Well, Mad Jad performed as expected in Geneva. His anti-Semitic schtick was so pitch-perfect that the remaining EU contingent walked out.
Add the marauding clowns and the detaining of Alan Dershowitz, and the Durban 2 farce becomes an entertaining spectacle for jaded news-junkies like me…
Thanks to Barry Rubin, C. Cantoni, CSP, Diana West, Fausta, Fjordman, Insubria, islam o’phobe, JD, KGS, Lexington, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
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Financial Crisis |
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Arab Finance Ministers Meet to Discuss Credit Crunch |
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Economy: Arab Stock Exchange Union Meets in Casablanca |
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Euroland: ‘Sick Men Shackled’ |
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Global Crisis Forces Kazakhstan to Cut 2009 Budget |
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Spain: House Prices Fall to 2006 Levels, Down 6.8% in a Year |
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Turkey: Strauss-Kahn, Deal With IMF Expected in Coming Weeks |
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Union Equity Stake as Chrysler-Fiat Deal Nears |
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‘Zombie’ Companies Threaten EU Recovery, Says Think-Tank |
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USA
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Do the Al Gores of the World Want You Dead? |
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FBI Spied on Tea Party Americans! |
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Fighting Back Against Gestapo Tactics |
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Frank Gaffney: ‘The Enemy is Us’ |
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Mark Steyn: Tea Party Animals Not Boiling Over |
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Obama Says Reaching Out to Enemies Strengthens US |
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The Sting, in Four Parts |
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War on ‘Right-Wing Extremists’ |
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Why I Care About Obama Eligibility Issue |
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Canada
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Analyzing the Analysis: DHS’s Right Wing Extremists Report |
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Europe and the EU
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France: Law & Order, North-Paris Banlieue Most Violent |
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Islam: France, Court Upholds Veil Dismissal |
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Riot Police Taught to Treat the Public ‘As Their Enemy’, Former Chief Claims |
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Spain: Constructor in Debt Kidnaps Bank Manager |
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UK: ‘The Death Ward’: Elderly NHS Patients Died After Being Given ‘Inappropriate’ Levels of Drugs |
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UK: Police Threatened G20 Activists With Tasers as Ex-Yard Chief Blames ‘Leadership Crisis’ for Aggression |
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UK: Revealed: Government Helpline Tells Children ‘Cannabis is Safer Than Alcohol’ |
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UK: Russian Journalist Blasts ‘Big Brother Britain’ and Compares it to Life in the Old Soviet Union |
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UK: What Recession? Councils Offer ‘Bizarre Non-Jobs’ Including Roller Disco Coach and Toothbrush Adviser for Infants |
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Balkans
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Al-Qaeda Op: Jihadists Safe in Bosnia |
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Serbia-Bulgaria: Agreement in Field of Defence Signed |
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Mediterranean Union
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Culture: Jordi Savall, Med Music Risks Extinction |
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North Africa
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Polygamy and Family Law |
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Tackling Terrorism and Weapons Trafficking, Seminar in Rabat |
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Tunisia: Chief Commander of Carabinieri on Visit to Tunis |
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Israel and the Palestinians
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Hezbollah ‘Infiltrated’ Fatah Claims Official |
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Israel: Netanyahu, Palestinians Must Accept Jewish State |
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Obama’s Stance Worries Israelis |
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West Bank: Palestinian Demonstrator Killed |
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Middle East
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Business: Syrian Gov’t Opts for Complusory Insurance |
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Jordan: EU Opens Consultations on 2011-2013 Cooperation |
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Saudi Arabia: Secret Cameras to Monitor Internet Cafe Users |
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Temporary Marriages With Indonesian Women on Rise |
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The Confrontation Con-Game |
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Turkey: ‘Fatal Dress’, a Documentary on Women’s Condition |
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South Asia
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India: Election Marred by Maoist Attacks |
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Indian Business Students Snap Up Copies of Mein Kampf |
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Pakistan: ‘War on Terror’ Sparks Stand-Off With US |
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Far East
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China: Beijing: State Control Over the Press is Insufficient and Will be Increased |
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Japan to Immigrants: Thanks, But You Can Go Home Now |
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North Korea: Italian Defence Expert Urges Tough Line |
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Latin America
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The Festivus Summit of the Americas |
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Immigration
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America is Not Geography |
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Maltese Minister, Maroni’s Criticism Unacceptable |
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Maroni: Malta Must Respect Commitments |
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General
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Ahmadinejad Jeered at Anti-Racism Conference |
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‘Clean Energy’ is a Dirty Lie |
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Students Face Off With Ahmadinejad |
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Western Diplomats Walk Out on Ahmadinejad Speech in Geneva |
Arab Finance Ministers Meet to Discuss Credit Crunch
(ANSAmed) — DEAD SEA, APRIL 15 — Arab finance ministers held a meeting on the shores of the Dead Sea on Wednesday to fork out measures to ease the impact of the financial global crisis that hit local economies hard amid calls for increasing pan Arab trade and investment, amid gloomy forcast for poor economies in the region. “This is the worst economic crisis the world faces since the 1930s and we must find ways to help each other overcome it”, said Saudi Finance minister Ebrahim Assaf at the opening of the meetings, which included countries from the Middle East and North Africa. Assaf, whose country is a major oil producer and one of the biggest economies in the region, said no country can overcome the problem alone. He also pointed to recent criticism the Arab Monitory Fund (AMF) received over lack of support to Arab countries with struggling economy, which have been suffering in the aftermath of the crisis. “We will be holding meetings at various levels during the coming two days in order to find means of helping each other,” said the minister, who noted the AMF will be examining the possibility of offering financial assistance to needy Arab countries. “I would like to point out to the meetings of the Arab Monitory Fund, which has been put under spotlight regarding what this institutions does to support economy of Arab states. The fund received suggestions to increase aid to Arab countries to face the global financial crisis. Such suggestions, God welling, will contribute to allowing countries overcome the crisis. The conference, titled the annual joint meeting for Arab financial institutions brought together major Arab financial institutions including representatives from the Arab Monetary Fund, Arab Fund for Social and Economic Development, Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa, Arab Authority for Investment and Agricultural Development, and Arab Foundation for Investment Protection. Senior officials from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraqi, Tunisia, Morocco, Oman, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and other countries also discussed means of boosting cooperation in a bid to revive the pan Arab free market, a project that struggled under the shackles of political sensitivities. Jordan’s minister of Finance, Bassem Salem told ANSAmed on the sideline of the conference that his country is seeking assurances from oil rich states to refrain from terminating the contracts of Jordanians in their countries. “We have been discussing with gulf state officials to exclude Jordanians from job lay offs, but we will not be able to do that with private companies,” said the official. Jordanian expatriates send nearly half a billion dollars annually from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar, but thousands have been sent back home due to persistent drop in economic activities in the gulf. Salem also lamented lack of economic cooperation among Arab stats and urged the gulf countries to invest in other Arab states. “There should be an increase in investment from Gulf states in other countries, for two reasons, one to make profits and second to deal with the financial surplice in these countries,” said the minister. Finance ministers will also be looking at achievements in the aftermath of Arab economic summit in Kuwait, in which gulf states pledged 2 $ to ease the impact of the crisis on Arab states. Oil prices have plunged to well below $40 a barrel, virtually a quarter of the record peak above $147 the hit last July/. The crisis has lead much of the industrialised world into recession, and dimmed the economic outlook for the Arab world, including oil producing nations. For Iraq, the crisis is making it difficult to continue with the reconstruction efforts, admitted Iraqi finance minister Baqer Jaber Solagh whose country is one of the biggest oil producers in the world. “If we do not deal with the problem of declining oil exports we will have a crisis and reconstruction efforts will be complicated,” said the official. “The only problem we currently face in Iraq, which should be tackled, is the decline in oil export rates from 2 million barrels a day down to 1.830 million barrels a day,” he said. (ANSAmed).
Economy: Arab Stock Exchange Union Meets in Casablanca
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, APRIL 16 — The 32nd Arab Stock Exchange Union meeting, which opened yesterday in Casablanca, the economic capital of Morocco, is devoted to the global financial crisis and its repercussions on markets in the Arab world. Created in 1978 to consolidate and develop cooperation and coordination between economic institutions in the region and to encourage inter-Arab investments, the Arab Stock Exchange Union assembles the presidents of stock markets in 15 countries and 8 surveillance groups, in addition to 25 affiliated members. Arab markets, according to the secretary general of the Arab Stock Exchange Union, Fadi Khalaf, have lost about 600 billion dollars since the beginning of 2008. The Arab financial markets have been directly affected by oil prices, he explained, pointing out that Arab financial markets have dropped by 5.15% compared to the world average, but did not decline more than the average registered in emerging countries. Khalaf called for the creation of tools and mechanisms for prevention, regulation, and reform to combat irregularities. The Arab Stock Exchange Union, with its headquarters in Beirut, also aims to facilitate exchange and technical assistance among member countries, contribute to standardising laws and promote and diversify investment in the Arab markets. (ANSAmed).
Euroland: ‘Sick Men Shackled’
Note: This is my column in today’s Irish Daily Mail. It has lessons for the British as the Brown Government — and Peter Mandelson in particular — continue with their attempts to manoeuvre Britain into the euro.
Today I am going to talk about German and Italian economic policy and the single European currency, and their part in what is going to keep this country in a very long recession. The reason I am going to talk about it — the foolishness of the Germans and the Italians, and the dangers of the euro — is because you are not going to hear it from anybody in Government or in the Opposition. The number one article of faith for Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, Labour, the lot of them, is that, whatever else is going wrong here, our ‘European partners’ and the single currency are saving us from even more hell.
In fact, our ties to Europe and the single currency are going to prolong our agony.
As I say, you will not hear it from our politicians. Fianna Fail will go on blaming only the ‘global recession.’ Fine Gael and Labour will go on blaming only Fianna Fail. But none of them will admit what being tied to our ‘European partners’ and the euro is really doing to us.
Last week for example statistics showed that there are glimmers of hope among the American and British economies. Meanwhile the economic contraction in the eurozone showed no sign of slowing. Indeed, according the Financial Times, it might even have accelerated in the first quarter of this year.
Despite this, our politicians go on saying our safety lies in Europe. But remember what Charles de Gaulle said in 1963: ‘Europe is France and Germany. The rest are just trimmings.’ Take the general at his word and look at what ‘Europe’ is doing. German industrial output was more than 20 percent lower in February than it was a year ago, and industrial production in France was 16.3 percent lower. No one is going to find safety in that kind of Europe.
Or, indeed, in any kind of Europe that has Italy in it. Good grief, the kind of people we are tied to now: Germany and Italy. Germany has built its economy with a strategy based on exports — about 80 percent of German economic growth in 1997-2007 came from exports — suppressing domestic demand and an abhorrence of budget deficits. Despite the plunge in global trade, Germany has refused to reverse these policies. One cannot be surprised that it is now suffering the worst recession of any of the major economies.
Meanwhile Italy has nothing but dismal growth prospects and relentless loss of world market share. It is looking at ten years of stagnation at best, and maybe social turmoil at worst.
Such is the danger of these two countries being tied in the same currency that the economist Charles Dumas of Lombard Street Research has just written 20-page report, ‘Sick men shackled: Germany, Italy and the euro.’ It is pretty horrifying to read, and even more horrifying to realise that our own politicians have shackled us as well onto these two sick giants.
To understand the danger we are in, look at Germany as a proxy for north-central Europe. This includes the non-eurozone countries such as Sweden and some of the newer EU member states, also Norway and Switzerland, neither of whom is in the EU or the euro, as well as Germany.
Then look at Italy as a proxy for the northern edge of the Mediterranean — not including France, but including Spain, Greece, and Portugal, as well as Italy. Mr Dumas calls them Club Med.
North-central Europe greatly depends on exports to the rest of Europe. That means in large part exports to Club Med. (Of course it does. Where do you imagine Spanish industry gets it machine tools, from Greece?) The problem is, north-central Europe is made up of over-competitive exporters who don’t like to spend money at home. Club Med is a load of uncompetitive countries which are having their income sapped by being tied in a single currency link with north-central Europe. That means Club Med members can’t devalue their currency to sharpen their competitiveness. These two halves of the Continent are locked together, each keeping the other from advancing: sick men shackled.
As Mr Dumas writes: ‘It was former Chancellor Kohl whose overweening self-assurance caused him to plunge on from the entirely necessary re-unification of Germany to the highly risky European monetary union (EMU). The decisive error of allowing Italy (and then Greece) into EMU is starting to show its full malignant consequences now. The Maastricht criteria for participating in the monetary union were designed to ensure Italy’s exclusion. Italy never came close to meeting all the criteria, and one test it did pass was on the basis of fiddled budget statistics. Its admission to EMU was a purely political decision —and blunder.’
The two countries being shackled together ‘is worsening recession and stunting long-run growth prospects in both Germany and Italy, and probably much of the rest of Euroland too.’
The problem is that EMU encourages imbalances in growth and inflation. ‘Likewise, on the exchange rate front, imbalances that arise from excessive wages or deficiencies of industrial structure lead to imbalances in trade that do not have to be corrected, as the deficits can be financed under the general umbrella of the euro. Thus Italy’s grotesque uncompetitiveness of costs and products has not led to enforced discipline, as the external world has financed Italian deficits without noticing them — as would certainly not be the case were Italy not protected by the much-vaunted financial stability arising from EMU membership.’
‘Put another way, financial instability is not always bad — rather, a useful advance warning that something is wrong with economic fundamentals. A dachshund with a bad back, given pain-killers, repeats the actions that injured its back, and thus destroys itself.’
EMU’s pain-killer effect is waning quickly, warns Mr Dumas, and it malignant economic effects waxing to match. Germany’s competitiveness is already blunted by these weak continental markets, and it can only recover when the budget deficit stimuli of America and Britain revive its exports.
Which is where Ireland needs to start paying attention. Like Germany, we are waiting for salvation by means of demand from the American dollar and British sterling.
The problem is, as Mr Dumas points out, that once this demand starts up, Germany — or, I could say, Ireland — is going to have to try to get its selling going again in what is probably going to be ‘a rather modest Anglo-Saxon growth period — always assuming we are right to forecast a recovery at all.’
Indeed. Nobody is guaranteeing a recovery, and certainly no one is guaranteeing a return to world trade as it was before this global downturn began. Free trade may start looking to America and other importing countries like something they can no longer afford. They may look again at exporter countries such as Germany and decide they are sick of sending jobs to Stuttgart. Mr Dumas suggests they might say, ‘Let’s slap an import surcharge on, to reduce the budget deficit and bias the job creation and income to our own taxpayers.’ It would be an argument that would be hard to refute.
Add the risks of falling prices, flat-lining real German incomes, short-term dollar weakness, volatile overseas investment, and on and on.
‘The blindness to these risks in Berlin, Frankfurt, Brussels and The Hague means that the viability of the euro itself will remain in question over the medium term. It has only survived so well for ten years because its first major test arose from excessive post-reunification German costs: the German élite has never hesitated to put the interests of European unification ahead of the welfare of the German people.’
‘Now that the long-term sufferers from the absurd imbalances of the EMU system are to be Italians, Greeks, and Spaniards, with unemployment rising to levels reminiscent of the 1980s and early 1990s, when inflation was being expunged, it seems unlikely either that Italy, in particular, will continue to wish to be in EMU, or that Germany will want to pay the ever-mounting cost of keeping Club Med in it.’
‘Whether the Euro system will survive is an open question. What is clearer is that the performance of its member economies is poor in any case, and made significantly worse by membership of EMU.’
Though, as I said at the beginning, you won’t hear any of our politicians admitting that.
Global Crisis Forces Kazakhstan to Cut 2009 Budget
The drop in exports and the collapse of prices for oil and metals, among the country’s main products, is reducing public revenue. The government pledges not to cut salaries and social services. But inflation, projected to be 11%, is causing increasing difficulty for the population.
Astana (AsiaNews/Agencies) — The upper house (Senate) of Kazakhstan approved, on April 8, a sharp cut to the projected 2009 budget, which was approved just last December. The government says that the new anti-crisis austerity measures will not include cuts to essential services, but analysts observe that high inflation would instead require a rise in spending for social services.
The new budget projects a rise of just 1.1% in the 2009 gross domestic product, after an increase of at least 2.7% was expected in December. The crisis has had a significant impact on the country, which for years has seen its GDP increase by 8-9% per year.
The slowdown in growth is due to the collapse in exports and the lower global prices for metals and oil (oil has fallen to 40 dollars per barrel, from 150 dollars in August). Oil is one of the country’s leading resources. The construction industry has also come to a standstill after the boom in recent years, dried up by the drop in bank financing. The situation has been aggravated by rapid inflation, estimated at around 11%, especially as a consequence of the recent devaluation of the local currency (the tenge), which has led to a spike in prices for many imported goods.
The new state budget projects a drop in public revenue of about 20%, compared to estimates from December. Minister for Economy and Budget Planning Bahyt Sultanov says that the new budget increases social spending, with the creation of jobs and provision of financing for university students, and that the cuts will not affect sectors like salaries, pensions, and social benefits. But wages are already low, and the rapid inflation is seriously eroding buying power. The minimum pension of 9,800 tenge (about 65 U.S. dollars) is lower than the legal minimum wage, and not nearly enough to live on.
On the other hand, other economists maintain that the cuts are insufficient, and comment that Astana is pledging to spend money that it does not have, possibly counting on an unlikely rise in the price of oil and metals for export. The government recently told state companies (like the public holding company Samruk-Kazyna) to cut jobs, and has frozen salaries for all of 2009. The job losses are even more serious considering the crisis in the private labor market.
The crisis is also putting a damper on Astana’s ambitions to position itself as a regional leader. One of the main spending provisions in the 2009 budget is for the creation of installations and infrastructure to host the 2011 Asian Winter Olympic Games: this could be a source of jobs, and could benefit the country’s image, but in the meantime it requires an adequate economic commitment.
Spain: House Prices Fall to 2006 Levels, Down 6.8% in a Year
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, APRIL 17 — According to data released today by the Ministry of Housing in Madrid, the average price of a house in Spain has recorded a drop of 6.8% in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same period in 2008. The average price per metre squared fell to 1,958.1, the same price as in 2006. The most consistent drops were recorded in Toledo (-14.4%), Salamanca (-12%), Malaga (-10.4%), Madrid (-9.2%), Alicante (-9.1%). After a decade of economic euphoria led by the building boom, Spain entered a crisis in 2008, experiencing amongst other things, the bursting of the building bubblé. The country has been in recession since autumn last year. (ANSAmed).
Turkey: Strauss-Kahn, Deal With IMF Expected in Coming Weeks
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, APRIL 16 — Turkey and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said an agreement on the new loan programme will be reached soon, signalling an end to almost a year of uncertainty. “We are negotiating. I believe in the coming weeks we will find an agreement.” IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn told an audience at the National Press Club in Washington late yesterday, as reported by local press. He added that only then would the size of the IMF financial package be known, Bloomberg and Reuters reported. “The needs of the Turkish economy are well known. They are big,” he said. Earlier Turkish media said that the deal would cover all of Turkey’s foreign financing needs and predicted different estimations of its amount, ranging from USD 25-USD 45 billion. (ANSAmed).
Union Equity Stake as Chrysler-Fiat Deal Nears
White Houses cranks up pressure on banks. Powerful UAW union to take 20% holding. Opel option surfaces
MILAN — There is still one, very political, variable to pin down. It concerns those sections of the opposition, and public opinion, that are lobbying Barack Obama because “you can’t save Chrysler and let GM go to the wall”. In backrooms and newspaper columns across the United States, the talk is that parts at least of the two former Detroit auto giants could somehow be cobbled together. If this is going to be an issue for Fiat, which has its sights set on the smaller of the two US groups, it will become one later on. Bear in mind that Barack Obama has given GM 30 days longer with a deadline for new public funds and probable bankruptcy of 31 May.
But the end of April is the cut-off date for the “only road” — a definition and an agenda for the White House-backed task force — to save Chrysler. That road leads to merger with Fiat and the handing over to Sergio Marchionne of the keys to Auburn Mills. Officially, all parties involved express the obligatory caution but in reality the momentum continues and there could be new developments when the Fiat board convenes next Thursday. The latest titbit appeared yesterday in Automotive News, which reported that US unions could take an equity stake. It is a clear signal that negotiations are proceeding and that the influential United Auto Workers is shaping to give the green light to Mr Marchionne for the most sensitive item on the agenda: cutting labour costs. This is not the only effect of the Fiat plan, the basis for government’s discreet moral suasion. Progress has also been made in negotiations with the banks, which will soon be receiving a new offer for the reimbursement of Chrysler’s debts from the US Treasury (which is also keeping a weather eye on Fiat’s accounts). At that point, it would be difficult for the bankers, themselves rescued with public money, not to play their part in salvaging a major chunk of American manufacturing industry…
‘Zombie’ Companies Threaten EU Recovery, Says Think-Tank
An influential Brussels-based think-tank says “zombie” companies — enterprises badly in need of structural reform but kept alive by state subsidies — risk hampering EU growth levels once the economic crisis comes to an end.
“They stifle economic growth, while preventing reallocation of resources to sectors with higher growth potential,” say authors Jean Pisani-Ferry and Bruno van Pottelsberghe of Bruegel in a publication released last week.
“There will always be a political temptation to rescue particularly large industrial companies using government funds.”
The danger risks being compounded by “zombie lending” say the authors, a situation where EU banks prioritise lending to big failing companies as opposed to smaller ones with frequently much higher growth potential.
As banks increasingly rely on bailouts from EU governments, so their lending criteria become more politically motivated while frequently ignoring good economic logic, warn the authors.
Instead Europe should take account of the lessons learnt from Japan in the 1990s where such “zombie” companies stifled growth and added to a period in Japan’s economic history known as the lost decade.
As economic leaders make tentative comments regarding the emergence of the green shoots of recovery, the shape of that recovery and the longer-term consequences of the crisis will depend on current policy choices, says the Bruegel report.
“It is during crises that the seeds of future performance are sown — or not sown,” warn the authors.
Focusing on research and innovation is essential to promoting future growth, an area where the EU is so far coming up short.
“It would be hard to characterise the European stimulus as innovation-friendly,” says the study, which estimates that the proportion of current stimulus spending going towards boosting innovation is between 1 and 10 percent.
“This is unlikely to deliver the innovation boost that was called for in the EU’s Lisbon strategy.”
The correct labour market policies will also have a huge impact on future growth potential says the paper, with the key being to keep people at work in order to enable a return to high productivity once the economy picks up.
Early retirement schemes and excessive unemployment benefits that reduce incentives to find work are therefore to be avoided, while government-subsidised short-term work such as the so-called “kurzarbeit” scheme in Germany is advantageous.
The report’s authors are critical of the limited size of the EU stimulus to date, which they claim will be close be approximately 1.1 percent of EU GDP in 2009 when unemployment benefits are taken into account.
This compares with the 2 percent advocated by the International Monetary Fund and the 3.3 percent for 2009 and 2010 claimed as being the level by the EU institutions and member states.
The reasons for the EU’s timid response, says the study, is the belief that the benefits of national stimulus programmes will largely be reaped by trading partners, while some member states are constricted by already high debt levels.
Do the Al Gores of the World Want You Dead?
Does the green movement’s push toward forcing people into smaller, more fuel efficient cars have the potential to kill?
Maybe, if you look at the newest Insurance Institute for Highway Safety report entitled “New crash tests demonstrate the influence of vehicle size and weight on safety in crashes; results are relevant to fuel economy policies”.
According to the IIHS, “Three front-to-front crash tests, each involving a microcar or minicar into a midsize model from the same manufacturer, show how extra vehicle size and weight enhance occupant protection in collisions.” The tests look at the actual physics of car crashes, and show clearly that “very small cars generally can’t protect people in crashes as well as bigger, heavier models.”
Well, duh. It’s basic physics or, to paraphrase Sancho Panza, it doesn’t matter whether the pitcher hits the rock or the rock hits the picture, it’s going to be bad for the pitcher.
FBI Spied on Tea Party Americans!
Even as average Americans were planning to get out in towns and cities to demonstrate against Big Government and Big Taxes, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) surveillance was being unleashed upon them. In fact, unsuspecting Tax Day TEA Party participants were being closely watched during the demonstration planning stages in a covert operation that began on or about March 23, 2009.
If you were one of the estimated 750,000 Americans who attended one of about 600 TEA parties last week, you might have seen media cameras covering the event. Media cameras, however, were not the only cameras taking video at these events, something that has at least one current FBI agent concerned over the future of America. According to this agent — the same agent who provided the Northeast Intelligence Network (NEIN) exclusively the unreleased photographs of the 11 missing Egyptian students who were the subject of a FBI BOLO in August 2006—placed his concerns for true patriots of the U.S. over his own career when he confided that covert surveillance was “planned and performed” at each of the TEA parties that took place last Tuesday.
“Listen to what I am saying,” stated the source during an interview with Doug Hagmann, founder (NEIN). “The Department of Homeland Security Intelligence Assessment that is receiving so much attention is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, and the true patriotic citizens of this country are on the Titanic. This is what bothers me. But is goes far beyond that assessment. There have been very significant changes made over the last few years that redirect the focus and assets of the intelligence community internally. These changes have greatly accelerated under this administration, and the threats have been redefined to include those who used to be patriots. It’s not only chilling but absolutely insulting to God-fearing Americans.”
Fighting Back Against Gestapo Tactics
by Diana West
They knew what they were after—the Gestapo (above), that is. And as Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, said last week, the DHS “right-wing extremism” report “would have the admiration of the Gestapo and any current or past dictator in the way it targets political opponents.” So, what to do?
The Thomas More Law Center has decided to take action by filing suit against Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, arguing that the DHS report “violates the civil liberties of combat veterans as well as American citizens by targeting them for disfavored treatement on account of their political beliefs.”
This is the same Janet Napolitano, who, by the way, on CNN’s “State of the Union” yesterday told host John King that crossing the border illegally “is not a crime per se. It is civil.” Just FYI: crossing the border illegally is indeed a criminal offense according to US law, no matter what the lady says.
But one thing at a time. Here is the Thomas More Law Center’s announcement…
Frank Gaffney: ‘The Enemy is Us’
Perhaps the most famous line the history of cartoons was one Walt Kelly gave his much-beloved character, Pogo: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Increasingly, it appears Barack Obama feels the same way about America. Call it the PogObama worldview.
The President’s first hundred days have been a blur of legislative initiatives, policy pronouncements and symbolic gestures that, taken together, constitute the most sweeping and fundamental make-over of U.S domestic and foreign policies since at least World War II. Animating them all is a hostility towards this country’s traditional values, institutions and conduct that is best described by Jeane Kirkpatrick’s phrase “Blame America First.”
To be sure, Mr. Obama has plenty of company in this camp, both at home and abroad. “San Francisco Democrats” (another Kirkpatrickism) like Nancy Pelosi and tyrants like Hugo Chavez (with whom the President did “high fives” over the weekend) and Saudi King Abdullah (to whom the President bowed two weeks ago) are of a mind: The United States owes the world myriad apologies for its arrogance, unilateralism, aggression and other sins.
Mark Steyn: Tea Party Animals Not Boiling Over
… Asked about the tea parties, President Barack Obama responded that he was not aware of them. As Marie Antoinette said, “Let them drink Lapsang Souchong.” His Imperial Majesty at Barackingham Palace having declined to acknowledge the tea parties, his courtiers at the Globe and elsewhere fell into line. Talk-show host Michael Graham spoke to one attendee at the 2009 Boston Tea Party who remarked of the press embargo: “If Obama had been the king of England, the Globe wouldn’t have covered the American Revolution.”
Obama Says Reaching Out to Enemies Strengthens US
Defending his brand of world politics, President Barack Obama said Sunday that he is “strengthening our hand” by reaching out to enemies of the United States and making sure that the nation is a leader, not a lecturer, of democracy.
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Obama’s dealings with Chavez spoke to his broader message: dismissing arguments of the past, and respecting other democratic governments even if he opposes their economic and foreign policy.
“If we are practicing what we preach, and if we occasionally confess to having strayed from our values and our ideals, that strengthens our hand,” Obama said. “That allows us to speak with greater moral force and clarity around these issues.”
He said of his doctrine for engagement: “We’re not simply going to lecture you, but we’re rather going to show through how we operate the benefits of these values and ideals.”
The Sting, in Four Parts
Franklin Roosevelt gave us the New Deal. John Kennedy gave us the New Frontier. In a major domestic policy address at Georgetown University this week, Barack Obama promised — eight times — a “New Foundation.” For those too thick to have noticed this proclamation of a new era in American history, the White House Web site helpfully titled its speech excerpts “A New Foundation.”
War on ‘Right-Wing Extremists’
It’s not al-Qaida that has the Department of Homeland Security on edge.
It’s not Hezbollah that has the Barack Obama administration on guard.
It’s not Hamas that has the Feds working overtime on intelligence and security.
Once again, it’s the vast right-wing conspiracy.
Here we go, again.
A newly unclassified report from Homeland Security, sent to police stations and other law enforcement agencies around the country, says the big threat of domestic violence in the U.S. comes from “right-wing extremists.”
Yes, we’ve been here before.
Why I Care About Obama Eligibility Issue
With the entire so-called “mainstream press” ridiculing those millions of Americans who still ask questions about Barack Obama’s yet-unproven constitutional eligibility to serve as president, you might wonder why WorldNetDaily and Whistleblower persist, virtually alone in the major media, to cover this issue.
Personally, I’m interested in it for two simple reasons.
First: Barack Obama is hiding something. About that statement, there can be no dispute. Despite dozens of lawsuits, with plaintiffs including a former presidential candidate, a former deputy attorney general, many legislators, active-duty U.S. military and other serious people, Obama simply refuses to release his original, long-form birth certificate. That’s the one that could actually prove he was born in Hawaii. What is posted on Obama’s “Fight the Smears” website as well as FactCheck.org is the abbreviated short-form “certification of live birth” that could have been issued for a child born overseas, and thus does not prove he was born in Hawaii. What is so difficult about this to understand?
As I said, he’s hiding something. I want to know what it is. And I want the world to know what it is.
Ask yourself: Why would Obama have a team of high-priced lawyers fighting to stop his Occidental College records from being released? If I were elected president, don’t you think my college records would be made public? Similarly, he has lawyers fighting all the eligibility lawsuits, many of which are simply demanding proof — which Obama could easily provide — of the specifics of his birth time and place, something the U.S. Constitution unequivocally and unapologetically demands of presidential candidates.
Analyzing the Analysis: DHS’s Right Wing Extremists Report
The recent DHS report entitled: “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment” has nothing to do with protecting our country from the current threat of terrorism. It has everything to do with gathering information on people and groups who oppose the Obama regime in Washington.
The subtle suggestions and speculation contained in the language of the document suggest that it was written from a paranoid, far left radical perspective, the kind of mindset found in the White House today. One example of this is found in the statement: “Rightwing extremists are harnessing this historical election as a recruitment tool.” Notice the use of the word “historical.” There is no doubt that this is turning out to be an historical election, but not for the reason they think.
In this article, we will not only look at the document itself, but also consider where this diatribe may have originated.
[…]
Nothing contained in this report indicates terrorism against American civilians. Every threat suggested or imagined suggests attacks on the government itself in retaliation for usurping individual and states 10th Amendment rights, and leading the country down the path of socialism.
France: Law & Order, North-Paris Banlieue Most Violent
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, APRIL 17 — Banlieue north in Paris, the district of Seine-Saint-Denis, is the most dangerous area in the whole of France for violence, personal threats, and acts of vandalism, followed by the capital, according to 2008 data of the National Crime Observatory, reported today by Le Figaro. The south-western areas of France are also near the top of the ranking, with Marseille and Nice, as well as the overseas districts of Guiana, Guadalupe, and Martinique, showing, observed Le Figaro, “that fire is still smouldering beneath the ashes”. In Seine-Saint-Denis in particular, 2.6 acts of violence and 15.6 acts of vandalism were recorded for every 1,000 residents. The vice-president of the National Front, the extreme right-wing party, Marine Le Pen, commented that the data demonstrates “a connection between the areas of mass immigration and the lack of law and order”. (ANSAmed).
Islam: France, Court Upholds Veil Dismissal
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, APRIL 17 — The court of Toulouse in the south of France today found that the decision of the University of Toulouse-III to terminate the contract of a young French researcher, 25-year old Sabrina Trojet, for continuing “to wear a veil that entirely covered her hair and clearly marked her religious affiliation” , was “legitimate” despite numerous appeals. The young woman, who is pregnant and just seven months away from presenting her doctoral thesis in microbiology, argued her case in court to appeal against the university’s decision. “The grounds presented by the plaintiff cast no doubts on the legitimacy of the decision” the court’s sentence ran. The woman’s lawyer announced that they will appeal the decision. In 2006 Sabina Trojet won a scholarship and received a monthly grant that allowed her to fully dedicate her time to her thesis. In July of 2008, the Vice-Chancellor pointed out that based on the “principal of neutrality requested for those who perform a public function”, she had to remove her veil while at school. Trojet tried to compromise by changing her hijab for a less noticeable veil. Six months later she was dismissed without warning or compensation. Her lawyer stated since her client is a researcher, it does not mean that she has a public service mission: “she did not teach any courses and her work was limited to researching her thesis”. (ANSAmed).
Riot Police Taught to Treat the Public ‘As Their Enemy’, Former Chief Claims
Riot police are taught to treat the public as their “enemy” and regard every situation as a “threat”, former police chiefs will tell a top-level inquiry into the G20 protests.
David Gilbertson, a retired Scotland Yard commander and assistant inspector of constabulary, said that the “defensive” approach once central to British policing has “morphed into a faux US-style operation” where officers wear military-looking uniforms and used batons and Taser stun guns to clamp down on perceived dissent.
He claimed that a “crisis of leadership” had filtered down to officers, who are overly aggressive because they consider any contact with the public as a potential threat — as seen during the G20 protests.
Scotland Yard is facing damaging three inquiries into the alleged manslaughter of Ian Tomlinson, and two alleged assaults at the demonstrations. Meanwhile lawyers are compiling a “dossier” of up to 400 other complaints from protesters claiming to have been victims or witnesses to police brutality.
Mr Gilbertson said: “Officers are trained to be on guard against attack, to regard every situation, no matter how seemingly benign, as a threat situation. The lesson is that the public are your enemy. That mindset appeared to dominate at the G20 protests.”
He said that a number of “concerned” former police chiefs are writing to Denis O’Connor, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, who was called on last week to carry out a review of public order policing tactics.
Mr O’Connor will appear today (Tue) in front of the Home Affairs Select Committee, together with Nick Hardwick, the chairman of the Independent Police Complaints Commission. The committee will examine the tactics used at the G20 protests and ask whether the police were being effectively “policed” themselves.
Mr Hardwick has already called on Parliament to lead a national debate on how police maintain public order at protests.
Spain: Constructor in Debt Kidnaps Bank Manager
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, APRIL 17 — Drowning in debt, a construction contractor has kidnapped the bank manager of the branch where he is an account holder. The manager had refused the contractor a loan of 50,000 euros. The incident took place in Marbella (Malaga), the iconic symbol of the Costa del Sol, hit hard by the property crisis. According to police sources quoted by the media today, the constructor held the bank manager hostage for three hours threatening to hurt his family if he didn’t grant him a 50,000-euro loan and give him his high-powered car. The man, who had repeatedly been denied the loan due to a lack of guarantees, was arrested upon leaving the office near Estepona where he had taken the bank manager to carry out the paperwork to transfer the ownership of the car. (ANSAmed).
UK: ‘The Death Ward’: Elderly NHS Patients Died After Being Given ‘Inappropriate’ Levels of Drugs
Drugs given to five elderly patients in a hospital in the late 1990s which was later dubbed the ‘end of the line’ contributed to their deaths, an inquest ruled today.
UK: Police Threatened G20 Activists With Tasers as Ex-Yard Chief Blames ‘Leadership Crisis’ for Aggression
The Met police today admitted carrying Tasers while clearing a squat near Liverpool Street station after the G20 protests.
New video evidence appears to show an officer pointing a 50,000-volt Taser at protesters in Earl’s Street on 2 April.
The group is already on the floor and they do not seem to be posing a threat.
The revelation comes as a former senior commander claimed Scotland Yard taught officers to treat the public as their ‘enemy’.
David Gilbertson, a recipient of the Queen’s Police Medal after serving 35 years, said there had been a ‘crisis of leadership’ and attacked the Met for ‘supine management’.
UK: Revealed: Government Helpline Tells Children ‘Cannabis is Safer Than Alcohol’
[Comments from JD: Shades of Huxley’s “Brave New World”.]
Children calling the Government’s drugs helpline are being told that cannabis is safer than alcohol and that ecstasy will not damage their health, an investigation by The Sunday Telegraph has found.
Advisers manning the “Frank” helpline are informing callers they believed to be children as young as 13 that alcohol is a “much more powerful drug than cannabis” and that using the illegal drug recreationally is not harmful because it “doesn’t get you that high”.
Callers are also being told that taking ecstasy will not lead to long-term damage and that if they are in doubt, to “just take half a pill and if you are handling that OK, you can take the other half.”
They are even being told that they would be able to smoke a cannabis joint, on top of ecstasy, with no ill-effects.
The advice, given to reporters who rang the helpline posing as young people, has alarmed anti-drugs campaigners who branded it “scandalous” and “irresponsible.”
UK: Russian Journalist Blasts ‘Big Brother Britain’ and Compares it to Life in the Old Soviet Union
A Russian TV journalist has described her exasperation at living in ‘Big Brother Britain’.
Irada Zeinalova said she resents being constantly ‘spied on’ by security cameras, comparing the experience to life in the old Soviet Union.
UK: What Recession? Councils Offer ‘Bizarre Non-Jobs’ Including Roller Disco Coach and Toothbrush Adviser for Infants
A roller disco coach, a part-time toothbrush adviser for infants and a ceremonial sword bearer are just some of the ‘non-jobs’ offered by councils across Britain.
Other roles which have come under criticism from the Taxpayer’s Alliance include trampoline coaches, skate park attendants, flower arrangers, a ‘befriending co-ordinator’; and a ‘street football co-ordinator’, which pays £19,000-a-year.
Al-Qaeda Op: Jihadists Safe in Bosnia
Of course we all know that there is no jihad activity in Bosnia, and that anyone who suggests otherwise is secretly an advocate of genocide, don’t we? Don’t we?
Unfortunately for this prevailing dogma, reality keeps interfering.
“Al-Qaeda man says terrorists safe in Bosnia,” a translation of a German news article by Serbianna, April 20 (thanks to Maxwell):
A Bosnian Muslim national under an alias Nihad C. gave an interview to a Vienna based weekly, The News, where he said that al-Qaeda terrorists are living safe in Bosnia’s capital Sarajevo but that he is in contact with the Western spy agencies and supplies them with intelligence.
“I myself have trained over 300 people. You know the Americans. The people are in Spain in Morocco, in Algeria. The do nothing alone. But if the command comes, then let’s start,” said Nihad.
Nihad C. also said that al-Qaeda has an ongoing operation in Vienna’s Sahaba Mosque and that “once again” authorities have failed to stop the plan, he said.
According to Serbia’s intelligence, the leader of the Sahaba Mosque in Vienna is Effendia Nedzad Balkan known as Abu Muhammed. Abu Muhammed is a Serbia-born Muslim from the region of Raska, known to Muslims as Sandzak, and he acts as the main financier of the Sandzak Wahabis who congregate in the Sahaba Mosque…
Serbia-Bulgaria: Agreement in Field of Defence Signed
(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, APRIL 17 — State Secretary Dusan Spasojevic and the Chairperson of the Confidential Information Exchange Committee of the Republic of Bulgaria signed an Agreement between the Government of Serbia and the Government of Bulgaria on sharing and mutual protection of confidential information in the field of defense, reports Emportal. The signing of this agreement, besides regulating the cooperation in the field of exchange and the protection of confidential information, also creates preconditions for the realization of future activities for the purpose of intensifying.(ANSAmed).
Culture: Jordi Savall, Med Music Risks Extinction
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, APRIL 20 — The ancient musical traditions of the countries that face the Mediterranean Sea “all risk extinction in the next 50 years,” warned cellist Jordi Savall today, conductor of the internationally famous Catalonian orchestra, today in Brussels for a conference on literary and cultural tradition as a means of integration at a European level. According to Savall, EU Ambassador in 2008 for the year of intercultural dialogue together with others including Paolo Coelho, “globalisation also has an impact on music and has contributed to the disappearance of local traditions: Elvis has eliminated thousands of years of tradition”. This happens less “in Eastern countries, where there is still an important oral tradition,” explained the Spanish maestro. Thus Savall has dedicated himself to various initiatives to recover the repertoire of ancient minority cultures for years, including various musical traditions in the city of Jerusalem, Istanbul, and the Mare Nostrum project, focused on intercultural dialogue between Christian, Jews, and Muslims. (ANSAmed).
Polygamy and Family Law
by Valentina M. Donini
The emancipation of women in the Arab world takes place thanks to changes in Family Law addressing issues ranging from polygamy to the right to divorce. This is an overview of various national cases, particularly Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt. Although for the moment Tunisia is the only country to have formally forbidden polygamy and repudiation, there are attempts in many Islamic countries, such as Syria, Jordan and to a lesser extent Libya and Algeria, to provide procedural obstacles to these practices.
Within the modernisation process of legislation in the Arab world, which took place during the 19th and 20th centuries, Family Law has followed a far more gradual and slow route compared to other sectors, such as, for example, commercial or contractual law, due to its deep roots in the religious consciousnesses of Arabs and their societies. In this sector, in fact, a total abandonment of traditional law in favour of foreign models has never been on the cards. The civil law currently implemented, which is the result of this modernisation, does not regulate Family Law, which is instead based on special texts addressing “personal status”, al-ahwàl al-shakhsiyya.
Countries in the Arabian Peninsula, with a few exceptions, have not codified Family Law, and hence continue to apply the shari’a. In other Arab countries, from the Maghreb to the Mashreq, this subject is regulated by texts that, although sharing a common origin in the shari’a, are different in style, contents and level of modernisation achieved. Kuwait, for example, which codified personal status in 1984, remains closely linked to shari’a law, as does the law in Yemen, where Bill 20/1992 and amendments in 1998, 1999 and 2002, concedes little to reformist requests, unlike legislation in Southern Yemen that with its Bill 1/1974 established restrictions to polygamy and repudiation…
Tackling Terrorism and Weapons Trafficking, Seminar in Rabat
(ANSAmed) — RABAT, APRIL 17 — How to make the methods against the spread of the terrorist threat and weapons trafficking in the Maghreb countries more efficient: this is the theme of a Rabat seminar organised by Italy’s Foreign Minister and Morocco Cooperation together with the US State Department. In addition to experts from Morocco, representatives from Turkey, Burkina Faso, Spain, France, Libya, Mali and Great Britain also took part. Speakers included Colonel Ahmed Bel El Ahmar of the Moroccan army, who said that regional cooperation is a fundamental element to deal with the threats posed by terrorism and arms trafficking. For a more efficient fight against these phenomena, he underlined, it is necessary to provide the countries of the Maghreb with adequate equipment to be used particularly in the desert regions, and to create specialised units. Stuart Smith, economic advisor of the United States in Morocco, confirmed that his country “is concerned about the flow of classic weapons into African countries and the Sahel-Saharan region”. He also asked countries in the region for increased control over conventional weapons trafficking. (ANSAmed).
Tunisia: Chief Commander of Carabinieri on Visit to Tunis
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, APRIL 20 — The Chief Commander of the Carabinieri Corps, General Gianfrancesco Siazzu, will today arrive in Tunis for a three-day visit. He is due to meet with the Commander of the Tunisian National Guard (the Tunisian equivalent of the Carabinieri) who visited Rome last October. General Siazzu will also visit units of the National Guard. The general’s visit is set within the good relations between the Carabinieri and the Tunisian National Guard. (ANSAmed).
Hezbollah ‘Infiltrated’ Fatah Claims Official
Cairo, 17 April (AKI) — The Iran-backed militant Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah has infiltrated the largely secular Palestinian party Fatah, one of its officials, Barakat al-Ezz, told Egyptian daily Al-Masri Al-Youm. Al-Ezz was commenting on reports that two Fatah militants were among 49 people arrested in Egypt for allegedly belonging to a Hezbollah cell in the country.
“Hezbollah has managed to infiltrate Fatah’s militant ranks, especially in the Gaza Strip,” Barakat said.
“At the moment, Hezbollah is strong enough to draw in many disaffected youths on the fringes of Fatah,” he added.
Senior Fatah official Nabil Shaath, however claimed Fatah has no relations with the two Palestinians arrested in Egypt.
“Muhammad Baraka and Nidal Fathi Hasan are individuals who have probably left the movement. Fatah knows nothing about them currently,” Shaath said.
“However, we will investigate what relations these two youths may have had with our party,” he added.
Police earlier this month arrested the 49 suspects, who reportedly include Lebanese, Palestinian, Syrian, Sudanese and Egyptian citizens.
Police are currently interrogating the suspects and Egypt’s general prosecutor, Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud, said last Friday they would be kept in custody for a further 15 days.
Two of the Egyptian suspects have denied belonging to the alleged Hezbollah cell and claim they are members of Egypt’s banned but tolerated Islamist Muslim Brotherhood movement.
The group’s alleged leader, a Lebanese citizen named as Shihab S. is among those detained for questioning. His brother claims Egyptian police arrested him last November.
Iran-backed Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah said Shihab was a member of his organisation and was in Egypt to help Palestinians get military equipment for the blockaded Gaza Strip.
Nasrallah denied Egypt’s claim he had commissioned the alleged Hezbollah cell to destabilise the country and its leadership by carrying out terrorist attacks.
The Egyptian government claims the cell’s members were plotting to attack Israeli tourists and Egyptian government institutions.
Israel: Netanyahu, Palestinians Must Accept Jewish State
(by Giorgio Raccah) (ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM, APRIL 17 — “Before discussing the two state solution, Israel expects the Palestinians to recognise the State of Israel as the State of the Jewish people”. Israeli Premier Benyamin Netanyahu’s comments during a meeting with the US envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, immediately underlined a decisive difference in positions over the Israel-Palestinian conflict. In the first round of meetings that Barack Obama’s envoy has been having in Tel Aviv with the principal members of the new Israeli government, Mitchell has tried to clarify from the very start that the US considers itself to be “involved” in a solution to the conflict based on the two state solution, “Israeli Jewish” (namely with a Jewish majority, for the US) and Palestinian, in peaceful coexistence. But Netanyahu immediately dampened US expectations. He further stated that the Jewish State is interested in a dialogue with the Palestinians but at the same time they aim to avoid negotiations that would make the West Bank a Hamas controlled territory which in his words would threaten Jerusalem and the coastal area of Israel. When he presented his government at the Knesset, Netanyahu, who has until now avoided using the term “Palestinian State”, confirmed that the Palestinians would obtain the powers of government minus those powers that could threaten Israel’s security. Mitchell also met with the Foreign Affairs minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who has said that the policy of being open to large concessions followed by the previous Israeli governments had damaging results on the Jewish State and had encouraged greater aggression in its enemies. Thus, according to Lieberman, Israel should now “formulate new ideas and a new approach” with the intention of working in close cooperation with the US. He also stated that the “real problems” in the region result from Iran’s race to achieve nuclear powers, from Hezbollah in Lebanon and from radical Islamic movements such as Hamas and the Islamic Jihad in Gaza. “If we want a stable solution to the Palestinian problem, we first of all need to see an end to the intensification and expansion of the Iranian threat”, said Lieberman, thus indicating Israel’s priorities.(ANSAmed).
Obama’s Stance Worries Israelis
CAN Israel still call the United States its best international friend? Apparently not, if you believe the tone of the local media.
Watching the drama unfold inside Israel, the increasingly tense dialogue between US President Barack Obama and new Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is taking on all the trappings of a duel.
West Bank: Palestinian Demonstrator Killed
(ANSAmed) — RAMALLAH, APRIL 17 — A young Palestinian who was protesting in Bilin (Ramallah) against the Israeli separation barrier was killed during clashes between demonstrators and units of the Israeli army, reports Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot’s website. It seems that the young Palestinian was hit in the stomach by a tear gas container fired by soldiers. This morning another Palestinian was killed by a settler in the settlement of Beit Haggay (Hebron) after, according to the official version, he tried to attack one of the residents with a knife. (ANSAmed).
Business: Syrian Gov’t Opts for Complusory Insurance
(ANSAmed) — DAMASCUS, APRIL 16 — On the basis of a decision made by the Syrian government, insurance to protect against risks has become mandatory for a number of economic activities in the country, including hospitals, clinics, laboratories for blood tests, schools, universities, companies and bakeries — all of which will now be required to stipulate an insurance policy. As reported in a statement released by the Italian Trade Commission (Ice) offices in Damascus, the government expects to stimulate growth in the Syrian insurance market, which in 2008 already saw growth of 34%. (ANSAmed).
Jordan: EU Opens Consultations on 2011-2013 Cooperation
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, APRIL 16 — The European Commission’s agenda is to find the optimum definition for new priorities of cooperation between the European Union and Jordon for the period 2011-2013, and to this end it is inviting all interested parties to contribute their points of view and suggestions for Jordan’s National Indicative Programme (PIN) which is the EU’s response in terms of financial assistance to the priorities set for the country in the context of European Neighbourhood and Partnership programme. In order to define new potential areas for cooperation projects, the Commission has held a series of consultations with the country’s authorities, with organisers of civil society, the EU member states and other donors present in Jordan. Brussels then invited interested parties to present their observations on the ensuing national strategy document, concentrating on several fronts: priorities for cooperation between the EU and Jordan in the period 2011-2013; the most important activities to be undertaken in view of these priorities; the role of civil society organisations in attaining cooperation goals. The deadline for interested parties to despatch their contributions has been set as May 4 2009. Similar consultation processes have been started for the cooperation projects with Syria and Lebanon. (ANSAmed).
Saudi Arabia: Secret Cameras to Monitor Internet Cafe Users
Riyadh, 17 April (AKI) — The Saudi authorities have ordered all Internet cafes the country to install hidden cameras to monitor Internet users and catch those who access Al-Qaeda linked jihadist sites, according to the interior ministry.
Internet cafes will also be required to identify all their customers.
People who do not have a licence will be forbidden to access the Internet via satellite connections.
Minors under 18 years of old will not be allowed to use Internet cafes, which will be required to close at midnight.
Saudi government concerns over extremism in the conservative kingdom deepened after Al-Qaeda-linked militants launched a campaign to destabilise the kingdom in May 2003, targeting government buildings, energy installations and foreign residential compounds in suicide bomb attacks.
Since then, hundreds of suspected Al-Qaeda militants have been arrested and are due to be tried on terrorism charges.
As recently as last Tuesday, security forces arrested 11 Al-Qaeda suspects who were allegedly planning to carry out terrorist attacks inside the Saudi Arabia and kidnap security officers and other “useful” individuals, the interior ministry said.
In March last year, Saudi security forces arrested 28 militants who, the authorities said, were involved in rebuilding the Al-Qaeda network in Saudi Arabia and plotting a fresh campaign of terror.
The militants were collecting money under the pretext of supporting the needy in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the interior ministry said.
Temporary Marriages With Indonesian Women on Rise
JEDDAH: A large number of Saudis are engaging in temporary marriages with Indonesian women with the intention of divorcing them.
“Such marriages are likely to increase if Islamic scholars fail to give a clear ruling prohibiting them,” said Khaled Al-Arrak, director of Saudi affairs at the Saudi Embassy in Jakarta.
He said most Saudis were engaged in such marriages without realizing their consequences. “Some poor Indonesians marry off their girls to Saudis hoping it would put an end to their poverty and miseries. If the Council of Senior Islamic Scholars does not ban this type of marriages, things will go out of control,” Al-Arrak warned.
There are so many offices in Indonesia that facilitate such marriages, Al-Watan Arabic daily said. The marriage takes place in the presence of witnesses and a man posing as the father of the bride.
These women do not know that their marriages would end within a few days and that they would have to bear children of people who would abandon them.
Last year, the Saudi Embassy in Jakarta received 82 calls regarding children of Saudis who had married Indonesian women and then abandoned them. “We have received 18 such calls from abandoned Indonesian wives of Saudis and their children this year so far,” Al-Arrak said.
The Saudi Embassy official said that the cases registered with the embassy accounted for only 20 percent of such marriages that have actually taken place.
Aysha Noor, 22, an Indonesian woman from Sikka Bhumi, 160 km east of Jakarta, said her parents married her to a young Saudi man when she was 16, thinking it would be a blessing for the family and end their poverty.
“We in Indonesia consider people of Makkah and Madinah as blessed ones. The man gave me a dowry of six million Indonesian rupiahs (SR2,024). The dowry helped us to solve some of our economic problems. My family did not know that the man was intending to have a temporary marriage.”
She adds: “After a few days he paid us the remaining amount of three million rupiahs (SR1,011) and left the country.” Noor said she later had a similar marriage with another Saudi before finding a job at a nightclub as a singer and dancer.
There are many women in Indonesia who have similar stories to tell. Some of them find it difficult to look after their children from Saudi husbands. The Saudi Embassy in Jakarta registers such Saudi children and helps them travel to the Kingdom to recognize their fathers but many refuse to accept them.
The embassy also receives visa requests for marriages, particularly for people of special needs and elderly who want to marry Indonesian women. These marriages often fail because the Saudi society treats them as maids and they cannot merge with the society primarily because of language barrier. Such marriages cost between SR5,000 and SR10,000.
S.P. Dharmakirty, consul for information at the Indonesian Consulate in Jeddah, confirmed that temporary marriages involving Saudis were taking place in his country.
“Indonesian authorities have taken appropriate measures to curb this practice,” he told Arab News, adding that some people involved in such illegal marriages have been detained.
The consul also pointed out that the marriage of some Indonesian women with elderly and handicapped Saudis was not legal.
“We face many problems because such marriages are not registered and the women coming from Indonesia use visa for maids to come to the Kingdom,” he said. “Some of them later come to consulate to seek advice,” he added.
The Confrontation Con-Game
by Barry Rubin
There are many people eager to see President Barack Obama and his administration bash Israel, or predict that has already happened. But the administration has yet to make any significant direct anti-Israel actions or statements. I expect this widely predicted conflict isn’t going to take place.
Let me repeat the word “direct.” Inasmuch as the U.S. government gives up too much to Iran, Syria, and radical Islamists, it hurts Israel’s interests, as well as those of most Arab governments and the United States itself.
Still, what’s happened so far is being taken out of context by those who want a U.S.-Israel confrontation because they hate either Israel or Obama. This could, of course happen but hasn’t yet.
The story contrasts with U.S.-Europe relations. Obama’s trip to Europe was a failure. To everything he asked—a parallel strategy for dealing with economic troubles, getting Turkey into the European Union, or more help in Afghanistan—the Europeans said “no.” Then everyone proclaimed the visit a great success.
With Israel, it’s the opposite in which nothing actually goes wrong but is made to seem that way. Let’s look at the examples and defuse some supposed bombs.
—Endorsing a two-state solution is hardly an attack on the Netanyahu government. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t oppose a two-state solution—and hasn’t for 12 years—but emphasizes this would only happen if and when a Palestinian leadership proves its credibility and makes a decent offer.
This raises an extremely important point. Israeli policy shouldn’t consist of saying, “We want peace and a two-state solution” ten times a day. It should incorporate its own demands that the PA lives up to commitments and that any negotiated solution include Palestinian as well as Israeli concessions.
Giving the Palestinians a state is conditional on that happening, not a blank check given whatever they do. There’s nothing wrong with Israel demanding reciprocity. The strategy of offering everything and demanding nothing neither made Israel popular nor brought about a negotiated solution…
Turkey: ‘Fatal Dress’, a Documentary on Women’s Condition
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, APRIL 17 — Mujde Arslan, who was born in the southeastern city of Mardin, has experienced the difficulties of being a woman throughout her life. At the age of 28, she shot a documentary film called ‘Olum Elbisesi: Kumalik’ (‘A Fatal Dress: Polygamy’), which features the painful life of women living in the southeastern city of Mardin’s Golluk village. Her story is told today in an article on Hurriyet daily reoporting also that the first screening of the documentary was April 14 at the ongoing 28th International Istanbul Film Festival. It will be shown again at the Flying Broom Women’s Film Festival on May 4 and at the Kurdish Films Week in Hamburg on May 27. Born in Mardin’s Golluk village like her peers, Mujde Arslan was banned from playing in the streets and singing songs. As she reached puberty, she was cautioned to wear dresses hiding her body and to not express her views around men. She graduated from primary school at the age of 11, but then, cutting her education and future short, her family pulled her out of school. Her fate was the same as other girls in her village. They were destined to be the second or third wife of a very old man, or given to another family in return for a bride given to her family, a practice known as “berdel” in Turkish. Arslan began a hunger strike when she learned she would not be sent to school again. And when her body was almost spent from starvation, her uncle in prison saved her and secretly enrolled her in school, unbeknownst to her family. Despite all impositions, Arslan graduated from the Diyarbakir University Faculty of Biology. She then started working as a journalist for Dicle news agency. She was so successful that sometime later she was called to the agency’s headquarters in Istanbul. Against the wishes of her family, she left for Istanbul for two weeks, but stayed there for eight years. She started master’s classes at the Marmara University Faculty of Communications Cinema Department. Later on, she went to England for a one-year language course. When she returned from England, she shot a documentary on women in Mardin. Her starting point was the life story of her aunt, Emine. (ANSAmed).
India: Election Marred by Maoist Attacks
New Delhi, 16 April (AKI) — At least 11 people, including nine paramilitary soldiers, were killed in India on Thursday in election day attacks by Maoist rebels in the east of the country, officials said. More than 700 million Indians are eligible to vote in the elections being held for the lower house of parliament in the world’s largest democracy.
The first round of voting is taking place in the country’s 15th general elections, amid fears of terrorist attacks.
The incumbent Congress-led coalition government is facing a challenge from the main opposition, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance.
In Jharkhand state, Maoist rebels reportedly set off a landmine and ambushed a bus carrying security forces for duty at polling stations.
Seven soldiers and two civilians died in the attack, police spokesman S.N. Pradhan told reporters from Latehar district, which has been struck by several deadly Maoist attacks in recent days.
In neighbouring Bihar state, two security personnel were shot dead and another wounded by the rebels in Gaya district, Indian media reported.
In Chattisgarh state, several gun battles were reported to have taken place in a densely forested region that serves as the main base of the left-wing rebels.
Jharkhand, Bihar and Chattisgarh are among several 124 constituencies where voters were expected to go to the polls in the first stage of a month-long general election.
Polling in areas hit by the Maoist insurgency has been staggered over several phases to enable the adequate deployment of security personnel.
Neither of India’s two main national parties — the incumbent Congress nor the BJP — is considered capable of securing an absolute majority in the five-stage polls.
Regional and local parties are expected to win half the 543 parliamentary seats, so the elections may lead to intense negotiations as the major parties seek to form a viable coalition.
Indian Business Students Snap Up Copies of Mein Kampf
Sales of Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler’s autobiography and apologia for his anti-semitism, are soaring in India where business students regard the dictator as a management guru.
Booksellers told The Daily Telegraph that while it is regarded in most countries as a ‘Nazi Bible’, in India it is considered a management guide in the mould of Spencer Johnson’s “Who Moved My Cheese”.
Sales of the book over the last six months topped 10,000 in New Delhi alone, according to leading stores, who said it appeared to be becoming more popular with every year.
Several said the surge in sales was due to demand from students who see it as a self-improvement and management strategy guide for aspiring business leaders, and who were happy to cite it as an inspiration.
“Students are increasingly coming in asking for it and we’re happy to sell it to them,” said Sohin Lakhani, owner of Mumbai-based Embassy books who reprints Mein Kampf every quarter and shrugs off any moral issues in publishing the book.
“They see it as a kind of success story where one man can have a vision, work out a plan on how to implement it and then successfully complete it”.
Jaico Publishing House, one of the publishers in India, said it reprints a new edition of the book at least twice a year to meet growing demand.
“We were the first company to publish the book in India and there are now six other Indian publishers of the book, although we were first to take a chance on it,” said Jaico’s chief editor, R H Sharma, who dismissed any moral issues in publishing Mein Kampf.
“The initial print run of 2,000 copies in 2003 sold out immediately and we knew we had a best-seller on our hands. Since then the numbers have increased every year to around 15,000 copies until last year when we sold 10,000 copies over a six-month period in our Delhi shops,” he added.
Senior academics cite the mutual influence of India and Hitler’s Nazis on one another. Mahatma Gandhi corresponded with the Fuhrer, pro-Independence leader Subhas Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army allied with Hitler’s Germany and Japan during the Second World War, and the Nazis drew on Hindu symbolism for their Swastika motif and ideas of Aryan supremacy.
Dr J Kuruvachira, Professor of Philosophy of Salesian College in Nagaland and who has cited Mein Kampf as a source of inspiration to the Hindu nationalist BJP, said he believed the book’s popularity was due to political reasons.
“While it could be the case that management students are buying the book, my feeling is that it has more likely influenced some of the fascist organisations operating in India and nearby,” he said.
India is not the only country where Mein Kampf is popular. It has been a best-seller in Croatia since it was first published in while in turkey it sold 100,000 in just two months in 2005. In Russia it has been reprinted three times since the de facto ban on the book was overturned in 1992.
In Germany the book’s copyright is held by the state of Bavaria where its publication is banned until 2015, 70 years after Hitler’s death.
In India, any book more than 25 years old is free of copyright, which has paved the way for six separate publishers to print the book.
Pakistan: ‘War on Terror’ Sparks Stand-Off With US
Islamabad, 17 April (AKI) — By Syed Saleem Shahzad — When Pakistan’s military chief Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani visited Washington this week, his relationship with United States Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Mike Mullen bolstered hopes that a new relationship between the two armies could make gains in the fight against terrorism this year.
But contrary to all expectations, the Pakistan Army refused point-blank a US demand to carry out special land operations in the northwestern Pakistani regions of Chitral and Kalam as well as in 12 other locations.
The relationship between Washington and Islamabad deteriorated further and was at an all time low recently when the Pakistan Army refused the US’s demand to replace the Pushtun dominated Frontier Corps in the federally administered tribal areas close to the Afghan border and instead to send Punjabi dominated Pakistan Rangers there to fight the Taliban.
Washington made all US military and civilian aid packages conditional upon the fulfilment of this demand. But an extremely composed and precise reaction was given to it through Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi.
“Pakistan wants foreign help — not ‘intrusion’ or ‘micro-management’ from any foreign country,” he stated.
These new ‘trust deficits’ between Pakistan’s armed forces and the US administration come at a time when Washington desperately needs Pakistani help to emerge from its deepening Afghan quagmire.
Pakistan’s most unexpected non-cooperation with the US could have serious consequences, according to some observers.
The request by the US to launch a special operation in Chitral and Kalam and elsewhere to hunt for Al-Qaeda’s leader Osama Bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, was the start of serious tension between the US and Pakistan that left Washington in quandary over how to react.
The request was based on some technical evidence presented to Pakistan’s army and Washington expected a honeymoon period on newly built relationship with the new army chief rather than defiance.
Pakistan had complied with the US military’s wish for it to train a group of Frontier Corps personnel to fight extremists in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
Pakistan Frontier Corps comprises 80,000 paramilitaries who guard Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province and south western Balochistan province, both bordering Afghanistan.
The FC is dominated by ethnic pushtuns. After its paramilitaries received training and were deployed in operations in Bajaur and Mohmand tribal areas as well as NWFP’s troubled Swat district, the US surprised the Pakistani military by equating the FC paras to the Taliban.
The reasons the US gave for this claim included the FC paramilitaries’ beards, their prayerful way of life and their alleged reluctance to open fire on the Taliban.
The Pakistan Rangers is also a paramilitary force. It is dominated by Punjabis. It is deployed in Sindh and Punjab provinces, which border India . Pakistan’s army flatly refused the bizarre US demand that the Pakistan Rangers replace the FC paramilitaries in the northwest.
The army said the Pakistan Rangers were trained to fight against India and would be would be useless for any other operation.
This was when trust between the two armies began to fail and several other issues further complicated the relationship.
Pakistan frowned upon last week’s visit to the region by Mullen and the US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke.
During the visit, statements were issued that the US would start hunting for Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Balochistan and urging Pakistan to give up its ‘India-centric’ policies.
The second statement implicitly criticised Pakistan’s refusal to relocate Pakistan Rangers from the Indian to the Afghan border. At the same time, Pakistan’s ISI military intelligence gathered classified information that the CIA’s director had held talks with Indian intelligence officials and sought their support to hunt Taliban leaders in Balochistan.
The India’s Research and Analysis Wing secret service has conducted powerful proxy operations in Balochistan since the 1970s.
The CIA is perhaps the organisation with the best knowledge of the structure of Pakistan’s ISI. The CIA conducted joint operations with ISI during the Afghan war and retained very close ties through exchange programmes in which ISI officials were sent for training in the US from the 1980s onwards.
ISI’s failure to win the war against the Taliban has always upset the US precisely because its intelligence officials are aware of its abilities.
US officials made a fresh bid to woo ISI recently but the ISI chief, Ahmad Shuja Pasha, refused a private session and met the officials together with Kiyani.
And while the US delegation was still in Pakistan, ISI leaked the news to the media that due to ‘derogatory’ remarks made against ISI, its chief had refused to see the US officials, although chief army spokesman Athar Abbas and US officials scrambled to deny the reports.
While the Taliban’s Spring Offensive is expected by US officials to be bloodier than those of previous years, Pakistan and the US are engaged in a new debate.
“I think you would expect when the US taxpayer is providing money, assistance to a country, that we want to make sure we’re not only getting our money’s worth but that certain things that we care about, we want to see that they be dealt with,” US State Department spokesman Robert Wood told reporters.
“So we have said, we will provide and would like to provide 1.5 billion dollars over a five-year period to Pakistan,” he said.
“Clearly, we are going to establish benchmarks. We want to see certain standards and goals met,” Wood said.
But Pakistan showed no sign of complying with US demands.
Pakistan’s prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani said in a statement: “The US should not attach conditionalities to the assistance.”
“Aid with strings attached would fail to generate the desired goodwill and results, “ he added.
However oftenWashington flexes its muscles against Pakistan, Pakistan knows that by the second week of May, a record numbers of Taliban attacks will convince the US that it has exhausted many of its options in the South Asian “war on terror”.
China: Beijing: State Control Over the Press is Insufficient and Will be Increased
China’s highest censorship office lashes out against the spread of “false news,” and publishes new measures for oversight and sanction. Experts: in order to defend the credibility of the Chinese press, greater freedom is needed, not tighter controls.
Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) — The General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), China’s highest press censorship body, yesterday announced much more severe controls on newspapers, in order to protect the truth.
The GAPP explains that in the 18 months since January of 2008, it has had to censure 6 newspapers for the spread of false, insufficiently verified reports. In order to avoid this, it has published a circular in which it “recommends” fact checking. Newspapers are told not to give work to those who “fabricate” news, to “offer” employees refresher courses on professional norms and ethics, and to introduce rules and standard procedures on how to report and publish news. Those responsible for publication will be held responsible for false news, and will have to present “public apologies.” Fines or suspension of publication are provided for the violation of the rules. A list of offending newspapers will be created, and those who spread false news could be removed from the profession.
The cases mentioned include that of the Beijing Times on September 11, 2008, according to which the China Merchants Bank had lost more than 10 billion Hong Kong dollars on bad investments: the false report created panic among investors, and caused the company’s share price to crumble, with a loss of 12.7 billion yuan (1.27 billion euros).
The GAPP explains that the new measures are intended to safeguard the credibility of the press, and prevent social problems.
Analysts observe that Chinese censorship weighs heavily on the freedom of the media: on many matters, it is prohibited to release any news different from that released by the official agencies, even in the matters of natural disasters, accidents, problems in the public health sector, and situations of “social safety crisis” (like clashes between demonstrators and the police). For the Olympics, there was a ban on news likely to create a bad image for the country: bad air quality and pollution, food safety after a series of grave scandals, the journey of the Olympic torch. Following the earthquake in Sichuan last May, the authorities closed the area to foreign journalists, who were even forcibly removed, after news emerged of protests by the parents of children who died in the collapse of poorly constructed schools (in the photo), and incidents of corruption.
The Chinese government has always replied that criticisms about censorship stem from “a cultural misunderstanding,” meaning the inability of the West to understand the role of information in Chinese society, which is that of contributing together with the authorities in the creation of a harmonious society.
Japan to Immigrants: Thanks, But You Can Go Home Now
When union leader Francisco Freitas has something to say, Japan’s Brazilian community listens. The 49-year old director of the Japan Metal and Information Machinery Workers called up the Brazilian Embassy in Tokyo April 14, fuming over a form being passed out at employment offices in Hamamatsu City, southwest of Tokyo. Double-sided and printed on large sheets of paper, the form enables unemployed workers of Japanese descent — and their family members — to secure government money for tickets home. It sounded like a good deal to the Brazilians for whom it was intended. The fine print in Portuguese, however, revealed a catch that soured the deal: it’s a one-way ticket with an agreement not to return.
Japan’s offer to minority communities in need has spawned the ire of those whom it intends to help. It is one thing to be laid off in an economic crisis. It is quite another to be unemployed and to feel unwanted by the country where you’ve settled. That’s how Freitas and other Brazilians feel since the Japanese government started the program to pay $3,000 to each jobless foreigner of Japanese descent (called Nikkei) and $2,000 to each family member to return to their country of origin. The money isn’t the problem, the Brazilians say; it’s the fact that they will not be allowed to return until economic and employment conditions improve — whenever that may be. “When Nikkei go back and can’t return, for us that’s discrimination,” says Freitas, who has lived in Japan with his family for 12 years…
North Korea: Italian Defence Expert Urges Tough Line
Rome, 16 April (AKI) — The international community should not soften its stance towards North Korea, whose government is developing weapons and military technology for other ‘rogue’ states, a leading Italian defence expert Gianandrea Gaiani, told Adnkronos International (AKI) on Friday.
“North Korea is developing military technology, especially in missiles, and is also doing so on behalf of other countries that aren’t capable of conducting long-range missile tests, such as Iran and Syria,” Gaiani said.
He is the director of the online Italian monthly Analisi Difesa.
“Imagine what would have happened if Iran had tested a long-range missile in the Indian Ocean,” he said, referring to Pyongyang’s recent launch of the ‘Taepodong-2’ missile.
“‘Rogue’ states are purchasing missile technology including complete ballistic missile technology from North Korea,” he stated.
The international community has for years isolated the North Korean government, which has frequently been accused of allowing its the country’s population to live in dire poverty.
Tight media censorship in North Korea makes it difficult to independently verify these claims.
The hardline Communist state of North Korea relies on the international aid it receives in return for not arming with weapons of mass destruction, according to Gaiani.
“The development of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles is therefore vital for Pyongyang, not only commercially but to give it a bargaining tool with the international community,” he said.
Gaiani had stern criticism for United States president Barack Obama’s attempts to establish dialogue with Iran. This sent a signal to ‘rogue’ states that there is a weaker administration in Washington, he argued.
“It’s not a coincidence that after the failure of Obama’s overtures to Iran, the North Korean government carried out a missile test and expelled inspectors from the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency,” Gaiani said.
North Korea on Tuesday pulled out of nuclear disarmament talks and ordered US and UN nuclear inspectors out of the country after the United Nations Security Council condemned Pyongyang for its test on 5 April of the long-range ‘Taepodong-2’ missile.
Pyongyang also announced plans to resume production of weapons-grade plutonium at its Yongbyon plant that had been shut down under an agreement reached at the nuclear disarmament talks.
The Festivus Summit of the Americas
Those of us watching the news from the Summit of the Americas have been regaled with news story after news story on the weekend Festivus.
Preliminary to this year’s Festivus was President Obama’s brief stop in Mexico. Pres. Obama carefully avoided pointing out that Mexico’s decades, perhaps centuries’ long corruption and disregard for the rule of law had much to do with the thriving drug cartels, and his administration stands by the “90% fallacy,” which FactCheck.org and others have looked into and found lacking. There is consistent evidence that the drug cartels are purchasing weapons and military-grade armaments from Central America and the international weapons trade; ignoring this will not improve the drug wars. Additionally, the US has served as the pressure valve for Mexico, since millions of Mexicans who want to live and work in peace move here. Little, if any, credit was given to the US for that during Pres. Obama’s visit.
The Festivus, however, didn’t get rolling until Pres. Obama arrived in Trinidad. There was a slight difference from the classical Festivus: the airing of grievances went only in one direction.
First Pres. Obama walked across a hotel meeting room to meet Hugo Chavez, who just last month was calling the US a “genocidal, murderous empire” and was telling Obama to go wash his rear end. Chavez, who is cracking down on his political opposition at home and callls for the end of the American “empire” abroad every chance he gets, told Pres. Obama, “I want to be your friend,” while government-owned Venezuelan media immediately spread the photos of the handshake.
The Festivus airing of grievances continued with Daniel Ortega’s fifty-minute long inflammatory diatribe where Ortega complained about the US’s “terroristic aggression in Central America.” In the spirit of Festivus, Obama joked,
“I’m very grateful that President Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was 3 months old.”…
America is Not Geography
To describe the discourse concerning the mass inflow of foreigners that has taken place over the last 29 years “the immigration debate” is to use a misnomer. What has taken place since the 1980 U.S. census is nothing less than a mass migration of the sort that irretrievably transformed historical civilizations everywhere from Hellenic Greece to Moorish Spain. In 1980, the number of Hispanics living in the United States was 14.6 million. In 2008, it was 45.5 million. Hispanics now account for 15 percent of the total population, and because they are the fastest-growing population segment, the census bureau expects their numbers to increase by a further 67 million by 2050.
Maltese Minister, Maroni’s Criticism Unacceptable
(ANSAmed) — VALLETTA (MALTA), APRIL 17- “The harsh criticism from Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni is unacceptable,” Maltese Minister of Interiors, Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici said adding that despite understanding Italy’s concerns over illegal immigration, “the Maltese state can never accept immigrants rescued off the Italian coasts”. Mifsud Bonnici added that “for the past 45 years, Italy has respected the agreement that calls for the transport of immigrants rescued at sea to the closest port. Now I see that Italy is trying to change the rules, and this is unacceptable”. Finally, the Maltese Interior Minister said that “Italy cannot expect to resolve its illegal immigration problem by dumping it on Malta”. (ANSAmed).
Maroni: Malta Must Respect Commitments
(ANSAmed) — ROME, APRIL 17 — “I have asked, and continue to ask, that Malta respect the commitments that it decided to take on through international agreements, which they are currently not doing, thereby harming Italy”, said Interior Minister Roberto Maroni today. Speaking at the Pan-Mediterranean Conference on Illegal Immigration in Rome, Maroni also mentioned that he had asked the European Union to step in on the issue. The Italian minister claimed that Malta often leaves it to Italy to rescue boats of immigrants, even if they are in Maltese waters. “Relations with Malta are not all that good”, said Maroni: “I have called on Commissioner Barrot to intervene because there is currently a clause which allows Malta to offload the rescue responsibilities which are properly its own”. The areas of competence are “well defined”, said the minister, “but often those who should come to the rescue do not do so”, thereby leaving Italy to step in. “Last year we intervened 80 times”, concluded the minister, “and we do so because human life must always be saved. However, I have brought the question to a European level because whoever commits to perform sea rescues should do so, otherwise the rules must be changed”. At the conference Maroni also looked at the problem of the around 1,000 illegal immigrants that may be granted the freedom to live in Italy if the government measure that extends up to six months the stay at the immigration centres is not renewed by April 26. Most of the immigrants in question are Tunisian, and for this reason Maroni and Police Chief Manganelli were in Tunisia yesterday to look for a mutually acceptable solution. (ANSAmed).
Ahmadinejad Jeered at Anti-Racism Conference
(CNN) — The opening of a United Nations conference in Switzerland on anti-racism was marred by chaotic scenes Monday as protests and a walkout by delegates disrupted a controversial address by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The presence of the Iranian leader at the conference had already prompted Israel to withdraw its ambassador from Switzerland, while several countries including the United States are also boycotting the gathering.
Dozens of delegates walked out of the chamber as Ahmadinejad accused Israel and the West of making “an entire nation homeless under the pretext of Jewish suffering … in order to establish a totally racist government.”
He said Zionism, the Jewish national movement, “personifies racism,” and accused Zionists of wielding economic and political resources to silence opponents. He also blasted the United States-led invasion of Afghanistan.
Protesters in brightly colored wigs interrupted Ahmadinejad as he began to speak, shouting: “You’re a racist!” in accented English.
But some delegates cheered, while security officers dragged at least two protesters from the chamber.
Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman called Ambassador Ilan Elgar home to protest a meeting between the Swiss president and Ahmadinejad, Israel’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
“The meeting of a president of a democratic country with a notorious Holocaust denier such as the Iranian president, who has openly declared his intention of wiping Israel off the map, is not in keeping with the values represented by Switzerland,” the ministry said.
Netanyahu’s office had earlier said the diplomatic move was a response to the presence of Ahmadinejad at the conference.
Ahmadinejad has said that the Holocaust is a myth, and Iran hosted a conference in 2006 questioning the Holocaust, in which about 6 million Jews were killed.
The United States, among others, is refusing to send envoys to the Durban Review Conference.
‘Clean Energy’ is a Dirty Lie
What does it take to be a dedicated environmentalist—a Green—these days?
“The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” An example would be a belief in “global warming” despite the fact that the planet has been cooling for a decade.
“To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed.” This describes anyone who says that carbon dioxide, CO2, is responsible for a warming that is not occurring or that this gas could cause it.
“To deny objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies.” This is how Congress can restrict access to national energy sources—oil, natural gas, and coal—while claiming it wants the USA to be “energy independent.”
The definition above comes from George Orwell’s “1984” and describes “double think” in his allegory of Communism.
[…]
Regarding so-called Green jobs, Thomas J. Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, recently pointed out that a study in Spain that was released in late March made clear that, “Spain has spent billions in taxpayer resources to subsidize renewable energy programs in an effort to jumpstart its ailing economy and what they have gotten in return are fewer jobs, skyrocketing debt and some of the highest and most regressive energy prices in the developed world.”
Students Face Off With Ahmadinejad
Jewish French students dressed as clowns who confronted Iranian president at UN racism summit tell Ynet ‘we wanted to show that the conference is a circus.’ Israeli students who snuck in also taken out by security for yelling, but say audience applauded them
Jewish and Israeli students made sure their voices were heard on Monday during the address delivered by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the UN racism conference in Geneva, known as Durban II.
Delegates from 23 nations walked out of the hall in protest as the Iranian president launched a harshly-worded harangue against Israel. The students, however, staged far more colorful, and entertaining, protests.
Seconds after the Iranian president began three French students wearing colorful clown wigs rose from their seats and began yelling at the Iranian leader. Though they were removed from the hall within seconds by UN security, their protest drew considerable attention.
The three, Jeremy Cohen, Rafael Hadad and Jonathan Hayoun, are members of France’s Jewish student union (UESJ). They were able to enter the hall as representatives of NGOs. They said they made the decision to take action on Sunday over lunch.
“We wanted to show it was one big joke,” Cohen told Ynet shortly after their performance.
“Rafael was in the center of the hall, Jonathan and I were in the galleries,” said Cohen, who serves as president of the Jewish student union at the Sorbonne. “We waited for our chance, pulled the wigs out of our pockets and called him a racist.
“We wanted to do something meaningful, and we took advantage of Ahamadinejad’s speech. We dressed as clowns because we wanted to show that his speech and the entire conference is a joke. We were very happy that so many people walked out afterwards.”
‘He stopped and looked at us’
Boaz Toporovsky, Chairman of the National Student Union, and two additional students managed to enter the forum hall where Ahmadinejad had taken the podium. When he began attacking “the Zionist regime,” the students immediately began shouting “racist” at the Iranian president. Security guards removed them from the all.
Toporovsky spoke with Ynet shortly after the incident took place: “At first they wouldn’t let us in, but we managed to sneak in to the gallery. At first we thought to wave an Israeli flag, but people in the Foreign Ministry told us that it would be better not to thrust Israel to the ‘front’ like that, so we settled for shouting.”
After placid opening remarks, Ahmadinejad’s speech took a sharp turn, with Israel and the West in his crosshairs.
“The first seven minutes he talked about Allah and praising Allah,” Toporovsky recalled, “and then he started deriding Israel, saying it was the most racist nation in the world, propped up by the West, and that’s when we started yelling ‘racist’ towards him.
“He stopped his speech and looked at us, we kept shouting, the whole audience was applauding us. When they were taking us out of the hall we kept yelling towards him.. After that they took us out of the building and took away our UN entry passes.”
Western Diplomats Walk Out on Ahmadinejad Speech in Geneva
Dozens of Western representatives at the UN-sponsored Durban II conference against racism walked out during Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s address to the forum on Monday.
The diplomats rose from their chairs and walked out of the hall in Geneva as Ahmadinejad launched a tirade against the Israeli government. The Iranian leader also blasted the United States for its invasion of Iraq.
Earlier Monday, federal agents in Geneva on Sunday escorted Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz away from the Geneva hotel where Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz were meeting, after he declared plans to challenge the Iranian leader about his views on the Holocaust and Israel.
Merz met Ahmadinejad upon the latter’s arrival in Geneva on Sunday, a day before the United Nations was to open its first global racism conference in eight years.
Merz described the presence of Ahmadinejad at the Durban II conference as a good chance to discuss ways to mature bilateral ties as well as regional and international cooperation, according to the Iranian Student News Agency.
Ahmadinejad — who has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel and denied the Holocaust — is slated to speak on the first day of the conference, which happens to fall on Holocaust Memorial Day.
Israel, which is boycotting the conference along with many Western countries, on Sunday voiced explicit criticism of the Swiss president’s offer to meet Ahmadinejad on the sidelines of the conference in Geneva.
Israel’s former foreign minister Silvan Shalom, who was recently appointed regional cooperation minister, called the offer “wretched,” adding: “The fact that Ahmadinejad is embraced by the Swiss president and others leads him to think that there is no reason to back down from his line of thinking.”
Deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon said that the meeting “caught us by surprise,” telling Army Radio that Merz’s meeting “hurts him and Switzerland more than anything else.”
Israel has sent a delegation to Geneva to publicly protest Durban II, a summit many Western countries fear will be used as a forum to criticize Israel.
As part of its publicity campaign, the Israelis will organize demonstrations during the speech, and will distribute materials on human rights violations in Iran — with particular emphasis on public executions and violence against women.
The campaign will be overseen by Israel Ambassador to Geneva Ronnie Lashno-Yaar. He will be assisted by Dershowitz, Nobel Prize laureate Elie Weisel and film actor Jon Voight. A special media room will also be set up in Geneva, to provide immediate responses to anti-Israeli statements.
This week’s 
A similar repression is at work in Cologne. As you may remember, the 
Taha Abdul-Basser is a Harvard Islamic chaplain who believes there is “great wisdom” in the death penalty for converting from Islam. This fact was publicly reported in the university newspaper, but it has received virtually no attention in the national media.