Gates of Vienna News Feed 6/18/2014

Despite vigorous protests by local residents in Bendigo — an Australian city north of Melbourne in Victoria — the city council voted 6-2 to permit the construction of a $3 million mosque. The demonstrators were concerned that building the mosque might invite jihad into their city.

In other news, a school in Connecticut has blocked students from viewing websites that support Second Amendment rights, but allows them to visit sites that promote gun control.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Caroline Glick, Fjordman, Insubria, Jerry Gordon, JP, KP, MC, Nick, RR, Srdja Trifkovic, 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.

Financial Crisis
» IMF Ready to Ask ECB to Begin Quantitative Easing
» Italian Consumer Groups Lash Out at ‘Greedy’ Banks
 
USA
» Connecticut High School Blocks Students From Viewing Conservative Websites, No Block on Liberal Sites
» Council on American-Islamic Relations Seeks to Undermine the Land of the Free
» Hillary Clinton Turns Liberals Into ‘Rape-Loving’ Scum
» Michelle Obama: Moms Can’t Figure Out How to Feed Their Kids Unless Schools Do it for Them
» Obama ‘Disappointingly Complacent’ on Islamic Extremism Says Former Australian PM
» Stamp Sells for Record US$9.5m in New York
» The Killer of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry is Finally in Custody, His Gun Dealer is Still the Attorney General
» Web Censorship on Gun Control in Connecticut School
 
Europe and the EU
» Bloodbath at Telegraph UK
» Britain’s First Directly Elected Muslim Mayor Faces Ban From Office as He is Accused of Faking Postal Votes and Smearing Opponent’s Name During Last Month’s Election
» David Cameron: ISIS is Planning to Attack UK
» Farage, Grillo Form Euroskeptic Group
» Flying Into the Future: Copenhagen Becomes First Airport to Trial Staff Use of Google Glass
» French President Urges Justice for Paris Burglar in a Coma
» Italian Exports Rose 2pct in April
» Madrid Policies ‘Harm Catalonia’, Local Economy Minister
» Norway Delays Palestinian Donor Meet
» Proceedings Against Italy Incomprehensible, Says Minister
» Schulz Heads Social Democrats at European Parliament
» Spain: Conference to Discuss Development of Quranic Centers in Non-Muslim Countries
» Telefonica Offers Mediaset 295 Mn Euros for Canal+ Stake
» UK: ‘No Evidence’ Of Extremism in Birmingham Schools Says City Council
» UK: Black Wednesday at the Telegraph: Newspaper Dumps Big Name Staff, Advertises 40 New Jobs
» UK: Muslim Leaders Demand Action Over Fascist Mosque Invasions
» UK: Portsmouth City Council Leader Issues Reassurance After Jihad Fighter’s Killing Spree Threat
» UK: Tower Hamlets Probe ‘Will Find No Wrongdoing’, Says Mayor
» UK: Trojan School Claims ‘Plain Old Islamophobia’
» UK: Thatcher Conference on Liberty: Is the West Getting Weaker, Or Just Wiser?
» UK: The Commons is Finally Talking About Iraq. Will Anyone Notice?
» UK: Trojan Horse — Tip of the Iceberg
» UK: Tommy Robinson Released From Prison
» UKIP Make Their Numbers, Will Form Vital Group in the European Parliament
 
North Africa
» Benghazi Panelist’s Fiery Response to a Muslim Student’s Question That Made the Audience Erupt in Cheers
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» Caroline Glick: Ignoring the Elephant
» How the West Facilitates Hamas’s Mission
» Israel Re-Arrests 51 Terrorists Freed in Gilad Shalit Deal
» Jewish Settlers Defile Aqsa Mosque Under Police Escort
» Sirens Sounded in Sha’ar Hanegev, Sderot
 
Middle East
» Children Abducted by ISIS May be Used in Suicide Attacks
» Colonial Borders Not the Problem in Syria-Iraq Crisis
» Damascus to Set Up Humanitarian Corridors, Says Russia
» First Day of Ramadan in UAE Announced
» Global Peace Index: Syria Replaces Afghanistan as World’s Most Violent Country
» Iraq Crisis: Battle Grips Vital Baiji Oil Refinery
» Iraq Formally Asks US to Launch Air Strikes Against Rebels
» Iraq Formally Asks U.S. For Airstrikes Against ISIL
» Iraq: The Score
» Iraq: This is No Time to Blame and Shame
» Iraq: What Obama Wrought
» Iraq: #Jihad: How ISIS is Using Social Media to Win Support
» Iraqi Forces Battle Terrorists at Main Oil Refinery as Diplomats Fear 100 Foreign Workers Abducted
» ISIS Breach of Iraq-Syria Border Merges Two Wars Into One ‘Nightmarish Reality’
» Jihadists Kidnap 145 Kurdish Children in Syria, NGO Says
» Jordan Has a Jihadi Problem Too
» Kuwait: Influence of Extremism
» More Brits Signing up to Fight With Jihadist Militants in Iraq and Syria Than for the UK Army Reserve
» Oil Giant ENI Says Iraq Personnel Not in Danger
» Saudi Arabia: OIC Meets in Jeddah to Tackle Thorny Issues
» Saudi Arabia Warns of Civil War in Iraq, Opposes Foreign Intervention
» Syria: NGO: Jihadists Kidnap 145 Kurdish Students
» Turkish Support for ISIS
» Two Saudi Scholars Argue Over Music, Accuse Each Other of Not Respecting Islam
» Two Thirds of Iran’s MPs Ask for “Total Respect” of Islamic Dress
 
Russia
» 147 Ukrainian Troops Killed in Pacifying Operations: Official
 
South Asia
» Twitter Unblocks Pakistan Anti-Islam Accounts
» Unidentified Gunmen Kill Youth in Indian-Controlled Kashmir
 
Far East
» China Calls for SCO Security Efforts
 
Australia — Pacific
» Bendigo Mosque Approved Despite Objections From Residents
» Fear and Loathing in Bendigo Over Multi-Million Dollar Mosque
» Is There a Bamboo Ceiling in Australia?
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
» Blast at Nigerian Soccer Viewing Center Kills Men, Young Boys
» Explosion Hits World Cup Screening Event in Northern Nigeria
» Explosion Hits World Cup Viewing Area in Northeast Nigeria
» Kenya: Three Clerics Shot in Garissa
 
Latin America
» 24 Airlines Demanding Billions in Outstanding Debt From Venezuela
 
Immigration
» Brittany Sailors Held for Shipping Migrants to UK
» Italy Warns Mediterranean Migrant Rescues May End
» Let the Little Children Come Unto Me: What is Behind the Humanitarian Crisis on Our Southern Border?
» Mass Immigration Not the Secret to Economic Growth, Says OECD
» Sweden to Ease Foreign Students’ Migration Woes
» UK: Illegal Immigrant Hired as an Army Interpreter Jailed After He Groomed Schoolgirl, 13, On Facebook and Got Her Pregnant
» White House to Honor Young Adults Who Came to US Illegally
 
Culture Wars
» American Medical Association Says Gender is Imaginary
» Denmark: Politicians Blast Islamic Council’s Anti-Gay Comments
» Italy: Transgenders Not Recognized Without Full Sex-Change Op
» ‘Redskins’ Stripped of Trademarks
 
General
» Will Epic Big Bang Discovery Stand the Test of Time?
 

IMF Ready to Ask ECB to Begin Quantitative Easing

Lagarde concerned with risk of deflation in eurozone economy

(ANSA) — Rome, June 18 — The managing director of the International Monetary Fund is expected to launch an appeal to the European Central Bank on Thursday, urging it to deal with deflationary risks by beginning a form of quantitative easing, the Financial Times newspaper reported.

That would include large purchases of sovereign bonds to stimulate growth, the newspaper said Wednesday, citing a draft of a statement from the IMF based on its annual evaluation of the eurozone’s economic health.

The statement warns that deflation could push the eurozone into stagnant growth of the type seen in Japan during its so-called ‘lost decade’.

The IMF report is to be presented by Managing Director Christine Lagarde to eurozone finance ministers meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday.

ECB President Mario Draghi said earlier this month that the central bank is preparing to launch quantitative easing if that is judged necessary.

Draghi also announced then that the bank was cutting two key interest rates and offering up to 400 billion euros in loans to banks that promise to pass the money on in the form of loans to small- and medium-sized business.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italian Consumer Groups Lash Out at ‘Greedy’ Banks

‘They should lower their rates not ask for more handouts’

(ANSA) — Rome, June 18 — Italian consumers on Wednesday lashed out against the nation’s banks for asking the government to lower their taxes, among the highest in Europe.

“The banks got back into the fray with unrestrained greed, asking the Renzi government for new fiscal favors after a 7.5-billion-euro present to the Bank of Italy from the previous administration,” Adusbef and Federconsumatori consumer groups said in a note.

“In spite of all the handouts, the banks continue lending in a trickle and at incredibly high interest rates, strangling businesses and families”.

The nation’s credit institutions had better start cutting down on their commissions and costs to individual customers, who pay 371 euros a year for their bank accounts against a European average of 114 euros, the groups said.

The comments came after Italy’s banking association complained that banks are being taxed at rates 15% higher than their competitors in the rest of Europe, eating into their profit margins and making them less likely to fulfill their “role as supporters of the economy and of growth”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Connecticut High School Blocks Students From Viewing Conservative Websites, No Block on Liberal Sites

Excerpt: 18-year-old Andrew Lampart, a senior at Nonnewaug High School, said he made the discovery when he was doing research for a classroom debate on gun control in May. Lampart said he first noticed that he could not get on the web site for the National Rifle Association. “So, I went over to the other side. And I went over on sites such as Moms Demand Action or Newtown Action Alliance and I could get on these Web sites but not the others,” Lampart said. (I was on the hellmouth at Los Angeles City College for a computer applications class early one morning in 2008, and a young black kid came in and sat at the computer next to me. “Wow,” he said, “You can get into the web on this computer!” He then explained to me he’d come to LACC from the Trades Tech and at the Trades Tech, no matter what address you typed in, it always went to YouTube. Kate)

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

Council on American-Islamic Relations Seeks to Undermine the Land of the Free

by Andrew Harrod

The fact pattern and references to anti-Islamic “hate speech” sound depressingly similar to so many other cases abroad. Yet this incident occurred courtesy of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) Chicago chapter, showing how precious and precarious American free speech rights are.

A Chicago suburb chapter of ACT! For America, an anti-sharia group, screened on May 17the film Geert Wilders Warning to America at the Des Plaines Public Library (DPPL) after having met there since fall 2013. In the film, the Dutch politician Wilders addresses an American audience with his well-known thesis that “Islam is not a religion, Islam is a totalitarian ideology.” Amidst interspersed images of Islamic atrocities worldwide, Wilders, among other things, demands an end to construction in Western societies of mosques and Muslim schools, the latter termed by him a “fascist institution.”

Library parking lot flyers advertising the film drew opposition from CAIR-Chicago and the Islamic Community Center (ICC) of Des Plaines against the film screening. The library, a “safe haven for knowledge, education, and enlightenment… is now being tarnished,” CAIR-Chicago executive director Ahmed Rehab stated. Rehab worried about perceptions of the library endorsing the event. ICC board president Fazal Mahmood also questioned the appropriateness of a publicly-funded library as the film’s venue.

“I’m just practicing common sense not to let hate spark in our community,” Rehab said. Rehab “believed there should be limits on freedom of speech when it harms or incites someone else,” yet nonetheless conceded ACT!’s speech rights. “I understand and respect freedom of speech, but where do you stop?” Mahmood also said.

Media reports also persistently noted ACT! for America’s “hate group” listing by theSouthern Poverty Law Center without, however, mentioning SPLC’s leftist partisanship. Also unmentioned were CAIR’s deeply disturbing, numerous associations with precisely the kind of people against whom Wilders warned, including CAIR’s status as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case over financing of terrorism. Rehab himself has had such connections while asserting “Jewish control over the media” and that the “history of the Jewish film producers in particular have shown that they predate on weak minorities by default.”…

[Return to headlines]
 

Hillary Clinton Turns Liberals Into ‘Rape-Loving’ Scum

By Daniel Greenfield

Excerpt: Last week liberal activists were denouncing George Will for questioning the lack of due process for accused rapists on campus. Then the Washington Free Beacon posted a tape in which Hillary Clinton had a good laugh discussing how she freed a child rapist she knew was guilty from prison.

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

Michelle Obama: Moms Can’t Figure Out How to Feed Their Kids Unless Schools Do it for Them

By Daniel Greenfield

Excerpt: “Before coming to the White House, I struggled, as a working parent with a traveling, busy husband, to figure out how to feed my kids healthy, and I didn’t get it right,” she explained, sharing a story about her children’s doctor who pulled her aside to talk about her family diet.

Also she struggled with grammar because Harvard and Princeton failed her in two ways. But these days she has a huge staff to help her figure out how to feed her kids and get them jobs working for Steven Spielberg.

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

Obama ‘Disappointingly Complacent’ on Islamic Extremism Says Former Australian PM

CITY OF LONDON, United Kingdom — Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard has today referred to U.S. President Barack Obama’s approach to Islamic extremism as ‘disappointingly complacent’ in a speech to the Margaret Thatcher Liberty Conference in London…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Stamp Sells for Record US$9.5m in New York

An incredibly rare 19th century postage stamp, a tiny one-cent magenta from British colonial Guyana, sold for a world record US$9.5 million at a New York auction on Tuesday.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

The Killer of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry is Finally in Custody, His Gun Dealer is Still the Attorney General

By Daniel Greenfield

Excerpt: The good news is the US is finally getting its hands on another of the murderers of a Border Patrol agent. Unfortunately the man who got the killer his gun is still the Attorney General of the United States.

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

Web Censorship on Gun Control in Connecticut School

A high school student in Connecticut is accusing administrators of political censorship after the school restricted access to conservative news outlets and websites while allowing students to visit liberal sites.

Andrew Lampart, a student at Nonnewaug High School in Woodbury, Connecticut, was assigned an in-class debate on gun-control during his “Law & You” course. While preparing for the debate during study hall Lampart logged onto the school provided Internet and found out that students were forbidden from visiting The National Association for Gun Rights website or the news outlet TheBlaze.com.

“I used my study hall to research gun control facts and statistics. That is when I noticed that most of the pro-second amendment websites were blocked, while the sites that were in favor of gun control generally were not,” Lampart told Campus Reform.

           — Hat tip: Nick [Return to headlines]
 

Bloodbath at Telegraph UK

By James Delingpole

Excerpt: Not so long ago, the Telegraph had a secret weapon in the form of the superb, incisive, tell-it-like-it-is blogs section established by Damian Thompson. Thompson’s unspoken ambition — in sly defiance of the print paper’s increasingly centrist stance — was to create a kind of UK online answer to Fox News. To this end, he recruited a roster of some of the finest right-wing commentators in the business which, at various stages, included: Thatcherism’s living conscience Lord Tebbit; MEP Dan Hannan; Toby Young; Douglas Murray; Ed West. I was on the list too and, for a period, Telegraph blogs was the only place to be. At least it was if you thought that the media desperately needed a counter to the almost overwhelmingly left-wing online narrative provided by HuffPo, Slate, Salon and the Guardian’s Komment Macht Frei. It was, indeed, like the Telegraph used to be in its glory days, only more colloquial, funny, snarky and up-to-the-minute topical. The traffic was huge; and growing. For example, when it helped break the Climategate scandal, its post garnered over 1.5 million hits.

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

Britain’s First Directly Elected Muslim Mayor Faces Ban From Office as He is Accused of Faking Postal Votes and Smearing Opponent’s Name During Last Month’s Election

Britain’s first elected Muslim mayor could face a High Court battle after he was accused of electoral fraud and calling his main rival a racist to sabotage his chances. Documents challenging the result of last month’s election in Tower Hamlets, east London, also claim Lutfur Rahman paid supporters to gather inside and outside polling stations to influence voters.

His Labour opponent John Biggs was also illegally smeared during last month’s campaign, the election petition argues…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

David Cameron: ISIS is Planning to Attack UK

Prime minister says Islamist fighters in Iraq will ‘hit us at home’ if Britain does not help stabilise regime

The crisis in Iraq must not be dismissed as “nothing to do with us” as the same Islamic jihadists are also planning to attack the UK, David Cameron has warned.

The prime minister said the terrorist insurgence in Iraq, as well as related problems in Somalia, Nigeria and Mali, would “come back and hit us at home” if the UK did not help stabilise these regimes…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Farage, Grillo Form Euroskeptic Group

M5S leader says direct democracy has won in European Parliament

(ANSA) — Brussels, June 18 — Nigel Farage, leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), said Wednesday that with 17 members of Italy’s 5-Star Movement (M5S), he will form a Euroskeptic group in the European Parliament. M5S Leader Beppe Grillo called it “a great day for direct democracy”.

Rules require 25 MEPs from seven different nationalities must be included to form a group within the European Parliament.

“We will be the voice of the people,” said Farage, whose group will include 24 British members of the European Parliament, as well as members from Lithuania, France, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Latvia.

In last month’s elections for the European Parliament, Euroskeptic parties tended to do very well in almost every country except Italy, where Premier Matteo Renzi’s centre-left Democratic Party (PD) swept more than 40% of the vote.

That was almost twice as much as Grillo’s M5S won.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Flying Into the Future: Copenhagen Becomes First Airport to Trial Staff Use of Google Glass

Copenhagen Airport, the main transport hub in the Danish capital has stepped into the future after becoming the first airport in the world to equip its staff with Google Glass.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

French President Urges Justice for Paris Burglar in a Coma

(AGI) Paris, June 17 — French President Francois Hollande described last Friday’s lynching of a 16-year-old ethnic Roma youth in a Paris suburb as “abominable and unjustified”. Hours after the French media’s first reports of the brutal attack, on Tuesday the president urged law-enforcers to do everything in their power to arrest those responsible. The youth, a known burglar, is in a coma.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Italian Exports Rose 2pct in April

(AGI) Rome, June 17 — Italian exports grew 2 percent in the 12 months to April 2014, while imports fell 2.9 percent, the Italian National Statistics Institute ISTAT said. The growth in exports reflects a 1.9 percent increase in volume and can be ascribed to a significant 5.0 percent rise in sales to the European Union (EU). Imports fell 3.4 percent in the non-EU area and 2.6 percent in the EU area. Exports rose 0.4 percent and imports fell 0.6 percent in March 2014.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Madrid Policies ‘Harm Catalonia’, Local Economy Minister

Barcelona businessmen support separation from Spain

(ANSAmed) — BARCELONA, JUNE 17 — Economy Minister of the Generalitat de Catalunya (local government) Andreu Mas-Colell told a group of foreign journalists on Tuesday that the regional economy would improve if it were independent of the central government. Mas-Colell is one of the most highly esteemed economists in the Western world and his name has repeatedly come up as a possible candidate for the Nobel Prize. In his office overlooking the popular Las Ramblas street in downtown Barcelona, the minister said that “the region would have greater opportunities for growth if it were entirely autonomous.” The centralized government of Madrid, he said, no longer works in the global market and “weighs down the Spanish economy, as well as ours”. It is an issue of “identity and self-government” and not of the transfer of money from Catalonia coffers to national ones, he said. Taxes are by no means irrelevant, however: Catalonia, though it is only the fourth wealthiest region in Spain — after Basque Country, Navarra and the Madrid province — is forced to hand over about 8% of its GDP to the nation’s capital. The taxes collected by Barcelona account for over 19% of the total revenue of the country but only 14% of spending is on the region despite the fact that 16-17% of Spain’s total population live there. “We have had to lower the salaries of Municipalitat employees, including teachers, by 7%. Nothing of the sort has happened in Madrid,” he said. The minister added that even if the central government were to decide to cut Catalonia’s tax burden to 4%, it would not be sufficient.

“We do not have any power and cannot do anything without the consent of the central government,” Mas-Colell said, citing economic, infrastructure and education policies. Mas-Colell said that he was not concerned that the process for independence from Spain — which Catalans will be voting on during a referendum expected to take place on November 9 -may frighten away the approximately 5,200 foreign multinationals working in Catalonia. “We will abide by all economic agreements. It is a lengthy, negotiated process, and at the moment I do not see any potential repercussions on foreign investment.” Nor is he concerned that a Catalan nation might be expelled from the EU.

“We are staunch supporters of the EU and we trust Brussels more than Madrid,” he said.

Many large Catalan businessmen seem to agree.

“Danger of an uncertain future?,” German Ramon-Cortes, head of the La Predera social foundation, scoffed. “For us, the current certainty is that things are not going well.” “Economic decisions made by Madrid have been and continue to be wrong. They do not realize what businesses need and continue to use a twentieth-century approach,” said Carles Sumarroca, deputy chief of the large infrastructure firm Comsa Emte.

“We entrepreneurs,” he continued, “need policies that support exports and innovation.” Barcelona feels that it is “looking towards the future”.

“Nationalism is Spanish, whereas Catalonia’s independence movement is anti-nationalistic with post-modern roots,” said Fernando Rodes, deputy chief of Havas, the fifth largest communications group in the world. Spain and Catalonia were separate entities for centuries, he noted. “Today we vote for different parties, watch different television programs and even the Catalonia edition of the daily El Pais is different from the one sold in the rest of Spain,” he said. “But like in the case of all civil separations, we will negotiate everything and will probably continue to share the garden and many other things.”

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Norway Delays Palestinian Donor Meet

Norway said on Tuesday that a planned meeting of an international donor group for the Palestinians had been delayed, with tensions running high after the abduction of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Proceedings Against Italy Incomprehensible, Says Minister

(AGI) Rome, June 18 — News that proceedings were opened against Italy by the EU Commission for breaking a directive on public administration payments to private companies came as a surprise to Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan. “I’m surprised because the government took action to speed up public administration payments. This is why I find it incomprehensible that an infringement procedure has been brought”, Mr Padoan said during a press conference at the ministry building.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Schulz Heads Social Democrats at European Parliament

(AGI) Brussels, June 18 — Germany’s Martin Schulz has been elected to lead the Social Democrat group in the European Parliament. First Vice-President Gianni Pittella will take over as acting president of the parliament until a new president is elected on July 1.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Spain: Conference to Discuss Development of Quranic Centers in Non-Muslim Countries

A conference on the development of Quranic institutes in non-Muslim countries will kick off in the Spanish capital of Madrid on Wednesday evening.

The two-day event is organized by the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO). It is aimed at identifying and tackling the problems facing Quranic centers outside Islamic countries and developing these centers.

The participants will also discuss ways for improvement of Quranic education methods and promotion of Quran recitation and memorization in non-Islamic states.

They will work out a realistic perspective for training Quran memorization and recitation in these countries. Directors of Quranic centers in Europe are among the participants in the two-day conference.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Telefonica Offers Mediaset 295 Mn Euros for Canal+ Stake

Price could rise to 355 mn if certain targets met

(ANSA) — Rome, June 18 — Telecommunications giant Telefonica has offered the Spanish division of former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi’s Mediaset empire 295 million euros for its 22% stake in the company that owns Spanish pay-TV broadcaster Canal+.

If the offer is accepted, it would enable Telefonica to gain full control of Spain’s top pay-TV operator.

The offer could rise to 355 million euros if certain conditions are met. Mediaset España would receive 10 million euros more if Telefónica successful completes its acquisition of the 56% held by another company, Prisa.

It could receive 20 million on top of that depending on how Canal+ performs in the four years after the acquisition of the 56% stake.

Mediaset would also be entitled to 30 million euros for renouncing its right of first refusal on participation in Prisa.

The Italian company’s share price on the Milan stock exchange rose 2.32% to 3.62 euros after the news of Telefonica’s bid.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

UK: ‘No Evidence’ Of Extremism in Birmingham Schools Says City Council

Commons committee hears staunch defence against claims of Islamic extremism in schools

Birmingham City Council bullishly insisted there was no evidence of extremism in city’s schools as MPs held an inquiry into claims Islamist hard-liners plotted to take over colleges.

Councillor Brigid Jones, the council’s Cabinet Member for Children and Family Services, told MPs: “Any direct evidence of extremism has yet to be presented to me.”

And Mark Rogers, Birmingham City Council’s chief executive, said he believed the original letter which set out details of a plot named “Trojan Horse” to take over Birmingham schools was a fake…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Black Wednesday at the Telegraph: Newspaper Dumps Big Name Staff, Advertises 40 New Jobs

Excerpt: Editor of the Telegraph blogs Damian Thompson tweeted that he is leaving the company in an “amicable” split. Whilst it is unclear how many journalists have been culled, today the Telegraph Media Group has advertised 40 jobs at the newspaper on their website.

Whilst none of the jobs give precise details on the salary levels most of them are also vague on how much experience is needed to apply. This will fuel rumours that the Telegraph is dumbing down and hiring cheaper inexperienced staff. The quality of the content has already been hit by the removal of large numbers of sub-editors last year.

The news comes several months after leading Telegraph blogger James Delingpole left to becoming the executive editor at Breitbart London, and is being regarded as symptomatic of a new and difficult regime at the newspaper.

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Muslim Leaders Demand Action Over Fascist Mosque Invasions

MUSLIM leaders urged the police to take action yesterday amid a rising tide of fascist “mosque invasions.” Senior members of Luton’s Islamic congregation warned that far-right group Britain First’s inflammatory tactics were provoking younger Muslims and could end in deaths.

The fascist party posted a video of leader Paul Golding — a former British National Party councillor — and heavies forcing their way into mosques to hand out racist leaflets and Bibles to intimidate worshipers…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Portsmouth City Council Leader Issues Reassurance After Jihad Fighter’s Killing Spree Threat

THE leader of the city council has moved to reassure people after it emerged a jihadi from Portsmouth posted he would go on a ‘killing spree’ if he returned from Syria.

The comments from Councillor Donna Jones come after a man fighting with Al-Qaeda linked group Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant in Syria wrote a message on Twitter. The man, using the name Abu Abdullah, seemed to threaten to kill non-Muslims. He wrote: ‘Yeah mate, go back to Britain. You got to be joking. I’ll probably end up going on a killing spree with all the kuffar around me.’

Speaking to The News Cllr Jones said: ‘The Muslim community here in Portsmouth are very upset what’s happened with these young men going over to Syria.”…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Tower Hamlets Probe ‘Will Find No Wrongdoing’, Says Mayor

The embattled mayor of Tower Hamlets has said he does not believe an investigation into his council will find any serious wrongdoings.

The government is investigating claims that Lutfur Rahman had disproportionately funded Bengali groups in order to get their vote…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Trojan School Claims ‘Plain Old Islamophobia’

An assistant principal at a Birmingham school at the centre of a so-called Trojan Horse takeover plot has claimed “plain old Islamophobia” is behind the claims. Lee Donaghy told a panel of MPs that people were failing to differentiate between “Muslims”, “terrorists” and “extremists” and twisting events at Park View School…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Thatcher Conference on Liberty: Is the West Getting Weaker, Or Just Wiser?

By Tim Stanley

I’m here at the CPS’s Liberty conference at the London Guildhall, with a guest list that reads like a Who’s Who of who’s on the Right. We’re thinking about the first anniversary of the death of Margaret Thatcher, and the panel I’ve just sat through has considered whether or not the West has gone soft…

[Reader comment by bugalugs2 on 18 June 2014.]

“It’s patently absurd to say that the West as a whole has got weaker since 1989”

Not absurd at all, the West’s weakness nowadays lies in a loss of morale and willingness to stand up for western values. All the military might in the world is useless unless your enemy believes you will be willing to use it to prosecute him to his destruction. And the evidence of Iraq and Afghanistan is that the west is too soft to do that, not least because of the deliberate ceding of moral authority implicit in ‘multiculturalism’…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: The Commons is Finally Talking About Iraq. Will Anyone Notice?

PMQs last week took place just hours after Mosul had fallen to ISIS. But despite this, not a single MP asked Cameron what the government’s position on the situation in Iraq was…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Trojan Horse — Tip of the Iceberg

by Anne Marie Waters

Ofsted, the organisation charged with monitoring standards in British schools, has produced a report revealing disturbing messages being taught to children by Islamists in secular state institutions.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Tommy Robinson Released From Prison

by Ingrid Carlqvist

Tommy Robinson, former leader of the English Defence League, EDL, was released from prison last week. Robinson was sentenced to 18 months in January. The condition for his parole is that no one from the EDL is allowed to make contact with Robinson — or he will be sent back behind bars.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

UKIP Make Their Numbers, Will Form Vital Group in the European Parliament

Despite determined tactics by the British Conservatives to stop it, the Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) group, the caucus in the European Parliament that has been the platform in Brussels and Strasbourg for Nigel Farage and the UK Independence Party (UKIP), has now signed up enough members to allow the EFD to continue into the new parliament…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Benghazi Panelist’s Fiery Response to a Muslim Student’s Question That Made the Audience Erupt in Cheers

Author and terrorism expert Brigitte Gabriel, the CEO of ACT! for America, spoke heatedly at the Heritage Foundation’s Benghazi panel on Monday after being asked a question by a Muslim law student from American University. Gabriel’s response made the audience erupt in cheers, with some even jumping to their feet. But that’s not the end of it: the student herself even elicited applause at the end…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Caroline Glick: Ignoring the Elephant

Three Jewish boys were abducted by Palestinian terrorists while trying to catch a ride home from school Thursday night. And as far as the foreign press is concerned, it’s their own damned fault.

As Honest Reporting documented, everyone from The Guardian to CNN, to Sky News to the Christian Science Monitor blamed Eyal Yifrach, Gil-Ad Shaer and Naftali Frankel for their victimization.

The boys deserve whatever they get, according to the media, because they are Jews and Jews have no right to be located anywhere that the Palestinians demand be cleansed of Jewish presence. And the Palestinians demand that Gush Etzion be emptied of Jews. So the boys, who dared to be located in Gush Etzion, had it coming.

And the blame doesn’t end with the victims. In trying to rescue them, the Israeli government is also committing an unpardonable crime — against Palestinian unity, no less.

According to The New York Times’ Israel bureau chief Jodi Rudoren, by searching for the boys, Israel has “further destabilized Israeli-Palestinian relations, and challenged the new Palestinian government’s ability to hold together disparate political factions and reunite the West Bank and Gaza after a seven-year split.”…

           — Hat tip: Caroline Glick [Return to headlines]
 

How the West Facilitates Hamas’s Mission

by Khaled Abu Toameh

On the basis of Abbas’s assurances that the unity government would “renounce violence and recognize Israel’s right to exist,” the Obama Administration and several EU governments rushed to announce that they would work with the new government, even as Hamas continued to deny Abbas’s claims.

Abbas may now finally have realized that Hamas’s real intention is to get rid of him, yet it is the U.S. and Europe that have emboldened and legitimized the Islamist movement, thus facilitating Hamas’s mission to carry out terrorist attacks against Israelis and take over the West Bank.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Israel Re-Arrests 51 Terrorists Freed in Gilad Shalit Deal

An Israel Defense Forces Spokesman said Wednesday morning that, as part of the large-scale intelligence and operational activities undertaken in order to locate three abducted teens, security forces have arrested about 65 wanted men. Of these, 51 were among those freed in 2011 in the exchange of 1,027 terror prisoners for IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped and held captive by Hamas for over five years, according to Israel National News.

The Shalit prisoners had signed a document on their release vowing to live up to a set of conditions, which they have since violated, a senior security source stated…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Jewish Settlers Defile Aqsa Mosque Under Police Escort

A group of fanatic Jewish settlers on Tuesday morning desecrated the Aqsa Mosque’s courtyards under tight police protection. According to the Aqsa foundation for endowment and heritage, about 20 Jewish settlers, escorted by armed policemen, toured the courtyards of the Mosque…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Sirens Sounded in Sha’ar Hanegev, Sderot

‘Code red’ alarms sounded in Sha’ar HaNegev and Sderot Wednesday night.

No injuries or damage have been reported.

If reports are confirmed, the rocket fire would be the latest in a string of rocket attacks from Hamas terrorists this week, which has seen the IAF step up its offensive in Gaza…

           — Hat tip: MC [Return to headlines]
 

Children Abducted by ISIS May be Used in Suicide Attacks

Syrian NGO warns 145 Kurdish students at risk

(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT — The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) warned on Wednesday that the 145 Kurdish elementary students kidnapped on May 29 in northern Syria by jihadists were at risk of being brainwashed and used in suicide attacks. The NGO blamed the abduction on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), which controls vast swathes of northeastern Syria and which last week launched an offensive in northern Iraq with the declared intention of creating a transnational ‘Caliphate’. The London-based human rights organization, which uses a large network of informers inside Syria to collect information, the children were taken hostage on the road between Aleppo and Manbej on their way to their hometown Kobani, after taking year-end exams in regime-held areas of Aleppo. Some residents of Kobani have expressed concerns that the children might be brainwashing into sacrificing their lives in suicide attacks. Five of the children — who managed to escape — have said that they had received lectures from their kidnappers “on jihad against God’s enemies and apostates”. In late May, ISIS kidnapped 193 other Kurdish civilians between the ages of 17 and 70 in the town of Qubasin, near Al-Bab in the Aleppo province. ISIS, which includes many foreign fighters in its ranks and among its leaders, is fighting in Syria both against the regime and against other rebel groups including Jabhat Al-Nusra, an Al-Qaeda affiliate. ISIS was also initially part of Al-Qaeda but later broke away from it. In the areas under its control it has imposed harsh rules and corporal punishment inspired by traditional Islamic law. It bans alcohol and smoking and forces women to wear niqabs or full Islamic veils in public.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Colonial Borders Not the Problem in Syria-Iraq Crisis

Did colonial meddling a century ago cause the violence now racking the Middle East? In 1916, under the Sykes-Picot agreement, the governments of France and the UK secretly pledged to divide up the Ottoman Empire into states including Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. The arrangement, which kicked in after the first world war, was made with little regard for the ethnic and religious differences of the inhabitants. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), which seized Iraqi cities last week, says it wants to abolish these borders to restore the ancient Sunni Muslim caliphate across Iraq and Syria.

Commentators have been quick to blame Sykes-Picot for the current unrest, but experts disagree.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Damascus to Set Up Humanitarian Corridors, Says Russia

(AGI) New York, June 18 — The Syrian government is willing to set up humanitarian corridors to deliver aid to a population exhausted by three years of war, Russia announced. It would open border crossings with Iraq, Jordan and Turkey, said Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin. The plan reportedly includes allowing international observers to inspect aid convoys entering the country, sources said.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

First Day of Ramadan in UAE Announced

The first day of holy month of Ramadan will fall on Sunday, June 29, officials at the Sharjah Planetarium have announced…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Global Peace Index: Syria Replaces Afghanistan as World’s Most Violent Country

Seven-year slide from global peacefulness as violence costs world as much as combined economies of Britain, Germany, France and Italy

As the civil war in Iraq dominates headlines, it is no surprise that the world continued a seven-year-slide away from peacefulness over the last 12 months, as measured by the Institute for Economics and Peace…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Iraq Crisis: Battle Grips Vital Baiji Oil Refinery

The Iraqi army says it has driven off Islamist-led militants attacking the country’s biggest oil refinery amid reports that most of it is in militant hands.

An official told Reuters the militants had occupied 75% of the Baiji refinery, 210km (130 miles) north of Baghdad. The army said 40 attackers had been killed, a claim which could not be verified independently.

Government forces have renewed air strikes on militants elsewhere. Fighting is also reported in the western city of Ramadi…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Iraq Formally Asks US to Launch Air Strikes Against Rebels

Iraq has formally called on the United States to launch air strikes against jihadist militants who have seized several key cities.

“We have a request from the Iraqi government for air power,” confirmed top US military commander Gen Martin Dempsey…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Iraq Formally Asks U.S. For Airstrikes Against ISIL

Iraq has formally asked the U.S. to launch airstrikes against the Sunni terrorist organization Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). “We have a request from the Iraqi government for air power,” Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Wednesday, the BBC reported.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Iraq: The Score

By Srdja Trifkovic

In an essential article published on June 16, one of the key architects of the Iraq war, former ambassador John Bolton, argued that “US focus must be on Iran as Iraq falls apart.” He is unapologetic about the war itself, saying that “inevitably, analysts are rearguing George W. Bush’s decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein, Barack Obama’s complete withdrawal of U.S. forces, and virtually everything else Iraq-related in between.”

To start with, this is a remarkable admission. The war was to remove Saddam, then, and not about Iraq’s WMD’s, or Iraq’s links with the terrorists, as claimed ad nausem at the time. “In-between” is dismissed as some past unpleasantness, unfit to be mentioned in polite company. “None of the parties to Iraq’s current conflict have anything to recommend them,” Bolton says, but excludes himself from the unnamed “parties.” It is not done to claim that what has come to pass in Iraq and its region since March 2003 would not have happened… but for the war.

This reasoning is frankly outrageous, but there’s more surreality to come. According to John Bolton, “This is all beside the point, for today’s decision-makers confronting the question of what, if anything, to do as Iraq nears disintegration. America must instead decide what its national interests are now, not what they were five or ten years ago.” In his scheme of things, we should be looking forward, not back, with the same old crew offering advice that created the disaster in the first place.

For a seasoned foreign policy analyst like myself, the word “incredibly” does not come easy. Incredibly, Bolton suggests the United States to pursue her “national interests” by putting the rampaging ISIS — now in charge of a contiguous swath from north Aleppo to the outskirts of Baghdad — on the back burner, and refocus on Iran, the same country that is helping Nouri Al-Maliki’s Shiite militias beat back the Sunni jihadist onslaught:…

           — Hat tip: Srdja Trifkovic [Return to headlines]
 

Iraq: This is No Time to Blame and Shame

By Archbishop Cranmer

Excerpt: The West has spent so long defining human rights in economic and social terms to satisfy our cushy cosmopolitan universalism that we have lost sight of the fact that our most fundamental notions of freedom are simply not shared by millions in the Middle East. The moment that Saudi Arabia abstained on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, it ceased to be universal. It was Article 18 of that Declaration — enshrining the right to change one’s religion — which was problematic for the Saudis, then the only explicitly Islamic UN member state.

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

Iraq: What Obama Wrought

How the President’s failure to act decisively has fed chaos in Syria and Iraq

Highly organized and bloodthirsty, the radical Islamist army called ISIS took but a few days to subjugate the cities of northern Iraq as it dreams of taking over the entire country — while President Obama played it cynically cool…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Iraq: #Jihad: How ISIS is Using Social Media to Win Support

The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (Isis) is not just battling its way into the cities of Iraq it is also fighting for global support and action via a major social media campaign.

A sophisticated social media campaign, backed up by slick videos, is being used to call for support from abroad.

At the centre of this campaign is a new video released by Isis, the extremist group which has taken control of cities across northern Iraq including Mosul and Tikrit, featuring what is said to be the voice of Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

In the video, which was posted yesterday and has had 30,000 views so far, al-Baghdadi calls for “Sunni youths” to join the Isis jihad…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Iraqi Forces Battle Terrorists at Main Oil Refinery as Diplomats Fear 100 Foreign Workers Abducted

BAGHDAD — Iraqi security forces battled insurgents targeting the country’s main oil refinery and claimed to regain partial control of a city near the Syrian border Wednesday, trying to blunt a weeklong offensive by militants who diplomats fear may have abducted some 100 foreign workers…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

ISIS Breach of Iraq-Syria Border Merges Two Wars Into One ‘Nightmarish Reality’

Jihadi fighters celebrate advance with slick propaganda, but its enemies are responding on both sides of frontier

Under a burning sun, fighters of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) sang and waved their automatic weapons and black jihadi flags as they celebrated breaching the lonely desert frontier between Iraq and Syria.

To the soundtrack of a haunting Quranic chant, they watched as a bulldozer burst through a sand berm separating Nineveh in Iraq from the neighbouring Syrian province of al Hassaka, followed by US-made Jeeps and Humvees with Iraqi army insignia that had been captured in the recent fighting…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Jihadists Kidnap 145 Kurdish Children in Syria, NGO Says

(ANSAmed) Militants with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) kidnapped, on May 29, 145 Kurdish children in northern Syria as they were going back home after sitting tests, according to the NGO Syrian Observatory for Human rights.

Some of the students’ parents fear they will be brainwashed and used as suicide bombers. Jihadist militants with ISIS, who have launched an offensive in northern Iraq since last week, control vast regions also in northern Syria and pursue the objective of setting up a transnational Islamic caliphate. According to the NGO, the children were abducted along the road between Aleppo and Minbej while returning to Kobani, where they live, after sitting end-of-year exams in regime-held areas of Aleppo

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Jordan Has a Jihadi Problem Too

David Schenker

The Jordanian city of Maan is boiling. Three hours of bad road south of the capital, Amman, this underdeveloped and economically depressed tribal town of 60,000 has long been a locus of anti-government protest. But lately the natives have been particularly restive. Last June, so many locals were firing automatic weapons at the downtown police station that a decision was made to move the headquarters out of town. More recently, violent clashes between Maanis and the gendarmerie have become so ubiquitous that a tank has been stationed along the highway at city limits.

Endemic unemployment—believed to be more than 30 percent—is a big part of the problem. So is criminality and hair-trigger hostility toward the central government. Worse, the city’s residents are armed to the teeth, and misunderstandings routinely escalate to Hatfield-McCoy proportions. Perhaps most troubling, however, has been the unprecedented growth of the Salafi jihadist movement in Maan.

An estimated 2,500 Jordanians are currently participating in the war in Syria, the largest contingent of Sunni foreign fighters battling Bashar al-Assad’s nominally Shi’a regime.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Kuwait: Influence of Extremism

By Abdellatif Al-Duaij

The terror that is being wrought on the Kuwaiti people is not that of ISIL or Al-Qaeda, with regret. Rather it is the terror of those who brought them to us since the 1976 National Assembly was dissolved. Because during the past three, or actually four decades, religious groups controlled all aspects of life, and employed the country information- ally, financially and even politically to serve terrorism and back the so called Islamic awakening.

The influence of extremism and zealousness reached the highest of levels, and decided, with regret, the country’s general policy and its assets, staring with Kuwait’s chairing of the Islamic conference, which we do not know exactly what is the relationship of Arab Kuwait with it, to the NGOs that spread in every area and street.

The country as the late Saud Al-Nasser said has been “kidnapped”. Now that it has become clear that taking it easy with the religious reverting strengthened religious extremism and zealousness, and this zealousness, whether the lenient powers like it or not, will become, or actually is on its way to become, tribal and ethnic wars, and Kuwait will be, even before Iraq, the first of its victims.

What is required is a serious stand and a quick revision of the authority’s method and its relation with religious extremism. Some of the rich Gulf countries that established and supported terrorist organizations are now trying timidly to neutralize them by leaving the task of fighting and eradicating them to others. They are trying to create parties to have a proxy war on their behalf. Exactly like the Palestinian cause.

They provide the money and the surrounding countries provide martyrs and get exposed to the real harm. They are supporting Egypt now to fight extremism on their behalf, while at the same time making peace with religious groups internally. This stand will not be good, because it may eradicate religious organizations and groups, but the same extremism will remain instilled in the hearts, waiting for another a new organization and active group to bring it out and use it for the interest of its religious extremism.

You fought Al-Qaeda as an organization, at a time when support of extremism continued and it produced Nusrah and ISIL and maybe other organizations.

The solution remains in the true direction towards development and advancement, and to seek the cultivation of democratic principals in freedom, justice and equality among people, and using these principles to contain terror ideology and defeat all forms of extremism. Anything else is a waste of time and an unaccepted submission to extremism and terrorism.

           — Hat tip: RR [Return to headlines]
 

More Brits Signing up to Fight With Jihadist Militants in Iraq and Syria Than for the UK Army Reserve

More British citizens signed up to fight in Iraq and Syria than joined the Army Reserve last year, it can be revealed.

Just 170 extra reservists enlisted over the past year — despite a Government target to boost the stand-by force by 11,000 by 2018.

But at the same time the brutal al-Qaeda inspired ISIS forces tearing through Iraq have been boosted by ‘several hundred’ Brits, ministers told MailOnline.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Oil Giant ENI Says Iraq Personnel Not in Danger

‘Essential staff in Basra can stay’

(ANSA) — Rome, June 18 — Italian oil giant ENI said its personnel and oil interests in Iraq were not in danger amid clashes between government forces and jihadist militants who have taken several important cities in the past week.

“The safety of our personnel is our priority,” said a spokesperson. “We continue to monitor up close the situation in Iraq. At the moment the region of Basra, where the Zubair oil field is located, has not been hit by revolts and we’re keeping our essential staff there”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Saudi Arabia: OIC Meets in Jeddah to Tackle Thorny Issues

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, June 18 (Xinhua) — GCC and Arab foreign ministers on Wednesday attended the opening of the 41st meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation meeting in Jeddah.

The two-day meeting is held under the title of “Exploring Areas of Islamic Cooperation” was opened by Prince Saud Al-Faisal, Saudi Foreign Affairs Minister…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Saudi Arabia Warns of Civil War in Iraq, Opposes Foreign Intervention

(Reuters) — Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday neighbouring Iraq faced the threat of full-scale civil war with grave consequences for the wider region and, in an apparent message to arch rival Iran, warned against outside powers intervening in the conflict.

Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has appealed for national unity with bitter Sunni critics of his Shi’ite-led government after a stunning offensive through the north of the country by Sunni Islamist militants over the past week.

Maliki has also accused regional Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia of backing the militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), who want to carve out a Sunni caliphate in the heart of the Middle East.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Syria: NGO: Jihadists Kidnap 145 Kurdish Students

Parents fear children could be used as suicide attackers

(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, JUNE 18 — Militants with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) kidnapped, on May 29, 145 Kurdish children in northern Syria as they were going back home after sitting tests, according to the NGO Syrian Observatory for Human rights.

Some of the students’ parents fear they will be brainwashed and used as suicide bombers. Jihadist militants with ISIS, who have launched an offensive in northern Iraq since last week, control vast regions also in northern Syria and pursue the objective of setting up a transnational Islamic caliphate. According to the NGO, the children were abducted along the road between Aleppo and Minbej while returning to Kobani, where they live, after sitting end-of-year exams in regime-held areas of Aleppo.

Some Kobani residents expressed the fear they could be trained to become suicide attackers after five of them were able to escape and said they were taught lessons on “jihad against the enemies of God and apostates” by their abductors.

Also at the end of May, ISIS kidnapped another 193 Kurds aged 17 to 70 in the town of Qubasin in the province of Aleppo.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Turkish Support for ISIS

by Daniel Pipes

N.B. Washington Times title: “Turkey’s support for ISIS Islamist terrorists. Aiding jihadists could put Ankara at odds with Iran”

The battle in Iraq consists of “Turkish-backed Sunni jihadis rebelling against an Iranian-backed Shi’ite-oriented central government,” I wrote in a recent article.

Some readers question that the Republic of Turkey has supported the “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria,” the main Sunni group fighting in Iraq. They point to ISIS attacks on Turkish interests, within Turkey, along its border with Syria, and in Mosul and a successful recent meeting of the Turkish and Iranian presidents. Good points, but they can be explained.

First, ISIS is willing to accept Turkish support even while seeing the Islamist prime minister and his countrymen as kafirs (infidels) who need to be shown true Islam.

Second, the presidential visit took place on one level while the fighting in Syria and Iraq took place on quite another; the two can occur simultaneously. Turkish-Iranian rivalry is on the rise.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Two Saudi Scholars Argue Over Music, Accuse Each Other of Not Respecting Islam

Shaikh Saleh Al Fawzaan forbids the faithful from attending prayers led by Sheikh Adel Al Kalbani, who argues that Islam does not forbid listening to music. The controversy rages online as people take sides.

Riyadh (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Two major Saudi scholars are involved in a heated discussion over music, slamming each other for not respecting Islam.

Saudi scholar Shaikh Saleh Al Fawzan said that Muslims should not pray behind an imam who insisted that music was not forbidden and that people had the right to listen to it.

Despite the pressure, Shaikh Adel said that he would not revoke his pro-music edict. “I never regretted issuing any fatwa and I have never retracted a fatwa or an opinion,” he said.

However, his stance infuriates those who believe that Muslims should not pray behind an imam who insisted that music was not forbidden.

People have followed the debate on social networks discussing the points of view expressed by two scholars.

“I will this Friday deliberately go to pray behind Shaikh Adel,” one blogger posted. “I do not know what reasoning was used to ban praying behind him. I believe it is a kind of pressure on Shaikh Adel,” he said.

For one user, Shaikh Adel reflected the new thinking within the religious class.

“We have always admired your courage to state facts as they are and to highlight the truth,” said another.

One comment instead urged Shaikh Adel to focus on matters that did not divide the people, “Shaikh Adel is causing unnecessary problems,” the post said.

Along the same lines, some social network users took the arguments to a new level by insisting that imams who did not condemn usury should be the ones to be banned from leading Muslims in prayers.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Two Thirds of Iran’s MPs Ask for “Total Respect” of Islamic Dress

The 195 members of the 290-strong parliament have written to the president, denouncing Western cultural influence against the veil. But in October, Rouhani asked police to be moderate when enforcing the hijab requirements and recently said, “We cannot take people to heaven by using whips.”

Tehran (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Two thirds of Iran’s MPs have written to the president urging him to take measures to ensure women correctly observe Islamic dress, denouncing Western cultural influence against the veil.

The 195 members of the 290-strong parliament who signed the letter in part blamed satellite television for feeding the trend, ISNA news agency reported on Sunday.

A defining feature of Iran’s interpretation of Islamic law since the 1979 revolution, hijab obliges women to cover their hair and much of their body in loose clothing when outside, regardless of their religion.

A dedicated “morality police” has long handed out fines, verbal notices or even arrested women it considers are not properly observing the rules, but lawmakers have in recent months criticised lax enforcement.

In the letter, the MPs wrote: “One of the main areas of cultural invasion is in trying to change the way of life of Iranians regarding the veil. We ask that you give the necessary orders to enforce the law.” Iran’s parliament is dominated by conservative males.

However, President Hassan Rouhani, a self-declared moderate who was surprisingly elected last June, has expressed a desire to expand social freedoms — to the disapproval of hardliners. In October, he asked police to be moderate when enforcing the hijab requirements and recently said, “We cannot take people to heaven by using whips,” a remark that was condemned by conservatives.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

147 Ukrainian Troops Killed in Pacifying Operations: Official

KIEV, June 18 (Xinhua) — At least 147 Ukrainian troops have been killed since the start of what the government called “anti-terror” operations in the eastern regions, a Defense Ministry official said here Wednesday.

Meanwhile, “to date 267 soldiers were wounded and 13 of them remain in grave condition,” Vitaly Andronati, head of the health care department of the Defense Ministry, told reporters…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Twitter Unblocks Pakistan Anti-Islam Accounts

Was forced to close them by media watchdog

(ANSA) — Rome, June 18 — Twitter on Wednesday unblocked several dozen apparently anti-Islamic accounts in Pakistan it was forced to close after a complaint from the country’s media watchdog last month.

Twitter said it dropped the ban because the watchdog had not provided documentation it had requested.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Unidentified Gunmen Kill Youth in Indian-Controlled Kashmir

SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir, June 18 (Xinhua) — Unidentified gunmen shot and killed a 35-year-old youth in Indian- controlled Kashmir, police said Wednesday. The youth believed to be a former militant was fired upon at his locality in Aarwani village near Bijbehara town, about 47 km south of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

China Calls for SCO Security Efforts

BEIJING, June 18 (Xinhua) — China on Wednesday hailed the fruitful achievements of anti-terrorism cooperation between member countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and called for still closer exchanges.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying made the remarks at a regular press briefing when was asked to comment on the role of the Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure of the SCO…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Bendigo Mosque Approved Despite Objections From Residents

A CONTROVERSIAL plan to build a mosque in Bendigo has been given the green light despite an unprecedented number of objections and protests against the influence of Islam.

Campaigners against the $3 million mosque have written a letter of demand to Planning Minister Matthew Guy and are yet to rule out taking their fight to VCAT.

Anti-muslim protesters, some holding placards, packed a City of Greater Bendigo meeting last night, heckling councillors and playing middle-eastern music while some members of the gallery shouted concerns the building would be the site of underage marriages…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Fear and Loathing in Bendigo Over Multi-Million Dollar Mosque

A $3 million mosque has been approved in East Bendigo amid fury from a group of residents who demanded to know what “safety measures” had been taken to prevent a terrorist attack in the regional centre.

The controversial plan was brought to a head on Wednesday night, when councillors voted 6-2 to approve the building on be used for daily prayers, community lectures and weddings.

Vocal protesters, some carrying placards, packed the chamber for two hours of fierce debate over the Rowena Street proposal. One woman asked the councillors if they would be able to sleep at night if Islam “descended” on Bendigo…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Is There a Bamboo Ceiling in Australia?

Peter Cai

Much ink and column space has been spent arguing for a greater role for women in politics as well as in business. Some of the country’s most senior political and business leaders have taken up the female diversity cause. However, few people seem to be interested in talking about another important diversity issue — the lack of Asian Australians in leadership positions.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Blast at Nigerian Soccer Viewing Center Kills Men, Young Boys

Kano, Nigeria (CNN) — Tuesday’s explosion at a soccer viewing center in northeastern Nigeria claimed the lives of several men and young boys watching the Brazil-Mexico World Cup match.

There are conflicting reports of the number of people affected by the blast. An updated number is expected later on.

A hospital source said Wednesday that 21 people were killed in the explosion and another 27 were injured. The source from Sani Abacha Specialist Hospital in Damaturu spoke on the condition of anonymity, because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

“All the victims are young men and boys. They sustained burns, ruptured tissues, shattered bones,” he said…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Explosion Hits World Cup Screening Event in Northern Nigeria

Fans gathered to watch matches from the World Cup finals in Brazil in the state capital of Yobe flee after explosion with hospitals reporting an influx of casualties

An explosion ripped through a football viewing centre in Damaturu, northern Nigeria on Tuesday, police and residents said, as fans gathered to watch the World Cup. The blast at the Crossfire venue, in the Nayi-Nawa area of the state capital of Yobe, happened shortly after tournament hosts Brazil kicked off against Mexico at 8:00pm local time.

There were no immediate reports of deaths, but hospitals were reporting casualties being brought in, medical sources said…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Explosion Hits World Cup Viewing Area in Northeast Nigeria

DAMATURU Nigeria (Reuters) — An explosion tore through a venue in the northeast Nigerian town of Damaturu where fans had gathered to watch a World Cup soccer match on Tuesday, a police official said, declining to give further details.

Several pickup trucks carrying bodies arrived at the nearby General Sani Abacha Specialist Hospital, a hospital source said, adding: “There are also many casualties in the emergency room.”…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Kenya: Three Clerics Shot in Garissa

Three Muslim clerics have been shot and seriously injured by unknown assailants in Garissa town. The three were resting outside a shop along Guled road. The clerics whose names could not be immediately established sustained serious gun shot wounds in the head and were rushed to the Garissa district hospital…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

24 Airlines Demanding Billions in Outstanding Debt From Venezuela

Two dozen airlines, including Spain’s Iberia, are locked in conflict with the Venezuelan government over an outstanding debt of more than €3 billion, according to May 31 calculations.

The amount owed by President Nicolás Maduro’s government was a priority issue on the agenda of the 70th International Air Traffic Association’s Annual General Meeting, which took place in Doha (Qatar) between June 1 and 3. The IATA represents 240 airlines, or 84 percent of all air traffic.

Air Canada has been waiting the longest to receive the payments. The last time the Venezuelan government handed out a check was in October 2012.

IATA executive director Tony Tyler said the conditions Venezuela was trying to impose on the negotiations with the airlines were “unacceptable.”

“They are blocking us and one of the reasons is that they have very little foreign currency left for the airlines, which are conducting their business in a legitimate way,” he told EL PAÍS at the Doha summit.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Brittany Sailors Held for Shipping Migrants to UK

French police busted a suspected human smuggling ring based in Brittany, western France this week. Around 12 people were arrested on suspicion of ferrying around 200 illegal immigrants across the English Channel to the UK.

The arrests were made in ports across Brittany in connection with a human smuggling ring that ferried scores of illegal Albanian immigrants from France into the UK. Those picked up included sailors and local fishermen.

According to regional newspaper Ouest-France the immigrants were transported to the UK in hired sail boats or fishing vessels from various points along the Brittany coast.

The paper claims around 14 trips were made across the channel in 2012 with immigrants forced to pay between €7,000 and €10,000 to be smuggled into the UK. For those with families that fee would rise to €15,000.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Italy Warns Mediterranean Migrant Rescues May End

Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano has warned that a naval operation to rescue migrants in the Mediterranean Sea may have to come to an end without EU intervention.

Speaking in Sicily, he said Italy would not allow people to die but could not continue to patrol Libya’s coast. Shortly after he spoke, a Kuwaiti oil tanker arrived in Sicily carrying another 356 migrants…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Let the Little Children Come Unto Me: What is Behind the Humanitarian Crisis on Our Southern Border?

This morning on Fox and Friends I watched a segment with Texas Governor, Rick Perry. He drew attention to the spike in Central American, Syrian and other Middle Eastern illegal immigrants seeking asylum . The Washington Times quoted as saying:That the Obama administration has dropped the ball on border security and must improve diplomatic relations with Central American nations to stem the surge of illegal immigrants trying to cross the nation’s southern border.This president is totally and absolutely either inept, or making some decisions that are not in the interest of American citizens, particularly from the public safety standpoint.The federal government must step up because Texas does not have the money or manpower to protect its 1,200 mile southern border.Then Perry went on to express an abiding concern about illegal immigrants harboring possible terrorist threats:There are a record number of illegal immigrants that are being apprehended at the border that come from countries that are home to groups that pose a threat to the United States.These people are coming from states like Syria that have substantial connections back to terrorist regimes and terrorist operations. It is a huge problem and a great concern.This surge is indicative of the Cloward Piven strategy espoused by two Columbia University social work theorists in the 1960’s. Their thesis was swamping the system would result in a crisis and force transformation to benefit the least able among us. Thus, the voluntary agencies in the Refugee Resettlement community are simply following the Parable of Matthew 14:19 : Let the little children come unto me. Jim Holt of the Gateway Pundit blog tells the whole story with this headline, “Obama’s Cloward Piven Strategy floods Southern US with Illegal Immigrant Children.

           — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon [Return to headlines]
 

Mass Immigration Not the Secret to Economic Growth, Says OECD

Study of leading economies finds the impact of immigration over the past 50 years has been ‘neutral’ with the amount paid in taxes and received in benefits in balance

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Sweden to Ease Foreign Students’ Migration Woes

The Swedish parliament has approved changes to permanent residence laws, aiming to “facilitate moving to and from Sweden” — a change set to make life easier for international students.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Illegal Immigrant Hired as an Army Interpreter Jailed After He Groomed Schoolgirl, 13, On Facebook and Got Her Pregnant

An illegal immigrant who was hired as an interpreter for the British Army after fleeing war-torn Afghanistan groomed a schoolgirl on Facebook and got her pregnant, a court heard.

Asif Ghanbari, 19, started a new life in the UK after he was dumped at a service station on the M6 after fleeing to Britain on the back of a lorry in 2008…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

White House to Honor Young Adults Who Came to US Illegally

The White House will honor 10 young adults on Tuesday who came to the United States illegally and qualified for the president’s program to defer deportation actions.

Each person has qualified for the government’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program, which delays removal proceedings against them as long as they meet certain guidelines.

They will be honored as “Champions of Change,” the White House said in a statement Monday because they “serve as success stories and role models in their academic and professional spheres.”

They emigrated from Mexico, Colombia, Morocco, India, Taiwan and the Philippines, and many of them work in professions related to immigration policy or have helped launch initiatives that promote reform.

In 2012, President Obama created the program through an executive order, which defers any action on the status of people who came to the U.S. illegally as children for two years and can be renewed. It doesn’t provide any legal status.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

American Medical Association Says Gender is Imaginary

By Daniel Greenfield

Excerpt: For thousands of years, human ignorance convinced us that there were two genders. Now the AMA says that gender is imaginary. You can be any gender you want. Change gender every week. Or every day. We’re in Hopechangeistan now. Biology, like economics and military science, are purely imaginary fields. “Science” says so.

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

Denmark: Politicians Blast Islamic Council’s Anti-Gay Comments

Mohamed Al Maimouni, a spokesperson for the Danish Islamic Council — which is behind the construction of Denmark’s new grand mosque set to open tomorrow — is in hot water after saying that homosexuality is a “disease”.

Al Maimouni, who earlier in the week lamented that the limited number of politicians taking part in the mosque opening celebration would compromise integration, said that homosexuality was wrong and should be considered an illness.

“Within Islam, homosexuality is wrong, of course,” Al Maimouni told Jyllands-Posten newspaper. “It’s considered an illness. In the Koran homosexuality is what we call ‘haram’ — forbidden.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Transgenders Not Recognized Without Full Sex-Change Op

Court rules man with breast implants is not a woman

(ANSA) — Turin, June 18 — In order to be recognized as a woman by the government, a transsexual man must undergo a full sex-change operation, and not just be “psychologically certain he belongs to the female sex”, a Turin court said Wednesday.

The court rejected an appeal by a local man who had breast implants and his vocal chords altered. This was not enough, the judges thought.

Otherwise, we would end up “claiming rights for a kind of intermediate gender between the male and the female, which has no juridical standing in the Constitution or under international law”, the court wrote.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

‘Redskins’ Stripped of Trademarks

In a major blow to the Washington Redskins, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Wednesday canceled six federal trademarks of the team name because it was found to be “disparaging” to Native Americans.

“We decide, based on the evidence properly before us, that these registrations must be cancelled because they were disparaging to Native Americans at the respective times they were registered,” the patent office’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board wrote in a 2-1 decision.

The Redskins team name has become a divisive political issue over the past few years, with even President Barack Obama saying the club should consider changing the name. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Democrats also have pressed owner Dan Snyder to change the name.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Will Epic Big Bang Discovery Stand the Test of Time?

One of the most ballyhooed astrophysics findings in recent memory has come under fire recently.

In March, a team of researchers announced that they had found evidence of primordial gravitational waves, ripples in space-time from the universe’s earliest moments. But other scientists have already begun questioning the discovery, suggesting that it may simply be the signature of dust in our own Milky Way galaxy.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]