The sharia authorities in West Java have developed a two-prong strategy to discourage the practice of Christianity. First they knock down a church, which drives the Christian congregation into open-air worship. Then they harass them for praying in the open, because public worship by non-Muslims is against the law.

According to Asia News:

Jakarta (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Police demolished a residential building in Bogor (West Java) that regularly hosted a house church. Police also detained, interrogated and released ten people, Compass Direct News (CDN) reported.

Last Monday, police raided a house used for worship by Narogong Pentecostal Church in the village of Limusnunggal, Cileungsi sub-district. The action was followed by clashes between agents and worshippers. The building was eventually torn down and ten people arrested.

“Local residents, including non-Christians, had accepted the presence of the church,” said local Block Captain Junaedi Syamsudin, “but a group called the Forum of the Muslim Brotherhood of Limusnunggal has worked since 2008 to have the church eliminated.”

“Three months ago members of the forum went to Cileungsi offices to object to the church’s presence,” Syamsudin added, “and the regent promised to demolish the house.”

Here’s a crucial part of the Muslim strategy: the co-opting of supposedly impartial police officials:
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Bogor Police Chief Eddy Hidayat said that the house “lacked a use permit”, but Pentecostal Church coordinator Hotlan P. Silaen retorted that police were not neutral in the dispute.

“The clash with citizens could have been avoided if the police had been neutral and not been goaded into a situation that caused bodily harm,” Silaen said.

The Christians have enough backbone to at least attempt to fight back:

Rev Rekson Sitorus announced that the Church would take “legal action” against those responsible for demolishing the house, including the Bogor administration.

Now here comes Stage Two: harassment of Christians for open-air worship. In this case, however, the police were more helpful to the persecuted Christians:

Jakarta (AsiaNews) — A group of 500 Islamic extremists blocked Christians from the Huria Protestant Church (Hkbp) in a field where the Sunday service was taking place. The incident occurred last July 18 in the city of Pondok Timur in Mustika Jaya subdistrict, district of Bekasi (West Java).

Muslims blocked all routes to prevent Christians leaving the field and began to insult them, terrorizing them. The group of Protestant believers pray outdoors because their hall for religious functions was closed on the grounds that it was illegal.

The situation improved when a representative of the Bekasi Office for Religious Affairs, along with 200 policemen, arrived at the site. Luspida Simanjutak, head pastor at the Hkbp church, told AsiaNews: “We were forced to sign a pact with them, forcing us to stop our faith celebration but we strongly rejected the proposal. We asked the representative to help our congregation to leave the site without harm. Their goal is one and one alone, to eradicate all churches from Mustika Jaya”.

It is not the first time that the Hkbp church was targeted by Islamic extremists. “At Pondok Timur — continued the pastor — the Muslims have forced local government to outlaw the place where we held our services. They’ve already done so twice”.

That’s why different Hkbp communities decided to hold their services in an open field. Theopilus Bella an activist for interfaith dialogue, believes the incident last Sunday was premeditated. “Many of the faithful — he tells AsiaNews — received text messages from Islamic extremists which warned them of what they would do” and what in fact happened.

Despite threats by Islamic Rev. Simanjutak says that her community will continue to recite the Mass in the same place.

For years the Christians of Bekasi have been targeted by Islamic fundamentalists. Early in 2010, radical groups blocked religious services, prevented Christians from access to existing churches and stopped the construction of new churches. Since 2009, more than 17 churches have been affected by Islamic extremists. The Hkbp church, besides having to close its premises many times because deemed “illegal” in 2010, suffered the destruction of a church in 2004, after receiving permission to construct it.

Indonesia used to be a relatively tolerant place for non-Muslim religions. The indigenous form of Islam in Malaysia and Indonesia is less harsh and more broad-minded than the Salafist strains that dominate Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. In fact, some of the local syncretic practices are even viewed as blasphemous by Islamic purists.

Over the last ten or fifteen years, however, Wahhabi petrodollars have changed the religious landscape in the archipelago, as they have in Bosnia, Kosovo, Bangladesh, and all the other places where Wahhabist dawah is propagated. The religious authorities have recently intensified their enforcement of strict sharia practices.

The Christians of West Java are just one of the many groups suffering the consequences of these changes.

Sharjah is a tiny emirate right next door to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. The UAE is in the midst of a record heat wave, with temperatures soaring to 45º C (113º F) during the day, and dropping to 33º C (91º F) at night. The heat is so intense that it has overwhelmed the capacity of the local power station to generate enough electricity for all the air conditioners — the generators use diesel fuel, and Sharjah has run out of diesel reserves. Many residents have taken to their air-conditioned cars to escape the unbearable heat.

In other news, an entrepreneur in Las Vegas has devised a new business model: he buys up the right to newspaper articles, and then sues online news aggregation sites and forums for copyright infringement when they post content that his company owns. He says he’s making a profit.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to Barry Rubin, C. Cantoni, Caroline Glick, Fjordman, Gaia, Insubria, JD, Mary Abdelmassih, SF, Takuan Seiyo, TV, Zenster, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

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A 17-year-old Turkish girl ran away from home to escape family violence and took refuge in a women’s shelter. When she left the shelter, her family managed to discover her whereabouts, and she was strangled to death by her little brother.

The article doesn’t say what her “crime” was — having a boyfriend, perhaps, or wearing makeup, or maybe dressing “shamelessly” — but it does say that her brother had previously been in trouble with the police for his membership in Hizb ut-Tahrir.

I draw no conclusions from this information — correlation, as they say, is not causation. Here are the facts; make of them what you will:

Young Turkish Woman Murdered in ‘Honor Killing’ After Leaving Shelter

A 17-year-old woman found dead one month ago was allegedly murdered by her 15-year-old brother in an “honor killing” after she left the women’s shelter where she was staying, daily Radikal reported Wednesday.

The body of Seyma G. was found half buried in the ground in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir, while subsequent tests revealed that she had been strangled to death. Her brother Y.G. was caught by police and then arrested July 16.

– – – – – – – – –

According to a press statement announced Tuesday by the Diyarbakir police, the suspects in the murder were determined after an examination of the crime scene revealed footprints in the area and fingerprints on the tape put over the victim’s mouth.

The victim had reportedly been staying in a women’s shelter after being subjected to violence at home. Family members allegedly found her after they learned she had left the shelter.

Her brother, who is accused in the murder, had previously been detained for being a member of the illegal Muslim organization Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Part 17 of Takuan Seiyo’s magnum opus, “From Meccania To Atlantis”, has been published at the Brussels Journal. Some excerpts of “Shotgun Marriage In Europe” are below:

America, falling into a Cloward-Piven black hole, deserves a chapter all its own. But in Europe, a former leader of the Communist Party of the Portuguese Workers/Revolutionary Movement of the Portuguese Proletariat is President of the European Commission. Norway’s government offsets its inexcusable Whiteness by its 50% balance of estrogen. Sweden does Norway one better by not only having a Ministry for Integration and Gender Equality, but putting an African woman in charge. Germany, not to be upstaged in virtue, declares via its Green Party, “You are not born a man, you are turned into one”.

In Australia, the country’s major newspaper writes approvingly about “The Australian Face of Islam” while exhorting, “Together under the minarets“. In Great Britain, miracles of Loon transfiguration cast rough and stupid socialist women in comedic parts as Cabinet Ministers and ethnocentric Pakistani Muslims in the robes of Peers of the Realm. The assiduous planting of inassimilable Muslims has increased the crop 30-fold in the last 30 years, to 2.5 million now.

– – – – – – – – –

White man’s world has gone crazy. Any play written by the Marquis de Sade and directed by him with a cast of fellow inmates at the Asylum at Charenton could not have been more grotesque.

People have had enough. But to return a Western democracy to its rightful owners requires a majority of votes. Such a majority can no longer obtain for any political platform that would tackle even the top three major problems that bedevil the West: bankrupting socialism, nonwhite immigration, and implanted Islam. Not to mention the next dozen grave problems: irredeemable debt, the tyranny of the metastasized State, the Looters’ coalition’s chokehold, sham global economy, fraudulent financial capitalism, minoritarian tyranny, shattered social capital, barbaric mass culture, nihilism, democracy turned idiocracy, breakdown of sexual norms and results (i.e. no babies), and falsehoods and self-hate careening through the land like a band of headless horsemen.

Read the rest at the Brussels Journal.

But read all the way to the punch line at the end, and you’ll realize that it’s not a joke at all:

Greater Switzerland Just Might Take Off

The Swiss far-right wants to expand the country by annexing German, French, Austrian and Italian border regions, reports Gazeta Wyborcza. The Swiss People’s Party (SVP) floated the idea in June but only now has submitted a draft proposal calling for necessary changes to the constitution to make the enlargement possible. The regions in question are the German state of Baden Württemberg, French departments Alsace, Savoy, Jura and Ain, Italian provinces Aosta, Como, Varese and Bozen and the Austrian province of Vorarlberg.

If the SVP plan were implemented, Switzerland’s population would increase by 17 million (it currently stands at 7 million) with Stuttgart becoming its largest city. “We should facilitate integration of these regions which are suffering under the rule of the European political class that has no interest in them whatsoever. Their citizens have been looking jealously at our self-governing state and long for a democracy with human face”, explain SVP politicians.

– – – – – – – – –

The Swiss authorities have not commented on the proposal which nevertheless caused much glee in the German embassy in Bern. Its employees are said to have been wondering when the Swiss will “start demanding access to the sea”. Their good humours disappeared at seeing the results of a poll conducted by the Swiss weekly Weltwoche. It showed that 63% of nearly 1,800 German, Italian and Austrian polled living in the border regions said they were in favour of joining Switzerland. Hardly surprising considering the fact that salaries in Switzerland are much higher than in, for example, Germany and that Germans already constitute a majority of lecturers at many Swiss universities.

Now we come to the sticky part: a substantial majority of the population in these border regions actually favors being annexed by Switzerland.

And, when you think about it, who wouldn’t? Despite the relatively high cost of living in Switzerland, the sclerotic economy and high unemployment in the European Union make the Confederation Helvetica look awfully good by comparison. The idea of an orderly and prosperous alternative to the EU must be irresistible.

However, we should all bear in mind the potential dangers of pushing for territorial exchanges on the basis of public opinion polls. The fact that 37% of the population does not want to become part of Switzerland should not be minimized. A change of sovereignty that leaves more than six million people in various degrees of unhappiness carries a potential for the sort of trouble with which we became all too familiar during the first half of the last century.

Between 1935 and 1940 large chunks of European territory changed hands, in most cases accompanied by plebiscites which confirmed the overwhelming popularity of the results. Yet somehow all that popular approval failed to prevent the most cataclysmic war in history.

It’s a sobering thought, one that enthusiasts for a Greater Switzerland should ponder well before pursuing any plans for territorial expansion.

After weeks of insisting that Geert Wilders’ PVV would never participate in a coalition government, Dutch political leaders have changed their minds. Even Labour agrees that a VVD-PVV-CDA coalition may be in the cards.

It can’t come too soon, because the dhimmification of the Netherlands is proceeding rapidly: a hospital removed three paintings from its walls because they included depiction of pigs. It chose to take action after a single person — a non-Muslim — complained, saying that Muslims might become offended.

In other news, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says the Climate Bill — a.k.a. “Cap and Trade” is out of the picture before the midterm elections. He has counted the votes, and the Democrats don’t have the sixty necessary to end a filibuster.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to ESW, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Lurker from Tulsa, Reinhard, SF, TB, VH, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

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Barry Madlener, a member of the European Parliament for Geert Wilders’ party, has raised the issue of Turkish involvement with the infamous Gaza flotilla. He brought the matter up on the floor of the European Parliament, and put a series of questions to the European Commission.

Here’s the report from the PVV website, as translated by our Flemish correspondent VH:

PVV Europe wants Turkey’s role in “Gaza fleet” investigated

According to Party for Freedom (PVV) MEP Barry Madlener, Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey has once more shown his true face by playing a role in the “Gaza fleet”, and thus demonstrating yet again that Turkey is not fit to be a member of the EU. Various sources^[1] claim that the Turkish government was involved with the “Gaza fleet”. Turkish politicians of Erdogan’s Islamic AK Party wanted to be present aboard the now infamous Mavi Marmara, a self-proclaimed “peace boat”, which according to Madlener had as its sole purpose the provocation of the state of Israel.

Madlener: “The Islamist Erdogan again shows himself to be a true wolf in sheep’s clothing. Turkish politicians who would have liked to board a boat that was full of members of Hamas —designated as a terrorist organization by the EU — give a clear signal that they do not belong in the EU. Instead of the High Representative of the EU, Lady Ashton, condemning this behavior and immediately breaking off the negotiations, she gets down on her knees in response to the provocation by Turkey. She wants to see a bridge between the Islamic world and the EU. I’d rather see a buffer.”

PVV MEP Madlener has filed written questions^[2] to the European Commission and asked for the initiation of an independent investigation into Turkey’s role concerning the “Gaza fleet”.

Notes:

– – – – – – – – –

[1]		Elsevier.nl: “Turkish politicians wanted to come along with radical activists”
[2]		Written questions put to the European Commission:   1.   Is the Commission familiar with of the fact that Turkish politicians wanted to join the radical Gaza activists aboard the Mavi Marmara? 2.   What is the opinion of the Commission concerning Turkish politicians who wanted to come aboard a boat where members of the terrorist organization Hamas were also present? 3.   Does the Commission have the intention of taking action against the ever-growing anti-Israel stance by Turkey? If so, what kind of actions? If not, why not? 4.   Is it true that one of the initiators of the “Gaza fleet”, Hussein Oruc, was given a warm welcome on his arrival in Turkey by the Erdogan government? If so, how does the Commission regard this conduct by a candidate-member country? 5.   Is the Commission prepared to begin an independent inquiry into the role of Turkey in relation to the “Gaza fleet”? If not, why not? 6.   Is the Commission prepared to break off the accession negotiations with Turkey in view of the provocative behavior of the Erdogan government? If not, why not?

Turkey has illegally occupied northern Cyprus since 1974, and conditions in the “occupied territories” of Cyprus are said to be worse than in Gaza.

On July 20th the Cyprus Action Network of America demonstrated in front of the Turkish embassy in Washington D.C. to protest the occupation of Cyprus. A counterdemonstration, mounted in close co-ordination with the Turkish embassy, immediately invoked Godwin’s law by shouting “Heil Hitler” at the demonstrators.

Here’s how CANA describes what happened at the embassy:

Turkish Embassy Hitler Salute on July 20, 2010

July 21, 2010

Contact: Nikolaos Taneris, New York, Tel (917) 699-9935

NEW YORK — The Cyprus Action Network of America (CANA) demonstrated against the Turkish Embassy in Washington DC on July 20th, 2010 for the entire business day, to mark the 36-year anniversary of the illegal Turkish invasion of Cyprus that began on July 20, 1974. Greek-Cypriot demonstrators from the DC area and from as far away as Florida and New York participated. The Greek-Cypriot demonstration was helped by Armenian community supporters, (whose people are an integral part of Cyprus ) and suffer from the ongoing illegal Turkish-military-occupation, and by pro-Israel activists. The Greek-Cypriot demonstration applauded American celebrity Jennifer Lopez’s “NO” to Turkish terrorism. Protest slogans emphasized the Turkish Crimes against the Greek-Cypriot people and the brutality of the illegal Turkish invasion, and ongoing illegal Turkish military-occupation.

Many diplomats and journalists took pictures and videos of the demonstration, and diplomatic staff from the nearby Embassies of India, Japan and South Korea voiced their admiration of our commitment to justice and human rights by asking for our flyers and information about the Turkish Crimes committed in Cyprus.

Gunay Evinch and the Turkish Embassy Hitler Youth

– – – – – – – – –

A counter demonstration was staged and closely supervised by Gunay Evinch, of the law firm Evinch and Saltzman. Gunay Evinch is widely acknowledged as “the lawyer of the Turkish Embassy.” Gunay Evinch has defended Turkey from American lawsuits by Greek-Cypriot Americans, he is the President of the Turkish Lobby. Gunay Evinch is a promoter of Armenian genocide denial within the United States and the source of Turkish invasion of Cyprus denial propaganda for Turkey in America.

The main speaker for the Turkish Embassy counter demonstrators (who was witnessed as receiving help and consulted with Gunay Evinch) repeatedly made the Hitler salute and shouted “Heil Hitler” towards pro-Israel activists and the Greek-Cypriot community. The Turkish Embassy staff also participated and helped Gunay Evinch and the Turkish Embassy Hitler Youth who also barked out to the Greek-Cypriot community “Turkish soldiers raped your mothers” and further committed hate crimes against women by making obscene gestures with his genitalia and his megaphone. The Cyprus Action Network of America (CANA) will be releasing the pictures and videos of Gunay Evinch and his Turkish Hitler Youth making the Hitler salute to Jewish Anti-Semitism watch groups and to the Israeli and German government which monitors such hate speech and hate gestures and enforces heavy criminal penalties for glorifying Hitler…

See the article at CANA for more information, including links to several YouTube videos of events at the Turkish Embassy on Tuesday.

During the last twenty-four hours or so Dymphna has developed a nasty case of gastritis. The pain got so bad this afternoon that I took her to the clinic so the doctor on duty could look her over.

The doc recommended an intense course of Prilosec as well as certain dietary restrictions, hoping to get her past the worst of it over the next few days. She also gave Dymphna a shot to relieve some of the pain.

My better half is resting right now. She says she hopes to return to duty tomorrow. In the meantime, our production of thank-you notes for our generous donors will be delayed a bit. I’ll take up some of the slack, but if you don’t hear from either of us right away, this is the reason.

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As reported last week, Geert Wilders has announced the formation of the International Freedom Alliance, which will be launched in several countries during the next few months. One of the stops on his itinerary will be in Berlin on October 2.

The following report from Politically Incorrect will serve as a journalistic anti-coagulant. Many thanks to JLH for translating it from the German:

Springer Publishing on Wilders Visit to Berlin

Geert Wilders recently formed the International Freedom Alliance (PI reported). Besides France, the UK, the USA, and Canada, this alliance also aims at Germany. Therefore, he will give a speech in Berlin on October 2, 2010, at the invitation of René Stadtkewitz, a member of the Berlin house of representatives. The journalist Hilburg Bruns picks up on this announcement in the print edition of Berlin Bild without naming the source, and shows her potential for defamation. Nonetheless interesting is what Stadtkewitz says to the slick magazine about the possible founding of a new party.

Bild claims that Wilders wants to ban the Koran as a fascist book. Actually, Wilders says that whoever bans “Mein Kampf” should be consistent and also ban the Koran. Naturally, the article cannot omit the fact that Wilders was refused entry by London. The article “forgets” to inform the reader that the entry ban was long ago rejected by a British court as illegal. Now the Bild reader can form his opinion fact-free.

Bruns also alleges that Geert Wilders is not welcome in Turkey. Anyone who is unwelcome in this model rule-of-the-law country must naturally be controversial. That is where Angela Merkel and Ruprecht Polenz, who wants to see Turkey as an EU member as soon as possible, are praised. They are also not controversial. In the opinion of the MSM, someone who does not transform the will of the people, but heeds it, is controversial. He is dangerous, for he is a populist.

– – – – – – – – –

The member of the national board of the citizen movement Pax Europa (BPE). René Stadtkewitz, is also driven into a dangerous corner by opinion-weighted descriptions — the corner of the “controversial” politician. Bild seems to have become so accustomed to the colorless figures who bring along everything except a mind of their own that this awakens the suspicion of the Springer Publications magazine. The outrage that accompanies the description of Stadtkewitz is palpable.

The man from Pankow (Stadtkewitz) is a controversial politician. Stadtkewitz fought against the building of the Ahmadiyya mosque in Pankow.

He is vice-chair in Germany of the Islam-critical citizens’ movement Pax Europa.

At a rally, Stadtkewitz described Islam as “not able to integrate into Europe.”

It is possible that Hilburg Bruns is not aware that a fair portion of her readership does not find this description to be negative. Or if she is? Are articles with half- truths that make up a whole lie necessary because of that? Is there no other way to hold the readers to the politically correct line?

Could the slick magazine really believe that its readers — despite daily proof to the contrary — assume that Islam is capable of integration? But at least this quality journalist puts the right question to Stadtkewitz, namely, what his plans are for the 2011 election to the Berlin house of representatives. Stadtkewitz to Bild: “There is elbow room, possibilities. I am still evaluating.” This could get interesting. But before we allow the slick magazine — obviously clueless — to talk about Wilders, we should listen to what Wafa Sultan, as a born Muslim, says about Islam integrating into the Western world and about Geert Wilders: [see link for video]

Wafa Sultan agrees 100% with Geert Wilders, who is designated as a “scandal politician” by the slick magazine. Consequently, Wafa Sultan is a rightist radical. Welcome to the free West, Wafa Sultan. To a world in which the citizens do not allow themselves to be told what to think. It is appropriate for this freedom, together with people like Wafa Sultan, to defend René Stadtkewitz and Geert Wilders.

Many thanks to the Center for Security Policy for producing this excellent ad opposing Imam Rauf’s proposed mosque adjacent to Ground Zero:

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Everyone knows that the UN is a sinkhole of corruption.

When I say “everyone”, I really mean “everyone who reads this blog or the Belmont Club or Mark Steyn or Eye on the UN.” For most ordinary people, however — at least in the United States — the UN still brings to mind trick-or-treating for UNICEF, or those kindly blue-helmets who help keep the peace in faraway places, or all those international programs to alleviate famine and prevent cholera.

Unfortunately, any more-than-cursory examination of today’s United Nations will reveal the organization as an international clearinghouse for global corruption. The UN’s primary functions are to enrich the well-connected, divide the spoils gleaned from the contributions of its richest member states, and carve up the world’s real estate into lucrative fiefdoms for thousands of unelected apparatchiks.

All major countries represented at the UN have a stake in this sleazy transnational game. Their delegations are either chowing down at the trough themselves, or are beholden to others who do. As a result, anyone involved is hardly likely to speak the truth in public.

A rare exception occurred last week when a retiring functionary in the UN’s anti-corruption office spoke out about the cesspool that the United Nations has become under the leadership of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The brave woman who decided to bell the cat is Swedish, which is a reminder that Swedes used to be renowned for their personal integrity.

According to The Washington Post:

Departing U.N. Official Calls Ban’s Leadership ‘Deplorable’ In 50-Page Memo

UNITED NATIONS — The outgoing chief of a U.N. office charged with combating corruption at the United Nations has issued a stinging rebuke of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, accusing him of undermining her efforts and leading the global institution into an era of decline, according to a confidential end-of-assignment report.

The memo by Inga-Britt Ahlenius, a Swedish auditor who stepped down Friday as undersecretary general of the Office of Internal Oversight Services, represents an extraordinary personal attack on Ban from a senior U.N. official. The memo also marks a challenge to Ban’s studiously cultivated image as a champion of accountability.

Shortly after taking office in 2007, Ban committed himself to restoring the United Nations’ reputation, which had been sullied by revelations of corruption in the agency’s oil-for-food program in Iraq.

So how did the Secretary General set about restoring the luster of the institution? His first task was to subvert the operations of the anti-corruption office itself:

But Ahlenius says that, rather than being an advocate for accountability, Ban, along with his top advisers, has systematically sought to undercut the independence of her office, initially by trying to set up a competing investigations unit under his control and then by thwarting her efforts to hire her own staff.

Ms. Ahlenius pulls no punches in her report:
– – – – – – – – –

“Your actions are not only deplorable, but seriously reprehensible…. Your action is without precedent and in my opinion seriously embarrassing for yourself,” Ahlenius wrote in the 50-page memo to Ban, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post. “I regret to say that the secretariat now is in a process of decay.”

Ban’s top advisers said that Ahlenius’s memo constituted a deeply unbalanced account of their differences and that her criticism of Ban’s stewardship of the United Nations was patently unfair.

“A look at his record shows that Secretary General Ban has provided genuine visionary leadership on important issues from climate change to development to women’s empowerment. He has promoted the cause of gender balance in general as well as within the organization. He has led from the front on important political issues from Gaza to Haiti to Sudan,” Ban’s chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar, wrote in a response.

“It is regrettable to note,” Nambiar added, “that many pertinent facts were overlooked or misrepresented” in Ahlenius’s memo.

The departure of Ahlenius, 72, coincides with a period of crisis in the United Nations’ internal investigations division. During the past two years, the world body has shed some of its top investigators. It has also failed to fill dozens of vacancies, including that of the chief of the investigations division in the Office of Internal Oversight Services. That post has been vacant since 2006, leaving a void in the United Nations’ ability to police itself, diplomats say.

And how does the United States react to this sorry state of affairs? It is “disappointed”:

“We are disappointed with the recent performance of [the U.N.’s] investigations division,” said Mark Kornblau, spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations. “The coming change in… leadership is an opportunity to bring about a significant improvement in its performance to increase oversight and transparency throughout the organization.”

Change in leadership… significant improvement… transparency… etc blah yak; we’ve heard it all before.

Who in his right mind would seriously believe that this time will be any different?

If the situation gets any worse, maybe we’ll take a cue from the UN itself, and express “concern”. And if the Secretary General is caught absconding from the building with a steamer trunk full of hundred dollar bills, we might even have to escalate to “grave concern”.

But real reform? Nope.

Or, better yet, withdrawal from the UN? Never!

Read the rest of the article, which has a link to a pdf of the full report. It’s good to see all this in the WaPo, but there’s no reason to believe that Ms. Ahlenius’ candor will have any lasting effect on the corrupt culture of the United Nations. As usual, the truth will disappear into the murk of Turtle Bay without leaving a single bubble in its wake.

President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt is 82 years old, and his health is rumored to be failing, so speculation is rife about what will happen to Egypt after he is gone. A symposium of experts met recently in Barcelona and came to a reassuring conclusion: the change of Egyptian leadership will not affect the country’s alliance with the USA, nor will it endanger regional stability.

In other news, during his visit to the White House, British Prime Minister David Cameron gave President Obama a painting by a British ex-con who is also a graffiti “artist”. Mr. Cameron is reportedly a fan of the man’s work.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to Diana West, Gaia, Insubria, Jerry Gordon, JP, LN, Lurker from Tulsa, Nilk, TB, VH, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

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Israel’s war against Hezbollah in the summer of 2006 ended with a cease-fire, but the war never really stopped. Hezbollah has been using the absence of Israeli attacks in the interim to rearm and rebuild. With Syrian and Iranian help it has massively increased the number, range, and capacity of missiles which can be brought to bear against virtually the entire state of Israel.

Along with all the infrastructure and firepower, Hezbollah has been building tourist attractions. From the German news site Telepolis comes this report on the opening of a “Hezbollah Disneyland” in South Lebanon. Many thanks to JLH for the translation:

Tourist Jihad Central

Florian Rötzer, July 13, 2010

For the purposes of better propaganda, Hezbollah has opened a kind of “War Disneyland” in south Lebanon for the “Islamic Resistance” against Israeli occupation.

Hezbollah (the Party of God) in Lebanon has reportedly armed itself for a renewed confrontation with Israel. Since the end of the Lebanon war in 2006, the UN has been trying to prevent weapons-smuggling with its UNIFIL Mission.

To be sure, there is a “robust mandate” for securing the peace and the accomplishment of goals, but Hezbollah, it is said, will not only have filled its arsenals with new weapons and rockets with a longer range, but also built up its bases in southern Lebanon and constructed new ones. The 15,000 UN troops are also responsible for making sure that there are no militias in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah is in place in Lebanon, where it is so strongly represented in the government that there can be no thought of disarmament, and the UN mission, which costs more than 500 million US dollars a year, can only be carried out with the support or forbearance of Hezbollah. While Hezbollah is arming itself, Israel is regularly flying warplanes over southern Lebanon.

Recently Israel noted on the basis of hitherto secret aerial photographs and maps that Hezbollah has established armories in schools, clinics, and residences, and transformed whole villages near the Israeli border into bases. Israel also reported that Hezbollah is expanding its communication infrastructure and collecting information about the Israeli army. After the Lebanon war. Hezbollah fighters, because of the presence of UNIFIL troops, apparently withdrew to the villages, whereas they had previously had their bases in bunkers and tunnels in open country.

Hezbollah reacted by announcing that it had made a list of attack points in Israel in case of war. The argument could be made that Israel was planning an attack and was therefore preparing the world public for it. Apparently the assumption within Hezbollah is that such an attack could happen as soon as July, i.e. in the month when Israel’s successful Lebanon war began four years ago.

Hezbollah is memorializing the still unfinished war in a theme park. Hezbollah has also used the four years since the end of the war to make its propagandized “Islamic resistance” into a tourist experience. At the cost of four million US dollars, a former post in the hills of southern Lebanon in the former Israeli occupation zone, 44 kilometers from Beirut, was rebuilt and expanded for Hezbollah-Disneyland Mleeta, to become a “tourist landmark of the resistance.” Israel marched into Lebanon in 1982 and Israeli troops were withdrawn in 2000. The area of Shebaa Farms, however, is still occupied. Hezbollah was founded in 1982. With this martial center, it is celebrating its decades-long battle against the invaders and the anniversary of the Israeli withdrawal.

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Naturally the Hezbollah Open-Air War Museum in the “land that speaks to heaven” represents the paramilitary organization as victorious. In the middle of the facility, the “Abyss” was enthusiastically constructed: a wild, “interactive” still-life or sculpture park with Israeli soldiers’ boots, bombs, ranged artillery, overturned cars and tanks. It was made out of a crater left behind by an Israeli bomb. Everything seems to have been blown into it. A Merkava-4 tanks is connected with weighty symbolism to a hitch. At the opening ceremony in May, the Hezbollah chief was present only by video and declared that this “Jihad Center for Tourists” was important to document the undistorted history of the resistance.

It is said that the idea for the theme park came from Hezbollah top terrorist, Imad Mugniyeh, who was a mythic figure for the organization and was declared responsible for numerous attacks. After hiding in the underground for the last twenty years, he was killed in early 2008 by an auto bomb attack. Hezbollah swore revenge and pointed at Israel.

Otherwise, the “museum” to the continuing war is laid out for entertainment. There is a cafeteria. Pictures and films of “victories” are shown. Naturally there is also a gift and memento shop, and a place for prayer. Tunnels, caves, bunkers, disguised launch chutes for the Katyusha rockets, trenches — everything is offered to support the romanticism of armed resistance and probably awaken young people’s interest in joining the organization. There is detailed information on all weapons, including their use. On a path lined with oaks, dummies are lined up, dressed in camouflage. On display are command centers, kitchens and armories, katyusha rockets, American TOW rockets (which may have been acquired during the Iran-Contra affair), or a remote-controlled Kornet-E antitank weapon, with which Hezbollah was able to stop Israeli tanks in the last Lebanon war.

On the wall of the exhibition hall are listed the names of all Israeli military, from President Peres to the simplest soldier. Also on view are satellite pictures of possible targets in Israel: Ben-Gurion airport, the railroad station or power plants in Haifa. On the tour, one comes upon an observation deck from which it is possible to see the hills and villages which were liberated.

But because it is a Disneyland for an allegedly successful and legitimate war, there is nothing to be seen aside from plunder — from the horrors of a war and the consequences of terror attacks. Hezbollah too seems to want to conduct a clean war which has nothing to do with pain, blood, death and destruction. Members of Hezbollah say that it is clear to them that, in case of war with Israel, the tourist center would be destroyed. It would just be rebuilt. Two more tourist centers of the resistance are planned, and a hotel on the border with Israel.

I offer my own modest contribution to assist this commendable commercial enterprise by the Party of God: the official soft drink for Hezboland.

The Ceasefire That Refreshes!