In view of the growing incidence of MERS, the new SARS-like virus, Saudi Arabia has decided to restrict the number of visas for people entering the country on this year’s hajj. 45 people have died of MERS so far, 38 of them in Saudi Arabia. It is feared that the hajj might cause the virus to spread more widely as the pilgrims return to their home countries carrying the contagion.
In other news, an estimated 100,000 immigrant residents of the Netherlands are not paying taxes, due to their never having registered with their local councils.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, JD, Jerry Gordon, JP, McR, TV, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
Pentagon Spends $81,000 on TV’s for Gitmo While Civilian Workers Are Furloughed
(CNSNews.com) — Just two days after the Pentagon began furloughing hundreds of thousands of civilian personnel due to budget cuts, the Army ordered its second batch of televisions for the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay, an expense totaling more than $80,000 in the last two months.
The Army’s Expeditionary Contracting Command (ECC) procured a $62,125 contract for television/DVD player combos on May 30. The award went to Intech, Inc., a Government Services Administration (GSA) approved vendor.
A second contract, announced on July 11, allots $18,981.25 for TV sets and TV mounts. This award was given to Digital Plaza Direct, the “electronics company of choice for all federal and local government purchasers.”
In all, the Army spent $81,106.25 in 42 days on television equipment for the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel warned just a day before the second TV purchase that sequestration will cause “serious damage” to the military.
“If the cuts continue, the Department will have to make sharp cuts with far-reaching consequences, including limiting combat power, reducing readiness and undermining the national security interests of the United States,” Hagel said in a letter to the Senate Armed Forces Committee on July 10.
Furloughs for the Pentagon began on Monday July 9, when 650,000 civilian workers were forced to take the first of 11 days off without pay, one a week through September.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Anti-Zimmerman Protesters Burn American Flag (Video)
On Sunday evening in Oakland, hundreds of demonstrators mobbed the streets to protest the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the killing of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida. The new protests followed protests on Saturday night and early Sunday morning in which protesters smashed police car windows, spray painted the black-and-whites, smashed bank windows, and graffitied private businesses. Sunday evening’s protesters burned an American flag.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Are Americans Really Ready to Forfeit Their Future?
As an opinion writer of nearly twenty years now, thousands of reader responses over those years taught me one thing above all else, that Americans are nothing if not opinionated. No matter what side you take on any issue, you will find those who agree and those who disagree, as well as those who admittedly just don’t know.
Best I can tell after years of engagement with readers all across the country and around the globe, our society breaks down into only a few categories…
- Those who think self-serving global Marxism is the future
- Those who think self-indulgent anarchy is the future
- Those who aren’t aware of the present, much less the future
- Those who know history and are frightened of our future
- Those who are ready to fight for our future, driven by our past
People who think government is responsible for their happiness are not happy. People who know it is government that is stealing their right to pursue happiness are not happy either. But is anyone really good and pissed off yet?
No matter which group someone resides in, they are not happy with our current government. Congress is at an all-time low 6% public approval rating with Republicans controlling the House and Democrats controlling the Senate. Over 70% of Americans have no faith in the U.S. Supreme Court as defender of Constitutional Law and the vast majority of Americans can’t even figure out who the guy is sitting in our White House “fundamentally changing America” into something it was never intended to be, part of some left-wing global Marxist experiment.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bozell: America, Forever Racist?
The central criticism of the George Zimmerman trial is that there was one. It was simply impossible to convict him of anything beyond a reasonable doubt.
The central criticism of the coverage of this trial was that there was any. How did this story merit consideration as national news? Why was the death of Trayvon Martin a thousand times more newsworthy than any other person shot on an American street? Answer: because Al Sharpton and other race-hustlers wanted it that way.
Liberal journalists loved to suggest that the lives of young blacks in America are worth less than white lives. This was not a maxim in the coverage (or to be more accurate, shocking avoidance of) the trial of inner-city Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell.
But when 17-year-old black boys are shooting other black teenagers? Yawn. In the 20-day period of the Zimmerman trial, the Chicago Sun-Times reported four minors — three teens and a 5-year-old boy — were gunned down in the president’s adopted hometown of Chicago. Those victims will not be adopted as a cause by Sharpton & Co. Their deaths generated zero coverage by the national “news” media.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Cosmic Collisions Spin Stellar Corpses Into Gold
Rumpelstiltskin would be jealous. A recently observed flash in the distant universe suggests that smacking two dense, dead stars together can create gold in vast amounts — with a mass 10 times that of the moon. The finding may help settle a debate about whether colliding stars or supernovae are the main sources of heavy metals in the universe.
“We see a signature that we interpret as the production of very heavy elements — gold, platinum, lead — exactly the kind of material whose origin was unclear,” says Edo Berger of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
After the big bang, the universe contained only hydrogen, helium and lithium. Most of the other elements are built up in the cores of massive stars, and released when stars die. But stars lack the energy and the spare neutrons to be able to forge elements heavier than iron.
One idea often put forward to explain how such elements are made is that supernovae explosions of massive stars produce a powerful, fast-moving wind of freed neutrons and protons, which can convert lighter atomic nuclei released during the explosion into those of heavier elements.
But computer simulations of the process did not always produce the proportions seen in nature of certain elements. Some researchers suggested that neutron stars, the dense balls of mostly neutrons that are left over after a supernova, could build heavy elements more efficiently when they collide.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Coup D’etat — an Unconstitutional Government is an Illegitimate Government
The American people have suffered a coup d’etat, but they are hesitant to acknowledge it. The regime ruling in Washington today lacks constitutional and legal legitimacy. Americans are ruled by usurpers who claim that the executive branch is above the law and that the US Constitution is a mere “scrap of paper.”
An unconstitutional government is an illegitimate government. The oath of allegiance requires defense of the Constitution “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” As the Founding Fathers made clear, the main enemy of the Constitution is the government itself. Power does not like to be bound and tied down and constantly works to free itself from constraints.
The basis of the regime in Washington is nothing but usurped power. The Obama Regime, like the Bush/Cheney Regime, has no legitimacy. Americans are oppressed by an illegitimate government ruling, not by law and the Constitution, but by lies and naked force. Those in government see the US Constitution as a “chain that binds our hands.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Eric Holder’s Reign of Racial Terror
As for not taking sides, Holder himself is deeply invested in a relationship with racial arsonist Al Sharpton. Yesterday on MSNBC, Sharpton promised his National Action Network (NAN) would be mobilizing protests in 100 cities with the specific purpose of pressuring the DOJ to prosecute Zimmerman. That would be the same National Action Network where Holder appeared on April 11, 2012, to sing Sharpton’s praises “for your partnership, your friendship, and your tireless efforts to speak out for the voiceless, to stand up for the powerless, and to shine a light on the problems we must solve, and the promises we must fulfill.” It was there that Holder first promised to launch a DOJ probe into Martin’s death. “If we find evidence of a potential federal criminal civil rights crime, we will take appropriate action,” he said.
Finding such evidence will be a formidable task. First, despite Jealous’s contention, Florida’s Stand Your Ground law was never part of the trial. Zimmerman’s attorneys claimed he acted in self-defense, and won the case. More importantly, records released last Thursday by the FBI reveal that interviews with 35 people involved with Zimmerman, including current and former co-workers, neighbors and an ex-girlfriend, yielded no evidence that racial bias was a motivating factor.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Holder: Stand Your Ground Laws ‘Senselessly Expand the Concept of Self-Defense’
ORLANDO, Fla. — U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, the nation’s first black to hold that post, urged NAACP members convening in Orlando on Tuesday to help overturn stand-your-ground laws that “senselessly expand the concept of self-defense.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Jesse Jackson Calls for United Nations Investigation of Trayvon Martin Shooting
Jesse Jackson, the founder of Rainbow/PUSH, has called for the United Nations to investigate the death of Trayvon Martin.
According to Jackson, the acquittal of George Zimmerman contradicts international human rights laws and treaties.
Jackson’s call follows demands that the Obama Justice Department prosecute Zimmerman for allegedly violating Martin’s civil rights.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Martin Family Attorney Says It’s Her Duty to be a “Social Engineer”
After attempting to defend her comments that the trial was unfair, Rand said: “I have a greater duty beyond being an attorney, and that’s to be a social engineer.”
“Just like Miami-Dade School Superintendent, Alberto Carvalho; Just like Miami-Dade School Police Chief Charles Hurley; Just like DOJ Attorney General, Eric Holder, and just like President Obama, former community organizer, the greater goal ‘beyond the law’ is to be a social engineer,” notes a blogger on the Conservative Tree House.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
MSNBC Guest: More White Kids Have to Die
Appearing on the “progressive” cable network owned by death merchant General Electric, MSNBC, a regular guest at globalist forums held at the Aspen Institute and funded by the Rockefeller Brothers and the Ford Foundation, Michael Dyson, said white people will not understand racism until their children are murdered.
“Not until, and unless, the number of white kids die that approximate the numbers of black and other kids who have died will America see it is beyond logic, it is beyond rationality, its about let’s get something done,” Dyson said…
Obama will do nothing about the acquittal of George Zimmerman except deliver speeches. The racial and social division rankling America is designed to divide and conquer. If America woke up tomorrow and realized the enemy is not racism, but the economic racket perpetuated by a cartel of globalist banksters, we’d be on our way to restoring a once cherished republic where Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness are realized and men and women will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
New Dinosaur Species Discovered in United States
Palaeontologists in Utah said they had found the fossil of a previously unknown dinosaur — a strange horned creature which roamed an island continent known as Laramidia.
Dubbed Nasutoceratops titusi, the creature lived during the Late Cretaceous about 76 million years ago. It belonged to the family of herbivore ceratops dinos, of which the famous triple-horned triceratops was a member. N. titusi is “remarkable” even for a ceratops, according to the researchers. Its skull — uncovered nearly intact — comprised an oversized snout, extraordinarily long, blade-like horns that pitched forward over the eyes, and a trademark bony frill at the base of the head. From horntip to tailtip, it was about four metres (14 feet) long…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Professor Who Said ‘Black People Can’t be Racist’ Spews Racism
Dyson just disproved his own ridiculous claim
MSNBC pundit and professor Michael Eric Dyson, who previously argued that it is impossible for black people to be racist, illustrated why so many viewers are abandoning the beleaguered network when he said that Americans would not understand racism until white kids were being killed in the same numbers as blacks…
Dyson’s attempt to play the race card by arguing that white Americans think the Zimmerman verdict was justifiable simply because whites are not being murdered at the same ratio as blacks makes absolutely no sense whatsoever given that the vast majority of blacks are killed by other blacks, not by whites or hispanics.
The high murder rate of young black men has virtually nothing to do with the actions of white people, so why is Dyson making such a spurious correlation? His rhetoric is the very definition of racism.
Dyson is also not so animated about the fact that 1,300 black babies are killed every day in America through abortion.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Report: Michael Hastings’ Body Cremated Against Family’s Wishes
Journalist feared big story could make him a target
Rolling Stone journalist Michael Hastings’ body was cremated against his family’s wishes, destroying potential evidence that could have contradicted the explanation that he died as a result of an accident, according to San Diego 6 reporter Kimberly Dvorak.
Hastings was killed in the early hours of June 18 in the Hancock Park neighborhood of Los Angeles when his Mercedes crashed into a tree at high speed and exploded into flames, sparking theories that the journalist, who was working on a major exposé of the CIA, could have been assassinated.
Stating that she had spoken with several close friends of the family, including Alex Jones Show guest Staff Sergeant Joe Biggs, Dvorak said, “A close family friend did confirm that Michael’s body was sent home in an urn, meaning he was cremated and it wasn’t the request of the family…in fact the family wanted Michael’s body to go home.”
Dvorak said the decision to cremate Hastings against his family’s wishes was “shocking” because it ensured that evidence of any substance (or indeed the absence of any substance) inside his body was lost. According to Hastings’ family, the journalist had not drunk alcohol for five years.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Iconoclast: Why the JCPA Deserves No Respect
The Washington, DC-based Jewish Council for Public Affairs, passes itself off as representing the policy interests of American Jews when it comes to slavishly supporting the domestic and international policies of the Obama Administration championed by people like Debbie Wasserman Schultz, South Florida Congresswomen and Democratic National Committee Chair. Recently, the JCPA issued a ringing endorsement of Secretary of State Kerry’s frantic efforts to produce a final status agreement between the Palestinian Authority and the State of Israel. This despite the bloody slaughter in Syria, the ouster of Egyptian President Morsi seeking to become the Muslim Brotherhood Emir there and Iran’s perfecting its nuclear program — an existential threat to Israel, America’s only democratic ally in the Middle East. Kerry’s peacemaking effort looks futile in the wake of yesterday’s rebuke of new EU grant writing rules by PM Netanyahu and leading members of his cabinet. Those EU rules to be published on July 19, 2013 gives the non-state PA all the powder it needs to impose the infamous “green line” — the 1949 Armistice line — border on Israel. Moreover, they cost Israel billions by barring grants from al of the 28 members of the EU. Thus, virtually sealing off more than 350,000 Israelis who live and work in Judea and Samaria including my cousins who reside in Ma’aleh Adumim and children and grandchildren of American friends who live in Efrat…
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
To Avoid Looking Like a Criminal, Don’t Commit a Crime
Black liberals keep bemoaning the danger to their own teenage sons after the “not guilty” verdict in George Zimmerman’s murder trial. To avoid what happened to Trayvon Martin, their boys need only follow this advice: Don’t walk up to a stranger and punch him, ground-and-pound him, MMA-style, and repeatedly smash his head against the pavement.
The Justice-for-Trayvon crowd keeps pretending there hasn’t been a trial where the evidence overwhelmingly showed that Trayvon committed the first (and only) crime that night by assaulting Zimmerman. Instead, the race agitators are sticking with the original story peddled by the media, back when we had zero facts. To wit, that Zimmerman had stalked a young black child and shot him dead just for being black and wearing a hoodie. Dozens of these hair-on-fire racism stories are retold in my book, “Mugged: Racial Demagoguery From the Seventies to Obama.” In the golden age of racial demagoguery, they came at a pace of about one a year. Al Sharpton was usually involved.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
TWA Flight 800: Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Benghazi Warm-Up
Between TWA 800 and the Benghazi attacks, there are 234 individual reasons that cry out for answers and demand justice
Seventeen years ago today, the lives of 230 men, women and children were snuffed out and the lives of their families and friends were forever changed. At 8:31 p.m. ET on July 17, 1996, TWA Flight 800 fell from the sky in a sickening fireball of debris and human carnage, plunging into the Atlantic Ocean about 8 miles off the southern coast of Long Island, New York. It was only twelve minutes into its flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport en route to Rome, Italy, with a scheduled stopover in Paris when the flight, like the lives of those aboard, was abruptly and prematurely terminated.
The evening was clear and the weather calm as the large passenger plane climbed to 13,700 feet and was traveling parallel to Long Island. Many people were outside on patios, beaches, and boats enjoying this pleasant summer evening when the serenity of the approaching twilight was shattered by an explosion in the sky that was TWA Flight 800. Not only did they witness the explosion and events leading up to it, but they also bore witness to much more.
They had front row center seats to yet more death; the death of honor, integrity and truth by the very people who had taken an oath to uphold it. Sadly, the only thing that has changed over the last 17 years is the depth of the depravity by those who have chosen to deceive, the exponential rise of the criminally complicit, and the number of the willfully clueless clinging to a compromised corporate media…
Like the events in Benghazi, truth is as relative as the morality behind it, or its absence. Despite the compelling accounts of eyewitnesses hovering in the three digit range to missile activity on the night of July 17, 1996, we were told that they were all mistaken as to what they saw. To negate the observations of the subjugated masses, the collective intelligence of a thinking American public was further insulted by a contracted CIA animation of an event that not only defied logic, but physics as well. Ripping a page from the Warren Commission, the infamous animation depicted Flight 800 climbing from 13,700 feet to 17,000 feet, minus the front of the plane.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘You Are Being Tracked’: ACLU Reveals Docs of Mass License Plate Reader Surveillance
The American Civil Liberties Union has released documents confirming that police license plate readers capture vast amounts of data on innocent people, and in many instances this intelligence is kept forever.
According to documents obtained through a number of Freedom of Information Act requests filed by ACLU offices across the United States, law enforcement agencies are tracking the whereabouts of innocent persons en masse by utilizing a still up-and-coming technology.
License place readers are among the latest items being regularly added to the arsenal of law enforcement gizmos and gadgets, but documents obtained through the FOIA requests have prompted the ACLU to acknowledge that safeguards that would properly protect the privacy of Americans are largely absent.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Algerian in ‘Jihad Jane’ Case Says Irish Jail Unfit for Animals
DUBLIN (Reuters) — An Algerian man jailed in Ireland and wanted by the United States on terrorism charges filed a damages suit against the Irish state on Tuesday, saying his prison conditions were “not even suitable for animals”.
Ali Charaf Damache is wanted by the FBI for conspiracy in a foiled international plot to murder a Swedish cartoonist whose depiction of the Prophet Mohammad with the body of a dog caused outrage in Muslim countries.
Damache, arrested in Ireland in March 2010, said he was claiming compensation over conditions of his detention at Cork Prison that he said amounted to inhuman and degrading treatment.
“Cork Prison is not even suitable for animals,” Damache, 47, told the High Court. “There was a television and radio (in my cell). When I practiced my prayer they (cellmates) deliberately put the volume up (and) they put pictures of naked women on the wall. I can’t pray in a place where there are naked pictures…”
Damache said he had been unable to wash before prayer and handling the Koran, as his faith requires, and was usually allowed to shower and change his underwear just once a week.
State lawyers have yet to file a response.
Also known by his online username “Black Flag”, Damache is accused of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists — specifically, by luring two American-born women Muslim converts to Ireland in 2009 — and attempted identity theft to facilitate an act of terrorism.
He faces a maximum of 45 years in jail if convicted in the United States. Extradition proceedings are due to start on September 10 in Dublin; it is unclear how long they might take.
Colleen LaRose, a Pennsylvania woman who called herself Jihad Jane, has pleaded guilty in a U.S. court to conspiring with Damache to try to kill Swedish artist Lars Vilks, whose depiction of the Prophet Mohammed with the dog’s body triggered an international wave of Muslim protests.
Damache, who has lived in Ireland for a decade, was originally arrested on a less serious and unrelated Irish charge of sending a menacing message by telephone to an American Muslim activist, which delayed U.S. extradition efforts.
That trial ended in February when Damache pleaded guilty to the offence. He was sentenced him to time served and immediately released but was then re-arrested by Irish police acting on behalf of the FBI.
| — Hat tip: McR | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Arson-Hit Hanley Mosque is Open After 13 Years
A CITY centre mosque has finally opened its doors — after years of delays and an attempt to blow it up. The building, in Regent Road, Hanley, is now being used for prayers ahead of its official completion. Plans for the Islamic centre were first tabled back in 2000, but the project sparked controversy after it emerged Stoke-on-Trent City Council had agreed to lease the site for a £1 peppercorn rent.
The mosque suffered a further setback after a plot to blow up the building caused more than £50,000 of damage. But the £2 million mosque is now nearly finished and is expected to be officially opened next month. In the meantime it has been opened for prayers for the holy month of Ramadan. Islamic centre director Rana Tufail said: “Everything is not yet complete but we are using it every day for prayers. The month of fasting started on July 10 so we were keen to start using it for then. The community is very satisfied, they are very keen to use the new place.”
The cost of the mosque is expected to reach £2.2 million by the time it is completed — all of which has been raised by the Muslim community…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Don’t Dismiss Bone and Hollobone Entirely — A Good Idea is Not Always the Same as a Popular Idea
by Mark Wallace
Lord Ashcroft’s latest polling tests the more than 40 proposals put forward by Peter Bone and Philip Hollobone in their Alternative Queen’s Speech (the full list is here). He rightly points out that, in the national scheme of things, the idea that the platform is a mass vote-winner which would swing the General Election is mistaken.
I’d add that plenty of the ideas are simply wrong — banning the burka would be a gross violation of individual liberty, and it is absurd to say that sexual impropriety in the workplace is only wrong if it goes far enough to constitute a criminal offence, for example.
However, it would be an error to take the poll as a reason to reject all of the backbenchers’ proposals out of hand.
Polling is important, but we must remember that a good idea is not always the same as a popular idea. Nor can national polling always show the local electoral benefits of specific policies…
[Reader comment by dr_redmayne on 16 July 2013.]
Banning the burkha would be a very popular policy and those claiming that it would violate liberty would be confined to the metropolitan fringes and ethnic communities. At least they havent come up with vote losers such as bringing back hunting with hounds and restricting abortion
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Lone Wolf Plots Replacing Mass Terrorism in Britain, Says Watchdog
Terrorism plots in Britain are becoming less complex, involving lone wolf attackers devising self-organised plans, an official watchdog has said.
David Anderson QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said the security services were no longer seeing ambitious plots to inflict mass casualties such as the July 7 attacks on the London Underground. But he warned that the emergence of “lone actors” plotting against relatively limited targets could be more difficult to detect and stop. “We are certainly not seeing now what we saw in the years around 2005, 2006, which are the large, ambitious, 9/11-style plots perhaps to bring down simultaneously several airliners,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “What we are seeing is a trend towards lone actors and we are also seeing self-organised plots. It may be that what we are seeing is something getting a little closer to the position that still applies unfortunately to some extent in Northern Ireland, which is smaller scale, lower tech attacks on national security targets more than the general public.”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Praise the Lord for Britain’s Best Buildings
by Harry Mount
Our great churches have an unparalleled hold on the landscape and our emotions
The most famous church spire in the world is in trouble. The tiered tower of St Bride’s, Fleet Street — inspiration for the wedding cake — is crumbling. Nearly 350 years after Christopher Wren designed St Bride’s, his original iron cramps, which hold the spire together, are rusting and attacking the stonework. His delicate sculptural detail has been eroded by lightning, soot, birds and the Luftwaffe.
Enter the National Churches Trust, the only independent national charity devoted to saving our greatest contribution to world architecture — the 47,000 churches, chapels and meeting houses in this country. Celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, the trust has over the years given more than 12,000 grants, worth over £85 million, to British religious buildings. One of those beneficiaries is St Bride’s — the wedding cake spire is now wrapped in scaffolding as part of a £2.5 million restoration scheme.
Congregations may have dwindled drastically over the last 60 years, but churches are in a much better state than they were in 1953, thanks in large part to the trust; but also thanks to the growing awareness, even among non-churchgoers, that these buildings are our best spiritual, historic and biographical monuments.
For the anniversary, the trust asked 60 prominent people to choose their favourite church (you can select yours at favouritechurches.org.uk). Looking down the list, published yesterday, you can see how people picked their favourite for many reasons: faith and architecture, of course, but also thanks to personal connections of great happiness, and deep sadness. David Cameron chose the 18th-century Oxfordshire church — All Saints, Spelsbury — where his late son, Ivan, was christened. Terry Wogan went for Gothic Revival St Nicolas’s, in Taplow, Buckinghamshire, where his daughter got married…
[Reader comment by Austin Barry on 17 July 2013 at 01:05 am.]
Looking at our churches and their place in our history, I get the uneasy sense that their benign beauty will be eclipsed in the coming years by the relentless tide of a more robust religion.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Egyptian Girl Shoots Herself to Death After Refusing to Wear Hijab
A 15-year old Egyptian girl who rejected her family’s pressures to wear the Islamic headscarf, known as the hijab, shot herself to death using her father’s hand gun, Egyptian reported. The girl, identified only as Amira , was subjected to “violence” by her family after she removed her hijab. Preferring death to living under violence, Amira reportedly “sneaked” into her father’s room, took his gun and opened fire on herself, an investigation found, according to Youm7. The girl’s suicide, which took place last week in an area of the Giza province, was reported by the popular Egyptian news website Youm7 (http://www.youm7.com/News.asp?NewsID=1158519) .
The girl, identified only as Amira was subjected to “violence” by her family after she removed her hijab.
| — Hat tip: TV | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Fighting Rages on Cairo Streets as New Government Sworn in
33 Interim Ministers include 3 women, 3 Christians and a football star. General al-Sisi holds Defence portfolio and becomes deputy prime minister. The Islamists march demanding the return of Morsi, overnight clashes produce 2 more victims and more than 400 arrests.
Cairo (AsiaNews) — Three women, three Christians, a football star and not a single Islamist: 33 new ministers of the interim government of Egypt are a sign of “national reconciliation” desired by the executive born in the wake of Mohamed Morsi’s ouster. This is according to Ahmed el Moslemani, presidential spokesperson, who was speaking immediately after the ceremony, broadcast on state television, during which the transitional executive took office ahead of a new round of elections.
The Finance Ministry went to Ahmad Galal, an experienced economist who worked for years at the World Bank; Foreign Affairs went to the former Egyptian ambassador to Washington Nabil Fahmy; the Interior Ministry remains with Mohamed Ibrahim, as is the case with Osama Saleh, who returns to the post of Minister of Investments, a position he held until May of this year. The same is the case for the Minister of Tourism Hisham Zaazou. General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi — who led the army in the removal of former President Morsi — keeps the Defense portfolio and becomes deputy prime minister.
The three women ministers in the new Egyptian government, led by Hazem el Beblawi, are Doriya Sharaf el Dine, who has been appointed to the Ministry for Information; Laila Rashed Iskandar to the Environment and Maha Zeneddin (a Coptic) to Healthcare. The other two Christians are Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour who has been given Trade and Industry and Ramsi George appointed to Scientific Research.
The new Egyptian Minister of Sports, Taher abuzeid, was instead an Egyptian soccer star: center forward of the most prestigious El Ahly Egyptian team, in the 80s he was a famous striker dubbed the “Maradona of the Nile” . He holds 59 caps with the Egyptian national team and was also summoned for the World Cup in Italy in 1990. He stopped playing in 1996.
There are no Muslim Brotherhood or Salafi representatives in the new government. The Brotherhood spokesman Mahmoud Ghozlan, described the new government as “illegitimate” and the appintment of the President Adly Mansour as “null.” However, several sources confirm that “discussions are ongoing” between the Presidency and the Islamic party, which continues to demand the return of Morsi to power.
While the government was being sworn in, clashes between the supporters of the former president and law enforcement officers continued on the streets. Before dawn more than 400 arrests were confirmed, but two people were killed in the violence and an additional 176 were injured. Among them, there are 3 soldiers and 14 police officers.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Threatens War on the People of Egypt
Appeal to the international community to avoid bloodshed in Egypt
According to public statements, three days from today, on July 19th, the Muslim Brotherhood will begin attacks against Egypt’s military compounds, military personnel, government buildings, and soft targets (houses, stores, and churches) in order to recover and secure their power over Egypt — then reinstate Mohammad Morsi as President.
Muslim Brotherhood leader, Al Baltaghy, announced a few days ago from the Al Adawiya podium where supporters are still gathered to request Morsi’s return, that Friday, Ramadan the 10th, will be the day to take back Egypt — exactly like the attempt made to liberate Sinai from Jewish occupation on this same Ramadan date back in 1973 led by Anwar Sadat on October 6th.
– From the same stage, Mohammad Hassan Hamaad, communications director of the Muslim Brotherhood, used the metaphor, “second legitimate crossing,” referring to the West-East crossing of the Suez Canal by the Egyptian army on Ramadan years earlier. Evoking history, Hamaad advocates aggression for success in returning elected President Morsi to office. Adding to Hamaad, Al Baltaghy stated, “We will not accept any kind of negotiation, and Morsi is the only one that has the right as the elected President to negotiate once he is back in his valid position as President of the country.”
Pathological lies from the Muslim Brotherhood leadership
Avoiding the fact that Muslim Brotherhood leadership is entirely responsible for Egypt’s deterioration in the past year, which in turn led to their overthrow, Al Baltaghy stated, “whoever created the mess [overthrow] will pay for the consequences,” stressing that “the victim is not to blame” and, “we are not the ones who created this chaos.”
Foreign terrorists in Egypt ready to aid the Muslim Brotherhood
Right now, Egyptian military and police have taken custody of terrorists coming from Libya, Syria and Gaza — members of Hamas and Hezbollah arrested in many cities throughout Egypt, mostly in Cairo. Army personnel and police have confiscated their weaponry — machine guns, RPG anti-tank weapon systems, hand grenades and rockets — and Egyptian military uniforms for infiltration and to allow imposters to commit crimes blaming the army. These facts are the substance to the statements made by Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and its Freedom and Justice Party showing their intentions are real and imminent.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Hamas Claims Increased Contact With European Countries
Islamist group ruling Gaza says governments including UK and France trying to establish open dialogue despite isolation policy
European governments including Britain have stepped up back-channel contacts with Hamas despite an official EU policy of political isolation, in an effort to understand and possibly influence debate in the Islamist group about its future direction, according to four senior Hamas officials.
Meetings between Hamas and European government representatives and intermediaries have taken place in Gaza, Cairo and European capitals over recent months, the officials said.
The EU banned contact between its member states and the Islamist organisation when the latter took over Gaza in 2007, and Hamas is classified as a terrorist organisation by Brussels.
The Hamas officials, who spoke to the Guardian over recent weeks, declined to give specific details of meetings. “These countries trust us not to disclose information about contacts,” said Ahmed Yousef, a member of Hamas’s decision-making body, the shura council, and a former deputy foreign minister.
“We try to keep the contacts low-profile because it causes trouble. We prefer not to talk about it but I can guarantee that most European countries are interested in opening doors to Hamas.”
Britain was among the EU countries mentioned by the four Gaza officials as having recent contact with Hamas. Others included Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, France, Italy and Spain.
The UK, Netherlands and Sweden denied official government-level contact; spokesmen for the other countries did not respond to requests for comment. Norway and Switzerland, neither of which are EU members, are open about their links with Hamas representatives.
“Some activities are not at official levels, but there are also some at official level, away from the media,” said Basem Naim, who is in charge of foreign affairs in the Hamas government in Gaza and a former health minister. “We have met some ambassadors and some government officials.”
Ghazi Hamad, the deputy foreign minister, said he had met European government representatives, including ambassadors and consuls, in recent weeks. Most of his interlocutors “believe the policy of isolation must end and dialogue must open”, he said.
Taher al-Nounou, a spokesman for the Hamas government, said he had met officials and former officials in Europe, and further meetings were planned. “All countries refuse to declare these meetings because they tied their hands by putting Hamas on the EU terror list,” he said.
Hamas stressed that the purpose of the meetings was not negotiations but to establish links and open dialogue.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
JERUSALEM, July 16 (Xinhua) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted Tuesday the European Union’s decision to add a clause to agreements between its members and Israel specifying they will not apply to Israeli occupied territories in the West Bank. In response, Netanyahu held an urgent meeting Tuesday afternoon with Justice Minister and chief peace negotiator Tzipi Livni, Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennet and Deputy Foreign Minister Ze’ev Elkin.
According to the EU’s decision, delivered as a guideline for its member states, it is prohibited for any country or companies located on their territories to do business with firms or bodies situated in the West Bank settlement. Slamming the EU’s decision, the Israeli prime minister said he expected the body to focus on other worrying developments in the region, such as the Syrian crisis and the Iranian nuclear issue, instead of Israel’s settlement policy…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Blatter Yields to Call for Winter World Cup in Qatar
FIFA President Sepp Blatter has said the 2022 World Cup in Qatar will only be possible if it is played in the winter. Blatter had previously been skeptical about rescheduling the traditional summer tournament.
The FIFA president said on Wednesday that he would ask FIFA’s executive committee to change the timing of the tournament to winter. Blatter cited the sweltering heat in Qatar, a point brought up at length when the tiny country controversially won the rights to the competition in 2010, as the reason for the switch.
“The World Cup can only take place in the winter;” said Blatter at a press conference in Austria. Ahead of being awarded the tournament, Qatar said it would be able to stage football matches in air conditioned stadiums.
However, Blatter said FIFA had not taken into account the broader picture, adding that the organization also had a duty of care to those outside the stadiums.
“If this World Cup is to become a party for the people, you can’t play football in the summer. You can cool down the stadiums but you can’t cool down the whole country and you can’t simply cool down the ambience of a World Cup.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Iran, Norway Urge Expansion of Ties
TEHRAN, July 16 (Xinhua) — Iran and Norway called for expansion of their relations in diverse areas, semi-official Fars news agency reported Tuesday. The issue was raised in a meeting between Head of Iran-Norway Parliamentary Friendship Group Vahid Ahmadi and Norwegian Ambassador to Iran Jens-Petter Kjemprud in Tehran on Tuesday. “Iran and Norway enjoy abundant potentials and capabilities to increase the level of their cooperation and expand their bilateral friendly ties, which can be used for improvement of the level of the friendly interactions between the two countries,” Ahmadi was quoted as saying.
Kjemprud, for his part, underlined that Norway attaches importance to the development of ties with Iran, saying that “ Norway seeks to promote the level of its friendly relations with Iran in different arenas, specially parliamentary ties and scientific and academic cooperation.” In January, Kjemprud also said that his country was ready to boost cooperation with Iran in the energy sector. The calls for improving relations between two states come after the relations between Norway and Iran turned for the worse in 2010, with each country expelling diplomats following Norway granted asylum to an Iranian consul in Oslo.
[JP note: It would appear the two countries have as much in common as necessary for their friendship to flourish as proudly as might be hoped.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia: Riyadh Fears New SARS, Restricts Visas for Hajj
Saudi authorities have decided to restrict entry during the Greater Pilgrimage, which mobilises millions of people every year from all over the Islamic world. Related to SARS, the MERS virus has raised fears among Saudi authorities.
Riyadh (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Saudi health authorities have decided to restrict the number of visas issued for hajj and umrah pilgrimages in 2013in order to prevent the spread of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV), a cousin of SARS. So far, the virus has killed 45 people (38 of them in the Islamic Kingdom).
The General Health Directorate (DGS), which runs the Health Ministry, issued a circular to this effect. In a statement posted on its website on Saturday, the Saudi health ministry urged people in certain categories not to perform hajj.
“Elderly persons, pregnant women, children and people affected by chronic diseases, notably people with cardiac, diabetic or respiratory disease, kidney or immune-system deficiencies, will be unable to obtain a visa this year,” the circular said.
However, the statement was unclear as to how restrictions would be implemented or what the age limits would be.
MERS-CoV is related to the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), a virus in the coronavirus family that caused a pneumonia-like outbreak in Asia in 2003.
The World Health Organisation has not recommended any MERS-CoV-related travel restrictions, but noted that countries should monitor unusual respiratory infection patterns.
This and the recent outbreak on its territory have prompted Saudi Arabia to restrict hajj.
The latter is the fifth pillar of Islam. Making the great pilgrimage to Makkah is one of the duties every able-bodied Muslim should perform at least once in his or her lifetime if they can afford it.
The Umrah is a non-compulsory pilgrimage to Makkah that Muslims can undertake at any time of the year. It is sometimes called the ‘minor’ or ‘lesser pilgrimage’, the Hajj being the ‘major’ pilgrimage held in the last month in the Islamic calendar.
Every year, millions of Muslims gather in Makkah for the Great Pilgrimage. In 2012, the total number exceeded 3 million. The hajj this year will fall between 8 and 13 October.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Syria, Iran Bid for UN Human Rights Council Seats Met With Understandable Incredulity
UNITED NATIONS — The United States on Thursday slammed Syria and Iran for seeking seats on the U.N.’s Human Rights Council, saying their own rights violations are under U.N. investigation.
Syria and Iran are candidates to join the 47-nation Geneva-based Council, along with other often-criticized nations such as Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Chad, Vietnam and Russia.
Syria is embroiled in a brutal civil war, with human rights groups blaming both President Basher Assad’s government and the Syrian rebels for abuses. Iran is a key Syrian ally, and is also criticized for jailing political prisoners, executing drug offenders.
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Rosemary DiCarlo told reporters Thursday that “attempts by either country to join the Human Rights Council are highly inappropriate given existing Human Rights Council mandates to investigate human rights violations in these countries, their egregious records on human rights, and their on-going collaboration to suppress the democratic aspirations of the Syrian people.”
A Western diplomat confirmed that Iran and Syria had become candidates, but doubted they would win enough votes from their Asia/Mideast regional group to advance their candidacies. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.
Philippe Bolopion, the U.N. director for Human Rights Watch, said, “The Syrian government is either delusional, or it is purposefully insulting the very ideals at the heart of the Human Rights Council. Either way, a reality check is coming in the form of a humiliating defeat, even though Syria is facing candidates such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam or China, who would be well inspired to work on their own abysmal rights records before seeking to become world arbiters in these matters.”
But Hillel Neuer, the director of the Geneva-based UN Watch, a watchdog group that often criticizes U.N. practices, warned: “Given that Iran was recently elected to the U.N. Commission on Women’s Rights, and Syria to UNESCO’s human rights committee, we cannot take anything for granted.
“Syria is certainly less popular now, but Iran chairs the largest UN voting bloc — the non-aligned movement — through which it hosted a Tehran summit last year that drew many world leaders including U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon,” Neuer said. “We need to seriously fight these candidacies.”
DiCarlo noted that Syria and Iran had apparently not yet filed all the needed paperwork to formalize their candidacies.
The 193-member U.N. General assembly will vote in November to elect 14 nations to three-year terms on the Human Rights Council.
Regional groups within the General Assembly hold caucuses to select their preferred candidates. The regions and their candidates are:
- Western Europe “and others”: Britain and France, for two open seats. The United States is already on the Council serving a 2012-2015 term.
- Eastern Europe: Latvia, Macedonia and Russia, contesting two open seats.
- Africa: Algeria, Chad, Morocco, Namibia, South Sudan and Tunisia, contesting four open seats.
- Latin America: Cuba, Mexico and Uruguay, contesting two open seats.
- Asia/Mideast: China, Iran, Jordan, Maldives, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Vietnam, contesting four open seats. Syria had launched a bid in 2011 but withdrew it under criticism from other members of its group.
| — Hat tip: TV | [Return to headlines] |
Yemen: No. 2 Leader of Al-Qaida in Arabian Peninsula Confirmed Dead
SANAA, July 17 (Xinhua) — Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula ( AQAP) on Wednesday confirmed the death of its No. 2 leader Said al- Shehri in a U.S. drone strike, the AQAP said in a statement. Senior AQAP figure, Ibrahim al-Rubaish said in a video statement posted online that Sheikh Said al-Shehri had been killed in a U.S. drone attack, without specifying when the strike took place…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Darwin’s Dark Knight: Scientist Risked Execution for Fox Study
Today (July 17) is the birthday of one of the most important scientists you’ve probably never heard of — Dmitri Konstantinovich Belyaev. In the chokehold of Stalin’s Russia, where being a geneticist was likely to get you imprisoned, shot or both, Belyaev conducted perhaps the greatest genetics experiment of the 20th century and finally solved the puzzle of how the wolf turned into the dog.
For almost a century, Darwin’s biggest idea had a hole in it. To illustrate natural selection, Darwin did not directly suggest that humans shared a common ancestor with apes. Instead, he used a concept that everyone was familiar with — domestication. Everyone knew that you could selectively breed dogs for certain physical characteristics, like size or coat color. Darwin wanted to stretch this idea a little further and suggest that instead of a human hand, it was natural selection that drove evolution.
The problem was that Darwin could not say how domestication started in the first place. No one was taking notes while the first wolf changed into a dog, or a wild boar into a pig. This is where Belyaev stepped in and quietly began a Herculean task that no one would have thought possible — he domesticated a species from scratch.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
For Islamic Scholar, Islamic Headwear is Not a Russian Muslim Tradition
For Rais Sulemainov, an Islamic scholar, those who defend the hijab for schoolgirls are “demagogues and populists”. In fact, even before the Russian Revolution, Muslim women did not wear hijabs, preferring instead Russian national headwear. Tatarstan’s only Islamic school has only 50-70 students.
Moscow (AsiaNews) — A ruling by Russia’s Supreme Court banning hijabs in schools does not infringe upon the rights of Muslim girls, this according to Islamic scholar Rais Suleimanov.
In an interview with Interfax, he pointed out that Russian Muslim women, particularly in Tatarstan, never covered their heads with hijabs before the Revolution, preferring instead national headwear. Sulemainov heads the Volga-area Centre for Regional and Ethno-Religious Studies of the Russian Institute of Strategic Research.
He said early pictures of schools for girls-set up by Mukhlisa Bubi (1869-1937), the first woman to be a qadi (Sharia judge) in the 1920s-show that none of them wore hijabs and yet they were still considered Muslim. Bubi herself did not wear a hijab (headscarf).
The Supreme Court ruling, which applies to the Stavropol region, has been met with criticism from within the Muslim community, who accuse the country’s highest tribunal of limiting religious freedom and forcing parents to keep their daughters at home.
According to Sulemainov, critics are “demagogues and populists” because most Muslim parents send their daughters to secular schools without headwear.
For example in Tatarstan, Usmaniia, a private Islamic school where girls are required to wear a hijab, has only 50 to 70 students.”An institution of this type,” he noted with irony, “does not seem to enjoy great popularity even among Muslims.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Bangladesh: Islamic Leader Sentenced to Death
A Bangladeshi war crimes tribunal has convicted and sentenced to death a top Islamic party leader for his role in the kidnapping and killing of people during the country’s 1971 independence war. The verdict against 65-year-old Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, the secretary general of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was handed down Wednesday in Dhaka, the capital. Previous rulings from the tribunal have sparked widespread violence.
Critics have accused Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of using the tribunals to decimate the country’s opposition parties ahead of elections scheduled for next year. Bangladesh fought a nine-month war against Pakistan in 1971 to obtain its independence. The government says three million people died in the violence, although other estimates put the death toll lower.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Islamist Leader Sentenced to Death, But Bangladesh Continues Downward Spiral
The war crimes tribunal rules Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, secretary general of the Islamist party, guilty of torture and mass murder. Supporters invoke nationwide strikes. Local source tells AsiaNews: “These political struggles are harmful to the population, the people are not in favour of extremism.”
Dhaka (AsiaNews) — Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, a prominent figure of the Jamaat-e-Islami (Islamic fundamentalist party), was sentenced to death for mass murder and torture committed during the Liberation War of 1971 in Bangladesh. The International War Crimes Tribunal in Dhaka today issued the ruling against the Islamic leader, ruling that he was guilty of five of the seven charges against him. His party has already announced a hartal (strike) to protest against the verdict.
This is the sixth judgment against members of the Jamaat: two days ago Ghulam Azam, considered the spiritual leader of the party, was sentenced to 90 years in prison.
Currently the secretary general of the party, in 1971 he led the Islami Chhatra Shibir Mujahid (now student wing of the party). On 14 December of that year, two days before the surrender of the Pakistani army and the proclamation of independence, he was among those who ordered the execution of more than 100 intellectuals in Dhaka.
Jamaat claims the International Tribunal’s verdicts are ‘biased’ and for months has been using the hartal as a form of protest. However, these strikes systematically degenerate into violence of all kinds, even causing casualties.
An AsiaNews source says the situation is exacerbated by new general elections to be held next December and that will once more pit the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP, the opposition Nationalist Party) against the Awami League (secularist party currently in government) .
“One of the government’s campaign promises — he explains — was to see the 1971 war criminals brought to justice”. However, the source stresses, “it was one of the few [points] maintained and involves all the great exponents of Islamic fundamentalist party. The Government wanted to make a strong statement, which is positive given that the prisoners are actually guilty. But the timing is wrong. The risk now is that the BNP will win the next election, which is supported by the Islamic fundamentalist party. “
And the people are the ones paying the price for this political tug of war. “The strikes — the source adds — are on a national scale and always degenerate into violence and intimidation. For some time, Bangladesh has become a destination for foreign investment, because our labor costs are low, but these tensions do not help. Moreover, people are often blocked, can not move and can not lead a normal life. “ The Bangladeshis, he says, “are not in favour of extremism, they are a calm people in general but are growing tired and fed up. This country is deteriorating.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
China: Increasingly Maoist Xi Jinping: Campaign to Promote Princes With ‘Red DNA’
In a Party facing extinction because of corruption, instead of launching political reforms and fight corruption, Xi Jinping proposes a moralizing campaign, in the style of Mao Zedong. It allows him to eliminate his opponents and increase political and economic power of Party “princelings”, their creating a “dictatorship of red families”. The analysis of an expert.
Hong Kong (AsiaNews) — President Xi Jinping has given the clearest indication to date of his political orientation and policy preferences by launching a Maoist-style rectification campaign to “thoroughly clean up the work style” of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) 85 million members. In the coming year, officials in civilian and military departments who fail to rid themselves of the undesirable traits of “formalism, bureaucracy, hedonism and extravagance” will be penalized or even removed from the party. The year-long rectification (zhengfeng) exercise, formally called a “Campaign on Mass Line Education and Practice” is the largest-scale purge launched by the CCP leadership since the end of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) (People’s Daily (June 19); Ming Pao [Hong Kong], June 19; China Times [Taipei], June 19). Additionally, a companion “thought education” movement “to boost grassroots-level cultural construction in the military forces” is being launched within the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the People’s Armed Police. Regulations promulgated by the four PLA general departments last month urged officers to “nurture the core values of the contemporary revolutionary soldier” by “doing a better job in educating, nurturing and molding [the character of military personnel]” (Xinhua, June 2; PLA Daily, June 2).
In language that is reminiscent of the Great Helmsman’s masterly blend of the vernacular and the metaphysical, Xi urged cadres and party members to “purify themselves, and [work on] self-perfection, self-reformation and self-elevation.” “We must closely rely on the people and fully mobilize the enthusiasm, initiative and creativity of the broad masses,” he said in the nationally-televised speech on June 18 that formally opened the zhengfeng crusade. “We must look in the mirror, tidy our attire, take a bath and cure our sickness,” added Xi, who is also CCP General Secretary and Chairman of the policy-setting Central Military Commission (CMC). In a commentary on the zhengfeng crusade, Xinhua pointed out that the Mao-style purge would serve the purpose of “bolstering the cohesiveness of the hearts of the party and people and consolidating the blood-and-flesh ties between the party and the people” (Xinhua, June 20; People’s Daily, June 20).
Given that the campaign will run for at least 12 months, it is premature to assess whether it will live up to the billing of winnowing out bad sheep who are responsible for the alarming deterioration of cadres’ morality and competence. It is significant, however, that, in the footsteps of the Great Helmsman, Xi is resorting to Cultural Revolution-era ideological and propaganda campaigns to change of mindset of cadres rather than establishing institutions such as universal-style checks and balances. As legal expert Guo Wenjing pointed out in a commentary in the official Legal Daily, “critical to the success [of zhengfeng] is establishing solid institutions.” Guo cited late patriarch Deng Xiaoping’s famous dictum about “the decisive role of institutions,” namely, that “bad people cannot do evil within a good system, whereas it is possible for good people to do bad things within an evil system.” Similarly, U.S.-based dissident scholar He Qinglian, who specializes in party history and institutions, faulted Xi for “going after pleasing appearances rather than doing solid work.” “The rectification exercise is itself a manifestation of formalism and bureaucracy,” she said, “what the CCP needs is reform of political systems” (Legal Daily, June 20; Voice of America, June 19).
In his speeches relating to the zhengfeng movement, Xi surprisingly has shied away from concrete measures to eradicate corruption, which former presidents Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao deemed “a matter of life and death for the party” (CNTV.com, December 22, 2011; Xinhua, July 1, 2011). Shortly upon becoming general secretary last November, Xi waxed eloquent about cracking down on “tigers as well as flies” among venal cadres. He, however, made only one reference to tackling graft in his June 18 address: “We must deeply implant in the thoughts and actions of all comrades of the party the value of serving the people, sticking to reality and being non-corrupt.” Neither Xi nor other members of the Politburo have said anything about the status of a number of solid anti-graft measures proposed by liberal cadres as well as public intellectuals. One is a so-called “sunshine regulation” that will oblige mid- to senior-ranked officials to disclose their assets as well as those of their spouses and children. While the assets disclosure regulation was a hot topic during the National People’s Congress (NPC) last March, it has disappeared from public discourse, apparently due to entrenched opposition from power blocs in the party (People.com, June 28; Huanqiu.com, June 10).
Xi’s failure to address the corruption scourge properly has drawn at least indirect flak even from academics within the party establishment. For example, Yao Huan, a politics professor at the Beijing Municipal Party School pointed out in an interview with People’s Daily that “without clean governance, adopting the mass line becomes an empty phrase” (People’s Daily, June 29; Sina.com, June 29). More than six months after he became party chief, Xi has little to show on the clean government front. The two most senior officials nabbed for alleged economic crimes are the Vice Minister at the National Development and Reform Commission Liu Tienan and the former Vice Governor of Sichuan Province Guo Yongxiang (China News Service, June 24; Xinhua, May 13). Moreover, Xi seems to have difficulty wrapping up the case of former Politburo member and Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai. First detained by authorities in March last year, Bo is alleged to have pocketed at least a few tens of millions of yuan in addition to laundering money overseas (People’s Daily, January 19; China.com, January 9).
If the zhengfeng movement has little to do with urgent tasks such as combating corruption, is it a foil for an old-style intra-party power struggle that is aimed at boosting the authority of Xi, the putative “core” of the Fifth-Generation leadership? Zhang Lifan, a well-known party historian, pointed out that “political campaigns waged in the name of the mass line are often symptomatic of factional strife within the party.” “It is possible that an internal power struggle is shaping up,” he said (Ta Kung Pao [Hong Kong], June 22; Ming Pao, June 19). Deng Yuwen, a respected media commentator who used to be a senior editor at the Central Party School, also thinks Xi might be using the rectification exercise to rid himself of political foes at both the central and local levels. Deng suggests “The zhengfeng crusade may become a loyalty drive which will enable Xi to establish his authority and flush out ideological opponents” [1].
A remarkable article in the PLA Daily last month seemed to lend credence to Zhang and Deng’s views. In a piece entitled “Self-consciously Uphold the Authority of Chairman Xi Jinping,” the commander and political commissar of the Second Artillery Corps, respectively, Wei Fenghe and Zhang Haiyang, called upon officers and the rank and file to “heed at any time and under any circumstances the instructions of the party central authorities, the CMC and Chairman Xi.” The two generals saluted the contributions made by Chairman Mao in “formulating and constructing the objectives for modernizing [China’s] revolutionary army.” They went on to note that in order to “ensure the army’s superior nature, goals and essence,” military personnel must “meet the challenges of reality and the needs of inheriting ‘red genes’“ (PLA Daily, June 17; China News Service, June 17).
It was the first time that senior cadres in either civilian or military sectors had underscored the imperative of nurturing and developing the party’s “red DNA.” Given the commonly held beliefs among conservative sectors in the party and army that “red genes” are found in most abundance among cadres with “revolutionary bloodline”-a reference to princelings or the kin of party elders-the likes of Generals Wei and Zhang are in effect waging a loyalist campaign to enhance the status of Xi, who is the son of the late Vice Premier Xi Zhongxun, as unquestioned supremo of the party, state and military apparatus (Apple Daily [Hong Kong], June 27; Voice of America, March 12). Moreover, a number of close Xi associates at the uppermost echelons of the party and army, including Politburo Standing Committee members Yu Zhengsheng and Wang Qishan as well as the General Zhang himself are the sons of illustrious party elders.
The apparent veneration of “red genes” also has manifested itself in the decision by a number of princelings in their twenties and forties to forego relatively lucrative business careers for the world of politics. This is despite an internal instruction given by late patriarch Deng in the 1980s that the offspring of party elders should seek to distinguish themselves in the commercial rather than the political arena (Hong Kong Economic Journal, June 16; Apple Daily, June 10). Foremost among these cadres with revolutionary bloodline is Deng Xiaoping’s grandson Deng Zhuodi, aged 28, who became Deputy Head of Pingguo County, Guangxi Province, earlier this year. Other examples have included the 41-year-old son of ex-President Hu Jintao, Hu Haifeng, who was named Deputy Party Secretary of the city of Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province last May; and the 36-year-old son of former NPC chairman Wu Bangguo, Wu Lei, who was recently appointed Deputy Director of Shanghai’s Economic and Information Technology Commission (South China Morning Post, May 25; Liberation Daily [Shanghai], May 13).
Irrespective of the extent to which President Xi is committed to blowing the trumpet for cadres with “red genes,” his adoption of Maoist values has been criticized by the CCP’s remnant liberal wing, which includes party elders as well as their offspring (“China’s Reform summed up: Politics, No; Economics, Yes (Sort of…),” China Brief, May 23). Beijing’s political circles have the past few weeks been abuzz with the publication of the candid views of a number of liberal retired cadres during a Chinese New Year intellectual salon organized by the respected monthly Yanhuang Chunqiu. The second son of late party general secretary Hu Yaobang, Hu Dehua, laid into Xi’s embrace of ultra-conservative ideas, especially his apparent refusal to push forward universal-style political reform. Hu Dehua noted, instead of harboring nostalgia for the Cultural Revolution, Xi should emulate the Taiwan’s late President Chiang Ching-kuo, who instituted political reforms in 1986. Zhong Peizhang, a former senior cadre at the party’s Propaganda Department, urged Xi to take immediate steps to “reform the lawless party and state systems laid down by Mao Zedong” (Frontline [Hong Kong], July 1; Ming Pao, June 23). While Xi has impressed observers in and out of China with the speed with which he has consolidated his power base, the 60-year-old princeling has to convince his countrymen that he is committed to overhauling old-dated institutions which underpin party members’ fast-worsening “work style.”
(Published with the kind permission of the Jamestown Foundation)
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Chinese Whistleblower Blinded in Acid Attack
An amateur Chinese whistleblower, who spent his free time embarrassing Communist party officials by posting pictures of their luxury cars on the internet, was rammed by a car, blinded with acid, and deprived of two of his fingers.
Li Jianxin, 47, is in hospital after being attacked earlier this month, it has emerged. After his car was rammed from behind, three men took him to a remote industrial park in the southern city of Huizhou, doused him with acid and hacked at him with knives. A woman in a worker’s dormitory nearby emerged to find Mr Li lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood and his six-year-old son wailing in his car…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
RTL says this is costing national and local government €150m a year. By not registering, migrants don’t have to pay water and waste collection charges or health insurance and motoring taxes. In total, this adds up to €1,500 per person a year, the broadcaster said.
In Rotterdam and Amsterdam officials estimate some 30,000 migrant workers have not registered. In The Hague the figure is put at 14,000. By law in the Netherlands, everyone has to register with their local council (GBA) when they move to the area.
Tax numbers
Officials say the tax office can do far more to track down migrant workers. For example, many give the addresses of their employer or family in Poland when requesting a tax (sofi) number.
But by giving out temporary tax numbers, officials can make sure people then register at an official Dutch address, Rotterdam alderman Hamit Karakus said.
‘They park, put out their rubbish and use the roads, but the costs are currently being paid by Rotterdammers who are registered,’ Karakus told the broadcaster.
One street
In Rotterdam’s Grote Visserijstraat, 450 homes are registered to 170 different owners. Some 140 Bulgarian nationals officially live in the street but the council suspects a further 200 actually do so, RTL said.
Over the past six months, council officials have visited 22 dwellings in the street, identifying 38 cases of non-registration, eight cases of over-crowding and one case of welfare fraud.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Immigrants More Likely to Have Permanent Job Contracts
Rome, 15 July (AKI) — A higher proportion of immigrants have permanent job contracts than Italians and European Union citizens, according to the findings of a new government report.
A total 39 percent of immigrants from outside the European Union have perment employment contracts, compared with 17 percent of Italians and 21 percent of European Union citizens, the report found.
The report, commissioned by Italy’s welfare ministry was presented at Italy’s Cnel think-tank on Monday.
Two percent of of non-Italian workers from the EU have apprenticeship contracts, compared to 2.7 percent of immigrants from outside the EU.
Around 6 percent of foreign workers are employed through agencies, while only two percent have consultancy contracts, according to the report.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Black-Robed Regiment: Resistance to Tyrants is Obedience to God
“I went at your bidding, and passed along their thoroughfares of trade. I ascended their mountains and went down their valleys. I visited their manufactories, their commercial markets, and emporiums of trade. I entered their judicial courts and legislative halls. But I sought everywhere in vain for the secret of their success, until I entered the church. It was there, as I listened to the soul-equalizing and soul-elevating principles of the Gospel of Christ, as they fell from Sabbath to Sabbath upon the masses of the people, that I learned why America was great and free, and why France was a slave.” — Alexis de Tocqueville, French historian reporting to the French Senate, 1800s
A few years before Dr. D. James Kennedy passed away, I spent an afternoon with him at his church in Florida. Dr. Kennedy is the founder of world-renown Coral Ridge Ministries, known for stating on national television regarding abortion (while pointing his finger at his viewers), “Four thousand die daily and 300,000 pulpits are silent.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Churches Fear Lawsuits for Refusing Gay Weddings
Joe Carr believes a day is fast approaching when pastors will be charged with hate crimes for preaching that homosexuality is a sin and churches will face lawsuits for refusing to host same-sex weddings.
“It’s just a matter of time,” said Carr, the pastor of Waynesville Missionary Baptist Church in Georgia. “What’s happening in Europe — we’re going to see happen here and we’re going to see it happen sooner rather than later I’m afraid.”
And that’s why the congregation will be voting next month to change their church bylaws — to officially ban the usage of their facilities for gay marriages.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Dominicans Freak Out Over Obama’s Gay Ambassador Pick
Opposition to President Obama’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic reached a fever pitch this week as religious organizers stage a “Lunes Negro” or Black Monday protest against James “Wally” Brewster.
If confirmed, Brewster will be the first openly gay ambassador to the country, a prospect that is not going over well with some segments of this conservative Christian country of 9 million people. Local reports indicate that church leaders are pressuring the government to reject Brewster’s nomination and calling on the faithful to dress in black on Monday in solidarity against him.
Praise Christian Church Pastor Sauford Medrano is quoted in Diario Libre as saying that Brewster could cause “the U.S. promotion of gender beliefs in the country.” That supposedly violates a general education law in the country that “all the Dominican education system is based on Christian principles.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Gay Marriage: Does it Harm Anyone?
Baucham, pastor of preaching at Grace Family Baptist Church in Spring, Texas, took issue with homosexual activists who say, “It’s not harming anybody. It’s me in my bedroom.”
“Well, the current debate about marriage explodes that myth. This is not private. This is pressing upon culture as a whole,” Baucham said in the video.
Because activists have framed the debate in civil rights language, Baucham said, it’s “the greatest farce ever” for them to say, “You can go ahead and practice your religion. This has nothing to do with you practicing your religion.
“If this is a civil rights issue, and if us not doing weddings for homosexuals or not hiring homosexuals becomes violating civil rights, then it is not conceivable that the church will be unharmed by this,” Baucham, who is African American, said.
Baucham also made the point that legal decisions are based on principles and established precedent, and “right now the principle is sort of the Beatles’ mentality: All you need is love.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Judge Blocks Wisconsin’s New Abortion Law: Restrictions Will Cause ‘Irreparable Harm’ To Women
Three days after Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed several pro-life measures into law, a federal judge temporarily blocked a portion of the new legislation, claiming the measures would cause “irreparable harm” to some women.
As previously reported, Governor Walker on Friday approved Senate Bill 206 (SB206), which calls for increased health standards in abortion facilities, as well as mandatory ultrasound viewings for all women seeking abortions. Pro-life advocates praised the legislation, but Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) immediately filed a lawsuit against the state, saying the bill is an “attack on women’s health.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
What Goes Around, Comes Around
Recent reports of a speech President Obama delivered during the recent visit to Ireland revealed either 1) a profound lack of knowledge of American History, or 2) an on-going agenda spanning nearly a century to “kill” private religious schools. Probably both.
During the President’s visit to Ireland (June 2013) he lectured 2000 young people at a G-8 Summit, telling them: “Because issues like segregation schools and housing, lack of jobs and opportunity — symbols of history that are a source of pride for some and pain for others- they are not tangential to peace; they’re essential to it. If towns remain divided — if Catholics have their schools and buildings, and Protestants have theirs — if we can’t see ourselves in one another, if fear or resentment are allowed to harden, that encourages division. It discourages cooperation.” The statements were largely ignored or suppressed by mainline media, picked up with commentary by only a few alternative venues.
It is not uncommon for leaders to telegraph agendas for their own countries in public statement abroad.
Look at the history trail of efforts to rid the United States of religious private schools, and agenda which waxed and waned for the past century, but never died.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Facts on Glyphosate, ‘Satan’s Molecule’
(NaturalNews) The most widely used pesticide chemical in the world, glyphosate has been a target of environmental protection and human rights groups alike for many years now. And rightly so, as glyphosate, which is widely marketed and sold under the Monsanto-owned brand Roundup, is linked to causing cell damage, genetic mutations, miscarriages, behavioral disorders, reproductive damage, immune disease, cancer, and death.
All of this and more is revealed in a 2004 paper published in the Journal of Pesticide Reform, which highlights many of the dirty little secrets about glyphosate that you will never hear about from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), or any other regulatory authority for that matter. While the EPA and others are busy arbitrarily declaring glyphosate to be safe enough to eat, real scientists are uncovering the many horrors associated with exposure to this pervasive chemical.
Glyphosate was created to kill life By its very nature, glyphosate has been designed to squelch life before it can even begin. Monsanto’s own background and marketing materials for glyphosate explain how the chemical blocks plants from producing the nutrients they need to survive, effectively killing them. And this chemical solution is being indiscriminately spread across tens of millions of acres of crop land every single year in the U.S., which is leading to massive dead zones of lifeless soil and polluted earth.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
In the article ‘What Goes Around, Comes Around’ the article refers to Pres Obama speaking in ‘Ireland’ during the recent G-8 summit.
Er, sorry, no way. The recent G-8 summit was chaired by the Prime Minister of the UK and was held in Ulster, Northern Ireland (which is a part of the UK not Eire).
That said, whatever the venue, the comments by Obama were crass & insulting. He was invited to Ulster as a delegate to the G-8 summit not to make comments on the local Ulster faith based schools system.