stimulate and inform a non-partisan and calm debate about the issue.

“For many years, probably a generation, immigration has been a no-go area to British politics. ‘Racist’, ‘Little Englander’, ‘xenophobe’ — those who have raised the subject have been insulted, abused and, all too often, silenced.”

Field went on: “The beneficiaries of this have been the extremists, lurking in the wings, eager to piggyback on the public’s concern for their own despicable ends. The losers have been the citizens of this country.”

He said that over the past few years immigration had reached unprecedented levels. “Net migration — the number of people coming to the UK minus the people leaving — has more than quadrupled since 1997.”

In 2007, 502,000 migrants arrived in the UK — almost one every minute, Field said. “Our population is officially projected to reach 70 million by 2028 and 80 million in mid-century, with immigration the main driver and the only one that the government can directly influence.

Field said that these projections were based on the Government’s own net immigration assumptions. “But cold statistics do not paint the whole picture,” he said.

“Delve beneath ‘seven new Birminghams’ and we see that in the next 20 years, one-third of projected household formations will be a result of immigration, meaning we will need to build 260 houses a day for the next 20 years to meet the requirement.”

And he warned: “If the Government does not adopt the policy of balanced migration, or something close to it, our population is set to rise to a level to which the vast majority of people are strongly opposed. They are not opposed to immigration or immigrants, but to the present scale of immigration, which is bound to have a negative aspect on life in Britain.”

— Hat tip: The Frozen North

[Return to headlines]

Germany: Public Resistance Against Homosexualization of Society

Preparations for a conference on psychotherapy set for May in Marburg, Germany are being disrupted by an “action alliance of queer, feminist, and anti-fascist and anti-sexist” groups that want two Christian therapists removed from the roster of speakers.

In response, a group of at least 600 prominent German professionals from a wide variety of backgrounds has issued a public statement and petition to protest the “totalitarian aspirations of the gay and lesbian associations.” These organizations, they said, are trying to suppress freedom of expression and academic inquiry at the upcoming 6th International Congress for Psychotherapy and Counseling in Marburg.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Conficker Virus Begins to Attack PCs

A malicious software program known as Conficker that many feared would wreak havoc on April 1 is slowly being activated, weeks after being dismissed as a false alarm, security experts said.

Conficker, also known as Downadup or Kido, is quietly turning thousands of personal computers into servers of e-mail spam and installing spyware, they said.

The worm started spreading late last year, infecting millions of computers and turning them into “slaves” that respond to commands sent from a remote server that effectively controls an army of computers known as a botnet.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Diana West weighs in on the current mess in Afghanistan:

…the United States is getting a lot of bang for a lot of buck but not much else. Don’t get me wrong: If killing small bands of Taliban is in the best interest of the United States, I’m for it. But I do not believe it is — and certainly not as part of the grand strategy conceived first by the Bush administration and now expanded by the Obama administration to turn Afghanistan into a state capable of warding off what is daintily known as “extremism,” but is, in fact, bona-fide jihad to advance Sharia (Islamic law).

Anybody remember Sisyphus? Well, trying to transform Afghanistan into an anti-jihad, anti-Sharia player — let alone functional nation — is like trying to roll Sisyphus’ rock up the hill.

She could be right: this Sisyphean task may eventually get us flattened under that rock. Afghan is too lawless, far more tribal than Iraq could ever think of being, and has crushed more than one power which tried to rule it in the past.

Ms. West continues:

…sinking all possible men, materiel and bureaucracy into Afghanistan, as the Obama people and most conservatives favor, to try to bring a corrupt Islamic culture into working modernity while simultaneously fighting Taliban and wading deep into treacherous Pakistani wars is no way to victory — at least not to U.S. victory. On the contrary, it is the best way to bleed and further degrade U.S. military capabilities. Indeed, if I were a jihad chieftain, I couldn’t imagine a better strategy than to entrap tens of thousands of America’s very best young men in an open-ended war of mortal hide-and-seek in the North West Frontier.

But does it have to be an “open-ended war”? Yes, we need personnel and materiel, but we also need a long-term strategy and some tactics that would allow regular people in Afghnistan to ally with the Coalition Forces. They will never do so if they think we will not stay for the long haul but will abandon them to the sadistic cruelty of the terrorists. America has faced that shameful mistake before. I beg that we not repeat it.

We have the potential for this commitment if we think it through and plan carefully. Iraq was Bush’s war, and no matter how shaky that country seems – and right now it does – the surge will remain imprinted in the national consciousness of the US as a “win”.

Now the roulette wheel spins and Afghanistan is Obama’s war. As his predecessors were, the President is a hostage to the fortunes of his times, and lawless Afghanistan belongs to him.
– – – – – – – – –
I believe that is why he has retained Secretary of Defense Gates and General Petraeus, though I doubt there is little love lost between the President and his military leadership. Obama’s experience is limited to community organizing, sitting on the boards of foundations, and dexterous campaigning. Those are slim credentials for strategizing about the Badlands. Without Gates and Petraeus, Obama is left to roll that rock all by himself. Besides, if and when things go thoroughly sideways, and they well might, the President has these two to blame for his losses.

When Ms. West asked Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely for his recommendations on Afghanistan, he said:

“Basically, let it go”.

[…]

“There’s nothing to win there,” he explained, engaging in an all-too-exotic display of common sense. “What do you get for it? What’s the return? Well, the return’s all negative for the United States.”

The general continued: “This doesn’t mean giving up battle. What it means is you transition to a more realistic, affordable strategy that keeps them (the jihadist enemy) from spreading.”

The problem I see with this is that if we let Afghanistan go, we might as well kiss Pakistan goodbye, also. Like it or not, these lawless, backward hell holes are a two-fer. Lose one – or let it go – and we will have a radioactive Taliban in short order.

Think of what pulling out would mean for our relationship with India, just to name one disaster. A connected mess is India’s help with Israel, which she would have to abandon as troops massed on the border with Pakistan.

Not that the General’s idea isn’t intriguing. He told Ms. West:

Such a strategy…relies on “the maximum use of unconventional forces,” such as Navy SEALS and other special forces, who can be deployed as needed from what are known in military parlance as “lily pads” — outposts or jumping-off points in friendly countries (Israel, Northern Kurdistan, India, Philippines, Italy, Djibouti … ) and from U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups. Such strike groups generally include eight to 10 vessels “with more fire power…than most nations.” These lily pads become “bases we can launch from any time we want to…”

[…]

“There’s no permanent force…that’s the beauty of it.” We watch, we wait and when U.S. interests are threatened, “we basically use our strike forces to take them out, target by target.” This would work whether the threat came from Al Qaeda, Pakistani nukes or anything else.

I agree with Ms. West and the General that nation-building is problematic in a place like Afghanistan, or Pakistan for that matter. India, with her years of British colonial preparation, still has her work cut out for her – work that is hampered every day by Islamic terrorists and by poverty. However, India is blessed with an industrious, intelligent people and most especially, she operates under the rule of law.

If we have learned nothing else in the years since September 11th 2001, we have gained much knowledge regarding the difficulty (if not impossibility) of bringing the rule of law to a culture that is severely hampered by tribal fiat.

It remains to be seen what our new President will “do with” Afghanistan. As he so famously remarked to someone who questioned one of his plans, “I won”.

You certainly did win, sir. And one of your prizes was Afghanistan.

Good luck with that, Mr. President.

What Ezra Levant reports in this video is enough to make one queasy. Were I Canadian, I’d choose to eat at home.

The Canadian Human Rights Commission is downright scary, especially considering our current health problems. From the CDC:

Human cases of swine influenza A (H1N1) virus infection have been identified in the United States. Human cases of swine influenza A (H1N1) virus infection also have been identified internationally.

[…]

Investigations are ongoing to determine the source of the infection and whether additional people have been infected with swine influenza viruses.

CDC is working very closely with officials in states where human cases of swine influenza A (H1N1) have been identified, as well as with health officials in Mexico, Canada and the World Health Organization. This includes deploying staff domestically and internationally to provide guidance and technical support. CDC has activated its Emergency Operations Center to coordinate this investigation.

Laboratory testing has found the swine influenza A (H1N1) virus susceptible to the prescription antiviral drugs oseltamivir and zanamivir and has issued interim guidance for the use of these drugs to treat and prevent infection with swine influenza viruses. CDC also has prepared interim guidance on how to care for people who are sick and interim guidance on the use of face masks in a community setting where spread of this swine flu virus has been detected. This is a rapidly evolving situation and CDC will provide new information as it becomes available.

There are everyday actions people can take to stay healthy.

• Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it.
• Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze. Alcohol-based hands cleaners are also effective. [my emphasis – D]
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs spread that way.
• Try to avoid close contact with sick people.

Influenza is thought to spread mainly person-to-person through coughing or sneezing of infected people.

If you get sick, CDC recommends that you stay home from work or school and limit contact with others to keep from infecting them.

I wonder what the Canadian equivalent of the CDC is, and if anyone has told them of the ruling the Human Rights Commission made – i.e., that you don’t have to wash your hands if you handle food for the public. An employer’s demand to do so is a violation of your rights.

Workers with dirty hands, rise up and demand your civil liberties! So what if a few hundred people die for your freedom from hygienic practices?

I hope the health authorities in Canada are in contact with the misguided bureaucrats at the Human Rights Commission. They certainly do need to be brought up to speed on the germ theory. Or is that too 20th century for the forward-looking HRC?

Here are the latest statistics from the CDC:
– – – – – – – – –

These are just the identified cases in the US. Mexico has been particularly hard hit and I expect to see more outbreaks in the southwestern part of the country due to our porous and perilous border situation.

The US government has finally declared the outbreak to be a problem and will be taking bureaucratic measures, as yet unspecified.

Mexico City has closed its schools.

I won’t try to update this information as it will be changing rapidly in the next few days. It appears to be an international outbreak.

However, Gateway Pundit will keep up with things, so check in over there to see how this is progressing. Jim’s latest post says:

South Korea and Japan are screening flights coming from US and Mexico.

DHS Secretary Napolitano says US will not screen flights coming from Mexico.

President Obama went golfing today.

If any of our Canadian readers know what the Human Rights Commission is permitting Canada’s citizens to do in the face of this pandemic, please let us know in the comments.

If you glance through the “Financial Crisis” section tonight, three seemingly unrelated items may stand out:

1.		Credit Suisse is alarmed by government interference in the financial system;
2.		China has acknowledged that it has been buying up gold reserves; and
3.		Also from Switzerland come possible plans for a new global currency.

So it looks like the long-expected flight from the dollar is about to begin.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Diana West, El Inglés, heroyalwhyness, Insubria, JD, JR, Nilk, TB, The Observer, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
– – – – – – – – –

	Financial Crisis
	Credit Suisse Warns of ‘Excessive’ State Action
	European Commission Backs Support for Serbia
	France: From Today Special Sales in Large Stores
	Italy: Almost 2.5 Million Living in Absolute Poverty
	Portugal: Public Humiliation for Hardened Debtors
	Spain: Protest Against Immigrants, Shipyard Blocked
	The Tower of BIS Basel: Secretive Plans for the Issuing of a New Global Currency
	USA
	California Considers Constitutional Convention
	Democrats Refuse to Allow Skeptic to Testify Alongside Gore at Congressional Hearing
	Diana West: Shariah Goes to Harvard
	High-Seas Pirate Tries to Adjust to NY Prison Cell
	Obama’s Bootlicking Backfires
	Obama Appoints Muslim Advisor
	The Knock at the Door
	U.S. Plans to Accept Several Chinese Muslims From Guantanamo
	Europe and the EU
	2,800 Crime Gangs Ravage UK Streets
	EU: Ferrero Waldner, No to Closer Relations With Israel
	EU-Turkey: Ferrero-Waldner, It’s a European Decision
	Italy: Protests Grow at Milan Anti-Kebab Law
	‘Quiet’ Copenhagen Cracks Down on Deadly Gang War
	Spain: Bishops Oppose Genetic Selection
	TV: Spain, Tax on Private TV Will Finance Public TV
	UK: Home Office Civil Servant Sacked
	Balkans
	EU-Montenegro: Brussels, Word on Nomination in 14-16 Months
	Kosovo: Tadic, Justice Court Verdict in at Least a Year
	Kosovo: Turkey Offers Help for Cultural Heritage
	Serbia-Montenegro: Police Cooperation to be Strengthened
	Serbia: Building of Corridor 10 to Begin by End of 2009
	University: Croatia, Tuition Fee Protest Spreads
	Mediterranean Union
	Jordan-Italy: Amman Embassy Launches Appointment System
	North Africa
	TLC: Tunisia, Indian Interest for Third Operator
	Israel and the Palestinians
	Netanyahu: EU Ties Should Not Involve Palestinians
	Topolanek for Strengthened Israel-EU Relations
	Middle East
	Egypt-Israel; Spokesperson, Lieberman Not Invited
	Energy: Turkey a Natural Gas Artery of Europe, Gul Says
	Lebanon: Hariri Case; Press, ‘Key Witness’ Arrested
	School: Ambitious Saudi Programme for Women’s Education
	Syria: Damascus Citadel Gallery Opens After Restoration
	Telecoms: Italian Temix to Rebuild TLC Network in Iraq
	Turkey-Armenia: Babacan, Normalization is Not a Dream
	Veil and Beret, Police in Kuwait Go Pink
	South Asia
	Aussie Soldiers Take 100 Taliban
	Let Afghanistan Go
	Pakistan: Taliban Executes 2 Christians
	Far East
	China Admits to Building Up Stockpile of Gold
	Australia — Pacific
	Judges Slug Taxpayers $100,000 for Tour of China
	Immigration
	France: Catholic Bishops Promote Dialogue With Muslims
	Pinar: Italy and Malta Cash in EU Aid

Credit Suisse Warns of ‘Excessive’ State Action

Governments injecting funds already giving rise to ‘2-tiered banking system’

The chairman of Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse on Friday warned against excessive government intervention in the lending policies of banks that have been bailed out by the state.

“In view of the growing number of banks relying on government support, however, I have concerns that excessive state intervention regarding the lending policies of banks or the realignment of their structures could have negative implications for the entire sector,” said Walter Kielholz.

Many of Credit Suisse’s competitors, including local rival UBS, US banks Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, have received state funding to weather the financial crisis.

Credit Suisse has turned to private investors, but has not taken government funds.

Kielholz acknowledged during the bank’s annual general meeting that state intervention had been necessary to prevent a meltdown of the entire financial sector.

However, he said the action by governments to inject funds into banks was already giving rise to a “two-tiered banking system.”

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

European Commission Backs Support for Serbia

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, APRIL 20 — The European Commission agrees in principle with the idea of supplying a form of budget support for Serbia facing the impact of the economic crisis, “to mitigate” the country’s “problems”, said European Commissioner for Enlargement Olli Rehn after his meeting in Brussels with the Serbian Foreign Minister, Vuk Jeremic. “The European Union will take care of Serbia in this difficult situation” said the commissioner, explaining that the procedure to obtain the funds “is still in progress”. The Serbian government had asked the EU for around 120 million euros in a meeting at the end of March. The money regards part of the pre-accession funds which the Commission allocates every year to specific projects for initiatives of third States, in view of their future membership of the Union. With respect to the possible opening of European borders to the Balkans, leaving behind the need for visas to travel, Commissioner Rehn said he believes that he will conclude his inspections in the five Balkan countries involved (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia and Serbia) by June, when the Czech presidency of the EU will end. After that he will make possible recommendations to the Council for the countries that qualified. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

France: From Today Special Sales in Large Stores

(ANSAmed) — PARIS, APRIL 22 — Le Galeries Lafayette, Fnac, Printemps and other big Paris stores today start their April sales: they have organised a week of “extraordinary” sales thanks to a new law which allows shopkeepers to pick two weeks per year which will be deducted from the end-of-season sale. “As of today people can buy the spring collection for bargain prices. We offer discounts up to 50%” explained Pierre Pellarey, director of Printemps. “The only difference” to the end-of-season sale “is that this period is shorter” Pellarey added. “Our goal is to speed up stores’ turnover” said Christophe Cann, sales director of Galeries Lafayette. “In this period of crisis many people postpone their acquisitions. We had to send a positive signal offering a good price for quality and more sales”, added Cann. However, despite the posters in the underground stations and the ads sent via text messages and e-mail, many buyers are still unaware of the sales.(ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Italy: Almost 2.5 Million Living in Absolute Poverty

(ANSAmed) — ROME, APRIL 22 — In Italy, about 2.5 million people are living below the poverty line. “The poor among the poor”, about 975 thousand families, or 4.5% of households in the country, currently live in these conditions, according to ISTAT (National Statistics Institute), which presented its report on extreme poverty referring to 2007. It was underlined that compared to 2005, “absolute poverty remained stable and substantially unchanged”. Absolute poverty is highly concentrated in the south, where levels reached 5.8%, compared to 3.5% in the north, and 2.9% in the central regions. Absolute poverty affects numerous families (3.1% of families with only one child living in absolute poverty rose to 3.8% and to 10.5% for families with two or more children) more than families with less children, compared to the elderly (5.4%) and families in which women are the heads of the household (4.9%). With today’s report, ISTAT introduced a new methodology in which they estimate the poverty threshold, taking into account the minimum monthly salary needed to buy a basket of essential goods and services. This threshold varied according to age, family composition, and residency location. For example, for a family made up of only one person between the age of 18 and 59, living in a metropolitan area in the north, the threshold is 724.29 euros. Instead, if the same person lives in a smaller town, the threshold is 650.04 euros. If the same person lives in a large town in the south, the threshold drops to 520.18 euros. The poverty intensity, or the percentage of family monthly expenses for extremely poor families under the extreme poverty line, was equal to 16.3% and reached 18.2% for families residing in the south. (ANSAmed).

2009-04-22 15:36

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Portugal: Public Humiliation for Hardened Debtors

(by Paola Del Vecchio) (ANSAmed) — MADRID, APRIL 24 — No debt-collection companies, or long and often fruitless legal proceedings: in Portugal the name of the debtor and they amount they owe is put on display for all to see. With the economic crisis sparing no one, in several towns in Portugal, businesses have invented a last resource: a publically displayed list of clients in default from whom they have lost almost all hope of getting their money back. Naturally, the measure, cited by the Spanish press, already adopted in cities such as Viana do Costelo in the northern part of the country, or O Fundao, near Porto, has created controversy and divisions between citizens and businesses. The latter have assured that this has proven to be the most efficient method to get non-payers to settle their debts. In storefront windows, next to the mannequins, you can find the inevitable bad debtor lists with the names and addresses of those who owe money, regardless of privacy regulations. In many cases debts going back 7 to 8 years that have not yet been paid off are posted. The owner of a clothing store, Druge, in Viana Do Costelo, who asked to remain anonymous gave the following explanation: “I called them on the phone, I sent the invoices, I went to their home, but they just fobbed me off with excuses.” Then, recently, she made a list of names who aren’t allowed in the store, with their phone numbers, addresses, and the amount of money they owe. “After putting out this list, three of them paid me, but I don’t think I can get the money from the others,” explained the women. The situation was worse at a jewellery store in the same town, which, despite the debtors list, which totalled 15,000 euros, did not manage to avoid closing. Some local businesses have adopted this ‘anything goes’ approach to get the credit that they granted their customers back, regardless of privacy regulations, as a last desperate act in order to avoid closing their doors. There are some that believe it to be useful: “It’s true that the majority of debtors continue not to pay back the money that they owe,” observed Aires Duarte, the owner of a photography store, “but they must know that they risk leaving people in financial ruin. Then, there is also a positive effect that at least everyone knows who they should not grant credit, because they are broke.” Duarte, in order to get his money back, put a small olive tree in his storefront window with the names of all of the ‘caloteiros’ attached like pieces of fruit. However, there are numerous business owners who are conscientious objectors to the initiative, calling it “too radical”. “It’s true that these are difficult times for businesses, but this cannot be the solution,” said some professional organisations. In Portugal, like Spain, there are people who are taking advantage of the financial crisis to make great business deals. ‘El hombre in frac’ or the man in coat-tails, is scarier than the devil at this point. Derby hat and briefcase in hand, the collector from credit companies follows the shadow of his victims everywhere, while leaving their home, in the office, to the gym, in front of school, and even to the grave, humiliating debtors, demanding money. The business of the so-called ‘cobrador del frac’, which for decades has worked on the Iberian peninsula, has increased it business by 40% and has reported astronomical amounts of debt, with over 9 million euros per month just in the Valencia area, which have been accumulated by construction companies. Now, for the ever-growing array of debtors, as if creditors were not enough, public debtor lists have also arrived. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Spain: Protest Against Immigrants, Shipyard Blocked

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, APRIL 24 — As has happened previously in the UK, record unemployment figures in Spain are causing a war amongst the poor, with immigrant workers as the target. Picket lines of subcontracted workers today paralysed all activities at the La Naval shipyard, in the port of Sestao (Bilbao), to protest against cheap labour from Portugal and Romania. Trade union sources quoted on the online portal of El Mundo reported that today at dawn around 200 Spanish subcontracted workers of La Naval blocked access to the shipyard to around a thousand workers and subcontracted workers from the morning shift. The demonstrators are protesting against the decision of the management to dismiss around twenty workers and replace them with cheap foreign labour. After a meeting between trade unions and company management, the management decided to suspend all work today. The shipyard remains guarded by the Basque police and no incidents have been reported so far. But sources of Comisiones Obreras warn that “a situation of unfair competition is developing which could turn out to be unsustainable”. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

The Tower of BIS Basel: Secretive Plans for the Issuing of a New Global Currency

The power of the BIS to make or break economies was demonstrated in 1988, when it issued a Basel Accord raising bank capital requirements from 6% to 8%. By then, Japan had emerged as the world’s largest creditor; but Japan’s banks were less well capitalized than other major international banks. Raising the capital requirement forced them to cut back on lending, creating a recession in Japan like that suffered in the U.S. today. Property prices fell and loans went into default as the security for them shriveled up. A downward spiral followed, ending with the total bankruptcy of the banks, which had to be nationalized — although that word was not used, in order to avoid criticism.6

Among other collateral damage produced by the Basel Accords was a spate of suicides among Indian farmers unable to get loans. The BIS capital adequacy standards required loans to private borrowers to be “risk-weighted,” with the degree of risk determined by private rating agencies; and farmers and small business owners could not afford the agencies’ fees. Banks therefore assigned 100 percent risk to the loans, and then resisted extending credit to these “high-risk” borrowers because more capital was required to cover the loans. When the conscience of the nation was aroused by the Indian suicides, the government, lamenting the neglect of farmers by commercial banks, established a policy of ending the “financial exclusion” of the weak; but this step had little real effect on lending practices, due largely to the strictures imposed by the BIS from abroad.7

Similar complaints have come from Korea.

[…]

When governments fell into the trap of accepting loans in foreign currencies, however, they became “debtor nations” subject to IMF and BIS regulation. They were forced to divert their production to exports, just to earn the foreign currency necessary to pay the interest on their loans. National banks deemed “capital inadequate” had to deal with strictures comparable to the “conditionalities” imposed by the IMF on debtor nations: “escalating capital requirement, loan writeoffs and liquidation, and restructuring through selloffs, layoffs, downsizing, cost-cutting and freeze on capital spending.”

[…]

While banks in developing nations were being penalized for falling short of the BIS capital requirements, large international banks managed to escape the rules, although they actually carried enormous risk because of their derivative exposure. The mega-banks succeeded in avoiding the Basel rules by separating the “risk” of default out from the loans and selling it off to investors, using a form of derivative known as “credit default swaps.”

[…]

However, it was not in the game plan that U.S. banks should escape the BIS net. When they managed to sidestep the first Basel Accord, a second set of rules was imposed known as Basel II. The new rules were established in 2004, but they were not levied on U.S. banks until November 2007, the month after the Dow passed 14,000 to reach its all-time high. The economy was all downhill from there. Basel II had the same effect on U.S. banks that Basel I had on Japanese banks: they have been struggling ever since to survive.8

Basel II requires banks to adjust the value of their marketable securities to the “market price” of the security, a rule called “mark to market.”9 The rule has theoretical merit, but the problem is timing: it was imposed ex post facto, after the banks already had the hard-to-market assets on their books.

— Hat tip: JD

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California Considers Constitutional Convention

‘It’s reasonable to expect that voters would be very scared of the idea’

[Comments from JD: Constitutional convention would be used to shred the constitution and replace it with a version more suitable for PC globalists.]

Fed up with the budget crises and partisan battles that have paralyzed California for years, some influential voices believe it’s time to tear open the state constitution and start anew.

Once dismissed as a hokey gimmick, support for a proposed constitutional convention has been building in the nation’s most populous state. Even Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, has indicated he would back an effort to retool the document to make state government function more smoothly.

Opponents of the step say it’s just a ruse to raise taxes and could expose the constitution to a host of ideological and special interest-driven changes.

— Hat tip: JD

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Democrats Refuse to Allow Skeptic to Testify Alongside Gore at Congressional Hearing

UK’s Lord Christopher Monckton, a former science advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, claimed House Democrats have refused to allow him to appear alongside former Vice President Al Gore at a high profile global warming hearing on Friday April 24, 2009 at 10am in Washington. Monckton told Climate Depot that the Democrats rescinded his scheduled joint appearance at the House Energy and Commerce hearing on Friday. Monckton said he was informed that he would not be allowed to testify alongside Gore when his plane landed from England Thursday afternoon.

“The House Democrats don’t want Gore humiliated, so they slammed the door of the Capitol in my face,” Monckton told Climate Depot in an exclusive interview. “They are cowards.”

— Hat tip: JD

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Diana West: Shariah Goes to Harvard

What do Pakistan’s Swat Valley and Harvard University have in common?

Their leading Islamic authorities uphold the Shariah (Islamic law) tradition of punishing those who leave Islam with death.

There are differences, of course. For one thing, Shariah actually rules the Swat Valley, while Shariah’s traditions, as promulgated by Harvard Muslim chaplain Taha Abdul-Basser, retain a more or less theoretical caste. In a recently publicized e-mail, for example, Mr. Abdul-Basser approvingly explained to a student the traditional Islamic practice of executing converts from Islam.

As the chaplain put it: “There is great wisdom (hikma) associated with the established and preserved position (capital punishment), and so, even if it makes some uncomfortable in the face of the hegemonic modern human-rights discourse, one should not dismiss it out of hand.”

Certainly, one should not dismiss Mr. Abdul-Basser out of hand — or the chilling implications of what it means to have a religious leader at Harvard validate the ultimate act of Islamic religious persecution. But dismissing — or, rather, ignoring — this controversy is precisely what Harvard is doing in what appears to be an institutional strategy to make it go away. No one from the public-affairs office I contacted would answer questions or return phone calls. The lady who unguardedly answered the phone at the Harvard Chaplains’ office couldn’t get off fast enough, offering by way of answers a faxed “On Inquiry Statement” prepared by Mr. Abdul-Basser in which he issued a raft of denials unrelated to the e-mail statements in question…

— Hat tip: Diana West

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High-Seas Pirate Tries to Adjust to NY Prison Cell

The wound on Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse’s slim hand, where he was stabbed by a crew member during his pirate attack on a U.S. cargo ship, has been redressed. He’s been given painkillers and antibiotics for his injuries and a Quran to use in prayer.

— Hat tip: JD

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Obama’s Bootlicking Backfires

Exclusive: Henry Lamb asserts prez has a ‘vision of America that is not American’

Did anyone squirm or feel embarrassed when President Obama allowed dictator Chavez to give him a book about the evils of the United States? The initial diplomatic handshake could be overlooked, but it was definitely embarrassing to watch Obama accepting, with a smile, a gift from this guy who had previously called him an “ignoramus”, and had called another U.S. president “el Diablo” at the United Nations.

This blunder, on the heels of his European fiasco where he apologized for the United States’ policies before he took office, raises serious questions about his vision and understanding of what America is all about. Some critics attribute this ineptitude to naivety, but when viewed in the context of such additional actions as deliberately overriding his CIA advisers and releasing memos about interrogation methods, Obama’s agenda has to be seriously questioned.

The Obama news consortium justifies these missteps as necessary to the “restart” process through which Obama will re-establish the United States as a respected partner in the international community. This is, after all, what he promised during the campaign, when he said he would engage in direct discussions with Iran without preconditions.

The idiocy of this policy was revealed when Obama’s bootlicking backfired in Geneva during the U.N. conference on racism. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad must not have been impressed by Obama’s apologies and promises. This Iranian president didn’t turn down the volume one bit on his vicious, racist attacks on Israel or the United States. Incidentally, he didn’t slow his quest to process uranium, either. In fact, despite Obama’s promises and groveling, Ahmadinejad spit in Obama’s face earlier this month by announcing Iran’s first nuclear Fuel Manufacturing Plant.

— Hat tip: JD

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Obama Appoints Muslim Advisor

Egyptians are cautiously rejoicing over the recent appointment of a veiled Egyptian American Muslim woman as an advisor to President Obama. Dalia Mogahed, senior analyst and executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, was appointed this month to Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Arabs are closely watching for signs that the new leadership in Washington is making efforts to improve relations with Islam, which many Muslims believe were severely damaged during the eight years of the Bush administration. The selection of Mogahed is viewed by many in the Middle East as a step by Obama to move beyond the stereotypes and prejudices that Muslims believe they have encountered since the attacks Sept. 11, 2001. “Dalia Mogahed is the best example of a successful Muslim woman. She proves that the Muslim should be successful in all fields, at least in [her] area of specialization,” a commentator wrote on the website of the independent daily Al Masry al Youm.

The Egyptian-born Mogahed moved with her family to the United States almost 30 years ago. Recently, she co-wrote the book “Who Speaks for Islam?” with John Esposito, an American political science professor who has been criticized by some as an Islamic apologist. Mogahed and Esposito published an opinion piece this month in The Times on American ignorance of Islam and the Muslim world.

“My work focuses on studying Muslims, the way they think and their views,” Mogahed was quoted as saying on the website of the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya satellite news channel. “Then I should tell the president about their problems and needs, especially that lately Muslims have been perceived as a source of problems and as incapable of taking part in solving international problems and that they should work on themselves. Now we want to say that Muslims are capable of providing solutions.”

Yet, Mogahed’s declaration that her loyalty goes first to the United States, published Monday in an interview with Al Masry al Youm, disappointed some people. “I wish your loyalty was to your Islam first, Egypt second and your Arabism third and then to anything else,” wrote a reader identifying himself as the Tiger of Arabs. “I am afraid that they might make a fool out of you and use you as a cover for policies that don’t serve Egypt and the Arab and Muslim world.”

Source: The Times Cairo (Noha El-Hennawy)

— Hat tip: TB

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The Knock at the Door

It is rare in history that government moves to achieve its ultimate goals in one fell swoop. More often, particularly in the U.S., government grabs power from the people and usurps constitutionally protected liberties in small stages over time.

The intent of Barack Obama’s words, which he borrowed from Defense Secretary Robert Gates in laying out a vision for “a civilian national security force” bigger and as well-funded as our military services, taken in conjunction with the “Give Act,” are clear. He wants to create something very new in the history of the United States — something ill-defined, nebulous, yet frightening in the context of our nation’s heritage.

— Hat tip: JD

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U.S. Plans to Accept Several Chinese Muslims From Guantanamo

Reporting from Washington — The Obama administration is preparing to admit into the United States as many as seven Chinese Muslims who have been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay in the first release of any of the detainees into this country, according to current and former U.S. officials.

Their release is seen as a crucial step to plans, announced by President Obama during his first week in office, to close the prison and relocate the detainees. Administration officials also believe that settling some of them in American communities will set an example, helping to persuade other nations to accept Guantanamo detainees too.

— Hat tip: JD

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2,800 Crime Gangs Ravage UK Streets

Police have identified 2,800 organised criminal gangs, nearly three times the number previously acknowledged, and admit that British law enforcement is ill-equipped to deal with the threat that they pose.

The Times has obtained an official report revealing the finding by intelligence analysts. It was completed six months ago but marked “restricted” and circulated only to ministers and police chiefs. After a freedom of information request, it was made available this month in edited form.

Issued by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, it is the first time that officials have disclosed the true scale of the gangland threat and made the frank admission that they are struggling to cope with it.

The report states: “The UK law enforcement community now knows more about organised criminality than ever before. Worryingly, though, this increased knowledge has highlighted the need for a more effective response by the police and other agencies. The reach of organised criminality is more extensive than previously acknowledged . . . from local teams of criminals engaged in drug dealing and acquisitive crime through to international gangs committing acts of large-scale importation, kidnap, fraud and corruption.”

The report, Getting Organised, predicts that the threat from organised crime will increase, with syndicates using the London 2012 Olympics to exploit opportunities for sex trafficking and illegal immigration.

About 60 per cent of gangs are involved in drug dealing, two thirds engage in a range of criminal activities and all are characterised by an “ever-present willingness to use extreme violence to secure and protect profits”.

The report contrasts the nationwide spread of organised crime — from the inner cities to the shires — with the disjointed reaction of police and the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca). Britain’s response is described as “blighted” by a lack of direction, inadequate surveillance and under-investment in intelligence, analysis and enforcement.

Passages edited out before publication are understood to include critical assessments of the ability of some police forces to deal with organised crime. The report does state: “The capability of individual forces is extremely variable . . . there is much work to be done.” There is no direct criticism of Soca, launched in 2006, but the findings add up to a scathing verdict on its failure to satisfy live up to its billing as Britain’s FBI.

The biggest concentrations of crime syndicates are in London and the North West, with criminals there controlling satellite gangs elsewhere in the country.

The scale of the threat is better understood but there is no firm grasp of how the gangs operate and interact.

The law enforcement approach is also found to lack cohesion and co-ordination. The report says: “A number of groups and bodies are competing to set directions and priorities for the service, reporting to different Home Office directorates and, in the case of HM Revenue and Customs, a different ministry.” Without a national approach to the organised crime threat, the policing response would be “reactive, localised and ultimately ineffective”.

The model of national leadership and collaboration pioneered in counter-terrorism should be copied to deal with organised crime, the report says.

Vernon Coaker, the Home Office minister, said that he had earmarked £3 million for the areas facing the worst organised crime threat after reading the report. “I am determined to protect the public from serious organised crime. We have also brought together law enforcement partners through the Organised Crime Partnership Board to drive improvements in this area. A cross-government ministerial group will ensure that good progress is made,” he said.

A Soca spokesman said that the report was “a welcome contribution to the debate about how law enforcement can best tackle the complex and wideranging threats posed to the UK by organised crime”.

— Hat tip: El Inglés

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EU: Ferrero Waldner, No to Closer Relations With Israel

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, APRIL 23 — Benita Ferrero Waldner, the EU Commissioner for External Relations, stated today: ‘I don’t believe that we have reached the time for closer relations with Israel. We want to see the new government’s commitment towards a solution to the conflict with the Palestinians, in particular the two-state solution”. The commissioner, who presented a report today on the progress in reforms in European policy towards its neighbours, explained that the position taken by the new Israeli government regarding the conflict ‘is still not altogether clear”. In Ferrero Waldner’s opinion, a relationship based on good faith is essential with Israel but in order to pass to the stronger partnership that Israel requested ‘concrete results are needed as well as a halt to actions, like the settlements in Palestinian territory, that undermine the peace process”. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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EU-Israel, Not the Right Time to Strengthen Ties

(ANSAmed) — ROME, APRIL 24 — “This is not the best moment to strengthen ties between EU and Israel” said European Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner today in a forum at ANSA. The commissioner added that the European Union wants the two-State solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Regarding Tehran, Ferrero-Waldner believes “we must continue the dialogue” with Iran, “we must stay united”. The Commissioner underlined that Iran has participated in two international conferences. “There is movement on the multilateral front” she said. Commenting on the choice to participate in the recent UN summit ‘Durban 2’ — in which Italy did not take part — Ferrero-Waldner said that it was “better to be there than not to be there” and that the EU did “well to leave after the speech of Iran”. Regarding the final statement, Ferrero-Waldner said that “it was not the best text possible, but it is acceptable”. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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EU-Turkey: Ferrero-Waldner, It’s a European Decision

(ANSAmed) — ROME, APRIL 24 — The decision on the acceptance of Turkey to join the EU is an European decision, said European Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner in a forum at ANSA. Commenting on US President Barack Obama supporting Turkey in its EU membership the Commissioner explained: “it’s true that it’s an European decision, but we all know the position of the USA”. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Protests Grow at Milan Anti-Kebab Law

Centre-left to gather in Via Borsieri on Thursday. Della Vedova calls regulations populist and punitive for small businesses

MILAN — Controversy surrounds the by-law passed by the Lombardy regional council last Tuesday to impose restrictions on retail businesses involved in the direct sale of foodstuffs, such as kebab shops, pastry shops, ice cream shops, rotisseries, takeaway pizza shops and delicatessens in general. One of the limitations is a closing time of no later than one in the morning, unless individual municipal authorities decide exemptions. Consumption of food on the pavement outside shops will also be prohibited. Facebook and other social networks are now buzzing as word spreads of Lombardy and Milan councillors’ “gastronomic disobedience” date at 12.30 pm on Thursday for the consumption of kerbside kebabs and ice creams in Via Borsieri.

NORTHERN LEAGUE SAYS INTERPRETATION IS TENDENTIOUS — Meanwhile, the regional council has issued clarification. The by-law does not prohibit the consumption of ice cream, croissants, kebabs or pizzas outside shops but it does ban small food businesses from placing furniture such as tables and umbrellas on the pavement. The council also points out that fines for failure to comply, which range from 150 to 1,000 euros, will be issued to traders, not their customers…

— Hat tip: Insubria

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‘Quiet’ Copenhagen Cracks Down on Deadly Gang War

COPENHAGEN (AFP) — A grenade tossed into a cafe, gunfire in the street, dead bodies splayed on the pavement, residents living in fear — all sounds out of sync with the medieval cobbled streets and copper roofs of the Danish capital.

But a bloody gang war between bikers and youths of immigrant origin has shattered Copenhagen’s customary calm and jolted officials to boost action against violence that has left three dead and 17 wounded in seven months.

Two more attacks this week — one Friday using a hand grenade — heightened alarm, even if police would not immediately link them to gangs.

“We won’t accept this settling of scores between gangs that is frightening the population,” Anders Fogh Rasmussen said earlier this month before stepping down as prime minister to become NATO secretary general.

Officials, he vowed, would “take all necessary means to halt the escalating violence,” as Copenhagen’s police chief promised to use “Al Capone-like tactics” to go after the gangs.

The battle over drug sales, revenge and wounded honour pits Hells Angels bikers and their offshoot called AK81 against gangs of mainly second and third-generation immigrant youths.

The long-simmering conflict exploded into full-blown war last August, after a 19-year-old man of Turkish origin named Osam Nuri Dogan, who was armed and wearing a bullet-proof vest, was executed on the street.

His body was riddled with 25 bullets in front of a Copenhagen pizza parlour.

A member of AK81 suspected of the killing was arrested but quickly released for lack of evidence.

Since then, violent acts of retaliation have become almost a daily occurrence in the capital — and raised concern of fueling anti-immigrant sentiment in a country long skeptical of Muslims where tightening immigration has been the cornerstone of government policy.

Early Friday, an unknown assailant launched a grenade at a packed cafe patronized by bikers in Christiania, Copenhagen’s giant squat and repair of free spirits and marginals since the 1970s. Four were wounded, including a 22-year-old man whose cheek was ripped out by the blast. “It was an odious attack… and a miracle that no one was killed,” a city deputy police commissioner, Boris Jensen, told AFP.

It came a week after another attack in Christiania in which an AK81 member shot and seriously wounded a 30-year-old man in the stomach. Tabloids said it was gangs settling scores but police, again, would not confirm this.

The majority of attacks — including one Wednesday in which police said “two men on a motorcycle” shot and wounded a 29-year-old man of Egyptian-Eritrean descent — have occurred in the heavily immigrant Noerrebro neighborhood.

The sound of gunfire there has become all too common but residents were shocked out of complacency two months ago when three separate shootings in as many days killed two people with no links to gangs and wounded four others.

Protesters dressed in mourning as for a funeral have repeatedly marched through the capital demanding a “gun-free zone” in Noerrebro so people can take a walk “without worrying about being killed by a stray bullet”.

Rasmussen personally visited a Noerrebro school in early April to try to calm nerves. “You shouldn’t have to have a knot of fear in your stomach when you go outside,” he told a worried 16-year-old.

Police have dramatically increased their presence in trouble zones.

— Hat tip: JR

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Spain: Bishops Oppose Genetic Selection

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, APRIL 24 — “You cannot eliminate one person to cure another one”, says Antonio Martinez Camino, spokesperson for the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE), commenting on today’s decision by the National commission for assisted human reproduction to authorise two cases of genetic embryo selection to avoid forms of cancer. During a press conference held at the end of the Plenary Assembly of the Spanish Episcopal Conference he defined genetic selection as a “eugenetic technique”. He noted that “You cannot do good at the price of radical evil, of killing”. The spokesperson also pointed to last Monday’s condemnation of abortion by Madrid’s archbishop and Episcopal conference president Antonio Maria Rouco Varela, who at the opening of the bishops’ Assembly said that “In recent decades Spain has seen itself immersed in the process of deterioration of moral conscience which touches the sacred value of human life. As of 1983 the situation has gradually worsened both in legal and practical terms”. Vice-premier Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega avoided falling into controversy with the bishops during the customary post-cabinet meeting press conference. De la Vega said that “as a rule the executive will not confront the Episcopal Conference” because the two institutions lie ‘in different areas of the constitution”.(ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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TV: Spain, Tax on Private TV Will Finance Public TV

(ANSAmed) — Madrid, APRIL 23 — Spain’s government is looking into a new tax on private television networks that would amount to 3% of their yearly revenues. According to a report by El Pais, tax revenues will be used to compensate the loss of revenue which followed the complete elimination of ads from national public television which was recently announced by the executive. And it will in addition to the 5% tax that commercial television networks are already paying to finance the production of Spanish and European tv shows and movies. This new funding method was announced last week by premier José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and provides for a ‘drastic cut” to tv ads on public national tv networks. The reform being examined by the government is reminiscent of the one implemented in France by president Nicolas Sarkozy who, in addition to applying a further tax on private networks, is setting up a 0.9% tax on revenues obtained by telecoms operators who distribute audiovisual services such as internet tv or mobile phone tv. Unlike the French, the Spanish executive is categorically excluding the creation of a licence fee which currently does not exist in Spain and which costs approximately 150 euros in France. According to the schedule announced by the government, ads could completely disappear from public broadcasts this July. In order to maintain the current offer of content, with 2 general tv channels, 6 digital channels, five radio stations and 6,400 employees, TVE needs a budget of 1.1 billion euros. Of this, half would be supplied by the State coffers, 250 million by the tax on airwaves, 190 million by telecoms companies which offer television services and 140 by private television networks, which will benefit from the elimination of ads from public television. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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UK: Home Office Civil Servant Sacked

Christopher Galley admitted leaking a document that revealed thousands of illegal immigrants were given clearance to work in the security industry.

Christopher Galley, a junior official in the Home Office, lost his job following a disciplinary hearing this morning.

Mr Galley and Tory immigration spokesman Damian Green were arrested by police investigating leaks from the department but were told last week they would not face charges.

Mr Galley was suspended on full pay after his arrest in November but disciplinary proceedings were put on hold while the criminal investigation was concluded.

The 26-year-old admitted leaking four documents, including one which revealed thousands of illegal immigrants were given clearance to work in the security industry.

After he learned he would not face charges, Mr Galley was defiant about his actions, claiming he leaked the documents because he was shocked at the incompetence he discoverd.

“I did it because what I saw happening was wrong,” he said.

Sir David Normington, the most senior civil servant at the Home Office, has written to officials in the department reminding them of their duty to work for whoever is in Government, the Daily Telegraph reported.

The letter said: “When we sign up to work in the civil service we agree to work to the best of our ability for the democratically-elected government of the day.

“It is not for any civil servant to put his or her personal preferences of political opinion ahead of that duty.”

A week ago the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, said the string of leaks were not damaging enough to require criminal charges.

He rejected the suggestion by senior civil servants that the leaks damaged national security.

Mr Green’s arrest and detention provoked outrage in Westminster as his Commons office was searched along with his home and constituency office.

The five-month inquiry reportedly cost £5m.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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EU-Montenegro: Brussels, Word on Nomination in 14-16 Months

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, APRIL 24 — “A 14 to 16 month period will be needed” for the European Commission to draw up its “rigorous assessment” of Montenegro’s official application to join the EU which was passed on to the executive by the European Council yesterday. EC spokesperson Amadeu Altafaj Tardio proffered this timeframe, basing it on “past experience” with applications submitted by other Countries. Montenegro’s official application was presented to the French presidency of the EU on December 15, but the procedure was held up for months because of opposition within the 27 to further enlargement of the Union. Once it is approved by the Council, the procedure provides for the dossier to be examined by the Commission, which has to then draft an opinion on the opportunity of granting or not granting the status of official candidate. The final decision lies in the hands of the Member States, which will then determine whether and when to open application negotiations. (ANSAmed)

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Kosovo: Tadic, Justice Court Verdict in at Least a Year

(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, APRIL 22 — The International Court of Justice in the Hague will give its verdict on the legitimacy of Kosovo’s proclamation of independence in at least a year’s time, said Serbian president Boris Tadic today. As he spoke with journalists today in Belgrade, Tadic said he is confident on the fact that the court will resist political pressure from countries that have recognised Kosovo’s independence. “There is no doubt that there will be political pressure, but we are absolutely sure that the International Court of Justice will show the highest level of independence and a juridical approach to this matter”, said the president. Tadic reckons that “it won’t be so much the number of countries that present a written opinion to the court that is important, rather the quality and the issues” in the reasons behind them. “We are confident and retain that international law is on Serbia’s side in the Kosovo issue”, observed the Serbian president. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Kosovo: Turkey Offers Help for Cultural Heritage

(ANSAmed) — PRISTINA, APRIL 24 — Turkey’s commitment to helping the restoration and conservation of Kosovo’s cultural and historical heritage has been emphasised by Turkey’s minister for Culture and Tourism, Ertugul Gunay, on a visit to Pristina today. The minister stated that Ankara is ready to actively cooperate in the restoration of ancient works of art and historical buildings present in Kosovo. He also said that a Turkish cultural centre and a Turkish university will soon be opened in Kosovo. Gunay, who met with his counterpart in Kosovo, Valton Beqiri, and with the president of Kosovo, Fatmir Sejdiu, said that “Kosovo is making an effort for the current multicultural model, a model that is very important for the rest of the world”. Minister Beqiri, speaking during another press conference that was held today in Pristina, stated that the protection and promotion of the cultural and historical heritage is one of the government’s top priorities. Turkey was one of the first countries to recognise Kosovo’s independence. The Turkish community represents 2% of Kosovo’s population. In recent days Serb Foreign minister Vuk Jeremic has protested against an attempt made by the government in Pristina to register monasteries and Serb orthodox churches located in Kosovo with Unesco, listing them as part of Kosovo’s mediaeval culture. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Serbia-Montenegro: Police Cooperation to be Strengthened

(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, APRIL 22 — Director of Montenegro’s police Veselin Veljovic and Director of Serbia’s Milorad Veljovic, respectively evaluated in Podgorica today that the cooperation between the two police forces is at a high level, but that it should be more concrete and stronger, which is in the interest of citizens of both states, reports Tanjug news agency. Veselin Veljovic underscored that the connection between Serbia’s and Montenegro’s criminal groups obliges the two countries’ police forces to develop stronger and more concrete cooperation, mainly in their fight against organized crime. “Organized crime is the cancer of the society as a whole and the Serbian police is determined to eradicate criminal groups in cooperation with other state organs and we are going to do it,” said Milorad Veljovic at a press conference in Podgorica. He underscored that no police may solve the problem of organized crime alone, but that this requires joint work and full support of the state. The director of the Montenegrin police pointed out that the bilateral police cooperation between the two countries is based on trust and partnership. He said that Montenegro is committed to its European integration, noting that security integrations are very important for the process. Director of the Serbian police Milorad Veljovic met with Montenegrin Interior Minister Jusuf Kalamerovic to discuss the police cooperation between the two states, their fight against organized crime and border control.(ANSAmed)

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Serbia: Building of Corridor 10 to Begin by End of 2009

(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, APRIL 24 — The construction of the bypass around Dimitrovgrad, which is part of the Corridor 10 pan-European motorway, should start at the end of 2009, said Nenad Ivanisevic, a member of the board of directors of the Corridor 10 company, reports BETA news agency . Speaking at the presentation of the Corridor in the Serbian Chamber of Commerce, he said that design documents should be completed in about one month’s time. “The initial invitation for building from World Bank funds will be announced at the start of May, after which the tender procedure will commence, that is, the pre-qualification of contractors,” Ivanisevic said. In his words, the expropriation of land in the relevant area is nearly complete, so this will not represent an obstacle to the work. Ivanisevic announced that a World Bank delegation will visit Belgrade at the beginning of May, to negotiate a USD 388 million loan for Corridor 10.(ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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University: Croatia, Tuition Fee Protest Spreads

(ANSAmed) — ZAGREB, APRIL 24 — Student protests with thousands of demonstrators calling for the elimination of university tuition fees has spread to about ten other departments across Croatia and obtained the support from unions and some teachers. The protest started Monday with the occupation of Zagreb’s Arts and Philosophy department. Education Minister Dragan Primorac commented on the matter only yesterday on the fourth day or protests, with unexpected support of the students, saying that he was in favour of abolishing tuition fees, but placed the responsibility on the universities themselves “who decide on whether to impose the charge and its amount”. According to experts’ estimates, for the complete elimination of university tuition fees, the Croatian government would have to assure another 100 million euros in financing per year. A decision that seems improbable, given that just one month ago, due to the economic crisis, a revision to the public budget cut 300 million euros with salary reductions for public-sector workers. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Jordan-Italy: Amman Embassy Launches Appointment System

(ANSAmed) — AMMAN, APRIL 22 — Jordanians who wish to apply for a visa to Italy no longer need to stand in ques for hours after the Italian embassy a 24-hour online appointment system on the web, according to an embassy statement. The new service started as of April 15 on www.ambamman.esteri.it and clicking on “book a visit, said the statement. “The service, which is voluntary and optional, is designed to avoid unnecessary queues and long waits, ensure that appointments are fixed at a precise time, and to facilitate access to the embassy offices in a well-organised manner,” the statement said. Embassy personnel will be available for any needed information, which can be also found on the constantly-updated website, which is currently available in Italian and English, and soon in Arabic. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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TLC: Tunisia, Indian Interest for Third Operator

(ANSAmed) — TUNISI, APRIL 23 — The licence that will be issued for a third mobile phone operator in Tunisia has raised the interest of an Indian group. According to news collected in the economic areas of Tunis, Indian national operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (Bsnl) is apparently interested in submitting an offer together with another public company, Telecommunications Consultants of India (Tcil). Bsnl, which at the end of February counted 49.9 million subscribers, is India’s fourth largest mobile phone operator. Tcil is instead a consulting company that offers back-office services to the telecoms industry. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Netanyahu: EU Ties Should Not Involve Palestinians

(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, APRIL 24 — “It is not appropriate to link relations between Israel and the European Union to those between Israel and the Palestinians”, said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday, according to reports in daily newspaper Haaretz. Netanyahu was reacting to a previous statement made by EU External Relations Commissioner, Benita Ferrero Waldner, who had proposed a halt to plans to strengthen relations with Israel if the Netanyahu government does not start making steps towards realising the “two States for two peoples” formula. In a meeting in Jerusalem yesterday, Netanyahu told Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek that “Europe should not dictate conditions to Israel” adding that “peace is in Israel’s interest no less that it is in Europe’s interest”. When the Czech premier quizzed Netanyahu over whether he would be ready to bring an end to settlement creation in the West Bank, the Israeli leader replied that he was not planning any new settlements but could not stop pre-existing building projects. Since the West Bank is a “contested territory”, Netanyahu thinks it unacceptable that only a single party be asked to stop its building plans. If, as Netanyahu pointed out, the Israelis are blocked from building new houses ahead of a definitive policy decision, the same condition should apply to the Palestinians. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Topolanek for Strengthened Israel-EU Relations

(ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM, APRIL 24 — “The Czech Republic will work to prevent those in Europe who wish to slow down or halt relations with Israel. Israel will always be able to count on the sustained support of the Czech Republic”. The statement was made by Mirek Topolanek, the Czech premier, speaking at a meeting in Jerusalem with the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, today. Topolanek continued, “we will work towards the strengthening of ties between Israel and the European Union, and to avoid the creation of opposing viewpoints”. The Czech Republic will continue it’s EU Presidency until July. Peres said in the meeting that the Middle East was in dire need of symbolic gestures, more than formal agreements. He cited the occasion when in November of 1977 the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat travelled to Jerusalem to speak at the Knesset. “In only one hour, the course of history changed more than hours of negotiation and mediation might hope to achieve”. Peres assured that Israel “remains committed to continuing the peace processes in Palestine,” and he expressed the opinion that the Arab peace initiative — launched in Beirut in 2002 and later reproposed at other moments — might act as an adequate base for future talks. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Egypt-Israel; Spokesperson, Lieberman Not Invited

(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, APRIL 23 — Egypt has not invited Israel’s Foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman to visit Cairo. The news disseminated yesterday by an Israeli source ‘is groundless” because the head of Egypt’s intelligence services, Omar Suleiman, who visited Israel yesterday, only carried one invitation for the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The statement was made today by the spokesperson of Egypt’s ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hossam Zaki, who also said that Suleiman invited Netanyahu to visit Egypt on a date that should be agreed on in brief in order to carry out further consultations on attempts to find peace between Israel and Palestinians. This morning during a speech Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak stated that usually government leaders who visit Egypt “come by themselves or in the company of their chief of staff”, negatively hinting at the presence of the Foreign minister. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Energy: Turkey a Natural Gas Artery of Europe, Gul Says

(ANSAmed) — SOGIA, 24 APR — Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul said that being the fourth main natural gas artery of Europe was one of the main targets of his country. “Turkey attaches great importance to implementing the Nabucco Project,” Gul said during an energy summit on ‘Natural Gas for Europe: Security and Partnership’ in Sofia, as Anatolia news agency reports from the Bulgarian capital. The Nabucco pipeline is a planned natural gas pipeline that will transport natural gas from Turkey to Austria, via Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary with total length of 3,300 kilometres. It will be connected near Erzurum with the Tabriz-Erzurum pipeline, and with the South Caucasus Pipeline, connecting Nabucco Pipeline with the planned Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline. Gul reiterated his belief that cooperation in energy would contribute to regional stability, peace and welfare. Turkey was a significant energy consumer, but also it had a strategic location between the countries that owned almost two-thirds of world natural gas reserves and the giant markets in the West, Gul said. The Turkish president also said that a refinery, petrochemical and LNG facilities planned to be established in the Turkish southern town of Ceyhan would have an important role in Turkey’s access to the world markets, and called on foreign firms to invest in Ceyhan. The goal of the summit is to shape a new European energy policy; to seek new international arrangements and ensure durable guarantees for the energy security of Bulgaria, the region, and Europe as a whole; to help implement strategic energy resource transmission projects; to help mitigate crisis situations related to oil and natural gas supplies to Europe. The summit will end on April 25. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Lebanon: Hariri Case; Press, ‘Key Witness’ Arrested

(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, APRIL 20 — The UAE newspaper Gulf News reports that the Syrian national, Mohammad Zuheir al Siddiq, one of the leading suspects in the investigation into the 2005 assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, has been arrested in the emirate of Sharjah. Siddiq, who has been considered a “key witness” in the Hariri case for some time after confirming that he was an officer in the Syrian secret services, was charged in absentia in October 2005 by the Lebanese judicial authorities for the assassination of the former prime minister eight months earlier. Siddiq was arrested in France on an international warrant, but Paris refused to extradite him to Lebanon on the grounds that he would risk the death penalty. Freed in 2006, he left France in 2008 for an unknown destination. Many Lebanese political representatives accuse Syria of being behind Hariri’s assassination, as Syria had political and military control over Lebanon at the time. Damascus rejects all the accusations and in turn accuses Siddiq of making false statements to the investigators. According to UN investigators, high-ranking Lebanese and Syrian security officials were involved in the assassination, and four Lebanese generals are currently in prison for the roles they are suspected to have played. A special UN Tribunal for Lebanon, presided over by the Italian judge, Antonio Cassese, was set up in The Hague earlier in the month, in order to try the alleged perpetrators of the attack on February 14, 2005 in Beirut, which killed Hariri and 22 other people. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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School: Ambitious Saudi Programme for Women’s Education

(ANSAmed) — RIYADH, APRIL 23 — By 2014 Saudi Arabia will have built 39 institutes for the vocational training of girls only. The project, according to the Saudi authorities, includes the creation of a university campus for women for around two billion dollars. As a whole, the project for vocational training of girls and boys includes — according to a statement issued by the Italian Trade Commission (ICE) office in Riyadh — the creation of new institutes in the coming years for a total of 120,000 students. The Saudi government has allocated more than sufficient funds for the project (the 2009 budget is even higher than in 2008) but there are not enough qualified teachers, not only in Saudi Arabia but also in other Arab countries. It is estimated that the Arab countries have significant problems with youth unemployment (+17% among boys and +24% among girls). Thought there are no reliable official figures available on the present unemployment among women in Saudi Arabia, it is likely that its percentage is higher than in other Arab countries. The ICE points out that the fact that “during the ‘reshuffling’ of the Council of Minister in February the country for the first time appointed a woman as deputy minister for Women’s Education”, a sign that some progress is being made. By the end of February the Council of Ministers promised to “take more measures to increase opportunities for women to work, including the introduction of courses for teleworking using the internet”. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Syria: Damascus Citadel Gallery Opens After Restoration

(ANSAmed) — DAMASCUS, APRIL 21 — The Citadel gallery in Damascus has opened today, in the presence of the wife of the President of the Republic of Syria, Asma Al Assad, after being restored with funds from the Cooperazione italiana. A statement from the Italian Embassy in Damascus reports that the museum has brought together a series of Byzantine mosaic panels restored by the Fondazione Ravenna Antica. Taking part in the ceremony, alongside the Italian ambassador, Achille Amerio, and the Syrian Minister of Culture, were experts and scholars and the group of Syrian restorers who worked on the mosaics in a specially built workshop under the guidance of the Fondazione Ravenna Antica. The statement went on to explain that “the event is part of the effort to draw attention to the importance of the project which came about in collaboration with the Cooperazione italiana and which saw a majestic, but inert, structure transformed into a dynamic resource for cultural promotion and tourist interest.” (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Telecoms: Italian Temix to Rebuild TLC Network in Iraq

(ANSAmed) — CATANIA — An Italian company from Catania, Temix, will rebuild the telecommunications network in Iraq. An agreement with Iraqi Republic Railways, the pool of Iraqi businesses authorised to organise the reconstruction of the telecommunications infrastructural network, will be officially signed tomorrow in Catania. The project calls for the new network to serve all of Iraq, and new facilities in the cities of Baghdad, Wasset, and Missan, and will cover over 10 million inhabitants. The plan calls for three distinct projects, with the second phase alone worth 13 million euros. Temix, founded in 2003 with 30 employees and 6 million euros in turnover per year, is the only Italian company involved in the reconstruction of the telecommunications sector in Iraq.(ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Turkey-Armenia: Babacan, Normalization is Not a Dream

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, APRIL 24 — Turkish foreign minister Ali Babacan said Friday they had been exerting intense efforts for the normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia as well as Armenia and Azerbaijan, “We have a goal and we believe that it is attainable. We believe that this is not a mere dream. Our task is not easy but we are moving forward step by step just as in a chess play,” Ali Babacan told an Istanbul meeting of the Aspen Atlantic Group as Anatolia news agency reports. Babacan said solution of the issues between Turkey and Armenia, and Armenia and Azerbaijan would create a new geopolitical order in the Caucasus. Also participating in the meeting there is also the former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Veil and Beret, Police in Kuwait Go Pink

(by Alessandra Antonelli) (ANSAmed) — DUBAI, APRIL 23 — Amongst the explicit and subtle contradictions of a social fabric which remains conservative and extremely cautious to maintain the separation of the sexes, women in Kuwait have won their latest battle in the war for professional equality: the first 16 female cadets from the Saad Abdullah Police academy have graduated as police officers, and taken part with heads held high in the graduation parade in front of the Emir Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah. Wearing a jacket, white beret, trousers and a black veil, the uniform which has been put under great scrutiny so that it does not offend traditional sensibilities, the newly graduated police officers were greeted with a formal handshake with the Emir, a gesture which is by no means the norm between a man and a woman in the oil-rich country. At least not without some hesitation and doubts. But for the moment, despite the fact that their training taught them how to handle weapons and conflict situations, “in full respect of the laws of Islam,” the agents will be assigned roles that do not openly entail conflict with society’s traditions and which do not put women in highly visible contexts: the training of other cadets, security tasks in airports and prison security. These are limits to their duties which do not in any case appease the Islamists, who represent the majority in parliament and who are likely to maintain their position in the next round of elections in a few weeks time. Entire pages of newspapers have been bought up in local newspapers to publicise the edict which condemns “a man to greet a women of a superior-ranking,” since this would represent a “violation of social and tribal laws.” Kuwait is one of the Arab countries in the Gulf with the highest level of female presence in the labour market (24%), whilst the number of women on company managing boards is higher than in Italy (2.7% as against 2% according to estimates from the Financial Times), but in any case, resistance to political and social climbing remains high. Despite the fact that in 2005 women were allowed to take part in politics, none of the 57 candidates who stood for elections in 2006 and 2008 gained enough votes to enter parliament. And this comes despite the fact that the majority of voters are female, despite the Prime Minister’s open calls to support female candidates. The upcoming elections on May 16 will offer a further chance to see how women politicians are valued. Meanwhile, female faces in Kuwaiti politics have been guaranteed in the past from the president’s nomination of female ministers. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Aussie Soldiers Take 100 Taliban

AUSSIE soldiers have killed more than 100 Taliban fighters and disrupted enemy networks in two of the most successful operations of the six-year Afghan campaign.

Details of the offensive were revealed during a secret visit to Afghanistan for Anzac Day by Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon who was accompanied by News Limited .

Operation Aabitoorah or Blue Sword began on March 19 in the northern Helmand province, south of the Australian base in Oruzgan Province and involved Dutch, British, American, Australian and Afghani forces.

The second, called Operation Shak Hawel or Mysterious Area, was fought by troops from the Mentoring and Reconstruction Task Force between April 3 and 15 around Patrol Base Buman in the Chora Valley north of Tarin Kowt.

More than 200 Diggers or almost half of the battle group led by Darwin based Lieutenant Colonel Shane Gabriel took part with an Afghan National Army battalion.

During the biggest battle on April 12 dozens of Taliban fighters perished as they attempted to defeat the diggers from Combat Team Tusk in the fertile green belt.

“They tried to stop us doing what we wanted to do and they came off second best,’’ Lt Colonel Gabriel told News Limited.

Troops from the task force have been engaged in numerous heavy fire fights during offensive patrols to mentor and instruct their Afghan comrades.

Mr Fitzgibbon received full details of the operations and spoke to the troops during a secret two-day tour of Australian bases in the lead up to Anzac Day at Tarin Kowt where Vietnam war hero and Victoria Cross holder Keith Payne was the guest of honour.

Mr Fitzgibbon became the first Australian minister to venture “outside the wire’’ flying in a Chinook chopper low along the fertile valleys to forward operating bases framed by snow capped peaks, to judge the progress for himself.

Australian commander Major General Mark Kelly said Special Operations Task Group (SOTG) troops from the Perth based SAS Regiment and Sydney based Commando Regiment operated deep inside a Taliban stronghold for 26 days during “Blue Sword”.

He said the number of enemy dead was not a measure of success, but he told News Limited that the tally was in excess of 80.

“It is a significant achievement by our soldiers over an extended combat mission.

“It has really disrupted the insurgent network in this part of regional command south,’’ General Kelly said.

The specialist Diggers were attacked by roadside bombs, rocket propelled grenades, mortars and small arms fire and despite the intensity of the action just one Australian, Sydney based bomb disposal expert Sergeant Brett Till, was killed and four others wounded including one who lost his legs.

In addition to the number of enemy casualties, including bomb maker and leader Mullah Abdul Bari, the Australians uncovered numerous weapons caches and up to 14 improvised explosive devices in a day.

Mr Fitzgibbon, who toured Australian built hospitals and schools as well as fighting bases, said the latest operations were a major setback for the Taliban.

He said it was vital for the Australian people to understand these intense and deadly operations and just how dangerous and challenging the job was for the Diggers.

“We are making real progress in Afghanistan.

“I wish to thank every man and woman in the Australian Defence Force who is making a contribution to what is a very important campaign,’’ Mr Fitzgibbon said.

Commander of Regional Command South Dutch Major-General Mart de Kraif said the operation had disrupted insurgent activities including the drugs trade.

He said Australian special-forces troops had applied massive pressure to the insurgent leadership.

— Hat tip: The Observer

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Let Afghanistan Go

by Diana West

Saw an unforgettably stark photo of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan’s Wardak province, the same province Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen visited this week: Eight robed, turbaned fighters, a sandy ridge, a cloudy sky. All that was missing was the incoming American drone strike to turn the men into dust.

Question: Should the United States call in that strike? How great a security threat to the United States do these eight barbarians pose? How many dollars, how much blood is it worth to our nation to pulverize them into that lunar-like landscape?

I recently read a military e-mail from Afghanistan that marveled over a similar scene: “As far as BDA (battle damage assessment) goes, check this one out. 2 GBU 36’s (bomblets) dropped the other day on estimated 6 guys!!!! That is half a million dollars on 6 guys!!!!” The e-mailer guessed that all the sniper ammunition the jihadists have used in the whole war hasn’t cost close to that.

The point is, the United States is getting a lot of bang for a lot of buck but not much else. Don’t get me wrong: If killing small bands of Taliban is in the best interest of the United States, I’m for it. But I do not believe it is — and certainly not as part of the grand strategy conceived first by the Bush administration and now expanded by the Obama administration to turn Afghanistan into a state capable of warding off what is daintily known as “extremism,” but is, in fact, bona-fide jihad to advance Sharia (Islamic law). Anybody remember Sisyphus? Well, trying to transform Afghanistan into an anti-jihad, anti-Sharia player — let alone functional nation — is like trying to roll Sisyphus’ rock up the hill.

This is not to suggest that there is no war or enemies to fight, which is what both the Left and the Paleo-Right will say; there most certainly are. But sinking all possible men, materiel and bureaucracy into Afghanistan, as the Obama people and most conservatives favor, to try to bring a corrupt Islamic culture into working modernity while simultaneously fighting Taliban and wading deep into treacherous Pakistani wars is no way to victory — at least not to U.S. victory…

— Hat tip: Diana West

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Pakistan: Taliban Executes 2 Christians

Believers were protesting demand they accept Islam

Taliban Islamic radicals have attacked a community of Christians, executing two of them following a rally that protested Muslim graffiti in their neighborhood that ordered them to accept Islam or die, according to an international Christian organization.

The attack in Pakistan follows only by days an expansion of the territory occupied by the Islamic Taliban members.

The report from International Christian Concern said it happened in Taseer Town in Karachi.

— Hat tip: JD

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China Admits to Building Up Stockpile of Gold

‘Buying via government channels from South Africa, Russia and South America’

China revealed on Friday that it had secretly raised its gold reserves by three-quarters since 2003, increasing its holdings to 1,054 tonnes — or a pot worth about US$30.9-billion — and confirming years of speculation it had been buying.

Hu Xiaolian, head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, told Xinhua news agency in an interview that the country’s reserves had risen by 454 tonnes from 600 tonnes since 2003, when China last adjusted its state gold reserves figure.

The confirmation of its surreptitious stockpiling is likely to fuel market talk about Beijing’s ability to buy secretly and its ambitions for spending its nearly US$2-trillion pile of savings. And not just in gold: copper and other metals markets are booming thanks to China’s barely-visible hand.

— Hat tip: JD

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Judges Slug Taxpayers $100,000 for Tour of China

QUEENSLAND’S top judge and four colleagues are taking their partners on a three-week China educational tour at a cost of about $100,000 to taxpayers.

The Courier-Mail has learnt Chief Justice Paul de Jersey will head the 10-person delegation next month that will include Supreme Court judges Peter Dutney, Henry Fryberg and Debra Mullins and Court of Appeal judge John Muir.

They will be joined by their partners — including Justice Dutney’s wife, magistrate Bronwyn Springer — as they visit Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and X’ian for seminars, court inspections and to “establish links” with their Chinese counterparts.

Details of the trip have emerged a day after Premier Anna Bligh unveiled a two-week trade mission to Europe and the Middle East ahead of a horror state Budget expected to include plunging revenues.

The judges are entitled to the travel, including costs for spouses and any level of air fare, as part of their allowances. Justice de Jersey will be overseas for 11 days while his colleagues will travel for 21 days enjoying business and first class air fares.

Justice de Jersey said he could not detail how much his trip would cost but his previous sojourns for similar lengths of time had cost taxpayers between $20,000 to $40,000.

He said the expedition came about after invitations from the Chinese dating back to 2007.

“These trends are obviously significant in the context of Queensland’s comprehensive relationship with China,” Justice de Jersey said.

“It is important to foster Queensland-China relations at all levels of government, including the judiciary.”

The Queensland judges will learn about the use of advanced IT in Chinese courts, about the operation of two of the most advanced judicial training colleges in the world, and how Chinese courts deal with problems Queensland also has.

China is regularly under fire over human rights abuses including detaining people without trial, persecuting civil rights activists and the death penalty.

Queensland Council of Civil Liberties vice-president Terry O’Gorman said yesterday that he hoped the judges’ trip helped improve human rights in China.

“Anything that can be done to make China’s judges more aware of the law in relation to human rights should be welcomed,” he said.

In Beijing, the judges will visit a variety of courts, pop into the National Judicial Training Centre, and participate in a seminar with Beijing judges.

— Hat tip: Nilk

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France: Catholic Bishops Promote Dialogue With Muslims

Bordeaux, 23 April (AKI) — Catholic bishops have invited Muslim leaders to attend a two-day conference designed to build better relations and interreligious dialogue. The convention, organised by the Council of European Episcopal Conferences (CCEE), is scheduled to begin on Monday in the French city of Bordeaux next week.

Delegates will also look at the contribution of Muslim migrants and their offspring in several countries, including Italy.

“The presence of Muslims in Europe is diversified, with some countries where the Muslim presence is part of ancient tradition and others which have seen an increase in Muslim presence especially following migrations”, said CCEE general secretary, Duarte da Cunha.

“In recent years among bishops’ conferences, too, attention on this dialogue has grown and has become an ordinary element [of their work].

Da Cunha said it seemed appropriate to gather for the first time those responsible for relations with the Muslim world to examine dialogue with Muslim communities in Europe and the challenges Islam raises in European society.

“It is not a meeting about theological issues,” Da Cunha said. “But an opportunity to compare matters and map out the Catholic institutions (research centres, social and aid agencies, educative works) present in Europe and define possible areas of common work.”

The conference will be hosted by Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, the archbishop of Bordeaux.

The CCEE, based in the Swiss city of St. Gallen, includes the presidents of 33 European bishops’ conferences as well as Luxembourg, Monaco and Moldova.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Pinar: Italy and Malta Cash in EU Aid

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS — Italy and Malta, who have been summoned to Brussels, are to receive financial aid to support the fight against illegal immigration. The EU Commission will propose binding regulations to the 27 member states to divide the burden of immigrants and to strengthen FRONTEX, the European Union agency for external border security, to whom Interior Minister Roberto Maroni has proposed to entrust the creation of reception centres and the management of immigrants. In order to resolve the problem of illegal immigration, “we need more EU solidarity” and “a binding directive from the Commission for all member countries”, said Maroni at the end of the meeting with the Justice and Freedom Commissioner, Jacques Barrot, and the Maltese Interior Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici. Maroni believes that there are three tasks that the EU must undertake: an initiative on countries of origin in the southern Mediterranean, a strengthening of FRONTEX’s role who, in his opinion, should not simply block incoming illegal immigrants but concentrate also on their repatriation, and thirdly the creation of a system to share the burden of immigration amongst all EU member countries. Maroni also requested the creation of “EU centres for repatriation managed by FRONTEX, because repatriation is a European problem and not just Italy and Malta’s problem”. The minister believes that, if Europe shares the burden of the influx, “the problem will solve itself”, and cases such as the one involving the Pinar “will not even present themselves”. For this reason, he specified, “we are insisting on an initiative from the Commission that results in a binding directive”. As regards the case of the Pinar, which was “closed when Italy accepted her passengers”, there is still no solution: “the case is closed, we still haven’t found a solution because there are various interpretations”. The EU Commission for its part is ready to help Italy and Malta from a financial point of view and to propose an obligatory solidarity mechanism to member states: “Sooner or later, all the EU countries will be affected by immigrants who arrive on the Italian and Maltese coasts, and for this reason we will propose a principle of obligatory solidarity to all the Interior Ministers of the 27 member states, even though we don’t know whether it will be accepted,” said Barrot.(ANSAmed)

— Hat tip: Insubria

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This is what real fascism looks like in Europe today.

Modern fascism does not originate on the right wing, nor does it involve neo-Nazis.

It arises within the ruling social democratic establishment, and its goal is the intimidation, harassment, and suppression of any organized opposition to its oligarchic rule. Its victims include any party that questions political correctness, Multiculturalism, mass immigration, or the supremacy of the European Union and its compliant functionaries within the “provinces” of Europe.

This is an account of the struggle of Vlaams Belang against the fascism of the Belgian state:

Hat tip: Aeneas.

[Nothing follows]

In the past, I have stated that I was through writing about the depredations of Charles Johnson and Little Green Footballs. However, what I should have realized is that his scurrilous attacks against people of integrity are not going to stop. He is caught in some fantasy world of enemies that he creates and then attempts to destroy.

In this case, he has posted a dishonest piece of photoshopping that cannot be permitted to go unanswered. It smears people of integrity in an attempt to damage the careers of several of my friends and colleagues.

Back in December 2007 I described Charles Johnson as the “Dan Rather of the Blogosphere”. But he has extended his reach since then, and has become the blogosphere’s AP, AFP, and Reuters as well.

During the war between Israel and Hizbullah in the summer of 2006, LGF was one of a group of major blogs that exposed the staged and manufactured photographs coming out of Lebanon. These images were used by the major news services to discredit Israel, but many of them had been doctored. Some of the fakes were quite amateurish, but the MSM retailed them as if they were authentic.

Charles Johnson was one of the prominent bloggers who brought so much attention to bear on this propaganda “fauxtography” that the wire services were forced to back down and withdraw some of the images.

But now it seems that Mr. Johnson is hoist with his own petard. Last night, as part of a series of posts aimed at discrediting Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller, and Paul Belien for their association with the “neo-Nazis” of Pro-Köln, LGF posted a “photograph” of Filip Dewinter and Marcus Beisicht shaking hands at what is assumed to be a neo-Nazi rally.

The only problem is that Charles has been taken in by the same sort of fauxtography that gulled the wire services back in 2006. Compare the version posted at LGF (left) with the actual photo (right):

[Update (via PI): The original photo was taken in Brussels on June 19th 2008 — see this article.]

Robert Spencer notes:

Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, in his attempt to portray the German anti-jihad group Pro-Köln as neo-Nazi and to smear me in the process, has fallen for the same Photoshop techniques that he has unmasked when Leftists and jihadists use them in the mainstream media.

And here’s an excerpt from Pamela’s take on this sordid event:

One might be surprised that johnson could fall for so simple a photoshop but don’t be. He took the credit for the “fauxtography” and “rathergate” stories when it was, in fact, both were discovered by readers (the latter at Powerline).

What is so disturbing and malevolent is the lengths chuckie goes to destroy the true and the brave. Think about that. Those fighting for Western values, against Islamic supremacism are his target. What does that tell you? The exposure of Johnson is a life lesson for all.

Charles has belatedly acknowledged the fact that a photo has been altered. But which one? He doesn’t deign to make a choice:

Which one is the real photo and which is the altered one? It’s not obvious from examining the pictures, but clearly, one of them was altered.

The accompanying headline should be: “Charles Johnson Climbs Into Toaster, Pushes Down on Handle”.
– – – – – – – – –

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Since I do a lot of image editing myself, I took a professional interest in the technical aspects of this particular fauxtograph. The first thing I noticed was that there is direct sunlight in the original image, shining on the figures in the foreground as well as the buildings in the background. But in the fake, the background shows no evidence of sunlight. This is an obvious discrepancy, and leaves no doubt that we have a doctored photo.

However, this story is about much more than the “faux” nature of the image.

What’s interesting is the photoshopper’s choice of background. It’s obvious to anyone who has even a passing familiarity with the current political scene in Europe that the event behind the two men is a demonstration by Antifascistische Aktion (Antifa), the anarchist “anti-Fascists” who attempt to disrupt, intimidate, and silence any politician or group that is even slightly conservative. The Antifa logos are clearly visible on the red flags, as are the demonstrating “blackhoods” carrying them.

In other words, the participants in this rally are actually the sworn enemies of Filip Dewinter and Markus Beisicht.

Antifa goons regularly disrupt Pro-Köln events, a notable example being last September’s anti-Islamization congress in Cologne. Their cadres have physically attacked Vlaams Belang and Pro-Köln in the past.

And we are supposed to believe that Messrs. Dewinter and Beisicht calmly stood and shook hands in front of a group of people who, given the chance, would have torn them to pieces?

This is yet another example of the massive and profound ignorance displayed by Charles Johnson concerning all matters European. In a word, he hasn’t the faintest idea what he is talking about.

Given the nature of the photoshopped background, one must assume that this image — like most of the other smear material concerning European conservatives peddled by Charles Johnson — was supplied to Little Green Footballs by elements of the far Left in Europe. And Charles, as always, fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

And to top it all off, he now says it doesn’t matter whether the image was photoshopped. In other words, it’s “fake but accurate”.

Do we need any further evidence that Charles Johnson has finally morphed into Dan Rather?

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I’d like to think that with this ignoble act LGF has at last greased the skids for its final slide into oblivion. But, based on past experience, mere facts are unlikely to provide any significant obstacle to LGF and its devoted followers.

There is a substantial contingent of people here in the United States, even within conservative circles, who are convinced that a renascent fascism is the greatest political threat to Europe. If you believe them, the neo-Nazi comeback lies just around the corner, and we must be ever-vigilant to ensure that we provide no assistance to it by associating with any European who is even slightly right-wing.

Real Nazis in Europe are marginalized, insignificant, and the object of ridicule. They have no more hope of attaining political power than does the Flat Earth Society. They also despise Vlaams Belang and Pro-Köln, and consider them tools of the Zionists.

The real hardcore anti-Semites are on the Left. Charles got one thing right: the demonstrators in the background of that fauxtograph are almost certainly dedicated Jew-haters. They just happen to be anarchists, and not Nazis.

So the imminent rebirth of European fascism is a phantasm, but there’s no sign that mere facts will deter its believers from their pursuit of it.

Americans who suffer from this delusion will cling to it at all costs. Any evidence that supports it, no matter how spurious, will be accepted. Any evidence to the contrary, no matter how convincing, will be summarily rejected.

It seems to be a form of collective delusion.

And it has created an entire army of Dan Rathers.

Melanie Phillips spoke to the Danish Free Press Society in Copenhagen on Thursday. The video of her speech has been posted on YouTube in six parts, so I won’t embed it here. But Steen has all six videos embedded in this post.

Some choice quotes:

• “You might call this onslaught against free speech ‘the Jihad of the Word’.”
• “The battleground that we’re actually on is the battleground of the mind.”
• “Liberalism is in danger of disappearing up its own backside.”
• “For those transnational progressives, the obstacle to Utopia is the nation. For the Left, the obstacle to Utopia is American exceptionalism. For the Western intelligentsia, it’s Israel. And for the Islamic world, it’s all of the above — and the entire un-Islamic world as an obstacle to Utopia.”

Watch Ms. Phillips’ entire hard-hitting speech at Snaphanen.

[Post ends here]

The most under-reported story of the last few weeks concerns the two American journalists who were arrested and are in effect being held hostage in North Korea. Neither the American media nor the current administration are making much noise about this atrocious state of affairs.

In other news, part of a man’s jaw was blown off, and other customers were injured, by a grenade attack on the outdoor tables a Danish restaurant.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, CSP, 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
	EU: Mediterranean, Few Reforms in 2008, Slump and Mideast
	Germany’s Slump Risks ‘Explosive’ Mood as Second Banking Crisis Looms
	Germany Warned of Unrest as French Protesters Turn Violent
	Government Watchdogs Warn of Lack of Oversight for Trillions in President’s New Spending Programs
	USA
	Border Incursions Rocket 359%
	Judge Throws Out Dole “Bananeros” Cases, Citing Fraud
	Kia Auto Plant ‘A Winning Ticket’ for U.S. Town
	Many Contra Costa Crooks Won’t be Prosecuted
	Obama Positioning for Backdoor Gun Control
	Obama Legal Team Wants Defendants’ Rights Limited
	The Honeymoon is Over — President Barack Obama Has to Show That He is a World Leader
	What Are US Students Learning About Islam?
	Will Obama Seize the Radio Stations Next?
	Canada
	Can You Belong to More Than One Nation?
	Chris Selley: Rethinking Refugees
	Woman Facing Deportation Fears Honour Killing
	Europe and the EU
	Berlin Doctors Remove 18-Kilo Bone Tumour
	British Police Officer Admits to Being a ‘Jedi’
	Brussels Quietly Trains a Foreign Service
	Cyprus: Republic of Northern Cyprus, Nationalists Win
	Cyprus: One Billion Euros Pumped Into Banking System
	Defense: Italian Company to Set Up a Plant in Malta
	Denmark: Army Honours Fallen Major
	Denmark: Man’s Jaw Blown Off in Grenade Attack
	Denmark: High Court: Starthelp Benefit Not Discriminatory
	EU: Budget Surplus, Cyprus to Receive 2.4 Million Euro
	Frattini: Italy is Not a Racist Country
	Frattini Blasts EC VP Over Fiat
	Italy: Police Arrest 10 for Keeping Young ‘Slave’
	Italy ‘Made 670 Rescues in Malta Waters’
	Mussolini Secret Son Film at Cannes
	Netherlands: Government to Receive Dalai Lama “as Religious Leader”
	Netherlands: Freedom of School Choice Meets Its Limits
	Netherlands: ‘Teen Repellent’ is a Mixed Success in Rotterdam
	Netherlands: Orange Headscarves for Dutch Muslims
	Parents: Required Sex Ed Violates Daughter’s Rights
	Spain: in September Mausoleum Will be Memory Centre
	Spain: Service Sales Fall, Peak in Repossessions
	Sweden: Stockholm Taxis to Double as Ambulances
	Switzerland: Georgian Gangs Behind Rise in Geneva Burglaries
	Switzerland: Minaret Initiative Divides Opinions
	Switzerland: Identity of Abandoned Woman is Determined
	The Life and/or Death of the Euro
	UK: Gurkha Immigration Policy Condemned as ‘a Sham’
	UK: Home Office Whistleblower Sacked Over Leaks to Tory MP
	UK: RBS Demands £40,000 Damages From Unemployed Teenage Girl Who Smashed Bank Window During G20 Protest
	UK: Woman Who Fractured Baby’s Skull is Freed by Judge, Saying She Had Suffered Enough
	Balkans
	Croatia: Morales Murder Plot Suspect ‘Wanted to Form Separatist Army’
	Kosovo: Amnesty Asks NATO to Investigate Bombs on Serb TV
	Mediterranean Union
	Italy: Algeria is Number One African Client
	North Africa
	Algeria: Christian Churches Reopen
	Egypt-Israel, Netanyahu Invited to Cairo
	US: Obama Urged to Resolve Sahara Conflict
	Israel and the Palestinians
	Lieberman: For Peace Initiative in Our Hands
	West Bank, Joseph’s Burial Site Desecrated
	Middle East
	David Frum: Israel’s Insidious Plot Against America
	Turkey Offers Libya Free Trade Agreement, Minister Says
	Turkey, Armenia Agree on a ‘Framework’ to Normalise Ties
	Turkey: Cash From Credit Card as Last Resort
	Turkey-Armenia: Roadmap for Normalisation Agreed
	UAE: Dubai Denies Laundering Pirate Funds
	Russia
	No Foreign Military to Join Ukraine’s Sea Breeze Exercises — Navy
	South Asia
	Extraordinary Security Measures for Celebrations of 60th Anniversary of Chinese Navy
	Indonesia Nabs Terror Suspect
	Pakistan: Parties Re-Evaluate Swat Deal
	Terrorism: Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons ‘At Risk’
	The ISI Surge Against India
	Far East
	[Editorial] N. Korea as a Hostage Taker
	China Parades Naval Might
	Korea: North Says it Will Put 2 U.S. Journalists on Trial
	Korea: Leftwing Groups Wake Up to Abuses in N.Korea
	Korea: U.S. Changes Course on N.Korea
	Australia — Pacific
	Anzac Day Cartoon
	Australia: Sydney Man Shot 34 Times in Head With Nail Gun
	Australia: Tribute Paid to All War Dead at Mass
	Australia: No Right to Silence Refugee Debate
	NZ: Anzac’s Changing Face
	People Smugglers Use Chaos in UN Office to Get Asylum Seekers to Australia
	Sub-Saharan Africa
	Sudan: President Beshir: “Charges Against Me Have United Arabs and Africans”
	Latin America
	Obama Goes South: an Analysis of the Summit of the Americas
	Immigration
	Finland: EU Survey: Half of Somali Immigrants Regard Discrimination as Widespread in Finland
	Finland: Poll: Nordics Satisfied With Immigration Policy
	Germany: Refugee Kids Build New Lives in Europe
	Italy: Dedalo Project, Young Tunisian Gardeners at Monreale
	Culture Wars
	Judiciary Committee Greenlights ‘Hate Crimes’
	General
	“Hijacked” UN Racism Conference

EU: Mediterranean, Few Reforms in 2008, Slump and Mideast

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, APRIL 23 — First came the economic slump and financial crisis, then the war in Gaza. These were the two factors that weighed most heavily in determining a general slowdown in the pace of reforms for countries on the southern shore of the Mediterranean during 2008. This is the finding of the annual report issued by the EU Commission on progress toward reform in countries forming part of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). 2008 ‘was a difficult year” said EU Commissioner for External Relations, Benita Ferrero Waldner, with ‘democratic reforms” showing the most marked slowdown. But political crises, too, such as the one blocking Lebanon which ‘was tied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, bogged the reform process down. And the effects of war in Gaza are still being felt. ‘I do not think that the time has come to deepen relations with Israel,” the Commissioner said, ‘ we first want to see what commitment the new government has towards resolving the conflict with the Palestinians on the basis of a two-state solution”. According to the Brussels report, while reforms in the direction of human rights and freedom of expression are foundering on the ground on the southern shore, in terms of trade, 2008 saw increases in Egypt’s, Jordan’s and Lebanon’s exports to the EU, while negotiations on agriculture and fisheries have been sealed with Egypt and Israel and are still underway with Morocco and Tunisia. Other accords have been signed in the area of air transport with Israel and Jordan. Overall, the portion of EU assistance under the ENP last year neared 1.71 billion euros, as against the 1.67 in 2007. Here are some figures highlighted from the report: ISRAEL: limited collaboration in seeking a solution to the conflict with the Palestinians and limited progress in terms of democracy, constitutional law, human rights and humanitarian rights. Greater efforts needed to improve the lot of the Arab minority. PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: political reform and institution building suffering from division between West Bank and Gaza. LEBANON: stalemate at institutional level, with various normative projects not discussed by Parliament (for example, that on VAT and competition). Slow progress on human rights, judicial, social and administrative reforms. EGYPT: no progress on the independence of the judiciary. Limited progress in the fight against corruption, freedom of expression and religious rights, rights of assembly and of association. MOROCCO: greater dialogue attained on the fight against illegal immigration and strengthened cooperation over energy. Freedom of press, freedom of expression and justice reforms a priority; TUNISIA: significant increases in illegal immigration flows towards the EU. Missed targets of increasing freedom of association and of expression. JORDAN: needs more protection for the rights of immigrant workers and to work towards the independence of the judiciary. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Germany’s Slump Risks ‘Explosive’ Mood as Second Banking Crisis Looms

A clutch of political and labour leaders in Germany have raised the spectre of civil unrest after the country’s leading institutes forecast a 6pc contraction of gross domestic product this year, a slump reminiscent of 1931 and bad enough to drive unemployment to 4.7m by 2010.

Michael Sommer, leader of the DGB trade union federation, called the latest wave of sackings a “declaration of war” against Germany’s workers. “Social unrest can no longer be ruled out,” he said.

Gesine Swann, presidential candidate for the Social Democrats, said “the mood could turn explosive” over the next three months unless the government takes drastic action.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Germany Warned of Unrest as French Protesters Turn Violent

In the wake of violent worker protests in France, rhetoric over social unrest in Germany is growing as the economic crisis continues to take its toll.

German presidential candidate Gesine Schwan added her voice to that of top union leader Michael Sommer late on Wednesday, when she warned that the ongoing economic crisis could unleash violent reactions from a distraught population.

“I can well imagine that in two or three months, people’s anger will grow considerably,” Schwan told the Muenchener Merkur newspaper. That’s when some of the government’s measures to cushion the blow from the recession — such as filling in the pay gap for people who are forced into shortened work hours — are due to run out.

“If there is no sign of hope for things to improve, then the mood can turn explosive,” she added.

Schwan’s comments followed those of Sommer, who heads the Federation of German Trade Unions (DGB) umbrella group.

In an intervew with Germany’s ARD television, Sommer warned of social unrest comparable to that in the 1930s — when widespread poverty paved the way for the Nazi regime’s rise to power.

Fraying tempers in France

The projected economic contraction of up to six percent is comparable with data from the years 1930, 1931 and 1932, Sommer said.

Making the rounds of the German press, Sommer told the Nordwest Zeitung newspaper that if there are mass layoffs, it would be “a provocation for workers and the unions,” indicating that “social unrest could no longer be discounted” in Germany.

The seams of civil restraint are already beginning to fray in France — a country known for frequent strikes and an active labor movment.

On Tuesday, a French court rejected a motion brought by employees of a factory run by Germany’s Continental AG to block the plant’s planned 2010 closure. Citing the steep drop in demand in the automobile sector, Continental announced in March plans to shutter the factory in Clairoix, north of Paris, which employs 1,120.

Smashed windows, destroyed equipment

Workers responded to the ruling by smashing windows and destroying equipment at the factory and regional administrative offices in nearby Compiegne.

On Wednesday, factory management distributed fliers reading: “We have no other choice but to suspend production as well as the whole of the site’s activities until further notice.”

French government officials condemned the workers’ rampage, calling it “unacceptable.”

Continental workers have drawn nationwide attention, meeting with top government officials at the presidential palace, burning tires in the streets of the capital and leading weeks of protests.

Their actions are part of a wave of increasingly radical employee movements to fight layoffs and cutbacks prompted by France’s worst economic performance in 30 years. Workers have held managers hostage and blocked production at sites around the country.

On Tuesday, workers in southwest France released two bosses held for two days over plans to shut a subsidiary of American automotive company Molex.

French Prime Minister Francois Fillon criticized what he called a small minority of “very violent” workers who are hijacking peaceful union mediation efforts. He called for charges to be laid against the rampaging workers, the AP news agency reported.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

[Return to headlines]

Government Watchdogs Warn of Lack of Oversight for Trillions in President’s New Spending Programs

The Government Accountability Office today issued a report on the $787 billion stimulus bill called “RECOVERY ACT: As Initial Implementation Unfolds in States and Localities, Continued Attention to Accountability Issues Is Essential.”

The GAO study asserts that officials from most of the states surveyed “expressed concerns regarding the lack of Recovery Act funding provided for accountability and oversight. Due to fiscal constraints, many states reported significant declines in the number of oversight staff — limiting their ability to ensure proper implementation and management of Recovery Act funds.”

Because the economic downturn has led to “fiscal constraints, many states reported significant declines in the number of oversight staff, limiting their ability to ensure proper implementation and management of Recovery Act funds.”

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Border Incursions Rocket 359%

‘Our agents are being attacked and our sovereignty violated at alarming rates’

Foreign government incursions into the United States rocketed 359 percent from 2007 to 2008, and the nation is under attack in San Diego, according to a new report from Judicial Watch.

“These new Homeland Security documents indisputably show there is a crisis on our border with Mexico,” said Tom Fitton, president of the Washington watchdog organization.

“Our agents are being attacked and our sovereignty violated at alarming rates,” he said.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Judge Throws Out Dole “Bananeros” Cases, Citing Fraud

LOS ANGELES, April 23 (Reuters) — A California judge on Thursday threw out two pesticide lawsuits against Dole Food Co and other companies by plaintiffs claiming to be banana farm workers, citing a “pervasive conspiracy” by plaintiffs’ attorneys and Nicaraguan judges.

The ruling by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Victoria Chaney puts in doubt $2 billion in pending judgments in dozens of similar lawsuits. Chaney also said she would refer the matter to states’ bar associations and to prosecutorial agencies.

The plantiffs, known as bananeros, have won judgments against Dole in Nicaraguan courts after claiming they were made sterile by the chemical DBCP, which was banned in the United States but was used by Dole to control fungus. The other defendants were Dow Chemical (DOW.N) and AMVAC.

Privately-owned Dole, is the world’s largest producer of fruits and vegetables.

Chaney made the ruling after a three-day hearing on fraud allegations that cropped up during the first of about 40 toxic tort lawsuits to be tried in her court involving thousands of plaintiffs from Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama, Honduras and the Ivory Coast .

“What a sad commentary that somebody thought that they were free to bring this fraud in the U.S. courts,” Chaney said. “What a sad commentary for individuals who will not be able to come to this court or any court for redress of wrongs that have been committed against them.”

A federal judge in Miami, who is considering whether to enforce a $97 million judgment, behind which sits another judgment for $800 million won by bananeros in a Nicaraguan court, had been waiting for the outcome of the California fraud hearing to rule on his case.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Robinson, a major fraud prosecutor who acted as lead counsel in the Justice Department’s case against the Milberg Weiss law firm, attended the hearing but had no comment about whether an investigation had been opened.

FRAUD AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS

More than 10,000 plaintiffs have brought cases against Dole and other defendants over exposure to DBCP in U.S. and Nicaraguan courts, Dole attorney Scott Edelman said in his closing argument on Thursday.

Chaney found evidence “that the proof of employment and medical evidence presented to me that came out of Nicaragua was manufactured and not honestly so by certain individuals in Nicaragua,” Chaney said.

“I find that there is and was a pervasive conspiracy to defraud American and Nicaraguan courts, to defraud the defendants, to extort money from not just these defendants — but all manufacturers of DBCP and all growers or operators of plantations in Nicaragua between 1970 and 1980,” she said.

Plaintiffs attorneys Juan Dominguez of Los Angeles and Antonio Ordenana of Nicaragua, accused Dole of bribing witnesses but put on almost no defense to the allegations during the hearing.

They did not appear at the hearing but their co-counsel Mike Axline, presented little evidence at the hearing. He had no comment after the hearing.

Edelman argued during the Los Angeles hearing this week that a special Nicaraguan law passed in 2001 to address the pesticide cases has brought “intense political pressure to bear on judges … who have ceded to that pressure.”

Edelman said Special Law 364 also has spawned an industry in which local attorneys have recruited thousands of men to pose as bananeros in a wave of lawsuits that hit U.S. companies, including Dole, Shell Chemical and Dow in recent years.

Edelman showed videotaped testimony from witnesses who said they were approached or recruited by plaintiffs attorneys to pose as bananeros, promised rich rewards, and threatened with harm if they revealed the scheme to Dole investigators.

The lawyers charged the plaintiffs on a monthly basis to attend seminars where they were trained to be convincing as banana workers, Edelman said.

But problems began surfacing in depositions with Dole’s lawyers and medical exams, which resulted in more than half of the plaintiffs in the three lead cases being dismissed from the cases by their own lawyers, Edelman said.

“These plaintiffs are unable to testify to basic farm facts … they just hadn’t studied hard enough,” Edelman told the court.

The cases are Mejia v. Dole Food Co et al, BC340079, and Rivera v. Dole Food Co et al, BC379820, in Los Angeles Superior Court.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

[Return to headlines]

Kia Auto Plant ‘A Winning Ticket’ for U.S. Town

Residents in the little town of West Point in Georgia are insulated against the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression thanks to a new Kia Motors manufacturing plant that opens at the end of this year.

“Kia’s is the only car factory scheduled to open in the country, drawing workers to one of the few regions now with concrete hopes of quickly escaping the economic downturn,” the New York Times said Wednesday.

“While much of the rest of the country remains mired in the depressing gray of recession, this rural town of fewer than 3,500 people on the Georgia-Alabama border, about 80 miles southwest of Atlanta, has somehow managed to draw the winning ticket in the nation’s economic lottery,” the daily added.

Kia plans to manufacture the Sorento SUV here. About 43,000 American workers have so far applied for 2,500 assembly-line jobs that will open late this year, a competition ratio of 17:1. Many applicants were laid off in Michigan, where U.S. automakers are clustered. Kia’s subcontractors will employ another 7,500 workers.

“We’re the only place in the nation that is fixing to put between 7,000 and 10,000 manufacturing jobs online,” Mayor Drew Ferguson told the paper. “We are the place that has the light at the end of the tunnel.”

Three years ago, Ferguson persuaded Kia to move to his town by offering incentives worth US$400 million including tax benefits.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

[Return to headlines]

Many Contra Costa Crooks Won’t be Prosecuted

Misdemeanors such as assaults, thefts and burglaries will no longer be prosecuted in Contra Costa County because of budget cuts, the county’s top prosecutor said Tuesday.

District Attorney Robert Kochly also said that beginning May 4, his office will no longer prosecute felony drug cases involving smaller amounts of narcotics. That means anyone caught with less than a gram of methamphetamine or cocaine, less than 0.5 grams of heroin and fewer than five pills of ecstasy, OxyContin or Vicodin won’t be charged.

People who are suspected of misdemeanor drug crimes, break minor traffic laws, shoplift, trespass or commit misdemeanor vandalism will also be in the clear. Those crimes won’t be prosecuted, either.

“We had to make very, very difficult choices, and we had to try to prioritize things. There are no good choices to be made here,” said Kochly, a 35-year veteran prosecutor. “It’s trying to choose the lesser of certain evils in deciding what we can and cannot do.”

Barry Grove, a deputy district attorney who is president of the Contra Costa County District Attorneys Association, said, “There’s no question that these kinds of crimes are going to drastically affect the quality of life for all the citizens of Contra Costa County.”

The decision not to go after any perpetrators of certain offenses, Grove said, amounts to “holding up a sign and advertising to the criminal element to come to Contra Costa County, because we’re no longer going to prosecute you.”

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Obama Positioning for Backdoor Gun Control

On his recent trip to Central America, President Barack Obama did more than cozy up to Marxist dictators; he also signed onto an international treaty that could, in effect, be used as backdoor gun control. It appears that Obama wants to use international treaties to do what congressional legislation is not able to do: further restrict the right of the American people to keep and bear arms.

Obama is using the oft-disproved contention that “90% of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States” as the stated basis of his support for the international treaty he is promoting. The treaty is formally known as the Inter-American Convention Against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives and Other Related Materials (CIFTA) treaty. The Bill Clinton administration signed the treaty back in 1997, but the U.S. Senate has never ratified the treaty. Obama intends to change that.

[…]

In addition, CIFTA would authorize the U.S. federal government (and open the door to international entities) to supervise and regulate virtually the entire American firearms industry. Making matters worse is the fact that, as a treaty, this Act does not have to be passed by both houses of Congress, nor is it subject to judicial oversight. All Obama needs to do in order to enact this unconstitutional and egregious form of gun control is convince a Democratic-controlled Senate to pass it.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

Obama Legal Team Wants Defendants’ Rights Limited

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is asking the Supreme Court to overrule long-standing law that stops police from initiating questions unless a defendant’s lawyer is present, another stark example of the White House seeking to limit rather than expand rights.

The administration’s action — and several others — have disappointed civil rights and civil liberties groups that expected President Barack Obama to reverse the policies of his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, after the Democrat’s call for change during the 2008 campaign.

Since taking office, Obama has drawn criticism for backing the continued imprisonment of enemy combatants in Afghanistan without trial, invoking the “state secrets” privilege to avoid releasing information in lawsuits and limiting the rights of prisoners to test genetic evidence used to convict them.

The case at issue is Michigan v. Jackson, in which the Supreme Court said in 1986 that police may not initiate questioning of a defendant who has a lawyer or has asked for one, unless the attorney is present. The decision applies even to defendants who agree to talk to the authorities without their lawyers.

Anything police learn through such questioning cannot be used against the defendant at trial. The opinion was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, the only current justice who was on the court at the time.

The justices could decide as early as Friday whether they want to hear arguments on the issue as they wrestle with an ongoing case from Louisiana that involves police questioning of an indigent defendant that led to a murder confession and a death sentence.

The Justice Department, in a brief signed by Solicitor General Elena Kagan, said the 1986 decision “serves no real purpose” and offers only “meager benefits.” The government said defendants who don’t wish to talk to police don’t have to and that officers must respect that decision. But it said there is no reason a defendant who wants to should not be able to respond to officers’ questions.

At the same time, the administration acknowledges that the decision “only occasionally prevents federal prosecutors from obtaining appropriate convictions.”

The administration’s legal move is a reminder that Obama, who has moved from campaigning to governing, now speaks for federal prosecutors.

The administration’s position assumes a level playing field, with equally savvy police and criminal suspects, lawyers on the other side of the case said. But the protection offered by the court in Stevens’ 1986 opinion is especially important for vulnerable defendants, including the mentally and developmentally disabled, addicts, juveniles and the poor, the lawyers said.

“Your right to assistance of counsel can be undermined if somebody on the other side who is much more sophisticated than you are comes and talks to you and asks for information,” said Sidney Rosdeitcher, a New York lawyer who advises the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

Stephen B. Bright, a lawyer who works with poor defendants at the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, said the administration’s position “is disappointing, no question.”

Bright said that poor defendants’ constitutional right to a lawyer, spelled out by the high court in 1965, has been neglected in recent years. “I would hope that this administration would be doing things to shore up the right to counsel for poor people accused of crimes,” said Bright, whose group joined with the Brennan Center and other rights organizations in a court filing opposing the administration’s position.

Former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson and former FBI Director William Sessions are among 19 one-time judges and prosecutors urging the court to leave the decision in place because it has been incorporated into routine police practice and establishes a rule on interrogations that is easy to follow.

Eleven states also are echoing the administration’s call to overrule the 1986 case.

Justice Samuel Alito first raised the prospect of overruling the decision at arguments in January over the rights of Jesse Montejo, the Louisiana death row inmate.

Montejo’s lawyer, Donald Verrilli, urged the court not to do it. Since then, Verrilli has joined the Justice Department, but played no role in the department’s brief.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

[Return to headlines]

The Honeymoon is Over — President Barack Obama Has to Show That He is a World Leader

The Taliban continues its menacing advance on the Pakistani capital. The Iranian president reiterates his hateful anti-Israeli rhetoric, while Israel’s newly elected Right-wing prime minister makes veiled threats about launching military action to prevent a second Holocaust. Yet the only subject that appears to concern Barack Obama is whether or not senior officials from the previous administration should face prosecution for the harsh interrogation techniques used against terror suspects in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.

Mr Obama has attracted much international goodwill since he took up residence in the White House — not least in Europe, where his youthful charm and conciliatory approach are seen as a refreshing change from his predecessor’s hectoring and arrogant attitude. But even the most propitious honeymoons have to end sometime, and that moment seems to be fast approaching, as Mr Obama finds that his international standing has been weakened by a domestic scandal of his own making.

Mr Obama no doubt believed that by exposing some of the darker secrets from the annals of the Bush administration, he might be able to consolidate his moral authority. Instead, he has found himself mired in a made-for-Washington controversy over waterboarding and other dubious techniques employed by the CIA against al-Qaeda detainees five years ago.

It is not just the damage this unnecessary intervention has inflicted on the CIA’s morale that gives cause for concern. Whether a president supports a policy of hard power, as did George W Bush, or one of soft power, which appears to be Mr Obama’s preferred option, it is nevertheless important that the White House projects the sense of global leadership that goes with being the world’s largest military superpower.

This is particularly true in the current climate, in which there is no shortage of rogue nations and terror groups seeking to challenge America’s global hegemony. The dramatic territorial gains made by the Taliban this week in North-West Pakistan, which have brought the radical Islamist group to within 60 miles of the Pakistani capital, is a good example of what happens when there appears to be an absence of strong and decisive leadership in Washington.

Pro-Western Pakistani politicians argue, with some justification, that a major factor in the rapid growth in support for the Taliban in the tribal areas has been America’s use of unmanned Predator aircraft to attack Islamist militants. American commanders insist that Predator strikes have played a significant role in killing al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders and disrupting their infrastructure. But they have also been responsible for high levels of civilian casualties, which have led to significant sections of the indigenous Pashtun population switching their support to the Taliban.

The Pakistani government now finds itself in the invidious position of surrendering sovereignty over large tracts of the country. This has allowed the Taliban to implement its particularly brutal interpretation of sharia, which earlier this month saw a 14-year-old girl executed by firing squad for planning to elope with her lover.

It is all very well for Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, to call on the Pakistani people “to speak out forcefully” against the Taliban’s power grab. But the Pakistanis would be in a far stronger position to reassert their sovereignty if the White House was fully focused on addressing this potentially calamitous development.

The same goes for Iran, where Mr Obama’s appeal to the hardline regime to “unclench its fist” appears to have fallen on stony ground. Although Tehran has hinted that it is prepared to resume talks with the West over its uranium-enrichment programme, the more telling response has been the jailing of a US-Iranian journalist on trumped-up spying charges. This is a classic Iranian ploy to pressure Western governments. During the 1980s, when Iran sought to undermine US involvement in the Lebanese civil war, Tehran ordered the radical Shia Muslim militia Hizbollah to kidnap scores of Western citizens, who were only released once hostilities were concluded in Tehran’s favour.

Now the fate of Roxana Saberi, who earlier this week was jailed for eight years for espionage, will most likely depend on the outcome of any future negotiations between Washington and Tehran on the nuclear issue, another subject that appears to be beyond the Obama administration’s grasp.

For once there is unanimity within the West’s intelligence community about the progress Iran is making with its uranium enrichment programme, which should give it sufficient quantities of fissile material to build an atom bomb by the end of the year. Time, then, is of the essence — but rather than taking a firm grasp of the issue, the Obama administration is split between those who want to force Iran to declare its hand now and those who argue that it is best to wait until after June’s presidential election, so as not to play into the hands of anti-American hardliners during the election campaign.

In another age, putting off an inevitable confrontation to keep the peace was called appeasement: a charge that will soon be levelled against Mr Obama, unless he starts to demonstrate the true qualities of leadership that his office requires.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

[Return to headlines]

What Are US Students Learning About Islam?

In the same way, students today are being taught a distorted view of Islam. Having been on the front lines in the struggle to achieve the best education for our children, I understand that change will come only when teachers’ and parents’ voices are heard. Teachers need courage in overcoming political correctness by talking candidly about controversial topics like Islam. Parents must be engaged in their children’s education by participating on curriculum committees and communicating with teachers. Parents also should communicate with their members of Congress to ensure that textbook publishers are not being pressured to present a false account of history. Feel-good distortions of history don’t help our kids; they just help those who wish to do us harm.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Will Obama Seize the Radio Stations Next?

So when the Senate recently voted 87-11 in favor of an amendment prohibiting reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, with obvious White House approval resulting in the support of all those Senate Democrats, I immediately started looking for the other shoe to drop. What is the real plan to shut down conservative talk radio and Christian broadcasts? Where is Obama hiding the peanut this time?

FCC Regulation The standard playbook for revolutionaries is to seize all the television and radio stations first, and announce the rebels are the new government. The Left has already done this in America. Except for a couple of holdouts — conservative talk radio and Christian broadcasts.

[…]

The main frontal attack is not going to come through Congress, where talk radio audiences and Christian grassroots can be mobilized to stop it. It is going to come through regulations issued by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which already has all the legal authority it needs.

— Hat tip: JD

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Can You Belong to More Than One Nation?

by Margaret Wente

A few weeks ago, I ran into a traffic jam in downtown Toronto. Thousands of people were thronging the streets and waving colourful banners. Many were families with small children. Perhaps it was a religious festival, I thought — just another piece of the kaleidoscope that makes up our multicultural city.

I should be ashamed of my ignorance. But I suspect it’s shared by most Canadians. It’s safe to say that not one in 50 would be able to explain who these people are and what they want — even though, on Tuesday, more than 30,000 of them staged one of the biggest demonstrations that Parliament Hill has seen in years. “Canada don’t fail your people,” the signs demanded.

The people in question are Tamil Canadians. The banners they have long waved are the colours of the Tamil Tigers, a terrorist group banned in Canada whose goals (if not methods) are supported by most of Canada’s 200,000-strong Tamil community. They want Canada to intervene in the bloody civil war that may now be in its final stages, as the Sri Lankan government bears down on the Tigers’ last stronghold.

Is this our fight? I’d say no. But Tamil Canadians see it differently. Their relatives are being massacred as Canada stands by. Their government should be acting on their behalf. Otherwise, it will have blood on its hands.

In this new, transnational era, issues of identity and politics spill over national borders. And questions of citizenship and belonging become increasingly blurred. Tamil Canadians “belong to more than one nation,” says R. Cheran, a Tamil poet and sociology professor at the University of Windsor.

The Tamils are just one of several large ethnic groups that have sprung up in the urban ring around Toronto. Today, they are the biggest Tamil diaspora in the world. With their own newspapers, TV and radio stations (all pro-Tiger), strong community networks and Tamil-language services, they are a little world within a world. They are also a major source of funding for the Tamil Tigers, who, for decades, have been extracting “war taxes” from the willing and the unwilling alike — sometimes by threatening to harm relatives back home if people don’t pay.

The Tamils’ nationalism isn’t fading with the second generation. Instead, it’s more passionate than ever. Most of the demonstrators are second- or even third-generation Tamils. “There’s an important change taking place,” says Prof. Cheran. “They are reaffirming their ethnic identity. Their attachment to the collectivity has become much stronger.”

According to research by sociologist Jeffrey Reitz and others, this trend is increasingly pronounced among the second generation of immigrant visible-minority groups. Compared with their parents, they feel less, not more, “Canadian.” That doesn’t mean Tamil Canadians don’t engage in mainstream politics. They do — and they’re acquiring a lot of clout.

Stories about the Tamils often centre on the Tamil Tigers, who are infamous for pioneering the use of suicide bombing, recruiting child soldiers and massacring innocent civilians. To most Tamils, the Tigers are their only protection against a brutal government that has oppressed the Tamil population for years and killed its own share of civilians. But the real question for Canada is not about good guys or bad guys — it’s to what extent our government will respond to the pressures of transnational ethnic groups, as these groups become ever more influential.

There’s another question: How will Canada evolve when so many people have multiple allegiances, to homeland and to host land? “I believe it is possible for people to be loyal to more than one nation, one history and one idea,” says Prof. Cheran, who thinks we should embrace the idea of transnational citizenship.

I don’t know if he’s right, but I do know this. There are many mini-nations in our midst. And most of us don’t know anything about them.

— Hat tip: Fjordman

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Chris Selley: Rethinking Refugees

Here’s a fun fact: in 2008, the seventh-biggest source of refugee claimants in Canada was the Czech Republic-bigger than Somalia, Afghanistan, or the Democratic Republic of Congo. This is ridiculous, and not because there aren’t bona fide asylum-seekers in Eastern Europe, where the Roma face a level of exclusion and persecution that really has no analogue in North America. Rather, it’s ridiculous because no system that purports to help the world’s most downtrodden should be expending more resources on Czech citizens than on, say, Somali, Zimbabwean, Iraqi or Burmese citizens, just to pick four weatherbeaten nations out of a hat. As I’ve argued many times before, our refugee system directs far too many resources towards those who can manage to get their feet on Canadian soil, and not nearly enough towards those who most need to.

Why can Czech Roma suddenly claim asylum in Canada, when before they couldn’t? Because they don’t need tourist visas anymore. Why don’t they need tourist visas anymore? Because in 2007, Brussels pitched a minor fit and demanded the requirement be lifted, else Canadians might face retaliatory visa requirements across the European Union. Why did Czechs need tourist visas in the first place? Because of all the Roma refugee claimants who came to Canada in the 1990s. Like the Griswolds in European Vacation, we’re stuck on a roundabout.

It’s safe to say Jason Kenney is more likely to fix this problem, or to try to address it anyway, than any predecessor immigration minister in recent memory. He has no problem calling out “false refugee claimants,” or accusing vast numbers of Mexicans of abusing the system-of de facto immigration “queue jumping.” He seems to have some actual ideas, too, on immigration in general if not on refugees per se, as he demonstrated in a solid, serious speech to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce last week. And as has widely been noted, he actually relishes the slurs and catcalls awaiting any Conservative politician wading into this issue.

On refugees, though, he’s well and truly up against it. As illustrated by a recent Embassy magazine article, simply banning claims from certain countries outright-theoretically the simplest solution to the problem-would unleash a torrent of negative headlines. Domestically, refugee advocates would complain legitimate refugees were being kept out, and they would be entirely correct. It’s true Mexico is the largest source of failed refugee claims in Canada, but it’s also the third-largest source of successful claims, and you don’t have to be a world-renowned Mexicologist to figure our why. Banning claims from people of certain nationalities might also create diplomatic tensions, because you can’t designate certain countries “safe” without implicitly labelling others “unsafe.” For example, creating a list of “no-refugee” nations that didn’t include Mexico-far and away our largest source of refugee claimants-would ostensibly anger the Mexican government and risk all sorts of repercussions. (I’ve never totally understood this, since the fact Canada is in fact accepting scores of Mexican refugees should be far more embarrassing. But that’s the conventional wisdom, and conventional wisdom is the most powerful force in Ottawa.) Nevertheless, even if Kenney could somehow establish such a “safe list,” it would be a muddy, deeply flawed solution.

In his Calgary speech, Kenney laid out a compelling case that the more Canada-centric our immigration system is, the more beneficial it will be to immigrants. If we don’t need cardiologists, there’s no point bringing them here to drive taxis. And if we do need cardiologists, there’s no point bringing them here just because they’re cardiologists without knowing if their skills are sufficient, or sufficiently promising, to be of use in the Canadian medical system. Ideally, it’s always seemed to me, that determination should be made overseas, as early on in the immigration process as possible.

I think a similar approach could help the refugee system enormously. Canada currently allows war-torn citizens of Sierra Leone, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, El Salvador, Guatemala and Colombia to apply for resettlement in Canada without having left home. Why not extend that approach to other nations Ottawa deems a priority? Among other benefits, it would redirect resources towards the most oppressed and imperiled people, and away from people who can afford a plane ticket, false documents and other things they might use to get to Canada even though their refugee claims have no merit.

Naturally, this would require a massive expediting of the system overall, as the only thing more unconscionable than leaving refugees in limbo for years in Canada would be leaving them in limbo in the country they’re trying to flee. First, the government would at the very least have to fill the inexplicably numerous vacancies on the Immigration and Refugee Board, so the system can run at its intended capacity. Second, we obviously need a blanket ban on refugee claims from nations whose “safety” is painfully obvious, and I’m not talking about Mexico. Citizenship and Immigration Canada normally considers imposing a visa requirement on citizens of a given country if it contributes more than two per cent of the total refugee claims in a given year. In 2008, an astounding 2.7 per cent of those claims were from Americans-nearly 1,000 in all, and more even than from the Czech Republic. Third, a person’s mere presence in Canada should no longer grant him an absolute right to a refugee claim. If we started allowing Mexicans (again, just for example) to apply while still in Mexico, we would need to be able to deport those who arrive in Canada back home, without prejudice, with instructions to make their claim there.

I think the most crucial precondition for logical reform, however, would be an international agreement that certain countries or regions should be primarily responsible for certain refugees. I sympathize with the Roma, but if they can find no safe or prosperous home in Europe, then surely that’s more an issue for the European Union and its considerable human rights infrastructure than it is for Canada. The refugee system is supposed to rescue the world’s most desperate people from untenable situations, not necessarily scatter them throughout the world to their most preferred destinations. It’s not just Canada’s refugee system that makes no sense, in my view, but the whole idea of forcing the world’s most persecuted people to scratch, claw and connive their way to safety however possible. The developed world can’t save all of them, unfortunately, but surely it can deploy its considerable resources far more coherently than it currently does.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Woman Facing Deportation Fears Honour Killing

TORONTO — A Muslim woman who says she’ll be slain in the name of honour if deported to Pakistan finds out her fate next Monday.

“It feels like I am dying a slow death,” said Roohi Tabassum, of Brampton. “Waiting to find out what happens is like a death sentence.”

A federal court judge will decide on Monday if Tabassum should be deported. A federal immigration department review of her case is also pending.

“I know I will be killed if I am sent back,” Tabassum, 44, said, referring to her ex-husband, Faisal Javed. “My nerves are bad and I can’t eat or sleep.’“

According to court documents, Javed is outraged Tabassum works in a salon where she cuts men’s hair.

Tabassum says Javed, a businessman and Sunni community leader, will seek revenge.

[…]

Her cousin was the victim of an honour killing after she refused to submit to an arranged wedding to an older man.

Officials of the Canada Border Services Agency said Tabassum has had her hearings and must leave.

— Hat tip: JD

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Berlin Doctors Remove 18-Kilo Bone Tumour

A Saudi Arabian woman now weighs just 37 kilogrammes (81 pounds) after doctors in Berlin removed an 18-kilogramme (40-pound) bone tumour from her pelvis, the hospital said on Friday.

According to the private Capital Health Hospital Group, it was the largest such tumor ever to be removed worldwide.

The 35-year-old mother of three has been undergoing chemotherapy in Berlin since September 2008 to shrink the tumour enough for safe removal.

Removing the growth — which was one-third of the woman’s body weight — required five operations, the hospital said.

The woman, diagnosed with a malignant bone cancer called chondrosarcoma in 2003, came to the Berlin hospital after refusing to have part of her pelvis amputated.

By the time she reached Berlin, the tumour had gotten so big that the woman could no longer walk. The growth was tearing through her skin and threatened to obstruct her bowels.

“She was in a desolate state,” head surgeon Dr. Heinz R. Zurbrügg told journalists on Friday.

When the follow up examinations show no further tumours, the woman will have a missing section of her pelvis replaced with a tailored implant and an artificial hip joint, the hospital said.

Appearing before journalists in a traditional Arab abaya, the woman said she felt “born again,” and looked forward to standing before the doctors in her home of Kuwait who told her there was “no hope.”

— Hat tip: TB

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British Police Officer Admits to Being a ‘Jedi’

A police officer in Scotland has confessed to following the Jedi faith beloved of Star Wars film fans, respected policing analysis group Jane’s reported Thursday.

Pam Fleming, a 45-year-old beat officer in Glasgow for Strathclyde Police, said that she thought all police officers “should be Jedis,” when interviewed by Jane’s Police Review.

“For me, it is not a joke,” she said. “Being a Jedi is a way of life.”

“I love the Star Wars films and the concept of being a Jedi, that the faith is not divisive.”

Fleming said she knew of other Jedis in Strathclyde Police — the force apparently has eight in total.

According to Britain’s Office for National Statistics, a total of 390,000 people in England and Wales listed their religion as Jedi in the most recent census in 2001. Scotland has a reported 14,000 followers.

But it noted that this may have been largely due to an Internet campaign launched in the run-up to the census. Jedi followers are grouped under atheist.

Jedis are fictional creations from George Lucas’ popular Star Wars movies. They are an ancient monastic organization fighting for peace and justice, known for their observance of the Force. They specifically use the “Light Side” of the force and reject the “Dark Side” of the Force, as well as the Dark Side’s adherents, the Sith.

— Hat tip: TB

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Brussels Quietly Trains a Foreign Service

A number of eurocrats will soon form part of an EU diplomatic corps, if European Commission President Jose Manual Barroso has anything to say about it. He’s looking forward to the day when the Lisbon Treaty comes into effect — and the EU has to build embassies.

The European Union, for now, lacks most trappings of central government because it has no constitution. Most “EU diplomats” are in fact diplomats from EU member nations, not from Brussels itself. Even Javier Solana, the EU’s high representative for the common foreign and security policy, can’t technically call himself a “foreign minister.” Instead, he is generally referred to in the media as the EU’s foreign policy chief. But European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso is quietly working for the day when he can.

Hundreds of bureaucrats at Barroso’s European Commission, the EU’s executive body, are being educated in the diplomatic arts, taking courses at universities and international academies on “Political Analysis” and “Handling the Media” to prepare for a new role that would be created under the imperilled Lisbon Treaty. Among the key provisions of the treaty is the creation of a European External Action Service and the appointment of a “foreign minister,” though the title has been renamed as the “high representative of the Union,” as well as an EU president. The idea is to groom an EU diplomatic service so it can start its work the day the treaty — once known, and rejected by voters in France and the Netherlands, as the “EU constitution” — goes into effect.

— Hat tip: JD

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Cyprus: Republic of Northern Cyprus, Nationalists Win

(ANSAmed) — NICOSIA, APRIL 20 — The National Unity Party (UBP) won 44% of the vote in the elections of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, recognised only by Ankara. According to the definitive results, after the UPB, which was the opposition until now, was the Republican Turkish Party (CTP), which was in power until now, with 20% of the vote. The Democratic Party (DP) took 10% of the vote. The UPB should be able to form a single party government after having won 26 of the 50 seats in the Parliament of the small ‘republic’. Nationalist leader Dervis Eroglu, a former Premier, said to journalists that it is his intention to proceed with negotiations for a possible reunification with Greek Cyprus. “It will be one of the priorities of the UPB,” he said. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Cyprus: One Billion Euros Pumped Into Banking System

(ANSAmed) — NICOSIA, APRIL 20 — Cyprus will inject an additional liquidity of 1 billion euro in the banking system in a bid to stimulate the decline of interest rates and to refinance expiring public dept, Famagusta Gazette daily reported quoting Finance Minister Charilaos Stavrakis. Speaking after a meeting with Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism Antonis Paschalides and representatives of the island’s commercial banks and cooperative societies, Stavrakis said the government will issue a short-term bond to Cypriot banks worth 1 billion euro, which expires in late December, at a rate of 1.5%. According to Stavrakis, this bond can be used by the Cypriot banks as collateral to pump liquidity from the European Central Bank at a rate of 1.25%, while the government will deposit these funds in the Cypriot banks. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Defense: Italian Company to Set Up a Plant in Malta

(ANSAmed) — LA VALLETTA, 16 APR — International Aviation Supply, a Brindisi based company which manufactures unmanned aerial vehicles, better known as drones, is to set up a plant in Malta with an initial investment of euro 2.7 million. The 2,000 square metre Malta plant, which will employ 15 people, is to be based in Safi, near the Medavia aviation company. Malta Industrial Parks, which manages industrial estates, has applied for additional land in Safi with the intention of creating an aviation park to cater for other similar companies. Finance Minister Tonio Fenech told The Times Business: “We believe there is a huge potential in the aviation sector and such a company gives Malta high value added. We are very well placed in the market to service such industries and we are also in discussions with other aviation companies which could set up a plant in Malta. Our agreement with International Aviation Supply is very good news particularly in view of the current economic climate.” The Italian company, which conducts research and prototype testing of unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as the manufacture of drones, is to retain its Brindisi plant, which employs 35 people. While the Italian plant will continue to manufacture large drones, the Malta plant will manufacture smaller ones and will also conduct research into unmanned aircraft. International Aviation Supply caters for both civilian and military clients. It was founded in 1985 and started off as a worldwide spare parts supplier and in 2005 it invested into research for the promotion and use of unmanned civilian aircrafts. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Denmark: Army Honours Fallen Major

The military has named an army academy class after a fallen soldier for the first time since World War II

At a military parade early this week, the armed forces honoured a solider that lost his life in Afghanistan by naming a new military class at the Royal Danish Army Officers Academy after him.

It was the first time since World War II that such an honour has been bestowed. Previous officer classes were named after exceptional officers from the 19-century Schleswig Wars and World War II.

Major Anders Storrud lost his life in a mortar attack in Afghanistan 18 months ago and was honoured at Frederiksberg Castle on Wednesday. His widow Susie Storrud gave a moving speech to the 500 assembled soldiers about her ‘hero’.

‘Anders was dedicated to and believed in what he did. That’s why he was my hero,’ said Storrud, adding that while his military mission was important, his journey towards the goal and his comrades were more important to him.

Berlingske Tidende reports that the first ever ‘Class Storrud’ will begin at the Officers Academy in September.

Wednesday would have been Major Storrud’s 36th birthday. His death in Afghanistan made him the highest ranking Danish officer to be lost in combat since the Schleswig War of 1848.

— Hat tip: TB

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Denmark: Man’s Jaw Blown Off in Grenade Attack

A number of people were injured — one seriously — when a hand grenade was thrown at them outside a Christiania café

A young man had part of his jaw blown off in an indiscriminate attack last night in the Christiania area of Copenhagen.

The 22-year-old and four friends were sitting at a picnic table outside Café Nemoland when a hand grenade landed near them shortly after midnight.

The man’s face was badly injured when he was hit by shrapnel, but his condition was described as stable last night.

Three of his companions received less severe injuries to their backs and legs, while one escaped injury in the attack. The three have been discharged from hospital.

Henrik Vedel from the Copenhagen Police called it an ‘unscrupulous attack, where the perpetrator had no qualms about who was hit’. Vedel said the hand grenade had been thrown from a darkened area behind the restaurant, but so far police have found no trace of the attacker.

No motive has yet been established for the attack and police said none of the five people at the table were previously known to authorities. They have appealed for witnesses to the attack to come forward with any information.

— Hat tip: TB

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Denmark: High Court: Starthelp Benefit Not Discriminatory

A court ruling today found that the starting welfare allowance is not discriminatory even though it is less than other unemployment benefits

An Afghan man has lost his High Court case against Egedal city council in northern Zealand which alleged the state’s Starthelp welfare benefit programme was discriminatory and unconstitutional.

Starthelp is a monthly sum paid out primarily to immigrants and refugees who arrived in Denmark after 1 July 2002. The government intended the sum — which ranges from 2,525 kroner for people under 25 who live with their parents to 6,124 kroner for single people 25 and over — to encourage them to enter the workforce.

It is the individual city councils that determine Starthelp eligibility. But although the sum is lower than regular unemployment benefits, the Eastern High Court ruled that the programme was not discriminatory.

The Documentation and Counselling Centre for Race Discrimination (DRC) has provided financial assistance to the Afghan man to pursue his case. Niels-Erik Hansen, head of DRC, said he was not surprised by the decision and would appeal to the Supreme Court.

‘We fully expected the case would go to the Supreme Court,’ he told TV2 News. ‘We hope the decision will be reversed, but in the end this is all about international conventions.’

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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EU: Budget Surplus, Cyprus to Receive 2.4 Million Euro

(ANSAmed) — NICOSIA, APRIL 20 — The European Union 2008 budget has a surplus amounting to 1.79bn euro, that will be returned to member states. Cyprus will receive 2.4 million euro. As Famagusta Gazette reported, according to a European Commission press release, in 2008, member states’ contributions to the European Union budget almost exactly matched agreed spending for the year. With just over 1.5% of the overall EU budget unspent, the high implementation rate of funds has left another record low surplus, reflecting effective budgetary management and ongoing efforts only to call on member states for payments that are strictly necessary. The end-of-year surplus — the difference between all EU budget revenue and spending — amounted to 1.79bn euro of the total euro115.771bn budget in 2008 and will be returned to member states. This 1.5% compares to 16% in 2001, when the EU budget surplus was at its peak.(ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Frattini: Italy is Not a Racist Country

(ANSAmed) — ROME, APRIL 22 — Italy “is a country in which the people are strongly opposed to all intolerance and episode of racism” as shown by the Italian government in the Pinar ship affair, said Foreign Minister Franco Frattini during question-time in parliament. “We did not hesitate to rescue 150 immigrants that were definitely illegal, because human solidarity correctly prevailed over rules of sea rescue, which was not Italy’s duty in this case”, he continued. The minister came under intense scrutiny on the issue and the treatment of the migrant workers from experts from the International Labour Organisation and the European Council during the parliamentary session. The Italian government strongly distinguishes between “legality and illegality” but at the same time “is ready to let human solidarity prevail when even a single person is in danger. This means that our country is absolutely not racist”, he concluded. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Frattini Blasts EC VP Over Fiat

Verheugen accused of interfering in possible Fiat- Opel link

(ANSA) — Rome, April 23 — Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini on Friday blasted European Commission Vice President Guenter Verheugen for allegedly interfering in private business decisions.

The attack came after Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne verbally sparred with Verheugen over the possibility of Fiat acquiring a stake in German carmaker Opel, currently owned by General Motors.

Germany’s representative in the European Union executive fired the opening shot by questioning Fiat’s ability to strike an accord which would make it a partner of Chrysler and, at the same time, make a deal with its Detroit rival GM for a stake in Opel.

Verheugen, who is responsible for industry in EC, also questioned where Fiat could find the capital needed given its debts and the fact that it is “not exactly the European carmaker that is doing the best”, implying that Germany’s Volkswagen was.

Marchionne responded to what he viewed as clearly partisan remarks by saying he was “astounded by the tone and the content” of Verheugen’s statements.

“I would have expected him to engage in constructive dialogue with the European car industry on issues which are negatively impacting our industry today, rather than issuing death sentences or unilaterally deciding who will survive,” Marchionne said.

This prompted Verheugen to explain that he was “in no way contrary” to Fiat being interested in Opel but that “too many questions remained unanswered”.

“I had no intention of being discourteous, but we need to know more about the operation. It is still too early to judge,” he added.

SCAJOLA SAID EU COMMISSIONER WAS ‘OUT OF LINE’ At this point Frattini, who until taking his post last year was also an EC vice president, stepped in and accused Verheugen of “unacceptable interference”.

Frattini said he was “very surprised” by his former colleague’s statements which he considered “interference in industrial decisions between private subjects. This becomes even more unacceptable when one of the companies involved is of the same nationality as he is”.

The foreign minister went on to recall that the EC’s job was to ensure that EU regulations are respected by all, including those regarding the single market and open competition.

Frattini added that he hoped EC President Jose’ Manuel Durao Barroso would correct Verheugen’s position.

Italy’s industry minister, Claudio Scajola, also got into the rumble and branded Verheugen’s remarks as “unacceptable and totally out of line”.

“I understand how it must be very difficult for a German politician to accept the help of an Italian company like Fiat to save an American-German company like Opel. But the commissioner’s statements were unacceptable and totally out of line,” Scajola said.

According to the industry minister, “it is not a European commissioner’s job to intervene in negotiations between companies belonging to two EU member states”.

The EC, he added, can only review an accord between private companies once the agreement has been finalised and this in the framework of its established responsibilities. Fiat officially has not expressed an interest in buying a share of Opel, which GM is spinning and putting up for sale to avoid bankruptcy, although many pundits see this as a ‘Plan B’ for the Italian automaker should its deal with Chrysler fall through.

Other experts think Fiat will seek to pull off both deals in order to reach the size that Marchionne has indicated will be necessary to survive in the future.

Observers noted that, in contrast to Verheugen’s position, Fiat has been given the full support o US President Barack Obama to hook up with Chrysler. Opel’s unions are sharply opposed to joining up with Fiat because, due to product overlapping, it would surely mean job cuts and plant closures.

Because of this, the question has taken on political overtones in Germany where federal elections will take place in five months.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Police Arrest 10 for Keeping Young ‘Slave’

Milan, 23 April (AKI) — Italian police on Thursday arrested 10 family members of a young woman who claims they kept her as a slave for years in a Roma-Gypsy camp in the northern city of Milan. The young woman, a Romanian Roma-Gypsy, said before arriving in Italy, she lived and studied in Germany, where she had a relatively normal life.

Then she moved to Italy together with her extended family and lived in a Roma-Gypsy camp on the outskirts of Milan.

After moving to Italy, the woman’ said her living situation went awry and she was forbidden to go to school.

She said she was beaten every day because she refused to go with others to steal from shops.

The girl said she was forced to live inside the camp and allowed to leave only if accompanied by some of her uncles, as they feared she would flee.

She claimed she was insulted and beaten every day by cousins and uncles, who reprimanded her for not wanting to dress in traditional Gypsy clothing.

She also alleged her father intended to sell her to another man who would have paid 20,000 euros and a certain quantity of gold for her.

The young woman said her father punished her by sexually abusing her.

She contacted local police and is now in a protected community managed by the local council.

At least two family members, among them the father and an aunt managed to escape. Police say they could be hiding in Bosnia.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Italy ‘Made 670 Rescues in Malta Waters’

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, APRIL 21 — Italy has carried out 670 search and rescue operations in waters controlled by Malta since the beginning of 2007, according to a dossier Italy presented to the European Commission in a dispute between the two countries. Italy reiterated in the dossier that Turkish freighter Pinar with 240 migrants aboard was in Maltese waters when it launched a distress signal Thursday and it should have been up to Malta to rescue it. After a four-day stand-off, Italy intervened for humanitarian reasons but has brought the case to the EC. Malta contends the freighter was closer to Italy and was under Italian jurisdiction. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Mussolini Secret Son Film at Cannes

Marco Bellocchio in sixth bid for Palme d’Or

(ANSA) — Rome, April 23 — A film about the secret son of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini is Italy’s only entry for this year’s Cannes Film festival.

The film, Vincere, will be the sixth bid for the Palme d’Or for director Marco Bellocchio, 68. As Bellocchio recounts, the future Fascist strongman was an ardent Socialist when he met and married Ida Dalser, a Milanese beauty salon owner who supported the often penniless political agitator.

First one of his many mistresses, Dalser became Mussolini’s first wife in 1914 and bore him Benito Albino Mussolini in 1915.

They would both end up ‘non-persons’ in the Fascist years and eventually die in internment after Dalser’s untiring efforts to have have her son recognised.

“What fascinated me about Ida Dalser was that heroines are usually sympathetic characters while she was a real ballbreaker,” Bellocchio said Thursday.

Dalser split with Mussolini the same year Albino was born when he got hitched to second wife Rachele Guidi.

After numerous dalliances with intellectuals, Mussolini chose a more down-to-earth, hometown woman to become his ‘official’ wife.

Guidi bore him two daughters and three sons including the concert-pianist father of today’s rightwing MP Alessandra Mussolini.

FIRST RECOGNISED THEN ‘DISAPPEARED’.

Mussolini at first recognised Dalser’s son, Benito Albino, but after his rise to power had him and later Dalser interned.

The son died in a Milan asylum in 1942 at the age of 27, five years after his mother, who had been sent to a Venetian island after threatening to expose unsavoury details about Mussolini’s past.

The Fascist cover-up was so effective that proof of their existence and the marriage was only clinched by an investigative journalist in 2005.

The second part of Bellocchio’s film highlights the increasing desperation of Dalser, played by Giovanna Mezzogiorno, and her son, played by Filippo Timi, and Mussolini appears mainly in newsreel footage — although Timi plays him earlier on.

A similar mix was used by Bellocchio in his acclaimed retelling of the kidnapping and murder of Christian Democrat leader Aldo Moro, Buongiorno Notte (Good Morning, Night, 2003). The title of the film, Win! was one of Mussolini’s favourite battle cries when he threw his weight behind WWI as a young Socialist newspaper editor, later going to fight at the front.

Bellocchio is a leftwing director who first broke through with an anti-establishment picture called Fists In The Pocket in 1965 and has made a number of controversial films since.

He won a ‘little Golden Lion’ in Venice for Buongiorno, Notte, one of five of his films that have received nominations for the top prize at Cannes.

Bellocchio faces competition from, among others, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Bastards, Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock, Pedro Almodovar’s Los Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces), Ken Loach’s Looking for Eric (about a soccer-mad postman who gets life training from Eric Cantona), and Lars von Trier’s Antichrist.

Italian actress Asia Argento is on the jury led by French actress Isabelle Huppert. The fest runs from May 13 to 24. The official poster is an iconic image of Monica Vitti in Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura (1960).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Netherlands: Government to Receive Dalai Lama “as Religious Leader”

THE HAGUE, 24/04/09 — Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen will receive the Dalai Lama. He will be welcomed as a leader of Buddhism, but not as the leader of Tibet, it emerged yesterday in a Lower House debate.

As already announced, the Dalai Lama is visiting the Netherlands on 5 June. He was invited by an independent foundation. The Lower House said last week it will go ahead and receive the Tibetan leader after China told the House in a letter that this would be damaging to relations with the Netherlands.

The question remained whether the government would show resistance to the Chinese pressure as well. Verhagen said yesterday that he will receive the Dalai Lama at a meeting along with other religious leaders. He stressed that the Dutch government will not meet him as leader of Tibet. “The Netherlands does not support the independence struggle of Tibet,” he said. It is not clear whether Premier Jan Peter Balkenende will be present as well.

There are concerns in the business world about trade relations with China. Verhagen takes these concerns seriously. “But it is completely clear that it is up to the government to weigh up whether and in what way it receives the Dalai Lama as religious leader,” said Verhagen. This also applies to parliament, he informed the Chinese ambassador in “clear terms.”

— Hat tip: TB

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Netherlands: Freedom of School Choice Meets Its Limits

A new study reveals that one in three Dutch schools are segregated. Attempts to discourage ‘black’ and ‘white’ schools often clash with the constitutional right to freedom of education.

The Dutch take their constitution seriously. A few articles jump out: article 1, about the principle of equality, and article 23, about freedom of education. Article 23 is so important that professor emeritus Dick Mentink made a career out of it.

Mentink, who taught educational law at Rotterdam’s Erasmus university until his retirement, says article 23 is unique in the world. “The Netherlands are the only country in the world where the state is constitutionally bound to finance confessional schools in the same way it finances public schools.”

The Dutch state, says Mentink, “recognises that all parents must have the unlimited freedom to give their children the education they want. Article 23 guarantees that the state cannot force parents to send their kids to a school against their will.”

The Nijmegen challenge

The adoption of article 23 in 1917 was seen at the time as a compromise between liberals and confessionals. Then prime minister Pieter Cort van der Linden, a Liberal, felt that the state ought to be only minimally involved in organising education, but that it had a duty to facilitate free competition between the different educational and philosophical views in Dutch society. Article 23 also says the state cannot intervene with the fundamentals of confessional schools; its only role is to finance all schools equally.

In 2009, Dutch society is profoundly changed. Because of immigration, confessional schools — traditionally Catholic or Protestant — have come to include Muslim and even Hinduist schools. Added to the distinction between public and confessional schools is the distinction between ‘black’ (ethnic minority) and ‘white’ (native Dutch) schools.

According to some people, it is a perverse effect of article 23 that the freedom of education now allows Dutch parents to cycle across town just to send their kids to that one good — usually white — school. These schools have long waiting lists, while other schools become more and more populated with immigrant children.

Ghettoisation

The city of Nijmegen has recently decided to challenge article 23 in an effort to fight the increasing ghettoisation of its primary school system. Starting next school year, parents in Nijmegen will be allowed to name up to six preferred schools, after which a central committee will determine to which school the child will be admitted.

The committee will use several criteria to determine the choice of school, but the first criterium is that children must be encouraged to go to school in their own neighbourhoods. If parents name faraway schools they decrease the chance that their child will be able to attend the school of their choice, because children living near those schools will be given preference.

The second criterium is to strive for a better balance between disadvantaged and mainstream children. Research shows a ratio of 30 percent disadvantaged children to 70 percent mainstream children is beneficial to both groups: it encourages disadvantaged children to do better without lowering the quality of education in the process.

The right to choose

The two criteria are sometimes at odds with each other because the demographics of the neighbourhoods are not always desirable. In those cases preference is given to sending kids to schools in their own neighbourhoods.

Nijmegen denies that its policy is a violation of the freedom of education principle. Article 23 only guarantees the right to choose a kind of school, based on its denominational or educational fundamentals, the city says. It does not guarantee the right to choose a specific school establishment.

The right-wing liberal party VVD in the Dutch parliament objected to the new policy because it could force parents to send their children to Islamic schools against their will. The city authority says all parents have to do is not to list Islamic schools among their preferred schools.

Nijmegen is not the only local authority in the Netherlands to have challenged article 23. In the town of Tiel, parents have to report to either the public, protestant or catholic school system, after which their children are assigned to a school in their own neighbourhood. Tiel does not use a ratio of disadvantaged to mainstream children, which means that Tiel schools better reflect the demographics of the neighbourhood they’re in. Another difference is that Nijmegen assigns children to one specific school; in Tiel, parents can choose between any school of the same denomination within the same neighbourhood.

There has been little protest in Tiel, but the changes in Nijmegen are more controversial. Educational columnist Leo Prick wrote in NRC Handelsblad that the city is “riding roughshod over the fundamental right of parents to send their children to a school of their choice.”

Closing achievement gaps

Mentink disagrees. He says article 23 has often been misinterpreted in the past. “Article 23 was never about the consumer’s right to choose. It is about the right to organise education”, he says. And former prime minister Cort van der Linden’s interpretation that “no child shall be forced to attend a school that doesn’t respect the religious convictions of its parents” stands unchallenged, says Mentink. “Parents in Nijmegen can still chose the denomination of the school their kids are sent to.”

At issue is whether local authorities have the right to spread out pupils in their efforts to fight ghettoisation. Doing so is illegal when it is based on nationality or ethnic background, but it is compulsory when it comes to closing achievement gaps. Article 167a of the law on primary education says local authorities have to consult with the schools in order to prevent segregation and spread out struggling pupils equally.

But is the Tiel or Nijmegen approach applicable to all areas, especially to the big cities? Tiel has only one “very weak” primary school. Amsterdam and Rotterdam have fourteen “very weak” primary schools.

Christian Democrat member of parliament Jan Jacob van Dijk is not opposed to the Nijmegen experiment. But what if all the schools in your neighbourhood are marked as very weak? he asks. “I wonder if one can force parents to send their kids to an obviously underperforming school. The system can only work if the quality of education is guaranteed across the board.”

[Side-bar:

Study reveals primary school segregation

The Knowledge Centre for Mixed Schools says one third of primary schools in the Netherlands do not reflect the ethnic backgrounds of their local communities. The observation is based on a survey of over 2,000 primary schools in nearly 40 municipal districts. The centre presented its report to deputy education minister Sharon Dijksma on Wednesday.

The centre, which promotes desegregation in education and is subsidised by the education ministry, believes that schools should reflect the ethnic and social make-up of their areas. It says research shows that this is not the case in one third of all primary schools. They have mostly either immigrant or Dutch-background pupils, while their local areas are much more diverse.

The centre describes the results of its research as “shocking”, pointing out that the children are not learning to get along with people from other nationalities and religions. The cities with the worst results according to the survey were Lelystad, Leiden and Almelo.

The study reflects ongoing concerns about the degree of ethnic segregation in Dutch schools, caused by ethnically Dutch parents opting to send their children to schools where the pupils have a similar background to their own, even if the school is outside their neighbourhood. This has led to the intake at schools in some neighbourhoods becoming dominated by pupils from ethnic minority backgrounds. Such schools are officially termed “black schools”. ]

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Netherlands: ‘Teen Repellent’ is a Mixed Success in Rotterdam

The mosquito — or ‘teen repellent’ — is meant to discourage groups of kids from loitering in the streets and making a nuisance of themselves. “It’s a free country isn’t it?”

“It sucks! It gives me a headache,” 10-year-old Mohammed says about the mosquito — a device that emits an annoying sound with a frequency that can generally be heard only by people under the age of 25. His friends Ercan, Anass and Nordin agree. “It’s like when you’ve been listening to loud music for a long time and then you stop. This buzzing sound.”

The kids all live in the Rotterdam neighbourhood of Oud Charlois, where mosquitoes first appeared a year ago. We take a walk from the Wolphaertsbocht to an interior court off Clemens Street. Within this small perimeter there are no less than six mosquitoes: above snackbar Marlena, clothing shop Hans, the bakery and the supermarket, and on the courtyard itself.

The mosquito — or ‘teen repellent’ — is meant to discourage groups of kids from loitering in the streets and making a nuisance of themselves. Opinions about its efficiency diverge. A group of older kids are willing to comment. “It hurts my ears but I’ve grown used to it. We’re still here,” says one. “It’s like swimming under water but we’re used to it,” says another.

There is just as little enthusiasm among local shop owners. “It hasn’t changed anything,” says sales clerk Ingrid Rotermundt at Hans’ clothing shop. “I never saw why we needed it in the first place. Things are not that bad over here. Sure, someone threw a brick through the window the other day, but I don’t know who did that.”

Less work for the police

At Marlene’s snackbar they’ve noticed that more and more kids prefer to hang out inside the premises since last winter — a result of the mosquitoes buzzing outside? “I don’t know. All I know is they can be very annoying. They throw food around.”

By contrast, the local authority of Charlois is extremely pleased with the mosquitoes. “We were getting complaints about intimidation and vandalism,” says borough president Dick Lockhorst. “The nuisance has diminished by 70 to 80 percent. That means less work for the police.”

The importer of mosquitoes for the Netherlands says he has installed some five-hundred devices in 120 municipalities. Nuisance has diminished in nearly all the locations, says general manager Donald van der Laan of the Rhine Consulting Group. He knows the Woplhaertsbocht in Rotterdam. “Before, it was not the kind of place I would go after dark. But it has improved a lot.”

The use of the mosquito is controversial. An often-heard criticism is that the device affects everyone within a twenty-metres radius, including people who are not creating a nuisance. Like sisters Saloua and Keltoum Azerkane and their friend Marwa Massali. “Whenever we pass by here we get a headache,” they say.

Move the problem

At our request, school principal Henny de Koning asks eighty kids on the second floor of the Charlois international primary school if the mosquito outside the school premises bothers them. Twenty kids say they have heard it on occasion. “But it doesn’t bother them much.” Except for a girl who lives above the bakery. She can sometimes hear it inside the house.

Social workers in Charlois are extremely negative. Jan Schellekens: “It makes the kids irritable and aggressive. It makes the want to tear the device from the wall.” Schellekens feels the mosquito is the wrong tool. “All it does is move the problem. Young offenders are forced even more underground so that they are even harder to reach. And there is so little for the kids to do anyway. They don’t have a place to go except the street. And now they are being chased off the street.”

The kids agree. “Where are we supposed to hang out?” they say. “People say we are menacing. But we don”t do anything. It’s a free country isn’t it?”

Home affairs minister Guusje ter Horst (Labour) is not a fan of the mosquito. Her department’s lawyers fear it might even be unconstitutional, but since nobody has tested the law so far Ter Horst cannot stop local authorities from installing the device. At parliament’s request she has started negotiations with the association of local authorities to establish ground rules for the use of the mosquito.

No-go area

The left-wing Socialist Party is dead set against the mosquito. It has adopted a party motion prohibiting individuals to install mosquitoes. The party’s youth organisation is lobbying for a national ban. “To declare the street a no-go area is simply unacceptable,” says party official Leon Botter.

The city of Rotterdam has asked the land’s advocate, an adviser to the government on legal issues, for guidance. He wrote to Rotterdam mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb that he sees no legal objections. But that doesn’t mean that we should flood the country with mosquitoes, his spokesperson says. “We should see it as a last resort.” Rotterdam is now working on a plan of action. In the meantime, a moratorium on new mosquitoes is in place.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Netherlands: Orange Headscarves for Dutch Muslims

This year, Muslim women in Haarlem will be able to celebrate Queen’s Day appropriately dressed. A group of students will hand out more than 5,000 orange headscarves on 30 April to promote tolerance in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The orange headscarves will allow Muslim women to express their loyalty to their faith as well as to the queen.

The two students who thought up the idea say they are annoyed by politicians and others indulging in rabble-rousing rhetoric about Islamic headscarves. The orange headscarves have been partly paid for from a 3,000 euro prize awarded by Haarlem council to the two students for their initiative.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Parents: Required Sex Ed Violates Daughter’s Rights

Challenging school program for teaching kids ‘feel good’ promiscuity

Parents of a school-age girl in Germany who were convicted and fined for refusing to allow her to take a mandatory sex-ed class and preventing her from participating in a required “body” play are appealing their case to the European Court of Human Rights.

The case involving Eduard and Elisabeth Elscheidt is being handled by the Alliance Defense Fund, which has assigned attorney Roger Kiska to defend the family. Kiska told WND the case provides a good opportunity to further challenge Germany’s opposition to parental influence in their children’s education and the government’s totalitarian-type ban on homeschooling.

“Parents, not the government, are the ones ultimately responsible for making educational choices for their children,” Kiska said. “These parents were well within their rights under the European Convention of Human Rights to opt to teach their children a view of sexuality that is in accordance with their own religious beliefs instead of sending them to a class and stageplay they found objectionable.

“These types of cases are crucial battles in the effort to keep bad decisions overseas from being relied upon by activists who attack parental rights in America,” he said.

— Hat tip: JD

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Spain: in September Mausoleum Will be Memory Centre

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, APRIL 22 — By the end of September, the Valle de los Caidos, a mausoleum close to San Lorenzo dell’Escorial where the remains of the dictator Francisco Franco and the Phalange founder Primo de Rivera are buried, is expected to be transformed into a “centre of historical memory”. The news was taken in a motion approved yesterday by a majority in congress following Izquierda Unida’s (IU — United Left) lead, with opposition votes from the Popular Party and the Popular Navarre Union. The idea had already been raised in the law for historical memory, which parliament approved in December 2007. But quoted in the press today, IU is hoping to put the plan into action. The foundation which manages the Valle de los Caidos now has six months to include amongst its objectives: “the honouring and readdressing of the memory of all those who fell in the Civil War and in the repression that followed,” so that the mausoleum becomes a “centre for memory and reconciliation.” Congress has further asked the government to approve the scientific and multidisciplinary procedure for properly exhuming the mass graves of the victims of the Civil War and repression under Franco in the next six months. The motion also asks the government to produce a map of existing mass graves throughout Spanish territory in six months, so that it is made available to all citizens who are interested in recovering the remains of family members. The autonomous regions and city councils will be required to provide a list of the remaining signs of the Civil War and period of dictatorship, so as to hasten the removal of emblems, signs, plaques and other objects “which exalt the military insurrection of the generals which preceded the Civil War and the dictatorship.” (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Spain: Service Sales Fall, Peak in Repossessions

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, APRIL 20 — The Spanish services sector has recorded a tenth consecutive fall in sales in February, with a loss of 20.5% against the same month in 2008, according to statistics released by the national statistics institute, INE. The economic and real-estate crisis led to a 55.6% rise in home repossessions in the region of Madrid. In 2008, 1,912 properties were put under the hammer by courts after home-owners were unable to keep up with mortgage repayments, compared to 1,229 cases in the previous year. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Sweden: Stockholm Taxis to Double as Ambulances

[Comment from Tuan Jim: any chance this is intended to address the issue of attacks on emergency service providers…or am I just reading too much into things?]

Stockholm taxis are to be deployed to respond to emergency calls and drivers trained to treat cardiac arrest using defibrillators, medical and taxi officials said on Friday.

More than 100 Stockholm taxis will be equipped with the defibrillators and deployed to respond to emergency calls when they have no customers, according to Jeanette Lindström, who heads the project at Stockholm’s biggest taxi company Taxi Stockholm.

“The sooner the patients get help the greater their chances of survival. We are out on the roads 24 hours a day. In the event of an emergency, we can get there quickly and begin life-saving measures,” Lindström said.

But “we are absolutely not going to replace ambulances,” she added.

The initiative is a collaboration with Stockholm hospital Södersjukhuset.

“Every minute that passes reduces the chance of survival without any lasting injury by 10 percent. So this project increases patients’ chances significantly,” the head doctor at emergency rescue service SOS Alarm, Lars Engerström, told Sveriges Radio (SR).

One Taxi Stockholm driver taking part in the project, Joakim Svendsen, said the defibrillator was simple to use.

“It’s incredibly easy. You just lift the lid, push the on-off button, and it starts giving you instructions,” he told SR, adding that with his own background as a nursing assistant he hoped to be able to help someone in an emergency.

“I would probably be incredibly nervous. You’re standing there and have the chance to save a life,” he said.

The defibrillators will only be used when the patient’s heart has stopped and there is no pulse.

Several dozen security guards and their vans will also be equipped with defibrillators.

According to the Swedish Heart and Lung Association, 11,000 Swedes die every year of acute cardiac arrest.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Switzerland: Georgian Gangs Behind Rise in Geneva Burglaries

Georgian criminal gangs are chiefly responsible for the large rise in burglaries in French-speaking Switzerland over the past year, the Geneva police have confirmed. Ten additional officers have been assigned to tackle the rising number of burglaries of apartments and villas in canton Geneva — up by 21 per cent in 2008 over the previous year, said the police on Tuesday at a presentation of their 2008 annual report.

In all, some 5,934 attempted or successful break-ins were reported in canton Geneva in 2008, compared with 4,878 in 2007. The region experienced peaks in August and December 2008, with over 400 reported burglaries each month.

Georgian nationals carried out a large proportion of these crimes, say police. Of the 305 burglars arrested in Geneva in 2008, 69 came from Georgia. A further 30 came from Moldova, Lithuania and Russia.

Out of a total of 100 people arrested for burglaries in Geneva so far this year, 40 are Georgians, the police say.

“It’s clearly organised crime — with mafia-like structures. They are very well organised at every level,” Jean Sanchez, deputy head of the Geneva police, told swissinfo.

“They have people who commit the burglaries, others who handle the stolen goods, and a rear base for recycling or laundering the money.”

The Georgian gangs are fairly well known to police forces in the rest of Europe but their presence in French-speaking Switzerland has only been registered since last year, said the deputy head.

But it’s also difficult to work out how many people are involved as some move from gang to gang, he added…

…Ne me Tase pas, mec! The Geneva force also announced on Monday that it had become the first canton in French-speaking Switzerland to acquire Taser stun guns.

In all, it has purchased three Taser stun guns that would be used by trained officers in “exceptional” circumstances, such as during a prison riot, or to disable a criminal with a gun or someone who was about to commit suicide.

According to the police, only a dozen such incidents would have warranted the use of a Taser in Geneva last year.

On “no account” would a Taser be used during the expulsion of a rejected asylum-seeker, added Laurent Moutinot, Geneva’s justice and police minister.

[Comment from Tuan Jim: And what precipitated this statement exactly???]

Tasers are already authorised by several other Swiss cantons (cantons Zurich, Bern, Basel City, Aargau, Appenzell Inner Rhodes, Nidwalden, Schwyz, St Gallen, Thurgau and Lucerne, as well as by the Zurich and Zug municipal police), all of which have widespread autonomy for their police work.

50,000 volts The Taser uses a temporary high-voltage low-current electrical discharge to override the body’s muscle-triggering mechanisms.

Two barbed darts embed themselves into the skin and deliver a series of around 50,000-volt electrical pulses for up to five seconds. The maximum range of the darts is ten metres.

Experts say a shock lasting half a second will cause intense pain and muscle contractions. Two to three seconds will often cause the subject to become dazed and drop to the ground. More than three seconds will usually completely disorient and ground someone for up to 15 minutes.

Employing a Taser avoids the need for physical force or a firearm and prevents injuries, the Geneva police claim.

But a report by Amnesty International in December 2008 found 334 people died in the United States between 2001 and 2008 after a stun gun was used on them. Voltage from the guns “provoked or contributed” towards death in around 50 cases.

The report found that around 90 per cent of the people who died after being stunned had not been armed and had not seemed to pose a serious threat to anyone.

Amnesty says it is not opposed in principle to their usage, but believes that a Taser is a lethal weapon, and should be considered the same as a firearm.

“This is bad news, even if it is only three Taser stun guns,” said Manon Schick, spokeswoman for Amnesty Switzerland.

“We had asked for a suspension of their use and of new purchases of Tasers in Switzerland. We would like the police not to use them until there is an exhaustive, impartial study into deaths using Tasers.”

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Switzerland: Minaret Initiative Divides Opinions

A proposal by rightwing political parties to ban the construction of minarets appears to have limited backing among the Swiss. Around 37 per cent of respondents said they agreed with the ban, while nearly 50 per cent came out against the proposal, according to a survey published on Friday.

A further 14 per cent of those interviewed said they were undecided.

The poll was carried out among 1,000 people in the German and French-speaking regions a month ago on behalf of the Protestant church newspaper, Reformiert.

The report says most supporters of the proposal consider themselves close to the Swiss People’s Party.

The House of Representatives in March overwhelmingly recommended rejection of the proposal, but no date has been set for the nationwide vote.

In Switzerland, only the mosques in Geneva, Zurich, Wangen near Olten and Winterthur have minarets.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Switzerland: Identity of Abandoned Woman is Determined

A woman dumped outside a hospital in northeastern Switzerland on Tuesday has been identified as a 43-year-old Macedonian. Police inquiries discovered that the woman, suffering from cancer, had been living illegally for some time at an acquaintance’s home in the nearby town of Kreuzlingen.

Authorities at Münsterlingen Hospital, where she was found emaciated and wrapped in a blanket, say the woman’s condition remains serious but stable.

It is still unclear how the woman came to be in the hospital’s car park and local authorities are continuing an investigation.

Police say it was evident from her condition that she could not have reached the hospital on her own, adding the woman must have been ill for several weeks or months.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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The Life and/or Death of the Euro

Is the euro zone, 10 years old this year, going to live or die?

As this article of mine from Poland suggests, reports of its death are greatly exaggerated, at least in the sense that anyone is abandoning it. In fact, Polish business would be delighted to ditch the zloty tomorrow and adopt the euro instead. Yet the financial crisis has highlighted a paradox of the euro: a bunch of countries want in, while — arguably — some might benefit from getting out.

Getting whipsawed by unruly currency markets is no fun at all. Since the euro has fared a lot better than currencies outside the 16-member union, its appeal has risen.

Just ask Iceland, whose krona collapsed last year as the country faced what the prime minister called “national bankruptcy.” Now his successor is predicting euro adoption in four years. In Denmark, a well-governed country that has felt the market’s pressure, the euro may be closer than ever. The Baltic countries of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia desperately want to adopt the euro. Slovakia got in under the wire: it became the 16th member of the euro zone on Jan. 1.

Being inside a currency union has its disadvantages as well.

Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain — now waggishly called the PIIGS by some commentators — face steep, in some cases, debt-driven downturns. (See here for the Greek example.) Their sin has been to watch their competitiveness decline vis-à-vis fellow euro-users like Germany. Since they cannot devalue their currencies, they have to regain lost ground by letting wages stagnate or fall in real terms. (They do, however, benefit tremendously from the euro’s credibility by being able to borrow more cheaply than they would outside the euro area, something not lost on finance ministers.)

The American economist Martin Feldstein famously predicted 10 years ago that the euro could not succeed for these reasons. As its 10th birthday arrived, Mr. Feldstein amended his comments in a recent speech that essentially argued that he was right — just not yet.

So which side will win? The answer may be that the euro zone will get bigger before it comes apart — if, indeed, it ever comes apart…

— Hat tip: TB

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UK: Gurkha Immigration Policy Condemned as ‘a Sham’

Gurkhas who risked their lives for Britain suffered a major blow today in their attempts to win the right to settle here.

The Home Office announced that after a High Court ruling 10,000 more former soldiers and family members would be eligible to live permanently in Britain, but campaigners say that in reality the new rules may help fewer than 100 men.

David Enright, a solicitor acting on behalf of the Gurkhas, said: “They have set criteria that are unattainable. They require a Gurkha to serve for 20 years — but a rifleman is only permitted to serve for 15 years.

“It’s a sham and an absolute disgrace. It’s far more restrictive than the old policy.”

The Home Secretary agreed to announce a new policy on the right of Gurkhas to settle in Britain after campaigners returned to court last month to enforce a legal ruling won at the Royal Courts of Justice in September. A High Court judge had ruled that the Government’s existing immigration policy, excluding veterans from settling, was unlawful.

Campaigners, including the actress Joanna Lumley, said that today’s announcement was disingenuous and offensive. “The Gurkhas cannot meet these new criteria. It makes me ashamed of our government,” Lumley said. “We will fight on. We don’t stop. This has been a setback but that is all.”

The Home Office said that it would will allow in around 4,300 more former Gurkhas out of a total of 36,000 who served in Britain’s Armed Forces prior to July 1997.

Phil Woolas, the Immigration Minister, said: “This guidance honours the service, commitment and gallantry of those who served with the Brigade of Gurkhas. Now, another 10,000 Gurkhas and family members will be able to benefit from our revised guidance.”

He denied that the Government had betrayed the Gurkhas.

“What we’ve done today is to allow even more people in without setting a precedent that would create a massive pressure, in my view, on the immigration service, which I don’t think the public would want me to grant,” he told the BBC.

Rules introduced in 2004 allowed serving Gurkhas with at least four years’ service to settle in the UK but they did not apply to Gurkhas discharged from the British Army before July 1, 1997.

Under the new guidelines Gurkhas and their families will be allowed to settle if they meet one of five criteria: they have three years’ continuous residence in the UK during or after their service; they have close family in the UK; they received a level 1-3 bravery award, including the Victoria Cross, the Distinguished Service Order and the Military Cross; they served for 20 years or more; or they suffer from a chronic or long-term medical condition caused by, or aggravated by, service in the brigade.

In addition Gurkhas will normally be allowed to settle in Britain if they meet two or more of the following criteria: they were previously awarded an MoD disability pension but no longer have a chronic medical condition; they were mentioned in dispatches; they served for 10 years; or they received a campaign medal for active service in the brigade.

The brigade was formed after the partition of India in 1947, but Nepalese Gurkha soldiers have been part of the British Army for almost 200 years.

More than 200,000 Gurkhas fought for the Allies during the First and Second World Wars, with 43,000 giving their lives. There are currently around 3,500 serving Gurkhas.

[Comment from Tuan Jim: A couple key reader comments following the article:

It makes me so angry that there could be any question for the Gurkhas and their families to stay in the UK. They fight and die for us and we reward them by denying them any of the rights their military colleagues have. And yet we will open the door to absolutely everyone else in the world!

Martin, Bristol, UK

If you are as ashamed and incensed as I am at the way the Gurkhas are being treated please spare a couple of minutes to sign the petition at www.gurkhajustice.org.uk/.

Thank you

Frank March, Southampton, UK]

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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UK: Home Office Whistleblower Sacked Over Leaks to Tory MP

[Comment from Tuan Jim: No whistleblower protection in the UK?]

The Home Office whistleblower who sparked a police probe by leaking information to a top Conservative MP has been sacked, it was revealed today. Christopher Galley, 26, lost his job as a junior member of staff in the Government department after a disciplinary hearing this morning.

The decision comes just over a week after prosecutors decided to drop the case against Mr Galley and the shadow frontbencher Damian Green. Home Office officials told police they had caused ‘considerable damage to national security’, prompting a full-scale investigation. But in fact, the revelations represented no risk of any kind to the country and were simply embarrassing to the Home Secretary.

Officers raided Mr Green’s Commons office and home and both men were arrested and placed on police bail until the case was dropped last week.

The decision not to pursue it left Jacqui Smith’s political future hanging by a thread and she is now expected to be demoted in a June Cabinet reshuffle. After it was shelved, Mr Galley — in an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail — said he would have done exactly the same again despite the fallout.

He said he had decided to leak the documents after being shocked by the incompetence he uncovered. ‘I did it because what I saw happening was wrong, ‘ he added. He also revealed extraordinary details of the heavy-handed operation against him by anti-terror police, who raided his flat at 5. 30am last November 19. Mr Galley recalls how one officer immediately told him: ‘We are offering no deals. You can get life imprisonment for this.’

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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UK: RBS Demands £40,000 Damages From Unemployed Teenage Girl Who Smashed Bank Window During G20 Protest

[Comment from Tuan Jim: Great photos!]

A 17-year-old girl caught smashing up bank computer equipment during the G20 protests has been hit with a demand for £40,000 of damage by the Royal Bank of Scotland.

The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was caught red-handed in the bank’s Threadneedle Street branch and pleaded guilty to burglary and criminal damage.

She admitted following friends into the branch after its windows were smashed and joining them as they damaged property during angry demonstrations on April 1.

The cost of the damage, including three broken plate glass windows and several pieces of computer hardware, was estimated at £40,000, West London Youth Court heard today.

Prosecutor Ann Crighton said the bank wanted to recover all of its losses from the teenage environmental activist.

But her solicitor, Miranda Ching, said the Scottish-born teenager, who lives in Brighton, is unemployed, does not claim benefits and lives on hand-outs from friends and family.

She said: ‘RBS have gone for compensation in the sum of £40,000. In my view, this is wholly unjustified.

‘It may well be that a substantial amount of criminal damage was caused as a whole by other people on April 1.

‘We must look at what my client is charged with and that is IT equipment.

‘That seems to be, at most, one computer keyboard and one computer monitor.’

The teenager was sentenced to an eight-month referral order which may include a smaller sum of compensation, a letter of apology and an agreement not to commit further crimes.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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UK: Woman Who Fractured Baby’s Skull is Freed by Judge, Saying She Had Suffered Enough

A woman who battered a nine-week-old baby in an horrific attack has avoided jail after a judge decided she had already suffered enough. Claire Thompson, 32, who had been entrusted with looking after the infant, was found guilty in March of fracturing its skull, breaking a rib and inflicting up to three leg fractures. An expert at her trial said the skull fracture was probably caused by the baby’s head hitting a hard surface with force, the rib was probably broken by severe squeezing and the the leg bones were likely to have been fractured by forceful pulling or twisting, or by violent shaking. But yesterday Judge David Goodin spared Thompson from prison, handing her a nine-month suspended prison sentence, ordering her to do 200 hours of community service and telling her to pay £500 costs. Hearing that she had ‘lost everything’ following the assault, he heaped praise on her character and told her she had already suffered more than any sentence he could impose on her. Judge Goodin said: ‘All evidence simply confirms you to be an industrious, decent and placid well-liked young woman who was slow to anger and disinclined to confrontation.’ He added: ‘The only sensible explanation for these injuries must have been a sudden and momentary loss of control.’ Thompson, of Sudbury, Suffolk, was convicted of causing grievous bodily harm to a baby she was looking after — but was cleared of causing the injuries intentionally. Despite denying both charges, Thompson admitted she was one of three people who could have injured the infant. Lindsay Cox, defending Thompson, told Ipswich Crown Court yesterday: ‘She was engaged and lost that. The home that she had with a former partner was again lost to her.’ He added: ‘She was working in the retail industry in a job that would bring her into contact with children. Although she has not been told that she is fired, she has not gone back to work, and I cannot in all honesty think that she could keep that appointment.’

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Croatia: Morales Murder Plot Suspect ‘Wanted to Form Separatist Army’

Zagreb, 22 April (AKI) — A Croat allegedly involved in a plot to kill leftwing Bolivian president Evo Morales said in an interview that he travelled to Bolivia to form a secessionist army in the country’s mineral-rich Santa Cruz region.

“They called me from Bolivia, from Santa Cruz, they told me to come home, because the motherland calls,” Eduardo Rosza Flores said in a Hungarian media interview.

The interview was recorded last September and excerpts from it were published on Wednesday by Croatian daily Jutarnji.

Flores, who had dual Bolivian-Croatian nationality, was killed last week in Bolivia in a gunfight with police.

“My task is to form an army in Santa Cruz as soon as possible and to be its leader,” Flores said. “I’m not a mercenary, nor will I ever be, but if motherland needs me I’m going,” said Bolivian-born Flores.

In the interview, recorded just before he travelled to Bolivia, Flores said the Santa Cruz region opposed Morales’ rule and was fighting for autonomy.

“Only if autonomy doesn’t succeed by peaceful means, will we proclaim independence,” he concluded in the interview.

Flores, 49, a Bolivian of Croatian origins, said that his trip to Bolivia was well organised, including his air tickets and illegal crossing of the border from Brazil.

Flores, nicknamed Chico, went to Croatia in 1991, to fight in the secessionist war against the former Yugoslavia.

After the war ended with Croatia’s independence in 1995, he retired from the army with the rank of major and lived in the Hungarian capital, Budapest.

Apart from Flores, an Irishman, Dwyer Michael Martin, and a Romanian, Arpad Magyarosi were killed in a shootout with police in the eastern city of Santa Cruz.

Two other suspected plotters, Elot Toaso, a Hungarian, and another Bolivian of Croat descent, Mario Francisco Tadic, were arrested during the gunfight.

Morales said they were members of a gang planning to kill him and several other officials. The Bolivian press linked the plotters to an opposition leader in Santa Cruz, Branko Marinkovic, who is also of Croatian descent.

The discovery of the alleged plot raised concern in Croatia about the fate of a sizeable Croat community in Bolivia after Croats were described in the media as separatists and fascists.

Some Bolivian newspapers have made a link with the World War II fake or quisling state in Croatia that was formed by the leader of the separatist Ustashe movement, Ante Pavelic, under the auspices of Hitler and Mussolini.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Kosovo: Amnesty Asks NATO to Investigate Bombs on Serb TV

(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, APRIL 23 — Amnesty International invited NATO to open an investigation for ‘war crimes” related to the air raid that exactly 10 years ago, on the night between April 22 and 23 of 1999, targeted the headquarters of Serb television (Rts) in Belgrade, causing the deaths of 16 people. In a statement quoted today by Serb media, Amnesty International said that “Ten years after NATO’s bombing of the Serb television building nobody has been brought to trial for this major violation of international human rights”, adding that ‘the bombing of Rts headquarters represents a deliberate attack on a civilian target, and as such it constitutes a war crime”. Because of this, Amnesty asked NATO and member countries to guarantee ‘independent investigations”, take on ‘full responsibility” for the event, and guarantee that damages will be paid to victims and their families. The attack occurred during air raids which NATO decided to launch against Slobodan Milosevic’s Serbia to force Belgrade to put an end to the campaign in Kosovo based on terror and ethnic cleansing. Amnesty International stated that NATO had selected the television network as a target because of its propagandà activities, but failed to announce the strike despite being aware of the presence of civilians within the building. SEEMO, a Vienna-based international organisation that protects free press in south eastern Europe, also asked NATO to open an investigation into the air raid on the Serb tv network. Today the families and relatives of the 16 victims commemorated the tragic event of 10 years ago by gathering in front of the memorial monument that was built close to the Rts building, the same that was bombed in April of 1999. Today ‘Politika’, Belgrade’s most authoritative newspaper, published the pictures of the 16 people killed by the NATO air raid on a full page. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Italy: Algeria is Number One African Client

(ANSAmed) — ROME, APRIL 21 — According to the Italian national statistics office (ISTAT), in 2008 there was a 62.7% rise in Italian exports to Algeria, making Italy the second largest supplier to the North African country after France. These figures also confirm Italy’s position as Algeria’s second most important trade partner after the United States. The Italian Foreign Trade Commission (ICE) reports in a statement that this is “a constant increase, which began in 2004, to reach 3 billion euros in 2008, a historical record for our exports to Algeria.” Algeria, the ICE continues, “has become our top export market for the first time ever, replacing Italy’s historical trade partners such as Egypt and Tunisia, which used to be the major destinations. The boom in exports is due to the significant rise in iron and steel industry products (+117%) to around 875 million euros, and auxiliary goods for the production and harnessing of mechanical energy (+65%) to around 409 million euros.” After the United States, Italy is Algeria’s top source of imports, for a total of 8.6 billion euros. Compared to 2007, Italian imports have grown 41% in 2008, 99% made up of the acquisition of natural gas and refined oil products, which reached record prices in 2008 and had a significantly negative effect on Italian trade balance. In 2008, Italian trade with Algeria rose 32%, to reach 11.6 billion euros (as against 8 billion euros in 2007). (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Algeria: Christian Churches Reopen

Algiers, 23 April (AKI) — Twenty-two Christian churches closed by Algerian authorities last year have reopened. According to a report in the Algerian daily, Ech-Chourouk citing an American Christian group called Open Doors, the protestant churches were among 26 churches shut down in 2006 because they were considered outside a law governing religious practice.

Based on the newspaper report published on Thursday, it seems that the 22 churches have obtained the permits required by Algerian authorities for Christian worship.

In recent months many politicians and Muslim religious leaders have criticised the activities of Christian missionaries in Algeria, stressing the opening of new evangelical churches, particularly in the area of Cabilia.

Several French and American religious groups have recently been accused of pressing Algerians to convert to Christianity in exchange for help to emigrate elsewhere.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Egypt-Israel, Netanyahu Invited to Cairo

(ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM — Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has invited Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to Cairo. Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman handed a message from Mubarak to Netyanyahu when the two met in Jerusalem Wednesday. The spokesman said the visit might take place in the next few weeks. Yesterday’s was the first meeting between Netanyahu and General Suleiman, an official who has had a major role in the Middle East peace process all the time. Many Israeli officials have paid visits to Cairo since the two countries signed the peace treaty in 1979. Mubarak, on the contrary, has never been in Israel. Speaking at a military ceremony in Ismailiya, Mubarak said “the Israeli Prime Minister’s visit to Egypt will take place in May. To those who say that he will bring his Foreign Minister with him, I say that it is normal for the heads of Israeli governments to come alone or to travel with the directors of their cabinet, as has always happened when heads of the Israeli government have come to Egypt in the past.” Mubarak went on, “but first of all, the Palestinians must find some cohesion, because their internal division will never bring about the creation of two states. If the Palestinians are happy with their current situation, then they must present themselves to the international community and say that they want two Palestinian states, one in the West Bank and one in Gaza, and Israel will certainly be happier with this outcome”. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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US: Obama Urged to Resolve Sahara Conflict

A total of 229 US legislators have asked president Barack Obama to resolve the long-running conflict in the Western Sahara and support Morocco’s autonomy.

Washington, 24 April(AKI) — The Algerian-backed Polisario Front movement has been seeking independence for the Western Sahara since it was occupied by Morocco in the 1970s. Peace talks over the status of the region have been stalled since July 2003 and last year militants threatened to resume their armed struggle if there was no progress in a UN-brokered peace plan.

This is the letter that US lawmakers recently sent to president Barack Obama.

“Vital US interests in North Africa are increasingly challenged by growing regional instability. Terrorist incidents in the Maghreb have increased by more than 400 percent since September 11, 2001, and the emergence of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has led to a spike in terror attacks against both symbols of national government and institutions reflecting cooperation between the Arab world and the West.

The single greatest obstacle impeding the security cooperation necessary to combat this transnational threat is the unresolved territorial dispute over the Western Sahara.

In addition to bringing peace to the people of Morocco and to the Saharawi, and shrinking the space for global terrorist elements to recruit and operate, resolving the conflict in the Western Sahara would have considerable economic benefits and improve the lives of millions of Africans.

The entire Maghreb would finally be free to pursue serious economic integration, attract increased foreign investment, and realise the potential for regional trade and cooperation. All of these important goals are currently blocked by the continued conflict and the tension it creates between states in the region.

In 2007, at the urging of the United States and the United Nations, Morocco , our oldest ally and partner for peace in the Middle East, initiated a ground-breaking autonomy plan to resolve the more than 30 year-old conflict within the framework of self-determination for the Western Sahara.

The Moroccan compromise plan received widespread support from the international community as a critical breakthrough for achieving peace and led to four rounds of UN mediated negotiations.

The UN Security Council, in resolution 1813 (2008), described Morocco’s compromise efforts as “serious and credible.” In pressing for adoption of the resolution the United States reaffirmed the policy initiated under president Clinton, and continued under president Bush, that: “Genuine autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty is the only feasible solution.”

After the four rounds of negotiations did not produce any real progress, the UN secretary general’s personal envoy for the Western Sahara , Mr Peter van Walsum, issued an assessment to the Security Council in April 2008.

He said, “My conclusion is that an independent Western Sahara is not an attainable goal that is relevant today because it lies at the root of the current negotiation process,” and he urged that future rounds of talks be held only on the subject of autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty.

Unfortunately, following this bold statement the negotiations process stalled. Mr. van Walsum has been replaced by ambassador Christopher Ross as the new UN personal envoy. We are hopeful that Ambassador Ross’s appointment will result in the continuation of the talks based on Mr. van Walsum’s assessment.

We remain convinced that the US position, favouring autonomy for Western Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty is the only feasible solution.

We urge you to both sustain this longstanding policy, and to make clear, in both words and actions, that the United States will work to ensure that the UN process continues to support this framework as the only realistic compromise that can bring this unfortunate and longstanding conflict to an end.

We look forward to working with you towards the success of this policy.”

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Lieberman: For Peace Initiative in Our Hands

(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV — The new Israeli government intends to go ahead with the peace process with the Palestinians, but it intends take the initiative into its own hands. These were the words of the Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, speaking on military radio today, following the stir raised yesterday when he spoke out against the Saudi regional peace initiative and the previous initiatives for an Israel-Palestine agreement arising from Annapolis in 2007, which were signed under American supervision and focused on bilateral commitment to a two-state solution. Lieberman reassured that, “we are interested in taking the initiatives into our own hands and moving on with it,” adding, “there is no sense in wasting time, we want to lead and not be led.” When questioned about his negative reaction to the Saudi initiative, which puts Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories as the price for the collective recognition of the Jewish state by Arab nations, Lieberman confirmed that he was against the proposal, in particular the recognition of the “right to return” for all Palestinian refugees, which he described as being “out of the question.” The Foreign Minister added that the Annapolis agreement was too far removed from the reality of the struggle against terrorism, stating, “I have not seen the Palestinians manage to disband a single terrorist organisation.” Yesterday in Jerusalem Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has met for the first time Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who handed him a message from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak with an invitation to go to Cairo in the next few weeks. Suleiman has also met Defence Minister Ehud Barak and handed him, too, an invitation to go to Egypt. Many Israeli officials have paid visits to Cairo since the two countries signed the peace treaty in 1979. Mubarak, on the contrary, has never been in Israel.(ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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West Bank, Joseph’s Burial Site Desecrated

(ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM, APRIL 23 — The burial site of biblical patriarch Joseph, which lies close to Nablus in the West Bank (Palestinian territories) and is venerated in Jewish tradition, was desecrated last night by persons unknown. Today Israeli sources reported that it was found littered and laid waste. The believers who arrived there in the morning for prayers discovered the place covered in anti-Semitic graffiti and swastikas, as well as burns and damage to the tombstone. The site is venerated almost daily by the inhabitants of orthodox Hebrew settlements inserted in the Nablus area, and is viewed as a sort of symbol of the presence of settlers in the heart of Palestinian territory by the Arab population. Recently restored, it had already been the object of desecration in the past. Gershon Mesika, who works with the coordination of Jewish settlements in Samaria, commented that ‘only barbarians can carry out such acts of violence” and called on Israel’s authorities to promptly repair the site. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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David Frum: Israel’s Insidious Plot Against America

[Comment from Tuan Jim: Different side of the story than I’ve seen in the wire reports so far.]

Sometimes in Washington, what is most scandalous is the attempt to create a scandal where none exists.

Let me give you a current example.

Maybe you’ve heard about an allegation of scandal against Jane Harman, the California Democrat who served with great distinction on the House Select Committee on Intelligence until Nancy Pelosi gave her the heave-ho.

The story is almost insanely complicated. But the deeper you delve into the details, the more you see that if there is any wrongdoing in the case, it was done by Harman’s accusers.

Some background:

Elements within the FBI and other U.S. agencies have been convinced for years that Israeli spy agencies have penetrated the U.S. government. These anti-Israel elements responded with what spy types call a “mole hunt”-a ferocious search for the suspected infiltrator. Again and again, the search has turned up empty. But from the point of view of a mole hunter, nothing is more damning than the absence of evidence: The inability to discover the mole only proves the mole’s vicious cunning!

Then, at last, in October 2005 the mole hunters found their man: a career Defense Department employee named Larry Franklin. Franklin’s offense? Brace yourself …

Franklin had learned of U.S. intelligence reports that Iranian sabotage teams were operating inside Iraqi Kurdistan. These reports were being disregarded for a reason very familiar in the Bush years: They contained uncomfortable news that higher-ups did not wish to know.

Franklin, however, thought the information important-maybe vitally important. He thought it needed to be pushed up the organization chart. Lacking the clout to move the information himself, he decided to do what frustrated officials often do: He leaked it.

Specifically, he leaked the information to two employees-American citizens both-of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, in the hope that they could galvanize a response from their contacts in the White House. The two, Steve Rosen and Kenneth Weissman, shared Franklin’s information with journalists, colleagues, and the Israeli embassy.

For this action, all three were charged with criminal offenses. Investigators squeezed Franklin’s point of vulnerability: He had a seriously ill wife and could not afford the loss of his government health-care coverage. He pleaded guilty to mishandling classified information and was sentenced to almost 13 years in prison. Rosen and Weissman go to trial in June for violating the Espionage Act of 1917.

Two months after Franklin’s sentencing, another leak of classified information hit the newspapers. On Dec. 16, 2005, The New York Times reported the existence of a vast, unknown National Security Agency program to intercept foreign electronic communications.

Unlike the Franklin leak, which was intended to jolt an unwilling bureaucracy into action to defend the country, the Times leak was intended (by the leakers) to sabotage a program integral to that defense. The leak lethally compromised a vital intelligence-collection effort. In terms of its direct and immediate usefulness to America’s enemies, the Times story may count as the worst betrayal of vital national information in a generation.

Needless to say, nobody has ever been prosecuted for that or for any of the other leaks that have done actual damage to American security since 9/11, such as The Washington Post leak that revealed the locations of prisons in which high-value al Qaida detainees were being held.

The stories of these two leaks converged in Jane Harman’s office.

The Franklin prosecution appalled and disturbed many people who care intensely about national security. A campaign was launched to help raise awareness of the Franklin case. Sometime in October 2005, a call was placed by a Franklin supporter to Harman. (This as-yet-unnamed supporter is described in some accounts as a suspected Israeli agent; but by October 2005, of course, the anti-Franklin prosecutors were convinced that Washington was half-filled with Israeli agents.) The Franklin supporter offered Harman a political proposition: If she would take up the case of Franklin and the two AIPAC officials, the supporter would undertake to mobilize political support for Harman’s campaign to keep her job as the top Democrat on the House Intelligence committee.

Harman seems never to have acted on this proposition. But the fact that she had taken the call persuaded the mole-hunters that she, too, was part of the Israeli conspiracy in Washington. Department of Justice prosecutors determined to file charges against her. Those charges were promptly vetoed by then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. He pointed out that Harman was working fiercely to persuade the Times not to publish the NSA intercept story. “We need Jane,” he said.

There’s no evidence of a deal or trade between Harman and Gonzales. No suggestion that she was motivated to lobby the Times for reasons other than her own initiative. No suggestion that Harman’s actions stemmed from anything except a public-spirited effort to stop a newspaper from compromising the country’s security in order to achieve the thrill of a scoop.

And yet for acting public-spiritedly and responsibly, Jane Harman is now being treated like some kind of corrupt dealmaker.

In fact, this whole bundle of stories is one in which the designated targets of outrage are those who have behaved well-while those who behaved badly escape entirely.

Franklin’s leak intended to safeguard the nation? Espionage.

The Times’ leak that intensely damaged the nation? A prize-winner.

Harman’s deal-making to keep her highly deserved seat on the Intel committee? A scandal.

Nancy Pelosi’s dealmaking to force Harman off and replace her with either Alcee Hastings (a former federal judge impeached on corruption charges) or the very lightly knowledgeable Silvester Reyes? Business as usual.

The “Israel Lobby’s” support for Franklin and Harman and other hawkish Democrats? A sinister conspiracy of intergalactic proportions.

The anti-Israel mole-hunters’ eagerness to prosecute Franklin and give a pass to the many more damaging leakers who have done actual harm to the country? Solid policework.

We have here a situation in which patriots are being treated like traitors-while people who have done the country more harm than many traitors are being treated like patriots.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Turkey Offers Libya Free Trade Agreement, Minister Says

(ANSAmed) — TRIPOLI, APRIL 22 — Turkish state minister for foreign trade said that Turkey had offered Libya to sign a free trade agreement, as Anatolia news agency reports from Tripoli. “We have proposed a free trade agreement and pledged to sign it in September, on the 40th anniversary of the Libyan revolution, at a ceremony which would be participated by the Turkish prime minister,” Kursad Tuzmen told reporters after a meeting with Muhammad Ali al-Huwayz, Libyan trade and investment minister, as part of his contacts in the Libyan capital, Tripoli. Tuzmen said the proposed agreement would increase the trade volume and mutual investments between the two countries. The Turkish minister later met with Shokri Ghanem, head of the Libyan National Oil Corp.(ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Turkey, Armenia Agree on a ‘Framework’ to Normalise Ties

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, APRIL 23 — Turkey and Armenia have agreed on a “framework” to normalise their bilateral relations, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said. The two countries are in high-level talks to restore ties and reopen their borders that were closed in 1993. “The two parties have achieved tangible progress and mutual understanding in this process and they have agreed on a comprehensive framework for the normalisation of their bilateral relations,” a statement by the Turkish Foreign Ministry said late Wednesday. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Turkey: Cash From Credit Card as Last Resort

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, APRIL 22 — Turkish people are increasingly drawing cash on their credit cards, taking on high interest rates to meet pressing needs, as banks began to implement tighter policies to lend loans due to the global crisis and prefer to have commercial relations with the customers that do not face problems in payment. As daily Hurriyet reports today, cash withdrawals on credit cards rose 22% to 5.1 billion Turkish Liras ($3.1 billion) in the first quarter of the year over the same period of 2008, according to figures from the Interbank Card Center, or BKM, which monitors transactions. Meanwhile, the consumer loan volume of banks declined 644 million liras during the first quarter of the year. Since the end of October, when the crisis was fired up, the banks’ consumer loans have contracted $2.6 billion liras. The amount of cash advance rose to 12.2 billion liras over the period. Those who cannot access consumer loans, whose rate range between 1.5 and 2%, are orienting toward cash advances, which have a monthly interest of 4 to 4.5%. But this has made it difficult for consumers to pay back their debts, with unemployed people and those who have no hope for being awarded a bank loan constitute a substantial proportion of cash withdrawals on credit cards. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Turkey-Armenia: Roadmap for Normalisation Agreed

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, APRIL 23 — Thanks to Swiss mediation, Turkey and Armenia have agreed a ‘roadmap’ to the normalisation of bilateral relations between the two countries, according to Turkey’s Foreign Ministry. A communiqué reveals that the talks have led to “real progress and a reciprocal understanding” and have brought about an “all-encompassing” agreement “for the normalisation of bilateral relations, which is satisfactory to both parties”. “In this context”, continues the statement, “it has been decided to set out a ‘roadmap’“. Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 out of solidarity with Azerbaijan, a Muslim and Turkish-speaking nation which was in conflict with Armenia at the time for control of the Nagorni Karabakh region, an Armenian enclave in Azeri territory. A normalisation of relations between the two countries has been on the cards for some time. Rumours of forthcoming detente between the two countries grew stronger after American President Barack Obama’s visit on April 6, who wanted to meet the foreign ministers of Turkey (Ali Babacan), Armenia (Edward Nalbandian) and Switzerland (Micheline Calmy-Rey).(ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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UAE: Dubai Denies Laundering Pirate Funds

Dubai, 23 April (AKI) — The emirate of Dubai has rejected a British newspaper report suggesting pirates have laundered their ransom money through banks in the Gulf city-state. A report in Al Emarat Al Youm newspaper quoted Maj. Gen. Khamis Mattar al-Mazeina as saying Dubai has strict laws to prevent money laundering.

The Arabic language newspaper has close ties to Dubai’s ruling family.

Al-Mazeina was responding to Tuesday’s report in the British daily, The Independent, that quoted investigators hired by the shipping industry who said organised piracy syndicates in Dubai and other Gulf states have laundered large amounts of ransom money.

The Independent said that much of the 80 million dollar ransoms that pirates had received in 2008 for the release of ships they had hijacked off the coast of Somalia and the Horn of African was transferred to piracy ‘godfathers’ based in Dubai and other gulf states.

The British newspaper quoted Christopher Ledger, a former Royal Marine officer, as saying that “syndicates based in the Persian Gulf — some in Dubai — play a significant role in the piracy which is taking place off the African coast.”

Dubai, located in the United Arab Emirates is the Arab world’s second largest economy and is considered the most liberal of the federation of seven Emirates.

Dubai is also host to 3 million expatriates who comprise at least 85 per cent of the population.

In recent years, Dubai has become a commercial hub, where the world’s property developers and wealthy have vied with one other to acquire real estate, steadily driving up its value.

The UAE is a federation made up of seven emirates, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Dubai, Ajman, Fujairah, Umm al-Quwain and Ras al-Khaimah.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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No Foreign Military to Join Ukraine’s Sea Breeze Exercises — Navy

KIEV, April 24 (RIA Novosti) — There will be no foreign military involvement in this summer’s Sea Breeze military exercises in Ukraine’s Crimea, a first deputy Ukrainian navy commander said Friday.

The Sea Breeze exercises have been taking place annually in the Crimea since 1997, and have seen occasionally violent anti-NATO protests in recent years.

Last year’s Sea Breeze drills saw protesters set up camps along the Black Sea coast, and reportedly attempt to prevent foreign warships participating in the exercises from leaving the port of Odessa.

“Sea Breeze 2009 does not envision the stay of foreign military units on the territory of the Crimea,” Vice Admiral Viktor Maksimov said, adding that, “only Ukrainian Armed Forces units” would take part.

He also said that media reports suggesting that the exercises would see the involvement of U.S. and other NATO forces were false.

— Hat tip: islam o’phobe

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Extraordinary Security Measures for Celebrations of 60th Anniversary of Chinese Navy

The three-day celebration begins tomorrow in Qingdao. There is tight security around the entire area, partly in order to protect the many foreign leaders. Naval representatives from various countries have been invited, but not from Japan.

Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) — The strictest possible security measures are in place around the port of Qingdao, where a naval parade will take place tomorrow to begin three days of celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the Chinese navy.

21 ships from 14 countries are scheduled for the parade, and the leaders and military officials of many countries will be present. In recent days, uniformed naval officers from a number of countries have been seen in the city, drawing the attention of citizens and tourists. There will also be seminars and exchanges of information. The high number of officials from foreign countries increases the risk of attacks.

Every point of entry to the port is being guarded by navy personnel, and control of the surrounding area is also high. Local sources tell the South China Morning Post that the police have even “asked” taxi drivers not to bring foreigners into the area near the port, or to tell the police as soon as they have dropped them off at their destination. There are also heavy restrictions on the media.

Beijing is proud of celebrating its new naval power: in 1949, it was nothing but a force for coastal defense, while today it is capable of carrying out missions all over the world. The country is also recalling that 115 years ago, at the delta of the Yalu river in the Yellow Sea, its fleet from the North Sea, considered the most powerful in Asia, was defeated in a few hours by the Japanese navy, which was more efficient and better trained. This defeat marked the beginning of Japanese aggression against its larger neighbor, and decades of war. The Japanese navy has not been invited to the celebrations, while India, Pakistan, the United States, and Russia have been.

The projects underway include the creation of a submarine, with a titanium skeleton covered by a special plastic capable of operating at depths of up to 7,000 meters, which the engineer Zhao Junhai of the China Ship Scientific Research Centre hopes can be launched between 2009 and the beginning of 2010. Zhao says that the submarine, which is superior to the current models of the United States and Japan, can sustain pressure of up to 700 kilograms per square centimeter.

Experts nevertheless maintain that China is still far behind the world’s greatest naval powers. Its greatest task is the creation of an aircraft carrier capable of competing with those of the United States.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Indonesia Nabs Terror Suspect

JAKARTA — AN ISLAMIC extremist accused of murdering a Christian professor in 2004 has been arrested in Indonesia, police said on Friday. Spokesman Abubakar Nataprawira said the suspect, Amirullah, was a member of a terrorist organisation but he would not confirm reports he was affiliated to the Jemaah Islamiyah regional militant network.

‘Amirullah, also known as Kana, 30, was nabbed on Monday in South Sulawesi.

He is a fugitive wanted by Central Sulawesi police,’ Nataprawira said.

He allegedly shot dead a professor of Sintuwu Maroso university in Poso, in Central Sulawesi, with a revolver.

Jemaah Islamiyah veterans who fought in Afghanistan and the southern Philippines are suspected of recruiting and training extremists in Central Sulawesi province.

Fighting between Muslims and Christians in Poso and surrounding districts claimed about 1,000 lives in 2000-2001. — AFP

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Pakistan: Parties Re-Evaluate Swat Deal

Peshawar, 24 April (AKI/DAWN) — An All Parties’ Conference was being held on Friday in Peshawar, the provincial capital of the North West Frontier Province, to discuss the Swat peace deal under which militants agreed to lay down their arms in exchange for the implementation of Islamic (Sharia) law in the Swat valley and the surrounding Malakand division.

According to sources, the meeting discussed the Taliban incursions beyond Malakand and the future course of action if the Taliban refuse to disarm and continue their offensive into districts adjoining Swat.

After the recent Taliban incursions into Buner, a backlash to the Swat peace deal is unfolding across NWFP province and the rest of the country, especially among its political leadership. Islamic tribal leaders had threatened to pull out the peace deal unless Sharia law was rapidly implemented.

The United States expressed extreme concern on Thursday about advances by the Taliban in Pakistan and said the issue was taking up a significant amount of president Barack Obama’s time.

On Wednesday, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton warned in extremely strong language that Pakistan, a key US anti-terror ally, was ‘basically abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists’ with an agreement permitting Sharia law in the Swat valley.

The meeting of Pakistan’s various political parties is important as it was preceded by a high level meeting late on Thursday between the NWFP governor, its chief minister and high ranking army officials.

The possibility of restarting the military offensive against the emboldened Taliban was also discussed during the meeting, sources added.

The historic Swat peace deal was signed in February between the NWFP government and Taliban-led militants. It brought to an end two years of bloodletting in which hundreds of people died and tens of thousands fled their homes.

Once one of Pakistan’s most popular holiday destinations, the Swat valley came under Taliban control after an insurgency began there in 2007 following the siege of Islamabad’s Red Mosque in which over 100 people died.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Terrorism: Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons ‘At Risk’

Rome, 24 April (AKI) — Pakistan’s nuclear weapons would be at risk if militants took control of the government, a leading international terrorism expert has told Adnkronos. However, Brian Michael Jenkins, an advisor to the American Rand Corporation and international security expert, said Pakistan was a “failing state” but was not in danger of imminent collapse.

Jenkins was visiting the Italian capital Rome at the request of the Italian government as part of the country’s rotating presidency of the Group of Eight of the world’s top economies plus Russia ahead of their forthcoming July summit.

He took part in a conference of Italian and foreign officials at Italy’s foreign ministry, on “Transnational threats and destabilising factors” before visiting the Rome headquarters of the GMC-Adnkronos media group where he met president, Giuseppe Marra.

“There is concern that if there is a radical takeover of Pakistan itself, the armed forces will behave like the Iranian forces and simply say ‘This is the new government, we are part of the new government’ and therefore the nuclear arsenal could become part of a more radical government,” said Jenkins in an exclusive interview with Adnkronos.

Jenkins said while claims of the government’s imminent collapse was an “overstatement”, the long-term outlook is bleak.

“I see this much more as a slow descent which can be arrested,” he said.

“I think some of these headlines that we have seen such as ‘on the verge of collapse’ are overstatements, nonetheless, the long term trends are not good.

“This is not a failed state, this is not a state that is going to fail tomorrow, but this is a gradually failing state.”

Jenkins also said that there has been an escalation of violence in Pakistan which is moving from the tribal areas into the cities and the government does not know how to handle the threat.

“What we see now is both a geographic escalation of the fighting in Pakistan. Before it was confined to the tribal areas, now we see the violence moving into the settled areas, into the major cities,” he said.

“Now we see the increasing use of large scale terrorist attacks, in many cases involving suicide bombers, this is new and extremely serious. In fact, the Pakistani authorities have not known quite how to deal with it.”

In addition, Jenkins said the Pakistani government’s strategy of either confronting the Taliban militarily or making deals with the militants has failed and will require “decades” to overcome.

“Neither strategy has worked well thus far and so there is a long-term challenge here that the Pakistan government with international help is going to be dealing with for many years, this is a task of decades,” concluded Jenkins.

A former US army Green Beret in Vietnam, Jenkins has advised the US government and many others around the world on terrorism and security issues. He is the author of numerous books, including ‘Unconquerable Nation’ and his latest ‘Will Terrorists Go Nuclear?’.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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The ISI Surge Against India

Mandeep Singh Bajwa

There has been a spate of fresh infiltration attempts into the Kashmir Valley in recent weeks. The Indian security forces bolstered by good intelligence attained through penetration of the insurgent groups, sigint and heightened vigilance have achieved notable successes albeit at a high cost in killed and wounded. Pakistan is thus waging a war on two fronts though of course one has one’s doubts whether the country’s establishment is indeed serious about the war on terror or against the Jihadi alliance. So what are are the Pakistani Army and ISI really up to and what are their plans?

It is learnt that the ISI has in place or is in the process of putting into position some 50 deep-penetration groups of infiltrators, saboteurs and intelligence modules in the depth areas on the Indian side from Gulmarg in South West Kashmir to Akhnur in Jammu province. Many of the personnel of these groups are from the SSG some serving most retired. While some of these modules are active the majority it is learnt are sleeper cells to be activated when the time comes (which may be very soon). At present there is a major surge of training in camps both in POK and NWFP of mixed teams of infiltrators for deep penetration into Kashmir and Muslim majority areas of the Jammu region. These comprise both serving personnel from the SSG and infantry of the Pakistan Army and elements of the Taliban. Now this is a new phenomenon which needs closer investigation. Hitherto the Taliban had not been noticed fighting in Kashmir. Is Pakistan trying to side-track the Taliban or is the ISI simply running out of the usual Punjabi recruits for the Jihad in Kashmir?

The infiltration into North Kashmir through the traditional routes in the areas of Kupwara and Gurez is again active. The object is to take advantage of the deep snow and the tough terrain. I’ve already mentioned the current advantages the Indians posses by obtaining good intelligence on routes, launching pads and dates of infiltration. In addition the use of special forces to lay ambushes based on actionable intelligence and aggressive patrolling has proved successful. The main aim of these infiltrations and the positioning of deep-penetration teams is to:-

Sabotage the ongoing elections to the Indian Parliament. It’s noteworthy that elections to the J&K State Assembly were successfully held in Dec 2008 with a high voter turnout dealing a severe blow to the aspirations of overground and underground militants.

Prevent any sort of democratic, political activity

Curb the growing assertiveness of the Kashmiri people. They’re no longer in thrall to the militants or their political counterparts.

Keep the Kashmir issue alive with the international community through acts of violence and political defiance.

So much for keeping the jihad alive in Kashmir. The ISI also keeps the offensive against Indian interests in Afghanistan. Braving terrorist strikes, kidnappings, beheadings and numerous difficulties the Indian paramilitary engineering organisation the BRO was able to complete the construction of the 219 km long strategically important Zaranj-Dilaram highway which provides Afghanistan access to the ports of the Persian Gulf. However the ISI is not deterred and plans more attacks on Indian companies and Govt officials working in the country. Adam Khan, Head of Station, Kabul has already been identified as the organiser of attacks on Indian personnel in Afghanistan notably Kabul. Colonel Ashfaq Afridi, commander of the ISI detachment at Peshawar coordinates the operations targeting Indian interests in the eastern part of the troubled nation. He is believed to be a retired officer re-employed for this specific purpose and belongs to Kohat. Again this is attributed to knowledgeable sources.

Within the country apart from the main ISI station within the embassy in Kabul, the major saboteurs, organisers of raids on Indian interests and general trouble makers from the ISI including officers, JCOs and civilian staff are based in the Pakistani consulates at heart and Mazar-i-Sharif which are somehow, perhaps because of their geographic location considered less suspect by the Afghan authorities.

Pakistan continues its strategic offensive against India whether against a growing move for peace and internal settlement of the Kashmir problem or to curb increasing Indian influence in what is considers its strategic backyard. Will the ISI attacks and amplified violence stagger Indian moves to encircle Pakistan strategically or deny it a potential to interfere within its territory? We can’t really say given the Indian reluctance to adopt aggressive postures. What is certain is that ISI attacks on India will continue whether through surrogates planting bombs in Indian cities or mercenaries targeting Indian companies. The latest round of attacks by Leftist guerrillas aimed at thwarting elections in the Red Corridor in Central and North Central India have raised hopes within Pakistani strategic circles that they (the Naxalite rebels) could do their job for them. We might well see in coming months Pakistani aid albeit through covert means to these Leftist extremists. Stranger things have happened before.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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[Editorial] N. Korea as a Hostage Taker

North Korea has demanded that South Korean companies raise wages for North Korean workers in the industrial complex in Kaesong to 70-75 U.S. dollars a month and for the South to pay rent for land four years ahead of time. Pyongyang also unilaterally demanded that Seoul sign a new land lease though they had agreed that South Korean companies use the land for 50 years. It was suggested as a demand for renegotiation but virtually constituted a unilateral notice. While again claiming that Seoul’s participation in the Proliferation Security Initiative constitutes a declaration of war, the North linked the issue with the inter-Korean industrial complex in Kaesong out of the blue. The North also failed to mention the Hyundai Asan employee who has been detained for 25 days.

The Seoul delegation hurriedly headed to Kaesong in early morning in its attempt to use the encounter as official bilateral talks. As the North delayed the meeting for as long as 11 hours, however, the meeting lasted for just 22 minutes, which was truly embarrassing. The Seoul delegation did not even have a chance to see the Hyundai Asan employee who was detained in the building where the meeting was held. Still, the presidential office in Seoul tried to give meaning to the talks, saying, “We can construe the occasion as a momentum for dialogue.” South Korean Unification Minister Hyun In-taek remained low key in making his post-meeting comments, saying, “We will carefully consider the proposal for renegotiation.”

It might be important for Seoul to try to keep the momentum for dialogue going amid the sorry state of inter-Korean relations. What is more important, however, is for Seoul to figure out Pyongyang’s intent accurately and cope with it wisely. Considering the string of measures taken and demands made by Pyongyang following South Korean President Lee Myung-bak’s inauguration, has the North initiated a plot to close the industrial complex after judging it has no more use for its interest? Pyongyang’s demand is being seen as a threat against the South to continue the complex by paying hefty prices or shut it down on its own.

The move could also be Pyongyang’s ploy to hand over the risks to the South, as it will have to take responsibility, make compensation, and face intense criticism if the North unilaterally shuts down the complex.

The Kaesong complex was glorified as a symbol of inter-Korean compromise and a beachhead for inter-Korean economic exchange under the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations. The complex, however, is now a hostage being used by North Korea against the South. Seoul must carefully examine the utility of the complex in light of inter-Korean relations and the economic impact from the very basics. It needs to send to the North a clear signal that it can give up the complex if Pyongyang makes excessive demands.

Attempted wheeling and dealing to demand more money by taking a South Korean staff member hostage is nothing other than kidnapping. Seoul should never give the impression that it is at the North’s disposal. It should make it clear that it cannot hold renegotiations with Pyongyang in any circumstances as long as a South Korean staff is taken hostage. Seoul said its participation in the Proliferation Security Initiative has nothing to do with its relations with Pyongyang, but it has postponed its participation three times due to the North, which is a mistake. The South must now repeat the hopeless behavior of putting itself at the North’s disposal again because of the industrial complex.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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China Parades Naval Might

China paraded its warships and nuclear submarines on Thursday in an unprecedented display of maritime might attended by 14 other nations to mark the 60th anniversary of its navy.

Fifty-six Chinese subs, destroyers, frigates, missile boats and planes were displayed off the eastern port city of Qingdao just weeks after tensions flared following a naval stand-off with the United States in the South China Sea.

— Hat tip: JD

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Korea: North Says it Will Put 2 U.S. Journalists on Trial

[Comment from Tuan Jim: Has anyone even heard a single thing out of the White House (much less the president) regarding these two hostage US citizens in the month since they were captured — before, during and after the missile crisis???]

North Korea said yesterday it will put the two American journalists detained in the country on trial to face criminal charges.

“A competent organ of the DPRK [North Korea] concluded the investigation into the journalists of the United States. The organ formally decided to refer them to a trial on the basis of the confirmed crimes committed by them,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said yesterday without providing further details.

On March 17, Euna Lee, a Korean-American, and Laura Ling, a Chinese-American, were captured near the China-North Korea border on the Tumen River. Working for San Francisco-based Current TV, Lee and Ling were in China to report on the plight of North Korean refugees.

The U.S. State Department wasn’t immediately available for comment yesterday. But its spokesman Robert Wood said last week the department was “working through a number of different diplomatic channels to try to see what we can do to get these folks released.” The United States doesn’t have formal diplomatic ties with North Korea. Instead, the Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang has been acting as the U.S. representative.

On March 31, North Korea announced that it was planning to put Lee and Ling on trial, saying, “[The journalists’] suspected hostile acts have been confirmed by evidence and their statements, according to the results of an intermediary investigation conducted by a competent organ.” At the time, the Korean Central News Agency said Lee and Ling would be granted consular access and treated according to international law.

The announcement comes as a South Korean worker at the Kaesong Industrial Complex remains in detention for allegedly criticizing the North Korean political regime and encouraging a North Korean worker to defect.

South Korea has attempted to gain access to the man, mostly recently at the abbreviated inter-Korean talks on Tuesday, but North Korea has not cooperated. In light of the North’s announcement of the trial, the Unification Ministry in Seoul yesterday wouldn’t speculate on the fate of the worker.

“It’s obviously a serious situation but [the U.S. journalists’ trial and the South Korean worker’s detention] are two separate issues that took place in different areas,” said Kim Ho-nyoun, spokesman with the Unification Ministry. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for us to speculate what’s going to happen to our citizen based on this recent development with the Americans.”

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Korea: Leftwing Groups Wake Up to Abuses in N.Korea

Ahead of the UN Human Rights Commission’s review of North Korea’s human rights record later this year, leftwing groups in South Korea including the Sarangbang Group for Human Rights and PeaceNetwork on Wednesday said they compiled their own report to publicize their views of the situation.

The groups said they submitted their report to the UNHCR on Monday. So far leftwing groups in South Korea have ignored human rights abuses in North Korea and accused people of harboring “impure” political motives whenever they raised the matter.

But in their introduction to the report, the groups say there are “alarming” areas in the activities of South Korean groups seeking to improve human rights in the North as they are using their work to justify or conceal human rights abuses in South Korea. They have got things backwards. Every time the appalling human rights situation in North Korea is highlighted, leftwing groups in South Korea try to stifle the issue by raising human rights problems in the South.

The report says even considering the realities of North Korean society, it is true that there are areas of concern. The groups say they are “deeply concerned” about the North Korean government’s view, as stated in the official Rodong Shinmun daily on Jan. 18, 2008, which says human rights are “impossible to even mention.”

Freedom of ideology and conscience are “not completely” guaranteed in North Korea, the report says, due to the wide application of criminal laws banning political activity, such as Article 61 on “Anti-State Propaganda” and Article 67 on “Treason.” The groups said North Korea was using the death sentence to generate fear and called on the regime to conduct an independent study of its concentration camps and unveil the results. That is certainly a step in the right direction.

But the report is too abstract, making it impossible to recognize the true conditions in North Korea. This is especially clear when comparing it to the U.S. State Department’s report on North Korean human rights issued in February. On the first page of its report, the State Department says extra-judicial executions, missing people, arbitrary confinement, torture and political prisoners are constantly brought to the attention of human rights watch groups. The U.S. report cites specific accounts of such abuses based on the testimonies of North Korean defectors, those who have visited the communist country and officials with international organizations.

The reason leftwing South Korean groups have begun to address North Korean human rights abuses is probably because they are in a situation where they can no longer ignore that issue. They should use this opportunity to start looking at human rights abuses in North Korea from a humanitarian perspective rather than an ideological one.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Korea: U.S. Changes Course on N.Korea

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has apparently decided on a different North Korea policy from the one she planned three months ago. At a hearing by the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs on Wednesday, Clinton clarified the administration’s position on stabilization efforts in Afghanistan, Taliban expansion in Pakistan, Middle East issues, and Iran’s nuclear development program. But she said nothing about North Korea, nor did she mention the six-party nuclear talks.

In her confirmation hearing on Jan. 13, she said, “We will… act with urgency to prevent proliferation in North Korea and Iran, secure loose nuclear weapons and materials, and shut down the market for selling them.” At the time, she said there could be a chance for the U.S. to have a bilateral meeting with North Korea through the six-party talks.

But on Wednesday, in a reply to a question by Republican Rep. Dan Burton, she said, “I think we have to be strong, patient, persistent and not give in to the kind of back-and-forth, the unpredictable behavior of the North Korean regime.” Three months ago, North Korea was a potential dialogue partner. Now it is now a country which the U.S. should not give in to.

“Nobody can rule out that North Korea will launch some provocation in time with President Lee Myung-bak’s scheduled visit to the U.S. in June,” a diplomat in Washington speculated.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Anzac Day Cartoon

[See link]

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Australia: Sydney Man Shot 34 Times in Head With Nail Gun

CANBERRA (Reuters) — Australian police released Friday a shocking x-ray photo showing the skull of a murdered Chinese immigrant shot 34 times in the head and neck with a high-power nail gun.

The body of Chen Liu, 27, was found by two children last year in marshland in south Sydney, wrapped in a carpet and bound with electrical wire.

Detectives said the weapon used was a standard gas nail gun widely available and used in construction, firing nails up to 85mm (3.3 inches) long.

“In 36 years, I’ve never seen a murder of this nature,” Homicide Squad Superintendent Geoff Beresford told reporters.

Liu arrived in Australia in 2000 and was reported missing last year.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Australia: Tribute Paid to All War Dead at Mass

MORE than 1000 people, including veterans of World War II and Vietnam, came to Sydney’s St Mary’s Cathedral on the eve of Anzac Day.

They came to remember the sacrifice of Australian servicemen and women and honour those who continue to defend their country.

The nation’s most senior Catholic priest, Archbishop of Sydney George Pell, celebrated the Solemn Vigil Mass of Remembrance held last night.

At the opening of the service, which was attended by senior state and federal politicians and NSW Governor Marie Bashir, and lasted more than an hour, Cardinal Pell said the mass would “commemorate war dead of all conflicts”.

The service also offered support and prayers to those serving in the Australian Defence Force, including in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The chalice used during the celebration of the eucharist was the same as used by Australian soldiers at Gallipoli and the Somme during World War I.

Royal Australian Navy fleet chaplain Paddy Sykes delivered a moving homily in which he referred to the emotional turbulence of serving overseas.

“Many people who have been in international conflicts never come home,” he said. “They are buried overseas.”

Father Sykes offered a prayer for the “peace we enjoy in our country” but warned it often came at the highest price.

“Peace is the fruit of hard work and sometimes loss of human life … I’m not sure how much light many of the men would have seen at Anzac Cove,” he said.

“We serve our country … If we follow Jesus we must be prepared to share his cross.”

Father Sykes also referred to the basic “human need to respect the dead” and mentioned the “closure” brought by the discovery in March last year of HMAS Sydney, which was lost on November 19, 1941, with 645 crew on board.

He added that the possible recent discovery of the resting place of the last Australian service personnel thought missing in action in Vietnam — Flying Officer Michael Herbert and Pilot Officer Robert Carver — would help bring a sense closure to their families.

At the close of the mass the Last Post was played by Corporal Ian Stenning from the University of NSW Regiment Band.

The Reveille was then played as the flags of the three services — the RAAF Ensign, the White Ensign of the Royal Australian Navy and the Australian flag representing the army — were slowly carried out of the cathedral.

The Anzac eve vigil mass has been held for more than 20 years in different venues in Sydney. Last year it was attended by Kevin Rudd.

Professor Bashir gave the first reading from Isaiah 9: 1-6, while Brigadier Shane Caughey CSC, Chief of Staff Land Headquarters, gave the second reading from the First Letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians 1: 18-25.

The gospel reading by Father John McKnight was from the gospel of John 12: 23-28.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Australia: No Right to Silence Refugee Debate

REMEMBER when bipartisanship was the new political black? Then when a boat carrying 47 asylum-seekers exploded off Ashmore Reef last Thursday, it was clear that this season’s new runaway success is the politicisation of sensitive issues. Avoiding politicisation, that is.

For maximum effect, the phrase must be uttered with a pained look and as much confected moral outrage as possible. The undisputed winner in this category in recent days has to be the Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus when he responded to Opposition spokeswoman Sharman Stone’s view that the Rudd Government’s softer immigration policy may have induced the latest boat to head for Australia.

With a hint of quiver in his voice and an injured puppy-dog look, Debus said: “I am not going to allow this particular incident to be politicised as some incidents have been politicised in the past, often to our national shame.”

As an example of thespian skill, it was masterful. But the politics were even more sensational. It evoked children overboard without even using the words. Having harnessed the high moral ground, Debus was able to completely avoid the critical — and difficult — questions while still leaving the adoring press gallery baying for more.

Debus had to buy time to avoid tough questions about whether the Government’s new immigration policies have indeed acted as a come-hither message to people-smugglers. Putting aside the hypocrisy of the Government’s plea against politicisation of an issue it regularly whipped up into an emotional and political frenzy, this is an issue that worries Australians. And rightly so.

It will not go away. The “don’t you dare politicise this issue” rhetoric of the Rudd Government will work for a while. But eventually even the fawning throngs in the Canberra press gallery must eventually realise — as they did with the PM’s demands for bipartisanship when what he really meant was supine obedience — that hard questions need to be asked.

Is it really true that increased boat arrivals are just down to so-called push factors and that changes in Australian government policy are virtually irrelevant? Those peddling this line would have us believe that in comparison with the halcyon days of 2005 and 2006, violence and oppression has suddenly escalated in Afghanistan, Iraq and other home countries of asylum seekers, leading to a rapid increase in boat arrivals.

In fact, it is not cheap politicisation to ask whether it is much more likely that changes in immigration policy do have a significant effect. Playing politics himself, in order to sidestep the more important questions, the Prime Minister was quick to describe people-smugglers as “the vilest form of life”.

Vile they may be, but people-smugglers are running a business. We may excoriate the morals of these low-lifes but Rudd and his ministers make a very grave mistake if they underestimate the rationality, indeed intellect, of people-smugglers. They respond to changes in their regulatory environment, to alterations in their risk-reward trade-off and to general perceptions within their target market just as any other business does, criminal or otherwise. And it is indisputable that they perceive increased rewards — and reduced risks — in the Australian people-smuggling business.

While The Age’s Michelle Grattan is convinced that it is a “long bow to make too much of Kevin Rudd’s limited changes removing the harsher edges of earlier policy”, the facts suggest otherwise. As The Daily Telegraph reported on Saturday — a story ignored by large sections of the media — the Australian Federal Police provided secret intelligence briefings to Rudd government ministers weeks ago warning that canny people-smugglers had noticed Australia’s softer border protection laws.

To be sure, we must distinguish between people-smugglers, who are rational and well informed, and refugees, who are often neither. It takes a longer time for accurate information about policy changes to be disseminated among refugees but people-smugglers learn fast and with precision.

So what then are the tough questions that need to be addressed about refugees? Let’s start with a couple of basic propositions. Let’s start by pointing out that the scale of human misery is vast. Australia cannot possibly deal with it all, let alone cure it.

Australia can maximise its efforts to alleviate misery by controlling and targeting its responses. Undisciplined, uncontrolled responses are wasteful, help fewer people and jeopardise critical political support needed to support immigration.

If we must say no to thousands, nay millions, of heart-wrenching stories every year, how do we choose among competing claimants? It is neither moral nor rational to choose according to those who make the most noise.

Ignoring those who wait in camps in favour of those within range of our nightly news bulletins, those backed by articulate advocates or those with the money to pay people-smugglers or lawyers, is immoral. More important, it drains the goodwill available in Australia for the benefit of all refugees. We are entitled to focus on helping the most deserving cases, not the queue jumpers or media manipulators. We are entitled to ask why those asylum seekers who land safely in Indonesia, where they are free from the oppression and persecution in their home countries, do not apply for refugee status in Indonesia. We are entitled to prefer a refugee program that we control rather than one controlled by people-smugglers.

And we are entitled to ask whether the Government’s preferred option of outsourcing this issue to Indonesia — though a pragmatic and politically astute solution — is just a bigger Pacific solution. If our concern is genuinely about the wellbeing of refugees, how certain are we that Indonesian authorities will treat refugees humanely?

But to read much of the media in the past few days is to step back into a time warp when legitimate and important debates about immigration were deemed immoral and divisive by the moralising elites. Predictably, David Marr would have us believe that this issue taps the “deep pool of xenophobic hostility there to be exploited”.

Similarly, Grattan says we are “facing a fresh divisive debate about asylum seekers”. In fact, the evidence shows that when the Howard government took a firm approach towards illegal immigration, Australians grew more comfortable with immigration. Immigration rates duly increased. Oh, and the rickety boats that endangered the lives of asylum seekers stopped coming.

That was then. Regrettably there is a growing internal inconsistency towards this issue. Many Australians loathe people-smugglers but do not have the stomach to take the steps necessary to deter them. This issue demands an honest debate followed by courageous leadership to reconcile this dilemma. While it may suit the Rudd Government — and many in the media — to try to shut down this debate by describing any legitimate questions as unseemly politicisation, history says that won’t work.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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NZ: Anzac’s Changing Face

Thousands will rise in the dark tomorrow and make their way to a dawn service to commemorate our fallen in war. It’s a sombre ritual, one deeply wed with notions of nationhood, that continues to grow even though the last of the World War I veterans have passed away, and the tragic events at Gallipoli recede further into history. It’s a day when an increasing number of New Zealanders take the opportunity to reflect on difficult issues like loss, sacrifice and loyalty. Jock Phillips, a historian and general editor of Te Ara, The Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, believes the growing profile of Anzac Day is due to a growth in interest in what it means to be a New Zealander over the past 15 years.

“It is arguably the closest ceremony of nationalism which we have in New Zealand — far more than Waitangi Day I believe. The schools have also encouraged this awareness. For younger people participation in war is now associated with grandparents or even great grandparents and the activities of grandparents always have a real interest for young people, far more than the activities of parents which young people are inclined to reject and dismiss. In addition the experience of war is something so foreign to young people that it has a certain fascination. The Great War in particular was by far the worst experience which New Zealanders have ever suffered, so it deserves attention by that fact alone, but it is also very different and distant for young people today — so the thought that their grandparents actually took part demands their interest.”

Anzac Day was first commemorated on April 30 1915, soon after news of the tragic events at Gallipoli reached New Zealand. A half-day holiday was declared. In 1916 some saw potential profits from using the term Anzac to promote their products but after complaints by returned soldiers, the use of the word Anzac was prohibited for business purposes — a ban that continues today.

For the vast majority however the events at Gallipoli were regarded with horror and shock and the first response was to build memorials. The first was a marble statue built in Kaitaia in 1916 and similar monuments stand today in most towns and cities. The status of Anzac Day was unclear until 1921, and it was only after lobbying by the RSA that a public holiday was finally declared. Phillips has watched with interest the changing attitudes towards our sacred holiday, as our social and political landscape has shifted.

“When I was a kid in the 1950s Anzac Day was an opportunity for returned soldiers to parade in front of their community and as they marched people applauded because they remembered the two wars and were genuinely grateful. The focus was very much on the returned soldiers rather than on remembering the dead whose names were on the war memorials. In the 60s and 70s Anzac Day became contested ground as my generation came of age and went into the streets to protest against the Vietnam war. For us Anzac Day was seen as a justification for war; it was seen as a pro-war ceremony and therefore as implicitly a justification for involvement in Vietnam. In the last twenty years people have begun to read and see TV programmes about the experiences of war, and Anzac Day has shifted from being a celebration of war to a genuine recognition of the terrible costs of war. There has been more focus on remembering the dead and the sufferings of those who went rather than as an opportunity to glorify our war traditions.”

How the day will be commemorated in the future will depend, says Phillips, on the political situation of the time.

“If we are again involved in war then it will be commemorated with that in mind. If we retain a strong commitment to an anti-nuclear peacekeeping role then it will be remembered for the deaths and the suffering which war has brought to this nation. Whatever, Anzac Day will be remembered because New Zealanders are increasingly interested in collective rituals and ceremonies. We have not had many of these in the past, and we have begun to treasure them — from Maori language week to Conservation week to Matariki we are increasingly commemorating our diverse culture and history, and this will undoubtedly continue.”

George Davis, a researcher at Otago University, who is working on a PhD on Anzac Day, believes that the status of the day has moved from the political to the personal, a shift which explains the lack of substantial protests in recent years.

“Anzac Day was, in the period 1960-1980, faced by gritty issues of contestation. Protests have diminished not because there is nothing to protest about but because the focus of protest has shifted. In the 1960s and 1970s the Vietnam War stimulated protest about war generally. Protesters often identified old soldiers as representatives of a warlike world. This was far from the truth from the returned servicemen’s point of view. In the late 1970s and early 1980s some women protested about rape in war. Both of these movements were related to possession of the landscape of Anzac Day. That issue has been addressed. Anzac Day now belongs to the whole society, not just to a few.”

Over the last decade there’s also been an increasing spiritual component to the day, with one clergyman calling it our major religious festival, one which comes complete with it’s own, latterly controversial, pilgrimage to the Gallipoli battlefield.

Davis believes young people especially are attracted to the spiritual aspect of the day.

“Young people have always been seekers for the indefinable, and Anzac Day provides connections with the standards and attitudes of the past. The dawn ceremony is intensely moving and it is this quality of spirit that resonates with the young. In an age where secularism has been too loosely defined in terms of a rejection of institutional religious values, there are many people who do recognise that issues of spirit, such as are presented on Anzac Day, are worth understanding. I think this partially accounts for why so many young parents and their children turn up to the dawn ceremony. The New Zealand take on Anzac Day is that it does not reflect doom and gloom, but provides hope. There is a general realisation that the diggers who fought and died did so to ensure a better future.”

Davis doesn’t see the events at Gallipoli the way many Australians see it — as “the forge of nationhood”.

“For New Zealand, it rather depends on when you think we became a distinct nation, comfortable in our own skin,” he says. “That development did not happen until the 1970s when we realised Britain had cut us loose as she moved further into the European community and away from her old dominions in the south-west Pacific. Is Gallipoli important? My word, yes. Kiwis hold the sacrifice made at Gallipoli in high regard. It was the standard for New Zealand forces from that moment on.”

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

[Return to headlines]

People Smugglers Use Chaos in UN Office to Get Asylum Seekers to Australia

PEOPLE smugglers are using the chaotic registration process of the UNHCR to make it easier for asylum seekers to get to Australia by boat.

Since the beginning of March, 483 Afghan asylum seekers have turned up at the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Jakarta but none has been formally registered with Indonesian authorities. The Indonesians were unaware precisely where the asylum seekers were living and, in some instances, had not even been told they had arrived, said Ade Endang Dachlan, a senior Indonesian immigration intelligence officer who heads the department’s Bogor office.

“This should not happen,” Mr Dachlan said. “The UNHCR office should only issue refugee processing status based on the recommendation from the immigration office.

“Since we can’t get hold of them [the asylum seekers] and closely monitor their whereabouts, they have plenty of chance to escape and use illegal ways to enter a third country such as Australia.”

Raids this month in Bogor netted 22 asylum seekers who carried genuine UNHCR papers but were not registered with the Department of Immigration. Mr Dachlan said it was only the tip of the iceberg, adding that people smugglers were exploiting the “loophole” — staying in touch with asylum seekers until “such time as the syndicates can get them access to Australian borders”.

Ali Khatri, one of the Afghans snared in the Bogor raid, said a people smuggler had given him the address of the UNHCR office, told him to go straight there when he arrived in Jakarta, and he was assured that, by turning up, he would have protection as a refugee. He denied he planned to go to Australia, though others at the same villa said they were prepared to make the crossing. They asked not to be named.

“The UNHCR gave us some papers, like an appointment slip,” Mr Khatri said, adding he was not told to register with Indonesian police or immigration. “We just left and went back to our hotel in Jakarta. Then we came to Bogor because it was cheaper.”

Bogor is a mountainous holiday area 11/2 hours’ drive from Jakarta and a favoured hideout for asylum seekers.

The 22 caught in Bogor were only a small fraction of an estimated 2000 Afghans in Indonesia looking to come to Australia.

A spokeswoman for the UNHCR in Jakarta, Anita Restu, said 483 Afghans had come to its Jakarta office in the past seven weeks alone. “Because of this influx, we have just given them appointment slips,” she said.

They were not formally registered because “it takes too long to go through our system and there’s so many people”.

Even if Indonesian authorities were told of the arrivals, “we cannot give out the address of the asylum seeker”, she said.

— Hat tip: islam o’phobe

[Return to headlines]

Sudan: President Beshir: “Charges Against Me Have United Arabs and Africans”

The arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Sudan’s president Omar Hassan al Beshir “has been a good event for Sudan, which was able to note that regional bodies such as the Arab League and the African Union rallying in its support”, said president el-Beshir during a press conference in Addis Abeba. As for the internal situation, “we have all watched the spontaneous street demonstrations from people to challenge foreign interference in the country” said the head of state in his speech. For his part, Ethiopian president Meles Zenawi, reiterated that “the ICC accusations against al-Beshir have in no way affected relations between Ethiopia and Sudan” asking the international organism “to revise its positions”. This was Beshir’s 6th trip abroad since he was handed the ICC arrest warrant, last March 4th, alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

[Return to headlines]

Obama Goes South: an Analysis of the Summit of the Americas

By Sol Sanders, Grady Means

For more than a half century, dating from FDR and Cordell Hull’s “Good Neighbor” policies, U.S. diplomacy in Latin America has been focused on encouraging democracy, free markets, and economic development. Over those five decades there have been huge successes — and there have been dramatic failures.

An historical perspective, however, shows remarkable overall progress:

The 1980 map of Latin America was largely one of authoritarian, often military governments, generally controlled by small oligarchies, with hyper-cyclical, commodity-based economies, nearly all plagued by huge debt and hyper-inflation.

However, by 2000, Latin America was largely an array of broad-based popularly elected regimes, structured and diversified economies with low to moderate inflation and manageable debt. The problems of severe poverty, economic inequity, and drug cartels remained, but significant progress had been made.

The U.S., as the largest foreign direct investor and the largest supplier of development aid and offering the largest market for Latin American exports, as well as the most active supporter of centrist democratic movements, played a significant role in this massive transition…

— Hat tip: CSP

[Return to headlines]

Finland: EU Survey: Half of Somali Immigrants Regard Discrimination as Widespread in Finland

According to a recent survey conducted by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), one in three Somalis in the Greater Helsinki area reports that he or she has been a victim of racially motivated crimes in the course of the past 12 months.

Of all the groups surveyed by the FRA, Finland’s Somali immigrants reported the second-highest levels of racist crime. The survey involved 45 selected ethnic minority and immigrant groups in all member-states of the European Union. The crimes covered by the survey included for example thefts and serious harassment. In some sections of the survey, Finland’s Somalis were among those ten minority groups who had personally experienced the highest levels of discrimination. Roma minorities in Eastern Europe and Africans in various countries reported the highest levels of discrimination. When it comes to treatment at a bank or a shop, Finland’s Somalis emerged among the groups most discriminated against. However, compared with other countries’ minorities the Finnish Somalis were more informed of competent authorities who could give them support or advice. Yet some 69 per cent of the interviewed Finnish Somalis said that they did not know of any organisation that could offer support services to victims of discrimination.

Half of the Finnish Somali respondents think that discrimination is widespread in the country, while half or other ethnic minorities regarded discrimination as even more common. A total of 23,500 persons of ethnic minority or immigrant background were interviewed for the survey in all member-states of the Euroopean Union in 2008. In Finland, 484 immigrants of Somali origin and 562 immigrants of Russian background were interviewed in the Greater Helsinki area.

In its report, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights acknowledges that because of the large differences between the interviewed groups, the results of the survey on immigrant and ethnic minority groups’ experiences of discrimination and racist crime should be interpreted with some caution.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

[Return to headlines]

Finland: Poll: Nordics Satisfied With Immigration Policy

Most Nordic residents are satisfied with their countries’ refugee policies.

More than half of respondents in Finland, Sweden and Denmark find the number of refugees to be acceptable, according to a survey by Nordic public broadcasters.

Norwegians were the toughest in their attitudes about immigration policy, with 46 percent saying the amount of refugees was appropriate. However, 42 percent of Norwegian respondents said too many refugees were being allowed into their country.

In Sweden 32 percent said they thought there were too many refugees — as did 29 percent of Finns.

In Denmark, however, 25 percent said there are too few refugees. In Finland, Norway and Sweden 11 to 12 percent of those polled thought there are too few refugees.

Iceland did not participate in the poll.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

[Return to headlines]

Germany: Refugee Kids Build New Lives in Europe

Some come to escape the brutality and horror of war — others are sent by parents who hope they will one day send them money. The number of unaccompanied youth refugees from Africa and Iraq to Europe is increasing. They are part of a massive trend in global migration.

It was bombs that caused a young Iraqi to lose his home. It was an earthquake in the case of a Chinese teenager who is now no longer certain where he belongs. It was war in the case of a former child soldier from Sierra Leone who is plagued by recurrent nightmares.

This is the story of three boys who made it to Germany on their own in a physical sense but in many ways took longer to get here in mental and emotional terms…

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

[Return to headlines]

Italy: Dedalo Project, Young Tunisian Gardeners at Monreale

(ANSAmed) — PALERMO, APRIL 21 — Seven young Tunisians (including one woman) are working as gardeners to restore park areas in the historic centre of Monreale (Palermo). The initiative is part of the Dedalo project financed by the Ministry of Labour and which focuses on socio-employment integration for non-EU young people who have immigrated to Sicily. The headquarters of the programme is the House of Smiles (Casa del Sorriso) community in Monreale. “Italy, and especially Sicily”, said Monreale Mayor Toti Gullo speaking at a press conference to introduce the initiative, “has traditionally always welcomed different ethnic groups, that is why we immediately embraced the project and decided to entrust some green areas in Monreale to these young immigrants”. “Dedalo is an ambitious project”, added Giuseppe Pitti, director of the initiative, “but not so presumptuous as to think it can solve the problem of immigration. The strong desire is to create a replicable model by experimenting with training programmes for non-EU young people and also for those working in the sector”. “Currently”, concluded Michele Crapitti, Dedalo project manager, “we have involved 3,000 young people in workshop activities all over Sicily and 80 community workers, 50 teachers in public schools, and 65 young immigrants who are already working. Dedalo will finish at the end of 2009 but the results up to now are more than positive”. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

[Return to headlines]

Judiciary Committee Greenlights ‘Hate Crimes’

Members refuse to protect Christian pastors from charges

Members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee today rejected an opportunity to protect Christian pastors who preach the biblical condemnation of homosexuality and approved on a 15-12 vote a “hate crimes” bill that supporters admit could be used to bring charges against religious leaders.

The bill, H.R. 1913, now will be considered by the full House of Representatives.

[…]

“The federal hate crimes bill is bad news for everyone,” said Brad Dacus of Pacific Justice Institute, who testified in Congress against the bill two years ago.

“Instead of treating all crime victims equally, it creates a caste system where select groups, such as gays and lesbians, are given greater priority in the criminal justice system. This is not progress; it is political correctness. In other nations and states, the adoption of hate crimes legislation has been the first step toward widespread suppression of speech and ideas critical of homosexuality,” he said.

— Hat tip: JD

[Return to headlines]

“Hijacked” UN Racism Conference

GENEVA — Rather than addressing rampant forms of racism, the UN conference on racism has largely been hijacked by groups determined to undermine any criticism of Israel, leaving all key issues on agenda sidelined.

“Many issues are not being taken seriously like colonialism, slavery and reparations,” Fatima Doubakil, of the Sweden-based Muslim Human Rights Committee, told IslamOnline.net.

Countries, organizations and NGOs from across the world are participating in the five-day Geneva conference, the UN’s first global racism conference in eight years.

Participants were expected to review progress in combating racism since the first meeting which was held in Durban, South Africa, in 2001.

But the final communiqué was endorsed on Tuesday, April 20, three days before the end of the conference.

This infuriated many of the participating organizations and NGOs who complain that key issues were not discussed and debated before the text was rubberstamped.

“The Conference is not taking Islamophobia seriously,” says Masoud Shadjareh, chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission in Britain.

“Muslim communities in Europe already don’t believe they are full citizens; this will alienate them.”

Islamophobia has been at the heart of a debate about blasphemy or defamation of religions.

In a report released last year, the Organization of Islamic Conference warned that defamation of Islam and racial intolerance of Muslims were on the rise in western societies.

The same concerns were voiced a year earlier by UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and related Intolerance Doudou Diene.

— Hat tip: TB

[Return to headlines]

Our Flemish correspondent VH has compiled a report on the cone of silence that has been placed over Vlaams Belang in Belgium, in this particular case the increasingly blatant censorship of any writers who happen to be members of the Flemish separatist party.

First, this introductory note from VH:

Two books have recently been banned from the shelves of bookshops in Flanders. Not because of their content, certainly not because any of them calls for violence, or is discriminatory or racist. At least one of these books might have been a top bestseller by now, and the other one should definitely have been a top bestseller by now. The only thing these books have in common is that hey have been written by members of… Vlaams Belang!

In an open letter, Koen Dillen (Vlaams Belang) made a point that strikes at the heart of politically correct hypocrisy: “Self-declared Flemish intellectuals speak with full disgust of the book-burnings in National Socialist Germany, but in practice they prove themselves to be good students of that system. In the year 2009 the books of political opponents are not even burnt anymore; they are simply not published.”

Below are three articles that were published in response to the contemporary book-burnings.

1.		Benno Barnard (poet and writer): “A few words on behalf of Voltaire”
2.		Koen Dillen (politician and writer): “Censorship in Flanders” (open letter)
3.		“It rustles again under the counter…” (open letter by various opponents to these book-burnings, from various political streams)

Translation #1:

A few words on behalf of Voltaire

By Benno Barnard

Politically correct thinking weighs like lead on the nervous system of the Flemish intelligentsia, who should finally get themselves together right now, scrape their throats and expressly take a stand against the actual censorship that Koen Dillen and Filip Dewinter of the Vlaams Belang have to endure in the form of the refusal to sell their books.

Those who declare —while calling upon Voltaire— to defend freedom of the press with a drawn pen in their hands resemble a man who sets his own house on fire. And yet that is exactly what I will do here, however. Defend Dillen and Dewinter. I never would have dreamt that I would find this necessary.

To my knowledge, the only intellectual who at least defends one of the two is Johan Sanctorum. On the blog Visionary Belgium, the philosopher rushes to the aid of Koen Dillen, who under the pseudonym Vincent Gounod, published a biography of [the French Socialist President] François Mitterrand.

“It is a fateful sign on the wall in our democracy that pseudonyms appear again, not as “Spielerei” but out of bitter necessity. It points out that the media, socio-cultural and social dissemination of the cordon sanitaire, originally a party political entente with a strategic purpose, means a loss for the cultural climate in Flanders,” Sanctorum writes.

One of the literary critics who praised Dillen’s work to the sky (“A magnificent story that reads like a novel”) was Claude Blondeel of the radio program “Ramblas”, and probably rightly so, because according to the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad [1], it is an excellent book. Blondeel now stays nicely silent, which he probably would have done anyway if he had known in advance that the son of the founder of the Vlaams Blok was the erudite author of the writing.

When the Gounod’s mask fell off, the bookseller Groene Waterman [2] in Antwerp responded by immediately taking the book from the shelves in a shocking act of Stalinism, which made me deeply disappointed with the bookstore where I have been a regular customer for many years. They do not refrain from selling extreme leftist writings, for the content of which I would not like to be responsible, such as those of the anti-Semite Lucas Cathérine. But that never hindered me from buying at the Groene Waterman, because I defend the right of Cathérine to proclaim lies — it is up to me to rebut them when they disturb me.

– – – – – – – – –

This tolerance may, in the spirit of Karl Popper, not tolerate intolerance, however; in other words: writings that expressly incite to violence should be prohibited. (However, as far as I am concerned, in the case of historical texts, such as Mein Kampf, a scientifically-framed edition should be acceptable.)

It is clear that Dillen’s book does not call for violence. The fact that the author is a member of Vlaams Belang is also completely irrelevant. But I suppose that there is still will be even more brave booksellers who still returned the biography of Mitterrand to the publisher. In any case, with the Standaardketen it is only obtainable by ordering the book.

That brings me to Filip Dewinter, whose book Inch’Allah, published by the controversial publishing house Egmont (which dares to publish books written by VB members and is therefore “controversial”), has been refused by almost all Flemish booksellers, including all those of the Standaardketen. The result is that a damp basement smell came to spread over it: this has become an “underground” book, something of a an out-of-place samizdat, a samizdat under liberal state rule… I therefore have up to now been unable to read it. But a kind friend of mine, an old Dutch social democrat who is absolutely without even the tiniest little stain, has managed to obtain one in some dark alley. After having read it he sent me an email in which he expressed his astonishment about the alleged “radicalism” of Dewinter. There was absolutely nothing improper in his work, in which the volkstribuun obviously quoted from all kinds of sources, nothing that might infringe against any legislation, let alone that it would contain calls to violence. For Dewinter would never do that.

Naturally it does contain views that to the ears of many politically-correct thinking person are indecent. But such is the game of democracy. A boycott — de facto censorship — opposes everything we should hold dear. I am an opponent of the Vlaams Belang. I have studied the old and the new party program. I do not believe in state corporatism. I do not believe in a two-state solution to Belgium. I do believe in multiculturalism, however, when it is between Flemish and French speakers.

I further believe that Islam is only compatible with liberal democracy when it is, so to speak, prepared to add water to its wine. Dewinter probably proclaims the same position in his book, and therefore we will objectively agree on that, even though many emotionally-correct souls will faint at such idea. But I will never vote for him.

Let me quote Sanctorum again: “It does says a lot about the mental condition of the Flemish booksellers world (controlled via boek.be [335 booksellers] by the green Stalinist Jos Geysels [3], one of the masterminds of the cordon sanitaire against the VB) and it most of all shows how deep the mechanisms of censorship and self-censorship actually are doing their work in our so called democracy. (…) I want the VB on the tribunes, without being taken for a VB’er.”

Calling Jos Geysels a Stalinist might be a sizable blunder, as well as the claim by Sanctorum that the cordon sanitaire emerged from a Belgicistic reflex. I have yet to observe the first Belgicistic reflex in the nervous system of Jos Geysels. But for the rest, Sanctorum is right.

Les alliances se renversent.

Translation #2:

Censorship in Flanders

By Koen Dillen

Open letter to “De Groene Waterman” bookstore

Dear —,

In the [magazine] Knack recently — I assume that it was not an April Fools’ joke — I read that you have taken my book on the French President François Mitterrand from your shelves because the undersigned was behind the pseudonym Vincent Gounod and Maarten van der Roest. In the “Standard Bookstores” the book is available, however, but only when ordered. In the Netherlands the book is in all bookshop windows. Please allow me to make a few observations herein.

• “De Groene Waterman” [bookstore in Antwerp] does not censor me because of the contents of my book, otherwise you would not have put it on display those many months ago and sold it for all that time. No, you do not censor on the content, as you state yourself, but on identity. Vlaams Belangers are not allowed in, period. Not that what is written in a book disturbs the censor, but the one who writes it. I can not imagine a more infallible example of essentialistic thinking.
• In the Netherlands, the leftist VPRO radio in its Sunday book program on March 29, after an undoubtedly much too positive review of my book, responded, intrigued by the fact that a Flemish Vlaams Belanger has to publish a book in Flanders under a pseudonym. “We actually should talk with that man,” the presiding journalist said at the end of the discussion. But Flanders is not the Netherlands. In Flanders today an omertà applies to the publications of Vlaams Belang members, even if it is about writings that have nothing to do with “party politics”.
• Aspect Publishers is a publishing house that does not commit the sin of thinking inside the box. The CIDI (Center for Information and Documentation Israel) publishes with them, just like [Dutch PM] Jan Peter Balkenende who published his book Different and Better there. They published Leon Trotsky’s biography of Stalin in a reissue; the Dutch Socialist Party leader Jan Marijnissen had his book New Optimism and Ronald van Raak his The Rich and Red Life, with a foreword by the same Marijnissen, published there. The left-wing Flemish writer Piet de Moor published a smoothly written anti-Vlaams Belang pamphlet under the title “Letters to my postman”. Will Tura and Peter Vandermeersch [but also the experts on leftist politics Carel Brendel and leftist terrorism Peter Siebelt] are on its list of writers. Both leftist and rightist authors are welcome.
• When a few years ago, the Stalinist hagiography Another View of Stalin by the Maoist Ludo Martens was offered for sale and triggered many pages of reviews in the Flemish press, you made no objection, and that is the way it should be. The book by my colleague Karim van Overmeire on the battle of the golden spurs, could not be sold anywhere, because he is a Vlaams Belang member. That is the way things are in Flanders today.
• The Netherlands evolved since the Fortuyn revolt [2002]. But the leftists’ church in Flanders today still has a problem with intellectual diversity. In this I am not lumping all leftist intellectuals together. Whoever opens the book François Mitterrand, will see that I have dedicated my book to the late Georges Adé (1936-1992), who after his death in October 1992 was honored in an obituary on the front page of De Morgen [leftist newspaper]. He also belonged to that Flemish leftists’ church and even wrote — under the pseudonym Laurent Veydt — “Nouveaux Romans”, a flaming pamphlet against the “New Right”. But he was also an inspiring professor on French literature at the Katholieke Vlaamse Hogeschool [Catholic Flemish University] who taught generations of students, including myself, a love for French language and literature. Open-minded and certainly not someone who would censor books because of the identity of the author. He was also in those days a wildly enthusiastic promoter of my dissertation on the French writer and collaborator Robert Brasillach.
• And then Mitterrand. Does “De Groene Waterman” bookstore know that the Socialist President idolized the writer Drieu la Rochelle, a Don Juan just like himself, fascist, anti-Semite, collaborator, friend of Aragon and Malraux, and during the German occupation head of the Nouvelle Revue Française of Gallimard? Or that he idolized Jacques Chardonne [pseudonym for Jacques Boutelleau], who was from his native region, “wrong” during the war and visited Goebbels in 1942? [All writers whose books are available in “De Groene Waterman”, and quite a few of those books, as well as many others of the publishing house Gallimard, are on the shelves]

The self-declared Flemish intellectuals speak with full disgust of the book-burnings in National Socialist Germany, but in practice they prove themselves to be the good students of that system. In the year 2009 the books of political opponents are not even burnt anymore, they are simply not published.

I would like to call on the real free intellectuals in Flanders: please take this opportunity to denounce the foolish censorship and contemporary book-burnings.

Translation #3:

It rustles again under the counter…

Open letter

Introduction

Note: This open letter on political correct censorship in Flanders was published in the newspaper “De Standard”. The fact that 36 Flemish “opinion makers” (now renamed the dirty three dozen, thanks to querulous Piet De Moor [a writer and leftist appeaser]) signed the letter, including heavyweights such as Etienne Vermeersch (philosopher) and Hugo Coveliers (former VLD [Flemish Liberals] senator and founder of the party VLOTT that cooperates with Vlaams Belang in Antwerp), did not prevent this “quality” newspaper from censoring themselves and deleting a few lines [here in red, and in the text below stripped out] without any consultation with the initiators. The URL to Dewinter’s blog that the “opinion makers” had added to the text also mysteriously disappeared.

Open letter

The “Gounod/Dillen affair” shows that we find ourselves in an actual state of censorship.

The story may be known: an outstanding biography on Mitterrand, hailed by many, including “Klara” [radio program] and NRC Handelsblad [1], and signed by Vincent Gounod, was actually written by the VB politician Koen Dillen. Whereupon sensible-minded Flanders completely went out of its mind and made sure that the book can hardly be obtained anymore in the normal outlets. In the Netherlands, however, the book is displayed in the open in the shop windows. Are we back in the days of the Adult Merchandise?

The incident unveils the deeper malaise within the exposed cultural and academic universe in our region. The famous “cordon” around a particular party, which name we will leave you to guess here for strategic reasons, has apparently ensured that books no longer need to be read to form an opinion on their content. We do not want to lose ourselves in a yes-no debate about whether the Antwerp “leftist bookstore with a clear profile,” removed the book from its shelves or not (there are different views on this). The fact remains that the biography of Mitterrand, as written by Koen Dillen, is not a racist nor xenophobic or negationist book, but simply caused a lot of fuss because the author walks around with the label “wrong” stuck to his forehead, because of which he felt forced to use a pseudonym.

Flanders seems to be divided in a politically-correct half with access to the media, that quickly finds a publisher, that is manning the obligatory BV bevy; and on the other side a shadowy continent of undiscussable, forbidden, banned from the public sphere politisch-unfähige people, as it was called under Nazi rule. That the book sector here is showing its most cowardly side is also clear. In most bookstores and large booksellers the famous Mitterrand biography is, since Gounod’s identity has been revealed as Koen Dillen, only available “on request”. This is a de facto state of censorship, under which even the sacred cow of commerce is slaughtered (Dillen’s book would have been a blockbuster by now) to safeguard our souls from slurs. It is well-known that boek.be, the organizer of the Antwerp Book Fair, still makes use of a list of undesirable authors and forbidden publishers.

“The leftists’ church in Flanders today still has a problem with intellectual diversity,” Dillen rightly concludes. Indeed. The term “controversy”, that is absolutely necessary in a mature democracy, complete evaporates here. And even if his book were not consistent with politically sensible thinking, even if it were as “wrong” as possible, even then, and precisely then, the book world should embrace it, because it would call for counter-arguments and provoke responses. This is know “polemic”, a hazardous enterprise in Flanders.

For this reason we wish to stand up for the free sale of Filip Dewinter’s pamphlet Inch’Allah. This does not mean a position on the book, the author, or his party. But as long as a publication does not call for violence — as the book by Filip Dewinter certainly does not do — any factual censorship is a ridiculous display of political immaturity.

We, from the left to right, want to distance ourselves formally from that censorship. It is about time that Flanders woke up from its politically correct snooze to finally get acquainted with the art of the dialectic.

Ludo Abicht, lecturer philosophy
Vital Baeken (“Vitalski”), writer
Benno Barnard, writer
Geert Beullens, writer-performer
Gerard Bodifee, author
Mimount Bousakla, politician
Hugo Coveliers, lawyer
Thierry Debels, author-publicist
Saskia De Coster, writer
Eric Defoort, historian
Leo de Haes, publisher
Gust De Meyer, professor KUL
Peter De Roover, publicist
Willem Elias, professor VUB
Derk Jan Eppink, publicist-politician
Valerie Lempereur, publisher
Bart Maddens, politicoloog
Marc Platel, journalist
André Posman, artistic director “De Rode Pomp”, Gent
Godfried-Willem Raes, music maker — philosopher
Jean-Pierre Rondas, producer VRT Radio Klara
Johan Sanctorum, philosopher-author
Matthias Storme, attorney
Johan Swinnen, professor VUB & Artesis Hogeschool
Frank Thevissen, communication-expert
Jef Turf, ex-journalist, publicist
Luc Van Braekel, blogger
Jan Van de Casteele, chief editor “Doorbraak”
Gie van den Berghe, ethic
Luc van Doorslaer, academic-journalist
Marc Vanfraechem, blogger
Geert van Istendael, writer
Wim van Rooy, publicist
Jan Verheyen, filmmaker
Jos Verhulst, publicist
Etienne Vermeersch, moral philosopher
Jurgen Verstrepen, politician
Julien Weverbergh, publisher

Notes:

[1]		NRC Handelsblad, once a conservative “quality newspaper (nowadays unfortunately politically correct and controversial) which has had for decades a still highly respected — and very critical — book review section, judged [few quotes]: “Vincent Gounod’s interpretation [of the facts in Miterrand’s life] is critical but in balance. […] Gounod convinces because the analysis is very precise, with much feeling for the historic context and political environment […] Intrigues, betrayal, revenge and — incidentally —, mercy in Mitterrand’s dance for political power exchange with each other in a breathtaking speed in the two sections ‘ambition’ and ‘power’ of which the book is made. […] A biography that exceeds the common political portrait of a president. This is therefore also a “handbook on politics” because of the stunning insight it offers in the kitchen of the phenomenon of power-politics.” The NRC Handelsblad has selected the book to be offered in their online bookstore.
[2]		Groene Waterman booksellers: A search on the author name Dewinter produces only two books by Filip Dewinter. But none of them as it shows are in the shop, and seemingly the publisher is “out of stock”. Also a search on “Gounod” shows that his book on Mitterrand in not in the shop and gives no information on the availability with the publisher. They do have books by Abu Jahjah on the shelves, however, the Lebanese/Belgian anti-Semite Hizbollah terrorist and founder of the AEL who only recently threatened to invade the Jewish neighborhood in Antwerp, to which threat only Filip Dewinter responded furiously.
[3]		Jos Geysels is chairman aft 11.11.11, a Belgian anti-Semite “development aid” organization. In 2008 Geysels was given a tour in Gaza by the UNRWA in connection with his campaign “60 years homeless”. In 2006 the 11.11.11 organization demanded on behalf of the “Action Platform Palestine” a conviction of Israel (embargos, scrapping treaties, the works) for “violating the rule of war” (in their defense against the rocket attacks by Hamas, by arresting Hamas leaders and destroying a number of rocket launch sites). Only recently, Diophantes reported in a review in the Belgian magazine “Joods Actueel” [“Jewish Actuality”] on the book How Good is the Good Purpose, a critical book on development aid, that out of every 100 euros in donations to 11.11.11, only 1 euro was spent on aid.

Here is another guest post from Jorge Banner in South America.

Since this week was the anniversary of the death of Alexis de Tocqueville in Cannes (in 1859), Señor Banner’s essay is a timely riff on some of the themes that de Tocqueville developed during his travels through America in the 1830s.

There is an new version of “Democracy in America” by Everyman’s Library. It is a sewn binding in hardcover with its own page marker. However, it doesn’t credit the translator and one critic says it is abridged. Thus, I am still looking for the definitive work.

If anyone is aware of a hardbound,unabridged edition, please let me know. For now, despite its other flaws, the Everyman version is durable.

As you can see, Señor Banner finds American exceptionalism quite to his taste. Like many who are on the outside looking it at the situation, he suffers for this country in its current crisis.

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

Confronting the current economic crisis affecting America (and the rest of the world as a consequence) there are two very different camps.

One of those that would want no government intervention in the economy, letting the chips fall where they may. And then there are those, unfortunately currently in power in America, that are implementing their life long dream of a socialist takeover of all aspects of American life by the government.

What are the benefits of letting the chips fall where they may? They are two fold:

First, the problem is limited in time. It starts. It ends. It’s over.

Then, the problem is limited to a finite number of victims. Those who made mistakes, fall and pay for their errors. Those that didn’t, move on without a scratch by comparison. All the healthy participants end up better off for it. A crisis makes Capitalism stronger. Capitalism is self-cleansing. Capitalism works as the immune system of a society. Diseases are cured and the corpses expelled from a Capitalist society.

What does socialist government intervention do instead?
– – – – – – – – –
First, the problem is postponed indefinitely leaving it to many future generations to continue to suffer for other people’s mistakes.

Then, the suffering is distributed amongst the biggest possible number of people making all of them victims, independently of whether they made a mistake or not.

With socialism, you pay for your mistakes and you pay for the mistakes of others.

In the meantime, socialist government intervention delays and impedes the cure of the illnesses that a country suffers.

Socialism is a guarantee that society’s diseases will be spread by government mandate to all members of the population.

And then, socialism works as a ratcheting system against Freedom. Each socialist measure, like the coils of a python around its victim, leaves the individual a little less Free until all Freedom is gone and you are inside the red hammer and scythe, the python’s stomach.

The only democracy socialism brings about is the spread of suffering to everyone.

Socialists do not benefit from improving the lot of the population. On the contrary, a healthy, happy and prosperous population would have no use and no need for socialist government intervention.

Socialists are like maggots, they feed on sores. They thrive on human disgrace. They need a permanent supply of hurting victims of “injustice”, a permanent supply of “underprivileged”, an inexhaustible supply of “hungry and needy children”. Otherwise, what’s their purpose in life?

Going back to the fact that a healthy, happy and prosperous population would have no use and no need for socialist government intervention it should be noted that the current crisis was brought about by socialist government intervention. Small wonder this crisis occurred under a socialist congress.

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are not Capitalist, free market institutions. They are explosive mines put in the path of the American economy to make it blow up sky high and they have fulfilled their purpose far better than their creators ever dreamed.

Is it a coincidence that this happened in the middle of the presidential elections? Yeah, sure it is. All this was and is part of a strategy.

Soros, Alinsky, Cloward and Piven are names that mean little to most Americans. [google is your friend here, Dear Reader – D] Many have probably never heard of them. They are, though, amongst the architects of the current situation that has nothing at all to do with chance.

The current crisis happened by design. It was planned, carefully conceived, begun to be put in practice many decades ago and its parts have each clicked into place with a precision that would be envied by a Swiss watch maker.

Making a watch is easy.

Making the most extraordinary, the biggest, the brightest, the most glorious experiment in Freedom and respect for the Rights of the Individual fail miserably and have its members scramble for tyranny to replace their devalued Freedoms is such an achievement in the field of moral fraud, deception and betrayal of moral values as to surpass and eclipse any other similar previous attempt.

To have Americans vote for a socialist tyrant and be grateful to him for taking America away from them is an achievement that can’t be compared to any other known to man.

Never in the known history of our species has humanity’s continuous striving for Freedom experienced a setback, a betrayal or a moral default of comparative magnitude.

The mythical war for the city of Troy has nothing whatsoever over the defeat of American Capitalism at the hands of the socialists who were allowed to develop, grow and fester under the protection of the very Freedoms they plotted for decades to overthrow and destroy.

The concept of the Trojan horse has been implemented to the utmost by the socialist America haters that have invaded and perverted American academia and mainstream media making them turn against America and everything America represents.

There’s only one pervasive theme in the current American cultural scene: “I hate America”.

The moral poison of socialism makes the worst that animals have to offer pale in comparison. No snake, no scorpion, no spider could ever concoct the juice to destroy America. Socialism could.

If you want to put it in the words of the current first lady: “America is a mean country”. She is quite in tune with the “minister” who married her. He is known to yell “God damn America” at the top of his voice. The current President sat at the feet of such a “man” for twenty years.

That America is a “mean” country surely is news to the many millions of individuals, who, since America’s birth have so much benefited from America’s virtues – and amongst them from America’s generosity.

America has been the epitome of inventiveness, of industriousness, of commerce, of men dealing with each other by mutual consent and for mutual benefit and in peace.

America has been the epitome of the generosity of the man who fights tyranny for Freedom itself and then doesn’t claim for himself the territory or the lives or the wealth of those freed by his efforts. Instead, Americans salute like a friend and brother and then they go home to continue with their own lives.

America is not nor has ever been a “mean” country!

America is the kindest country in the history of man!

America has been a country of creators, of lovers of Freedom, of Freedom givers.

America has made the lives of others better, safer, longer and more enjoyable.

American efforts have added so much goodness to the lives of so many people on this planet that there is no way to repay them.

See the “Timeline of United States Inventions and Discoveries” on the net. America has contributed more to the well being of mankind that all the rest of the nations put together.

No country in history has been so inventive and so industrious as America.

No country in history has sent more food to the hungry than America.

No country in history has sent more medicine to the sick than America.

No country in history has sent her children into battle to depose tyrants and then said “there’s your Freedom back, we are going home now”.

Who is so base and so immoral as not to shed tears of admiration and of gratitude in front of this level of decency?

Who created as much? Who shared so much with others with a generosity that knows no comparisons?

The Stars and Stripes is the only flag in history that universally means Freedom.

Can any other country make the same claim? None.

How many oppressed around the planet have seen the Stars and Stripes come across a field and have said to themselves and each other “Tyranny is over, Freedom’s coming”?

How do you say “thank you” for all this? What kind of “thank you” would suffice?

In the presence of such greatness, what abysmal level of moral corruption would make a person associate “mean” with “America”?

Only by having every human concept reversed in her soul can a person call America “mean”.

Only by having “good” turned into “bad”, “kind” into “mean”, “correct” into “wrong”, “day” into “night”, “health” into “sickness” and so on to the end of human knowledge can such a moral reversal be accomplished.

You have to willingly and wantonly choose evil to get to that point. It doesn’t happen by chance. You don’t stumble upon such moral state by accident. You have to choose evil and nurture it and develop it and tend to it for most of your life.

And that, and no less, is the moral state of the socialists currently in government in America.

And it is such state of moral decay that guides their plans for the future of America and for the world.

So what can you give America in return for so much greatness and so much generosity in sharing it?

For me, most of what I have to give goes into saying this:

Americans, you are the best people on Earth.

You have made a humongous, horrendous moral mistake in choosing a pack of socialist cannibals to govern America.

But you ARE the best people on Earth.

So you CAN take America back.

Back for Freedom.

Back for Truth.

Back for Justice.

Back for the American Way.

You are more than them both morally and in numbers.

You have defeated countless tyrants. The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany fell to your Freedom giving efforts. What are a few socialist wannabes if you decide to take your Freedom back?

All they have in their utter depravity is your acquiescence.

Take it away.

Do not let them get away with this.

Yes, you have made a mistake. Yes, it is the biggest mistake in your whole history. A horrendous mistake that threatens your whole future and any possibility of Freedom on this planet.

Correct it.

It is not too late, yet.

It will be too late if you wait too long.

This won’t correct itself.

Do the American thing: act!

America is a nation of doers: do!

This is a war. A war for the future of America and of mankind.

There’s only one thing you can’t do in a war: lose.

Happening upon this interminable list, I couldn’t resist providing you a copy for your reading pleasure.

Since the Member Associations for the present Congress are not yet available — I doubt they’ve gotten them all together for this term — the one for the 110th Congress will have to do. What do you want to bet that the 111th Congressional Member Associations is even larger?

Obviously the creation of these special interest groups associations — not to mention staffing them and rolling out position papers on every favorite topic — is not done for free so one ought at least to be aware of some of the nooks and crannies into which tax dollars are stuffed.

Besides, these make-work groups are fascinating reading in a schadenfreude kind of way. Some people are spellbound when they happen upon the scene of a traffic accident. Happening upon this list produces a similar effect.

The link above is provided so you can go to the site and get some idea of which Congressmen are involved in which groups. I left the list in the order it appears on the site so that sifting through it will be an easier task in case you want to contact anyone for further information. Removing the particulars of the contact information makes the listing shorter. That enables you to better comprehend the breadth of Congress’ overreach.

You will find a perusal through this list most informative. No doubt you will have your favorites. Mine are, to name a few, the Potato Caucus; the Americans Abroad Caucus (A.A.s definitely need protection); the Cement Caucus; the Bike, Black, and Boating Caucuses, respectively (just because they’re next to one another on the list and roll off the tongue so alliteratively. If you’re a black biker and you have a boat — well, there you go).

There are separate caucuses on Israel, divided by party. Presumably the goals for Israel in each group differ somewhat?.

There’s a caucus for Sugar Reform and another one for Sweeteners. One of those ( I forget which) actually has a contact person whose last name is Sweet.

And there are caucuses for lots of diseases and disorders. It would seem easier to make one umbrella group: The Disorders and Diseases Caucus, but perhaps there would be turf wars and hair-pulling, so maybe not. How come there’s not a Fibromyalgia Caucus? Probably because we’re too tired or in too much of a fog to pester them for a group of our very own. Besides, there’s not any money to be made in looking for a “cure” for such a protean disorder.

Enjoy…see if you can find your favorite cause. Or maybe adopt one. Or demand one of your Congressman. Yeah, I know: it’s supposed to be Congressperson… okay, okay, if you insist: your Congressbabe. So report me to the Caucus on Political Correctness. They don’t appear on the list, though. Maybe they meet in secret but no doubt Barney Frank, et al, could let you in.

Come to think of it, p.c. speech and thinking is so pervasive now that we no longer need a group to foster its ends. We’ve all been programmed to perform our own self-censorship. Who would dare say “mick”, or “dago” or even — heaven forbid — “lady”. Oops, “heaven” is bound to be on the don’t-go-there list, too. Well, landsakes, what can a body say these days? [for the irony-impaired: the immediately preceding comments were intended as sarcasm. You know, jokes]

Most of the list is below the fold. Our more imaginative readers may be able to come up with some groups the Congressional Members Association overlooked. Like where is the Viking Caucus (never mind, they have Denmark listed), or the Erstwhile Friends of Eire Caucus? I know: the Christmas Tree Growers’ Caucus! We need one of them. I was told that a Wine Growers’ Caucus existed, but maybe that’s reserved for the Senate since the Beer people are listed over here on the Congressional side.

Note: I shortened some of the longer titles, used T.F. for Task Force, got rid of the word “Congressional” since it was redundant. In some places, I did the same with Caucus. “Methamphetamine” was shortened to meth, since our readers are cool and sure to know all that jargon.

Happy reading!

• 21st Century Health Care Caucus
• 9/11 Health Caucus
• Addiction, Treatment & Recovery Caucus
• Afghanistan Working Group
• Afterschool Caucus
• Appalachian Caucus
• Albanian Issues Caucus
• Americans Abroad Caucus
• America Supports You Caucus
• Bicameral Caucus on Parkinson’s
• Biomedical Research Caucus
• Bipartisan Bicameral T.F. on Alzheimer’s
• Bipartisan Cerebral Palsy Caucus
• Bipartisan Pro-Choice Caucus
• Bipartisan Pro-Life Caucus
• Bipartisan T. F. on Nonproliferation
• Bipartisan School Health & Safety Caucus
• Bi-Partisan Sugar Reform Caucus
• Cement Caucus

– – – – – – – – –

• Chesapeake Bay Watershed T.F.
• Children’s Environmental Health
• Class of 2006 Caucus
• Coalition on Autism Research
• Coalition of American Investors & Retirees
• Commission on Divided Families
• Community College Caucus
• Air Medical Caucus
• Arts Caucus
• Asian Pacific American Caucus
• Automotive Caucus
• Azerbaijan Caucus
• Battlefield Caucus
• Bike Caucus
• Black Caucus
• Boating Caucus
• Book Club: National Security
• Border Caucus
• Brain Injury T. F.
• Brazil Caucus
• Cancer Action Caucus
• Career & Technical Education Caucus
• Caribbean Caucus
• Caucus for Freedom of the Press
• Caucus for Women’s Issues
• Caucus on Algeria
• Caucus on Armenian Issues
• Caucus on Bosnia
• Caucus on Central & Eastern Europe
• Caucus on Community Health Centers
• Caucus on Drug Policy
• Caucus on the European Union
• Caucus on Hellenic Issues
• Caucus on Human Trafficking
• Caucus on India & Indian Americans
• Caucus on Indonesia
• Caucus on Infant Health & Safety
• Caucus on Intellectual Property & Piracy
• Caucus on the Judicial Branch
• Caucus on Korea
• Caucus on the Netherlands
• Caucus on Religious Minorities in the M.E.
• Caucus on Swaziland
• Caucus on Turkey
• Caucus on Vietnam
• Caucus on Youth Sports
• Caucus to Fight & Control Meth
• Children’s Caucus
• Children’s Health Care Caucus
• Children’s Study Working Group
• China Caucus
• Climate Change Caucus
• Coalition on Adoption
• Coastal Caucus
• Coast Guard Caucus
• Community Pharmacy Coalition
• Correctional Officers Caucus
• Cuba Democracy Caucus
• Cystic Fibrosis Caucus
• Czech Caucus
• Dairy Farmers Caucus
• Dialogue Caucus
• Dietary Supplement Caucus
• Documentary Film & Book Caucus
• Down Syndrome Caucus
• DTV Caucus
• E-911 Caucus
• Entertainment T. F.
• Entertainment Industries Caucus
• Ethiopia & Ethiopian American Caucus
• Everglades Caucus
• Fire Services Caucus
• Fitness Caucus
• Former Mayors Caucus
• French Caucus
• Friends of Animals Caucus
• Friends of Canada Caucus
• Friends of Denmark
• Friends of Jordan Caucus
• Friends of Liechtenstein Caucus
• Friends of Spain Caucus
• Gaming Caucus
• Georgia Caucus
• Glaucoma Caucus
• Global Health Caucus
• Hazards Caucus
• Hearing Health Caucus
• Heart & Stroke Coalition
• High-Performance Buildings
• High Technology Caucus
• Hispanic Caucus
• Hispanic Conference
• Horse Caucus
• Humanities Caucus
• H.R. 676 Caucus
• Human Rights Caucus
• Hydropower Caucus
• Insurance Caucus
• International Anti-Piracy Caucus
• Internet Caucus
• Israel Allies Caucus
• Kidney Caucus
• Labor & Working Families Caucus
• Life Insurance Caucus
• Long Island Sound Caucus
• Malaria Caucus
• Manufacturing Caucus
• Manufacturing T. F.
• Men’s Health Caucus
• Mental Health Caucus
• Mining Caucus
• Missing & Exploited Children Caucus
• Motorcycle Safety Caucus
• Multiple Sclerosis Caucus
• Nanotechnology Caucus
• Native American Caucus
• Navy-Marine Corps Caucus
• Nuclear Cleanup Caucus
• Oral Health Caucus
• Organ & Tissue Donation
• Organic Caucus
• Osteoporosis Caucus
• Pakistan Caucus
• Peanut Caucus
• Philanthropy Caucus
• Poland Caucus
• Port Security Caucus
• Prayer Caucus
• Pro-Life Women’s Caucus
• Progressive Caucus
• Real Estate Caucus
• Romania Caucus
• Rural Housing Caucus
• Savings & Ownership Caucus
• Science Caucus
• Scouting Caucus
• Second Amendment Caucus
• Serbian Caucus
• Shellfish Caucus
• Shipbuilding Caucus
• Singapore Caucus
• Soccer Caucus
• Soils Caucus
• Songwriters Caucus
• Sports Caucus
• Sportsmen’s Caucus
• Steel Caucus
• Stop DUI Caucus
• Study Group on Public Health
• Submarine Caucus
• Taiwan Caucus
• T. F. on Illegal Guns
• T. F. on Tobacco & Health
• T. F. on U.S.-India Trade
• Tibet Caucus
• Travel & Tourism Caucus
• Ukrainian Caucus
• United Kingdom Caucus
• Urban Caucus
• Victims’ Rights Caucus
• Vision Caucus
• Water Ways Caucus
• Western Caucus
• Wildlife Refuge Caucus
• Wireless Caucus
• Zoo & Aquarium Caucus
• Croatian Caucus
• Delaware River Basin T. F.
• Democratic Budget Group
• Democratic Israel Working Group
• Distributed Energy Caucus
• Diversity & Innovation Caucus
• Electronic Warfare Working Group
• E-Waste Working Group
• Financial & Economic Literacy Caucus
• Fragile X Caucus
• Free File Caucus
• Friends of Job Corps Caucus
• Friends of Kazakhstan
• Friends of New Zealand Caucus
• Friends of Scotland Caucus
• Future of American Media Caucus
• Friends of Paraguay Caucus
• Generic Drug Equity Caucus
• Global Family Day Caucus
• Great Lakes T. F.
• Green Schools Caucus
• Gulf Coast Recovery Caucus
• Historic Preservation Caucus
• Aerospace Caucus
• Air Force Caucus
• Anti Terrorism Caucus
• Army Caucus
• Baltic Caucus
• Cancer Caucus
• Biotechnology Caucus
• Center Aisle Caucus
• Hunger Caucus
• Impact Aid Coalition
• Mentoring Caucus
• Mississippi River Delta Caucus
• Naval Mine Warfare Caucus
• Nursing Caucus
• Oceans Caucus
• Potato Caucus
• Refugee Caucus
• Republican Israel Caucus
• Rural Health Care Caucus
• Science, Engineering & Math Ed.
• Small Brewers Caucus
• Sweetener Caucus
• Trails Caucus
• Veterans’ Mental Health Caucus
• HUBZone Caucus
• Hungarian American Caucus
• Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Caucus
• I-73/74 Corridor Caucus
• Immigration Reform Caucus
• International Conservation Caucus
• International Workers Rights Caucus
• Iran Human Rights & Democracy Caucus
• Iran Working Group
• Kurdish-American Caucus
• Land Conservation Caucus
• Law Enforcement Caucus
• LGBT Equality Caucus
• Lyme Disease Caucus
• Middle Class Caucus
• Malaysia Trade, Security & Economic Co-op
• Manufactured Housing Caucus
• Medical Technology Caucus
• Metropolitan Mobility Caucus
• Military Veterans Caucus
• Missile Defense Caucus
• Modeling & Simulation Caucus
• National Guard & Reserve Caucus
• National Landscape Conservation Caucus
• National Marine Sanctuary Caucus
• National Parks Caucus
• National Service Caucus
• National Security Interagency Reform
• New Democrat Coalition
• Northeast Agriculture Caucus
• Northeast Midwest Coalition
• Northern Border Caucus
• Northwest Energy Caucus
• Nuclear Issues Working Group
• Nuclear Security Caucus
• Oil & National Security Caucus
• Out of Poverty Caucus
• Panama Trade, Security & Econ. Co-op
• Passenger Rail Caucus
• Patriot Act Reform Caucus
• Prisoners of War/M.I.A. Action Caucus
• Pro-Choice Caucus
• Professional Military Education Caucus
• Professional Sports Caucus
• Protecting Our Private Property
• Public Broadcasting Caucus
• Recording Arts & Sciences Caucus
• Reliable Energy Caucus
• Renewable Energy & Efficiency
• Republican Study Committee
• Research & Development Caucus
• Rural Veterans Caucus
• Salton Sea T. F.
• Silk Road Caucus
• Smart Contracting Caucus
• Sovereignty Caucus
• Space Power Caucus
• Spina Bifida Caucus
• Suburban Agenda Caucus
• Suburban Transportation Comm.
• Sudan Caucus
• T. F. on Terrorism & Proliferation Finance
• T. F. on Terrorism & Unconventional Wars
• Tennessee Valley Authority Caucus
• Tunisia Caucus
• Unexploded Ordinance Caucus
• US-Afghan Caucus
• US-China Working Group
• US-Kazakhstan Interparliamentary Friendship
• US-Mongolia Friendship Caucus
• US-Philippines Friendship Caucus
• Victory in Iraq Caucus
• Water Caucus
• Zero AMT Caucus

Labor relations in France continue to deteriorate. Hostage taking of factory management by angry workers has been going on for weeks, and now a group of workers did substantial damage to their employer’s offices. The incident was serious enough that French prosecutors are actually considering taking legal action on this one.

In other news, voters in Iceland have elected a left-wing government to clean up the country’s fiscal mess, and university students in Croatia are demanding that their education be entirely free of charge.

Also, Japan has chalked up its first trade deficit for any fiscal year since 1980.

Thanks to Andy Bostom, Barry Rubin, C. Cantoni, CB, heroyalwhyness, Insubria, islam o’phobe, JD, TB, Tuan Jim, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
– – – – – – – – –

	Financial Crisis
	Election Will Move Iceland to the Left
	France: Prime Minister Condemns Workers’ Rampage
	Obama Must Persuade Congress on IMF Funds — Pelosi
	Turkey: Businessman Lashes Out Against the IMF
	UK: Budget 2009: A Savage and Pointless Attack on Middle England
	UK: The Avoidance Budget
	USA
	Congress Knew About the Interrogations
	Fiat- Chrysler, ‘Unions Say OK’
	Janet Napolitano Needs to Check Her Facts
	Obama’s Foreign Policy: Bambi Versus the Sharks
	Obama Publication Targets Freedom-Loving Americans
	The Wrenching Transformation of America
	Canada
	‘A Well-Mobilized, Orchestrated Campaign’
	Canada: Editorial: Send DART to Sri Lanka
	Number of Homegrown Suspected Terrorists Higher Than Ever: RCMP
	Europe and the EU
	1st Danish Veiled Politician Attends Council Meet
	Absentee MEPs — Half of Twenty Worst Strasbourg Attenders Are Italians
	Artist to Remove EU Mosaic After Czech Cabinet Fall
	Britain May Cut Arms to Israel; Hamas to Address Lords
	Czech Rep: Romany Protective Patrols to Monitor Demonstrations Without Arms
	Denmark: Victim Known to Police
	Denmark: Muslims Walk Out of Terrorism Conference
	EU-Croatia: Membership Talks Put Back, Slovenia Veto
	Far-Right Crimes Up Sharply in Germany
	Finland: Fundamentalists, Immigrants Spur Higher Birth Rate
	Finland: Organised Human Smuggling Across Russian Border?
	France Out of Love With Champagne, Sales -30%
	Germany: Judge Disciplines Accused in Terror Trial
	Google Street View Wins UK Battle
	Hamas Leader Fails to Address British Lawmakers
	Italy: Senate Approves Anti-Rape Law
	Italy: Naked Ambition: Politics in the Raw
	Netherlands: Ramadan Fallout Leads to Political Crisis in Rotterdam
	Netherlands: AIVD: Extreme Left More Dangerous Than Extreme Right
	Netherlands: Iranian Family Gets Residence After Suicide Threat
	Netherlands: Study Reveals Primary School Segregation
	Netherlands: Minister Urges Public to Take Evidence Photos
	Netherlands: Parliament Approves Imam as Army Chaplain
	Paris and Rome Mayors in Salute Row
	Slovenia: Ljubljana Street to be Renamed After Tito
	Spain: Authorities Investigate Sale of Kidneys Online
	Spain Approves Embryo Selection to Avoid Cancer
	Spanish Princess and Family Moving to Washington
	Sweden: Protesters Arrested at Malmö Anti-Iran Demo
	Sweden: Prison for Prosecutor Bomb Attack
	Swedish Terror Suspect Worked for Al-Qaeda: Prosecutors
	Switzerland: Puzzle Over Sick Woman Abandoned in Bushes
	Switzerland: Anti-Racism Meeting a “Foreseeable Disgrace”
	Terrorism: Islamists Threaten Terror Attacks in Germany
	UK: BNP Leader Defends Policy on Race
	UK: It’s Cat Stevens at the Mike But It’s Islam Holding Court
	UK: No 10’s Venezuelan ‘Workie’ Could Write Next Budget
	Balkans
	4 Serbs Found Guilty of Kosovo Massacre
	Amnesty: NATO Bombing of Serbian TV ‘War Crime’
	New Appointment in Euromediterranean Assembly
	Universities: Croatia, Students Demand Free Education
	Mediterranean Union
	Energy: French PM in Tunis to Discuss Nuclear Power
	Med Union: Ambassadors in Brussels to Try Relaunch
	Tomorrow Meeting in Brussels
	Transport: UN, Mediterranean Development Model Worrying
	North Africa
	Durban 2: Libya; Ex-Colonialists Should Apologise Like Italy
	ICT: Tunisia-India, Cooperation Agreement Signed
	Morocco’s “Mourchidates” and Contradictions
	Mubarak Evasive on Lieberman’s Egypt Visit
	Israel and the Palestinians
	Gaza: UN Task Force to Check Environmental Damage
	Human Rights Groups Criticise Inquiry Into Gaza
	Israelis Feel Chill as US Sets Out New Ground Rules
	Lieberman: Arab Peace Initiative Threat to Israel
	Mid-East: Survey, Israelis and Palestinians Favour Two States
	Middle East
	Turkey: Direct Investment Falls, But Not From Italy
	Turkey Calls Back Ambassador to Canada
	Turkey-Armenia Agree on Roadmap to Normalize Ties, US Welcomes Move
	Turks, Italians Debate EU Issues, Renew Friendship
	South Asia
	Bangladesh: Islamic Fundamentalists Threaten UN Agencies and Red Crescent
	India: Hindu Fanatics Attack Protestant Church in Maharashtra to Stop Conversions
	Malaysian PM Dodges Questions About Missing Model
	Malaysia Bans Forced Conversion of Minors to Islam
	Pakistan: Taliban Militants Extend Reach in North
	Sultans of Swat — Muhammad’s Angels… and More Timeless Wisdom From Lal and Burckhardt
	Far East
	China in Tensions Rising Over Unpaid Wages
	Filipino Court Overturns US Marine Rape Conviction
	First Trade Deficit for Japan Since 1980
	Australia — Pacific
	Coal Burning Must End, Says Scientist
	NZ: Runaway Pilgrims Believed Lying Low and ‘Well Settled’
	NZ: Rapist Taxi Driver Jailed for Nine Years
	Sub-Saharan Africa
	Japan Launches New Bid to Tackle Pirates
	Latin America
	Finnish Connection Found on Computer of Colombian Guerrillas
	Regift, Please!
	Immigration
	Finland: Young Afghan Asylum-Seekers Heading for Nordic Countries Through Paris
	France Gets Tough Over Calais Migrants
	Greece: New Prevention Measures Decided
	Japan Pays Foreign Workers to Go Home
	NZ: Language a Massive Barrier for New NZ Immigrants: Report
	Pinar: Italian Dossier in Brussels
	Tunisia: 159 Illegal Migrants Apprehended
	Culture Wars
	Gene Technology Threatens New Racism: Vatican
	General
	Durban II: The Outrage Continues
	Row Over Anti-Racism Observer
	UN Kicks Jews, Iranians Out of Racism Meeting

Election Will Move Iceland to the Left

On Saturday, Icelanders are likely to do something they haven’t done in more than two decades: Vote a left-wing government into power.

The new government will face the enormous task of cleaning up the wreckage of the country’s collapsed financial system. It will also need to resolve internal divides over a touchstone issue: whether Iceland — long proud of its go-it-alone spirit — should join the European Union.

The parliamentary elections are the North Atlantic nation’s first since the credit crunch in October felled its entire banking system, turning Iceland from a prosperous and happy Nordic country riding high on the riches of finance to a land of swelling unemployment and economic gloom.

Icelandic politics since 1991 has been dominated by the Independence Party, a right-leaning party with a free-market bent influenced by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Under longtime Independence Party Prime Minister David Oddsson, Iceland privatized swathes of state-owned businesses, remaking a sclerotic economy and spurring huge growth.

The privatization spree included the state-owned banks, which under private owners grew massively by borrowing and lending overseas — delivering wealth and jobs back home. All that came apart when the credit crunch cut off funding, a fatal blow because the tiny Icelandic government didn’t have the means to bail out the banks.

The bank collapse shattered the standing of the Independence Party. Its leader, Geir Haarde, resigned as prime minister, and Mr. Oddsson, who had moved to become the head of the central bank, was forced out of that post.

Many observers — and opinion polls — predict the left-leaning Social Democratic Alliance will garner the most votes Saturday, taking about a third of the seats in parliament. The Left-Green Movement, further to the left, is polling roughly the same as the Independence Party. Party leaders have said the Social Democrats and the Left-Greens would seek to form a coalition government; the two parties have been in coalition on an interim basis since Mr. Haarde stepped down in February. The current interim prime minister, Jóhanna Sigurdardóttir of the Social Democrats, is widely expected to retain that role.

“The problem of the Independence Party is that they’ve been in government since 1991,” says Gunnar Helgi Kristinsson, a political-science professor at the University of Iceland. “To escape some kind of responsibility for the crash in October is very difficult. They’ve been there the whole time. Their policies have been followed.”

Mr. Kristinsson said the new government will likely raise taxes on the wealthy — undoing Independence Party changes — and be forced to make public-sector cutbacks, probably by lowering wages instead of laying off state workers. At 7.1% in the first quarter, unemployment is already high by Icelandic standards.

The possible coalition is split on the EU, which the Independence Party has long opposed. The Left-Greens, who tend to view the EU as a manifestation of globalization, are opposed to membership. The Social Democrats strongly favor it.

Complicating matters is the question of fish. With the collapse of banking, fishing is again rising in relative importance to Iceland’s economy. Joining the EU would mean signing up to the bloc’s common fishing policies, under which quotas are worked out in Brussels.

“We would fit very badly into that system,” says Eggert Gudmundsson, chief executive of HB Grandi hf, a major Icelandic fisher. “It is very important as a fishing nation to have full control over our fishing grounds.”

Meantime, Iceland has been trying to sweep up the remains of its banking sector. Shortly after the collapse, Iceland split each of the three big banks into a “new” bank with the small but functioning domestic operations, and an “old” bank for the moribund international operations.

Gylfi Magnússon, an academic who was appointed minister of business affairs by the interim coalition, said in the next several weeks Iceland would formalize the split, handing over equity or debt in the new banks to the old banks’ creditors — who aren’t likely to get much.

“It is quite clear that creditors of the old banks will not by a long shot be paid in full,” says Mr. Magnússon.

Iceland — as the owner of the now-nationalized banks — has also stepped in to restructure mortgages for homeowners. Many Icelanders took out loans in foreign currency to pay for houses; those deals are disasters amid the collapse of Iceland’s currency, the krona.

“A lot of people are in financial distress,” Mr. Magnússon says. “That is not going to go away anytime soon.”

Also persistent is a deep hostility toward the class of bankers and financiers who precipitated the downfall.

“You can say there’s kind of an ongoing mental civil war,” says Andri Snaer Magnason, a popular Icelandic writer. There’s a “huge anger against the people who are responsible,” and the country is amid “a huge healing process.”

Mr. Magnason’s 2006 best seller, “Dreamland: A Self-Help Manual for a Frightened Nation” critiqued the government’s pro-business policies.

Mr. Magnason says Icelanders are trying to make the best of bad times. He tells of a banker friend who took regular ski trips to the Rocky Mountain peaks of Aspen, Colo. The friend called recently to talk up a great ski run he found in north Iceland — a slope with a single T-bar lift. “Small is beautiful again,” Mr. Magnason says.

In the past few months, Iceland has calmed considerably. Protests that once drew thousands of seething Icelanders to Reykjavik’s main square to pitch eggs, toilet paper and vegetables at the parliament building, and hang political figures in effigy, have dissipated.

Protesters banging on pots no longer greet central-bank officials in front of their offices each morning. “The pots-and-pans revolution,” says Mr. Kristinsson, “more or less achieved its goals.” The government was brought down, the central-bank chief ejected.

Now, says Mr. Magnússon, the business-affairs minister, “People are feeling that they can vent their frustrations at the ballot box, which is of course how things should go.”

— Hat tip: islam o’phobe

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France: Prime Minister Condemns Workers’ Rampage

(ANSAmed) — PARIS, APRIL 22 — The destruction carried out by Continental employees is “unacceptable” and “legal action” will be taken. So said French Prime Minister, Francois Fillon commenting the sack committed by workers in the German tyre manufacturer’s administrative offices in Compiegne, eastern France after a tribunal had rejected their request to cancel or suspend the closure of the business. In an interview with a journalist from radio France Inter, Fillon said that the “sacks” were the work of “small minority of employees”. Yesterday several dozen Continental workers serious damaged the company’s offices in Compiegne, eastern France, Continental announced on March 11 that the company’s Clairoix site, where 1,120 used to work, was to close down. Several weeks ago, the director of Continental was whistled at and had eggs thrown at him during a meeting with staff. The director was forced to run out of the factory. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Obama Must Persuade Congress on IMF Funds — Pelosi

WASHINGTON, April 22 (Reuters) — President Barack Obama will have some persuading to do to get the U.S. Congress to approve more money for the International Monetary Fund, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Wednesday.

Pelosi suggested part of the challenge was uncertainty about how to count the cost of the additional resources for the IMF, at a time when U.S. bailout fatigue and concern about mounting U.S. debt are widespread on Capitol Hill.

“The president has requested from us $100 billion for the IMF and that’s going to take its level of persuasion as well,” Pelosi said during a roundtable for reporters sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.

Obama wrote to Pelosi and other congressional leaders on Monday, urging Congress to quickly pass legislation to allow the United States to keep promises he made at the Group of 20 nations meeting in London this month.

Those promises included a U.S. pledge of $100 billion for the IMF to help it combat the global economic crisis. The funding would boost the IMF’s “New Arrangements to Borrow,” under which countries like the United States provide credit to the fund to deal with severe crises that threaten the global financial system.

Obama’s letter said the U.S. contribution would essentially be a loan to the IMF and would not cost U.S. taxpayers anything, apparently reflecting the judgment of the administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

But Pelosi said some congressional scorekeepers who weigh the cost of proposals see it differently.

“I’m certain we will be able to achieve it, but just there, for example, the OMB is saying there’s no scoring because there are no outlays and the CBO is saying it’s $105 billion,” Pelosi said, referring to the Congressional Budget Office.

“So everyone has a version of the story,” said the speaker, who like Obama is a Democrat.

The Obama administration recently sent up a “supplemental” request for more money for the Iraq and Afghan wars without including any requests for more expenditures to help the IMF.

U.S. lawmakers could still add more money for the IMF to the supplemental bill. In any case, if they want to help the IMF they will have to pass legislation authorizing the move.

More pressure on Congress to act quickly to approve the funding for the IMF could come this weekend when world finance chiefs from around the globe meet in Washington to discuss the global economic outlook.

Minority Republicans are likely to oppose more money for the IMF because of the risk to U.S. taxpayers that the cash will not be paid back, said Rep. Ed Royce, a California Republican on the House International Monetary Policy and Trade subcommittee.

“You cannot extend these loans to an organization like the IMF and claim there is no cost,” Royce told Reuters in a phone interview. “These governments will not be returning these funds,” he said of those that borrow from the IMF. “They will be using them to cover the losses that exist in their countries.”

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Turkey: Businessman Lashes Out Against the IMF

Businessman lashes out against the IMF

BURSA — The majority of countries that have signed loan deals with the International Monetary Fund, or IMF, and obeyed their programs have not been able to get back on their feet again, according to Bülent Parlamis, chairman of Parlamis Holding.

“Since its foundation in 1946, the IMF has been launching programs for many countries and not many of them have been successful,”Parlamis said. To make his case further convincing, Parlamis counted some of the countries the IMF had deals with, including Argentina, Albania, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Ghana, the Dominican Republic, Bulgaria, Brazil, Indonesia, Romania and Pakistan.

“Research conducted among countries that have implemented the IMF’s Structural Accession Programs revealed that none of them have managed to display economic growth. On the contrary they fell into crises,” Parlamis said. In a written statement, Parlamis said the economic crisis has caused a 23.5 percent contraction in private industry investments during the last quarter of the year.

“It is hard to turn a blind eye to the changes that are taking effect in the world’s economic structure,” Parlamis said. “Even the United States, the fortress of capitalism, has been nationalizing its banks. Such an unexpected move from the U.S. sets an example of a more statist economic structure. In such a situation, efforts to revive the economy by increasing public spending should be praised.”

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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UK: Budget 2009: A Savage and Pointless Attack on Middle England

The idiocy, bigotry, tribalism and sheer class hatred of the Budget at least clears up a lingering doubt some seem to have had about the Labour Party. We now know for sure that it not only has no interest in what can be characterised as “middle England”, it seeks positively to persecute that constituency for its own political advantage. Our country is in the worst economic mess that anyone under the age of 80 can remember. That mess has been exacerbated by wanton and ignorant policies pursued by this Government. The tax rises announced on Wednesday on the so-called rich show that Labour has no regard for the creation of wealth, and no understanding that its creation is what makes everybody (and not just the “rich”) more prosperous. This Budget was a Budget for poverty.

Labour is not interested in improving the country it purports to govern. It is interested only in retaining power. Its policies are shaped increasingly, if not exclusively, by considerations of how it advances the cause of its own people. Those who are not in that category — such as most of you reading this column — get what is coming to them.

Labour’s client base is broad. It starts with its own MPs, to whom it only the day before the Budget offered an expenses deal that will look after most of them very well. It extends through an enormous state bureaucracy and salariat to a generous welfare state. This ever-expanding and ever more propitiated group has to be supported by a shrinking number of those in work, and a shrinking number of those who have saved to provide a decent standard of living. The Budget was inadequate because it sought to deal only with the needs of the clientele, not with the needs of the country.

An election is no more than a year away. The starting gun for its campaign was fired yesterday. At least there is — or should be — clarity in the battle lines. The middle classes are there to be bled white. Labour is now quite open about that. The question only remains of whether the Opposition will choose to defend the interests of its supporters as robustly as Labour is defending the interests of the clientele.

For be in no doubt about two things. First, the mess in this country — which Mr Darling, in keeping with Government policy, chose to depict as having happened almost by accident and as a result of global forces outside his control — has been aggravated by the practice of reckless economics. The few of us who saw this debacle coming required no genius to do so: it happened because the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, chose between about 2000 and 2007 to allow the money supply to grow by between two and three times the rate of inflation plus growth. This imitation of Alan Greenspan — who did the same in America to fulfil Bill Clinton’s desire to make as many people as possible feel well off — fed our present catastrophe. Money was there to make everyone feel good — whether bankers or first-time buyers with silly mortgages. It seemed as though prosperity no longer had to be earned. The printing presses rolled: quantitative easing was happening long before we knew it. And even the Conservative Party, to its shame, was taken in, with its ludicrous line about “sharing the proceeds of growth”.

Second, the desire to keep power means continuing to keep the clientele in the style to which it is now accustomed. This means generous benefits that do not become reined in as earnings in the private sector are. It means continuing to create jobs for the clientele in entirely socially unproductive areas. Jobs advertised in yesterday’s Guardian for, among others, a “democratic services officer” in Hackney, or a “customer experience manager” for the Department of Work and Pensions give an indication of the care, and the ease, with which public money is spent. It is the Government’s determination to continue to bribe its voters that causes not just the wealth-destroying taxes, and a further raid on pension funds, but also the insane levels of borrowing: £175 billion this year and £173 billion next. It was instructive, too, that when the Leader of the Opposition quite correctly attacked the Government for this atrocious profligacy, Mr Brown was pictured sitting on the bench opposite him laughing. It is moments like that that make some think either of strangulation, or emigration.

Wednesday’s events were definitive. They showed that Labour has reverted to being a class-based party, and like all such parties is determined to rob the class in which it is not based. Those tens of millions of Britons who work hard, save hard, take responsibility for themselves and make no claim on the state are to be targeted to provide the resources to help Labour secure re-election. The Budget was the most naked attack on the middle classes since the 1970s. By this act of bigotry, Labour has repatriated us to the land of flared trousers, British Leyland and the Bay City Rollers.

Yet it has also, as was intended, put the Conservative Party on the spot. Foolishly, Mr Cameron chose not to reject last November’s proposal to raise taxes to 45 per cent for those on more than £150,000 a year in 2011. He now finds Labour is intending to raise them to 50 per cent, and a year earlier; and the same group to be affected by this will also lose tax relief on pension contributions, in another assault on savers. So what does Mr Cameron do? Does he say that the “rich” must be punished for the failings of the Labour government that he hopes to replace? Or does he say that this partisan policy, which will raise relatively little money, is unfair and counter-productive, and will not be persisted with should he come to power after April next year?

The argument seems straightforward. The Conservative Party should not be class based, so it should not favour a tax that hits one section of society so disproportionately hard: after all, we are all supposed to be in this together. It can also argue that the revenue to be raised is minimal — indeed, it may turn out to be nothing. The Laffer Curve suggests that if you wish to get more revenue, taxes should be cut, not raised. Also, as we saw in the 1970s, high taxation of the most successful in our society drives not just them, but their businesses, abroad. Of course the books have to be balanced: but there are ways that are not merely fairer but also more effective. Labour’s way of doing it is sheer vindictiveness, and with a political purpose: it will do only harm to the country, to the stimulation of demand, to growth and to employment.

It was hard to believe a word Mr Darling said. His forecasts have proved to be worthless, and Wednesday’s smelt fictional. His growth forecasts were particularly absurd. Labour’s record should speak for itself: destroying wealth, raising unemployment, presiding over waste. Now, though, it seeks to pursue a policy to retain power that puts in the party’s sights the very productive and self-reliant people on whom the country must depend for a recovery. It represents a savage and pointless attack on those without whom Britain is sunk.

Mr Darling’s failure, like that of the Government he serves, is abject. This is Mr Cameron’s moment. And it is not just victory that awaits him if he seizes it, but success.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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UK: The Avoidance Budget

It was, unquestionably, a terrific Budget for Switzerland. The decision to raise the top rate of tax to 50 per cent will punish some bankers, but will simply send others scurrying to Geneva.

The vast majority of the 350,000 people earning more than £150,000 will, of course, stay in the UK. They will not complain. They will call their accountants. A higher rate of tax is likely to generate much less revenue than the Treasury hopes, and much more avoidance. But Mr Darling is also guilty of tax avoidance. His Budget sidestepped the central issue of the public finances: it answered the problem of future spending with a commitment to future borrowing but no clear or plausible route map to reducing debt.

As Chancellor, Gordon Brown said that public sector net debt would not rise above 40 per cent of GDP. Now that figure is projected to be 79 per cent in 2013-14. Such an extraordinary departure from its own rules surely required from the Government a sober account of the consequences.

What were we presented with instead? First, an entirely optimistic forecast of future economic growth. In years to come the best-remembered feature of this Budget may be its reliance on implausibly hopeful assumptions about future tax revenues. When these assumptions are revised, as they will surely have to be, they will reveal the need for far more strenuous efforts to curb public spending.

Second, there was an attempt to suggest that some relatively minor efficiency savings could do a job that needs to be done by serious reform of public service provision. Indeed, many new state schemes managed to be both expensive and footling at the same time, and seemed a greater preoccupation for the Chancellor than serious measures to reduce debt. There will be an extra £260 million for training in sectors that will have strong future demand, and a £750 million fund to support emerging technologies — as if the Treasury knows what these are. These schemes alone match the £1 billion in extra revenues assumed from the closing of tax avoidance loopholes.

Mr Darling did not explain how the Government will ultimately reduce borrowing, on the ground that only when the economy is growing will the Treasury be able to see how best to expand its revenues. He felt no such compunction about telling the well-off where they will hurt.

The political centrepiece of the Budget was a series of measures that sharply increase taxes on high earners. That this had a frivolous aim — to discomfort the Conservatives — does not rob it of a serious impact. It is a declaration of economic and political war on the country’s entrepreneurial class.

In successive elections Tony Blair appeared to understand that social justice and prosperity for all were possible without penalising the better- off. Before the 1997 election he promised not to increase the top rate of tax. This solemn pledge, plastered on billboards all over the country, was renewed before the 2001 and 2005 elections.

Now it has been broken. The Chancellor has not simply increased the top rate to 50 per cent, he also moved the starting date to within this Parliament in direct breach of a central manifesto pledge. As the birth of this pledge was symbolic, so is its death. With it dies Mr Blair’s political project. Labour is once again the party of massive public debt, inadequately controlled public spending and taxes on the wealthy.

In the past year we tumbled into recession, bailed out the banks and funded a fiscal stimulus. Yesterday we looked to the Chancellor to say how it would be paid for. The orchestra assembled. The audience settled expectantly. The conductor tapped his baton on his music stand. A hush fell. And from the stage came the shrill, thin sound of a penny whistle.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Congress Knew About the Interrogations

Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair got it right last week when he noted how easy it is to condemn the enhanced interrogation program “on a bright sunny day in April 2009.” Reactions to this former CIA program, which was used against senior al Qaeda suspects in 2002 and 2003, are demonstrating how little President Barack Obama and some Democratic members of Congress understand the dire threats to our nation.

George Tenet, who served as CIA director under Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, believes the enhanced interrogations program saved lives. He told CBS’s “60 Minutes” in April 2007: “I know this program alone is worth more than the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us.”

Last week, Mr. Blair made a similar statement in an internal memo to his staff when he wrote that “[h]igh value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa’ida organization that was attacking this country.”

Yet last week Mr. Obama overruled the advice of his CIA director, Leon Panetta, and four prior CIA directors by releasing the details of the enhanced interrogation program. Former CIA director Michael Hayden has stated clearly that declassifying the memos will make it more difficult for the CIA to defend the nation.

It was not necessary to release details of the enhanced interrogation techniques, because members of Congress from both parties have been fully aware of them since the program began in 2002. We believed it was something that had to be done in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to keep our nation safe. After many long and contentious debates, Congress repeatedly approved and funded this program on a bipartisan basis in both Republican and Democratic Congresses.

Last week, Mr. Obama argued that those who implemented this program should not be prosecuted — even though the release of the memos still places many individuals at other forms of unfair legal risk. It appeared that Mr. Obama understood it would be unfair to prosecute U.S. government employees for carrying out a policy that had been fully vetted and approved by the executive branch and Congress. The president explained this decision with these gracious words: “nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.” I agreed.

Unfortunately, on April 21, Mr. Obama backtracked and opened the door to possible prosecution of Justice Department attorneys who provided legal advice with respect to the enhanced interrogations program. The president also signaled that he may support some kind of independent inquiry into the program. It seems that he has capitulated to left-wing groups and some in Congress who are demanding show trials over this program.

Members of Congress calling for an investigation of the enhanced interrogation program should remember that such an investigation can’t be a selective review of information, or solely focus on the lawyers who wrote the memos, or the low-level employees who carried out this program. I have asked Mr. Blair to provide me with a list of the dates, locations and names of all members of Congress who attended briefings on enhanced interrogation techniques.

Any investigation must include this information as part of a review of those in Congress and the Bush administration who reviewed and supported this program. To get a complete picture of the enhanced interrogation program, a fair investigation will also require that the Obama administration release the memos requested by former Vice President Dick Cheney on the successes of this program.

An honest and thorough review of the enhanced interrogation program must also assess the likely damage done to U.S. national security by Mr. Obama’s decision to release the memos over the objections of Mr. Panetta and four of his predecessors. Such a review should assess what this decision communicated to our enemies, and also whether it will discourage intelligence professionals from offering their frank opinions in sensitive counterterrorist cases for fear that they will be prosecuted by a future administration.

Perhaps we need an investigation not of the enhanced interrogation program, but of what the Obama administration may be doing to endanger the security our nation has enjoyed because of interrogations and other antiterrorism measures implemented since Sept. 12, 2001.

Mr. Hoekstra, a congressman from Michigan, is ranking Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Fiat- Chrysler, ‘Unions Say OK’

Deal ‘90% done’ says Italian union leader

(ANSA) — Rome, April 22 — American and Canadian car unions have approved a deal between Chrysler and Fiat, paving the way for the deal to go through, an Italian car union leader told ANSA Wednesday.

“The accord with the US and Canadian unions has been reached…and with the federal government which has pledged, given everyone’s readiness, to persuade the creditor banks to accept the deal,” said Bruno Vitali of Fim-CISL.

He said the deal was “90% ready” and might even be announced by Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne later Wednesday.

Vitali said he had had a long talk in Detroit earlier Wednesday with United Auto Workers leader Ron Gettelfienger.

President Barack Obama has given Chrysler until May 1 to strike a deal with Fiat in order to have access to further federal bail-out funds and avoid bankruptcy.

The deal in part hinges on unions and lenders accepting stock in Chrysler in exchange for the debt owed to them.

An accord draft leaked to the press indicated that unions would take a 20% stake in Chrysler, the same as Fiat’s initial stake, as payment for half their pension fund.

Marchionne is also asking unions to accept wage cuts to bring labor costs in line with those in other plants in the US producing foreign cars, in states where the unions have less power.

The leaked draft also indicated that Marchionne would serve as CEO for both Fiat and Chrysler, while the US automaker would have an American chairman of the board.

In this case, it is not clear what would happen to Chrysler’s current CEO, Bob Nardelli.

Marchionne has been credited for what Obama has described as Fiat’s “impressive” turnaround in the last few years and the authoritative daily Financial Times last week likened him to a “superhero” in a “Chrysler cliffhanger”.

According to the draft accord, if a partnership is created then Fiat, unions and a federally appointed trust would name a future seven-man Chrysler board.

The federal trust would initially hold a significant stake in Chrysler, in exchange for the bail-out funds, including a 15% share which Fiat would receive in 5% instalments as it meets production milestones.

Fiat is offering its cutting-edge green technology and platforms for small cars in exchange for as much as 35% of Chrysler but it is likely to be also given an option to acquire up to 49% or more, once the bail-out loans have been repaid.

The Italian automaker is keen to strike a deal with Chrysler because it would have access to its plants and dealerships in order to allow it to return to the American market, initially with Alfa Romeo and the trendy Fiat 500 city car.

Chrysler, in turn, would have access to Fiat’s facilities in Europe and Latin America.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Janet Napolitano Needs to Check Her Facts

What is Bush throwback Janet Napolitano doing in Barack Obama’s cabinet? One of the promises made by the new President, who is making one liberal breakthrough after another, was to end the politics of fear. But as Homeland Security Secretary, Ms. Napolitano is acting like fear personified — it’s as if she’s in the claws of Dick Cheney.

She was still suggesting this week that the 9/11 terrorists made their way across the Canadian border, despite the contrary having been publicly acknowledged dozens of times. This has even aroused our quiet man in Washington, Ambassador Michael Wilson, to arrange a private meeting with her to set the record straight.

Mr. Wilson and Prime Minister Stephen Harper have the right to be adamant on this file. The endless U.S. angst over security has led to a ramping-up of the border, which has cut into Can-Am commerce. It has led to the introduction of passport requirements, even though we’re now almost eight years beyond 9/11. Canadians still have to take off their shoes for inspections at airports because — no telling what damage a pair of wingtips might do — there might be bombs hidden away in the leather.

Ms. Napolitano and others have repeatedly cited the case of the so-called millennium bomber, Ahmed Ressam, who had a trunkload of bomb-making materials when he tried to cross over from British Columbia. That was a decade ago. Mr. Ressam was caught — at the border. The system worked, as it has when other suspected terrorists have tried that route.

Ms. Napolitano’s words in a CBC interview have triggered a rare unanimity of opposition in Canada. RCMP Commissioner William Elliott has spoken out, as has business leader Thomas d’Aquino. Mr. Harper raised the border issue with former president George W. Bush in blunt terms, but to no avail. He raised it in more mild terminology with Mr. Obama during his visit to Ottawa two months ago. The message, it seems, hasn’t gotten through.

Ms. Napolitano, who also raised hackles in the interview by saying there should be some parity in border security measures for Mexico and Canada, was a highly regarded governor in Arizona. It may be that in being named as a woman to such a sensitive security post, she has felt an extra need to show toughness. We recall Hillary Clinton berating Mr. Obama before the presidential primaries over his idea of negotiating with enemies of the United States.

Mr. Obama has gone ahead with that policy, which has become an approach that even a Conservative such as Mr. Harper can appreciate. He lauded the President at the Summit of the Americas on the weekend for opening a new era in which confrontation is replaced by dialogue. Mr. Harper has carved out a good relationship with Mr. Obama and he should see to it that there is some very direct dialogue on the border issue. Progress has already been made with this administration on the NAFTA file. While campaigning, Mr. Obama vowed to renegotiate the trade agreement, but appears to have dropped the idea.

On the border question, Ms. Napolitano did issue a corrective to her 9/11 comments, saying she was misunderstood. But she went on to indicate that there will be no easing of restrictions, saying other terrorists have attempted to get into the United States by way of Canada.

That is probably true and there will probably always be such attempts. But where’s the statute of limitations? Instead of easing border barriers as we get further from 9/11, the opposite has taken place. To some, like Ms. Napolitano, this seems to make sense.

But if we are to extend her line of thinking, there will never be a debarricaded border because there is always a chance of a successful attempt from the Canadian side, it being impossible to track down and incarcerate every would-be terrorist in the galaxy.

The other line of thinking is that, as the President has said, you don’t let fear trump freedom. If you do, you just play into the hands, as the Prime Minister has said, of those you are trying to defeat.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Obama’s Foreign Policy: Bambi Versus the Sharks

by Barry Rubin

It is not such a big deal to disagree with a president and his policies. But it is shocking to realize that the leader of the world’s most powerful country doesn’t appear to understand the most basic principles of international relations.

This isn’t surprising since Barrack Obama has no—zero, nada—previous experience in this area. It shows. There are two distinct ways other countries respond to this combination of his ignorance at realpolitik, urgent desire to be liked, and pride in projecting U.S. weakness:

—Friends, especially in Europe, are pleased, applaud, but then add that they don’t have to give this guy anything because he is all apologies and no toughness. They like the fact that he is all carrots and not sticks. If, however, they are states more at risk—Israel, relatively moderate Arab states, perhaps Asian and Latin American allies—worry that they cannot rely on the United States to help and defend them.

—Enemies or potential rivals, a category including Iran, Syria, North Korea, Cuba, Russia, Venezuela, and many—mostly Islamist—revolutionary movements, say that this guy is weak and defeated. He apologizes, offers unconditional engagements, and promises concessions because all previous U.S. policies have failed. Obama says so himself. They’ll eat the carrots and, of possible, their neighbors as well.

Obama, the supposed liberal, also offers some considerable, bizarre reversals in the meaning of that word. A couple of years ago when a brilliant conservative Middle East analyst asked me if I, too, was a conservative now, I said that I remained a liberal. In my view, the problem is not liberalism itself but the way that the far left has taken over liberalism, as Communism tried—but failed—to do in the 1930s…

— Hat tip: Barry Rubin

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Obama Publication Targets Freedom-Loving Americans

The Department of Homeland Security, headed by Also Known As (AKA) Obama appointee, Janet Napolitano, has released a report that targets every freedom-loving American. No greater indictment of the truth about the Marxist AKA Administration can be found than this just released report, following hard on the heels of the MIAC report out of Missouri that stated, emphatically, that right-wing extremists are “usually supporters of former Presidential Candidate: Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, and Bob Barr” and display “pictures, cartoons, bumper stickers that contain anti-government rhetoric.” This report, it was determined, had connections to Morris (the Sleaze) Dees and his Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an organization that has made no bones about its pro-Marxist, anti-American stance.

[…]

A footnote on the same page contains these warnings:

“LAW ENFORCEMENT INFORMATION NOTICE: This product contains Law Enforcement Sensitive (LES) information. No portion of the LES information should be released to the media, the general public, or over non-secure Internet servers. Release of this information could adversely affect or jeopardize investigative activities.

Warning: This document is UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY (U//FOUO). It contains information that may be exempt from public release under the Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. 552). It is to be controlled, stored, handled, transmitted, distributed, and disposed of in accordance with DHS policy relating to FOUO information and is not to be released to the public, the media, or other personnel who do not have a valid need-to-know without prior approval of an authorized DHS official. State and local homeland security officials may share this document with authorized security personnel without further approval from DHS.”

Oh, golly, gee whiz … now why would that be?

— Hat tip: JD

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The Wrenching Transformation of America

[Comments from JD: All American must read this speech; the contents are that important.]

[Ed note: this speech was delivered in Kalispell, Montana and Spokane, Washington to County Republican Lincoln Day dinners in late March. The speech caused a firestorm in Spokane, resulting in a battle with the local city council over it’s partnership with ICLEI and radical environmental policy. One elected official said I had exposed too much — as he walked out on my presentation. The battle goes on today.]

Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve come a long way to get here and I have such a short time to be with you. So, let’s just get everything out on the table right now, shall we?

I believe the American people, and their every action, are being ruled, regulated, restricted, licensed, registered, directed, checked, inspected, measured, numbered, counted, rated, stamped, censured, authorized, admonished, refused, prevented, drilled, indoctrinated, monopolized, extorted, robbed, hoaxed, fined, harassed, disarmed, dishonored, fleeced, exploited, assessed, and taxed to the point of suffocation and desperation.

America is drowning in a sea of rules and regulations, particularly under the guise of “saving the environment.”

[…]

Sustainable Development is the process by which America is being reorganized around a central principle of state collectivism using the environment as bait.

— Hat tip: JD

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‘A Well-Mobilized, Orchestrated Campaign’

Ottawa • This week, Ottawa commuters were thrust into a conflict half a world away, one that’s claimed more than 70,000 lives over the past quarter century.

Starting on Tuesday, Sri Lankan Tamils, numbering in the thousands at their peak, occupied part of Wellington Street near Parliament Hill, snarling traffic in the capital’s core.

The Ottawa protest was no isolated event. Similar demonstrations have taken place this week in London, Australia, the United States and Norway. Last month, tens of thousands of Tamils formed a human chain around Toronto’s downtown. Others showed up at United Nations offices in Geneva and European Union headquarters in Brussels.

“This is a well-mobilized, orchestrated campaign,” says Fen Hampson, director of the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University.

The worldwide protests are, in part, a last-gasp effort by the Tamil diaspora to save the apparently doomed military campaign by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelem (LTTE) — better known as the Tamil Tigers — to carve out a separate homeland in Sri Lanka.

The country’s 25-year civil war between the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamils is almost certainly in its final weeks, says John Rogers, United States director of the American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies.

With the remnants of the Tiger army pinned down by government troops, “it’s hard to see the Tigers continuing as a credible military force,” Rogers says. “Certainly they won’t control any territory.”

A low-level guerrilla war is possible, he says, but “the war as it has been for the past 20-plus years looks like it’s coming to an end.”

Hampson’s not so sure. “This is a conflict that’s ebbed and flowed before,” he points out. “The government has the upper hand for now, but the question is, how long will it last?”

He counsels caution because the Sri Lankan government has kept foreign journalists and aid workers out of the territories it has captured from the Tigers.

“Everything we’re hearing is coming from the Sinhalese government,” he says. “That’s been part of the problem. We’re just getting one side of the story.”

At the very least, guerrilla war and terrorism will continue, he says, “because there are going to be even more unhappy Tamils inside Sri Lanka and elsewhere. As we’re seeing in downtown Ottawa, there are a lot of very unhappy Tamil-Canadians.”

Canada is home to the world’s largest expatriate community of Sri Lankan Tamils. Estimates of their numbers vary. According to the 2006 census, 142,000 Canadians identified themselves as being ethnic Sri Lankans or Tamils. But unofficial estimates run as high as 400,000.

The vast majority are concentrated in and around Toronto. According to the census, fewer than 2,000 Tamils live in the national capital region.

The Tigers’ possible military defeat has come as a shock to many in the diaspora, Rogers says. “Most people did not anticipate that this could happen.”

One result has been to bring previously clandestine diaspora support for the LTTE, which has been banned as a terrorist organization in Canada and 31 other countries, out into the open.

Expatriate groups sympathetic to the Tigers are likely co-ordinating the protests. While there’s no direct evidence they’re taking direction from beleaguered Tiger leaders in Sri Lanka’s north, “it’s certainly plausible,” Rogers says.

But that doesn’t mean every protester is a hard-core Tiger sympathizer.

“There are lots of very decent and legitimate Tamil Canadians,” Hampson says. “What’s motivating some of them is that they’re worried about what’s happening to their friends and families.”

It’s a legitimate concern, he says. “We don’t know what’s happening, but there are obviously human rights violations going on.”

That concern is being registered internationally. On Thursday Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon called on Sri Lanka to halt its military offensive against Tamil rebels to allow civilians an escape.

“We’ve asked for an immediate ceasefire,” Cannon told reporters.

“We’re very worried, of course, of the hostilities that are taking place, but particularly worried for the civilians that are in the combat zone.”

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon delivered a similar message to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Speaking by telephone, Ban expressed concern about the 250,000 Tamil civilians trapped in the country’s war-torn northeast.

Rajapaksa reportedly assured Ban that “Sri Lanka was aware of and observes all international obligations to protect civilians,” a statement from the president’s office said.

The nations leading Sri Lanka’s peace process on Friday urged the Tamil Tigers to free 100,000 civilians they are holding and the military to stop shelling the no-fire zone where the separatists are making their last stand.

The statement from the U.S., Britain, Japan and Norway came as Sri Lanka’s military said it had begun what it called “the largest hostage rescue operation in the world” by identifying the best routes for people to get out.

The four-nation group, dubbed the Tokyo Co-Chairs, discussed on a conference call “how to best end the futile fighting without further bloodshed,” a U.S. State Department statement said.

“They call on the Tamil Tigers to permit freedom of movement for the civilians in the area,” it said. “They reaffirmed the need to stop shelling into the ‘no fire zone’ to prevent further civilian casualties.”

Tens of thousands of civilians are trapped inside a 17-square kilometre army-declared no-fire zone on the northeastern coast, held there by the LTTE and being killed in shelling, the co-chairs’ statement said.

It is on that piece of land where the final act of Sri Lanka’s 25-year civil war is expected to play out, and diplomats have been working furiously to negotiate an exit for the people stuck there but have been repeatedly rebuffed by the LTTE.

The government has vowed no ceasefire, but pledged to stop fighting briefly to let people out as it has done in the past. At least 64,000 people have fled since January.

According to the UN, 100,000 civilians are trapped in the war zone. Many expatriate Tamils fear thousands will die as the Sri Lankan army tries to finish off the Tamil Tigers. Cries of “stop the genocide” erupt regularly from protesters.

There’s little doubt many civilians are dying, says Rogers. The question is, who’s to blame? Both sides appear to be putting their own military and political interests ahead of the lives of civilians, he says.

“It’s clear that the Tigers themselves are not letting civilians out, because that protects them militarily. On the other hand, it’s also clear that if these were Sinhalese civilians, government forces would be approaching the situation differently. They would be taking more care to try to avoid civilian casualties.”

Hampson echoes the point. “This is a conflict in which there is lots of blame on both sides,” he says.

The Tigers have always had support among expatriate Tamils, many of whom left their homeland to escape discrimination and violence directed against them by the Sinhalese majority.

Sinhalese make up nearly three-quarters of Sri Lanka’s population. Tamils, concentrated in the north and east of the country, make up just nine per cent.

After civil war broke out in 1983, many Tamils embraced the LTTE for standing up to the Sinhalese after the civilian leadership was seen to have failed to protect them. “So it’s not surprising that there would be sympathy for the Tigers in the diaspora,” Rogers says.

Hampson says Tamils inside and outside Sri Lanka are “pretty radicalized,” noting that many diaspora communities have a “hardened sense of identity and willingness to support revolutionary goals.”

Since declaring the Tigers a terrorist group in 2006, the federal government has been targeting Tamil Canadian financial networks that had been helping to fund the insurgency.

Canadian Tamils have chafed under those restrictions, Hampson says. “They don’t see themselves as terrorists. They see themselves as freedom fighters.”

But Rogers thinks support for the Tigers among Tamils generally has declined in the past 10 to 15 years, in part because they have systematically targeted and eliminated moderate Tamil leaders.

“The Tigers have always claimed to be the sole representative of the Tamil-speaking people in Sri Lanka, and they’ve interpreted that to give them licence to kill other Tamil politicians,” he says.

Is there anything countries like Canada can meaningfully do to respond to the demands of the Tamil protesters filling the streets?

The scope for action is limited, experts agree. Canada could try to persuade the Sri Lankan government to handle the humanitarian situation in a “more flexible manner” to minimize civilian casualties, Rogers says.

Hampson agrees. “There’s something to be said for ratcheting up the pressure on the Sri Lankan government, and I suspect we’re doing it quietly. Whether they’re receptive to it is another matter. They haven’t been all that receptive to entreaties before.”

Hampson believes a military solution is unlikely to be a permanent answer. “At the end of the day, these kinds of wars have to end in some kind of negotiated accommodation.”

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Canada: Editorial: Send DART to Sri Lanka

This week saw the end of a large-scale demonstration by Canadian Tamils on Parliament Hill. The protest’s final days featured an interesting development: After weeks of fruitless efforts to gain the attention of MPs, many of the protesters — who were trying to raise awareness of a Sri Lankan military campaign that, they claim, is recklessly slaughtering civilians — were no longer flying the flag of the Tamil Tigers, a terrorist group outlawed in this country three years ago. Instead, they flew a plain black flag, which they describe as a symbol of mourning.

This is a welcome development. For months, the National Post editorial board has been lecturing Canadian Tamils to distance themselves from the Tigers, a military insurgency that uses barbaric tactics such as suicide bombings, child abduction, and human shields: Whatever sympathy Canadians feel for the plight of Tamil civilians caught in Sri Lanka’s civil war will only be dissipated if the humanitarian campaign waged on their behalf appears to be led by terror cheerleaders. True, many of the protesters on Parliament Hill still privately sympathize with the Tigers, and indeed have said as much to reporters. But public symbols count for something in this sort of event, and the change in the protesters’ stance deserves to be applauded.

Now that Parliamentarians have the green light to engage with Tamil activists, the question is:What should they do?

As Sri Lanka’s army mops up the final remnants of the Tamil Tigers in the northeast corner of Sri Lanka, a humanitarian crisis is unfolding: Tens of thousands of innocent Tamil civilians, who had been held by the Tigers as human shields, are now streaming into government-controlled territory. Most are destitute, and some are suffering from wounds inflicted during weeks of bombardment by government troops.

Sri Lanka is placing these refugees in government-run camps. But reports from the fields suggest that food, water and proper medical care are scarce. The Sri Lankan government — never especially competent, even when providing services to its own Sinhalese majority in the south — appears to have badly underestimated the resources necessary to deal with this crisis.

Canada can help by providing long-term aid aimed at settling Tamil refugees in safe new homes. And in the short term, our government should deploy our military’s Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART), a quick-response, Trenton, Ont.-based medical and engineering unit that can provide life-saving health care and water purification to crisis victims.

This would not be the first time DART went to Sri Lanka: When the country was struck by tsunamis on Dec. 26, 2004, prime minister Paul Martin sent 200 DART members to the country, where they treated thousands of patients, produced millions of litres of purified water, repaired infrastructure and cleared rubble.

It is time for another deployment. Canada must pressure Sri Lanka’s government to permit a DART deployment immediately. If Stephen Harper acts now, our soldiers might be helping wounded Tamils by the end of the month.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Number of Homegrown Suspected Terrorists Higher Than Ever: RCMP

OTTAWA — Canadians should be concerned but shouldn’t overreact to news that more homegrown extremists and suspected terrorists are believed operating here than ever before, says the RCMP’s top national security officer.

In his first in-depth interview since assuming command of the nascent National Security Criminal Investigations unit, Assistant Commissioner Bob Paulson said more terrorism arrests are expected in coming months.

“The threat we’re facing today is as threatening as it’s ever been,” he said during a hour-long talk in his headquarter’s office this week. “We’re as busy as we’ve ever been and a little busier, frankly,” but he added that the sky is not falling.

“You want Canadians and people who have a role to play to be engaged and you want them to understand the nature of the threat, but you have to balance that against the Chicken Little criticism.

“Even discussing national security investigations publicly and openly runs the risk of being misunderstood of saying, ‘the sky is falling.’ The threat is a significant threat (and) we and other agencies of the government are actively managing that threat.”

He said the increase in national security criminal cases — from 848 last May to an undisclosed but larger number now — is “marginal” and “nothing that people ought to be excessively worried about. That’s what we get paid to do.”

More concerning is the evolving origin of the threat.

“Historically, it’s always been the threat from somewhere else in the world coming over here. But it’s no secret to anyone that a larger part of the threat is the so-called homegrown threat and that’s certainly the lion’s share of the threat that we’re dealing with.”

Homegrown radicalization is now at the top of the government’s national security agenda. Several of the biggest terror attacks and threats in the West in recent years, from the transit attacks in Madrid and London to the foiled “liquid bomb” airline plotters, have come from previously unremarkable, law-abiding citizens largely unknown to authorities.

The official concern is also partly a reflection of concerns about potential blowback from Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan and the terrorism prosecutions of Ottawa’s Momin Khawaja and the pending “Toronto 18” cases.

NSCI has laid charges in two other terrorism cases — the continuing trial of a Quebec man charged with supporting the Global Islamic Media Front, the propaganda arm of al-Qaida, and last year’s arrest of an Ontario man for allegedly collecting money for the outlawed Tamil Tigers, the only person ever charged with terrorist financing in Canada.

The stinging 2006 report and recommendations of the O’Connor Commission into the Maher Arar affair led to a fundamental re-organization of NSCI, with a priority on centralized oversight of national security investigations, including targeting, evidence-based decision-making, information collection and sharing and quality control.

“My desire (is) to re-establish a trust with people,” said the assistant commissioner, whose police career ranges from general patrol duties in British Columbia to senior positions fighting the Hells Angels and organized crime. Now 50, the Lachute, Que., native joined the Mounties in 1986 after a stint as a Canadian Forces pilot.

Since taking over NSCI in May, “I’m very satisfied that we have the business processes and systems that permit me to defend the criticism that we’re loosey-goosey sharing information all the time. The RCMP has pulled out all the stops in terms of implementing O’Connor’s recommendations and there were considerable costs associated to that.”

— Hat tip: TB

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1st Danish Veiled Politician Attends Council Meet

A Danish politician of Palestinian origin on Wednesday became the first woman to attend a local council meeting wearing a hijab, the Muslim veil.

Asmaa Abdul Hamid, 27, took part in a meeting in the city of Odense as a substitute for a member of the Unity List, a left-wing grouping.

Abdul Hamid has attracted attention because of the fact that she chooses to wear the hijab and refuses to shake hands with men. She led the voting list for her party at the 2005 local elections.

“I would like to be judge on what I have in my head, not on it, for the politics that I defend, my opinions and not what I wear or how I greet (people),” she told the large media pack that had turned out for the occasion.

Abdul Hamid is also on her party’s parliamentary list and is already down as a stand-in for their existing deputy, Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen.

The possibility that she might appear on his behalf in the parliament building has, since the November 2007 election, created a political stir, particularly among the far-right.

Peter Seeberg, an academic at the University of Odense, said her participation in the council meeting was a landmark event in Danish politics.

“She will influence the debate (of recent years) on Islamic veils, because we have now an example of a veiled Muslim woman taking part in an elected assembly, showing that things are evolving in Danish society,” he told the online edition of the regional daily Fyens Stifstidende.

Earlier this week, Dalia Mogahed, an Egyptian-born American who heads the Gallup American Center for Muslim Studies, became the first Muslim veiled woman to be appointed to a position in the White House. Mogahed has been appointed as an interfaith advisory in the new administration of U.S. President Barack Obama.

— Hat tip: TB

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Absentee MEPs — Half of Twenty Worst Strasbourg Attenders Are Italians

Parliamentary assistant’s informal survey. Poor attendance extends to committees

Italy’s honour in Europe is safe, thanks to a German. Sepp Kusstatscher is his name. He’s from Alto Adige, he belongs to the Green group and he has missed only two of 270 plenary sessions. Hooray. But perhaps we should draw a discreet veil over many of the others. Let’s just say that of Strasbourg’s top 100 attenders, only three are Italian, fewer than a third of the Germans or British and a fifth of the Poles. On the other hand, ten of the 20 worst attenders are from Italy. Blush-making. The figures were compiled by Flavien Deltort, a young parliamentary assistant who, after working for Marco Pannella, set out doggedly to collate all the official documents available. His goal was to put them on line.

This never-ending, painstaking task was undertaken get round the Europarliament’s reluctance to provide EU voters with an opportunity to see how hard their representatives work in Brussels and Strasbourg. There was confirmation of that reluctance last October, when radical Europarliamentarian Marco Cappato officially requested the attendance figures for all MEPs. The application was rejected by the secretary general, Harald Rømer, who explained that, as an MEP, Cappato could ask to see only his own figures, not other people’s. The secretary general revealed that there was no consolidated document with the total number of attendances by each MEP at the various official meetings, nor did the institutions have any duty to create documents to reply to requests. This response was greeted with protests on all sides and three months later, it was corrected by the vote on a resolution presented by Cappato himself, which was approved by a large majority: 355 in favour, 18 abstentions and 195 against, including almost all the MEPs from the People of Freedom. It was only a declaration of intent but it was explicit. It committed the European parliament to launching “an extraordinary action plan, for instance within the framework of the e-Parliament initiative, to ensure that more and easily accessible information is made available on its website”.

Will this happen? It’s unlikely, or rather with the legislature nearing its end, it looks practically impossible…

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Artist to Remove EU Mosaic After Czech Cabinet Fall

PRAGUE (Reuters) — The artist of the “Entropa” piece mocking EU member states will take the huge mosaic off an EU council building in Brussels in protest against the fall of the Czech government, he said Thursday.

The 16-meter (52 feet) puzzle won front-page coverage in newspapers around the world in January for poking fun at all 27 EU member states. It portrays Bulgaria as a squat toilet, Italy as a football ground with players making gestures that resemble masturbation, and the Netherlands as a flooded country with only a few minarets sticking out. The piece, in line with an EU custom, was due to hang over the entrance of the main EU Council building until the Czech Republic’s EU presidency ends in June, despite protests from some countries at their image.

However, artist David Cerny said he no longer wanted to be publicly associated with the Czech Republic after the leftist opposition and defectors from the government camp toppled the cabinet of Mirek Topolanek in late March, undermining its EU presidency.

“We look like a bunch of idiots,” Cerny told Reuters.

“We will be taking it down from May 10. I do not agree with the way the old government was thrown out,” he said.

Cerny added he did not back a new interim cabinet being formed because it involved former communists, including the incoming Prime Minister Jan Fischer.

“The old government was my partner, not an autopilot cabinet or a government of former communists,” Cerny said.

Cerny originally deceived the government by pretending

individual pieces of the mosaic were created by artists from each of the 27 EU member states, but later admitted he and two friends had created the entire installation.

Entropa — with Romania as a Dracula theme park, France on strike and Britain, perceived as one of the bloc’s most eurosceptic members, missing altogether — is expected to be displayed in a Prague gallery and later offered for sale.

The installation has lured thousands of visitors to the Brussels EU building, normally ignored on the tourist circuit.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Britain May Cut Arms to Israel; Hamas to Address Lords

Britain is warming up to Hamas and blowing chilly winds towards Israel. Its government is considering a ban on arms exports to the Jewish state after legislators had demanded that British weapons parts not be used against Arab terrorists.

Meanwhile, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal is to address the House of Lords via video despite objections by the British government. In a separate development, the Bloomsbury theatre acceded to demands from pro-Arab groups that it cancel an appearance by an IDF choir scheduled for Israeli Independence Day celebrations next week.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband told Parliament Tuesday that it will review weapons export licenses “in light of recent events in Gaza,” meaning the Operation Cast Lead counterterrorist campaign three months ago.

The statement came a day before Hamas’s top leader Khaled Mashaal was to address members of the House of Lords and Members of Parliament via video from Damascus. The address comes shortly after four British parliamentarians, led by British Labor party member Roger Godsiff, met with Mashaal in Damascus.

Independent MP Clare Short invited dozens of colleagues to attend a video conference in a Parliament office despite objections by both the British Foreign Office and Israeli ambassador to Britain Ron Prosor. He pointed out that the Hamas charter calls for jihad, but “Clare Short and Lord Alderdice offer no attempt to persuade Hamas to change its policies of missiles and murder.”

The Foreign office comments, “We are aware that some MPs are planning to talk to members of Hamas in a private capacity on Wednesday…. Hamas is a terrorist organization. We believe that to talk to Hamas directly at this time would simply undermine those Palestinians who are committed to peace.”

The European Union officially has defined Hamas as a terrorist organization, but Hamas has succeeded in breaking the boycott, working through constant international pressure on a country-by-country basis.

Short has promoted the idea that Hamas must be included in a Middle East peace agreement. She previously has been harshly critical of Israel, writing two years ago that Israel carried out a “bloody, brutal and systematic annexation of land, destruction of homes and the deliberate creation of an apartheid system.”

— Hat tip: CB

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Czech Rep: Romany Protective Patrols to Monitor Demonstrations Without Arms

Prague — The Romany protective patrols which signatures of the call Enough! call for in reaction to the growing activities of rightist radicals should only monitor demonstrations and other actions of extremists, Cyril Koky, member of the Government Romany Affairs Council, said today.

“In no way do we want that Romany patrols to be armed,” said Koky, who is also Romany coordinator for Central Bohemia.

He said the patrols’members should be visibily marked and they should only be equipped with mobile telephones and digital photographic cameras.

The patrols should cooperate with the municipal and state police and possibly with the anti-conflict team and help calm down tension.

The creation of Romany protective patrols has been prompted by mounting activities of exrtremists, and mainly the weekend arson attack on a house in Vitkov, north Moravia, inhabted by a Romany family.

The fire that broke out when unkonwn perpetrators threw Molotov cocktails at the house burnt three people. A two-year-old girl suffered severe burns to more than 85 percent of the body surface and is in a critical condition.

“We do not want the situation to escalate,” Koky said.

He mentioned as an example worth following the behaviour of political tops in Hungary and Slovakia where prime ministes and government members arrive on the spot of conflicts.

“We have police manoevres here and it seems as if politicians of the this country were not here. Where are the Interior Minister, deputies, legislators form the regions,” Koky asked.

“I think that they should have the moral authority to denounce this and say: Not this way,” Koky said.

Outgoing Human Rights and Minorities Minister Kichael Kocab (for the Greens) will arrive in Vitkov today to meet the afflicted family members and the town’s representatives, his spolesowman Lejla Abbasova has told CTK.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Denmark: Victim Known to Police

The victim of the shooting episode in Nørrebro was known to the police.

The man who was shot in the Nørrebro disctrict of Copenhagen yesterday was known to the police but the Head of the Copenhagen Police Anti-Gang Squad Henrik Svindt, while confirming the fact that he was known, has declined to elaborate.

“I cannot comment on how we know him,” Svindt told politiken.dk, but said further information would be available later in the day.

Police spokesmen previously said that the man who was shot was not part of the gang environment, but that he knew people in criminal circles.

Out of danger

The 29-year old man was shot on the corner of Baggesensgade and Blågårdsgade streets in the inner part of Nørrebro early yesterday afternoon. He was hit in his hip, leg and arm. He is said to be of Egyptian origin but was born and raised in Denmark. He works as a teacher and has previously been a teaching assistant at Copenhagen Business School.

According to eye witnesses, the shots were fired from a passing red Yamaha motorbike. The gunman fired a salvo of 10-14 shots, hitting his victim in the hip and legs. The man is said to be in a stable condition.

Commotion at crime scene

Immediately after the shooting episode violent erupted as the victim’s brother began quarrelling with the police. This prompted a group of local residents to break the police cordon and video recordings show how several of them attacked the police who drew their batons and used dogs to keep people at bay.

Svindt says that several witnesses have photos of policemen being hit.

“We have witnesses who are willing to tell about it so that is really positive. But that is an entirely different case,” he says.

Six people were arrested in connection with the commotion. They have been released again.

— Hat tip: TB

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Denmark: Muslims Walk Out of Terrorism Conference

Comments from a member of the Danish People’s Party resulted in Muslim guests walking out in protest from an intelligence agency conference

A number of Muslim attendees walked out of a ‘Terrorism and Communication’ conference hosted by the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) today.

Public broadcaster DR reports that the Muslim guests, including an imam, decided to leave the event after Søren Espersen from the Danish People’s Party stood up and said that Islam is one of the world’s problems.

Espersen’s comments came after the head of PET, Jakob Scharf, opened the conference by maintaining that Islam cannot be equated with terrorism. Scharf argued that doing so is almost like running errands for al-Qaeda, because the terror organisation justifies its actions by saying Islam is under attack.

Speakers at the two-day conference include the counterterrorism coordinator from the Egyptian foreign ministry, Ashraf Mohsen; senior advisor from the US Department of Homeland Security, Irfan A. Saeed and former Danish foreign minister, Uffe Ellemann-Jensen.

— Hat tip: TB

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EU-Croatia: Membership Talks Put Back, Slovenia Veto

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, APRIL 23 — The EU presidency has decided to put back Croatia’s membership conference (the meeting where the membership talks take place), which was due to take place tomorrow, since Slovenia is maintaining its right to veto Zagreb’s entry, due to border disputes between the two countries. A statement from the Czech Republic’s presidency of the European Union reports that, “the dispute over the border between Slovenia and Croatia has not yet been resolved and the EU will set a new date for the accession conference as soon as progress has been made on this front.” The government in Ljubljana has used its right to veto the progress for Croatia’s membership negotiations, since it is worried that Zagreb’s possible entry into the EU could affect the resolution of the border conflict which has been unresolved since 1991, when the two countries gained independence. The EU presidency announced that “the three presidencies, the Czech Republic, France and Switzerland, alongside the Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, met with the Slovenian and Croatian authorities yesterday.” The EU went on to renew its support for Rehn’s mediation, and said that it is convinced that “a solution is close at hand.” (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Far-Right Crimes Up Sharply in Germany

Political crime is on the rise in Germany, and far-right crimes in particular rose 16 percent in 2008, according to new government figures. Part of the increase is a result of new statistical standards, but the numbers on the right include two murders.

The number of far-right crimes recorded in Germany increased by around 16 percent last year to 20,422, with violent crimes up 5.6 percent at 1,113 cases, including two killings, according to figures released by the German government this week.

Far-right crimes accounted for two thirds of all “politically motivated” crimes last year, which reached 31,801 — an increase of 11.4 percent and the highest level since 2001.

Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said the rise in politically motivated crime was disturbing and swore the government would counter it with a variety of measures against extremism, racism and intolerance.

The two deaths were in eastern Germany — the murder of a 55-year-old homeless man by two men from the far-right scene, and the murder of a 20-year-old art student who was kicked to death after a political argument in a disco.

Part of the increase in far-right crimes is explained by a statistical change that took effect on Jan 1, 2008 when all police forces adopted common standards for recording so-called “propaganda offenses” which include displaying banned symbols such as the Nazi swastika.

But the rise was also driven by a growing far-right youth scene whose members dress like left-wing anarchists, in black-hooded jackets. “They are attracting young people to a greater extent than the conventional far-right scene has been able to so far,” Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said in a statement.

Left-wing politically motivated crimes rose 14.6 percent to 6,724.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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Finland: Fundamentalists, Immigrants Spur Higher Birth Rate

The number of births in Finland increased last year, reaching a 15-year high. The birth rate has been slowly rising in Finland over the past few years.

In 2008, nearly 60,000 children were born, which is an increase of 800 births over the previous year, reports Statistics Finland.

Statistics data revealed women are having 1.85 children on average-a figure last seen in 1994. In order for the population to renew itself in the long term, the total fertility rate should be approximately 2.1, according to the agency.

Figures also show that mothers are choosing to have children later in life. On average, the women who gave birth in 2008 were little older than in the previous year. The mean age of all women giving birth rose by one tenth to 30.1 years. The average age of first-time mothers was 28.2 years in 2008.

Finland’s highest birth rate is among members of the Laestadian Lutheran religious sect in Ostrobothnia, western Finland, where one tenth of all the country’s children are born. Immigrant families also tend to have higher birth rates — at least until they fully integrate into Finnish society, reports YLE Radio News.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Finland: Organised Human Smuggling Across Russian Border?

Illegal entry into Finland across the Russian border has increased dramatically in the south-east of the country this year.

At least 18 people have crossed into Finland so far this year, up from 16 unauthorised crossings during all of last year. In addition, the Russian border guard service has reportedly stopped at least 40 attempts to enter Finland from Russia.

“This is a new phenomenon that began this year. Especially men with an Afghan background have tried to get into Finland from Russia. On the basis of interrogations, organised smuggling of people into Finland seems to be involved,” says Lieutenant-Colonel Erkki Matilainen of the Finnish Border Guard.

Those being interrogated have suggested that there are helpers on the other side of the border who take care of matters related to crossing the border — even the equipment.

The Finnish Border Guard has intensified its surveillance of the border in response to the surge.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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France Out of Love With Champagne, Sales -30%

(ANSAmed) — PARIS — Champagne sales crashed by 30% in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same period in 2008. A sizeable reduction in stocks and a fall in consumption in Europe explain the decline, unequalled in the last 15 years. According to Daniel Lorson, spokesperson for the inter-professional committee for champagne, “there is a double phenomenon of reduced stocks, together with a fall in consumption in France and abroad”. In fact, sales fell in January and February by 23% in France, 47% in the European Union, and 42% in the rest of the world. Patrick Lebrun, president of the union of wine-growers, put the fall in sales of champagne into context: “These results appear to be very negative because they are being compared with the extremely high levels of 2008. Of course I am concerned, but for the moment, sales are equivalent to those of 2005-2006”.(ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Germany: Judge Disciplines Suspect for Contempt of Court in Trial of 4 Over German Terror Plot

DUESSELDORF, Germany — A judge ordered disciplinary measures for contempt of court against an Islamic terrorist suspect who went on trial Thursday with three co-defendants on charges of plotting attacks on American targets in Germany.

Adem Yilmaz, 30, refused to stand up during the swearing-in of a translator as the trial opened Wednesday, telling the court: “I only stand up for Allah.” He also refused to stand when the judges entered the courtroom on both Wednesday and Thursday.

Judge Ottmar Breidling ordered two weeks’ detention for Yilmaz that will be added to any possible sentence, calling his actions “provocative disrespect” of the court.

Yilmaz, a Turkish citizen, is being tried along with another Turk and two Germans on charges of plotting to attack U.S. and other targets in Germany ahead of an October 2007 vote by the German parliament on extending German troops’ stay in Afghanistan.

German authorities arrested Yilmaz, 30, along with alleged ringleader Fritz Gelowicz, 29, and Daniel Schneider, 23, at a rented cottage in central Germany on Sept. 4, 2007.

The fourth suspect, 24-year-old Attila Selek, was picked up in Turkey in November 2007 and later extradited to Germany. Selek is a Turkish citizen, while Gelowicz and Schneider are both Germans who converted to Islam.

Prosecutors allege that the group planned car bomb attacks on sites such as pubs, discos and airports, and considered targets in cities including Frankfurt, Dortmund, Duesseldorf, Cologne, Stuttgart, Munich and Ramstein — where the U.S. military has a large air base — with the aim of killing “as many people as possible.”

All the suspects are accused of being members of the radical Islamic Jihad Union, an offshoot of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. They face charges including membership in a terrorist organization and conspiracy to commit murder.

The charges together carry a 10-year maximum.

Seventeen of the suspects’ relatives were asked to serve as character witnesses, but all declined in protest at the proceedings.

The trial, being held in a high-security courtroom, is scheduled to last at least until the end of August.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Germany: Judge Disciplines Accused in Terror Trial

DUESSELDORF, Germany — A judge ordered disciplinary measures for contempt of court against an Islamic terrorist suspect who went on trial Thursday with three co-defendants on charges of plotting attacks on American targets in Germany.

Adem Yilmaz, 30, refused to stand up during the swearing-in of a translator as the trial opened Wednesday, telling the court: “I only stand up for Allah.” He also refused to stand when the judges entered the courtroom on both Wednesday and Thursday.

Judge Ottmar Breidling ordered two weeks’ detention for Yilmaz that will be added to any possible sentence, calling his actions “provocative disrespect” of the court.

Yilmaz, a Turkish citizen, is being tried along with another Turk and two Germans on charges of plotting to attack U.S. and other targets in Germany ahead of an October 2007 vote by the German parliament on extending German troops’ stay in Afghanistan.

German authorities arrested Yilmaz, 30, along with alleged ringleader Fritz Gelowicz, 29, and Daniel Schneider, 23, at a rented cottage in central Germany on Sept. 4, 2007.

The fourth suspect, 24-year-old Attila Selek, was picked up in Turkey in November 2007 and later extradited to Germany. Selek is a Turkish citizen, while Gelowicz and Schneider are both Germans who converted to Islam.

Prosecutors allege that the group planned car bomb attacks on sites such as pubs, discos and airports, and considered targets in cities including Frankfurt, Dortmund, Duesseldorf, Cologne, Stuttgart, Munich and Ramstein — where the U.S. military has a large air base — with the aim of killing “as many people as possible.”

All the suspects are accused of being members of the radical Islamic Jihad Union, an offshoot of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. They face charges including membership in a terrorist organization and conspiracy to commit murder.

The charges together carry a 10-year maximum.

Seventeen of the suspects’ relatives were asked to serve as character witnesses, but all declined in protest at the proceedings.

The trial, being held in a high-security courtroom, is scheduled to last at least until the end of August.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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Google Street View Wins UK Battle

Britain’s privacy watchdog says Google Street View should not be removed or shut down.

The Information Commissioner’s Office on Thursday rejected a complaint by London-based human rights group Privacy International which had argued that Google’s high-quality photos of houses and streets breached people’s privacy.

The ICO says it would not be in the public interest to remove the service in a world “where many people Tweet, Facebook and blog”.

The agency says it received 74 complaints and inquiries about Street View but argued it caused little privacy intrusion.

Google obscures individuals’ faces and car licence plates by pixilation and removes images on request

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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Hamas Leader Fails to Address British Lawmakers

LONDON — An attempt by the leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas to make an unprecedented video link address to British lawmakers failed Wednesday following a technical glitch.

Khaled Mashaal, who is living in exile in Syria, had hoped to address a group of parliamentarians as part of a campaign to persuade the West to talk to his party as it seeks peace in the Middle East.

Event organizers had hoped the session could help persuade the U.S. and European governments to review their policy toward Hamas, but were unable to speak to Mashaal when a video link failed.

Claire Short, an independent lawmaker and former Labour Cabinet minister who had tried to arrange the feed, said she would invite Mashaal to address a future meeting in the same way.

About 25 members of the House of Commons and House of Lords had gathered for the session, which was criticized by Britain’s Foreign Office and Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

Britain, along with the United States and the European Union, regards Hamas as a terrorist organization and refuses to hold talks with the group. Hamas has held power in the Gaza Strip since 2007, when it violently seized control and expelled forces loyal to moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who still governs the West Bank.

“Hamas is a terrorist organization. They fire rockets at innocent civilians. They put ordinary Palestinians in harm’s way,” Britain’s Middle East minister, Bill Rammell, said in a statement. “We believe that to talk to Hamas directly at this time would simply undermine those Palestinians who are committed to peace.”

Israel’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said it was “regrettably ironic that a man who could never receive an entry visa to Britain because he is considered a terrorist would have the privilege to address MPs in Parliament, thanks to new technologies.”

British officials said Mashaal would almost certainly be refused entry if he attempted to visit in person.

Responding to Mashaal’s plan to appeal for a new dialogue, several European governments said Tuesday they had no plans to open contacts with Hamas. The U.K., Germany and Italy said there would be no change in policy until Hamas renounced violence and recognized Israel’s right to exist.

But a group of six British lawmakers who met with Mashaal last month in Syria said talks with Hamas could be crucial to winning a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

“Anyone who genuinely wants to see peace in the Middle East ought to listen to what he has to say, and engage with him — he is a powerful figure” said Lynne Jones, a lawmaker with Britain’s governing Labour Party who traveled to Syria.

British lawmakers have stepped up pressure on Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government after it opted last month to reach out to the political wing of the militant group Hezbollah.

London cut contact with the group in 2005 and listed its military arm as a terrorist organization. But British officials have begun meetings with Hezbollah lawmakers aimed at encouraging the group to shun violence.

A channel of the pan-Arab Al-Jazeera satellite channel that is reserved for live satellite broadcasts from various countries carried a broadcast that appeared to be the one Mashaal had intended to give British lawmakers. Addressing his comments to British parliamentarians, Mashaal thanked Short and asked for Europe to play a key role in the peace process.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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Italy: Senate Approves Anti-Rape Law

Rome, 22 April (AKI) — The Italian Senate on Wednesday approved a law that introduces tough penalties for rape and makes stalking a crime. A total of 262 senators from the ruling conservative coalition and from opposition parties backed the law, while one senator voted against it and three senators from the libertarian Radical party abstained.

The new law makes murder committed after sexual violence, sexual assault and lewd sexual acts against minors, gang rape and stalking all punishable with life in jail.

Stalking is categorised as a ‘persecutory act’ under the law. It imposes a jailterm of between six and 36 months when the stalking occurred repeatedly and caused the victim anxiety or to fear for their personal safety, or forced them to change their usual habits.

If the stalker’s victim is a child, a pregnant women or is disabled, the penalty is a jailterm of one to six years.

The law also imposes mandatory prison sentences for the crime of reducing individuals to slavery, abducting individuals, prostituting minors, child pornography and paedophile tourism.

Individuals convicted of sexual crimes will also find it harder to get work outside prison or prison leave and be sentenced to community service as an alternative to a jailterm.

Local authorities are also authorised by the law to introduce video-surveillance of public places.

The law gained the backing of senators from the anti-immigrant Northern League party after the government pledged to include several controversial security measures in a separate security bill currently being debated in the lower house of parliament.

These measures include local security patrols in Italian towns and cities by ‘concerned citizens’ and the detention of illegal immigrants in identification centres for up to six months.

Another controversial measure seeks to make illegal immigration a crime, and to oblige doctors and other national health service staff to report to police illegal immigrants who seek medical treatment.

The bill has already been approved by the Senate but ran into difficulty in the lower house of parliament after over 100 MPs from the ruling conservative People of Freedom party opposed the move to oblige health service workers to report illegal immigrants. They claimed it breached basic human rights.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Italy: Naked Ambition: Politics in the Raw

[Video report]

A new work of art is causing a sensation in Italy — not least because it features the Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi as he’s never been painted before. Sky’s Enda Brady explains..

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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Netherlands: Ramadan Fallout Leads to Political Crisis in Rotterdam

The right-wing liberal party VVD has quit the Rotterdam local authority over its refusal to sack theologist Tariq Ramadan as adviser.

Swiss-born Tariq Ramadan (46) was hired by Rotterdam in 2007 to help bridge the divide between the city’s Muslim and non-Muslim communities. He is also a guest lecturer at Rotterdam’s Erasmus university.

Last month, the Gay Krant, a newspaper for the homosexual community, accused Ramadan of making homophobic and mysogynistic statements in taped speeches. The VVD promptly demanded that Ramadan be dismissed as city adviser, but it backed down after consultations with coalition party GroenLinks (the Green party). The local authority meanwhile carried out its own investigation of Ramadan’s past statements and concluded that the Gay Krant’s accusations were baseless.

Now, the VVD has decided to quit the Rotterdam city authority over the Ramadan affair. Its two aldermen, Mark Harbers (economy) and Jeannette Baljeu (transportation) gave their resignations on Wednesday evening. Harbers said Ramandan’s views are at odds with “the freedom of its individual to choose his or her own lifestyle”.

— Hat tip: TB

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Netherlands: AIVD: Extreme Left More Dangerous Than Extreme Right

THE HAGUE, 23/04/09 — The AIVD secret service is concerned about far left and Islamic extremism. Conversely, there is scarcely any threat from the extreme right, according to the AIVD annual report on 2008.

The AIVD warns that radical Muslims often wear a mask. The service “has observed in the past year that the well-known Salafist centres (…) express themselves more moderately in public than in closed circles. Outwardly, they try to create the impression of fostering integration of Muslims into Dutch society, while behind closed doors, polarising statements are made that could have a negative effect on society in the longer term.”

In 2008, it also “emerged that Moroccan Muslim youths are radicalising further,” though this is happening “only on a limited scale,” according to AIVD. This is mainly a matter of youngsters who, in a “radical Islamic youth culture,” see a way “of finding a connection with a group that gives them their own identity in Dutch society and a way of acquiring recognition and a positive self-image.”

In the Turkish community as well, “the number of individuals that (…) radicalise to Jihadism is growing.” But “the resistance within the Turkish community to radical Islamic ideologies in general remains great.” All in all, “no danger exists in the short and medium term of large-scale susceptibility to radical religious ideas” within the Turkish community, partly due to “a number of traditional resistance factors (such as Turkish nationalism)” and because of “a lack of a coherent ideology, inadequate organisational capacity and a shortage of leadership” among Turkish Muslim radicals.

For the Somali, Iraqi and Afghan communities in the Netherlands, the discordant situation in their country of origin is “no primary reason for radicalisation in the Diaspora.” In the Iraqi and Afghan communities, “there is practically no question of a breeding-ground for radicalisation,” and they appear to “avoid mutual controversies and confrontations with Dutch society.” Within the Somali community on the other hand, a greater breeding-ground for radicalisation appears to be present. “Noteworthy is that along with this, their marginalised position in Dutch society is of greater importance than the unstable situation in Somalia.”

The AIVD is also concerned about extreme left activism. The service sees an increase in intimidation by animal rights activists in ‘home visits’ to scientists and staff of companies directly or indirectly involved with animal testing. This trend will continue in 2009. AIVD also sees an increase in violent actions against deportations of illegal migrants, increasingly operating in small cells.

Remarkable is the AIVD’s assessment of the Anti-Fascist and Capitalist Archive Collective (KAFKA). KAFKA is regularly cited by Dutch ‘quality media’ as a research institute into rightwing extremism, but its Antifascist Action (AFA) arm is in reality a movement that uses violence to achieve its goals.

“The picture is often evoked of antifascists defending themselves against aggressive rightwing extremists, while the roles are generally reversed.” Especially at extreme-right Netherlands People’s Union (NVU) demonstrations, AFA organises violent counter-demonstrations. They have these “carried out by third parties, such as local antifascists, riot-loving youths and football hooligans.”

AFA has branches throughout the country and the support of a national secretariat. As well as through violence, AFA tries to combat rightwing extremism “by influencing local authorities”. AFA has contacts with foreign kindred spirits, particularly in Germany.

The extreme right remains a pretty powerless movement. “As in previous years, the extreme right environment in the Netherlands remains characterised by fragmentation and splits” and “there is no question of a trend towards extreme right terrorism”.

— Hat tip: TB

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Netherlands: Iranian Family Gets Residence After Suicide Threat

An Iranian man who climbed onto the bridge over the River Waal in Nijmegen last year in protest at his possible deportation has been granted a residence permit after all. His wife and children have also been given permission to stay in the Netherlands.

The man threatened to throw himself off the bridge unless Deputy Justice Minister Nebahat Albayrak was prepared to talk to him about his rejected asylum application. Eventually the man was persuaded to climb down.

The Immigration and Naturalisation Service has now ruled the family can stay in the Netherlands after an investigation into whether they have really converted to Christianity. In Iran, Muslims who convert to another religion can face the death penalty. The man fled Iran with his wife two years ago.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Netherlands: Study Reveals Primary School Segregation

The Knowledge Centre for Mixed Schools says one third of primary schools do not reflect the ethnic backgrounds of their local communities. The observation is based on a survey of over 2,000 primary schools in nearly 40 municipal districts. The centre will present its report to Deputy Education Minister Sharon Dijksma on Wednesday.

The centre, which promotes desegregation in education and is subsidised by the education ministry, believes that schools should reflect the ethnic and social make-up of their areas. It says research shows that this is not the case in one third of all primary schools. They have mostly either immigrant or Dutch-background pupils, while their local areas are much more diverse.

The centre describes the results of its research as shocking, pointing out that the children are not learning to get along with people from other nationalities and religions. The cities with the worst results according to the survey were Lelystad, Leiden and Almelo.

The study reflects ongoing concerns about the degree of ethnic segregation in Dutch schools, caused by ethnically Dutch parent’s opting to send their children to schools where the pupils have a similar background to their own, even if the school is outside their neighbourhood. This has led to the intake at schools in some neighbourhoods becoming dominated by pupils from ethnic minority backgrounds. Such schools are officially termed “black schools”.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Netherlands: Minister Urges Public to Take Evidence Photos

Dutch Interior Minister Guusje ter Horst is calling on people who witness violence against public employees to take photos of the incident on their mobile phones. She hopes the pictures could serve as prosecution evidence. Research shows that at least 20 percent of the public have witnessed aggression or violence against police officers, ambulance staff or other public servants.

The minister made the appeal during a debate in parliament on the issue on Tuesday. She stressed that public employees, such as social benefits staff, were within their rights to refuse to deal with members of the public who behave aggressively towards them.

Ms ter Horst says it is important that people do something if they witness incidents of violence. She was echoing comments made by Amsterdam police chief Bernard Welten, who said that members of the public could do more to protect officers doing their duty.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Netherlands: Parliament Approves Imam as Army Chaplain

The Dutch parliament has approved the appointment of a controversial imam as a chaplain to the armed forces. A motion calling for his appointment to be cancelled was defeated by 70 votes to 69. Voting in favour of the motion were the Christian Democrats, the conservative VVD, the small rightwing SGP, Geert Wilders’ PVV and Rita Verdonk’s party.

Imam Ali Eddaoudi is regarded as controversial because of his remark about Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende being “less worthy than a doormat” and his claim that Christians are still at war with Islam. Many MPs argued that someone with views like this should not be working for the armed forces. Mr Eddaoudi, who has now distanced himself from his earlier remarks, has in the past also been critical of Muslims.

The position of the Christian Democrats MPs was unusual, since they were opposing the stance taken by their own deputy defence minister Jack de Vries, who has consistently backed the imam. Questioned about his disagreement with his own party, Mr De Vries said that, “after a double check,” he still considered Mr Eddaoudi the right man for the job.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Paris and Rome Mayors in Salute Row

Italy demands immediate apology for Fascism accusation

(ANSA) — Rome, April 23 — Italy on Thursday demanded an immediate apology from Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe after he accused Rome’s right-wing mayor Gianni Alemanno of taking part in a Fascist salute.

The spat between the two mayors, whose cities have been twinned since 1957, broke when socialist Delanoe addressed an audience of young members of Italy’s opposition Democratic Party (PD) in Paris.

“It will be difficult for me to have the same relationship I used to have with (Rome’s former left-wing mayors Francesco) Rutelli and (Walter) Veltroni with a mayor who made his debut… with a Fascist salute,” Delanoe told an audience that included PD leader Dario Franceschini.

Delanoe was apparently referring to an incident last April when extremists hailed Alemanno as ‘Duce’ and gave him the Roman Fascist salute of Benito Mussolini following his election as mayor.

Alemanno, who was quick to distance himself from the extremists at the time, hit back at Delanoe’s remarks, describing them as “false, offensive and intolerable”.

“He offends not only me but also the city of Rome,” said the mayor, who came to power last year in a surprise victory over PD candidate and former mayor Rutelli.

Alemanno called on the Italian ambassador in France to clarify the matter, and said he hoped “the entire Italian political world” would condemn Delanoe’s comments.

GOVT MINISTERS CALL FOR APOLOGY.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini and European Union Affairs Minister Andrea Ronchi responded to Alemanno’s appeal in a joint note calling for an immediate apology.

“The mayor of Rome has never made a Roman salute or other gestures or acts that celebrate Fascism. The mayor of Paris has spoken falsely,” they said.

Alemanno was formerly a leader of the neofascist Italian Social Movement (MSI) youth federation, which later became the more moderate National Alliance and moved into the political mainstream.

The party disbanded in March to merge with Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom Party.

House Speaker and former National Alliance leader Gianfranco Fini, who was responsible for steering the party away from its neofascist roots, described Delanoe’s remarks as an “outrageous mistake deriving either from bad information or, worse still, political exploitation”.

While the Paris mayor’s press office said the twinning of the two capitals would remain in place, Delanoe in January said he was “in no hurry” to organise his first meeting with Rome’s mayor.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Slovenia: Ljubljana Street to be Renamed After Tito

(ANSAmed) — LJUBLJANA, APRIL 21 — Local authorities in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, have decided to rename one of the main streets in the city after Tito, the former leader of communist Yugoslavia who is still popular in Slovenia and other countries of the former Federation. The decision to rename the road was made last night with 24 votes in favour and four against, with the Democratic Party (SDS — centre-right) abstaining out of protest against the ballot. The leader of the SDS, Dimitri Kovacic, emphasised that such a decision ignores the views of many Slovenians who are against the measure and say that it is an affront to the memory of the victims of the communist regime. The mayor of Ljubljana, Zoran Jankovic, has defended the decision saying that in a recent survey, 60% of the capital’s population said they are in favour of the commemoration. “Historical facts can be interpreted in different ways, but that should not stand in the way of naming streets after historically significant people”, he noted. The centre-right opposition has, however, presented the mayor with a list of 5,094 signatures from citizens who say that neither Ljubljana nor Slovenia need a street named after Tito. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Spain: Authorities Investigate Sale of Kidneys Online

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, APRIL 20 — The public prosecutor’s office in Seville has opened an investigation into a man who put one of his kidneys on sale on the Internet for 100,000 euros to verify if the ad is hiding possible organ trafficking, reported legal sources cited today by Europa Press. In the ad, published on an online sales site, the alleged seller identifies himself as a 40-year old man, living in Seville, 1.62 metres tall, 65kg, non-smoker, and also posted his blood type. He announced that he was selling one of his kidneys for 100,000 euros, although he did not specify if he was planning to sell his organ for a transplant. Although the ad does not constitute a crime, legal authorities have opened an investigation to verify if organ trafficking could somehow be linked to the ad. For new Health Minister, Trinidad Jimenez, this is an “isolated case” of a practice that is “absolutely prohibited” in Spain, which he confirmed in statements to a national radio station. But there are many Internet sites in various Spanish cities, which, according to Spanish daily, Publico, announce kidneys for sale, due mostly to people who need to collect money to pay mortgages. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Spain Approves Embryo Selection to Avoid Cancer

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, APRIL 22 — The National Commission for Assisted Reproduction has, for the first time in Spain, approved genetic selection in embryos to avoid cancer. Specifically, sources in the Healthcare Ministry told Ansamed that the genetic selection for embryos that do not have genes that are linked to two types of cancer (breast and thyroid) has been authorised. Until now, this technique was only authorised for hereditary illnesses with a 100% certainty of developing, or in the recent case of little Javier, a child born after a genetic selection to cure his 7-year old brother Andres, who had thalassemia major, with a bone marrow transplant. Now genetic selection is being extended to diseases like cancer, which may or may not be inherited. The only previous cases until now, have taken place in the United Kingdom. Embryonic selection was authorised for a Catalonian couple so they could have a child without the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which can lead to a very aggressive form of breast cancer, which affects 16,000 in Spain every year, with 10% of the cases being inherited, and 90% occurring by chance. The decision of the commission also regards a couple that wants to prevent their child from developing genetically-induced thyroid cancer. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Spanish Princess and Family Moving to Washington

MADRID — Spain’s Royal Palace says Princess Cristina and her family are moving to Washington, D.C., because her husband has accepted a job there with telecommunications company Telefonica.

The 43-year-old princess is the second of King Juan Carlos’ and Queen Sofia’s three children.

Telefonica said Thursday that her husband 41-year-old Inaki Urdangarin has been a board member at its Telefonica Internacional unit since 2006 and accepted a job with the company in Washington.

The couple have three sons and a daughter ranging in age from 3 to 9 and live in Barcelona.

Telefonica says they are expected to move to Washington this summer and stay for at least two years.

Princess Cristina is third in line to the throne after her younger brother Crown Prince Felipe and elder sister Princess Elena.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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Sweden: Protesters Arrested at Malmö Anti-Iran Demo

Several people were arrested by police at a demonstration against the Iranian regime held in Malmö on Thursday morning.

A group of demonstrators began to gather outside Katrinelunds Folkets Hus in Malmö at around 8am this morning and around 20 police officers were deployed to monitor the situation.

The protest was directed against the Iranian regime and against embassy staff visiting the city to give “consular assistance” to an Iranian citizen.

The demonstrators argued however that the embassy staff were in Malmö to spy on Iranian refugees and their families in Sweden and to develop an “Iranian spy network” in the country.

The demonstrators called on Sweden to take a tougher official stance on Iran and the alleged activities of the embassy staff.

When the embassy personnel arrived at the address chaos broke out, according to news agency TT. Several demonstrators attempted to prevent the staff from entering the building.

When several of the demonstrators broke through the police cordon they were arrested.

The visit from the Iranian embassy is planned to continue into Friday. A similar visit in Gothenburg last month was met with similar, although somewhat calmer, demonstrations.

— Hat tip: CB

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Sweden: Prison for Prosecutor Bomb Attack

Two men suspected of planting a bomb which exploded on the front steps of prosecutor Barbro Jönsson’s home were found guilty on Wednesday and each sentenced to three and a half years in prison.

The two men from Malmö, Arabzadeh Mohammad Abadi, 25, and Moayed Abedi, 24, were convicted of devastation endangering the public as well as threatening a public servant.

The two men were also ordered to pay 158,000 kronor ($18,800) in damages and interest to Jönsson, who has since moved and transferred to a new job that also involves prosecuting gang crime.

Prosecutor Urban Svenkvist argued that the two placed the bomb on orders from the Brödraskapet Wolfpack (‘Wolfpack Brotherhood’) criminal gang.

Jönsson had been involved in several cases tied to the gang prior to the bombing.

When the bomb ripped apart her front door if her home in Trollhättan in western Sweden in November 2007, she was set to charge six men, all of whom had ties to Brödraskapet Wolfpack.

On her way to work at the time of the blast, Jönsson was not injured in the attack.

The charges were being filed in connection with a shooting at the apartment of a witness who had dared to testify against the gang.

The primary suspect in the witness shooting was eventually sentenced to five and a half years in prison.

The bombing of Jönsson’s home received a great deal of media attention in Sweden, where it is seen as an attack against democratic values and a sign of the rise in organized crime in the country.

The prosecutor in the case withdrew the charge of attemped murder after it was proven that Ahad and Ashkan had ensured that Jönsson had left her home before they set off the bomb.

He had called for eight years in prison for the accused.

Defence lawyers for the two men said they planned to appeal the verdict.

Gang crimes are on the rise in southern Sweden and neighbouring Denmark.

According to media, there are around 1,000 active gang members in Sweden.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Swedish Terror Suspect Worked for Al-Qaeda: Prosecutors

As the trial of a Swedish citizen facing terror charges began in New York on Tuesday, prosecutors argued that the man planned to set up an Al-Qaeda terrorist training camp in the United States.

Ousama Kassir was extradited to the United States in September 2007 from Prague, where he was jailed after his arrest in 2005 during a stopover while flying from Sweden to Lebanon.

“This case concerns a global conspiracy that takes place down here in the United States,” assistant US attorney Michael Farbiarz told judge John Keenan in the US district court in Manhattan.

Kassir, 43, is charged with conspiring with others to set up a “jihad” (holy war) camp in Oregon, in the northwest United States, that would offer military weapons training for Muslims interested in fighting in Afghanistan.

Kassir declared his innocence when he was charged last year, and his lawyer on Tuesday said his client had “a big mouth,” but was not a criminal.

Kassir arrived in the United States in 1999 and spent a year at an Oregon ranch, imparting religious teachings at a Seattle mosque before returning to Europe, according to the prosecution.

“You are going to see a knife that he used for training at the ranch,” Farbiarz told the jury as Kassir, in a red tunic, listened through an interpreter.

“You will see the bomb making manuals and the poison making manuals,” he added.

Farbiarz said next week he would call James Ujaama, a former activist from Seattle who has admitted supporting the Al-Qaeda network and is now a witness for the prosecution.

Kassir allegedly admitted before witnesses he supported Al-Qaeda and its boss Osama bin Laden.

The US government also accused Kassir of being a follower of Egyptian Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, currently jailed in Britain for inciting to violence.

“He did it for Abu Hamza, he did it for Al-Qaeda, he did it for Jihad,” Farbiarz said.

Defense lawyer Mark DeMarco denied the charges, and said his client was not a terrorist.

“He is certainly not a terrorist, he is certainly not a member of Al-Qaeda,” said DeMarco.

He asked the jury for “a fair trial.”

The trial is expected to last at least four weeks. Kassir could face life in prison if found guilty.

Kassir was born in Lebanon and has Swedish citizenship.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Switzerland: Puzzle Over Sick Woman Abandoned in Bushes

A seriously ill woman is being cared for after being found abandoned in bushes outside a hospital in northeastern Switzerland. The identity of the woman is unknown and police have launched an appeal for information.

Münsterlingen hospital said the woman, who is aged between 40 and 55, is believed to have been left in its car park on Monday night.

The hospital’s personnel manager discovered the woman rolled up inside a blanket, with a bag of women’s clothes beside her.

It is believed she could be suffering from cancer or a chronic infection and would have been incapable of making it to the hospital on her own.

The emaciated woman has been too weak to communicate with the authorities and her identity and nationality are not known.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Switzerland: Anti-Racism Meeting a “Foreseeable Disgrace”

The Swiss press has condemned anti-Israel comments by Iran’s president at a meeting in Geneva, while showing little patience with Switzerland’s position. On Monday, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blasted Israel as “a totally racist” regime on the opening day of the contentious United Nations racism summit in Geneva, prompting a walkout. The Swiss representative stayed seated.

The incident brought the Geneva conference closer to repeating the controversy of the UN’s first anti-racism meeting in Durban, South Africa, eight years ago.

Several European states, as well as Canada, Israel and New Zealand, had pulled out of the conference before it began.

“The anti-Semitic speech of Iranian President Ahmadinejad is an open appeal to racial hatred, a mockery of the values as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, wrote Jürg Müller in the Bern paper, Der Bund.

“He is the most prominent representative of dictatorships and authoritarian regimes… The Geneva conference will provide representatives of those countries with a platform to fight for rights that they themselves oppress.”

The Blick tabloid, Switzerland’s largest circulation daily, lambasted what it called “the foreseeable disgrace of Geneva”.

“Picture of hatred” was its caption to a picture of Ahmadinejad. “The agitator of Tehran rages against Israel. The anti-racism conference was over before it started.”

Ahmadinejad’s speech had sparked protests from pro-Israeli students in the audience, who donned coloured wigs and red noses, prompting diplomats from several European governments to walk out. Switzerland’s representative, Dante Martinelli, stayed.

“Martinelli could have actually stood up,” the Blick wrote. “Or should have.”

The Berner Zeitung ran a headline reading “Hate speech: Swiss delegates stay in the hall”.

“He did not move” La Tribune de Genève also had critical words for the Swiss ambassador over his decision to hear out Ahmadinejad’s address.

“Last night, the disillusionment was clear on diplomats’ faces,” commented the newspaper.

“What can be retained from the day is the blow by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the powerlessness of the European Union in finding a common position on human rights and Switzerland’s indecision.”

Other newspapers found the entire affair regrettable, including the days leading up to the conference.

“Again, official Switzerland stands in the rain,” wrote the Neue Zürcher Zeitung in reference to a meeting on Sunday evening between Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz and Ahmadinejad.

“The unabated unspeakable comments by the Iranian president at the conference seem to have proven its critics right,” it added, but said the Swiss government had “quite a few good arguments” for hosting the conference. It said it was better for “sinners” to be represented in Geneva, so that they could be addressed.

“No choirboy” Berner Zeitung commentator Stefan Geissbühler argued, albeit with a lengthy caveat, that the meeting was justified.

“Of course Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is no choirboy. Of course it is absolutely unacceptable that he denies the Holocaust and Israel’s right to exist,” he wrote.

Switzerland has been representing Washington’s interests in Tehran since 1980 and plays a diplomatic role, Geissbühler reminded readers. “Only with dialogue can hardened conflicts like the one between Iran and the US be solved. This also applies for the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.”

The French-language daily, Le Temps, agreed that despite the conference’s rough start, channels of dialogue needed to remain open.

“By pulling out, these various western states have mistaken the mission of multilateral organisations. As imperfect as they are, the UN remains a necessary multilateral fortress for dialogue. That was the place to respond to Ahmadinejad,” ran its editorial.

But commentator Luciano Ferrari in the Tages-Anzeiger wrote that the invitation granted for Ahmadinejad to speak was a mistake. His headline read: “Naïve and preposterous”.

“Will be remembered” “Two scenes from the Geneva UN conference against racism will be remembered,” Ferrari wrote. “The welcome of the Iranian president by the frivolous friendly smiling Swiss president, Hans-Rudolf Merz, and on the other hand, the appearance of Tehran at the UN lectern not 24 hours later, in which he unleashed hate speech against Israel and Zionism.”

“Swiss diplomacy has learned nothing from the last disgrace,” Ferrari wrote, referring to the last high profile encounter between the two countries. In 2008, Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey donned a headscarf for a meeting with Ahmadinejad in Tehran.

The Fribourg-based La Liberté was not ready to write off the conference just yet. It asked: “How will the rest of the Geneva conference evolve?”

“Western countries have succeeded in erasing all references to Israel from the final declaration. Last Friday, some of them were even saying that Iran had lost the battle. After Monday, nothing is certain anymore.”

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Terrorism: Islamists Threaten Terror Attacks in Germany

Berlin, 22 April (AKI) — The Al-Qaeda linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan on Wednesday released a video threatening the “criminal” German government and citizens of the Jewish faith, according to German media.

In the video, the third released this year, shows a man identified as “Commander Mohammad”, who criticises the presence of German troops in Afghanistan.

The man accuses “the sons of Germany of being in the service of the Jews” unlike “Granddad Hitler”.

Investigators believe the video’s release may be linked to a major Islamist terrorism trial which opened on Wednesday at a high-security court in the northwestern German city of Duesseldorf .

In the trial, three Germans and one Turkish national are accused of planning a series of simultaneous bomb attacks against discos and pubs and the United States airbase in Ramstein and against Germany’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office.

Two of the German suspects are converts to Islam while the third is a German citizen of Turkish descent. They face charges of belonging to a terrorist organisation, plotting murder, and conspiracy to conduct a bomb attack.

The trial is expected to last one to two years. If the defendants are found guilty, they could face prison terms of up to 15 years.

Prosecutors claimed the men were planning to use about 10 times as much explosives as were used in the deadly July 2005 attacks on London transport that killed 56 people and injured thousands.

The plot was at an advanced stage and the attacks could have killed over 50 people, according to police.

Around 300 German federal agents were involved in monitoring the cell for several months, before police swooped in on the group in what was one of Germany’s biggest anti-terror operations to date.

Three of the defendants were arrested in the Germany’s western Sauerland region and the fourth was arrested in Turkey and extradited to Germany in November last year.

Prosecutors say the four men belong to a little-known group called the Islamic Jihad Union with roots in Uzbekistan and ties to Al-Qaeda.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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UK: BNP Leader Defends Policy on Race

British National Party (BNP) chairman Nick Griffin has defended a party leaflet which says that black Britons and Asian Britons “do not exist”.

The BNP’s “Language and Concepts Discipline Manual” says the term used should be “racial foreigners”.

In a BBC interview, Mr Griffin said to call such people British was a sort of “bloodless genocide” because it denied indigenous people their own identity.

Mr Griffin is standing in the European Parliament elections in June.

‘Politically correct fiction’

The BNP manual, leaked to the anti-fascist group Searchlight and seen by the BBC, says that “BNP activists and writers should never refer to ‘black Britons’ or ‘Asian Britons’ etc, for the simple reason that such persons do not exist”.

“These people are ‘black residents’ of the UK etc, and are no more British than an Englishman living in Hong Kong is Chinese.

“Collectively, foreign residents of other races should be referred to as ‘racial foreigners’, a non-pejorative term… The key in such matters is above all to maintain necessary distinctions while avoiding provocation and insult.”

The manual describes the BNP’s “ultimate aim” as the “lawful, humane and voluntary repatriation of the resident foreigners of the UK”.

Commenting on the leaflet’s content, Mr Griffin told The Report on Radio 4 that although “in civic terms they are British, British also has a meaning as an ethnic description”.

“We don’t subscribe to the politically correct fiction that just because they happen to be born in Britain, a Pakistani is a Briton. They’re not; they remain of Pakistani stock.

“You can’t say that especially large numbers of people can come from the rest of the world and assume an English identity without denying the English their own identity, and I would say that’s wrong,” he added.

“In a very subtle way, it’s a sort of bloodless genocide.”

‘Delighted’

Mr Griffin was also candid about the significance the BNP places on the slogan “British jobs for British workers”.

The Prime Minister Gordon Brown famously used the phrase in a speech about skills training.

Mr Griffin claimed the prime minister borrowed the rhetoric from his party.

“When I heard Gordon Brown use our slogan — British jobs for British workers — I was delighted,” he said.

“What Mr Brown actually meant when he said British jobs for British workers is of course down to Mr Brown.

“But there’s no doubt that it was perceived — and was intended to be perceived — by millions of ordinary Brits as meaning that they would be at the front of the queue in front of economic migrants from anywhere else in the world.”

“So having raised our slogan, promised it, we feel that he’s legitimised our message.”

‘Pernicious’

Hazel Blears, secretary of state for Communities and Local Government, said she rejected Mr Griffin’s charge that the prime minister’s use of the phrase represents an endorsement of BNP policy.

“I certainly regret the fact that the BNP could be using language we’ve used in order to legitimise what I regard as divisive, pernicious policies which will actually do working class people no good at all,” she said.

“What I don’t regret is the fact that we need to have a proper discussion in this country about making sure that British people have a chance to get the skills, the education, to be able to get the jobs of the future.”

The “British jobs for British workers” slogan was widely repeated during the BNP’s recent council by-election campaign in Moston in Manchester, where the party’s candidate, local publican Derek Adams, came second.

Moston is in the North West region, where the BNP hopes its supporters will elect Mr Griffin as the party’s first MEP in the European Parliamentary elections on 4 June. Nominations close on 7 May.

Under the proportional representation system used in European elections, the BNP would need around 9% of the vote; in the last elections the party won 6.4%.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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UK: It’s Cat Stevens at the Mike But It’s Islam Holding Court

Yusuf Islam jokingly complains that the building he grew up in, on Shaftesbury Avenue in Soho, has not yet been awarded a distinctive blue plaque by English Heritage — unlike the former homes of hundreds of other British luminaries.

“I think they’re trying to decide what name it should go under. They’re waiting for me to change it again,” he says. It’s a fair point: should a plaque celebrate the life of Yusuf Islam? Or Cat Stevens? Should it also include Steven Demetre Georgiou, as this singer and songwriter was named at birth?

Fortunately for Islam, the plaques are commemorative; the figure in question must have been dead 20 years. But his music did die — for 28 years until the release of An Other Cup in 2006. That was his first album as Yusuf Islam, the name he assumed in 1977 when he converted to Islam and turned his back on his music career — auctioning off his guitars and mostly devoting himself to Islamic philanthropy. But An Other Cup was not a one-off: next month, Islam will release Roadsinger (To Warm You Through The Night). In this the acoustic guitar plays a much greater role and while many of the lyrics belie the sensitivities of a religious man wary of public judgment, Cat Stevens is definitely sharing the microphone.

Islam is holding sway in the “Red Room” in his offices in West London. A quilted canopy is strung from the ceiling and the walls are painted cherry red in a nod to the room in the flat in Soho, where he wrote many of his biggest hits — Father And Son, Wild World and Lady D’Arbanville among them. Islam carries his 61 years well — 30 years of clean living compare him favourably with haggard contemporaries such as Ronnie Wood.

Islam is a living dichotomy: the beard is long and grey and the suit is comfy-looking brown corduroy but the hairstyle, with a Liam Gallagher-esque short fringe, is too funky not to hail from an expensive salon. He is deeply religious, talking humbly of the power of God, but there are traces of the ego that comes with selling 60 million records.

While he looks like a spiritual teacher, he is still an old hippie who mangles his metaphors and has a tendency to waffle — much better as singer than orator.

Islam’s 23-year-old son, Mohammed, triggered his return to music. He had had no urge to play until he picked up a guitar brought home by Islam junior, an aspiring musician.

“He’s been a great source of inspiration and support,” Islam says. “It was his great creative idea [behind] the [track] listing. I couldn’t put the songs together; I was driving myself mad. He’s amazing, he really advises me.”

Islam was so encouraged by the response to An Other Cup that he decided to do another album. “It was really fantastic to return to doing what I do best: communication and writing and speaking from my heart, rather than having people interpret or misread or dilute what I’m saying. I can go straight through the record to reach people, which is what I wanted to do.”

How his words are interpreted is a sore point, evident in the lyrics of at least two songs on Roadsong. He has twice successfully sued for libel — once last year for an accusation that he did not speak to unveiled women, and once relating to claims that he supported terrorism. There was the storm in 1989 that followed his alleged support for the fatwa against Salman Rushdie. He has since alternated between admitting that he made comments in “bad taste” relating to putting Rushdie to death, and claiming innocence in the affair. But the ultimate indignity, which at least “gives me something to write about”, was his highly publicised deportation from the US in 2004. He says he was never given a reason.

The album’s title track, Roadsong, brings together the best of Islam’s whimsical lyricism, with rich acoustic guitar and orchestral layers. It speaks of isolation. In Everytime I Dream, the music is soulful and bluesy, with a thwanging double bass, and the theme of truth-seeking creeps in; he depicts himself as “running from a wild pack of lies”. Islam’s attempt at worldly depth falls flat, however, in one of his self-described favourites, All Kinds Of Roses. It starts: “All kinds of roses grown in my garden/All kinds of creatures run on my land/All kinds of children run in my yard” and continues thus without let-up. It is a grating and surprisingly amateur-sounding anomaly from this master.

Three of the tracks came out of the development for Islam’s other upcoming project: a musical of his work, titled Moonshadow. Though the gentle, earnest voice is still there — perhaps a semitone lower with age — they tackle dark issues. The Rain, which Islam wrote in 1968 but never recorded, is based on Noah and the great flood. Was he thinking of modern events when he decided to include it? “The flood can be the overwhelming material view of existence which you’ve got to drown. You’ve got to survive this and the only way is through a divine vehicle.”

He is a little nervous about performing again, but hopes to tour internationally. “It’s my dream to go back to Australia and to New Zealand [where] I’ve never visited. I want that to happen.”

So Islam is back, talking of his great loves: a benevolent God, family and, most importantly, his music. If he sticks to these messages, a blue plaque may be just one of many positive legacies.

Yusuf Islam’s album Roadsinger will be released on May 8 by Universal.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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UK: No 10’s Venezuelan ‘Workie’ Could Write Next Budget

Start tightening your belts. The woman Gordon Brown has lined up to write the next Budget is not at all happy about projected public sector borrowing.

Daniela Oliveros, a 23-year-old from Venezuela, was one of a number of young people called to question the Prime Minister about his £1.2 billion youth jobs package when he kicked off his post-Budget roadshow at the Prince’s Trust London offices this morning.

Still holding the microphone after Mr Brown’s reply, Ms Oliveros decided to sneak in an extra question. She explained to the Prime Minister that she had a real interest in British politics and needed to arrange a two-week work placement. “I was wondering if your office would be willing to offer me the opportunity?”

“How can I refuse!” replied Mr Brown. “Let’s sort it out.”

After a series of earnest questions to the Prime Minister and James Purnell, the Work and Pensions Secretary, the cheekiness of the request prompted a round of laughter. As Ms Oliveros sat down in her front-row seat, Mr Brown leant towards her and added: “I look forward to that. You can write the next Budget.”

After the meeting, Ms Oliveros told The Times that she came to Britain four years ago to learn English and stayed after getting married to a UK citizen. This month she started a 12-week personal development course in Newham, East London, run for the Prince’s Trust, a charity which tries to develop young people’s confidence.

Without it, she admitted, she might never have had the confidence in her heavily-accented English to ask the Prime Minister for a job. “I would have let the opportunity pass,” she said.

Ms Oliveros said the Prime Minister approached her after this morning’s Q&A and promised to set her placement up, although she has been warned that she might not be able to work at No 10.

But Mr Brown might want to reconsider his offer to let her write the next Budget speech after the Chancellor’s announcement yesterday that public sector borrowing would balloon to £175 billion in the current financial year and national debt hit £1.4 trillion over the next five years — as long as growth forecasts are realised.

Ms Oliveros said she did not see how Mr Brown was going to be able to restore confidence in the economy and was worried that the levels of government borrowing over the next few years would leave Britain facing the kind of problems Japan faced during its “Lost Decade” in the 1990s.

“If you keep borrowing, you’re giving the wrong example to people. You’ve got to come out with alternatives. Some people might have to suffer but it will actually benefit our future grandchildren,” she said.

“I’m very worried about the national debt. I’m worried that the Government is being over-optimistic when we really are in trouble.”

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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4 Serbs Found Guilty of Kosovo Massacre

By DUSAN STOJANOVIC, Associated Press Writer Dusan Stojanovic, Associated Press Writer — Thu Apr 23, 12:10 pm ET

BELGRADE, Serbia — A war crimes court on Thursday found four Serbian former policemen guilty of the massacre of 48 Kosovo Albanians and sentenced them to up to 20 years in prison.

The Serbian court’s judges said the victims of the worst single massacre of civilians during the 1998-99 Kosovo war included 14 children, two infants, a pregnant woman and a 100-year-old woman.

After a three-year trial, two of the men were sentenced to a maximum of 20 years in jail, one to 15 years and another to 13 years. All the defendants had denied the charges. Three other men also charged with the killings were found not guilty.

In Serbia, the very fact that the trial was held marked a shift in public policy, as Serbs who fought separatist ethnic Albanians in Kosovo are still revered by many here as war heroes.

The Serb war crimes prosecutors, however, said they would appeal the verdicts, especially because the prime suspect — the commander of the special police unit that carried out the massacre — was acquitted Thursday.

“We cannot be satisfied with the verdict,” said Bruno Vekaric, the spokesman for the prosecution. “Justice has not been carried out.”

The verdict said the defendants rounded up members of one Kosovo Albanian family in their village of Suva Reka in March 1999, killing several men with machine-gun fire before forcing the rest into a pizza restaurant and throwing hand-grenades at them.

Those showing any signs of life were shot in the head and the bodies were transported to a mass grave in Kosovo, where they were initially dumped. One woman lived to tell the story as she played dead before jumping from a truck packed with corpses.

The victims were later reburied in mass graves near a high security police facility outside Belgrade, the Serbian capital, as former President Slobodan Milosevic apparently tried to hide atrocities committed by his troops in Kosovo. Autopsies showed the victims were executed.

Pressure from human rights groups prompted Belgrade to launch an investigation to determine who was to blame for the Suva Reka massacre. More than 100 witnesses, including Kosovo Albanians, were questioned during the trial.

War crimes trials became possible in Serbia after Milosevic was ousted in 2000. The ex-president died in 2006 while on trial for genocide at a U.N. war crimes court in The Hague, Netherlands.

Kosovo declared independence last year, something Serbia refuses to recognize.

Kosovo’s government welcomed the verdict, but urged Serbia’s authorities to pursue justice in other cases of crimes committed against ethnic Albanians during the Kosovo war.

“We welcome every court and justice decision that will shed light to the atrocities committed in Kosovo during the war,” said Memli Krasniqi, spokesman for Kosovo’s government. “Nevertheless, we feel that this should not cease with one case. We believe that justice need to be done in more than a dozen other cases that remain.”

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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Amnesty: NATO Bombing of Serbian TV ‘War Crime’

BELGRADE, Serbia — An international human rights group demanded Thursday that NATO be held accountable for civilian casualties in the bombing of Serbia’s state television headquarters a decade ago, calling the attack a “war crime.”

Sixteen civilians were killed and 16 others injured during the attack on April 23, 1999, on the headquarters and studios of Radio Television Serbia in central Belgrade.

Amnesty International called on NATO and its member states to ensure independent investigations, full accountability and redress for victims and their families.

A NATO official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with standing regulations, said the U.N.’s International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia had already assessed those allegations and found the alliance had no case to answer.

“The ICTY has looked into this. They did not accept Amnesty’s arguments at the time,” the official said. “The accusations have been dealt with.”

At the time of the bombing, NATO officials said the TV headquarters was a legitimate target because of the station’s relentless war propaganda that contributed to the ethnically-inspired bloodshed in the Balkans.

The bombing was a part of a 78-day air-raid campaign against then-President Slobodan Milosevic to halt his onslaught against Kosovo Albanian separatists in the former Serbian province.

“The bombing of the headquarters of Serbian state radio and television was a deliberate attack on a civilian object and as such constitutes a war crime,” Sian Jones, Amnesty International’s Balkans expert, said in a statement.

“Even if NATO genuinely believed RTS was a legitimate target, the attack was disproportionate and hence a war crime,” Jones said.

The families of the victims gathered in front of the bombed TV headquarters early Thursday to demand why there was no advance warning that the attack would occur.

They believe top Serbian TV officials deliberately sacrificed their staff for propaganda purposes, even though they knew the building would be attacked.

Amnesty International said in the statement that NATO officials confirmed that no specific warning of the attack was given, even though they knew many civilians would be in the RTS building.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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New Appointment in Euromediterranean Assembly

(ANSAmed) — ANCONA, APRIL 22 — President of the Marches Region, Gian Mario Spacca, was appointed a member of ARLEM, the Euro-Mediterranean Regional and Local Assembly, last night during a meeting of the EU Regional Committee. The appointment will be made official tomorrow during an ambassador’s meeting of the Union for the Mediterranean. Spacca’s appointment follows that of Marialuisa Coppola, councilwoman for international relations and cooperation for development of the Veneto, chosen last week as a member of the group that will hold its inaugural session on May 14 at the EU Regional Committee headquarters in Brussels. With the addition of ARLEM, explained a statement from the Marches, a particularly large macro-region, which goes from Morocco to Turkey, passing through the Balkans and the UE countries has been created. “This is another tangible step in the direction of the Mediterranean, which we have requested for some time,” said Spacca, “a changing awareness of European policy that cannot have its centre of gravity in the Baltic, considering the current composition of the EU.” The president underlined the interest that the Marches has always demonstrated regarding these issues, especially the development of relations between the two coasts facing the Adriatic Sea. The secretary of the Adriatic-Ionic initiative, not by chance, is located in the Marches in Ancona. “A role,” he added, “that is destined to become a priority since starting in June the presidency of the Adriatic-Ionic initiative will be handed over from Greece to Italy.” Created on the request of the Regional Committee as a permanent platform for dialogue, exchange, and cooperation, ARLEM, the official agency of the Union for the Mediterranean, was strongly desired by Nicholas Sarkozy during the French presidency of the EU. In July of 2008 in Paris, the heads of state and government set the objective of re-founding the Barcelona Process, aiming at roles for regional and local groups, and not only on a purely intergovernmental model of cooperation. The countries are now committed to identifying concrete cooperation projects in the Mediterranean on diverse issues, to build a shared space for peace, stability, prosperity, and human rights. Therefore, regional projects can embrace all fields, from the economy to culture. ARELM consists of 30 members of the Regional Committee, from the 17 partner countries of the Mediterranean: Egypt, Turkey, Algeria, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, the PNA, Monaco, and Montenegro. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Universities: Croatia, Students Demand Free Education

(ANSAmed) — ZAGREB, APRIL 22 — For the third day in a row, around a thousand students are occupying the Literature and Philosophy faculty buildings at the university in Zagreb. The students are demanding that university education in the country be completely free of charge. The occupation of the faculties, carried out by a group of students calling themselves the ‘Initiative for the Right to Free Education’, has become a subject of great interest to the public, since it is the first example of student activism ever in the country. Unions, many lecturers and student associations have backed the peaceful protest. Another occupation was organised yesterday in Zara, Dalmatia. In Croatia around half of the c. 150,000 students pay university fees which range between 500 and 1200 euros. A request for the abolition of the fees has been forwarded to the Education Ministry, which has so far not made a comment on the issue. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Energy: French PM in Tunis to Discuss Nuclear Power

(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, APRIL 23 — “France is helping Tunisia to build an electro-nuclear power plant,” which should be active by between 2020 and 2025, said French ambassador to Tunisia, Serge De Gallaix, during a press conference called to mark the visit from the French Prime Minister, François Fillon, which began today and will come to an end tomorrow. The diplomat announced that a 40-million-euro credit line would be made available to Tunisia’s small and medium-sized businesses, as part of an economic and financial partnership between the two countries. De Gallaix went on to remark that, despite the financial crisis, trade between Tunisia and France was continually growing (+2%). In 2008, trade between the two countries was worth 7.2 billion euros. (ANSAMed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Med Union: Ambassadors in Brussels to Try Relaunch

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, APRIL 23 — There has been an attempt to relaunch the Mediterranean Union (UPM) in Brussels, whose work was blocked by the outbreak of the war in Gaza. Today was the first informal meeting by ambassadors from the 43 member states, invited by the EU High representative for foreign policy and security, Javier Solana. “We are concerned about this stall situation” he said today at the opening meeting. Solana believes that the Euro-Mediterranean partnership is an essential policy for the Middle East and the European Union’s foreign policy. Today’s meeting represents ‘ a positive sign” for Benita Ferrero Waldner, EU Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy, and is an opportunity for the ambassadors to speak one-to-one ‘frankly” . “I always said that we could not avoid the impact of political crises, but we created this Union because we wanted to get beyond the difficulties with concrete projects which all the countries can benefit from”.(ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Tomorrow Meeting in Brussels

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, APRIL 22 — An informal meeting between the ambassadors of the Mediterranean Union (UPM) has been scheduled tomorrow in Brussels in an attempt to reanimate a process which essentially stopped the moment the war in Gaza broke out. According to sources in Brussels, the initiative was taken by Javier Solana, European Union High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy. Tomorrow’s informal meeting will be the first of UPM diplomats after the work was stopped. Since January it had been unsuccessfully attempted to establish a date for a formal meeting of the representatives of the 43 member States. If tomorrow’s meeting turns out to be a success, a first official meeting could be scheduled in May, so the Euro-Mediterranean partnership can start taking some of its concrete projects off ice. Without secretariat and funds, the UPM found itself in a position of stalemate due to the refusal of the Arab countries to sit around the table with Israel after the war.(ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Transport: UN, Mediterranean Development Model Worrying

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, APRIL 17 — Transport in the Mediterranean area remains a worrying question, linked to the type of development involved. The alarm was raised by Philippe Vallouis, head of transport division at the United Nations Environment and Development in the Mediterranean research centre, the Blue Plan, in an article in the organisation’s monthly report. According to Vallouis, the rise in traffic levels is due to strong growth in individual motorization, often unregulated growth in urban centres and the lack of competent authorities in various countries “rules out any hope of progress in terms of cargo and passenger transport, in particular where fuel subsidies continue or where people are encouraged to buy cars”. Vallouis maintains that another factor to consider is the high cost of public services that block initiatives in countries on the southern shores of the Mediterranean. According to data from the Blue Plan, between 1990 and 2007 air transport increased 70% in the countries on the northern shore of the Mediterranean and 103% in those on the southern and eastern shores. Road transport still dominates and railway travel is decreasing. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Durban 2: Libya; Ex-Colonialists Should Apologise Like Italy

(ANSAmed) — TRIPOLI, APRIL 22 — Libya’s representative in Geneva for the UN conference on racism and xenophobia has urged former colonial powers to “do as the Italians did, follow Silvio Berlusconi and apologise for your colonial past and the racist marks that it has left”, reports Jana. “The courage shown by the Italian people and their government represented by the Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, is an example to follow”, said the general secretary of the Libyan people for European affairs and cooperation. “We would like to request that the final declaration of this conference include a paragraph on this important recognition of guilt”. Libya then underlined the necessity that the Durban 2 Final Declaration contain a paragraph on slavery and the slave trade between the two sides of the Atlantic, as well as sufficient compensation for what he called a “human tragedy”. Furthermore, he asked for the condemnation of religious defamation and the role of some of the media in propagating racist and xenophobic practices. Above all, however, Tripoli asked that the document contain a clear passage on the “condemnation of Israeli practices in occupied Palestine and particularly in the Gaza Strip”. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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ICT: Tunisia-India, Cooperation Agreement Signed

(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, APRIL 20 — A cooperation agreement has been signed in Tunis by the Tunisian technology centre in El Ghazala and Indian technology society STPI (Software Technology Park of India). The agreement aims to strengthen bilateral cooperation in the information and communications technology sector (ICT) with the adoption of a common programme as well as a training programme. A training cycle in the field of computer and network security will be organised in Tunisia. Technical and developmental meetings have also been scheduled between Tunisian and Indian businesses in order to share experience. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Morocco’s “Mourchidates” and Contradictions

Souad Eddouada

Within the new context of the Family Code reform and the State’s position on the compatibility between the universal truth of women’s rights and Islam, women have been given a symbolic role in the religious sphere so as to promote Islamic arguments for gender equality. In the aftermath of the Casablanca terrorist attacks and under the supervision of the King, the Ministry of Islamic affairs embarked upon a widespread project for reforming the religious field, in which women were involved in the State’s attempt to lay foundations and revive a “Moroccan Islam.” However, this new responsibility in no case establishes that access for men and women to holy places, such as mosques, should take place on a totally equal basis.

To react to the rise of radical Islam, the King of Morocco proposes to support women’s greater involvement within the religious sphere. “We wish to see women who are experts in the religious studies participate in these Councils (of ulemas or theologians), because we hope to achieve greater equality for them as well as equality between men and women.” In 2003 King Mohammed VI invited Rajae Najji Mekaoui, a university law professor at Mohammed V University in Rabat, to be the first woman to give a lecture in Dorous Hassania (a series of lectures) at the Royal Palace mosque. The Hassania lectures are a series of lectures presided over by the King every Ramadan, and attended by the highest civil and military officials and religious authorities from all over the Muslim world. Since then, other women have been giving lectures in the same series.

Within the new context of the Family Code reform and the State position on the compatibility between universal truths of women’s right and Islam, women are given a symbolic role to play (1) in religious affairs to promote Islamic arguments for gender equality. In his role of the Amir al moumimine (Commander of the Faithful) the king is involving female religious scholars and directing their interest to women’s issues. In the aftermath of the Casablanca terrorist attacks, under the supervision of the King, the Ministry of Islamic Affairs embarked upon a widespread project for the reform of the religious sphere, in which women were involved in the State’s attempt to lay the foundations for and the revival a “Moroccan Islam.”

After the terrorist attacks, Morocco implemented a religious reorganisation programme. According to observers this reorganisation is a reaction to the rise of “radical” Islam promoted in particular by Middle Eastern satellite channels as well as those broadcasting from the Gulf area, which promote a form of Islam considered to be extremist. This propaganda appears to have been one of the main causes of the development of religious fundamentalism. The Kingdom of Morocco believes that its own religious integrity, guaranteed by unity and the nation’s adherence to the Malikite rite, a “tolerant and moderate Moroccan Islam,” is threatened to the extent of being in great danger. The national project for reorganisation of the religious sphere is also a reform following the same egalitarian spirit of Family Law that was changed in 1993, and attributes new civil and religious responsibilities to Moroccan women.

These new responsibilities, however, do not provide men and women with totally equal rights to access holy places such as mosques. The annual training of fifty mourchidates (female preachers) is only addressed at preparing them to play a role in religious organisation, information and sensitisation. In fact, when the training programme for mourchidates was presented, the High Council of Ulemas (theologians of Islam) pronounced a fatwa (a legal opinion) forbidding women from leading prayers. According to the Council, these appointments appear to go against general religious rules, according to which women must pray in silence, while Imams preach out loud. The fatwa was pronounced following a request from the Ministry for Islamic Affairs, which specified how the role of a mourchidate is restricted to the organisation of debates and readings addressed at teaching believers the values of Islam and providing them with information capable of answering some of their questions…

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Mubarak Evasive on Lieberman’s Egypt Visit

(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, APRIL 23 — It is not thought that the Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, will be taking part in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Egypt. This was the sense of a statement made by the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak today, following the news announced in recent days that the head of the Egyptian Security Services, Omar Suleiman, had invited the Israeli leaders to Cairo. Speaking at a military ceremony in Ismailiya, Mubarak said “the Israeli Prime Minister’s visit to Egypt will take place in May. To those who say that he will bring his Foreign Minister with him, I say that it is normal for the heads of Israeli governments to come alone or to travel with the directors of their cabinet, as has always happened when heads of the Israeli government have come to Egypt in the past.” Mubarak went on, “but first of all, the Palestinians must find some cohesion, because their internal division will never bring about the creation of two states. If the Palestinians are happy with their current situation, then they must present themselves to the international community and say that they want two Palestinian states, one in the West Bank and one in Gaza, and Israel will certainly be happier with this outcome.” (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Gaza: UN Task Force to Check Environmental Damage

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, APRIL 22 — Following the war in Gaza, the damage must be assessed, including harm caused to the environment. It is to this end that the executive director of the UN Environment Program (UNEP), Achim Steiner, who is currently visiting the Gaza Strip, has announced that specialists in disaster and post-conflict situation management will be sent into the field in mid-May. “I await to receive rapid and clear advice in mid-May,” Steiner said, “which can be used for local planning and the reconstruction projects planned by the international community.” The conclusions reached by the UN task force “will be based on systematic field research, independent laboratory analysis and scientific rigour,” the UNEP director went on. Those chosen for the mission, he added, “are greatly experienced in evaluating the environmental impact in conflicts in the Balkans, Sudan and in the Middle East, and in formulating useful strategic advice.” The task force will look at areas such as water and waste management, asbestos and hazardous waste disposal and issues related to marine and coastal environments. The report produced, following a ten-day site visit in May, is expected to be released at the beginning of July. Once the physical damage has been assessed and the requested measures for reconstruction decided upon, an assessment of economic damage suffered in Gaza will be put together. The environmental effects of the war could create a public health risk to the Palestinians, but potentially also to the Israelis. In fact, according to the UN, the heavy bombing and fighting at the end of 2008 have left buildings and other infrastructure in ruins. During his visit to Palestinian workers and UN staff, Steiner expressed concerns over the environmental challenges posed and the priorities for the reconstruction works, beginning with the removal of sewage from the same land where water is drawn from, as well as its removal from the Mediterranean sea. The work of the experts from the task force follows a series of controls which have already taken place as part of the reconstruction plans from the UN Development Program, as well as other assessments made by other UN and international agencies following the conflict, which have already established the areas in which further investigation is necessary. This is the framework for the investigation: — REFUSE: One of the problems raised relates to the presence of hazardous waste, such as asbestos, in the ruins of buildings that were destroyed. Furthermore, even before the conflict, Gaza did not have an adequate system to manage and dispose of waste. The accumulation of a large quantity of solid waste in a short period of time has overburdened the inadequate extant structures. — SEWAGE WATER: The Gaza strip is lacking a sufficient drainage system and the damage caused by the conflict has led to further deterioration of an already precarious public health conditions. The impact on under-ground waterways must be assessed. — CONTAMINATED LAND: small industries, such as factories, cement works and garages were hit during the conflict, creating various potential contaminated sites within the urban environment. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Human Rights Groups Criticise Inquiry Into Gaza

A COALITION of Jewish and Arab human rights groups have criticised as inadequate an Israel Defence Forces investigation into its activities during the battle in Gaza in January.

The IDF’s internal investigation found that no Palestinian civilians were harmed intentionally by its soldiers during the 23-day invasion that killed more than 1300 Palestinians and wounded more than 4000.

Israel’s Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, hailed the report as proof once again “that the IDF is one of the most moral armies in the world”. Mr Barak said: “The IDF is not afraid to investigate itself and in that, proves that its operations are ethical.”

When civilians were killed by IDF fire, the report found that the deaths were regrettable, but had resulted from operational mistakes that were “bound to happen during intensive fighting”.

But a coalition of Israeli human rights groups, which includes B’Tselem, Physicians for Human Rights, Yesh Din, The Public Committee Against Torture and Rabbis for Human Rights, described the IDF report as problematic and said the only way to truly investigate alleged war crimes was through an independent external inquiry.

“Military investigation results published today refer to tens of innocent Palestinian civilians killed by ‘rare mishaps’ in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead,” the groups said in a joint statement.

“However, data collected by Israeli human rights organisations shows that many civilians were killed in Gaza not due to ‘mishaps’ but as a direct result of the military’s chosen policy implemented throughout the fighting.

“If the military claims that there were no major deficiencies in its conduct in Gaza, it is not clear why Israel refuses to co-operate with the UN investigation team, led by the South African judge Richard Goldstone, which requests an investigation of alleged violations of international law by both Israel and Hamas.”

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza also called on Israel to co-operate with the UN investigation team.

The IDF inquiry was conducted by five senior officers who were not involved in Operation Cast Lead and focused on reports of civilians who been targeted intentionally, and also attacks on civilian infrastructure, UN facilities and the use of white phosphorous.

The chemical is used to create a smoke screen but can cause serious burns and death.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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Israelis Feel Chill as US Sets Out New Ground Rules

CAN Israel still call the United States its best friend? Not if you believe the media in Israel.

The increasingly tense dialogue between the US President, Barack Obama, and the new Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has taken on all the trappings of a duel here.

Almost every day brings news of another sore point, blighting the once warm relationship between the two countries.

Anyone could be forgiven for thinking the most immediate threat to national security in Israel lay across the Atlantic. That Mr Obama uses almost every opportunity he gets to set the parameters of a final peace agreement between Israel and Palestine is bad enough.

But now officials in his administration are openly using Israeli anxiety at Iran’s nuclear program as a bargaining chip to force its hand on giving up control of the West Bank Palestinian territory.

No less a figure than the White House chief-of-staff, Rahm Emanuel, was quoted this week laying down the law: if Israel wants US help to defuse the Iranian threat, then get ready to start evacuating settlements in the West Bank, he was reported to have told Jewish leaders in Washington.

This from a man whose father fought with a militant Zionist group, the Irgun, and whose appointment had provided such reassurance to Israeli officials.

Talkback radio blazed with fury across the country the same day as Israelis protested that no American official had the right to tell them where they could live. Then on Thursday came the news that Mr Netanyahu’s planned first meeting with Mr Obama in Washington next month had been called off.

Mr Netanyahu had hoped to capitalise on his attendance at the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in Washington to visit the White House, but Administration officials informed his office that the President would not be “in town”.

Sources in Washington added that the Administration would not be continuing the tradition that had developed during the Bush years of hosting Israeli prime ministers whenever they showed up in town, sometimes with just a phone call’s notice.

Contrary to initial expectations, Mr Obama has wasted no time becoming fully engaged in the Middle East peace process, despite the magnitude of his domestic political agenda.

While Mr Netanyahu has refused to endorse the principle of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict agreed to by his predecessor, Mr Obama has made it abundantly clear that the US will accept nothing less than Israel living side by side with a sovereign Palestinian state.

Mr Obama is also demanding a freeze on all Jewish settlement expansion in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and has dropped the Bush administration’s opposition to Hamas serving in a future Palestinian Authority government.

A prominent Israeli political commentator, Maya Bengal, who writes for the country’s second largest selling newspaper Maariv, believes the holiday is over.

“As Passover comes to an end, so comes to an end, it seems, the days of grace granted to the Netanyahu Government by the American Administration,” Bengal said.

A Tel Aviv barman, Meir Avraham, 30, recently returned after a trip to Australia, said he could feel the tensions being played out between the US and Israel on the street.

“If we lose America, then we are alone. So we must listen to what America wants,” he said. “But really I think this is more about the little brother testing the limits of the big brother than a real conflict between Israel and the US.”

An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said: “We know Obama wants to change the relationship, make it seem less cosy but they also want to protect its special nature. We’ll all still be friends.”

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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Lieberman: Arab Peace Initiative Threat to Israel

(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, APRIL 22 — The Arab Peace Initiative, which includes a total withdrawal from occupied Palestinian territories in exchange for recognition of the Jewish state from Arab countries, represents a danger to the future of Israel. According to the newspaper Maariv, these were the words of the Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman (Israel Beitenu, far right). This would mean that the Israeli government is in opposition to the US President Barack Obama’s favourable opinion of the initiative. Sources close to Lieberman explained that in particular the Minister is opposed to the so-called Right to Return for Palestinian refugees, which he argues represents a threat to Israel. In an interview given two weeks ago to the Russian newspaper Moskowsky Komsomoltz, quoted today by the newspaper Haaretz, Lieberman also confirmed that it would be necessary to give Russia more involvement in research into a future recipe for peace in the Middle East. Israel’s task, he added, will be to represent the bridge between Russia and the United States. Two weeks ago, Lieberman caused a stir when he said that he no longer felt constrained by the Annapolis agreement, which was the result of a conference held in the US city in November 2007, and led to the then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) committing to the “Two states for two peoples” formula in the presence of the then head of the White House, George W. Bush.(ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Mid-East: Survey, Israelis and Palestinians Favour Two States

(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, APRIL 22 — A large majority of Israelis and Palestinians are in favour of the ‘two states for two peoples “solution, and are against two-nation state. These were the results that came out of an opinion poll conducted by an Irish researcher, Collin Irwin, together with two local public opinion institutes: Israel’s Dahaf and the Palestinian Award. The survey, organised by the ‘One Voice” organisation to favour dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians, was conducted simultaneously in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and Israel last February after Operation Cast Lead. Strong divergences also emerged on the future of Jerusalem’s political bent and on the question of Palestinian refugees. According to ‘One Voice”, the research work represents a significant base for the political leaders of the two peoples. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Turkey: Direct Investment Falls, But Not From Italy

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, APRIL 20 — In the first two months of the year, direct foreign investments in Turkey fell 18.6% compared to the same period in 2008. The figure emerged from a study carried out by the Undersecretary to the Turkish Treasury (Foreign Investments Department), and the results were put together by the Italian Trade Commission (ICE) office in Istanbul. Figures also showed that the total amount of foreign investment was 1.48 billion dollars, against the 1.82 billion dollars of the previous year. >From the total of 1.48 billion dollars, 400 million dollars derived from real estate acquisition, whilst more than one billion came in the form of shareholder investment. Despite the current serious crisis, Italy acted against the trend, as it has been doing in recent months, investing 23 million dollars compared to the 15 million dollars invested in January-February 2008, thereby representing 1.53% of the total overall investment in Turkey in the first two months of the year. Holland is the largest foreign investor with 126 million dollars, although it should be remembered that investments that are made from Holland are often from other countries. Germany is in second place with 89 million dollars, whilst the UK has invested 30 million dollars and the US represents 17 million dollars. The current role of the Gulf countries has decreased significantly, representing only four million dollars of investment compared to 194 in the same period in 2008.(ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Turkey Calls Back Ambassador to Canada

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey recalled its ambassador to Canada, the Foreign Ministry said Wednesday, after government ministers there reportedly took part in an event that labeled the Ottoman-era killings of Armenians as genocide.

Ambassador Rafet Akgunay was called back for “thorough evaluations and consultations,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Burak Ozugergin said, without saying why Akgunay was recalled or for how long.

Another government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government rules, said the ambassador was being withdrawn temporarily to protest an event earlier this week in Canada commemorating the deaths of Armenians at the end of World War I as genocide.

The official said Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper sent a message to the ceremony, which angered Turkey. Turkish news reports said Canadian government officials took part in the event.

A spokeswoman for Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon defended the country’s position.

“Canada’s position on the Armenian genocide is not an indictment of modern Turkey, nor is Turkish Ambassador Rafet Akgunay’s temporary return to Ankara for consultations, a break in our diplomatic relations,” Natalie Sarafian said in an e-mailed statement.

It is the second time that Turkey has recalled its ambassador to Canada over the genocide dispute. In 2006, Turkey criticized Harper for remarks he made in support of recognizing the mass killings as genocide and briefly withdrew its ambassador. It also pulled out of a military exercise in Canada in protest.

Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks — an event widely viewed by genocide scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey denies that the deaths constituted genocide, contending the toll has been inflated and the casualties were victims of civil war and unrest.

Lawmakers in the United States have also introduced a resolution that would call the death genocide. If passed, the resolution could undermine efforts by President Barack Obama’s administration to win NATO ally Turkey’s help on key foreign policy goals.

U.S. legislators almost passed a similar resolution two years ago, but congressional leaders did not bring it up for a vote after intense pressure from the Bush administration.

Obama avoided the term “genocide” when he addressed Turkish lawmakers during his visit a month ago. But he said, in response to a question, that he had not changed his views. As a presidential candidate, Obama said the killings amounted to genocide..

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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Turkey-Armenia Agree on Roadmap to Normalize Ties, US Welcomes Move

ISTANBUL — Turkey and Armenia under Switzerland’s mediation have agreed on a comprehensive framework for the normalization of their bilateral relations, a move welcomed by the Washington administration.

“the two parties have achieved tangible progress and mutual understanding in this process and they have agreed on a comprehensive framework for the normalization of their bilateral relations in a mutually satisfactory manner. In this context, a road-map has been identified,” the statement posted on the foreign ministry’s Web site late on Wednesday.

This agreed basis provides a positive prospect for the on-going process, the statement added.

The announcement of the agreement on a road map comes just a day before the Armenian commemoration day of the 1915 incidents.

Turkey and Armenia, together with Switzerland as mediator, have been working intensively with a view to normalizing their bilateral relations and “developing them in a spirit of good-neighborliness, and mutual respect, and thus to promoting peace, security and stability in the whole region,” according to the statement.

Ankara and Yerevan have no diplomatic relations. Their border was closed in 1993 over Armenia’s invasion of 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory and over pressure exerted on the international community, with the backing of the diaspora, to recognize their claims regarding the 1915 incidents instead of accepting Turkey’s call to investigate the allegations.

The Washington administration welcomed the move in a statement and urged the normalization should take place without preconditions as well as within a reasonable timeframe.

“We urge Armenia and Turkey to proceed according to the agreed framework and roadmap. We look forward to working with both governments in support of normalization, and thus promote peace, security and stability in the whole region,” Robert Wood, the spokesman of the U.S.. State Department said in statement.

Wood also said that it has long been and remains the position of the United States that normalization should take place without preconditions and within a reasonable timeframe.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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Turks, Italians Debate EU Issues, Renew Friendship

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, APRIL 20 — Turkish and Italian businesspeople, politicians and media representatives came together in Istanbul on Friday and Saturday to discuss Turkey’s accession to the European Union, giving the Italian side an opportunity to renew its commitment to Turkey’s EU membership and allowing both sides to highlight problems and opportunities. Carlo Marsili, who has been Italy’s ambassador to Turkey for the last six years, said the expansion of the European Union aimed at rewarding the formerly communist states of Europe, but that the EU was ignoring Turkey. “The European Union punished Turkey for not being a communist state. Turkey’s role as a NATO member has been ignored,” Marsili said on Friday afternoon at a media forum titled “Turkey: A Strategic Crossroads,” as daily Zaman reported. Giorgio Zappa, president of the Turkey-Italy Friendship Association, said they are optimistic about Turkey’s prospects for entering the EU, but that this is not enough. “We want to overcome all obstacles in that regard. We want to open our arms to people who cannot get rid of their skepticism. They act that way sometimes because they don’t have enough knowledge about the issue. We want to open their eyes,” Zappa said, adding that they work both to improve Turkish-Italian bilateral relations and to spread this relationship throughout the EU. Speakers at the forum emphasized that Italy is Turkey’s number-three trading partner after Russia and Germany and that, in the Mediterranean basin, Turkey is Italy’s top market. Trading volume between the two countries has increased by 118% over the last four years to $11 billion. Turkish exports to Italy rose to $7.8 billion in 2008 from $3.1 billion 2003. For Italian exports to Turkey, the figure rose to $11 billion from $5.4 billion over the same period. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Bangladesh: Islamic Fundamentalists Threaten UN Agencies and Red Crescent

Three intimidating letters have been sent to UNICEF, the World Food Program, and the Islamic equivalent of the Red Cross. Some observers see this as a response to the UN’s promise to help the government set up a court to try Islamic fundamentalists for war crimes.

Dhaka (AsiaNews) -The Islamic extremists of the group Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMP) are threatening attacks against UNICEF, the World Food Program, and the Red Crescent, telling the three organizations to leave the district of Barisal in southern Bangladesh.

Three letters signed by the Islamic organization, which is prohibited by the government of Dhaka, were sent to the local headquarters of the international humanitarian agencies. The militants of the JMP are announcing reprisals if the recipients of their threats do not leave the area.

Mohammed Mahabur Rahman, a police official in Barisal, confirms the report for AsiaNews and says that the threats are to be taken seriously. Security has already been stepped up for the three humanitarian organizations, but Rahman explains that “the police by itself is not capable of combating Islamic terrorism,” and says that for this reason he is convinced that “the police and the population must work together against Muslim fundamentalism.”

For Rashid Khan Menon, a member of parliament from the Workers’ Party, the threats against the three organizations “are connected to the UN’s recent promise to help Bangladesh in proceedings against war crimes perpetrated in the country.”

Imtiaz Ahmed, a professor of international relations at the University of Dhaka, sees the intimidating letters as the sign of “a special agenda” on the part of fundamentalists against the presence of international organizations.

Recent security operations by the Rapid Action Battalion have led to the arrest of a number of militants of the JMP, and about a hundred people suspected of connections to the fundamentalist group. For professor Ahmed, the threats against the UN agencies have a twofold purpose: on the one hand, they send a signal to the authorities who want to take Islamic extremists to court for war crimes, on the other hand they seek to internationalize domestic affairs.

During the arrests of the mujahideen of the JMP, weapons, materials for making bombs, and computers were found, in addition to propaganda documents supporting jihad. In one flyer, the fundamentalists charge that “the media controlled by the Christians are making a false representation of the noble campaign of the mujahideen to liberate the country from the infidels”; they promise “to destroy all of the enemies of Allah,” and “corrupt political leaders,” and to “establish an Islamic state.”

Islamic fundamentalism has been on the rise in Bangladesh for years, and has included coordinated violent actions in multiple places in the country. Islamic extremist groups also have significant political influence.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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India: Hindu Fanatics Attack Protestant Church in Maharashtra to Stop Conversions

The group destroyed prayer books, bibles, furniture and the altar. Some members of Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal arrested. Police accused of delayed intervention.

Mumbai (AsiaNews) — A group of Hindu fanatics have attacked and damaged a Church in Saoner village, 40 km from Nagpur, in Maharashtra. The attack on Douglas Memorial Church took place Sunday morning while a religious service was being conducted. Two women were injured in their attempts to stop the gang vandalizing the church.

The two main Hidu groups, the VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) and Bajrang Dal denied any role in the attack, claiming instead that it was done by “Hindus angry over religious conversions” in the area. The police however arrested three persons on Sunday: Uddhav Choudhary, an office porter from VHP, Vinod Bagde and Umesh Athavankar. Four other persons had been arrested on Monday belonging to VHP and Bajrang Dal. The vandals tore up several holy books including the Bible, ransacked furniture, broke musical instruments and damaged the altar.

Ten minutes before the attack, some persons claiming to belong to the VHP, had gone to the police station handing over a letter demanding action against conversion in Saoner. They threatened “vigorous action” against the church for allegedly targeting poorer sections of society for conversion. According to the records available with Nagpur police’s special branch, there have been100 conversions to Christianity at a church in Dattawadi since 2005. According to Abraham Mathai, vice-chairman state Minority Commission, there should have been prompt action by the police: “It was the duty of the police to ensure that the group did not reach the church”.

The Christians of Mumbai have joined their voices to the protest on hearing of the attack. The Catholic Archbishop of Nagpur, Msgr. V. Abraham, who was in Mumbai on Monday, said: “There was peace between all communities in Nagpur for years. This feeling of amity is being eroded by acts of violence. The attacks display a total disregard for the rule of law.”

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Malaysian PM Dodges Questions About Missing Model

JAKARTA, April 23, 2009 (AFP) — Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak dodged questions about the alleged abduction of a young model by a Malaysian prince as he met Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Jakarta on Thursday.

Reporters covering the press conference after the leaders met at the presidential palace were refused permission to ask about the case of 17-year-old Indonesian-American model Manohara Odelia Pinot.

As they fielded approved questions about closer bilateral relations and economic cooperation, Manohara’s mother held an emotional press conference of her own to plead with Najib for help in finding her socialite daughter.

Manohara last year married Tengku Temenggong Mohammad Fakhry, the prince of Malaysia’s Kelantan state.

Her mother, Daisy Fajarina, said Manohara had suffered “emotional and physical abuse” at the hands of her husband, who was holding her against her will in Malaysia.

“As the new prime minister of Malaysia I urge Najib to investigate to defend our rights and the truth,” Fajarina told reporters at the offices of the national human rights commission.

“I just want my daughter to be set free… As a mother I have a right to see my daughter.”

She said she had been refused entry to Malaysia to see Manohara, who was crying and distraught when she last spoke to her Indonesian family by phone on March 21.

“I was already in the airport but immigration officials told me that I was strictly forbidden to enter Malaysian territory,” she said, referring to an incident on March 19.

Fajarina said the last time she saw Manohara was when she accompanied the couple on a pilgrimage to Muslim holy sites in Saudi Arabia in late February. The teen bride was already unhappy with her new husband and the trip was supposed to be a fence-mending exercise for the family, she said.

But it ended in anger and confusion when the prince abandoned Fajarina at an airport in Jeddah and whisked her daughter away in his private jet.

“My daughter was taken away forcibly in a private jet from Jeddah … I was on the passenger list and my personal stuff was already in the plane, but the jet took off without me and left me on the runaway,” she said.

She also accused the royal family of trying to bribe her to forget about Manohara with a million-dollar apartment in Malaysia.

“I cannot accept that. Even if they give me the world, I cannot sell my beloved daughter,” she said.

Fajarina fainted when she was mobbed by journalists from Indonesia’s celebrity press, who have written extensively about Manohara’s plight.

Indonesia’s ambassador to Malaysia, Da’i Bachtiar, said he had spoken to the royal household in Kelantan and received word that Manohara was fine.

But they refuse to allow her mother to visit and the Malaysian foreign ministry has not replied to further inquiries, he told AFP.

“I have communicated with the Kelantan sultanate. They said Manohara is healthy and fine. We asked about the wishes of her mother but there was a rejection of her visit to Malaysia,” Bachtiar said.

“We’ve addressed questions officially to the Malaysian foreign affairs ministry, but there’s been no answer yet. We’ve addressed the questions in order to give protection to an Indonesian citizen.”

Najib was sworn in earlier this month after his predecessor, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, was forced to stand down.

He has repeatedly denied involvement in the gruesome murder in 2006 of 28-year-old Mongolian woman Altantuya Shaariibuu, the lover of his close aide.

The aide was acquitted of abetting her murder but two police officers have been sentenced to hang for the slaying of the young woman, whose remains were blown up with military-grade explosives in a jungle clearing.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Malaysia Bans Forced Conversion of Minors to Islam

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) — Malaysia has banned the forced conversion of children to Islam to quell unease among religious minorities in the mainly Muslim nation, the country’s Legal Affairs Minister said on Thursday.

The decision follows the highly publicized case of Indira Gandhi, a 34-year-old ethnic Indian Hindu woman whose estranged husband embraced Islam and then converted their children to the religion as well.

Minister Nazri Aziz said minors were to be bound by the common religion of their parents while they were married even if one parent later becomes a Muslim.

Islamic law will also apply only from the point of a person’s conversion to the religion and is not retrospective, he told a press conference.

“We have to resolve this once and for all. I don’t think we should be deciding on a piecemeal basis every time a conversion issue crops up,” Nazri said.

“We have decided on a long-term solution because we expect more cases will occur, being a multiracial country,” he added.

Islam is the official religion in Malaysia, but non-Muslims are allowed to practice their faiths.

Muslims, who make up around 65 percent of the Southeast country’s 27 million population, are bound by Islamic family laws, while civil laws apply to non-Muslims.

Nazri said the Attorney-General had been instructed to look at the relevant legislation that would need to be amended to effect the decision.

The Attorney-General would also be asked approach the Malay rulers — titular heads in nine of Malaysia’s 13 states who are in charge of Islamic affairs in their respective states — to seek consent for amendments to related state Islamic laws, added Nazri.

There has been growing unease among Malaysia’s mainly Chinese and Indian ethnic minorities who are mostly Buddhists, Christians and Hindus over numerous complaints of discrimination and unfair treatment by the authorities when seeking legal redress following cases of divorce and religious conversions.

The disquiet built up during the case of Lina Joy, a Malay Muslim who converted to Christianity at the age of 26 but was forced to endure a long legal battle to have her conversion legally recognized by the Malaysian courts.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Pakistan: Taliban Militants Extend Reach in North

Buner, 22 April (AKI/Dawn) — Taliban militants in Pakistan’s Swat region who endorsed a peace deal with the government have extended their control of the nearby Buner district. Dozens of militants moved into Buner in North West Frontier Province on Tuesday and began patrolling bazaars, villages and towns in the district.

Buner is part of the Malakand region, which has just seen the implementation of Sharia law under the peace deal.

The militants, who moved into the Gokand valley of Buner two weeks ago, were reported to have been on a looting spree for the past five days.

Pakistani daily Dawn reported that they have stolen vehicles, computers, printers, generators, edible oil containers, and food and nutrition packets from government offices and NGOs.

Sources said that leading political figures, businessmen, aid officials and others who sought to stop the Taliban from entering Buner, had been forced to move to other areas.

The Taliban have extended their control to almost all areas of the district and law enforcement personnel were confined to police stations and camps.

The Taliban, equipped with advanced weapons, were reported to be advancing towards border areas of Swabi, Malakand and Mardan, where NWFP chief minister Amir Haider Khan Hoti is based.

According to reports reaching Dawn, the militants have set up checkposts and camp bases in Kangar Gali village, along the Malakand border, and other locations.

The militants have started digging trenches and setting up bunkers on heights in strategic towns of Gadezi, Salarzai, Osherai and others.

Led by Fateh Mohammad, the militants were asking local people, particularly young people, to join them in their campaign to enforce Sharia law.

Meanwhile the United Nations refugee agency has begun a registration drive for thousands of Pakistanis who are seeking shelter in the capital, Islamabad, and other cities after fleeing in the South Asian nation’s rugged north.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has begun a registration drive at the request of the Pakistani Government and seeks to ascertain the number of people who have moved to urban areas after escaping clashes between the army and militants in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the Swat district.

According to a preliminary survey last month, over 82,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) are living in key cities, with nearly 8,000 in Islamabad.

Most of the uprooted live in rented accommodation or with host families, while some are sheltering in camps.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Sultans of Swat — Muhammad’s Angels… and More Timeless Wisdom From Lal and Burckhardt

by Andrew Bostom

Pakistan’s much ballyhooed moderate Muslim President Zadari, as recently as December 8. 2008, in the wake of the Mumbai massacre [2], wrote a New York Times Op-Ed entitled, “The Terrorists Want to Destroy Pakistan, Too [3].” Zardari acknowledged the significant presence of Al Qaeda/Taliban in his country, but claimed, piously, to be committed to the fight against these jihad terrorists—perhaps even more so than NATO—and sought worldwide support for his efforts. He stated:

The challenge of confronting terrorists who have a vast support network is huge; Pakistan’s fledgling democracy needs help from the rest of the world. We are on the frontlines of the war on terrorism. We have 150,000 soldiers fighting Al Qaeda, the Taliban and their extremist allies along the border with Afghanistan — far more troops than NATO has in Afghanistan.

But as I suggested on December 14, 2008 [4]:

Ignoring serious concerns about the dubious use of some $5 billion in US military aid [5] to Pakistan (via Coalition Support Funds) since 2002 — ostensibly to combat Al Qaeda and its allies in the tribal areas—I maintain that Zardari’s plaintive appeal for assistance—military and financial—be heeded exclusively by Muslim nations from the now 57 member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). …the OIC — currently headed by its Turkish representative Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu — is uniquely suited to marshall the military and economic might to “enact the utmost severe punishment” for Al Qaeda and Taliban “perpetrators” of “anti-Islamic” acts of terrorism. Turkey and Egypt — key OIC member states — have large, modern, well-equipped armed forces (here [6]; here [7]; here [8]), including air forces (here [9]; here [10]), and both nations are believed to have been victimized by Al Qaeda attacks (here [11]; here [12]; here [13]; and here [14]). These Muslim nations — with formal, enthusiastic sanctioning by the OIC-should send large military contingents to reinforce the “150,000? of their Pakistani Muslim brethren under President Zadari [15] already doggedly engaged in combating the “anti-Islamic” terrorists of Al Qaeda and the Taliban on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Despite Zadari’s bravado (duplicity/taqiya?), he has in fact now capitulated to the Talibanization of Pakistan’s own SWAT valley—with all its accompanying traditional Islamic brutality…

— Hat tip: Andy Bostom

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China in Tensions Rising Over Unpaid Wages

Thousands of plants are closing down without paying workers. At least 30 million migrant workers are now jobless. The danger of social unrest is high because of the lack of respect for workers’ rights.

Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) — The number of labour disputes over unpaid wages has gone up by 59 per cent over last year. In the first quarter of this year they were 98,568. The increase follows a 93 per cent surge in such cases last year. Plants that close often fail to pay salaries and severance pay to their now out-of-work employees.

As a result of the global crisis “the number of businesses going into the red or going bankrupt continues to grow, leading to more disputes over salary claims,” Du Wanhua, a top official with the court, said.

Unemployment is also rising. Cheng Guoqiang, deputy head of the Chinese State Council’s Development and Research Center, said that “earlier reports put the estimate at 20 million people. According to our estimate, about 30 million farmers have lost their jobs.”

With a migrant population of some 225 million people, or 28 percent of China’s rural population according to a report released by the National Bureau of Statistics in March, the country’s growth rate must be at least 8 per cent if it wants to avoid unemployment and social unrest, China’s Premier Wen Jiabao said last Saturday. This rate has not been met in the last six months.

The China Labour Bulletin, a well-known Hong Kong- based workers’ rights advocacy journal, has warned China’s local governments that workers are not going to lose their job after decades of work without putting up a fight for their rights.

For example 5,000 workers at the Golden Emperor Group textile plant in Chongqing’s Fuling district went on strike on 13 and 14 April, after management announced its reorganisation and the start of bankruptcy proceedings; their demands: three-month back pay and a fair severance pay.

Also this month thousands of workers demonstrated for three days in Baoding (Hebei) in front of the Yimian textile factory for wage arrears and their pensions. The workers threatened to block the railway line to Beijing, and were only stopped after the mayor said he would mediate the dispute.

According to the China Labour Bulletin, more than 30 million people lost their job in the early 1990s when state-owned plants were privatised. After that the lack of specific rules led to countless labour disputes, some not yet solved.

Now the situation is worse because migrant workers will “not simply lie down and accept their fate without a fight,” the journal wrote.

If the authorities really want to avoid social unrest they must not sweep under the carpet the rights and interests of workers.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Filipino Court Overturns US Marine Rape Conviction

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A Philippine appeals court overturned the 2006 rape conviction of a U.S. Marine and ordered his immediate release Thursday, setting off protests from activists.

A suburban Manila court convicted Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith of raping a Filipino woman in the company of fellow Marines at the former U.S. Subic Bay Naval base three years ago and sentenced him to life in prison. The case has become a rallying point for anti-American protests in the country.

The Philippine Court of Appeals overturned the ruling, indicating the sexual act was consensual.

“No evidence was introduced to show force, threat and intimidation applied by the accused,” the court said in its 71-page decision, which is final.

It ordered the immediate release of Smith, 23, of St. Louis, Missouri, from his detention at the U.S. Embassy in Manila.

Interior Undersecretary Marius Corpus said Smith could be released within days, as soon as the process of notifying him and the embassy of the court’s decision is complete.

After Smith was convicted, he was initially taken to a Philippine jail, but the U.S. argued he should be kept in American custody, citing the Visiting Forces Agreement, a 1999 accord that allows U.S. forces to conduct war exercises in the Philippines.

Washington said the accord entitles any accused U.S. service member to remain in American hands until all judicial proceedings are exhausted.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo backed the U.S. position, but the Philippine Supreme Court ruled in February he should be serving his sentence in a Philippine prison and asked the government to negotiate his transfer with Washington. The negotiations were under way when the appeals court ruled Thursday.

Smith’s lawyer Jose Justiniano said his client “got the justice that he deserved,” but leftist groups condemned it, saying it was proof of Arroyo’s subservience to America.

“We are outraged,” said Renato Reyes of the prominent group Bayan.

“This denial of justice can only be blamed on Mrs. Arroyo, whose subservience to the U.S. and veneration of the VFA knows no bounds,” Reyes said.

About 30 activists marched to the heavily guarded U.S. Embassy late Thursday but were stopped nearby by riot police. They held up posters that read, “Smith’s acquittal, a Philippine-U.S. government connivance,” then peacefully dispersed after an hour.

In March, the woman who accused Smith of rape altered her testimony and emigrated to the United States in a dramatic twist in the case, saying she was no longer certain that a crime took place.

But the court said its decision was not influenced by her action.

The woman initially said she and Smith were drinking, kissing and dancing at a Subic bar before moving to a van, where she originally told the court she was raped while she fell in and out of consciousness. Smith had insisted the sex was consensual.

The court said what happened “was the unfolding of a spontaneous, unplanned romantic episode with both parties carried away by their passions.”

The woman’s turnabout shocked her supporters. Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez said she could be charged with perjury.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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First Trade Deficit for Japan Since 1980

Tokyo reports a deficit of 725.3 billion yen. Exports towards US and EU drop significantly; those towards in Asia decline as well. Central bank expects economy to shrink by 3 to 5 per cent. Recovery is tied to government stimulus package.

Tokyo (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Japan reported its first annual trade deficit in 28 years. The deficit for the fiscal year that ended in March was 725.3 billion yen (US$ 7.4 billion), the Finance Ministry said. Total exports fell by 16.4 per cent, whilst imports dipped 4.1 per cent.

Japan’s exports fell 45.6 per cent in March, producing an 11.0 billion yen (US$ 110 million) trade surplus in March. But analysts remain cautious. They observe that the trend is largely due to a drop in imports which fell by 36.7 per cent, a sign that output and consumption are both down.

The result was worse than the surplus of 82.1 billion yen in February, but better than previous four months which were in the red, posting a deficit of 952.6 billion yen (US$ 9.7 billion) in January.

The Bank of Japan will likely lower its projections and say it expects the economy to shrink by between 3 and 5 per cent in the fiscal year ending in March next year.

Plunging demand has saddled companies with too many employees, with unemployment likely to rise from 4.4 per cent.

Manufacturing remains in a difficult situation as well because of its dependency on exports.

Exports to the United States have dropped in fact by 51.4 per cent in March from a year earlier; those to the European Union were down 56.1 per cent.

Exports to Asia, which had previously offset falling exports to the United States and Europe, fell 39.5 per cent. But a slowing pace of decline in shipments to mainland China is a sign that China’s huge stimulus package is starting to benefit Japanese exports.

The better-than-expected export figures are raising optimism that markets and output have at least stabilised.

According to economist Richard Jerram, the stage is set for a strong rebound in industrial production and exports in the second quarter of 2009.

Many are also waiting for the government stimulus plan to kick in. Announced this month by Prime Minister Taro Aso, it is worth 15.4 trillion yen (US$ 156 billion).

However, since it will be done by issuing government bonds for 10.8 trillion yen (US$ 110 billion) this fiscal year, some are concerned that it will push up the national debt with dangerous consequences on the long run.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Coal Burning Must End, Says Scientist

A CSIRO scientist has told a Senate inquiry it is imperative to begin phasing out coal burning in order to avoid dangerous climate change.

No coal-fired power plants should be built, and existing plants must shut within 20 years, if the world is to keep atmospheric carbon dioxide at a less dangerous level, the climatologist James Risbey said.

Yesterday Dr Risbey joined other CSIRO scientists who have spoken out personally to the Senate committee on climate policy’s inquiry after the CSIRO decided against making a submission.

He said the Rudd Government’s targets of reducing carbon dioxide levels by at least 5 per cent of 2000 levels by 2020 and 60 per cent by 2050 were not tough enough to avoid dangerous climate change.

“In fact, they yield a high likelihood of triggering irreversible changes in the climate system,” he said at the committee’s hearings in Hobart. “Such likelihoods can be greatly reduced with far more stringent emissions reductions. However, further delay makes safer concentration targets unattainable and begins to lock in dangerous climate change.”

The committee was told that at current levels of greenhouse gas growth, the world risked an irreversible collapse in the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, contributing roughly seven and five metres each to global sea level rise.

Acidification of the oceans, release of stored methane and breakdown of snowmelt would also affect food webs and the global population.

“While we cannot give a precise temperature at which each of these processes would occur, the threshold is thought to be in the vicinity of about two degrees in each case,” Dr Risbey said.

But Australia’s proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, if applied by all countries, would mean a 50 to 90 per cent chance of exceeding the threshold. “In other words, this is Russian roulette with the climate system, with most of the chambers loaded,” he said.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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NZ: Runaway Pilgrims Believed Lying Low and ‘Well Settled’

A third of a group of Indian pilgrims who vanished in New Zealand on their way to see the Pope in Sydney last year are still at large, and believed to have become “well-settled overstayers”.

New Zealand Sikh Society spokesman Daljit Singh, who was in contact with some of the missing men last year, says they have gone to ground in the Nelson and Bay of Plenty areas, have probably found work and have no intention of coming out from hiding.

“When they came here it was with the intention to stay in New Zealand forever, and that is what they will try to do,” said Mr Singh.

The men were with a group of 40 pilgrims who said they had paid up to $17,000 each for visas that would allow them to stay in New Zealand forever.

They were issued one-month visitor visas. When these expired in August, some tried to apply for students’ permits but were rejected by Immigration New Zealand.

“At the start, we worked closely with the immigration department to help track the men down, but we are volunteers and there is only so much we can do,” Mr Singh said.

The Labour Department, which oversees Immigration NZ, says it does not know the whereabouts of 14 of the 33 Indians. A spokeswoman said it was working with the Indian High Commission to find them.

The other 19 have been expelled.

She said about two people a month travelled to New Zealand by air and arrived without travel documents.

“These people will have checked in for the flight using a passport which allows visa-free travel for New Zealand, but they do not have the passport when they arrive.”

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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NZ: Rapist Taxi Driver Jailed for Nine Years

A HIV-positive taxi driver twice found guilty of raping a teenaged female passenger was jailed for nine years today.

Abdirazak Yussuf Mussa, 56, was originally found guilty in November 2007 of rape and abduction with intent to sexually violate and jailed for seven years.

The Court of Appeal last year quashed the conviction and ordered a retrial.

Last month he was again found guilty of raping the woman but not guilty of abduction.

Passing sentence in Wellington District Court today, Judge Bruce Davidson commented on the long-term effects of the rape, saying the victim still suffered depression, low self-esteem and was uncomfortable in the presence of men.

He said the breach of trust was significant, as people relied on taxis, especially when they had been drinking or otherwise vulnerable.

“Her guard was down, and undoubtedly she was under the influence of alcohol.”

In last month’s retrial, crown prosecutor Kristy McDonald QC said Mussa after picking up the 18-year-old woman, took her to his house and raped her twice.

Ms McDonald said Mussa restrained the woman with one hand while he removed both their clothes and put on condoms with the other.

Ms McDonald said the incident represented a huge breach of trust — many in the community relied on taxi drivers, especially women and people who have been drinking.

“There was premeditation in this case. The offender picked up the victim and took her to his house with this in mind,” she said, requesting Mussa be jailed for 12 years.

Mussa’s lawyer, Donald Stevens QC, asked for a starting point of eight years.

Disputing the Crown’s allegations of premeditation, he said the woman could have left the situation many times before the rape took place.

He said Mussa already had a shorter life-span than other people, so the jail sentence represented more of his life than those not infected.

Mussa did not know how he contracted the HIV virus, but suspected he picked it up from an infected needle while undergoing a medical procedure overseas, Dr Stevens said.

Throughout both trials, Mussa has denied the charges, saying the teenager willingly went to his house and the sex was consensual. He cried throughout the sentencing.

Since coming to New Zealand from Somalia, he had been hard-working, honest and had no previous convictions, Dr Stevens said.

As well as starting his own business, he contributed greatly to the Somali community, finding jobs for people, helping with shopping, bills, welfare, arranging prison visits, as well as looking after war-widows and their families who had come to New Zealand.

He also had a daughter with Down Syndrome, who was so close to her father “she was like his shadow”.

Judge Davidson set a sentencing starting point of 11 years but took off two years for mitigating circumstances.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Japan Launches New Bid to Tackle Pirates

Japan is hoping to get an anti-piracy bill passed into law to allow the country’s two destroyers off Somalia wider scope to use force.

Families wave goodbye to sailors aboard a Japanese destroyer bound for Somalia

The Japanese government last month joined the US, China and other countries in the maritime operation against pirates who have attacked ships in the Gulf of Aden, a key shipping route leading to the Suez Canal.

Because of limits on Japan’s military — imposed under the post-World War II pacifist constitution — the destroyers cannot use force, except in self-defence or to protect the country’s interests.

The new government-sponsored bill widens the destroyers’ rules of engagement to allow them to fire at the hulls of pirate vessels — but not at the pirates themselves — as a last resort after issuing repeated warnings.

If passed, the new bill will also allow the Maritime Self-Defence Force to protect any commercial ships, not just those under a Japanese flag or carrying Japanese nationals or cargo.

The opposition-controlled upper house may reject the bill after politicians voiced concern about expanding Japan’s military reach — but the lower house could then override the veto and turn the bill into law.

Conservative Prime Minister Taro Aso, who faces an election this year, is strongly in favour of the bill.

“Public safety and maintaining security and order are very important for Japan,” he told a parliamentary committee. “The world expects Japan to make a further contribution and we have a duty to respond.

“Japan is an island nation surrounded by sea, a resource-poor trading nation which relies on imports of resources from abroad. Consequently, security of marine transport is one of our high priorities,” he said.

Defence Minister Yasukazu Hamada said earlier the destroyers had on three occasions helped foreign ships by scaring off suspicious vessels with the use of loudspeakers and by deploying their helicopters.

He urged MPs to “pass the bill as soon as possible, because I think allowing the navy also to protect foreign vessels is desirable for continuing our mission in an appropriate manner.”

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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Finnish Connection Found on Computer of Colombian Guerrillas

Colombian police say FARC recruiter visited Finland in 2001

A computer found in the jungle in Ecuador, which once belonged to the leader of Colombia’s leftist guerrillas has indicated that the FARC rebels have had a contact with Finland. According to the documents on the computer’s hard disc, a contact person in Finland has apparently offered a hiding place in Finland for FARC guerrillas who might need one.

A Finnish person is also believed to have taken part in a meeting in Panama in which monetary assistance for the guerrillas was discussed. FARC recruiter Ovidio Salinas Pérez is believed to have visited Finland in 2001. According to Colombian police, the visit suggests that Finland and the other Nordic countries were seen as an important area in FARC’s search for political and financial support.

The computer which revealed the Finnish connections, was found in a FARC jungle camp just over a year ago, in connection with a raid in which FARC leader Raul Reyes was killed. Colombian police are still going through tens of thousands of pages of documents and e-mails. Helsingin Sanomat has learned that the computer holds information about a person who lives, or has lived in Finland, who would have offered to arrange safe accommodation for guerrillas in flight, or their family members. One of the fighters referred to the person as “our friend in Finland” in an e-mail to Reyes, says a journalistic source familiar with the e-mail correspondence. It is unclear exactly when these messages were written, and if any of the plans were ever implemented.

Colombian police are not confirming or denying the information. “So far we have not confirmed the names of the people, or the offer of a hiding place”, says Colombia’s top police official, General Oscar Naranjo in an e-mail message to Helsingin Sanomat from the capital Bogota. Reyes was considered the ideological leader of FARC. His goal was to oersyade the international community to recognise the organisation as a “warring party” in the eyes of international law, which is in a legitimate state of war with Colombia. The United States and the European Union see FARC as a terrorist organisation. Reyes sought to establish an international support and lobbying network for FARC. His representatives in Europe and Latin America solicited support for “the struggle of the people of Colombia” by establishing relations with leftist parties, student organisations, and radical groups.

One person close to Reyes was Ovidio Salinas Pérez, alias Juan Antonio Rojas, who had visited Finland. This former labour union activist is known within the organisation as El Embajador, or “The Ambassador”. He sought funding from abroad, mapped out places of exile, and sought help in the establishment of pro-FARC websites abroad. The United States froze his assets in 2008 and considers him a drug trafficker and terrorist on the basis of the information gleaned from the computer. Naranjo says that soon after the death of Reyes, FARC was in a hurry to send its leaders abroad and to make use of its network of partners.

“A large number of social and human rights organisations operate in the northern part of Europe. With their clandestine political work they make it easier to get asylum for leaders of the terrorist organisation, appealing to the lack of security in Colombia”, he says. Certain European organisations with ties to FARC have said that they work on behalf of peace in Colombia, and against human rights abuses committed by the country’s right-wing government. The hard disc on Reyes’ computer also contained information on a Finnish NGO worker who is believed to have met Salinas-Pérez in Panama in 2004. Also taking part in the secret meeting were activists from Sweden, Denmark, and Italy. They say that they collected 500,000 US dollars for the guerrillas. Helsingin Sanomat has learned that at least two NGOs were involved, one of which also operates in Finland.

The meeting had been arranged by a Swedish woman. According to an article appearing in the Panamanian newspaper La Prensa in October last year, Salinas Péres said in a message to Reyes that the Swede had worked extensively to bring European groups together to support the goals of FARC.

Colombian police have given contradictory assessments of the event. Luis Gilberto Ramirez Calle, the head of intelligence at the police, confirmed to Helsingin Sanomat that Salinas Pérez had met with various organisations in Panama. Meanwhile, General Naranjo says that there were no indications on the hard disk of any meeting in Panama.

Neither the Finnish Security Police nor the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) have received requests from Colombia for investigative assistance, nor have they taken part in the investigations by Colombian officials.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Regift, Please!

WASHINGTON—Hugo Chavez’s gift to President Obama at the recent Summit of the Americas—a copy of Eduardo Galeano’s “Open Veins of Latin America”—has many people wondering what the fuss is about.

A decade ago, I and the other two co-authors of the “Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot” devoted a chapter to refuting the historical and ideological fallacies contained in Galeano’s tract, which we called the “idiot’s bible.” Everything that has happened in the Western Hemisphere since the book appeared in 1971 has belied Galeano’s arguments and predictions. But I guess Chavez has given it the kiss of life and, since people are asking, here I go again.

The author claims that relations between Latin America and rich countries have been so pernicious that “everything … has always been transmuted into European—and later United States—capital.” Actually, for years that relationship has transmuted into the exact opposite: Latin American capital. In the last seven years alone, Latin America has benefited from $300 billion in net capital flows. In other words, a lot more capital came in than went out.

The book rails against the international division of labor, in which “some countries specialize in winning and others in losing.” That division of labor in the Western Hemisphere has not changed—Latin American countries still export commodities—and yet in the last six years, poverty in the region has been reduced to about one-third of the population, from just under half. This means that 40 million were lifted out of that hideous condition. Not to mention the 400 million pulled out of poverty in other “losing” nations worldwide in the last couple of decades.

The author pontificates that “raw materials and food are destined for rich countries that benefit more from consuming them more than Latin America does from producing them.” Sorry, amigo, but the story of this decade is that Latin America has made a killing sending exports abroad—the region has had a current account surplus for many years. Rich countries are so annoyed with all the things poor countries are exporting to them that they are asking their governments to “protect” them in the name of fair trade. The “buy American” clause in the fiscal stimulus package approved by Congress a few weeks ago is a case in point.. The U.S. had a trade deficit of more than $800 billion last year. The poor, if I may echo Galeano’s hemophilic language, are sucking the veins of the rich.

The book claims that for years “the endless chain of dependency has been endlessly extended.” The story now is that the rich depend on the poor. That is why the Chinese have $1 trillion in U.S. Treasury bonds! The book’s jeremiad goes on to say that “the well-being of our dominant classes … is the curse of our multitudes condemned to exist as beasts of burden.” One of the few countries that exemplifies that curse is the author’s beloved Cuba, where a worker cannot be paid directly by a foreign company employing him or her; the money goes to the government, which in turn pays the worker one-tenth of the salary—in nonconvertible local currency.

Galeano’s mathematics are hugely entertaining. He states that the average income of U.S. citizens is “seven times that of a Latin American and grows 10 times faster.” The gap has actually shrank, dear comrade. Many “poor” countries in modern times have seen their income gap with the Unites States narrow dramatically. Thailand and Indonesia have seen theirs cut almost by half in three decades.

The book’s Malthusian predictions invite no less compassion than its economic forecasts. Overpopulation, Galeano maintains, will mean that “in the year 2000 there will be 650 million Latin Americans,” the implication being that the region will starve. In 2000, the region’s population was 30 percent smaller than the author predicted.

To top it all, Chavez’s literary muse states that “the more freedom is extended to business, the more prisons have to be built for those who suffer from business.” Actually, the greater (though still insufficient)

freedom given to business in the era of globalization has resulted in increasing prosperity in developing nations. This decade, the pace of economic growth per person has been four times higher in developing nations than in rich nations.

I would pay anything to be a fly on the wall when President Obama opens the first page of the idiot’s bible.

— Hat tip: islam o’phobe

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Finland: Young Afghan Asylum-Seekers Heading for Nordic Countries Through Paris

Afghan boys line up to get a roof over their heads for the night

Afghani teenager Asif, aged 15, intends to travel to Norway, Britain, or Finland. The plan is no adolescent’s daydreaming, as the boy has already made his way from Pakistan to Paris through Turkey, Greece, and Italy. A year on the road has not managed to snuff out his persistence. “In Afghanistan, our future means war. I would like to learn and work”, the boy says. Nazrullah, 26, next to him, intends to travel to Finland. “I have heard from my relatives that Finland is better than France. That once I am granted asylum, I can get my family there, too”, he says. In Afghanistan, Nazrullah supported his wife and three-and-a-half-year-old daughter by importing chocolate and biscuits, but he had to leave the country, as his support for the now-exiled Abdul Rahman, a converted Christian, made his life dangerous.

The war in Afghanistan has continued for seven yearsand more, continuously pushing refugees to neighbouring countries and even to Europe. In Paris, unaccompanied adolescent asylum-seekers gather in the parks and squares in the north of the city. People have began to call the district “Little Kabul”. According to the 2007 statistics, the 3.1 million Afghans are the largest refugee group in the world. Only a fraction of them are officially seeking asylum status. However, the fact that the worldwide number of Afghan asylum-seekers increased in 2008 by 85 % from the previous year — rising to 18,500 — tells its own tale. Pierre Henry, the director general of France Terre D’Asile, an organisation promoting asylum and migrants’ rights in France and Europe, says that Europeans have abandoned Afghans. “The war in Afghanistan and the European soldiers who have been sent there to fight have certain repercussions. They are bound to increase immigrants flowing in. Europe should acknowledge this fact”, Henry says.

Around 40 fellow Afghans are standing around Asif and Nazrulla on the banks of the Saint-Martin Canal. At sunset, buses pick up those who need accommodation for the night, taking them to dormitories. Blankets and sleeping bags given by aid organisations are carried along in worn-out plastic bags. 16-year-old Ali does not catch the bus tonight. The adolescent, who intends to end up in Norway, takes it coolly. “I will sleep in the park — again. It is not dangerous there — just cold”, he says.

The number of illegal asylum-seekers in Paris has increased, particularly after France closed down the Sangatte refugee camp in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of Northern France in 2002. Allegedly, the camp was used as a base for the flow of immigrants crossing the English Channel into the UK. The aid organisations in Paris have noticed that increasing numbers of unaccompanied minor boys are arriving from Afghanistan. At present the organisations are facing an overwhelming task. “The state does not assume any responsibility for the boys. According to French legislation, minors should be provided with education, food, and health care”, says Jean-Michel Centres, an active member of the neighbourhood organisation. “Offering them harsh conditions, the state wants to encourage the Afghans to leave France, to continue their journey”, Centres notes.

It is true that finding help for some Afghans is not easy, as they tend to avoid the authorities like the plague, hoping that they could continue their journey from Paris northwards. The most popular destination is Norway, and Finland comes second, when young Afghans wandering in Paris are asked about their plans. Only few of them speak good English, and most of them do not have any exact information about the immigration policy of European states — just rumours and hearsay. The Finnish journalist’s questions are soon replaced by the curiosity expressed by the interviewees. Are the circumstances in Finland good? Is it easier to find a job in Finland than in Sweden? Is an asylum-seeker allowed to bring his wife and children to Finland?

According to the Dublin Convention, the member-state through which an asylum-seeker first entered the EU is responsible for his or her application. Most of the Afghans have entered the EU through Greece, and for example the human rights organisation Amnesty International has reprimanded Greece for deficient procedures relating to refugee applications. According to Pierre Henry, the number of asylum applications approved in Greece is negligible. “In any case, the Dublin Convention is unreasonable, as it puts the burden of responsibility for refugees or asylum-seekers squarely on the member-state through which they first enter the EU”, Henry adds.

When it comes to Finland, many Afghans have heard that the country does not send minors back to Greece. The fact is confirmed by manager Juha Similä from the Finnish Immigration Service. According to Similä, the conditions for receiving underage asylum-seekers in Greece are inadequate. Nazrullah says that the Greek police are chasing illegal immigrants with truncheons. In Greece and Italy refugees have to stay overnight in the street. “In Finland we could sleep in a house, couldn’t we?” he asks. “I myself can manage in the street, but my wife and daughter cannot sleep there”, Nazrullah adds.

According to Finnish statistics, the number of asylum-seekers of Afghan origin increased sharply in 2008 and at the beginning of 2009. Last year, a total of 254 Afghans applied for asylum in Finland, while in the course of the first three months of the current year a total of 105 Afghan-born asylum-seekers filed their applications in the country. In 2006 and 2007, the number of asylum-seekers was just below 100 for the entire year. In 2008, the Afghans were the third-largest group of asylum-seekers in Finland, right after the Iraqis and Somalis. A total of 72 Afghans were granted asylum in 2008, while 19 applicants received a negative decision.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

[Return to headlines]

France: 150 Migrants Stopped at Calais

(ANSAmed) — PARIS, APRIL 21 — Around 150 illegal immigrants were stopped this morning in Calais, in northern France, during a police-led operation. The news comes from the local prefecture. The operation involved 300 police and military police officers and took place two days before the Immigration Minister Eric Besson’s visit to Calais, where for some years hundreds of illegal immigrants, mainly from the Middle East, have gathered to try and reach Great Britain. Besson previously visited Calais on January 27. On that occasion he committed himself to finding concrete solutions by May. On Thursday, the Immigration Minister will deliver his proposals. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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France to Send Army in as Mayor of Calais Demands UK Open Its Doors to Migrants

The French government today vowed to clear Calais of the shanty town of illegal immigrants waiting to cross to the UK. Immigration minister Eric Besson told the town’s business leaders he would order the removal of a squatter camp which evolved after the closure of a French Red Cross reception centre at nearby Sangatte more than six years ago. And he challenged the UK authorities to share responsibility for solving the problem. Mr Besson urged the UK to sign up to an agreement making Calais a passport free zone — so they can get rid of thousands of illegal migrants.

It would mean that all could get straight across the Channel without official papers to the welfare benefits available in their British ‘Eldorado’.

Exasperated by the sight of the migrants sleeping rough as they try and board Dover-bound trains and lorries illegally, Calais mayor Natacha Bouchard outlined the scheme to Immigration Minister Eric Besson. ‘It’s necessary to speed up negotiations with the British because at the moment we’re ready to charter a boat to dump them over there,’ said Mrs Bouchard.

She said all that Britain had to do was sign up to the Schengen agreement, which allows anybody to travel between designated European Union states — including France — without passports or visas.

Mrs Bouchard also welcomed a scheme to bring in the Army to destroy a notorious shanty town next to Calais port called ‘The Jungle’ where a London journalism student was raped last year. Both politicians — who are tough talking members of the ruling UMP party — were taking part in a crunch meeting aimed at ‘cleaning up’ a problem firmly blamed on Britain’s benefits culture.

The French believe it encourages foreigners from all over the world to use their country as a base to get to the UK, where they will receive generous welfare payments as asylum seekers or else disappear into the black economy.

While Mr Besson favours the use of military force to tear down the squatter camps, he knows that removing passport controls from Calais would cause outrage on the other side of the Channel.

Instead he would prefer to see a series of ‘mini’ welcome centres set up along the French coast, offering food, showers, and information about how to claim asylum.

The Minister denies emphatically that they will be like the Red Cross Centre at Sangatte which acted as a magnet to thousands of migrants to the UK before being shut down as part of an Anglo-French agreement in 2002.

If the UK did sign up to Schengen, then all of the Calais migrants could flock to Dover unchallenged — meaning France’s problem would immediately become a British one.

Earlier this week Mrs Bouchard said: ‘Today, with some 800 migrants in the town, the situation is becoming unmanageable. Calais is hostage to Britain, which refuses to ratify Schengen.’

There are some 2000 migrants sleeping rough in the entire Pas de Calais area, with most playing a nightly game of cat and mouse with frontier police as they try to board lorries and trains to Britain.

Referring to ‘The Jungle’, Mrs Bouchart said: ‘It’s not a camp, it’s a village. The municipal workers cannot clean it up, they’re not up to it.

‘I’ve told the Prefect and I’ve asked him to look at a measure to wipe out this organised village. It needs an intervention by the Army.

‘There are more than 80 shelters, with a transport stop, a mosque, and a shop.

‘Migrants know exactly how to go about taking water, electricity, and stolen building material from local businesses.’ She said thousands of pounds worth of equipment had been stolen to build makeshift homes, with some of it recovered during a series of police raids on Tuesday.

Almost 200 men were arrested at the same time, in an attempt to break up people smuggling gangs who charge up to £1000-a-time for illegal passages to the south coast of England.

While almost all have since been released, Mr Besson said the operation was a success, and that his ‘target’ was the people smugglers.

On the new welcome centres Mr Besson insisted they will not become ‘a new, or a mini Sangatte.’

British Immigration Minister Phil Woolas said: ‘The UK policy is to not sign up to the Schengen Agreement.

‘Free movement is only rightly available to legal entrants. Weakening our controls will only play into the hands of the traffickers who profit from human misery and suffering.’

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

[Return to headlines]

France Gets Tough Over Calais Migrants

France’s Immigration Minister Eric Besson is being urged to remove passport controls at Calais and to bring in the Army to destroy shanty towns full of UK-bound migrants.

The radical measures will be put to him by the port’s mayor Natacha Bouchart at a crunch meeting aimed at “cleaning up” a problem she blames exclusively on Britain.

Both politicians are tough-talking members of the ruling UMP party who have pledged to make the Calais area ‘watertight’ to illegal migrants.

While Mr Besson favours the use of military force to tear down the squatter camps, he knows that making Calais a passport free zone would cause outrage on the other side of the Channel.

Instead he would prefer to see a series of ‘mini’ welcome centres set up along the French coast, offering food, showers, and information about how to claim asylum.

The Minister denies emphatically that they will be like the Red Cross Centre at Sangatte which acted as a magnet to thousands of migrants to the UK before being shut down as part of an Anglo-French agreement in 2002.

Unlike France, Britain has never signed up to the Schengen agreement, which allows anybody to travel between designated European Union states without papers.

If the UK did sign up, then all of the Calais migrants could flock to Dover unchallenged — meaning France’s problem would immediately become a British one.

“Today, with some 800 migrants in the town, the situation is becoming unmanageable. Calais is hostage to Britain, which refuses to ratify Schengen,” Mrs Bouchart said.

“On Thursday I will ask the Minister to restart negotiations with Great Britain over international agreements.”

Mrs Bouchart said that if Britain signed up to Schengen, then the migrants could make their way direct to the UK to claim asylum, rather than using France as a platform to get there illegally.

There are some 2000 migrants sleeping rough in the entire Pas de Calais area, with most playing a nightly game of cat and mouse with frontier police as they try to board lorries and trains to Britain.

Many have been staying in a notorious Calais squat called “The Jungle”, where a London journalism student was raped last summer.

“It’s not a camp, it’s a village. The municipal workers cannot clean it up, they’re not up to it,” Mrs Bouchart said.

“I’ve told the Prefect and I’ve asked him to look at a measure to wipe out this organised village. It needs an intervention by the army.

“There are more than 80 shelters, with a transport stop, a mosque, and a shop. Migrants know exactly how to go about taking water, electricity, and stolen building material from local businesses.”

Thousands of pounds worth of equipment had been stolen to build makeshift homes, with some of it recovered during a series of police raids on Tuesday, she said.

Almost 200 men were arrested at the same time, in an attempt to break up people smuggling gangs who charge up to £1000-a-time for illegal passages to the south coast of England.

While almost all have since been released, Mr Besson said the operation was a success, and that his “target” was the people smugglers.

“The migrants themselves will not be abandoned as humanitarian measures will be put in place,” Mr Besson explained.

Mr Besson will meet local charities to discuss the new welcome centres, insisting they will not become “a new, or a mini Sangatte”.

Responding to French calls to make Calais a passport free zone, British Immigration Minister Phil Woolas said: “The UK policy is to not sign up to the Schengen Agreement.

“Free movement is only rightly available to legal entrants. Weakening our controls will only play into the hands of the traffickers who profit from human misery and suffering.”

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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Greece: New Prevention Measures Decided

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, APRIL 22 — “Illegal immigration is one of the major problems affecting Greece,” said Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis after a meeting held in the Foreign Ministry with Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos, Vice-Minister of the Interior for Public Safety, Christos Markoyannakis, and Healthcare Undersecretary, Marios Malmas, called in order to discuss the illegal immigration problem and its consequences in view of the upcoming summer season. “Basically,” added Bakoyannis, “the decisions that were made in today’s meeting call for a greater presence of Greece in the EU regarding the immigration problem, which will be discussed shortly by the ministers and EU member state leaders, to intensify Frontex activity.” The minister added that the repatriation of immigrants to their countries of origin was also discussed. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Japan Pays Foreign Workers to Go Home

By HIROKO TABUCHI Published: April 22, 2009 HAMAMATSU, Japan — Rita Yamaoka, a mother of three who immigrated from Brazil, recently lost her factory job here. Now, Japan has made her an offer she might not be able to refuse.

The government will pay thousands of dollars to fly Mrs. Yamaoka; her husband, who is a Brazilian citizen of Japanese descent; and their family back to Brazil. But in exchange, Mrs. Yamaoka and her husband must agree never to seek to work in Japan again.

“I feel immense stress. I’ve been crying very often,” Mrs. Yamaoka, 38, said after a meeting where local officials detailed the offer in this industrial town in central Japan.

“I tell my husband that we should take the money and go back,” she said, her eyes teary. “We can’t afford to stay here much longer.”

Japan’s offer, extended to hundreds of thousands of blue-collar Latin American immigrants, is part of a new drive to encourage them to leave this recession-racked country. So far, at least 100 workers and their families have agreed to leave, Japanese officials said.

But critics denounce the program as shortsighted, inhumane and a threat to what little progress Japan has made in opening its economy to foreign workers.

“It’s a disgrace. It’s cold-hearted,” said Hidenori Sakanaka, director of the Japan Immigration Policy Institute, an independent research organization.

“And Japan is kicking itself in the foot,” he added. “We might be in a recession now, but it’s clear it doesn’t have a future without workers from overseas.”

The program is limited to the country’s Latin American guest workers, whose Japanese parents and grandparents emigrated to Brazil and neighboring countries a century ago to work on coffee plantations.

In 1990, Japan — facing a growing industrial labor shortage — started issuing thousands of special work visas to descendants of these emigrants. An estimated 366,000 Brazilians and Peruvians now live in Japan.

The guest workers quickly became the largest group of foreign blue-collar workers in an otherwise immigration-averse country, filling the so-called three-K jobs (kitsui, kitanai, kiken — hard, dirty and dangerous).

But the nation’s manufacturing sector has slumped as demand for Japanese goods evaporated, pushing unemployment to a three-year high of 4.4 percent. Japan’s exports plunged 45.6 percent in March from a year earlier, and industrial production is at its lowest level in 25 years.

New data from the Japanese trade ministry suggested manufacturing output could rise in March and April, as manufacturers start to ease production cuts. But the numbers could have more to do with inventories falling so low that they need to be replenished than with any increase in demand.

While Japan waits for that to happen, it has been keen to help foreign workers leave, which could ease pressure on domestic labor markets and the unemployment rolls.

“There won’t be good employment opportunities for a while, so that’s why we’re suggesting that the Nikkei Brazilians go home,” said Jiro Kawasaki, a former health minister and senior lawmaker of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

“Nikkei” visas are special visas granted because of Japanese ancestry or association.

Mr. Kawasaki led the ruling party task force that devised the repatriation plan, part of a wider emergency strategy to combat rising unemployment.

Under the emergency program, introduced this month, the country’s Brazilian and other Latin American guest workers are offered $3,000 toward air fare, plus $2,000 for each dependent — attractive lump sums for many immigrants here. Workers who leave have been told they can pocket any amount left over.

But those who travel home on Japan’s dime will not be allowed to reapply for a work visa. Stripped of that status, most would find it all but impossible to return. They could come back on three-month tourist visas. Or, if they became doctors or bankers or held certain other positions, and had a company sponsor, they could apply for professional visas.

Spain, with a unemployment rate of 15.5 percent, has adopted a similar program, but immigrants are allowed to reclaim their residency and work visas after three years.

Japan is under pressure to allow returns. Officials have said they will consider such a modification, but have not committed to it.

“Naturally, we don’t want those same people back in Japan after a couple of months,” Mr. Kawasaki said. “Japanese taxpayers would ask, ‘What kind of ridiculous policy is this?’ “

The plan came as a shock to many, especially after the government introduced a number of measures in recent months to help jobless foreigners, including free Japanese-language courses, vocational training and job counseling. Guest workers are eligible for limited cash unemployment benefits, provided they have paid monthly premiums.

“It’s baffling,” said Angelo Ishi, an associate professor in sociology at Musashi University in Tokyo. “The Japanese government has previously made it clear that they welcome Japanese-Brazilians, but this is an insult to the community.”

It could also hurt Japan in the long run. The aging country faces an impending labor shortage. The population has been falling since 2005, and its working-age population could fall by a third by 2050. Though manufacturers have been laying off workers, sectors like farming and care for the elderly still face shortages.

But Mr. Kawasaki said the economic slump was a good opportunity to overhaul Japan’s immigration policy as a whole.

“We should stop letting unskilled laborers into Japan. We should make sure that even the three-K jobs are paid well, and that they are filled by Japanese,” he said. “I do not think that Japan should ever become a multiethnic society.”

He said the United States had been “a failure on the immigration front,” and cited extreme income inequalities between rich Americans and poor immigrants.

At the packed town hall meeting in Hamamatsu, immigrants voiced disbelief that they would be barred from returning. Angry members of the audience converged on officials. Others walked out of the meeting room.

“Are you saying even our children will not be able to come back?” one man shouted.

“That is correct, they will not be able to come back,” a local labor official, Masahiro Watai, answered calmly.

Claudio Nishimori, 30, said he was considering returning to Brazil because his shifts at a electronics parts factory were recently reduced. But he felt anxious about going back to a country he had left so long ago.

“I’ve lived in Japan for 13 years. I’m not sure what job I can find when I return to Brazil,” he said. But his wife has been unemployed since being laid off last year and he can no longer afford to support his family.

Mrs. Yamaoka and her husband, Sergio, who settled here three years ago at the height of the export boom, are undecided. But they have both lost jobs at auto factories. Others have made up their minds to leave. About 1,000 of Hamamatsu’s Brazilian inhabitants left the city before the aid was even announced. The city’s Brazilian elementary school closed last month.

“They put up with us as long as they needed the labor,” said Wellington Shibuya, who came six years ago and lost his job at a stove factory in October. “But now that the economy is bad, they throw us a bit of cash and say goodbye.”

He recently applied for the government repatriation aid and is set to leave in June.

“We worked hard; we tried to fit in. Yet they’re so quick to kick us out,” he said. “I’m happy to leave a country like this.”

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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NZ: Language a Massive Barrier for New NZ Immigrants: Report

Language difficulties have been identified as one of the main issues preventing non-Western families adjusting to culture and getting ahead in New Zealand.

Research released today by the Families Commission, in collaboration with the NZ Federation of Ethnic Councils , found many conflicts identified among the 39 immigrant parents and children interviewed were about trust and differing opinions.

Findings suggested inter-generational conflicts which occurred when young people reached adolescence could be worsened by the process of cultural transition.

However, outside the family it was found that personal wellbeing in New Zealand was improved and the increased opportunities were noted.

On the negative side, language barriers were found to be a one of the biggest challenges, and some talked about cultural discrimination and a lack of work opportunities.

Many said they were struggling to find work, despite qualifications, and that the situation led to income issues and distress.

“I came here thinking that my life would change for the better, I will get a job, but this hasn’t happened,” an African father said.

An African mother said she found it difficult having to do shift work to pay the bills, and at the same time the situation was keeping her separated from her son.

A young Muslim woman said she felt alienated because people couldn’t get used to her veil, while a young man talked about his family being treated like “terrorists” in their neighbourhood.

“We have not been accepted by the people here, so I have nothing else but to stay the same … if the way they talk and treat us is the New Zealand way then I don’t want to be part of it”.

Despite the comments, the report said most participants didn’t discuss discrimination and ignorance, but a lack of acceptance was seen as barrier for integration into New Zealand society.

While many participants saw themselves as actively trying to fit in to New Zealand society, maintaining ethnic traditions was also important.

The report said despite some difficulties, relationships between parents and children were generally healthy, and members felt well adjusted and supported.

Families coming to New Zealand generally had a grounding foundation for their home culture’s beliefs, values and language, and that needed to be maintained.

The report said policy should be directed towards supporting pre-existing strengths of immigrant families, while seeking to address problems in acculturation.

Findings suggested there was possibility for a greater role for local government to facilitate the enhancement of the strengths in migrant families.

That included providing information in migrant communities for social services, groups and organisations.

“Strengths-based family training programmes as well as interventions would be well placed at this level,” it said.

Encouragement for participation in the wider society also needed to be facilitated.

Policy changes permitting the entry of overseas family members to New Zealand with temporary or long-term visas would also be welcomed by families here, the report said.

It said a more comprehensive survey was needed to identify how families could be further assisted once here.

The research involved families from African, Middle Eastern and Asian backgrounds.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Pinar: Italian Dossier in Brussels

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS — More funds to monitor foreign borders outside the EU, greater support from all European partners and the definition, on an EU level too, of responsibility for search and rescue missions in international waters. As understood in Brussels, these are three requests put forward by Italy in the Pinar dossier regarding the cargo ship that rescued a boat of African migrants off the south coast of Sicily, and delivered today to European Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security, Jacques Barrot. The dossier states that Italy cannot be left alone to face the influx of illegal immigration from the African coasts and sailing towards Sicily in search of a foothold in Europe. According to the document, the EU cannot put all the weight of managing the phenomenon on the bordering countries. A circumstance that in the case of Sicily translates into a burden taken on almost entirely by Italy. The dossier also makes reference to rescue activities undertaken by Italy in international waters under Malta’s responsibility. In two years there have been 670 operations. The document states that the Pinar, when it gave the first alarm was in Maltese search and rescue waters, which is why Italy invited authorities in Valletta to intervene after giving the first assistance for humanitarian reasons. Malta rejects the arguments in the Italian dossier and maintains that it coordinated the rescue and directed the Pinar where it had been directed initially, Lampedusa, being “the nearest safe port”. An attempt to mediate the dispute between Italy and Malta will take place on Thursday in Brussels when a meeting is scheduled between Barrot and the Italian and Maltese Foreign Ministers, Roberto Maroni, and Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici. (ANSAmed)

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Sicily Region, Pinar Immigrants Not Assisted

(ANSAmed) — PALERMO, APRIL 20 — “I want to ask that the unfortunate people who have reached the coast of Sicily be guaranteed treatment which respects the basic parameters of humanity and civilisation.” The governor of the Sicily Region, Raffaele Lombardo, made his plea upon learning of “the 84 immigrants who were moved from the vessel, Pinamar, and taken to Porto Empedocle by the Italian naval ship, Danaide, had not stopped in tent set up in the port area by the regional Civil Defence department where immigrants receive initial assistance”. A statement from the Region’s presidency specified that “when the Danaide arrived, for some inexplicable reason, the State Police authorities, despite the availability of men and equipment from the Region, decided to send the immigrants directly to the reception centres set up by the Ministry of the Interior”. The first group of 20 immigrants, who arrived during the morning in a Financial Police patrol boat, had stopped at the tent. “There, thanks to Civil Defence operators and volunteers,” the statement continued, “it was possible to give the immigrants food and drink, allow them to put on clean clothes, to use the bathroom and to wash, after their terrible experience along the Maltese coast. It was only after they had been seen by doctors and the police had made their first investigations that the immigrants were taken to the centre set up by the Ministry of the Interior”. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Tunisia: 159 Illegal Migrants Apprehended

(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, APRIL 21 — One hundred and fifty-nine Tunisian youths have been halted by police in their attempt to illegally cross the border with Libya to head to Italy by boat. The would-be immigrants, who are mostly from Tunis, were apprehended in several dwellings around Medenine (southern Tunisia), where they were staying before heading to the Libyan coast to catch a boat. (ANSAmed)

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Gene Technology Threatens New Racism: Vatican

GENEVA (Reuters) — Technology allowing parents to choose the genetic characteristics of their babies threatens to breed new forms of racism, the Vatican told a United Nations race conference on Wednesday.

Pope Benedict earlier this week said the heated U.N. forum, which several Western powers are boycotting to avoid giving legitimacy to criticism of Israel, was an important initiative to confront all forms of modern discrimination.

“The Holy See is also alarmed by the still latent temptation of eugenics that can be fueled by techniques of artificial procreation and the use of ‘superfluous embryos’,” Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, Vatican observer to the U.N. in Geneva said.

“The possibility of choosing the color of the eyes or other physical characteristic of a child could lead to the creation of a ‘subcategory of human beings’ or the elimination of human beings that do not fulfill the characteristics predetermined by a given society.”

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has cast a long shadow over the Geneva meeting that formally wraps up on Friday.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made international headlines on its opening day on Monday when he denounced Israel as a racist state, prompting dozens of delegates to stream out.

Pro-Israeli and Jewish groups had urged the Vatican to boycott the meeting alongside Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Canada, and Israel.

But Tomasi said it was important for religious voices to be heard at such forums.

“In the fight against racism, faith communities play a major part,” he said.

He also cited concerns that “an increased fragmentation of social relations in our multicultural societies” and the world’s economic crisis has made vulnerable people even more so.

— Hat tip: Tuan Jim

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Durban II: The Outrage Continues

By Anne Bayefsky

The UN’s racist anti-racism conference “Durban II” rammed through a final declaration three days before its scheduled conclusion. On Monday Iranian President Ahamadinejad had opened the substantive program by denying the Holocaust and spewing antisemitism. A day later UN members rewarded Iran by electing it one of three Vice-Chairs of the committee which adopted the final declaration.

The committee meeting was chaired by Libya and lasted fifteen minutes. No discussion of the merits of the Durban II declaration was tolerated.

The document reaffirms the 2001 Durban Declaration which alleges Palestinians are victims of Israeli racism and mentions only Israel among all 192 UN member states. It also multiplies the anti-Israel provisions, using the usual UN code, by adding yet another rant about racist foreign occupation.

Not surprisingly, such a manifesto encouraged the racists and antisemites which had pressed for its adoption. Speaking on Tuesday the Syrian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Faysal Mekdad, alleged “the right of return” of Jews to Israel — Jewish self-determination — was “a form of racial discrimination”. He also objected to the “Judaization of Israel” and to the “ethnic cleansing…of 1948.”

Palestinian Riyad Al-Maliki claimed that “for over 60 years the Palestinian people has been suffering under…the ugliest face of racism and racial discrimination…” and said an Israeli government “declaration…regarding the Jewish nature of the state is a form of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.” Al-Maliki was delighted with the result of the conference and gloated by reading excerpts from the 2001 Durban Declaration that he was pleased to see had been reaffirmed.

The remnants of the European Union which remained inside the conference — in particular France and the United Kingdom — entirely ignored their many promises not to accept anything which singled out the Jewish state. Though these Europeans undoubtedly enabled the hatemongering, their excuses in the coming days are predictable.

The rest of the week has been set aside for speechifying. Europeans can be expected to point to the miniscule mentions of antisemitism and the Holocaust and pretend antisemitism is unrelated to the demonization of Israel in the very same text.

Their behavior is as chilling as the behavior of the UN itself.

— Hat tip: Vlad Tepes

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Row Over Anti-Racism Observer

THE Australian Human Rights Commission has defended its decision to send the Race Discrimination Commissioner, Tom Calma, to take part in a Geneva conference where delegates walked out after the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, attacked Israel as a racist regime.

Mr Calma had attended the Durban Review Conference as observer even though the Rudd Government had boycotted the conference, fearing it would become an anti-Israel talkfest.

Australian Jewish leaders were reportedly critical of Mr Calma’s decision to go to Geneva to attend the United Nations conference which was reviewing a world code for what constitutes racism.

But the commission issued a statement reiterating it was an independent body with a legislative mandate, under the Racial Discrimination Act, to combat racial discrimination and prejudices that lead to racial discrimination.

“The decision of the commission for the Race Discrimination Commissioner to attend the Durban Review Conference 2009 in Geneva was taken in consideration of the commission’s functions under the Racial Discrimination Act,” the statement said.

“The commission was satisfied that the conference would provide a valuable opportunity for common experiences of racism to be shared.”

The Rudd Government boycotted the conference after it, the US, Israel and other nations were unsuccessful in having the words changed of a draft document upholding anti-Semitic remarks in the 2001 Durban Declaration. The conference ends today.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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UN Kicks Jews, Iranians Out of Racism Meeting

GENEVA — The United Nations expelled three groups from its conference on global racism Thursday for unacceptable behavior related to the opening speech that Iran’s president gave denouncing Israel.

The disciplinary action was the latest sign of the rancor at the weeklong conference caused by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinajad’s claim that the West used the Holocaust as a “pretext” to harm the Palestinians. But it did not prevent officials from around the world from achieving their main goal on Tuesday: a consensus document calling for action against racism and xenophobia.

The groups whose passes were withdrawn are the French Union of Jewish Students; Coexist, a related French-based organization that fights racism and anti-Semitism; and the Tehran-based Neda Institute for Political and Scientific Research, said Rupert Colville, a spokesman for U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

He told reporters that members of the first group had been involved Monday in disrupting Ahmadinejad’s speech.

He did not elaborate, but a pair of rainbow-wigged protesters threw clown noses at Ahmadinajad, while others shouted, “You are a racist!” and “Shame! shame!” from the gallery. Iranian spectators also cheered loudly. Later about 100 members of pro-Israel and Jewish groups tried to block Ahmadinejad’s entrance to a news conference.

The Neda Institute from Iran distributed inflammatory material to meeting participants, Colville said.

Altogether, 64 badges of representatives of the three non-governmental organizations were revoked, he said.

On Tuesday, U.N. officials announced that the badges of some members of these groups were withdrawn. But “After examining the types of conduct, and patterns of conduct, as well as the risk of possible disruptive behavior during the remainder of the conference, the High Commissioner has issued an instruction that the badges of all the participants of three NGOs be removed,” Colville said. That ends the groups participation in the conference.

Meanwhile, the controversy of the opening speech, which caused many European officials to walk out of the conference room, continued.

On Wednesday, Iran sent a letter of protest to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for criticizing Ahmadinejad’s speech. The Iranian president “was subjected to unfair and unwarranted harsh criticism,” Iran’s ambassador to the U.N. in New York, Mohammad Khazaee, said in the letter.

The U.N. Office in Geneva was unable to comment on the letter early Thursday because it had not received it.

Ban said Monday he deplored “the use of this platform by the Iranian president to accuse, divide and even incite. This is the opposite of what this conference seeks to achieve.”

“It is deeply regrettable that my plea to look to the future of unity was not heeded by the Iranian president,” Ban said in a statement, adding that he met with Ahmadinejad before the U.N. conference stressing the importance of uniting in the fight against racism.

Ban’s comment was a response to Ahmadinejad’s denunciation of Israel on the first day of the conference in Geneva, calling it the most “cruel, and repressive, racist regime.” That sparked and strong condemnations from the U.N.; the U.S., which had boycotted the conference; and several other Western countries.

Iran’s ambassador noted that tolerance and freedom of expression were among the basic principles of the world racism conference..

“It is unacceptable, and indeed regrettable, that these very principles were utterly disregarded in the same conference where we witnessed a manifestation of intolerance by some,” he said.

Khazaee said the U.N. secretary general should be impartial and fair, adding that the majority of U.N. member states were concerned about the plight of the Palestinians caused by Israel’s policies and practices.

Some campaigners say the conference’s focus on the Middle East occurred at the expense of other urgent cases of racism, such as plight of “untouchables,” the social outcasts at the bottom of India’s complex caste system.

“Caste discrimination is one of the most important issues being left out of this conference and because of the predominant attention to one specific issue, all other concerns within the field of racism, discrimination, xenophobia and racial intolerance, are being excluded,” said Peter Prove of the Lutheran World Federation.

The International Dalit Solidarity Network, which campaigns on behalf of untouchables in India and elsewhere, says some 260 million people in Asia and Africa suffer discrimination because they are deemed to belong to inferior castes.

— Hat tip: heroyalwhyness

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